Reading Through My UTexas C&I Degree: November 2012

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Genre

Bazerman, C. (2011). Genre as social action. In J. Gee & M. Handford (Eds.), The routledge handbook of discourse analysis (p. 226-238). London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

Author: Charles Bazerman, professor Dept. of Ed. @ UC – Santa Barbara; PhD from Brandies University – English and American Literature ‘71, current (2012) editor of Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition. Sees writing as a major medium in society and promotes its importance in all areas of life. Interested in the science of and relationship to writing and writing instruction within socio-historic contexts. http://www.education.ucsb.edu/bazerman/ and bazerman@education.ucsb.edu

Date: 2011

Research Questions: .doc p. 2 “By what processes can these frail symbols bear so much weight of meaning and coordination?”

Context (need for study): Consider people in interaction, locating worlds of created meaning. Necessity of identifying “the processes by which language users create order and sense so as to align with each other for mutual understanding and coordination” (p. 1 of .doc). Difficult script or unfamiliar language is biggest indicator of problems aligning “over limited clues”.

Methods: “Discourse analysis” perhaps context analysis? essay

Findings: “The answer proposed in this chapter and the kinds of work reported here is that the problem of recognizability of meaning is in large part a matter of recognizing situations and actions within which the meanings are mobilized through the medium of the signs. Meaning is not fully available and immanent in the bare spelled words” (p. 2 on .doc).

Children find their utterances corrected and refined until both parties (at least the one in power) feel that both sets of needs are met.

Genre is a “typified response to a typified situation” (p. 4 on .doc). This relies on society. “Once upon a time” invokes a certain level of expectation. Activity systems provide stability, not the genre it and of itself. Genre, however typified, is only a partial account of reality. Cool!

Groups of people validate themselves by sharing documents and all the rules that go into what is more important and who gets to handle what and in what order – this is seen in court when establishing scientists as expert witnesses. The documents don’t speak into the court, but people who have read the documents can become verified as holding the knowledge that is valuable for presentation in the court.

Language study is only studying the “residue of complex psycho-social-cultural processes” but the “orders of discourse are to be found in the dynamics of life processes” (p. 11 on .doc).

Discussion (my connection): Language works through individuals during social participation, constantly calling on social and cultural resources, but meanings come to individuals based on perception of situation and role within it. Bazerman describes the “thinness” of writing – transmission of mental images, the imaginative and ethereal really, “must be carried through the arrangement of the few letters of the alphabet in words, sentences, and larger units--along with punctuation, graphic elements, and materialities of the medium” (p. 2 of .doc).

Attention to language is attention to detail! (and orientation and perspective and habit) Be explicit with students about the “organization and dynamics” of situations in order for them to know orientation of goals as well as best use of options. There is a connection between school and other life settings.

“All language is an approximate indicator of meaning, with some situations having narrower tolerances for accuracy and alignment than others” (p. 4 on .doc).

Bazerman repeats an idea on the fourth page, citing three prior times he has used this terminology, that a powerful text needs multiple dimensions within cultural settings in order to remain meaningful. Success depends on recognizability – the audience has to know some of what you know, some of what the writer/speaker is doing and why. Similar to the child who knows how to give a good show and tell report – the person who works within genre well is validated.

There seems to be a great possibility to think deconstructionally about all this…

Reiff, M. J., & Bawarshi, A. (2011). Tracing discursive resources: How students use prior genre knowledge to negotiate new writing contexts in first-year composition. Written Communication, 28(3), 312-337.

Author: Mary Jo Reiff, Associate Prof. Dept. of Engl. Univ. of Kansas, PhD from Kansas; mjreiff@ku.edu, textbook and other publications along with Bawarshi. Focus on audience theory and rhetorical genre studies, currently on public petition as a genre that is culturally built for social action.

