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778 articlesJanuary 2020
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Abstract
Research Article| January 01 2020 How to Teach Gender to Students Who Didn’t Know They Had One Glenn Michael Gordon Glenn Michael Gordon Glenn Michael Gordon is assistant director in the Undergraduate Writing Program at Columbia University and course codirector of the class University Writing: Readings in Gender and Sexuality. He is editor-in-chief of the Morningside Review, an online journal that publishes exemplary essays by first-year undergraduates at Columbia. He leads an end-of-semester event on writing and publishing op-ed essays that has supported more than two hundred publications by first-year undergraduates. He lectures to medical and nursing school students at Columbia University Medical Center on compassionate and efficacious communication with LGBT patients and serves as an official faculty mentor to Columbia’s Division 1 wrestling team. Formerly, he was editor-in-chief of ReadersDigest.com, and his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including New York, Self, Departures, Writer’s Digest, Teacher Magazine, and Seventeen. He wrote frequently on men’s health and sexuality topics for WebMD and CNN.com. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2020) 20 (1): 115–126. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-7879103 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Glenn Michael Gordon; How to Teach Gender to Students Who Didn’t Know They Had One. Pedagogy 1 January 2020; 20 (1): 115–126. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-7879103 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search men, masculinities, consent, gender, sexuality, composition The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2020 by Duke University Press2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Articles You do not currently have access to this content.
2020
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Abstract
It makes sense that writing studies scholars, from their position on the frontlines of academic writing support, would be among the first to notice graduate student needs around writing. In the 1980s, scholars began pointing out why this population of writers deserves more attention. Fast forward to today, popular
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Current paraphrasing instruction in the composition classroom may ironically promote “knowledge telling” source use, such as patchwriting. We argue for an approach to source use instruction that teaches paraphrase as a spectrum of task-dependent rhetorical skills ranging from knowledge telling to knowledge transforming. We encapsulate and test the effectiveness of this approach in a series of interactive videos. These videos present a rhetorically-grounded framework for source use instruction, including think-aloud protocols that demystify how reading processes can be used to critically engage with source content. We validate this approach with two different demographics: Non-Native English speaking graduate students and First Year Writing students. Findings suggest our approach, compared with a workshop that used ‘traditional’ fear-of-plagiarism tactics, helped NNES students better recognize knowledge transforming as a task-dependent option and understand the process of note-taking to transform source texts. In contrast, the traditional workshop promoted knowledge telling behaviors.
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Importing and Exporting across Boundaries of Expertise: Writing Pedagogy Education and Graduate Student Instructors’ Disciplinary Enculturation ↗
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This article reports survey and interview research on how graduate student instructors (GSIs) across the United States navigate the boundaries of disciplinary expertise that define their work as students and teachers. The disciplinary backgrounds of GSIs in this study influenced their experiences with formal writing pedagogy education and their teaching practices. GSIs imported content, mindsets, pedagogies, and skills and expertise from their home disciplines into the FYW classroom and exported practices and dispositions from FYW into their own work as graduate students. I suggest how writing pedagogy educators might reframe preparation experiences to recognize the disciplinary boundaries GSIs work across and to repurpose these boundaries as sites for richer professional development and writing instruction.
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Dissertation Boot Camps, Writing as a Doctoral Threshold Concept, and the Role of Extra-Disciplinary Writing Support ↗
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This article seeks to answer two questions: what kinds of expertise are needed to lead an effective dissertation boot camp; and how can those outside the graduate student’s discipline support their writing? Drawing on four years of application data and post-camp interviews, I reveal how writing process knowledge—similar to that described in the scholarship on first-year composition—is a fundamental reason dissertators seek help from the boot camps. Ultimately, the article argues that the importance of writing as a dissertation-related threshold concept should be clearly stated and understood across all disciplines: doctoral researchers continue to learn and practice writing. As part of broadly accepting this threshold concept, it becomes clearer that those trained in writing pedagogy and its theories are best situated to lead the most helpful writing-process style boot camps.
December 2019
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Abstract
This study examined the perceptions and expressions of learning of 18 undergraduate students who participated in case study competitions through qualitative inquiry. The participants articulated learning outcomes based on their participation in a case competition, including enhanced communication, critical thinking, and analytical skills; viewing diversity as an educational benefit; and gaining a deeper understanding of business fields such as consulting. These findings suggest case study competitions are a viable tool for business educators to aid students in preparing for competitive work environments.
November 2019
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In this paper, we investigated a model of academic development based upon a recurring residential academic writing retreat combining individual writing times, workshops, work-in-progress groups and one-on-one consultations with shared meals and informal gatherings in a natural environment. Using a case study research approach, we analysed data accumulated from seven annual residential writing retreats for education scholars. Participants included 39 academics, administrative staff, senior doctoral students and community partners from multiple institutions. We found evidence that the retreats enhanced participants’ knowledge of writing and publishing processes, advanced their academic careers, built scholarly capacity at their institutions and strengthened writing pedagogy. The data indicated that the presence of writing and writers at the residential academic writing retreats generated presents (i.e., gifts) for the participants. The presence of writing time, writing goals and writing activities in the company of other writers were key to the retreat pedagogy. Participants appreciated gifts of time and physical space and described giving and receiving peer feedback and emotional support as forms of gift exchange within the community. The resulting writing strategies, competencies and identities provided the gift of sustainability. The analysis confirmed that this ongoing, immersive, cross-institutional, cross-rank, institutionally funded model of academic development was effective and responsive to the needs of individual scholars.
