1.2. 3 v :9 . (33.51... .9. I . 53mm: 2 \i‘: A it. 7. hr. . .2. n.f v.1. Alli : .xun. T5312..." 2.3.. if. .95.. (8.. i . . ‘ udmmhwmwwi 3 gwham f 5:315“? ,éafi (H555. llllllllllllllll hilllllllllfllllllllllll 3 1293 01413 8931 LIBRARY l Michigan State University This is to certify that the dissertation entitled A Contextual Study of Writing Instruction in Two Post-Secondary Settings: Managerial Communications and English for Academic Purposes presented by Charles J. Brainer has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for PhoDo degreein En91i5h Maj/flaw Major professor MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0— 12771 A-..—-—_-.—-— PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or baton onto duo. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE A CONTEXTUAL STUDY OF WRITING INSTRUCTION IN TWO POST-SECONDARY SETTINGS: MANAGERIAL COMMUNICATIONS AND ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES BY Charles J. Brainer A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1996 ABSTRACT A CONTEXTUAL STUDY OF WRITING INSTRUCTION IN TWO POST-SECONDARY SETTINGS: MANAGERIAL COMMUNICATIONS AND ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES BY Charles J. Brainer An. important. aspect. of university-based English for Academic Purposes (BAP) writing instruction is preparing students for the writing demands they will face in their academic studies (Johns, 1991). However, the specific nature of these writing demands is still not well understood (Carson & Leki, 1994), particularly at the graduate level (Prior, 1991). To better determine the writing needs of graduate level EAP writers, researchers need to go beyond simply identifying the external written conventions of disciplinary genres (Swales, 1990) or identifying representative writing tasks (e.g., Horowitz, 1986; Bridgeman & Carlson, 1984) to understanding how these tasks and conventions are used by instructors to develop students' advanced academic discourse skills. To provide a more explicit representation of purposes and uses of writing in an advanced disciplinary-based setting, a classroom study of a graduate level "writing" course, Managerial Communications, was conducted. A parallel study in an advanced EAP writing course was also conducted to provide a basis for comparing the instructors' approaches to teaching writing. A triangulated approach to data collection was used in which instructor interviews were "balanced" by student interviews, classroom observation, and the collection and analysis of classroom artifacts (e.g., student writing samples). A framework of contextual variables was developed and applied to investigate the dynamic and interactive nature of variables influencing writing instruction in these two advanced post-secondary settings. Significant differences were found between the two instructors' values, purposes, and expectations for writing. These differences suggest that more contextually-based studies of writing in advanced post-secondary settings are needed, and that EAP writing instructors need to broaden their concept of academic writing to consider the diverse orientations, purposes, and expectations which exist for writing at the graduate level. To my children (Amy, David, and Michelle) and especially to my wife, Joy, my best friend and most faithful encourager. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my family for their encouragement and understanding during the process of writing. I would also like to acknowledge the following individuals for their valuable assistance in preparing this manuscript: Regina Laupa (for excellent secretarial support, and especially, for diligence in preparing the figures) ; Terri Williams (for excellent secretarial support and for coordinating the preparation of the final manuscript); Amy Brainer (for valuable editorial suggestions); Joy Brainer (for typing in revisions); and to Ruth Bennett and Leighanna Grupp for their assistance in typing up interview transcripts. My thanks, also, to the staff and faculty of the Intensive English Program at Colorado State University for their patience and understanding during the summer of 1996. Special thanks to Patti Cowell for her generous encouragement. I would like to thank Susan Gass for all of the support she gave me during my graduate studies and Paul Munsell, Alan Beretta, and Marilyn Wilson for their friendship and counsel during my time at MSU. Thanks also to Charlene Polio for her willingness to serve on my committee late in the process. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Lord for the daily "manna" He provided during the final months of writing. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Purpose of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND ASSUMPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Concept of Academic Discourse Acquisition The Process of Academic Discourse Acquisition The Graduate Classroom as an Important Setting for the Acquisition of Advanced Disciplinary Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Instructor as a Key Agent in Representing the Demands of Advanced Academic Writing . . . The Notion of "Context" in Writing Studies . . viii Identifying Significant Context Variables of Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings . . Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Need for Contextual Classroom-Based Approaches to Writing Research . . . . . . . ix Hi4 F‘OtDFJH 14 19 22 29 39 44 47 49 49 The Need for Interpretive or Ethnographic Approaches to Classroom-Based Contextual Studies of Writing Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Site Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 4 RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Writing Instruction in a Graduate Level Managerial Communications Course . . . . . . vi 53 55 55 56 58 62 64 65 66 Purposes/Goals for Writing in a Managerial Communications Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Setting Influences Impacting Writing Instruction in the MC Course . . . . . . . . . 70 Instructor Values and Beliefs About Writing . . 74 A Top-Down Approach to Writing . . . . . . 75 A High Standard for "Correct" Form on the Written Product . . . . . . . . . . 77 A Belief in Unitary Writing Competence and the Possibility of Writing Skills Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 MC Instructor's Orientation Toward Writing . . 81 Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . 87 A Classroom Setting Vignette . . . . . . . 88 Instructor Classroom Rules . . . . . . . . 89 Types of Writing Tasks Assigned . . . . . 91 Designated Audience for Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . 93 Feedback and Evaluation of Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Summary....................99 Writing Instruction in an Advanced English for Academic Purposes Course . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Goals and Purposes for Writing in an Advanced EAP Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Setting Influences Impacting Writing Instruction in an Advanced EAP Course . . . . 110 Instructor Values and Beliefs About Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Classroom Community . . . . . . . . . . 116 Peer Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Risk-Taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Emphasis on the Writing Process . . . 120 EAP Instructor' 5 Orientation Toward Writing . 121 Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . 124 A Classroom Setting Vignette . . . . . . 124 Instructor Classroom Roles . . . . . . . 126 Types of Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . 127 Designated Audience for Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Feedback and Evaluation of Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 In-class Feedback . . . . . . . . . 132 Instructor Feedback on Student Drafts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Comparing Writing Instruction in Advanced BAP. and Managerial Communications Courses . . . . . . . . 144 Setting Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 vii A Comparison of Instructor Values and Beliefs About Writing . . . . . . . . . Attitudes Toward the Process of Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attitudes Toward the Written Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Comparison of Instructor Orientations Toward Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Comparison of Purposes and Goals for Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Comparison of Classroom Setting/ Instructional Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . Assigned Writing Tasks . . . . . . . . A Comparison of Instructor Feedback and Evaluation Practices . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of the Study for Writing Research ' Advanced Post-Secondary Classrooms . . . . . . . The Value of Using a Framework of Context Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Value of an Interpretive, Naturalistic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Value of Comparing Writing Instruction in a Managerial Communications Course and an Advanced EAP Writing Course . . . . Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of Study for Writing Instruction in Advanced Disciplinary-Based Settings . . . . The Need for Writing Instruction at the Advanced Academic Level . . . . . . . . . . The Value of Advanced (Disciplinary-Based) Writing Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . Hindrances to Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings . . . . . . Institutional Constraints on the Role of the Instructor . . . . . . . . . . The Instructor as Evaluator . . . The Essential Institutional Role of the Instructor . . . . . Multiple Purposes for Writing . . . . Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of Study for Writing Instruction in Advanced EAP Settings . . . . . . . . . . . The Need to Expand the Concept of Academic Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . The Need to Differentiate the Writing Needs of Graduate Level EAP Writers . . . . Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii 148 148 148 149 151 151 152 153 153 155 157 159 159 164 165 167 169 169 170 172 172 173 174 174 176 178 178 180 182 A Final Note . Chapter Notes APPENDIX A (Preliminary Instructor and Student Interview Questions) APPENDIX B (Instructor Interviews) APPENDIX C (Routine Letter) LIST OF REFERENCES ix 187 189 190 203 265 266 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 - Student/Instructor Rankings of 1“: Course Orientations Toward Writing . . . . . . . . . . 87 Table 2 - Type of Student Errors Corrected: MC Course . 97 Table 3 - Student/Instructor Rankings of EAP Course Orientations Toward Writing . . . . . . . . . 124 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure LIST OF FIGURES A Continuum of Academic Discourse Acquisition at the University Level . . . . . . . . . . . 14 A Model of Context Variables Involved in the Production of Written Text in a Graduate Classroom 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 2 3 A Model of Context Variables Involved in the Production of Written Text in a Graduate Classroom (repeated) . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Comparison of the Roles of the Disciplinary-Based Classroom Instructor and the Disciplinary-Based Writing Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 A ComparisOn of Roles Between the Disciplinary- Based Writing Instructor and the Advanced Level EAP Writing Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings . . . . . . . . 45 Triangulated Research Methodologies . . . . . 59 Context/Setting Roles of the Managerial Communications Instructor . . . . . . . . . . 71 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction in a Managerial Communications Course . . . 101 - Context/Setting Roles of the EAP Course Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction ix: an .Advanced. English for .Academic Purposes Writing Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 12 - A Summary Comparison of Context Variables in MC and EAP Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings (revised) . . 163 xi Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Background Despite several decades of well established practice, considerable: disagreement still exists. among' English. for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instructors concerning approaches to advanced EAP writing instruction. The central issue is: How can EAP instructors best prepare students for the anticipated writing demands of university study? At least two distinct approaches to this issue can be identified. Advocates of a "general academic" approach contend that there are a number of generic academic writing skills (e.g. summarizing, paraphrasing, notetaking etc.) taught in the EAP classroom which are transferable and which constitute sufficient preparation for writing in the university (Spack, 1988; Dudley-Evans, 1995). Advocates of this approach also argue that EAP writing instructors should not be responsible for teaching students how to write in particular disciplinary genres nor should they attempt to introduce students to the plethora of possible writing assignment types that may await them outside the EAP classroom. Influenced by L1 studies of writing across the curriculum and the development of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) 2 courses and programs, another group of EAP writing jpractitioners argue ‘that. a general academic approach. to advanced EAP writing instruction is insufficient in that it slights preparation for the "real" academic writing tasks found across the curriculum and that it ignores the distinctiveness of these tasks when compared to those of the freshman composition or ESL classroom (Horowitz, 1986) . These practitioners have further argued that a general approach fails to recognize, and hence, to prepare students for the unique ways in which various disciplines use language rhetorically to represent and extend relevant knowledge (Johns, 1990; Leki, 1995). Although two distinct perspectives on EAP writing instruction seem to have been identified, an often overlooked, yet important aspect of this discussion is the broad scope of post-secondary academic settings in which EAP writing instruction takes place. Part of the problem in framing the discussion has been the lack of distinction among student populations within these settings. While most of the relevant L1 and.L2 writing research has focused on the writing needs of undergraduate students, relatively fewer studies have focused on the advanced academic discourse needs of graduate students (Prior, 1991). Yet, many university-based EAP training sites work with significant numbers of graduate students. The EAP program site selected in this study, for example, had a graduate student population of nearly sixty-five percent at the time the study was conducted. 