Research Proposal--first first ideas

I don't know what I'm doing.  It's funny how often I write that...all I mean to say is that the following is a mash up of half formed ideas, assumptions, and attitudes.

Anyway.

What I'm most certain of is that I want to do a multiple method case study.  I want to do an ethnography, resplendent with focus groups, open ended survey questions, interviews, textual analysis, and collaborative storytelling.  At this point, I don't have much more than a methodological approach because I like to think abstractly, and I can think of a lot of things when it comes to the validity, both in terms of research and ethics, of research methodologies.  I also want to do a case study as a possible lead in to some Action Research.  In other words, I'd like my work to result in some actionable items the community itself wants put into place.

I also know that I will want to look at composition.  And more specifically I want to look at the relationships between institutions and students, between institutional goals and student goals from the perspectives of the people involved.  I could do this with a class here at NMSU, but I think it might be interesting to do this kind of research in a different cultural setting.  While it isn't so exotic, I read an article about Canadian Composition and its reliance on the teaching of literature.  I think taking my research outside of my own context might yield significant data that could respond to the relationships between institutions and students here.  At the very least, it would get me out of town.

To me the most important feature of this project will be the conscious application of rigorous ethical guidelines.  In many ways, I'm more concerned about the validity of the methodology, and that is what I want to change and affect with my research.

There's more.  I hope...