Anis Bawarshi, Professor in English, Director of Expository Writing at Univ. of Wash., PdD from Univ. of Kansas ’99. Selected publications on website focus on genre, ex: Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition, USU Press 2003. Interested in rhetoric and composition studies as well as running academic writing programs. Enjoys studying the complex relationships of cultural production, social practices and relations, as identities that the different organization of writing (and writing communities) work together to produce.

Date: 2011

Research Questions: How do students access and make use of prior genre knowledge during encounters with new writing projects in 1^st year comp courses?

On page 317: What genres (written, oral, digital) do students report already knowing when they arrive in FYC? How do students use their prior genre knowledge when they encounter and perform new writing tasks in FYC? What seems to predict why and how students transfer prior genre knowledge into new writing contexts? To what extent will be be able to see, as Perkins and Salomon predict, both low-road and high-road approaches in students’ use of prior knowledge, and what seems to predict their choice of approach?

Context (need for study): Much attention to outcomes and transfer to other courses from first year composition (FYC) courses. Gap ins attention to ncomees, to “discursive resources students bring with them into writing classrooms” and their use of them in 1^st year comp classes (p. 312). Attempt at dissecting facets and processes students use when negotiating and crossing discursive boundaries. Surbeys to 15 sections at UT and 33 at UW. Students self-selected providing 52 and 64 responses.

Methods: Cross-institutional study at UTennessee and UWashington, using genre as conceptual lens because of Bazerman (2009, p. 283) calling it a “tool of cognition” (p. 314). All set within study of knowledge transfer. Surveyed (including 40 genres in order identify genre used before; to find student attitudes) students to report on previous literacy experience, discourse-based student interview (asked students to talk about what they thought they were to do with assignments and the knowledge they drew on to make their decisions), and analysis of course work and instructor syllabi. Use of in vivo (as opposed to a priori) coding – using students’ terms when coding and reporting

Findings: Students use prior knowings in a variety of ways: from analysis and repurposing while others maintain known genres (?) (p. 312). Genre knowledge, as Beaufort (2007) and Tardy (2009) identify, is a framework for analysis and bridge from social to rhetorical knowledge situations (p. 314).

50% at UT reported previous writing in 27 of 40 genres, and 50% at UW reported 34 of 40. Students expected their experience with different genres would help them succeed in FYC. In school, top % for UT students was research paper and 5 paragraph essay for UW. Out of school for both was email writing. Report of felt sense of accomplishment and perceived success based on college-prep or AP experience.

Domain overlap is limited, most extensive writing is in school and work. Letter writing seems to be the biggest out of school genre recognized. Confidence in own process and use of multiple genres or strategies are indicators for corsssings.

Discussion (my connection): Knowledge transfer was big with Dr. Dethier. If that is an ultimate purpose or aim, it will come out in the ways writing programs are set up, considering Dethier and Bawarshi are both program directors – this probably has some influence because this is generally a program that is “accountable” to the whole of the rest of the university. Students are funneled through, or given a key out of, FYCs and the program directors have to answer to the provost, deans, or presidents about it.

Students’ understandings of genres may not be the same as a FYC teacher’s, but the focus on knowledge transfer triggers. The perception that they have already accomplished, mastered, or even just attempted a “research paper” in high school might give a false sense of security for attempting it in an FYC.

The researchers talk in terms of boundary crossers and boundary guarders who deal in high- and low-road transfer. They include low confidence, a range of genre strategies, and “not” talk about what genre their writing is not as the crossers while those with high confidence seemed to be low-roaders. I get that there is a sense of having been through it before that would give confidence (perhaps I feel that all too much), but I am surprised that those without confidence are willing to cross the boarders, but it is the limited strategy use for low-road boundary guarders that makes sense to me.

The point seems to be that those who are more successful in approaching new genres are reminded of multiple strategies, and that takes exposure. The five-paragraph can’t be the only thing students do. It comes back to alertness – as Grandmother would say, “We need more ‘lerts in theworld.”