3 Distinguishing these two populations is important for two reasons. First of all, by not making a distinction between these populations, an assumption is made that the writing needs of undergraduate and graduate students are the same. In the following section, I will argue that needs are different and that a general approach to academic writing may not be sufficient for graduate EAP writers. ‘While it. may be argued ‘whether 'undergraduates (particularly lower division students) are truly expected to write across the curriculum as biologists, historians, or sociologists (Carson & Leki 1994), the need for graduate students to acquire, or at least, to begin producing the discourse and conventions of disciplinary writing in their respective fields of study is more apparent. Advanced academic writing, particularly at the graduate level, involves more than the successful completion of assigned classroom*writing tasks. It involves learning hOW‘tO encode subject knowledge in a disciplinary specific mode of discourse or genre. Developing facility with disciplinary genres requires understanding the relevant conversations (i.e. theoretical/empirical discussions) of a particular discipline as well as understanding how these conversations should be appropriately represented in writing. Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman's (1988) study of a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric recounts the difficulties this student had in representing his newly acquired knowledge in appropriate discipline specific genres. In other words, at 4 this advanced level of academic study, the struggle for this student was not just with declarative knowledge (knowing what to write about) but also with procedural knowledge (knowing h9g:to represent these ideas) - Anson, 1988, p. 8. This study also illustrated that the effective writing strategies employed by this student in undergraduate study were not always transferable to a new disciplinary mode of writing. Consequently, this student had to learn and apply a new set of discourse skills. Johns (1995) provides another way of conceptualizing the differences in expectations between undergraduate and graduate student writers with her distinction of "classroom genres" (writing tasks that are unique and distinctive to the classroom — e.g., essay examinations) and "authentic genres" (actual tasks used by practitioners in a disciplinary field - e.g., research article). While Johns herself argues that it is necessary for undergraduate writers to become familiar with both genres, one can see an even more pressing need for graduate students to become experienced in both understanding and producing authentic genres as "experts-in-training" (Belcher, 1995). If the discourse expectations of graduate students are different from those of undergraduate students, then it seems reasonable that the type of preparation graduate level EAP writers receive should reflect these differences and would, of necessity, involve more than a general academic approach to *writing instruction. 5 While I have attempted to illustrate the intuitive differences between the writing expectations for these two student populations, more empirical studies are needed to further inform graduate level EAP writing pedagogy. In particular, EAP practitioners need to become more aware of the unique demands of learning how to write in a field-specific genre in a disciplinary specific context. Two distinct lines of research (in both L1 & L2) have attempted to address the need for writing instructors to better understand the nature of academic writing demands in disciplines other than English Literature and Composition or ESL. One area of research involves surveys of representative academic writing tasks (e.g., Horowitz, 1986; Bridgeman & Carlson, 1984). Another area of research involves genre analysis. Studies of representative tasks, though these have focused primarily on the writing needs of undergraduate students, have been beneficial in revealing the diverse nature of assignments across the university curriculum and have highlighted the differences between the self-directed writing assignments sometimes found in English composition and ESL writing courses and the more audience directed assignments found in other disciplines (Horowitz, 1986). These studies, though they have reinforced the need to examine the nature of writing required outside the English composition or ESL classroom, remain, by themselves, rather artifactual. They are artifactual in that they report these assignments in Jinn. Isl 6 isolation without providing sufficient background in the actual purpose, presentation, or evaluation of these tasks or how these tasks are used by instructors to initiate students into the relevant discussions of a discipline (Bartholomae, 1985; Rymer, 1988). Recent work in genre analysis (Swales, 1990) has illustrated the differences in convention and form which distinguish disciplinary discourse communities.l If such differences in form and convention exist in consistent and predictable ways between disciplines, it would seem that EAP writing instructors could simply identify these differences, translate them into neat pedagogical units, and then teach these to their students. However, learning to write in advanced field-specific discourse is more than simply mastering conventions of a particular genre. In its most basic sense, disciplinary writing is rhetoric and epistemology - a way to "think" a discipline (Hanson, 1988). Disciplinary genres reflect specific ways of encoding the relevant theoretical discussions in a particular field. In order to become members of a disciplinary discourse community (Berkenkotter, et al, 1988; Bartholomae, 1985), then, it is essential for graduate students to learn how to link the conversations (the relevant theoretical discussions) of a given field with the appropriate genre conventions (linguistic, rhetorical, stylistic) of its discourse community. 7 Genre analysis, if used only to identify external textual conventions, does not fully address the question of how these conventions are taught or learned in advanced academic settings. In other words, the creation of discourse taxonomies alone does not "correlate the textual characteristics ofiwriting - its mode, genre, or conventions - with the pragmatic characteristics of its use, such as its purpose and the discourse community that surrounds it" (Anson, 1988, p.15). Genre analysis cannot be divorced from issues of context - how these genres are used in specific settings. The key point here is that genres should not be exclusively characterized by their textual features, but also by the purposes they provide their users: discourse communities. Genres are the tools as well as the properties of discourse communities (Swales, 1990). To better inform EAP writing instruction for advanced or graduate level students, researchers will have to go beyond simply identifying the external conventions of disciplinary genres or collecting representative writing tasks to a greater functional and contextual understanding of writing in advanced academic settings. By "functional", I mean understanding the purposes behind the use of representative tasks and genres in advanced academic settings. By "contextual", I mean looking at the dynamics of how writing is used and practiced in a particular setting (i.e., the academic classroom) to promote the acquisition and/or use of disciplinary-specific discourse / genres . 8 To facilitate a functional and contextual understanding of advanced academic writing, more classroom-based research in disciplinary contexts is needed (Connor & Kramer, 1995; Joliffe & Brier, 1988; McDonough, 1986). By learning more about the actual purposes and practices of advanced academic writing through such classroom based studies, EAP writing practitioners could inform their writing pedagogy by comparing these purposes and practices with their own to determine how well they are preparing graduate level students for the demands of advanced academic writing. Purpose of Study To facilitate a comparison of the purposes and practices of advanced EAP writing instruction and the purposes and uses of writing in an actual disciplinary context, I have designed a study with the following dimensions. First of all, I will begin by examining the writing which is done in a disciplinary-specific setting (graduate Classroom) from a functional and contextual perspective. My Objective in doing so will be to gain a more situated understanding of the purposes and uses of writing in an advanced academic setting and how writing is used in such a se‘tzting to promote and develop disciplinary-specific discourse skills. A second dimension of my study will involve a classroom— based study of writing instruction in an advanced EAP setting. The goal of this aspect of the study will be to consider how 9 the writing preparation received in an advanced EAP context relates to the purposes and uses of writing in a particular advanced disciplinary context. As a more direct step in comparing these two contexts, I have selected a disciplinary-based course focused on developing advanced writing abilities: Managerial Communications. There are at least two reasons why I have chosen a disciplinary-based "writing" course for this study. First of all, as a field-specific writing course for graduate students in the College of Business, the Managerial Communications course provides a unique opportunity to examine an.explicit.representation.of the purposes and uses of writing in an advanced disciplinary setting. Secondly, since both courses represent advanced level writing courses, they provide (an opportunity to compare how the instructor in each context prepares students for anticipated advanced level2 written «communication needs. In particular, similarities and (differences between writing instruction in both contexts can be considered in terms of the instructors' values about and FNeroses for writing, the audiences and contexts created for Writing, expectations for the finished products, and the lllanner and nature of feedback given during the process of text Production. In the next section, I will outline the research questions I have developed to investigate writing instruction intthe two contexts described above. .Although I am outlining the questions here, some of the pertinent background 10 assumptions informing these questions will be developed more fully in Chapter 2. Research Questions The research questions below represent a functional and contextual approach to the study of writing in two advanced academic settings. In particular, these questions consider the variables impacting writing instruction in these advanced academic settings and highlight the important role of the ‘writing instructor. Initial Research Questions 1. Purposes/Goals: What are the purposes/goals for writing reflected in each of these courses? What type of writing/writing tasks are the instructors in each course preparing their students for? 2. Beliefs/Values: What beliefs or values about writing does each instructor hold? How do these values/beliefs affect the purposes and uses of writing in each classroom? 3. What; orientations3 (developmental, curricular, professional) toward writing do these instructors bring to these courses? 4. Background/Setting Influences: What are the significant background/setting influences (e.g. institutional, disciplinary) affecting the instructors' orientations toward and purposes for writing? 5. Activities/Tasks: What contexts and purposes do these instructors create for ‘writing? IHow are students prepared for writing tasks? What audiences are created for these tasks? 6. Evaluation/Feedback: How are task design and feedback related to the instructors' stated purposes and values about writing? What kind of feedback‘ and evaluation is given on writing? 11 7. Comparisons of the two contexts: How are these two contexts similar/different in terms of the instructors' purposes for writing, the structure of classroom activities and writing tasks, audiences and contexts created for writing, expectations for students' texts, and the manner and nature of feedback given during the process of text production? How can the similarities/differences be accounted for? My hope is that these preliminary research questions will help me better identify some of the significant functional and contextual variables impacting writing instruction in these two contexts and that they will help facilitate a comparison of writing purposes and practices in both contexts. These research questions will also serve as part of my initial framework of inquiry along with the additional background assumptions developed in the next chapter. Chapter Notes 1Although identifying specific discourse communities is not always straightforward (cf. Swales, 1990, pp. 24-27) for defining characteristics of a discourse community), for the purposes of this paper I have chosen to use "discourse community" to refer to the traditional disciplinary delineations of higher education - e.g. history, biology, etc. This is meant to be a working, pragmatic definition and not one that is entirely reflective of the various sub-communities and discourses which may exist within these general disciplinary distinctions. 2I use the term "advanced" rather than "graduate" because the EAP coursezenrolled both undergraduate and.graduate students. 3These "orientations" will be explained further in Chapter 2. 4For the purposes of this study, I will identify feedback as input which is given during the process of writing while evaluation is input received on a "final" product. Chapter 2 BACKGROUND ASSUMPTIONS In the last chapter, I began by briefly outlining two contrasting approaches to advanced EAP writing instruction. I also mentioned that one of the problems in considering the validity of either approach is that the writing needs of graduate and undergraduate students have not been sufficiently distinguished in research studies. In particular, I developed the idea that the needs of these two populations are distinct and that the specialized discourse needs of graduate level writers deserved more consideration in writing studies. Because of the greater expectation for graduate students to be able to re-produce "authentic" disciplinary genres, I proposed that advanced or graduate level EAP writing instruction needed to go beyond a general academic approach. To do so, I suggested that EAP instructors needed to become more familiar with the demands of writing in advanced disciplinary contexts. I then briefly related the contributions and limitations of prior representative task and genre analysis research and the need. to 'understand the Purposes and uses of writing in advanced disciplinary-based classroom settings from a functional and contextual Perspective. 12 13 Finally, I stated that EAP writing instructors working with.advanced.EAP students need to know the connection between how they as instructors prepare students for advanced academic writing and the purposes and uses of writing in actual disciplinary classroom contexts. As a more direct step in attempting such a comparison, I outlined a classroom study of writing instruction in both an EAP and a disciplinary-based context. In this next chapter, I will consider several important background assumptions which further inform my study: the concept of academic discourse acquisition, the process of academic discourse acquisition, the graduate classroom as an important setting in the process of advanced disciplinary discourse acquisition, the classroom instructor as an important agent in this setting, and the unique roles of the disciplinary-based and EAP writing instructor. At the end of this chapter, I will discuss the notion of "context" as it has been conceptualized in writing research. I will conclude by outlining the contextual variables I will consider in my investigation of writing instruction in two advanced post- secondary settings. The assumptions which I will develop in the next section not only provide further background for my study, but will also serve as potential heuristics in preliminary data collection and analysis. 