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The current study examined the relationships among self-regulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and EFL learners’ performance in argumentative writing. We collected data through two questionnaires (i.e., Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ); Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI)), and an argumentative writing task administered to 250 Iranian graduate students of TEFL in 11 universities across Iran. Using LISREL version 8.8, we ran structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the hypothesized relationships. The results revealed that although the SEM enjoyed a good fit on the hypothesized relationships among selfregulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and argumentative writing, the significant influence of metacognitive awareness and self-regulated learning on students’ argumentative writing performance could not be postulated. Finally, the pedagogical implications for writing instruction and research are discussed.
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Preview this article: Making Space for the Misfit: Disability and Access in Graduate Education in English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/82/2/collegeenglish30634-1.gif
October 2019
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Review Article| October 01 2019 Composition’s Linguistic Diversity: Challenging the Emphasis on Standard American English Cosmopolitan English and Transliteracy. By You, Xiaoye. Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. 300 pages. Allison Giannotti Allison Giannotti Allison Giannotti is a third-year PhD student in composition studies at the University of New Hampshire. She specializes in writing in the sciences and narrative medicine. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2019) 19 (3): 579–584. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-7615621 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Allison Giannotti; Composition’s Linguistic Diversity: Challenging the Emphasis on Standard American English. Pedagogy 1 October 2019; 19 (3): 579–584. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-7615621 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2019 by Duke University Press2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.
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Using Taxonomies of Metacognitive Behaviors to Analyze Student Reflection and Improve Teaching Practice ↗
Abstract
Recent interest in reflective writing in the classroom is tied to the suggested links among reflection, metacognition, and learning transfer. There is still a limited understanding, however, about the distinguishing features of reflective writing and how teachers might identify and use these features to teach effective reflective practices and to interact with student reflective writing. This study uses Gorzelsky et al.’s (2016) taxonomy of metacognitive behaviors to examine the end-of-semester reflective essays of undergraduate students enrolled in a first-year writing course at a large midwestern university. The authors identify and describe a feature of student reflective writing involving the use of emotional language and, working from their findings, suggest a teaching strategy and set of classroom activities aimed at leveraging students’ emotive expressions in ways that foster metacognitive awareness.
September 2019
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Abstract
Over the course of my career, I have been privileged to review a number of single-volume surveys of the discipline of rhetoric, including Theresa Enos’s Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition in the 1990s and Thomas O. Sloane’s Encyclopedia of Rhetoric in the 2000s. Now, at the close of the 2010s, I am pleased to consider Michael MacDonald’s Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies, which – although not an encyclopedia – offers an encyclopedic perspective on the discipline a decade and a half after Sloane’s volume appeared. Like its predecessors, MacDonald’s volume ably documents the breadth and advance of rhetorical scholarship.Comprising the editor’s introduction and 60 individual essays, the Handbook spans myriad topics through millennia, from the early theorizing and speechmaking of the ancient Mediterranean to the digital media distinguishing the twenty-first century. MacDonald divides the volume into six periods of rhetorical study and practice: Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Early Modern and Enlightenment, and Modern and Contemporary. As this distribution suggests, the collection privileges a chronological, historically centered approach to the discipline, which MacDonald refers to in his introduction as “the diachronic ‘journey’ ” (2). Nonetheless, he does not offer “a teleological narrative tracing the evolution – or devolution – of a fixed, unitary ‘classical’ rhetorical tradition over the arc of centuries,” nor does he posit rhetoric as a “monolithic cultural institution.” In his words, he wishes to portray “a protean, chameleonic art whose identity, purpose, and significance are contested in every period” (3).To highlight common concerns across historical periods, MacDonald commissioned multiple chapters on similar topics, forming what he refers to as “the synchronic ‘network.’ ” For example, chapters on rhetoric and politics appear in all six sections of the volume, while discussions of rhetoric and law are found in four. He describes the volume’s design as a “double structure”: “a chronological history with thematically interlocking chapters” that enables “the Handbook to be read serially, by historical period, as well as topically, by subject matter.” Touting the breadth of scholarship assembled in the volume, MacDonald notes that the scholarship assembled represents “30 academic disciplines and fields of social practice” (2).Ever the self-aware rhetorician, MacDonald explicitly identifies his intended audience: “readers approaching rhetoric for the first time” (2). More specifically, he describes four varieties of readers: “undergraduate and graduate students,” “university instructors,” “advanced scholars of rhetoric searching for historical context and new points of departure for research projects,” and “scholars in disciplines across the humanities and social sciences looking for points of entry into the field of rhetoric.” He also calls attention to nine features intended “to make the Handbook useful and accessible” (3), including translations of foreign language passages, a glossary of Greek and Latin rhetorical terms, suggestions for further reading, and cross-referencing of chapters. Furthermore, he thoughtfully reviews the history of definitions of his key term, rhetoric, before offering his own: “I shall define rhetoric (nebulously