Wollman-Bonilla, J. E. (2000). Teaching science writing to first graders: Genre learning and recontextualization. Research in the Teaching of English, 35(1), 35-65.

Author: Julie E. Wollman-Bonilla (now just Wollman), prof. Dept. of Elem. Ed. Rhode Island College at time of writing, as of June 1, 2012 is the first female President of Edinboro University, jwollman@edinboro.edu; PhD in Elem Ed from NYU ‘91. Most recent book publication (2000) Family message journals: Teaching writing through family involvement. Recent work focusing on administration and team building. Interesting to look at (2003) “Email as genre: A beginning writer learns the conventions” in Language Arts.

Date: 2000 – No Child Left Behind is on it’s way. Not a reality just yet.

Research Questions: p. 39 To what extent can the messages composed by first-grade, emergent, and beginning writers be characterized as science writing when analyzed for conventional structural and lexicogrammatical features? How might children appropriate the conventions of science writing and recontextualize these for the purpose of communicating with families in the context of Family Message Journals?

Context (need for study): National reform in education emphasizes that students do science and science texts work in general, present characteristics. Discipline-defined ways of thinking and writing.

Methods: Qualitative, case study of 4 1^st-graders’ messages to family members, analyzed for conventional structural and lexicogrammatical features. System of Family Message Journal in context influences understanding of genre of science writing.

Findings: Participants were consistent in composing “texts in which they appropriated the linguistic conventions of science and…seemed able to use these conventions flexibly, recontextualizing the genres to fit the task of a written dialogue with their families” (p. 35).

Four categories of science writing (% of FMJ in this category): report (60%), experiment recount (20%), experiment procedure (6%), or explanation (14%).

Discussion (my connection):

Australian genre movement seeks to empower “child writers by introducing them to socially valued genres” (p. 38). This is not child-centered, necessarily. It thinks about what is good for students to be “successful” in the dominant discourse and promotes the status quo, but it promotes the status quo – an indoctrination of sorts, but if writing is social, then that’s what happens more often than not.

The Australian view of mastery first before flexibility matches how I used to (am still getting over) think about grammar and formalities rules.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

13 November

Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In M. Rose (Ed.), When a writer can't write: Studies in writer's block and other composing-process problems (pp. 134-165) New York: Guildford.

But this is in An anthology of essays (pp. 403-418).

Author: David Bartholomae – PhD 1975 Rutgers – Professor of English and Charles Crow Chair at University of Pittsburgh. barth@pitt.edu Focus on composition, literacy and pedagogy, but also rhetoric and American studies. Most recent collection of essays: Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching (2005). Editor of Composition, Literacy and Culture.

Date: 1985 – had been a Fulbright Lecturer (Universidad de Deusto) in 1982. In 85 began time as Chair of Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Research Questions: How are college writing students situating themselves within the larger contexts and discussions of the university when they write?

Context (need for study): Recognizes the disparity in writing within the voice or authority and that of students putting on or dabbling with command in a new and foreign discourse/register.

Methods: Essay using college writing placement essays on creativity as evidence.

Findings: Barholomae calls students patient and good-willed, putting up with the occasions and appropriations we ask them to undertake in school, knowing that the faculty is audience. All the while the student knows that they are trying on discourses for which they do not have the complete lexicon or tools.

“I don’t know” is not that there is nothing to say, but acknowledging that “he is no in a position to carry on this discussion” (p. 406). “There is a context beyond the reader that is not the world but a way of talking about the world, a way of talking that determines the use of examples, the possible conclusions, the acceptable commonplaces, and the key words of an essay on the construction of a clay model for the earth” (p. 406) – you can enter a discourse without approximating it.

Linda Flower cites the difficulty as one of a troubled transition from writer-based to reader-based prose (p. 406).

Writing is imagining ones-self as an insider, as privileged with the knowledge and right to speak. But writing for the teacher is assuming a privilege that students do not have and falls on “imitation or parody than a matter of invention and discovery” (p. 408).