14 The Concept of Academic Discourse Acquisition Learning to write successfully at the university level requires an increasingly sophisticated acquisition’ of academic discourse. This progression of acquisition may be illustrated as follows: Entering Undergraduates Undergraduate Majors Graduate Students (Freshmen, Sophomores) (Juniors, Seniors) BOA. Mvo/MeSe Ph.D. I I Standard Written Discipline-Specific English (SWE) Discourse/Genres Figure 1 A Continuum of Academic Discourse Acquisition at the University Level Figure 1 represents a continuum of advanced academic discourse acquisition. It is important to note that as a student, NES or NNESE progresses in his/her academic career, facility with both standard written English (SWEY’ and discipline specific discourse and genres is essential. In addition, as is illustrated in Figure 1, we expect that the need to acquire field-specific discourse increases with a student's level of training so that at the Ph.D. level, we expect students not only to be able to comprehend disciplinary-specific discourse but to produce it as well. To illustrate the progression highlighted in Figure 1, I will now briefly consider the:two forms of academic discourse indicated on the continuum . 15 Standard written English (SWE) may be thought of as the general academic discourse of the university (Bizzel, 1982). SWE is not so much distinguished by its form as it is by its audience orientation. ]1: is reader-based and. contrasts significantly with writer-based or personalized, self- expressive*writing (Hays & Flower, 1979). ‘Undergraduates are expected to be sufficiently competent in this type of discourse to complete a wide range of writing activities across the university curriculum. For many NES writers, standard written English represents, initially, an extension of the type of writing done prior to entering the university. It is a continuation of the transactional mode of writing which becomes more and more predominant as a student progresses through his/her pre- university schooling (Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, & Rosen, 1975) and which represents the "intertextuality" (Halliday and Hassan, 1989) of our educational system. Intertextuality refers to the type of internal cohesion which exists in our school system as students learn to assimilate the language and conventions of shared SWE texts. Conversely, a lack of intertextuality or congruence between a student's home literacy background and the literacy expectations of the school (Michaels, 1981 or Heath, 1983) can also hinder the successful acquisition and use of SWE. For less accomplished writers, learning to write at the university level represents a significant transition or process of acculturation. These "basic writers" (Bizzell, 1982) are l6 disadvantaged in that they need to learn the new code as well as the new conversations of academic discourse (Bartholomae, 1985). Undergraduate EAP writers, though they may well have mastered a high level of L1 general academic literacy in their own educational system“, may still lack facility with the linguistic code and rhetorical schema of advanced academic writing in English. In addition, these NNES writers come without many of the cultural and educational "texts" which native speakers have assimilated during their pre—university academic preparation. Consequently, many EAP writers face significant challenges with both the linguistic and conceptual demands of advanced academic writing in American universities. On the other side of the continuum of academic discourse acquisition is the learning of disciplinary specific discourse - the language and genres of particular discourse communities. This specialized field-specific discourse can be distinguished by a set of shared purposes, topics, lexis, and textual conventions. It may also be characterized by the knowledge claims and arguments accepted by its readers. It is through this field-specific discourse and its representative genres that disciplinary communities conduct the public exchange of ideas and by which they seek to extend their field's base of relevant knowledge. Examples of this disciplinary-based discourse can be found in scholarly, professional journals. First language writing research in the use and/or acquisition of field specific discourse has been focused l7 primarily on undergraduates learning to write across the curriculum.and the considerable challenge these students face in learning both the significant issues of each.discipline and the appropriate ways of conversing about these issues (McCarthy, 1987). As I mentioned in the first chapter, some researchers (Carson & Leki, 1994/Spack, 1988) dispute the notion that undergraduate writing involves demonstrated facility with a variety of academic genres. One of the arguments is that much of the writing undergraduates do across the disciplines is distinctly short-term in nature and represents limited exposure to actual disciplinary genres. Writing across the undergraduate curriculum involves the completion of specific writing tasks as a means of demonstrating curricular mastery and/or of obtaining an acceptable grade. .Although this may be true, especially with lower division students, in considering the continuum of academic discourse acquisition illustrated in Figure 1, we can infer that as an undergraduate advances in his program of study, there will be greater expectations for sophistication of field-related knowledge as well as for the appropriate written representation of this knowledge. As a student progresses through his/her graduate studies, the acquisition of specialized academic discourse becomes more of an expectation as an indication of an enculturation of thought which has already taken place. Goetz and LeCompte (1984) state that "the process of learning how to think like a member of a discipline is the primary purpose of graduate 18 schooling" (p. 103). And writing, of course, is one of the most tangible ways in which this acquired thought process can be demonstrated. If graduate school represents a training ground or site of disciplinary enculturation, we would expect that writing done in graduate level classrooms to follow Anson's (1988) expectations that ". . . such functions (of assigned writing) to become increasingly narrow and specific even within the college setting, reaching, at the graduate level, a nearly perfect match with the professional writing of the discipline itself" (p.14). Consequently, at the more advanced levels of academic preparation, we would expect instructors to develop writing tasks which would encourage the display of appropriate disciplinary discourse in terms of both content and form. As a student advances through his university study both kinds of discourse (SWE and discipline-specific) become important and are vital to a student's academic success. In a study of L1 (undergraduate) writers, Williamson (1988) contends that a student's failure to appropriate acceptable academic discourse translates into failure in academic contexts because of the unpredictability of the academic community's response to nonconforming discourse. For' graduate level EAP ‘writers, obtaining' discourse competence in specialized communities may be important not only for meeting immediate academic objectives (e.g., completing course assignments; writing a thesis), but also for continued professional success in many disciplines. Because 19 of the predominance of English internationally in many professional literatures (Baldauf & Jernudd, 1983) and the relative anonymity of NNES writers in such literatures, some researchers argue for a heightened awareness of the training function of advanced EAP writing instruction. Swales (1990), for example, contends that "the goal of EAP is achieved when non-native speakers can operate as members of the anglophone discourse communities that most likely dominate research areas" (p.11). Whether one views graduate level EAP writing training as preparation for immediate needs or as preparation for anticipatory needs, it.is evident that facility in writing disciplinary specific discourse is important for these students in their academic study (Schneider & Fujishima, 1995). The Process of Academic Discourse Acquisition This leads us to the question of how academic discourse, both SWE and discipline-specific discourse, is acquired. As was mentioned previously, for many NES students, the acquisition of SWE is an expected outcome of prior schooling. For these students, freshman composition is designed to be a refresher and reinforcer of SWE skills and discourse competence. For NES writers who do not enter the university well-prepared in writing SWE, a semester of freshman composition is expected to provide them with many of the requisite basic skills. And, depending upon the particular institution, a whole array of additional support services 20 including tutorials, writing centers, and remedial courses may exist to bring about this desired baseline of academic discourse competence. For undergraduate NNES writers, additional intensive English training may be required prior to freshman composition. In contrast, when we consider graduate students and their advanced discourse needs, we find that although the acquisition of disciplinary-specific discourse skills is often important to both their immediate academic goals and anticipated professional needs, direct instruction in these specialized discourse skills is not available in the same way that training in basic composition skills is for the undergraduate student. One could argue, of course, that once a student has passed freshman composition he has the needed discourse skills to be successful at the graduate level. However, limited. empirical study' has indicated otherwise (e.g., Casanave, 1995). Learning to write in a discipline is most often, by default, a tacit process of acquisition. Exactly how'graduate students acquire facility in field-specific discourse is not yet empirically known, but there are several variables which would seem to figure significantly into its acquisition. Of course, in the absence of established empirical findings, the following "variables" must be considered as no more than reasoned.hypotheses. However, these hypotheses are useful in helping to further frame my discussion of the acquisition.of disciplinary—specific discourse. 21 One contributing variable in acquiring disciplinary specific discourse may be practice in reading shared texts. The concept here is that students begin to internally assimilate such discourse through repeated exposure. However, even accomplished readers and writers of SWE can struggle to produce newly acquired declarative knowledge in appropriate field specific discourse (Berkenkotter, et al, 1988). Another variable in the process of disciplinary discourse acquisition may be the "dialogues" or individual feedback sessions which go on between student and advisor in the preparation of a final required written text in the student's academic program (i.e., a professional paper, thesis, or dissertation). But again, this is not well understood in the absence of empirical data, .Additionally, for the advanced.EAP writer, these consultative sessions may constitute nothing more than advisor editing and rewriting projects that do little to promote the internalizing of this discourse by the EAP writer. .Along these lines, Swales (1990: p. 106) suggests that part of the reason for the paucity of publications in international research by NNES researchers trained in U.S. institutions is their lack of acquired advanced discourse skills in English. Yet another variable:in the process of acquisition.is the graduate classroom.‘ Graduate classrooms as advanced disciplinary settings represent significant points of initiation 'into the conversations and conventions of a particular discourse community. They may also provide 22 opportunities for students to tacitly acquire disciplinary- specific discourse skills through practice and feedback (Joliffe & Brier, 1988). The Graduate Classroom as an Important Setting for the Acquisition of Advanced Disciplinary Discourse While the variables mentioned in the previous section are not meant to represent a complete list, they are potentially important in understanding the process of acquisition and have yet to be examined fully. Of those mentioned, the graduate classroom represents, perhaps, the variabLe of acquisition most easily observed. Yet examining writing acquisition in a graduate classroom is not entirely straightforward and constitutes a potentially complex undertaking because of the multiple context variables impacting the purposes and uses of writing in advanced academic settings which need to be identified and considered. A model of writing which considers the unique context variables and dynamics of writing in the graduate classroom can be represented as follows: I. A. Setting Influences 1. Disciplinary 2. Institutional II. Instructor Beliefs/Values About‘Writing (itj ‘[1 III. Instructor Orientations Toward'Writing A. Developmental B. Curricular C. Professional IV. Instructor Representation of‘Writing IOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOI A . Pumsgs . [:::> B. Tasks/Assignments c . EV‘luation of Ta, ks ......OOOOOOIOOOOOQ . V; Student Knowledge Sources VI. Student P rception of‘Writing Tasks' A. Background 8 . Declarative m C. Procedural VII. Student Task Production Strategies VIII. 