enough) as the art of effective composition and persuasion in speech, writing, and other media” (5).The 60 individual chapters comprising the Handbook are – with few exceptions – consistently well written, engaging, and easily accessible for the audiences MacDonald identifies without being simplistic, pedantic, or stale. This, in itself, is a praiseworthy editorial achievement. The high quality of writing that distinguishes this volume is not surprising, considering the impressive team of scholars MacDonald enlists, whom he describes as “leading rhetoric experts from 12 countries” (2).In addition to lauding the caliber of writing that distinguishes this volume, I call attention to the healthy variety of inventional approaches the Handbook’s contributors employ. Some provide strong, yet traditionally crafted surveys of the topic at hand – such as Heinrich Plett’s treatment of “Rhetoric and Humanism” – while others emphasize the scholarship concerning the topic, often reviewing the major controversies or points of difference within this body of work. Arthur Walzer’s “Origins of British Enlightenment Rhetoric” ably exemplifies the latter category. Several offer exhortations concerning the direction of future scholarship. For example, Cheryl Glenn and Andrea Lunsford in “Rhetoric and Feminism” call enthusiastically for further feminist rhetorical practice and scholarship. “Such feminist interventions into traditional rhetorical principles,” they conclude, “provide opportunities for new ways of being rhetorical, of showing respect, making commitments, sharing power, and distinguishing ourselves as human” (595). Likewise, in his chapter on Renaissance pedagogy, Peter Mack pleads for “many more local studies, which should be more thorough, thoughtful, and detailed than this selective survey” (409). Some contributors reflect on the rhetorical implications of producing rhetorical scholarship, such as Angela Ray, whose “Rhetoric and Feminism in the Nineteenth-Century United States” considers the rhetoric of activism and the highly rhetorical nature of scholarship about it. At least one scholar, John O. Ward, uses his chapter, “The Development of Medieval Rhetoric,” to introduce an important but previously unstudied manual or summa that “enables us to peer into that dark arena and throw a little light upon the rhetoric of the period” (321).Predictably, the most memorable chapters provide reliable introductory material for the nonexpert reader while delivering sophisticated insights for those more knowledgeable of the topic. My favorites include Jeffrey Walker’s account of ancient Greek “Rhetoric and Poetics,” in which he lucidly details the two primary critical positions toward poetry that distinguish ancient Greek culture; Laurent Pernot’s essay covering “Rhetoric and the Greco-Roman Second Sophistic,” which succinctly demonstrates the value of the progymnasmata and elegantly complicates the “decline of rhetoric” narrative fed many of us in graduate seminars in years gone by; and Jacqueline Jones Royster’s “Rhetoric and Race in the United States,” which frames future scholarship in this area and issues a memorable call for innovative research. Less successful chapters feature either highly specific explorations of specialized topics or relatively partisan discussions of winners and losers amongst the scholarship they review.MacDonald’s cross-referencing, which he identifies as one of the special features of the volume, deserves recognition. Clearly, he worked meticulously to demonstrate the links among the many diverse essays he commissioned, and both the novice and the expert will find this feature enlightening. As I sampled the essays featured in the volume, MacDonald’s cross- referencing facilitated a lively conversation among the contributors, both those I know personally and by reputation and those previously unfamiliar to me. This multivocal symposium, which informs the entire volume, is one of its unexpected gifts.As mentioned at the outset, MacDonald favors a historical approach. In fact, 75 percent of the Handbook’s chapters focus on pre-twentieth-century topics. This strong emphasis on rhetoric’s past aligns with his own scholarly inclinations and those of the readership of Advances in the History of Rhetoric. Rhetoric is an ancient art, after all, which treasures its roots, and historically rhetorical scholars have viewed their study through the lens of time. Nonetheless, this historical focus can be seen as a limitation, particularly considering the breadth suggested by the volume’s title and the readers he posits. MacDonald himself reveals his inability to cover all topics, particularly recent scholarship, noting, “Gaps and lacunae abound in every period, especially in the modern and contemporary section, which lacks contributions on postcolonial rhetoric, disability rhetoric, comparative rhetoric, queer rhetoric, and countless other burgeoning other areas of inquiry.” I also note that although the volume’s title suggests a treatment of the subject that expands beyond the rhetoric of the West, the Handbook, in MacDonald’s words, “is limited to the study of rhetoric in Europe and North America” (4). To be fair, as he states, “no book or series of books could hope to provide a speculum, or panoptic survey, of the realm of rhetoric” (3), but nonetheless I might respectfully suggest a slightly different balance between the historical and the contemporary, the West and other world traditions.Ultimately, of course, it is prudent to focus upon what such a volume delivers, rather than what it omits. MacDonald’s Handbook provides five dozen essays of strikingly good quality that are useful to students and scholars alike. Furthermore, the care with which he has arrayed and contextualized these essays significantly enhances their utility. The value of the Handbook quickly became apparent to me, for even before I began the review, I was already employing its chapters in my teaching and research. This, to me, is the best indication of such a volume’s ultimate worth.I began by suggesting that MacDonald’s Handbook demonstrates the recent progress of rhetorical scholarship, and the primary goal of this review has been to build this case. Yet while sampling the Handbook’s chapters, I am reminded of the elusive nature of “the state of the art.” For example, when Malcom Heath states in the “further reading” section of his chapter on “Rhetoric and Pedagogy” that “There is no satisfactory account of Greek rhetorical education in the classical period” (82), Jeffrey Walker’s The Genuine Teachers of This Art immediately comes to mind. Capturing any field of study in a single volume is a worthy goal vexed by page restrictions and the passage of time. Given these inevitable limitations, MacDonald has performed admirably, and I am grateful for his impressive contribution to our field.