Success can be seen in an aggressive, self-conscious location of self within the discourse.

Full context of more important than syntax and punctuation.

Discussion (my connection): I have read this before with Brock Dethier at USU. It was a bit of a catapult to create a genre-study paper as well as looking specifically at what certain types of writing assignments from across the university were asking of the students – the various discourses of the university community.

As with writing argument for children, there is a necessity to create audience, to allow for a genuine space for writing.

I think of this trying on of registers in terms of a child playing at dress up, wearing adult-sized clothing and doing their best to become the new character, but it’s obvious to everyone that the clothes do not fit.

The children in the Riley study were able to place themselves in the conversation, having met a father who home schools his child. If the university were to invite the undergraduate or basic writing students to be involved with scholarly work, then they could enter the discourse and actually see themselves there. This is asking quite a bit – how many can you actually let participate? Perhaps there is just more research that needs to be done at the ug level, not just seeing so many classes as a prerequisite for something else.

I think the first time I read this, I looked too much to the idea of writing for the academy. I took offense to it, that students should have to betray themselves in order to be accepted. But, this time, I see it more of situating ones-self in the muck of the discourse and letting go of the comfort of what might be considered weak or small phrases/sentences.

Riley, J., & Reedy, D. (2005). Developing young children's thinking through learning to write argument. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 5(1), 29-51.

Author: Jeni Riley – Institute of Education, University of London j.riley@ioe.ac.uk, focus on early education, speaking language, written language vs writing of letters

David Reedy – Community Inspection and Advisory Service, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

Date: 2005

Research Questions: What are the outcomes of structure-based writing instruction and writing to develop thinking with young children?

Context (need for study): Need to support children’s learning in literacy. Earlier year teachers “are often unaware of the role of written language” in enhancing student thought (p. 30). 1998 UK literacy standards do not ask for teaching of argument writing conventions until year 5 – 10 year olds (p. 30). Kress (1989) asserts that leaving children out of the use of argument disenfranchises and excludes them from full participation in society.

Methods: Small-scale study, 2 early years (5-7 year olds) classrooms 25 1^st and 27 2^nd in White, working-class suburb of north-east London. Female teachers with literacy hour – 30 min whole class teaching, 20 group and individual practice, 10 whole class reflection on work. Teaching done by the researchers. Use of writing frames with students – shared writing model. 3, 45-minute sessions over 2 weeks.

Findings: Young children are incredibly competent and “can engage with contentions, real-life issues and if offered structured support, they are able not only to produce written texts in the argument genre but their thinking also develops” (p. 29). Genre theory informs how texts are shaped by social purpose and cultural context.

Activating prior knowledge created a sense of multiple perspectives on issues at hand (zoos and homeschooling). Heavy importance on time for discussing, researching, and reflecting.

An argument “writing frame” allows manipulation of perspectives without having to be too concerned with overall organization – already prepared within the frame (p. 45).

Children need to be able to relate to and invest in the controversial topic. An experience (visit, trip, text, drama, etc.) is necessary in order to embed understanding. Brainstorm to see two viewpoints at the same time. Introduction of new information – “research.” Teacher modeling the process of writing and questioning spoken contributions.

Discussion (my connection): I need to take a look at Bereiter and Scardamalia (1985) to get a grasp of operational aspects of writing in terms of the “multidimensional information processing load that writing presents to an individual” (p. 29).

Page 32 has a wonderful reasoning for why argument should be taught, citing Piaget, Vygotsky, and Kress (among others). The bringing of difference into existence is essential to having a clearer thought, entertaining difference in order to more fully understand and resolve into new meaning, requiring inter- and intrapersonal dialogues that develop cognition.

Even though time to think about the argument is vital, students taking timed writing tests do not have that luxury.

The big take away to me is to make ideas accessible and genuine – of purpose – of interest – to the student in order to benefit most from this, rather than completely imposing some task of thinking.