'Written Product Feedback loop Figure 2 23 Higher Levels of Context B. Instructor Knowledge Sources 1. Background 2. Declarative 3. Procedural A Model of Context Variables Involved in the Production of‘Written Text in a Graduate Classroom 24 The preceding "model" illustrates my attempt to identify the potential variables impacting the production of a written text in a graduate classroom and to place these in a comprehensive framework. These variables have been adapted from other studies of writing in academic settings. In the following sections, I will describe particular aspects of this model and will reference the particular studies which have informed these aspects of the model. Even though I have designated the model for graduate classrooms, it can be applied to almost any academic classroom setting. There are only one or two features that would makes this model distinctive to graduate or post-secondary classrooms. I will make note of these in the following description. My purpose at this point will be to highlight a few of the more relevant general characteristics of this model. I will be referring to this model again in section (D) of this Chapter, "The Classroom Instructor as a Key Agent in Representing the Demands of Advanced Academic Writing." In the model represented in Figure 2, recognition is given to the setting influences and instructor knowledge sources. My notion of disciplinary and institutional "setting influences" was influenced by the studies of Herrington (1985) and Williamson (1988) which.I will refer to shortlyu Although they will not be a particular focus of this study, a general model of writing in advanced academic settings should acknowledge the impact of instructor knowledge sources on 25 his/her purposes for writing. This particular aspect of the model was influenced most by Anson's (1988) and Florio & Clark's (1983) conceptualizations of instructor knowledge sources. Setting influences are external to the instructor while knowledge sources are part of the instructor's prior experience and training. Both of these constitute higher levels of context impacting an instructor's beliefs/values about and orientations toward writing. These, in turn, have an effect on his/her representation of the task of writing (i.e., purposes for writing, types of tasks assigned, and the evaluation of written tasks or assignments). The model also illustrates that although the instructor's representation of the task of writing has a strong influence on the production of written text, this is mediated significantly by the background knowledge, perceptions, and production strategies of the student writer. One other feature of the model is that it recognizes the interactive. and recursive nature of task feedback and evaluation (see "feedback loop") on the future assignment and production of classroom writing tasks. As I will develop later, both the student response and feedback loop of the model were informed significantly by Nelson's study (1990) of student response. My point in representing this model of classroom writing is 'to illustrate the number of 'variables impacting’ the production of written text in a graduate classroom and the 26 necessity of research to go beyond consideration of representative tasks or written products alone. I will elaborate more on aspects of this model on the following pages. What makes this model of writing distinctive to the post- secondary or graduate classroom is recognition of the more pronounced effect of "disciplinary" and "institutional" setting influences on writing and the broader range of instructor orientations which may be represented in such classrooms. These setting influences highlight the fact that the post-secondary classroom, and particularly the graduate classroom, is an embedded context in that it simultaneously resides within at least two larger communities: the disciplinary and the institutional (Herrington, 1985). The institutional or university community is shaped by its particular history and mission (e.g., large public research university vs. private liberal arts college). Institutional factors have been shown to have an effect on the purposes and uses for writing in individual disciplinary classrooms. For example, Williamson's (1988) study of writing in three undergraduate academic disciplines (English, Biology, and Sociology) at one institution revealed differences in orientation toward writing based on local (university) conditions. For instance, he found the courses in biology (a major which aimed to prepare students for graduate study) to Ihave a strong emphasis on helping students learn disciplinary 27 writing conventions, while in Sociology (a major which sent few students to graduate school) the emphasis on writing was to display mastery of course content. Disciplinary communities‘5 (e.g., mechanical engineering, anthropology) are distinguished not only by the types of unique problems and issues they address, but also by the assumptions their members make concerning what constitutes valid knowledge claims and ways of proving or disproving these claims. Although both disciplinary and institutional setting influences may be influencing a particular instructor's approach to writing, they are not always complimentary. Often, part of the difficulty in understanding the function of writing in a classroom may be in determining the type of focus, disciplinary or institutional, held by the individual instructor in a particular classroom (Anson, 1988). Another distinctive feature of this model in relation to post-secondary classrooms is in terms of instructor orientations. The "instructor orientations" designated in Figure 2 have been adapted from Anson (1988, p.4) who suggested that at least three perspectives for studying writing in academic disciplines exist: developmental, curricular, and professional. In my research, I have Considered these three research perspectives as also distinct and potential "orientations" which an instructor might bring toward writing in any university level classroom. In my framework, an instructor with a "developmental" 28 orientation to writing would have as a primary goal teaching students how to ‘write "well" in general (e.g., how to organize; how to use language effectively, etc.). An instructor with a "curricular" orientation toward writing would use writing primarily as a means of testing mastery of curricular objectives and/or reinforcing the learning objectives of a particular course (e.g., essay and short answer exams). A more distinctive orientation for the post-secondary classroom, particularly in a graduate classroom, is the professional. An instructor with a "professional" orientation to writing would be interested in helping students practice the type of writing ("authentic genres" - Johns, 1995) they are likely' to use. professionally after completing' their academic studies. This orientation is distinguished from the developmental in that the focus for writing is on learning how to produce an "authentic" form or professional genre (e.g., research articles, marketing reports). Although a particular orientation may be favored by an instructor in a given academic classroom, these orientations are not exclusive of each other. It is possible, therefore, that all three orientations (developmental, curricular, and professional) may be represented by an instructor in a given Course. Nevertheless, these orientations are important in developing an understanding of the ways in which instructors ‘use writing to reinforce specific learning objectives. Despite the apparent complexity of investigating writing 29 in the advanced academic classroom, it is a readily observed and primary setting for disciplinary discourse acquisition, and thus, worthy of further attention. In the next section, I will consider the primary agent in representing the purposes and uses of writing in the classroom: the instructor. Instructor as a Key Agent in Representing the Demands of Advanced Academic Writing Having developed the idea of the graduate classroom as a primary setting for disciplinary discourse acquisition, it is important to look at the significant role of the classroom instructor in representing the demands of advanced academic writing to her students. I will begin by considering the general role of instructors in any graduate classroom in presenting advanced academic writing. It will then compare this general role with the special role of the graduate level disciplinary-based wgiting instructor. Finally, I will compare the role of the disciplinary-based writing instructor with that of the advanced level EAP instructor. To consider the, distinctive role of the classroom instructor, I will return to the model of context variables outlined previously (Figure 2). For the convenience of the reader, the model is illustrated once again. 30 I. Higher Levels of Context A. Setting Influences B. Instructor Knowledge Sources 1. Disciplinary 1. Background 2. Institutional 2. Declarative 3. Procedural II. Instructor Beliefs/Values About Writing III. Instructor Orientations Toward Writing A. Developmental B. Curricular C . Professional IV. Instructor Representation of Writing ..... ....... CD A. Purposes 3' h’k’flusiment’ ~ ' C: C. Evaluation of Tasks V. Student Knowledge Sources VI. Student Perception of Writing Tasks A. Background B. Declarative d C. Procedural VII. Student ask Production Strategies VIII. Written Product Feedback loop Figure 3 A Model of Context Variables Involved in the Production of Written Text in a Graduate Classroom (Repeated) 31 As is illustrated in the model, the instructor exerts several potential influences. on 'the student and..his/her perception of academic writing. To begin with, the instructor is both influenced and restrained by higher levels of context (I). These higher levels of context include setting influences and instructor knowledge sources. Setting influences, as highlighted previously, include institutional and disciplinary influences which affect the way in which an instructor represents relevant knowledge and writing within a particular course (Herrington, 1988; Joliffe & Brier, 1988; Anson, 1988). Knowledge sources (including background, declarative, and procedural) influence an instructor's presentation of both content and the task of writing. An instructor's representation of writing tasks in the classroom may also be influenced by his/her own attitudes toward writing. Mosenthal (1983) posits five approaches which instructors may exhibit in a classroom, ranging from an academic/utilitarian to a maturationist/ emancipatory perspective. These approaches, in fact, actually represent certain philosophies of or values about writing which affect how instructors present and evaluate writing in the classroom. As I developedearlier, these values may also be reflected in the pedagogical orientations (i.e. , developmental, curricular, professional) an instructor brings to the classroom. Besides these potential influences on classroom practice, a second area in which an instructor may exert even more direct influence on student perceptions of writing is through 32 the tasks/assignments s/he uses to prompt writing. At the graduate level, these tasks represent opportunities for students to practice and gain feedback in the use of specialized forms of discourse - a chance to "try them on" in order to internalize appropriate discourse forms. Nelson (1990), in her classroom-based study of academic assignments in a variety of disciplinary settings7, found that it was necessary to understand the presentation, interpretation, and evaluation of assignments in order to understand both the processes students underwent to complete assignments as well as the texts produced in the process. Nelson further suggests that an instructor's evaluation and feedback of specific tasks has a strong impact on student interpretation and completion of future tasks as well as on student perceptions of the functions and uses of writing in a course. Successful completion of classroom writing tasks does not automatically ‘translate into the acquisition of .academic discourse. IHowever, the assignment, completion, and evaluation-of tasks does represent one of the most powerful pedagogical tools in helping students acquire disciplinary- specific writing ability (Swales, 1990). In summary, it is important to see the classroom instructor as one who is influenced and to some degree constrained by higher order influences while at the same time seeing this instructor as one whose intentionality in the classroom can have a significant impact on students' 33 perception of what constitutes effective writing. In the previous section, I have considered the role of the graduate classroom instructor in general in representing the demands of advanced academic writing. As I mentioned in the design of my study in Chapter 1, I will be looking at the role of the disciplinary-based "writing" instructor in representing more explicitly the goals and purposes of advanced disciplinary writing in a particular setting. I will also be looking at the role of the advanced EAP writing instructor in representing the demands of advanced academic writing to graduate level EAP students. In the next section, I will_compare the role of the instructor in each of three settings: general content-focused classroom (i.e., one that is not specifically focused on teaching writing skills), disciplinary-based. writing classroom (such as Managerial Communications) , and the EAP writing classroom. The following generalizations I will present are not meant to signify absolute empirical realities, but rather, guiding assumptions in the initial design of my classroom study. I will begin by considering the content-focused graduate classroom. In this setting, the instructor's role in presenting disciplinary discourse conventions may be thought of as a more tacit one in which s/he functions as a "representative" of the target disciplinary discourse community. Rather than being explicitly taught discourse conventions by the instructor, students in this type of classroom will more than likely have to infer these 34 conventions from reading, lectures, or feedback on written assignments. On the other hand, in the disciplinary-based writing course, the "writing" instructor functions not only as a representative of the target discourse community, but also as a more overt "interpreter" or "translator." In this second role, the disciplinary-based writing instructor "explains" disciplinary discourse conventions to students” The differences between these two roles may be illustrated diagrammatically as follows: 35 Content-Focused Disciplinary-Based Instructor ‘Writing Instructor Role: Representative of Target Role: Representative and Discourse Community Interpreter of Target - Discourse Community + + Disciplinary Discourse Disciplinary Discourse Conventions Conventions ‘[]i Need to infer ‘[:L_ Explains to Students Students Figure 4 Comparison of the Roles of the Disciplinary-Based Classroom Instructor and the Disciplinary-Based Writing Instructor 36 The assumption that I have attempted to illustrate in the preceding section is that a disciplinary-based graduate level writing course, though it may be relatively rare within the university curriculum“, provides a unique opportunity to observe what is stressed as important in a particular discourse. community' by ‘making’ implicit assumptions about writing explicit. In terms of the EAP writing classroom, if we see one of the goals of advanced or graduate level EAP writing instruction as preparation for the anticipated writing demands of academic study, we can view the role of the EAP writing instructor as "interpreter" as well. However, as illustrated in Figure 5 which follows, the role of the EAP instructor as interpreter is complicated by at least two factors. First of all, in comparison with the disciplinary-based writing instructor, the EAP writing instructor does not have to represent and interpret just one particular discipline, but many, since s/he must work with students from a number of academic disciplines. Secondly, because s/he is not a member of most (or sometimes any) of the disciplinary discourse communities represented in his/her classroom, the EAP writing instructor must represent the demands of advanced academic writing as an "outsider." 37 A. Advanced level BAP writing Instructor EAP Writing Instructor Identify Multiple Disciplinary Ci) Discourses/Genres: Engineering Bus iness Represent to Computer Science e '- o ‘5 ‘0 .