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Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE by John O. Ward ↗
Abstract
Reviews 429 Society version. A final positive feature is that Chamey is explicit in her expo sition. She breaks down her topic of persuasive first-person psalms into a number of complexifying categories that open up the various types of psalms. Her insights into lament—even if it may not best be described as public policy persuasion—are still very helpful, as she finds a useful, typical argumentative pattern in these psalms. For each psalm, Chamey provides not only a translation (Alter's) but also often both a structural and a diagram matic outline of the psalm, so that the reader sees the relative "weight" of the various sections, a feature of Chamey's argument. Charney makes much of the difference between the complaint of the psalmist and the proposal made to God, and these can be more readily assessed through these means of presentation. I commend Chamey for this volume, as it makes a serious and persua sive attempt to draw upon the categories of ancient and modem rhetoric, without ever becoming simply an exercise in labeling parts so often found in such biblical studies. She provides some interesting insights into the psalms and their rhetoric. Stanley E. Porter McMaster Divinity College John O. Ward, Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400-1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019. xviii + 706 pp. There is a small circle of scholars of rhetoric who, at some point during the 1970's or 1980's, enclosed themselves in cramped and dark microfilm rooms, reading and taking copious notes on the 1200 pages of John O. Ward's 1972 Toronto Ph.D. thesis in two volumes, "Artificiosa Eloquentia in the Middle Ages: the study of Cicero's De inventione, the Ad Herennium and Quintilian's De institutione oratoria from the early Middle Ages to the thir teenth century, with special reference to the schools of northern France." For those scholars and for others who were able to read the thesis under perhaps more comfortable conditions, encountering this book, which puts the thesis into print for the first time, will be like revisiting a monument they knew in their youth. They will be amazed once again by its magnificent ambition, and (as is the case with monuments revisited) they will discern features that they did not notice or understand before. They will also admire the care and thought with which that monument has been curated, with timely and important additions to the original structure. Those readers will have worked through the original dissertation in order to educate themselves about an aspect of the history of medieval rhetoric that had not yet been narrated and will have followed Ward's career and absorbed some if not all of the approximately thirty substantial articles and chapters on rhetoric that he 430 RHETORICA has written, as well as his 1995 volume for the Typologie series. In this contin uous flow of scholarship, he has expounded his increasing knowledge of the medieval and renaissance rhetorical traditions. Now more mature in their understanding, readers acquainted with his thesis will appreciate its richness. But some readers will come to it fresh, without previous knowledge of Ward's bibliography. For those new students of rhetoric, Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages will be a stunning awakening to the profundity of medieval thought about communication. Over the years, Ward has refined or enlarged the insights rendered in his thesis. But even though readers can consult his later narratives of Ciceronian reception in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there are good reasons for publishing the thesis now. First, it is a treasure house that had never been published integer, even though it has served as a resource for constant reevaluation of evidence: the transmission of texts; glosses and commentaries on the Ciceronian legacy; applications of doctrine; and possible answers to the question "why did the Middle Ages, especially from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, value classical rhetoric so highly?" Second, it is the complete narration of the medieval reception of classical rhetoric to which Ward has devoted his remarkable energies, and it remains the narrative that he was able to...
July 2019
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Self-Regulation and Rhetorical Problem Solving: How Graduate Students Adapt to an Unfamiliar Writing Project ↗
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Research on writing and transfer has shown that writers who have sophisticated rhetorical knowledge are well equipped to adapt to new situations, yet less attention has been paid to how a writer’s adaptability is influenced by their writing processes. Drawing on Zimmerman’s sociocognitive theory of self-regulation, this study compared the writing processes taken up by graduate student writers composing a research proposal for their final project in a tutor-training practicum. Findings from process logs, interviews, and drafts differentiated self-regulation strategies associated with varying degrees of success. The more successful writers framed problems in terms of potential solutions, used problems to set goals, and reacted to problems by creating a narrative of progress; in contrast, less successful writers avoided problems or framed them as dead-ends. Compared to the less successful writers, the more successful writers concluded the project with robust knowledge about research proposal writing. These findings suggest that self-regulation strategies may be linked to an ability to develop rhetorical knowledge and practices in the face of challenging writing situations.
June 2019
May 2019
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ABSTRACT During China’s Republican Period, scholar and reformer Hu Shi advanced a rhetorical pragmatic project for democratic reform. In this essay, I argue that the dissertation Hu wrote under the advisement of John Dewey, “The Development of Logical Method in Ancient China,” was itself a groundbreaking piece of rhetorical invention that functioned as part of Hu’s project by reinterpreting ancient Chinese classics as the foundations for a model of rhetorical pragmatic argumentation.
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Preview this article: The Power of Personal Connection for Undergraduate Student Writers, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/53/4/researchintheteachingofenglish30141-1.gif
April 2019
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Our Amalgamated Voices Speak: Graduate Students and Incarcerated Writers Collaborate for a Common Purpose ↗
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In this essay, the authors describe a collaborative, community-engaged graduate seminar in which students and incarcerated writers worked together to write promotional brochures for WordsUncaged, a prison writing program. Drawing on reflective writing from graduate students and incarcerated writers, the authors apply a hospitality framework to articulate participants’ learning and growth. The public nature of the writing task grounded the experience in tangible results, and the circulation of the brochures beyond the classroom led to specific rhetorical growth as participants worked towards a common purpose. The collaborative nature of this learning process also led to different interpretations of voice and language representing individual and collective experiences. This collaboration resulted in a reciprocal humanization for students and incarcerated writers, as students’ rhetorical decisions emphasized their incarcerated partner’s humanity and, simultaneously, the incarcerated writers felt recognized as human beings. While acknowledging the constraints and limitations of this sort of community engagement, the authors argue that the collaborative and public facets of this experience were central to creating meaningful growth for all participants; indeed, the different ways in which graduate students and incarcerated writers experienced this growth reflect the complex realities of the partnership itself.
March 2019
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James A. Herrick: Visions of Technological Transcendence: Human Enhancement and Rhetoric of the Future [Book Review] ↗
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Technologists, research scientists, communication professionals, and others involved in computer and internet technologies, including graduate students, will find this book both relevant and prescient. Readers interested in philosophy, futurism, or the fate of humanity will like it too. The book achieves its purpose of outlining, with salient references and a sense of history, the prominent strains of thought in the transhumanist and human enhancement communities - and their philosophical forebears - along with critical responses. The book stands out as a comprehensive, measured look at technology, its future, and its narratives. The author's well-researched, historical look at the stories we tell ourselves about the future—and, crucially, how those stories drive technological advances and policies—details the beliefs of transhumanism: where those beliefs came from and how they are driving the shape of our future. The author also balances the book with critical responses to each of these narratives. The book is focused more on the mythology of the future and technology, rather than on practical applications of any of the technologies discussed. Therefore, it would be most suited to a graduate-level course, or for consideration by policy makers and designers who are potentially influenced by these myths. The book’s value - and its contribution to its field - is in its scope and context, as well as its critical balance.