Schleppegrell, M. J. (2001). Linguistic features of the language of schooling. Linguistics and Education, 12(4), 431-459.

Author: Mary J. Schleppergrell, PhD from Georgetown University, published this article while at UC Davis, 2012 at University of Michigan in a 3year project looking at helping teachers focus students on grammatical choices authors have made to form meaning. Interested in linguistic tools’ relationship to equity.

Date: 2001

Research Questions: What is the “constellation of lexical and grammatical features that are most important for success in language tasks at school” (p. 435)?

Context (need for study): Researchers need to understand the grammatical realities and alternatives in meaning making contexts of the registers - “constellation of lexical and grammatical features that characterizes particular uses of language”- of schooling (p. 431). This article focuses on “the lexical choices and strategies for clause structuring that are typical of the school-based registers that are represented in the texts students read and that students need to draw on in school-based language tasks” ( p. 432). There are lexicgrammatical and social dimensions to language choice. Importance of identifying school’s underlying grammatical expectations.

Methods: Using large, historical (corpus) studies and a series of discourse analytic studies of secondary writing samples to highlight features of schooling registers.

Findings: Suggestion that explicitness and complexity as described in school-based registers disregards the complex and explicit forms of expression in other registers. In a matter such as show and tell, students who can describe and narrate are praised and pushed to develop language skills, but those who struggle with “this register are considered disorganized,” and teachers find it difficult to guide development (p. 433). Table 1 on 438 shows difference between spoken interactions and school-based registers. Vocabulary is a main identifier of the desired more precise and technical lexis that is desired for student writing across subject areas.

Students raise their hands to be seen as one of the people who “knows,” expecting the teacher to call on someone who has not raised their hand. Informational written texts have many more nouns than in spoken English between students. In the example texts, the ration of lexical density (how many ideas per clause are necessary to process) was 10:3. Speaking subjects are generally pronouns – “light subjects,” but the written “long subjects” create building arguments by clause (p. 441). Thus school register is considered more explicit (no room for misunderstanding meaning) “because the context of schooling is more appropriately realized through the lexical labeling,” but linguistic appropriateness is not to be confused with cognitive skill or vice versa (p. 442).

In writing, the subject is the action doer, but in speaking the subject is often the object being talked about. Academic registers expect detachment in augments, but the examples from the bilingual student on page 445 show an involved and emotional style. The school-based register requires the use of a varied set of conjunctions. Spoken use of conjunctions does not tend to follow the semantic relationships of written texts. Conventional use of conjunctions requires a shift in lexical strategies to embed and compact information which is not seen/heard in spoken English….http://youtu.be/lF4qii8S3gw

Discussion (my connection): I find the discussion on 432 of genres and expected registers in schooling particularly helpful in thinking about reasons to pursue multimodality. Admittedly, others may see these same expectations as reasons not to challenge the structure of the school register with practice in multimodal composition.

The school registers of efficiency and hierarchical arguments for a “noninteracting audience” seems so sterile and out of sync with developing whole persons (p. 435). It seems that it continues to feed the notion that school is for preparing workers on a United States-dollar oriented time-scale, not the mañana of other parts of the Americas – and how I operate on an all too regular basis.

Using the school-based register makes for clear understanding – to those who have already appropriated the school-based register. I appreciate the author’s ability to consider the students competent, especially in realizing that pronouns are not inexplicit, but rather do not fall into the school register of needing to disregard assumptions of an audience who has shared knowledge. I tell many stories this way – for some reason, I live it with my wife. I assume she knows what I know, has experienced what I have. I know, though, that it was a main frustration of mine in reading writing that assumes I have the same background knowledge as the writer. It makes me question the “complete sentence” answer that rephrases the question that has just been asked. The shared knowledge is there. The question is in print for both the student and teacher to see. Why, then, is there still reason to restate the question in the answer?

Spoken language appears to be interpretive – made in community. I rely on this heavily in life – probably because of my lack of precise lexical vocabularies in many situations.