Lee Ann Carroll writes about the results of a case study she participated in as the director of the Pepperdine University writing center. She is part of a movement called Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) that works toward having more writing in college. Not just in English, but in Engineering, Business, and the Sciences.
2. THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK´S ORIGEN
Lee Ann Carroll writes about the results of a case study she participated in as the
director of the Pepperdine University writing center. She is part of a movement
called Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) that works toward having more
writing in college. Not just in English, but in Engineering, Business, and the
Sciences.
She and several other professors wanted to find some answers for the common
complaint of faculty “why can’t these kids write?”. A team of mathematicians
and compositions decided to study a group of students for all their four years at
college and see how their writing developed.
Information retrieved literally from: http://adventurerightlyconsidered11.wordpress.com/lee-ann-carrolls-rehearsing-new-
roles/
3. THEORETICAL QUESTIONS ADDRESSED IN THE
CHAPTERS
What is the writing development in college?
a) The result of a maturation that is embedded in a larger
process in time (years).
b) The “value added”: the growth promoted by the efforts
of the institutions, professors, and students themselves.
How this type of development "looks"? How we can
explore it?
4. THE RESEARCH QUESTION AND THE AUTHOR´
STANCE
How students’ experiences in their first two
year of college could affect their
development as writers?
The author recognizes that the first year
composition courses are only a piece of a
larger picture of the college writing
development.
Consequently, it also represents a transitional
moment within such development.
5. THE RESEARCH DESING
Compressive portfolios with college writing samples of
students in junior and senior years (textual analysis of
instructors’ comments, grades obtained and
argumentative and rhetoric strategies used by the
writers).
Interviews with students to identify beliefs and values
on writing according to their retrospective experiences
based on their portfolios (e.g., they were asked to talk
about the successful learning experiences, the most
representative text of their learning, and about their
difficulties and strategies to solve them).
Collection and textual analysis of the catalog
descriptions for English courses (the analysis of the
official curriculum).
Writing workshops for the research team to analyze the
data.
6. FINDINGS
regarding students´ perspectives
The college students in freshman year feel/think that
they have to adjust their writing to the instructors’
demands (which they interpret as idiosyncratic) in order
to get their grades and therefore being successful.
However, freshman students do not recognize
necessarily the reasons why they should change the way
in which they wrote before starting college.
During later stages of college education, students
start to feel identified with specific features of
disciplinary and professional writing (conventional
and standardized genres), because they have
understood that becoming, for instance, a
journalist, a scientist, or a psychologist imposes
writing demands as well.
7. FINDINGS
regarding students´ perspectives
The senior students recognize that in the junior years they would
not have been able to write sophisticated papers or projects that
they actually had produced in senior years.
However, they do not think that their writing has improved,
rather than it has transformed (it is different in terms of complex
structure and content).
Students selected as meaningful writing
experiences those that represented challenges and
milestones of their personal growth (as living
abroad), as well as experiences that allow them to
explore (practices and communities) outside the
classrooms (which they called “real world”), and use
other types of diffusion means (e.g., digital
portfolios or videos): these writing experiences
seem to expand the students´ knowledge base.
8. FINDINGS
regarding students´ perspectives
The less meaningful texts selected by students were those
associated with personal experiences, unless these texts had been
related to their professional education; for instance, writing about
their parents´ divorce, if the student was studying psychology (senior
students).
FINDINGS
regarding composition courses
The composition courses for first year students are
mandatory and aim at practicing essay writing (3 per
quarter) embedded in a process of iterative revisions and
feedback of peers and support of instructor and the writing
center. The composition instructors work in a colleague
team to discuss their teaching materials, assignments, and
readings; however, there are not standard syllabus, final
exam, or final project that all instructors have to apply
evenly.
9. THEORETHICAL CONCLUSIONS
The student development does not follow a neat and linear
progression.
The rhetorical sophistication is the result of how students have
figured out by themselves how to cope with it, rather than as a
result of formal instruction.
10. DEBATES
Critical thinking is demanded and graded by professor in general education
courses (first and second years), but it is not taking in consideration the role of
the sophisticated knowledge, which freshman student cannot afford
necessarily to achieve the instructors´ expectations.
More writing experiences in the curriculum not necessarily would improve
qualitatively writing abilities. There is a gap in writing both qualitatively and
quantitatively across the courses. These variations that students have
experienced seem to be more by accident than by instructional design.
From students’ perspectives: student learning (what students
know or changes in their thinking and interests) is not
identical to the written text; therefore, final papers are not
representative of their ability as writers.
Even for some students, selecting a final paper was not
possible, because they felt that their progress took place
across different courses and moments rather than in specific
texts (implications for further research projects).
11. DEBATES
What expectations could have the institutions and
university teachers in terms of developments after first
year classes or core courses?
12. DEBATES
What might students expect reasonably to learn about
writing in the freshman courses?
What is the challenge in first-year composition courses?
13. DEBATES
regarding assessment and writing
regarding disciplinary teachers and compositionists
14. MY INSIGHTS …
Practical implications in training experiences for university
teachers led by composition scholars:
These two chapters are valuable resources to discuss with
university teachers what they think of the students´
perceptions. Giving room to their voices as well.
Implications for further research:
Collecting new data from the university teachers perspectives
could be useful to explore what they are expecting:
Is there a developmental approach behind their ideas of teaching
and learning?
Do faculty members are aware of the writing demands in their fields
to the extent that they would like to teach them to the students?
Approaching to the development of writing and its learning
from the different voices that are involved (e.g., university
directives, university teachers, and students) might be
convenient to gain new insights in this topic.