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Aaron Marcus, Masaaki Kurosu, Xiaojuan Ma, and Ayako Hashizume: Cuteness Engineering: Designing Adorable Products and Services [Book Review] ↗
Abstract
Computers are now programmed to support emotion; we communicate with our computers as if the computer was another human, not a machine. As a result, user interfaces are being “cutesified” because people love and respond to cute things. This is the basic premise of Cuteness Engineering. Designers, developers, usability researchers, and graduate students will learn the history, key terms, problems, research findings, and international issues pertaining to cuteness engineering, and they will gain exposure to case studies from Japan and China. The book offers strategies and interviews with cuteness designers. This book serves as an introduction to the developing field of cuteness design in the user experience. It is divided into five main chapters, excluding the introduction and conclusion chapters. The first two chapters explore cuteness in Japan and China, the next chapter provides a taxonomy of cuteness, and the final two chapters consist of interview transcripts with user-experience designers. The next logical question the book addresses is “Why cuteness?” To answer this question on a broad scale, the authors use cross-cultural research to examine cuteness in different cultures. This research was used to create and validate their taxonomy of cuteness. However, this taxonomy is general and does not consider the culture-specific attributes of cuteness. To address this problem, the authors study the specific, attributes of cuteness in Japan, China, and the US. They hypothesize that cuteness varies among cultures. According to this theory, different styles of cuteness should be used in different cultures. At the same time, the authors also claim that cuteness can be universal and shared amongst a global audience. Since cuteness is considered a universal language, cuteness is a tool used to help close the gap between technologies, designs, and users. This contradiction limits the overall findings of this book. However, this limitation can be rectified by further clarifying the difference between the goals of cuteness itself (which are universal), and the goals of the individual styles of cuteness (which vary based on culture). Exploring this relationship between the purpose of cuteness and the styles of cute presents an opportunity for future research in cuteness engineering.
February 2019
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This paper highlights the importance, when researching writing across the lifespan, of addressing a range of aspects of social context which change over time, particularly focusing on tools, values, relationships and identities. It illustrates this argument by drawing on a range of empirical studies exploring different aspects of writing in university settings, working with adults at a range of levels from Masters through doctoral study to academics' working lives, and reflects on the implications of this research for lifespan writing studies more generally. The projects drawn on include a study of multimodal feedback on postgraduate student writing and students' responses to this; a detailed study of academics' writing practices in the context of structural changes in Higher Education; and an interview study with PhD students participating in writing retreats, reflecting on their writing experiences. Drawing on findings from this work, we argue that shifts in material, social and institutional dimensions of context have a significant impact on what individuals write and on the writing practices that they develop. We particularly highlight the role of changing tools for writing and values around writing, and the importance of transformations in identity and relationships. We argue that the tradition of literacy studies research, drawn on by all the projects described in this paper, provides the theoretical and methodological resources to approach such aspects of academic writing development across the lifespan, by adopting a holistic perspective on writing which locates writing as situated practice and thereby provides insight into these social and contextual influences.
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This article investigates the learning trajectories of graduate students and early career faculty - a group we refer to as emerging scholars. Taking a developmental perspective, our mixed-methods study employs surveys and interviews to understand emerging scholars' writing needs and experiences. This research is significant because although literature suggests emerging scholars struggle with new writing practices, perceptions, and identities, researchers rarely take a developmental perspective on the learning needs of emerging scholars, which ultimately limits access to the educational enterprise and perpetuates a gatekeeping culture in higher education. Further, no studies that we know of consider graduate student and faculty writers' needs in relation to one another. In this article, we present an innovative method for cross-analyzing data from these two groups in ways that reveal recurring/diverging features of lifelong writing development. Our preliminary findings reveal connections and variations in the needs and experiences of these two groups that could inform pedagogy, programming, and institutional policy geared toward graduate student and faculty writers. Finally, we discuss methodological implications for studying groups of writers with proximate developmental relationships and explain how future applications of our method will contribute to research on writing development across the lifespan.
January 2019
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"Analyze a Published Research Study" invites students to examine a published study's research methods to learn not only what a research report says, but also how the research was designed, carried out, and communicated. While this writing assignment was originally designed for an undergraduate course on research practices in literacy and composition, it may be used with both undergraduate and graduate students and may be appropriate for courses across the disciplines in which students study methods of scholarship. The primary goal of this assignment is to use writing as a mode of learning how to read scholarly research.
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This essay describes a project that introduces undergraduate students in a technical and professional writing course to rhetorical genre studies, context, and ethics. In this project, students (1) study examples of meeting minutes and consider their functions within specific contexts, (2) take meeting minutes of a class session, and (3) analyze their minutes to abstract larger lessons on the rhetorical, epistemological, and ethical work of technical and professional writing. This project brings students' attention to the complex decision-making processes writers face as they seek to produce useful, ethical, recognizable professional documents.
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An important drawback of peer response in L2 writing classes is a reluctance to be sufficiently critical of a classmate’s writing, particularly with students from cultures that value group harmony. Anonymization of peer response is commonly proposed as a means of overcoming this problem. The current action research project examined the effect of anonymizing the peer response process on the number of proposed revisions made by students from eight undergraduate writing classes at a private university in Tokyo. It also examined the students’ attitudes towards the peer response process. The findings revealed that the anonymization of the process had significant impact on the less proficient students’ propensity to recommend revision; however, this was not the case for students of a higher proficiency level. Students at both levels felt more comfortable with the peer response process when it was anonymized. The pedagogical implications of anonymizing the peer response process are discussed.