- o a . . . e a .. C U I ooooo . . Engineering Bus ines s Computer Science Multiple Potential Disciplinary Communities Represented in the Classroom B. The Disciplinary-Based Writing Instructor Discipline - (Business) Writing Instructor Business y Students Figure 5 A Comparison of Roles Between the Disciplinary-Based Writing Instructor and the Advanced Level EAP Writing Instructor 38 As Figure 5 illustrates, the roles of these two "writing" instructors, though they are both focused on preparing students for the demands of advanced academic writing, are far from identical. Despite the additional challenges and complexity of the interpretive role of the advanced level EAP writing instructor, this role cannot be ignored by the EAP writing instructor because of the essential preparatory function of the advanced EAP writing course. In the previous sections, I have discussed several important background assumptions informing my study: the process of academic discourse acquisition, the graduate classroom as an important setting for the acquisition of disciplinary specific discourse, the important role of the classroom instructor in this setting, and the special role of the advanced level writing instructor both disciplinary-based and EAP. These assumptions along with the research questions outlined in Chapter 1 provide the initial conceptual framework for a functional and contextual study of writing instruction in two advanced post-secondary classroom settings. In the next section I will devote considerable attention to the notion of "context." This is important because as I argued in Chapter 1, to better understand the purposes and uses of writing in advanced academic settings, these purposes and uses must be understood in the context of the classroom. However, because there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes "context" in the study of writing, it is necessary to understand the variety of ways it has been 39 represented in previous research. After discussing the possible parameters of context as they have been presented in writing research, I will outline a model of the potential context variables I will consider in my classroom-based study of ‘writing instruction. in disciplinary-based and EAP settings. The Notion of "Context" in Writing Studies Several problems exist in considering the notion of context in writing studies. One difficulty has been the way in which writing has been contrasted with speech in literacy research. Whereas speech has been typified as context- dependent, writing has often been thought of as a more decontextual mode of communication: "The chief difficulty of composition is its isolation from any particular situational context" (J.D. Hirsh, quoted in Brandt (1986), p. 141). Although most composition researchers now recognize the contextualized nature of writing (Brandt, 1986) and the influence that context has on the production of text (McCarthy, 1987/ Perelman, 1986), there remains considerable debate as to ‘whether context represents an enabling or restraining force on the writer. For some, dependence on context represents "writer-based" prose (Hays & Flower, 1979) - an inward focused barrier to effective writing most often found in the texts of less experienced writers. For Brandt, on the other hand, good writing does not involve minimizing context, but the continual attempt to evoke it over and over 40 again for the benefit of the reader. Somewhere in between these two views is the moderate perception of context as both an enabler/restrainer of meaning (Hudson, 1986). Part of the problem in identifying the influence of "context" on writing has been the lack of consensus on what constitutes "context" in particular writing studies. This leads to a second and more troubling difficulty with the notion of context, and that is, identifying the intrinsic dimension of context. By "intrinsic" dimension, I am referring’to the investigator's perspective of‘what.context is and "where" it can be found in relation to the writer. Below, I identify several different perspectives on the nature and location of context as found in the writing research literature. Some researchers perceive context. as that ‘which is external to the writer (Flower, 1989). Context may influence or even cue cognition, but it is ultimately independent of the writer's internal cognitive strategies (e.g., planning, rehearsing) for producing text. Similarly, context may also be viewed as distinct setting variables (Mosenthal, 1983/ Van Lier, 1988). These setting variables may be interactive, but there remains the possibility of isolating and keeping these aspects of context distinct. Another perspective on the nature of context explores the interdependency of writing and context (Halliday & Hassan, 1989). In their work, Halliday and Hassan develop the notions of "context of situation" and "context of culture" (ideas 41 originally developed by Malinowski, 1923 and Firth, 1935). Context of situation is the immediate climate of meaning surrounding the creation of text involving the field (setting), tenor (actors/participants) and mode (purpose) of a communicative event. This context of situation is always present and provides the background for both the production and understanding of a text. Context of culture involves the background knowledge, as set of prior texts, one brings to a communicative event. No text is created in a contextual vacuum in either its immediate or historical sense. Halliday and Hassan's concept of "intertextuality" means that the events of any classroom can only be understood on the basis of knowing and recognizing the texts (e.g., lessons, formats) which preceded them. Because they see these two contexts (situation and culture) as so fundamental to text production/understanding, Halliday and Hassan consider text and context as inseparable. In fact, Halliday makes explicit reference to context as "text with." Another more interdependent perspective of context in writing (Hudson, 1986) is that context may be found in the writer, the text, the surrounding context, or in all three. Similarly, Piazza (1987) considers context in three distinct dimensions: cognitive (i.e., interaction of writer background knowledge, problem of task, and strategies of completion), social (classroom setting and interaction), or cultural (meaning of events in larger contexts and from particular views). 42 Continuing in this vein, some researchers have emphasized the multi-layered.dimension of context" This means that there is never one single "context" which needs to be considered, but.rather, that for each immediate context observedq a number of interactive, nested contexts exist which simultaneously impact. and influence each. other (Van. Lier, 1988). For example, as was mentioned previously in this chapter, the disciplinary classroom represents a classroom community which at the same time is embedded within two larger communities: the disciplinary and the institutional (Herrington, 1985). Other researchers, outside of post-secondary settings (most notably, Heath (1983) ) have also demonstrated that the development of literacy/writing skills in the classroom is significantly impacted by larger community, societal, and cultural contexts. One further perspective on context is that it does not only represent a set of interactive variables, but it is, in fact, socially constructed by the participants themselves (Brandt, 1986/ Florio & Clark, 1983/ Odell & Goswami, 1982). Anson (1988), for example, argues that writers should be seen "not as mediators between static contexts and relatively stable groups of texts, but as people who themselves interpret and embody the characteristics of many contexts" (p.10). His point is that writers do not come to a task without a history of contexts that influence and shape any act of writing. From this perspective, it is impossible to separate 43 context from writer, since contexts are so essentially a part of who a writer is and the writing s/he does. .A more phenomenological perspective is represented by Brandt (1986), who maintains that individuals don't come upon contexts, but create them by assigning significance to the elements in their environment. Hudson (1986) takes an extreme relativist perspective on the meaning of context when he states, "Context involves the writer's perception of the circumstances surrounding the act of writing" (p.295). There are two reasons why I have included the preceding discussion of "context." First of all, I wanted to illustrate that "context" is not an easily identifiable set of variables which can be manipulated and controlled for by the seasoned writing researcher, but rather, it is a perspective that involves seeing the complex set of interrelationships between writer, text, and. setting (classroom, institutional, and larger'cultural influences). My second reason for discussing the notion of "context" in previous writing studies is that it has not.been viewed.or defined consistently, and therefore, it is essential that I operationally define my conceptualization of context for this particular study; This is my objective in the final section of this chapter. 44 Identifying Significant Context Variables of Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings In the following diagram (Figure 6) I have illustrated a preliminary model of the contextual variables influencing writing instruction in advanced academic settings. 45 Setting Influences: Disciplinary, Institutional Instructor's Background Knowledge % ‘ ‘Values/Beliefs writing: About‘Writing Purposes/Goals For Writing T1? Assigned Writing Tasks Developmental, Curricular, Professional Feedback/Evaluation of Tasks Figure 6 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction in Advanced Academic Settings Orientations Toward Feedback Loop 46 As can be seen, Figure 6 resembles the other model (Figure 2) represented earlier in this chapter. The most significant difference between the two is that Figure 6 highlights the contextual variables which exclusively influence writing instruction from the perspective of the writing instructor (student perception and student production strategies have been left out). Instead of a single category for "instructor representation of writing" (as represented in Figure 2) I have illustrated three categories (purposes / goals, assigned writing tasks, and task feedback/evaluation) to highlight their distinct importance when considering them from the perspective of the writing instructor. Having mentioned a few of the visual distinctives of this model, I will now briefly describe how I plan to employ this preliminary framework of contextual variables for investigating ‘writing instruction in both an EAP and a disciplinary-based setting. I plan to begin at the level of "purposes/goals" in this model by attempting to identify the specific purposes that each instructor has for writing in these separate settings. I will consider these purposes from two perspectives. One perspective will involve looking at how these purposes have been developed and shaped by various external setting influences (e.g., institutional, disciplinary), personal values and beliefs about writing, and instructional orientations toward writing. A second perspective will consider how these purposes have influenced and are reflected 47 in activities, tasks, and task evaluation. Having considered each classroom setting in this way, I will then consider similarities and differences in writing instruction in these two contexts. I will be particularly interested in comparing the instructors' values, purposes, and expectations for writing. My purpose in doing so will be to look at how writing instruction in one particular advanced EAP course relates to the purposes and expectations for writing in a particular disciplinary context. My hope is that such a comparison might inform further research and considerations in practice in the advanced writing training of graduate level EAP writers. In the following chapter, I will outline the methodology I employ to help me accomplish the research goals I have described. Chapter Notes 1The term "acquisition" is used here purposefully to indicate an expectation (by the academic community) for internalized competence (by students). 21 have chosen to use the designations NES (native English speaker) and.NNES (non-native English speaker) over NS and.NNS designations in this paper. 3The term SWE (Standard Written English) has been used widely in the literature and can be applied to writing in settings outside of academia (e.g. , news media). I am using it here to denote the baseline of written competence desired within the university which is in contrast with the non-standard writing of NES "basic writers." As I have indicated in the continuum, students' discourse needs become more academic or discipline- specific as s/he advances in his/her level of study. 48 ‘This may not always be a safe assumption due to differences in educational and cultural assumptions concerning the importance of academic literacy. ’I am using the term "graduate classroom" here to describe a classroom clearly set in a disciplinary context. Although many upper division undergraduate classrooms may also represent "disciplinary contexts," I have chosen to refer to the graduate classroom because it, in theory, more consistently represents a context in which disciplinary forms of writing are practiced and promoted. 6Although the designation of 'discourse community itself is disputed (Casanave, 1995) , I will continue to use it as I have as a useful way to focus discussion. 7Although Nelson's study was conducted in undergraduate settings, the variables illustrated in the completion of classroom tasks would be equally applicable to the graduate classroom. 8At the particular university where this study was conducted, I could only find two other courses (outside of Journalism) out of over ninety graduate academic programs that were readily identifiable as disciplinary-based writing courses at the graduate level. The two courses I located were listed as "proposal" writing courses. Although nearly a third of these programs had "methodology" courses, most.of these‘were related to instruction in quantitative analysis methods. Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY In Chapters 1 and 2 I developed the background assumptions and research questions that provide the initial framework of inquiry for my study. In both chapters, I emphasized the necessity for understanding the purposes and uses of advanced academic writing in the context of the classroom. In this chapter, I will once again take up this theme by considering the need for contextual classroom-based studies of writing as an alternative to text analysis and process-based research approaches. It will follow this by illustrating why a naturalistic, interpretive‘ approach to classroom-based studies of writing is an appropriate contextual approach. Finally, I will outline the preliminary research design I will use to address the significant research questions posed in this study. The Need for Contextual Classroom—Based Approaches to Writing Research In the first chapter, I discussed both the contributions and limitations of representative task identification and genre analysis in aiding our understanding of the purposes and uses of writing in advanced academic settings. In terms of 49 50 limitations, I mentioned that these two areas of research did not address the purposes and uses of writing in these settings from a functional and contextual perspective. At this point, I would like to further argue the need for contextual classroom-based studies of writing as an alternative to text- analysis and process-centered studies which have been predominant approaches to writing research during the past twenty-five years. Although much of the writing research conducted during the past twenty-five years has been oriented toward either text-analysis (the close inspection of written texts or products according to rhetorical and/or linguistic schemes - see Connor & Lauer, 1985) or process-based research (an attempt to illicit a writer's cognitive processes through simulation - e.g., Hayes & Flower, 1979), considerable interest in contextual writing studies has developed (Durst, 1990; Herrington, 1989) and a slow accumulation of such studies has taken place (e.g., Bekenkotter, et al., 1988; Casanave, 1995; Herrington, 1985; McCarthy, 1987; Nelson, 1990; Prior, 1991 & 1995; Schneider & Fujishima, 1995). Context-based research looks beyond the text or cognitive strategies of individual writers to the situational factors surrounding and influencing the writer and his/her processes of producing texts. Much of the impetus for looking at context in both L1 & L2 studies has been renewed interest in the classroom in an attempt to understand language learning/literacy development 51 in its situational context, including the specific instructional climate ‘which fosters and/or inhibits that learning (Perelman, 1986; Chaudron, 1988). The renewed interest in classroom studies of language learning/writing can also be seen as a:reaction against process/product research in education.in‘which.the classroom itself remained.a "black.box" while differences in outcome measures were assessed (Shulman, 1986; Long & Seliger, 1985). Sevigny (1981) characterizes the reaction of educational researchers against research which minimizes or ignores the very context, the classroom, it seeks to understand. by stating, "Past research has failed to carefully map out the complexity of classroom learning. It has proceeded to data processing before understanding the contexts against which the variables are considered" (p. 68). In L2 studies, both Van Lier (1988) and Chaudron (1988) have urged more careful consideration of the classroom as a basis for Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. Van Lier, in particular, has called for a program of research in which interaction is understood in context — a context which involves social as well as linguistic and cognitive variables. WatsoneGegeo (1988) further argues that the meaning and implications of instructional events need to be understood "across all theoretically salient or descriptively relevant micro or macro contexts in which (they are) embedded." (p. 578) Researchers interested in studying writing in context 52 have argued that in order to understand the writing which takes place in the classroom, one has to look beyond the texts students produce and the processes they employ in producing those texts, to the social contexts that the classroom provides for writing (McCarthy, 1987; Florio & Clark, 1983). Process studies, though they have attempted to go beyond the written text to understand the cognitive demands of writing and the strategies writers employ to meet these demands, have been criticized for their limited usefulness in providing insight into the primary educational context for the learning/acquisition of writing - the classroom. Perelman (1986) writes that ". . . the notion of a solitary writer whose main goal is the discovery and communication of personal meaning ignores the institutional context of classroom writing and the consequent attitudes students bring to it" (p.471). Yet, despite criticism of the non-contextualized study of writing and the current interest in exploring the relationship between writing and context particularly in the classroom, proportionately few contextual studies have been carried out in L1 or L2 in post-secondary contexts outside the composition classroom or English Department (Durst, 1990; Brandt, 1986), particularly at the more advanced or graduate level (Prior,1991) . That few post-secondary contextual studies have been conducted in settings outside the English Department is striking since most of the writing post-secondary students do , whether as NES or NNES students, is in disciplines outside the 53 English Department. For the NNES writer, the case is more striking as the vast majority of these students are in disciplines outside the Humanities (Braine, 1990; Desruisseaux, 1995). Although the number of disciplinary-based classroom studies is beginning to increase (Williamson, 1988; Herrington, 1988; Nelson, 1990; Casanave, 1995; Prior, 1995), there is a continued need to better understand writing in the context of the advanced academic classroom setting. The Need for Interpretive or Ethnographic Approaches to Classroom-Based Contextual Studies of Writing The framework for the study'I have developed in the first two chapters maintains that investigating writing in an contextually dependent activity. To further explore this complexity, a research approach is needed that can go beyond classroom observational schemes research which, according to Mehan (1979), "minimizes the contribution of students, neglects the interrelationships of verbal to non-verbal behavior, obscures the contingent nature of interaction, and ignores the (often multiple) functions of language" (p.14). In other words, observational schemes may be inadequate for exploring the complexity of multiple purposes and context variables for writing which are evident in advanced academic classroom settings, and thus, a more interpretive or ethnographic research perspective is needed.2 Kantor, et a1 (1981) describe ethnography as the ". . . 54 concern for discovering and elaborating upon specific features of context." (p.296) Ulichny (1991), emphasizing the holistic aspect of ethnography, contends that "it (ethnography) describes the people, setting, and the social texts they produce together in relation to the entire System of which they are a part." (p.2) Yet ethnography, despite a prevalent misconception, is not only descriptive. Its aim is cultural analysis and explanation, "not discovering the continent of meaning and mapping out its bodyless landscape." (Geertz, 1973, p.62) Ulichny (1991) , modifying a Geertzian phrase, calls for "thick explanation" as well as thick description. Explanation, not prediction, occurs in ethnography by building models (Qperatignal - based on observation, representational - based on the multiple perspectives of participants, and explanatory - based on theory) throughout the stages of investigation (Lutz, 1981) and by moving between micro views of particular events to macro views of context (Ulichny, 1991). In summary, I believe that an ethnographic or interpretive research perspective is the most appropriate contextual approach to studying writing in advanced academic classrooms because it allows for the complex, embedded, and multi-dimensional nature of such settings. Ulichny (1991) writes: Ethnographies, because they deal in the complexities of human activities, and uncover the properties that bind us together as a group - which are normally implicit and taken for granted, but not fully understood - they provide teachers and learners with a unique and 55 compelling view of their practice. (p.7) In the rest of this chapter, I will describe my research design which incorporates the interpretive perspectives outlined in the preceding section. Research Design Background My research will be focused on the nature of advanced writing instruction in two distinct post-secondary contexts: an advanced EAP writing classroom and a Managerial Communications classroom. As I have mentioned previously, my decision to focus on "writing" instruction and "writing" instructors was based on my desire to investigate and compare overt presentations and conversations about writing in advanced EAP and disciplinary- based settings from an interpretive perspective. In order to explore these settings as fully as possible, I have developed a naturalistic, qualitative31research design. Below, I will briefly outline 'my reasons for developing this type of research design for my study. Although the goal of naturalistic research is "to uncover some of the significant features of the informants' culture, not to presume to know in advance what these features are" (Doheny & Odell, 1985), preliminary questions and hypotheses were used to guide both the design of the study and the collection and analysis of data. Yet, unlike more 56 verificative research designs, the questions and hypotheses were subject to revision and modification W prgcess of investigation. Although I entered the study with a framework and assumptions for observing writing instruction in advanced academic settings, I was also open to grounding findings in the data when appropriate rather than seeking to simply verify a predetermined set of hypotheses (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Although I was very much interested in the individual (emic) views and perspectives of each instructor on writing and writing instruction, this was not an exclusive concern. Consequently, throughout the study; I sought.a balance between sensitizing concepts (generated by myself as researcher) and indigenous concepts (generated by the participants themselves) - Patton, 1990. Site Selection Data collection occurred.in two writing courses in.a mid- sized research university (20,000 students) in a western state. The EAP writing course selected for the study is the last general course in written communication for students in the intensive English program at this university. "Written Communication" combines reading and writing with the focus being on using unedited academic texts as resources in the production of written texts. Typically, most of the students in this class are graduate students (65% +). However, the term in which this course was observed, the class was more evenly balanced in terms of undergraduate and graduate level 57 students. Although I was primarily interested in how the instructor attempted to prepare graduate level EAP writers for advanced academic writing, the mixed student population represented a real life setting variable which needed to be considered. As it turned out, the mixed (undergraduate & graduate) nature of the class ended up providing additional comparisons and insights for my study.4 The EAP class met daily for eighty minutes for thirty total class days (40 instructional hours). Managerial Communications was chosen as the disciplinary- based writing course for the following reasons. First of all, Business as an academic major represents the most popular field of study for international students (Desruisseaux, 1995) and, as such, should be of considerable interest to EAP educators. Secondly, and most importantly, Management Communications represents a disciplinary-based course with a primary focus on improving advanced written communications abilities. .As cited in the Chapter 2 Notes (#8), a designated course to teach advanced writing skills at the graduate level is difficult to find and provides a unique opportunity to examine explicit disciplinary-based notions of writing. The Management Communications course I observed is designed primarily for graduate students majoring in Management studies, but it is open to all graduate Business majors who have completed an undergraduate course in Business Communications or who have demonstrated that they have taken the equivalent of such a course. The major emphasis of the 58 class is written communications while a smaller segment is focused on interpersonal communication skills. Managerial Communications met for three days a week for fifty minutes for a total of forty-two class days (35 instructional hours). My attempt was to attend at least 80% of all class days in both classes and attend all classes devoted explicitly to written communication. I was able to accomplish these goals in both classes. Data Collection Initial research questions outlined in Chapter 1 as well as the framework of context variables developed in Chapter 2 were used.to focus preliminary data collection and analysis of data in my study. These guided initial data collection but were not meant to rigidly preclude additional observations and themes which generated directly from the data. I employed three main strategies for collecting data in my study: participant observation, scheduled interviews with each instructor, and scheduled interviews with selected students from each course. I also collected relevant classroom artifacts (e.g., class assignments, student written texts) as a supplement to the three main data sources. As I was most interested in the purposes and uses for writing from the perspective of each instructor, I considered the instructor interviews as the primary source of data. I used the student interviews, field observations, and classroom artifacts to balance or triangulate the perspectives gained from the instructor interviews. Figure 7 illustrates this 59 triangulation of perspectives: Instructor Interviews Student Perspectives on participant Interviews C:> Writing Instruction <2: Observation if Collection of Classroom Artifacts Figure 7 Triangulated Research Methodologies In the following section, I will briefly describe these data collection strategies. A.primary source of data for my study was the scheduled, standardized, open-ended interviews (Patton, 1990) I conducted with each instructor. As I mentioned, I also conducted interviews with students as another form of triangulation to balance instructor perspectives. The interview questions were derived from.both the theoretical assumptions/frameworks with which I entered the study and from my classroom observations. The interviews were standardized in that interview questions were prepared beforehand and were not.generated during the 60 course of the interview (see Appendix A). However, follow-up questions were asked to clarify or expand upon the participants' answers. The interviews were open-ended in that participants were not required to respond to a pre-selected set of categories but could answer the questions in their own words. Each interview was audio-taped. In addition, each instructor interview was fully transcribed (see Appendix B). Permission was gained from participants prior to interviews and a letter informing them of their rights and responsibilities as an interviewee was given to each. In the write-up, anonymity has been assured by using pseudonyms for both students and instructors. To collect interview data, I scheduled three separate interviews with the instructor and with four students in each class. All interviews were conducted as scheduled except the last interview for one student in the EAP course who "passed" the TOEFL’ (i.e., received the minimal entry score required for full admittance to graduate study at the university) and consequently dropped out of his EAP courses before the last week of class. My selection of student informants in each course was criterion-based. The criteria used was as follows: level of academic study (graduate students preferred over undergraduates); academic major (business-related); gender; and representativeness (to be explained later). Since the student informants in the Managerial 61 Communications course were all graduate business majors, the first two criteria were particularly important in my selection of student informants in the EAP course which had.a more mixed student population in terms of academic level and major. In the EAP course, I selected all graduate student informants except for one EAP transfer student who