After I have submitted my second draft of the prospectus outline and also when I received her feedback, I was surprised by how easy it was to veer off the track. I veered off by focusing too much on one aspect of student engagement: motivation.

Dr. Major in her comments pointed out not once, but several times, that I need to be sure that I pick student engagement or motivation, not both. After studying her feedback and my own revised outline, I was slowly realizing how heavily focused I was on motivation.

She asked me THE question: "What do you really want to know about?"

So I looked over the 3-ring binder where I had inserted a front cover with the research topic typed on it: "Exploring student perceptions on the writing pedagogy as a student engagement tool: A pragmatic qualitative approach"

-Sighing in remembrance- that is what I want to know about, student perceptions on the writing pedagogy as a student engagement.

I need to seek, gather, understand, and analyze student perceptions. What they think of writing as an effective, functional pedagogical method. And that I pray and will for their understanding why I choose writing to engage them to do well in their collegial and career paths. I want to see how they perceive writing as helpful for their future endeavors.

Now after having had those several quick, short back-to-back emails with Dr. Major about this "crisis" of veering off, I am now returning to reading up student engagement with a renewed focus.

Sharing Post-thoughts about my dissertation journey

SEE the Writing -- has multiple meanings.

SEE are the initials of my former married name (Sarah Elizabeth Eiland), and even though the marriage chapter in my life has ended, I still carry "See the writing" perspective lens into what I believe about writing and its effectiveness for my teaching style.

It is during my marriage that I taught Orientation 101 at Gadsden State Community College (2008-2015). Thus, I conducted research with the intent to see what students thought of my writing pedagogy, the writing prompts, as an all-encompassing tool to succeed both in the classroom and in life.

On a side but very important note, I am hearing impaired. Subsequently, I share how writing helps with my reaching out to the students sitting in my classroom.

Autoethnography is the research approach used to explore how writing over time has helped with the development of my pedagogical content knowledge.

Lee S. Shulman's (1986, 1987) pedagogical content knowledge is the theoretical framework for my autoethnographic research. Not only do I refer to PCK, I also touch on several other theories including Dee Fink's (2013) taxonomy of significant learning, Schlossberg's (1989) theory on mattering vs. marginality, Mikhail Bahktin's theory of addressivity, and Jacque Lacan's theory of interconnectedness.

I concluded my autoethnographic research with five findings:

1) individualism within diversity

2) variability

3) persistence

4) competence

5) responsiveness.