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Grounded in the authors’ dissatisfaction with academic leadership after the 2016 presidential election, this article complicates the idea of the WPA-as-manager by introducing the framework of feminist, transformational, and intersectional writing program leadership. As writing program administrators, the authors identify the problems with calls for civility and neutrality post-election, particularly as these calls came down to the many nontenure-track faculty and graduate students teaching first-year writing. The authors introduce two methods of moving beyond writing program management to include greater attention to community engagement and leadership post-Trump: through revising curricula and course materials and by diversifying professional development opportunities. WPAs may find themselves in a rare moment where the pedagogical approaches for which we have long advocated—attention to marginalized voices, representation of complex arguments grounded in material realities, validation of the rhetorical import of nonacademic texts—are immediately practicable as a condition of civic engagement. Curricula and course materials may convey these commitments beyond the classroom. Further, the authors address the need for greater attention to professional development for faculty, particularly focusing on addressing the needs of vulnerable populations. They discuss two professional development resources beyond individual campus resources: the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) and the University of Michigan’s Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR). By grounding this renovated image of the writing program administrator as a writing program leader, situated theoretically in leadership studies, the authors extend the work of scholars who see the WPA as a site of radical advocacy.
2019
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Abstract
This article investigates my lived experience as a black queer writing center tutor for the purposes of theorizing the transformative power of learning centers. Drawing on several perspectives and methods offered in Praxis ’s special issue on Access and Equity in Graduate Writing Support , this article argues that the antiracist potential of writing centers depends on more comprehensive analyses of how writing centers function as racialized places. Using the metaphor of the “academic ghetto,” I signify on the misconception of writing centers as places for correcting deficiency. I apply my analysis to both an Undergraduate Writing Center (WCs) and a Graduate Writing Center (GWC) space to systematically discover how racial biases mediate and construct these learning spaces. In particular, I structure my discussion through a blend of personal narrative and critical analysis that illustrates the epistemic conflict and character of the “academic ghetto.” The article concludes with a call to invent antiracist practices for writing centers that model more inclusive methods of living in these spaces.
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Abstract
He was professor emeritus of English at Brooklyn College, where he taught for many years and at various times directed the first-year English program, founded and directed the writing center, and directed the Scholars Program and Honors Academy. He is an exemplary figure for writing center and composition scholars because he was instrumental in establishing and conceptualizing peer tutoring in the teaching of writing. Bruffee began experimenting with peer tutoring in the 1970s as a response to the open-admissions policies that almost overnight brought hundreds of underprepared students to City University of New York campuses. Peer tutoring, he discovered, worked surprisingly well in that context. Properly prepared and situated, undergraduate student tutors
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Abstract
Dissertation boot camp (DBC) programs have been adopted at many postsecondary institutions across North America over the last decade. Responding to Simpson's (2013) call for writing centers to do more than simply share anecdotal information about the effects of their DBC programs, the authors of this mixed-methods study assess the benefits of these programs for doctoral students. The study evaluates three DBC delivery models-online, sustained, and retreat-in order to determine each model's effect on doctoral students' writing behaviors, confidence levels, and anxiety. By conducting a more robust statistical analysis than has been possible in other preliminary work on DBC programming, the paper corroborates Busl, Donnelly, & Capdevielle's (2015) finding that "Writing Process" DBCs are more beneficial to doctoral students than "Just Write" DBCs. The authors ultimately find that doctoral students experience positive outcomes from all three DBC models and are likely to self-select based on the model that best suits their individual needs. The results of this study indicate that postsecondary institutions ought to consider offering a variety of DBC programming in order to meet the needs of diverse graduate-student populations.
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Creating a Research Culture in the Center: Narratives of Professional Development and the Multitiered Research Process ↗
Abstract
This article examines the unique perspectives of nine writing center practitioners reflecting on the experience of conducting a collaborative and multi-tiered research project in their center. The focus of their work is on the process of conducting research rather than the product; therefore, much of the work is on how research is conducted and how it functions as an avenue for professional development, creating community, and benefitting the center. The article includes narratives from all of the researchers: undergraduate students, graduate students, and administrators/ faculty members. Each narrative presents positive experiences, insights, and obstacles encountered for each group of researchers. The article concludes with recommendations that could benefit others conducting multi-tiered research.
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Abstract
This program profile describes a globally focused cocurricular writing program led by faculty, staff, and graduate students from academic affairs and student affairs. Revisiting the program’s first two years, the authors (three graduate students and a faculty member) assert that writing-oriented learning activities within Texas Christian University’s (TCU) GlobalEX program were productively positioned to enable students to engage with other cultures and hone skills for becoming intercultural navigators. Drawing on a similar approach from Fernando Sánchez and Daniel Kenzie to apply Michel de Certeau’s ideas about tactics in cultural work, our program profile identifies important features shaped by this program’s cocurricular context that can be productively drawn upon both in non-course contexts and in curricular spaces. These include writing reflectively within flexible structures arranged to support learning through progressive stages; capitalizing on multimodal composing genres conducive to collaboration; and situating writing in public contexts without the individual pressure of grades.
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Abstract
This article profiles three new graduate instructors in a PhD program in literature who are teaching composition for the first time while enrolled in a teaching methods course. I argue that understanding graduate instructors’ prior beliefs about literacy has the potential to make practica instructors more sympathetic to the complex identity-based and ideological negotiations new graduate instructors must undertake in their first year of teaching while also pointing to ways to facilitate this work.
November 2018
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Abstract
Students are expected to write complex text genres in higher education contexts. Such complexity stems not only from the nature of the knowledge they convey but also from the norms and conventions adopted by the academic communities that use such texts. Among those genres, the dissertation seems particularly complex, considering both the set of problems related to its configuration (structure, language, norms of reference), and the factors that constrain its production (methodological procedures, student/supervisor relationship, time management, institutional constraints, individual nature of the writing process). The present study seeks to identify and analyze (i) students’ perspectives and representations of the dissertation writing process, and (ii) the problems that arise in the writing process. It is based on semi-structured interviews with students, at three different universities in the North of Portugal, who recently completed their dissertations in Humanities, Education and Engineering. The analysis is based on the assumption that writing a dissertation involves not only cognitive, linguistic and social dimensions, but also emotional aspects that can condition it decisively.