was in her last year of undergraduate study prior to entering a graduate program. The EAP students interviewed had majors in accounting, management, construction management, and water resources management. Although not absolutely essential to the purposes of my study, I attempted to look at a mix of genders in each course. In the EAP course, three males and one female were selected for interviews. In the Managerial Communications course, two males and two females were interviewed. The final criteria. for student informant selection, "representativeness", referred to my desire to try and avoid unusual cases. Consequently, after observing both classes for several days, I tried to select informants who I thought were representative of students who typically enrolled in each of these courses. Before making my final selections of student informants, I consulted with each instructor to confirm my perspectives on informant representativeness. .A second data gathering strategy involved participant observation. In the role of observer-as-participant (Doheny- Farina & Odell, 1985) , I attended each course and participated in a manner which seemed natural and appropriate to both 62 myself and the individual instructor. I did not attempt to participate as a member of either class, but explained my unique role in the classroom during the first day of class. While observing, I wrote down field notes and audio-taped each class session I attended. My purpose in taping each class was to aid the completeness of my notes and to facilitate later review. An additional source of data involved the collection of class handouts, syllabi, and assignment prompts, as well as sample assignments with teacher feedback and evaluation. My purpose in collecting these documents as stated previously was not for the sake of analysis in their own right, but for their potential "illumination" of patterns or themes discovered through the other data collection strategies as another method of triangulation. Data Analysis In a qualitative study, data collection and data analysis are linked in an evolving and recursive process. Data collection methods are refined with exposure to the field and data analysis occurs throughout the data collection process. Data analysis in this study, though initially driven by frameworks and assumptions informing the study, also involved inductive analysis and allowed for findings gleaned from repeated analysis of observation and interview data. In general, the process I followed in analyzing my field notes and interviews included analyzing data based on initial research questions and framework of context variables (Figure 63 6, Chapter 2), scanning data for recurrent patterns, identifying themes and/or categories, finding relationships between these themes or categories, searching data for discrepant or negative cases, refining these themes, identifying key linkages, theorizing, and, when appropriate, building representative models that will help to illustrate the key findings of the study. In regard to representing or displaying (illustrative) data, I attempted to follow the stages of presentation outlined in Goetz & LeCompte (1984): summary presentation of data; interpretation of data; integration of findings within broader areas of interest; and.applications.or significance of findings (pp. 205-206). These stages will be represented in Chapters 4 and 5. In Chapter 4, the summary presentation of data will include prose (particularly, low-inference descriptions and quotes) and graphic displays (e.g., figures, tables) when appropriate. In the same chapter, data will be interpreted according to preliminary research questions and background frameworks as well as by patterns and themes which have been generated inductively in the study. In Chapter 5, key results will be integrated within and applications made to writing research in advanced disciplinary-based academic settings, disciplinary-specific writing instruction, and graduate level EAP writing instruction. Overall, the research design I have outlined above has 64 been established to aide a functional and contextual investigation of writing instruction in EAP and disciplinary- based settings according to the research questions and framework of context variables established in the first two chapters. This particular research design will also allow identification of themes and patterns which emerge directly from the data. In the next chapter, I will share results generated by the application of this research design. Chapter Notes 1"Naturalistic" emphasizes the study of writing as it occurs naturally in a setting without the purposeful manipulation of variables by the investigator. "Interpretive" refers to a research perspective in which an investigator does not presume to know all the significant context variables from the onset but seeks to identify and illuminate relevant features of context as a desired outcome of a particular study. iAlthough I am using the terms interpretive and ethnographic synonymously here, they are not always used so in the literature. I have chosen to identify my approach in this study as "interpretive" rather than "ethnographic" because ethnography to some researchers implies following certain theoretical tenets of classical anthropological research. 3I use these terms together as "naturalistic" refers to a conceptual approach (see Note #1 above) to research and "qualitative" to a category of methodological techniques. Consequently, when I am referring to an overall approach to research I will use the term naturalistic. ‘in a naturalistic study of writing in a classroom setting, the goal is to investigate and understand the dynamics of a "real" context rather than to artificially control setting variables. ‘The Test of EngliSh as a Foreign Language is required for admission to many universities in the U.S. Chapter 4 RESULTS In the last chapter, I presented the need for contextual classroom-based studies of writing in advanced academic settings. I then suggested that an ethnographic or interpretive research perspective was particularly suitable for contextually oriented classroom studies of writing. Finally, based on an interpretive research perspective, I outlined a qualitative, naturalistic research design for my study of writing instruction in two post-secondary classroom settings: Managerial Communications and English for Academic Purposes. In this chapter I will present the results of my investigation of these two settings according to the framework of contextual variables I outlined in Chapter 2 (see Figure 6). I will present the two classroom settings as separate cases. .After I have considered each case individually, I will conclude the chapter by briefly comparing writing instruction in these two cases. The goal of my investigation, as I have developed in Chapters 2 and 3, is totgain a better understanding of writing instruction in these two advanced post-secondary settings from a functional and contextual perspective. This means that I am 65 66 interested in looking at the instructors' purposes, values, and expectations for writing in the context of the classroom. To do this, I'll begin by looking at the instructors' stated purposes for writing in each of the courses. I will then consider the various setting influences and instructor values about writing which have impacted these purposes. I will follow this by looking at how the various setting influences and instructor values and.purposes for writing are represented in the design and evaluation of classroom writing tasks. Whenever' possible, I ‘will attempt to illustrate :my findings with low inference data sources (i.e., participant quotes). My particular interest will be in illustrating the perspectives of each instructor. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes by the instructor and informants will be from the scheduled interview sessions. Writing Instruction in a Graduate Level Managerial Communications Course The instructor of the Managerial Communications course, Dianefl, is an experienced instructor of business communications (for nearly ten years) and an active professional consultant to local corporations. Before earning her Ph.D. degree in business communications, Diane worked for almost twenty years in the corporate world. .As I mentioned in Chapter 3, the Managerial Communications (hereafter, MC) course Diane 'teaches is an upper level graduate course designed for students in the management concentration but open 67 to business majors in all areas of specialization (eight students ‘were enrolled. during the semester I observed). Although a portion of the course involves group dynamics and business communication principles, the focus of the MC course is on principles of effective written communication. PppposeszGoals for Writing in a Managerial Communications Course Diane's stated purposes and goals for the MC course clearly indicate her professional and developmental orientation toward writing. Diane's foremost purpose in the MC course was to prepare her students for the professional writing demands she anticipated they would face once they completed their graduate degrees. On the first day of class, Diane handed out a syllabus on which the purpose of the course was listed: "...to»developtcommunication skills necessary for the effective management of an organization." In our initial interview session, Diane reiterated this professional orientation toward writing when she stated, "My first job is to teach (the students) to write the way businesses want." While Diane's primary goal was to prepare students for the demands of writing in a professional business context, she believed that to do so involved developing their overall writing abilities. In our second interview, she stated: My main goal in class is to help them learn to write .better overall because even though I teach them certain formats and things in class, what they really need to .know is just the basics of the Seven C's and organization and be able to adapt to what the organization wants. The "Seven C's" Diane referred to were seven considerations of 68 "effective" written business communications (i.e., completeness, conciseness, consideration, concreteness, clarity, courtesy, and correctness) which she used as standards in evaluating student writing. My first interview with the student informants revealed that they understood the purposes of the course in ways similar to the instructor. One informant (Student C) stated Diane's main instructional goal in general developmental terms ("Her primary goal is to get you to learn"), while the other student informants referred more specifically to the professional purposes Diane established for the course: Student A3: To give students a business writing orientation; to teach the etiquette of business writing. Student B: To get a student to be confident and comfortable in doing things you're most likely to do (in a business context). Student D: To help develop managerial communication skills. Furthermore, these students believed that the instructor's professional orientation and purposes had direct relevance to their perceived future needs: Student A: (Diane) teaches so that it is slanted to the professional - she looks down the road. Student B: I know the goals (of the MC course) are right because of my experience (in business). While learning to write well overall and learning to write in a professional, business context were the instructor's goals for the MC course, Diane mentioned to the students in class and repeated to me in a couple of our 69 interview sessions that the College of Business desired the course to serve two additional, curricular purposes: (1) to help students write better academic papers in their graduate courses; and (2) to serve as a substitute option for the final professional paper required of students in the management major. Because these two College of Business goals reflected different. curricular purposes, a 'wide range of students enrolled in this course. Students in the first year of the Master's program as well as students completing their final semester were enrolled in this course. While these two institutional (College of Business) goals were not Diane's own instructional objectives for the MC course, they did have a significant impact on Diane's design of the major course writing assignment which I will develop in a later section. As illustrated in the preceding discussion, the MC course fulfilled a number of purposes. The course purposes may be represented as follows (for each designated purpose, I have indicated in parentheses the source of the course goal with its particular instructional orientation or focus): (1) to prepare students for anticipated professional business writing tasks (instructor/professional) (2) to develop students overall writing abilities (instructor/developmental) (3) to help students write better business course papers (College of Business/curricular) (4) to serve as a substitute for the required professional paper (College of Business/curricular) 70 Setping Ipfluences Impacting Wpitipg Ipstrugtion in the MC Course In my original framework of context variables influencing writing instruction in advanced post-secondary classrooms (Figure 6, page ), I identified two main setting influences: disciplinary and institutional. These influences have been considered in other studies of writing in advanced academic settings (Anson, 1988; Herrington, 1985) and have provided a useful distinction between instructors who portray writing from.aidisciplinary perspective (i.e., as initiation into the discussions and conventions of a particular discourse community) and those who portray it from a school or institutional perspective (i.e., as a means to reinforce and/or test the learning of specific course content). In my investigation, it became clear that these two perspectives were not sufficient to account for all of the setting influences impacting writing instruction in the MC course and that I needed to distinguish a separate "professional" setting influence in my framework. The recognition of a distinct professional setting influence became necessary in the MC course in that Diane portrayed the purposes of writing from the standpoint of the needs and expectations of the business community rather than from an academic or disciplinary perspective. As I will develop in the following sections, this professional setting influence had a significant impact (n1 Diane's 'orientation toward writing, her purposes for assigning writing, and the nature of the writing tasks she 71 assigned. Another way to understand the potential impact of these various setting influences on Diane's approach to writing instruction is to conceptualize these setting influences in terms of three simultaneous roles Diane operates within while teaching the MC course. These "setting" or "context" roles can be represented in the following way: E E . J I . I' J E' . 