Written Communication Jul 2011

Tracing Discursive Resources: How Students Use Prior Genre Knowledge to Negotiate New Writing Contexts in First-Year Composition

Mary Jo Reiff University of Kansas ; Anis Bawarshi University of Washington

Abstract

While longitudinal research within the field of writing studies has contributed to our understanding of postsecondary students’ writing development, there has been less attention given to the discursive resources students bring with them into writing classrooms and how they make use of these resources in first-year composition courses. This article reports findings from a cross-institutional research study that examines how students access and make use of prior genre knowledge when they encounter new writing tasks in first-year composition courses. Findings reveal a range of ways student make use of prior genre knowledge, with some students breaking down their genre knowledge into useful strategies and repurposing it, and with others maintaining known genres regardless of task.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2011-07-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088311410183
Open Access
Closed
Topics
first-year composition

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (25)

  1. Shepherd (2025)
    Writing Transfer beyond FYC
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Rothschild et al. (2024)
    Disciplinarity and Transfer Ten Years Later: A Multi-Institutional Investigatio…
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Whitney (2024)
    Instructional Note: Working the Whirlwind: SmartArt and Reflection as Introduct…
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  4. Yancey et al. (2023)
    Readiness to Learn: Variations in How Students Engage with the Teaching for Tra…
    College Composition and Communication
  5. Messina et al. (2023)
    Prompting Reflection: Using Corpus Linguistic Methods in the Local Assessment o…
    Written Communication
Show all 25 →
  1. Lindenman (2022)
    Theorizing Writing Differently: How Community-Engaged Projects in First-Year Co…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Rounsaville et al. (2022)
    Relationality in the Transfer of Writing Knowledge
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Smith et al. (2021)
    Writing Transfer, Integration, and the Need for the Long View
    College Composition and Communication
  4. Williams (2021)
    Feature: What are we doing with this?”: How High School Students’ Lived and Exp…
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  5. Ahmed (2021)
    “Helping Me Learn New Things Every Day”: The Power of Community College Student…
    Written Communication
  6. White (2021)
    “When It’s Outside of You”
    Pedagogy
  7. Tardy et al. (2020)
    Teaching and Researching Genre Knowledge: Toward an Enhanced Theoretical Framework
    Written Communication
  8. Driscoll et al. (2020)
    Genre Knowledge and Writing Development: Results From the Writing Transfer Project
    Written Communication
  9. Yancey et al. (2019)
    The Teaching for Transfer Curriculum: The Role of Concurrent Transfer and Insid…
    College Composition and Communication
  10. Roderick (2019)
    Self-Regulation and Rhetorical Problem Solving: How Graduate Students Adapt to …
    Written Communication
  11. Shivers-McNair et al. (2019)
    An Intersectional Technofeminist Framework for Community-Driven Technology Innovation
    Computers and Composition
  12. Stinnett (2019)
    Using Objective-Motivated Knowledge Activation to Support Writing Transfer in FYC
    College Composition and Communication
  13. Pickering (2018)
    Navigating Discourses of Power Through Relationships
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  14. Shepherd (2018)
    Digital Writing, Multimodality, and Learning Transfer: Crafting Connections bet…
    Computers and Composition
  15. Miller et al. (2018)
    Genre: Permanence and Change
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  16. Saidy (2018)
    Feature: Beyond Words on the Page: Using Multimodal Composing to Aid in the Tra…
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  17. DePalma et al. (2015)
    A Bag Full of Snakes: Negotiating the Challenges of Multimodal Composition
    Computers and Composition
  18. Kohn (2015)
    How Professional Writing Pedagogy and University–Workplace Partnerships Can Sha…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  19. Shepherd (2015)
    FB in FYC: Facebook Use Among First-Year Composition Students
    Computers and Composition
  20. Rounsaville (2014)
    Situating Transnational Genre Knowledge
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (3)

  1. Artemeva et al. (2010)
    Awareness Versus Production: Probing Students’ Antecedent Genre Knowledge
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Nowacek (2007)
    Toward a Theory of Interdsciplinary Connections: A Classroom Study of Talk and Text
    Research in the Teaching of English
  3. McCarthy (1987)
    A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum
    Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 8 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1177/004839318101100305
     ↗
  2. Bazerman, C. ( 2009). Genre and cognitive development: Beyond writing to learn . In C. Bazerman, A. Bonini, &…
     ↗
  3. Devitt, A. ( 2007). Transferability and genres. In C. Keller & C. Weisser (Eds.), Locations of composition (p…
     ↗
  4. 10.1525/ae.1987.14.4.02a00050
     ↗
  5. 10.2307/4140679
     ↗
  6. 10.1080/00335638409383686
     ↗
  7. 10.3102/0013189X018001016
     ↗
  8. 10.2307/4140684
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 77 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Computers and Composition Jun 2026
    Student perceptions of screen recording and screencast assignments in first-year writing ↗
    Julie Townsend; Melanie Gagich
    first-year composition
  2. Computers and Composition Jun 2026
    Integrating generative AI in first-year writing: Lessons from a pilot initiative ↗
    Christopher McVey; Pary Fassihi; Shuang Geng; Sarah Madsen Hardy; Matthew Parfitt
    first-year composition artificial intelligence
  3. Pedagogy Jan 2026
    Mining Reading ↗
    Lisa M. Swan; Tes Schaeffer
    first-year composition multimodality multilingual writers
  4. College Composition and Communication Dec 2025
    Writing Transfer beyond FYC ↗
    Ryan P. Shepherd
    first-year composition transfer empirical research multimodality multilingual writers
  5. Composition Forum Oct 2025
    Counterstory and Genre Praxis in the First-Year Writing Classroom: A Prospective Analysis ↗
    first-year composition two-year college race and writing