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Academic Writing and Transferable Skills for Transition to Higher Education: an Example from a UK University Classics Department ↗
Abstract
This paper presents an intervention that was created in a United Kingdom university Classics department where approximately 60% of undergraduate students came from diverse educational backgrounds to study classical Greco-Roman culture, but had not studied it before at school/college. To equip these more than usually diverse ‘transition’ students with a skills base to aid both their academic progress and future employability, a team-taught mandatory module was designed for first term, first-year undergraduates, which embedded two workshops and an assessment exercise on academic writing with eight workshops on other skills, most of which are both discipline-specific and ‘transferable’. The in-term assessments tested understanding of the skills taught, while a final exercise required students to reflect on their longer learning process over the term, evaluating development in their academic writing in the context of other discipline-specific skills. This module serves as a model for adoption both within academic departments and also at an institutional level for early stage academic writing training in a subject-related context, which can serve as a first step on a longer ladder of skills acquisition over the degree for enhancing both academic success and employability awareness.
October 2018
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Abstract
Graduate students often encounter obstacles related to written science communication that can set them back in their path towards degree completion. Efforts to support these students should be informed by what they actually need or desire; yet oftentimes, programs are developed based on assumptions or intuitions. In other cases, proven models from literature are used to develop programs; however, due to a lack of justification for approaches and vague descriptions of daily teaching and learning activities, the intricacies of design are relatively unknown. Thus, in institutes looking to establish research writing resources or build on existing infrastructure, more research is needed to demonstrate how needs assessment can directly transfer to program development. In this paper, I describe how findings from a campus-wide needs assessment of graduate students (N = 310) and faculty (N = 111) informed the development of design principles for a week-long dissertation writing workshop. The complete description of the intervention, including how main elements and content align with socio-cognitive perspectives to writing, can facilitate replication; theory building; and communication about effective writing instruction. This work also offers a springboard for future research and program development and establishes a blueprint.
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Abstract
This article argues that English studies departments should implement training programs in oral delivery strategies for graduate students seeking tenure-track employment. A sample of a thirteen-week training program, modeled on elements of classical rhetorical pedagogy, is offered that can help students develop and refine stills in oral delivery necessary for academic job interviews.
September 2018
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Abstract
Perhaps one challenge facing postgraduate students is the writing of essays responding to a specific reading assignment. Such an essay requires students not only to summarize, but to engage in a discussion of the significant points of the article, pointing out its strengths as well as its weaknesses. This paper presents the results of an investigation on criticality in written assignments of postgraduate students in applied linguistics and TESOL. It will discuss: How 'critical' are students when writing their assignments? What kind of 'critical' comments are they able to offer? Seventy assignments in the form of essays were analysed, using corpora from three universities in Asia (2010-2014). The investigation adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. In the quantitative phase, the commenting or critiquing sentences were identified and counted vis-à-vis reporting/summarizing information. In the qualitative phase, the critiquing or commenting parts were further analysed, and identified according to their functions or 'moves'. The initial findings from the investigation include: (1) the almost equal proportion of commenting/critiquing and summarizing/reporting information in the assignments; (2) the identification of four broad functions for the commenting or critiquing information adopted by students, each of which has a number of possible specific 'moves' or categories; (3) presence of critique 'nodes' as distinguished from 'support' comments; and (4) the identification of at least four moves as the most recurrent and possibly obligatory categories. This investigation has unearthed issues that are definitely worth investigating as extensions of this research, and will be of interest (most especially) to genre analysts and teachers of writing. Most of all, it will be of interest to postgraduate students in applied linguistics/TESOL programmes who may be wondering about the level of criticality they exhibit when writing assignments for their courses.
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Contested or complementary? Mingling between two distinct writing pedagogies for genre instruction in one EFL undergraduate writing course ↗
Abstract
This paper aims to investigate how novice EFL writers develop their genre awareness and rhetorical flexibility in a genre-based writing course that incorporates two distinct types of genres (essay and journal writing) for practice simultaneously. Three sets of qualitative and quantitative data were collected: surveys, reflection papers from 40 students, and semi-structured interviews with eight students. Descriptive statistical analysis provides an overview on students' perceptions on the two types of genres and the distinct pedagogies. Qualitative data gathered from the in-depth interviews were used to understand how learners intermingle between two distinct writing pedagogies and what the perceived impact is on students' subsequent functional writing practice. In order to explore how students developed their genre awareness (cognitive) and rhetorical flexibility (metacognitive), we draw on Grabe and Kaplan's (1996) notion of ethnography of writing: (1) the purpose of a certain genre; (2) the criteria for writing; (3) audience; and (4) their goals/expectations. The findings show that most learners attached different benefits to these two genre-based instructions, enabling them to recontextualize their writing performance when necessary. Pedagogically, this study provides alternative pedagogies to the most commonly seen dilemma for L2 writing instruction. Theoretically, this research demonstrates how contested pedagogies can be complementary to enhance our understanding of to what extent cross-genre awareness can be raised and transformed through distinct genre-based practices.
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Abstract
The teaching of composing strategies is acknowledged to be an important area in writing instruction and test preparation. This study presents a small set of data originating from a larger project which investigated the composing strategies reported by 30 international postgraduate students. These students were in their second year of university study and had all volunteered to attempt the TOEFL-iBT writing test. Immediately after completion of each task, they were interviewed about the way they had understood the requirements of the tasks and the processes and strategies they had used in order to complete them. All the students had successfully obtained entry to university and were functioning satisfactorily in their current areas of study, yet the scores they achieved in the TOEFL writing assessment showed considerable variation. Surprisingly, some were well below the benchmark for university entry. In order to investigate this, we revisited and reanalysed the interview data gathered from the three top and three bottom scorers, and examined similarities and differences in the way they approached and undertook the task. The high scorers' goals for task completion focused on the product as well as the process, and in contrast to the low scorers their monitoring strategies involved interaction with the emerging text. While we acknowledge that actual differences in language proficiency may have been partially responsible for the different scores, in this paper we explore the possible role of strategy choice, and we consider implications for test preparation teaching and writing instruction in general.
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Abstract
This book consists of a collection of narratives on the subject of scientific writing skill needs compiled by the author through more than 100 interviews with senior scientists, emerging (early career) scientists, and recent Ph.D. graduates, all of whom would be appropriate audiences of the book. It is an interesting amalgam of opinions from the scientific community about technical writing, its importance, the breadth of writing opportunities, and the authors’ enjoyment—or lack thereof. While oriented toward science, it could easily be expanded to the entire spectrum of STEM fields. Through her informal approach, the author achieves her purpose of exposing diverse opinions on the need for and acceptance of technical writing within the scientific community. While the book might not fit nicely into a technical writing course, it can provide valuable insight into technical writing needs beyond university undergraduate and graduate students. The author, through the use of interviews and narrative summaries, has provided a view of technical writing as accomplished by three levels of scientists, where personal opinions of the scientists are supported by the level of success achieved by the individual respondent. This book could be used for a course in technical writing in a number of ways, especially at the undergraduate level, either as a reference text or as the primary text for the course. To begin with, the material in the book is based upon the contributors’ years of experience. In some cases, that could mean many years of technical writing not only within a particular field of interest, but in other genres or subject matters, based upon the individual’s experiences. A professor teaching the technical writing class may have limited experience in the world of publishing papers, books, or other technical matter. An assignment for a class could be to pick one of the respondents in the book, and develop a detailed description of his or her beliefs and approaches to technical writing. Such an assignment could then lead into a class discussion on the importance of technical writing in one’s career as supported by the text.
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Students’ Idea of the Writing Center: First-Visit Undergraduate Students’ Pre- and Post-Tutorial Perceptions ↗
Abstract
Writing center research has explored writing center professionals’ perceptions of tutorial success and satisfaction through a variety of means, yet writers’ perspectives have rarely been investigated. This IRB-approved study has been designed to seek insight into students’ prior knowledge (Bransford, Brown, Cocking, 2000) of the writing center’s goals and functions by analyzing pre-tutorial questionnaires and conducting semi-structured post-tutorial interviews. An interview with an experienced tutor was also conducted for comparison of perceptions. This study begins to investigate students’ prior knowledge about the writing center’s goals and practices that they bring to their tutorial sessions. Secondarily, I was interested in where students derive their perceptions of the writing center’s goals and purpose. The research revealed that most students do not have a clear idea of what the writing center’s purpose is or how the sessions will go. Even though the students knew that they would receive help with their work, they did not know how this would be achieved. Most students indicated that when they arrived, they were interested in creating “better” texts and that they had been directed to the writing center by an authoritative figure, such as an instructor or advisor. Keywords : Undergraduate students, perceptions, peer tutoring, writing, writing center
June 2018
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Abstract
This manual is ideal for engineers at all stages of their careers: from the freshman engineering student to the college professor to the CEO of a large corporation. It can be a valuable tool for universities to train undergraduate and graduate students and for companies to train their employees. It clearly accomplishes its purpose—it teaches best practices in engineering communication using real-world issues and genres. It also serves as a guide for undergraduate and graduate students.
May 2018
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“To Whom Do We Have Students Write?”: Exploring Rhetorical Agency and Translanguaging in an Indonesian Graduate Writing Classroom ↗
Abstract
In keeping with the recent global turn in literacy and composition studies, this article explores rhetorical agency in an English-medium Indonesian PhD program. Drawing from the critical reflective lens teacher ethnography allows, the author highlights how graduate students at this Indonesian, yet international site negotiated both textually and extra-textually with the critical pedagogy she developed, while she also questions some of her initial assumptions concerning genre, audience, and rhetorical agency. Overall, the data presented here indicates that rather than focusing solely on textual form as a site of critical agency, teachers and scholars should also take into consideration the ways writers appropriate and circulate knowledge to the diverse audiences in their lives, across multiple genres and languages—and as time unfolds. Broadening the lens to account for such translingual agency might also benefit U.S.-based graduate writing pedagogies, the author ultimately suggests.
April 2018
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Abstract
The ‘Learner-Driven Feedback’ (LDF) procedure is innovative in its combination of approaches to feedback provision in second/foreign language writing instruction which a) respond to learners’ individual queries and b) employ digital modes of delivery ([anonymised ] 2016). In LDF, formative feedback is given by the teacher, but the learners indicate on what aspects of their writing and in what mode they would like to receive feedback. In this study, LDF was used with 36 postgraduate students of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class at a university in Germany. The presented analysis of survey data highlights high levels of receptivity to LDF and reveals students’ perceptions of the affordances of different digital delivery modes for improving their writing. While feedback in the form of margin comment bubbles was perceived to be helpful to foster improvement in general language accuracy, students preferred emailed or audio-recorded feedback for the improvement of their writing related academic skills. The potential applicability of LDF for EAP and other writing instruction contexts is discussed based on these findings.
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Better science through rhetoric: A new model and pilot program for training graduate student science writers ↗
Abstract
Graduate programs in the sciences offer minimal support for writing, yet there is an increasing need for scientists to engage with the public and policy makers. To address this need, the authors describe an innovative, cross-disciplinary, National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded training program in rhetoric and writing for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduate students and faculty at the University of Rhode Island. The program offers a theory-driven, flexible, scalable model that could be adopted in a variety of institutional contexts.