1' Role: Consultant Role: Member of Role: Member of to Business the Business Business Community College Faculty Communications Field m B Q‘ MC Course Instructor Figure 8 Context/Setting Roles of the Managerial Communications Instructor As illustrated in Figure 8, each of these setting roles is related to a particular setting influence. I will Below, describe the .relationship ibetween these roles and ‘their particular setting influences. The disciplinary setting influence is reflected in Diane's role as a professional in the field of business communications. Diane's identity as a member of the business 72 communications field was important to her. This was, perhaps, because of the unique stature she held as a business communications instructor in the College of Business. In one of our interview sessions, Diane told. me that although business communications represents a distinct academic field of specialization, it is not directly tied to any of the College of Business majors. Consequently, Diane told me that at other universities business communications courses and instructorstcould.belhoused outside of business colleges, most typically in English or journalism departments. She made it clear, however, that in her opinion and in the opinion of many of her business communication colleagues at other universities, the appropriate place to house the business communications specialization was in a college of business: Colleagues that I meet at conferences, when they hear we're in the College of Business, say, "You're so lucky," because (we're) actually working with the business college and the business students. ‘When (business communications instructors) are over in English they tend to be a little bit more only with English people and that style of writing. ‘ The affiliation of business communications with the business major was important to Diane. In mentioning the search. for’ an. additional business communications faculty member which was going on at the time of the study, Diane stated that it "was crucial" that the candidate selected "be up to date with the concepts in business today." Diane's role as a member of the business communications field also had an effect on her values and beliefs about what constituted good writing and its distinction from the type of 73 writing valued by instructors outside of the business college, most notably in "English" courses: (1) Some of the writing done in English is an unnatural mode and is not appropriate for business (instructor provides an example of overly formalized language, "hencewith"). (2) Avoid using adjectives...like you learned to do sometimes in English classes when you. got out. the thesaurus to figure out how many different ways you can say the same word - don't do that in Business writing. Throughout the course, Diane made distinctions between "business" and "English" writing to emphasize the style of writing preferred in business contexts. An institutional role in which Diane functioned as the MC course instructor was as a faculty member of the College of Business. In this role, Diane needed to be responsive to the interests of the College. As I mentioned, this institutional setting influence‘was indicated.by the two College onBusiness curricular course goals cited by the instructor. The goal of having students learn how to write better papers in their business courses reflected the College of Business faculty's concern about student writing and their hope that the MC course would help "take care" of this problem. The second curricular goal of having the final paper in MC count as the professional paper option for management majors was an attempt by the Management Department to increase graduation rates by substituting the final MC course paper for the required professional paper. Although Diane acknowledged these institutionally motivated objectives for the MC course and attempted to 74 address these in the course, they were not seen by the students as being entirely congruous with the professional purposes for writing Diane had established. This will be developed in the task and audience sections. A third role that Diane functioned in was as a«consultant to the business community. In the classroom, Diane would often appeal to her experience as a business consultant to reinforce her expectations for form and style. Because she believed that.her primary purpose was to teach the students to write "the way businesses want", Diane attempted to design her assignments to represent authentic managerial writing tasks. In addition, her goal in evaluating these assignments was to read them as a member of the business community. My preceding discussion on the various roles that Diane held as the MC course instructor illustrates the diverse setting influences impacting Diane's writing pedagogy and the necessity of recognizing these in order to understand the instructor's approach to teaching writing in this particular course. Ipstguctor Values and Beliefs About Writing In my model of context variables affecting writing instruction in post-secondary settings (Figure 6, Chapter 2), the instructor's values and beliefs about writing reflect both setting influences and the instructor's knowledge sources. This dual influence acknowledges that setting influences, while important, do not exclusively determine an instructor's beliefs or values about writing. These beliefs and values O} 75 have also been shaped by the particular knowledge sources an instructor brings to her position. The purpose of my study, however, will not be to attempt to determine the origin of instructor values and beliefs in terms of setting influences or knowledge sources. iRather, my purpose will be to represent several of the instructors' key values and beliefs about writing which seemed to be evident in each classroom and the type of impact they seemed to have on each instructor's approach to teaching writing. Diane's beliefs about writing strongly influenced her orientation toward. writing' and. her expectations for ‘the written work produced by the students. From my interviews with the instructor and the student informants, classroom observations, and an analysis of the instructor's grading of student writing, I have identified three values which appeared to have a significant influence on Diane's approach to teaching writing in the MC course: (1) a top-down approach to writing (2) a high standard for "correct" form on the written product (3) a belief in unitary writing competence and the possibility of writing skills transfer A Top-down Approach to Writing Diane's approach to writing can be classified as "top- down". By "top-down", I mean an approach to writing which views the composing process as a planned, linear, hierarchical process as opposed to what might be described as a bottom-up, generative, multiple draft, "discover as you write" approach COD out Dia pla edi Dia: out; the: pla: reg. she 'i'l'ii 1*19:. fl, ~"\a1 76 (Elbow, 1973). In many ways, Diane's views about the composing process resemble the practices of the "radical outliner" (described by Reid, 1984) who, after a period of cognitive incubation, executes the writing and revising of a draft in a relatively straightforward fashion. While explaining features of effective business writing, Diane told the students, "One of the keys, as you know, is planning." She also stressed that they needed to "plan and edit more than (they wrote)." For each of the assignments, Diane required the students to hand in drafts of their outlines. While she did not grade the outlines, she did look them over carefully to see if the students "had done good planning." For the final course writing assignment, Diane required the students to meet with her individually so that she could "approve" their outlines before they "began writing." Early in the course, while discussing several possible strategies for generating ideas for writing, Diane illustrated the brainstorming technique, "mind-mapping", on the blackboard. Although she presented it as a possible strategy for generating ideas, she was quick to add her own evaluation of this technique by stating, "I do well using outlines, but I would go nuts doing this." While Diane perceived her top-down approach to writing as a more efficient way to organize ideas, the students themselves held different perspectives on outlining as a strategy for composing. Although they complied with Diane's 77 request to provide an outline for each assignment, they also confided that outlining was not always their preferred strategy in approaching writing assignments: Student A: I research first, then outline. Student B: (Outlining first is) kind of like changing from left-handed to right-handed writing. Student D: I did it wrong this class - I did writing first, then outlined. ' When I followed up Student D's comment by asking if she thought her approach was atypical, she disagreed and stated that "most people don't typically outline first." Although Diane's top-down approach to writing was not a strategy adopted by the MC students, it appeared to fit in well with her own personal values about writing. It also had an effect on the way in which Diane provided feedback to students in the process of writing. A High Standapd for "Correct" Form on the Written Product Diane held strong ideas about "correctness" in writing and held high standards for form in the final written product. In discussing her expectations for the written product during the first few days of class, Diane told the students that "we must strive to be perfect". This seemed to be a motto for Diane's approach to evaluating student writing as was evidenced in a number of ways. One example is her use of a grammar checker program in class. For the first assignment, students were to learn to use a particular grammar checker program: Grammatik. Students were to apply the grammar checker after completing a draft of the "routine communication 78 case" assignment and were to bring a draft with the Grammatik markings to class so that Diane and the students could.go over them together. When the students brought in their drafts of the first assignment, Diane took time to comment on the "error flags" created on their texts by the Grammatik software. While looking over individual students' papers, Diane commented to the class: (1) I'm not worried about the number of words (in a sentence), but I am concerned about the number of prepositions - no more than ten percent prepositions in general. (2) We found in research on good "A" papers that there are no more than four to five "to be" verbs. Although in many ways her comments seemed to indicate a rigidly prescriptive approach to writing, Diane stated, "I don't want you to get locked into all these formulas. They function as general guidelines, indicators of good writing." Diane's prescriptive notion of "correctness" underscored her belief that.this was a feature of effective communication. During one class discussion, the distinction in usage of "who" and "whom" (in spoken conversation) was raised by one of the students. Diane asked my opinion. When I stated a descriptive observation that I thought "whom" was being phased out in informal conversation, Diane quickly offered a rebuttal, "But not in this class." Diane supported her' high standards for a "correct" written product by insisting that this was an important value of the business community: 79 (1) I'll take off seven points for the first typing or spelling error - that's usually the first thing people see in a document, is that. (2) But in general when I do consulting almost always the two big complaints are conciseness and correctness. Diane also believed that her high standards for correctness were desired by the College of Business and contrasted significantly with the standards for writing accepted by English composition instructors: (1) Undergraduate students are not given an accurate representation of their writing skills in English composition courses. They're not able to produce correct, presentable copy. Not enough care is given to form. (2) Some English teachers feel that the last comma (in a series) is not important, but I do. (classroom comment) Diane's criticism of writing in "English" classes stemmed from her belief that both the business faculty and business community had higher expectations for correctness for the written product. To a certain extent, Diane's beliefs in this regard were corroborated by the student informants, particularly with regard to the faculty in the College of Business: Student B: One professor told me, "A graduate student should present with correct English grammatical sense." Student C: Spelling problems and typos drive (the business college faculty) crazy. However, as I will illustrate in the evaluation section, the instructor's high standards for form were not always viewed.by the students as totally compatible with the professional audience Diane created for the course writing assignments. Nevr curr dive were busi. one - CODpe Prese that how 1 quiCl sane, huSir bUSin trans gene: all 0 enl'rir‘ with h. 80 Nevertheless, this particular value about writing was significant to Diane's approach and practice in the classroom. 'ef ' it W 't'n m e ence and the Poss'b' it of Epiting Skiils Transfer Although there were multiple purposes for writing evident in the MC course (developmental, professional, and curricular), Diane was able to personally reconcile these diverse purposes because she believed that good writing skills were the same whether in the academic classroom or in a business setting and that these skills were transferable from one context to another. When comparing the type of writing competencies the business community desired with those she presented to the students in the MC course, Diane maintained that the business community was "interested in people knowing how to get things out right away, right up front, doing it quickly, easily, with correctness in there - it's all the same, it's all the same thing." Because Diane believed the writing skills desired in the business community were similar to those desired by the business college faculty, she believed that these skills were transferable. In one of the interviews she stated, "These generic type of things - writing in the third person style - all of these things are transferable either to the business environment or to the academic environment." Diane's belief in unitary writing competence and the possibility of the transfer of writing skills was compatible with her prescriptive views of language and writing developed ear pur sit iL 81 earlier» Diane‘was also able to reconcile the diverse writing purposes and expectations of the course by believing that the writing skills she taught were applicable to any writing situation. MC instructor's Orientation Toward Writing Diane's orientation toward writing in the MC course was primarily developmental and professional. .Her developmental orientation was reflected in her values and beliefs about language and writing as well as in her evaluation of student writing. Her professional orientation was reflected in her choice of assignments and the audience she designated for these writing tasks. When describing setting influences earlier in this chapter, I mentioned the necessity of making a distinction between disciplinary and professional setting influences. Similarly, in considering my category of instructor orientations toward writing (i.e., developmental, curricular, professional - see Figure 6, page ) I found that I needed to expand my category of orientations to include a separate "disciplinary" distinctions In .Anson's (1988) model of research perSpectives on writing in the academic disciplines, the category of "professional" incorporates academic (disciplinary) and. professional (non-university) purposes because these purposes often overlap in professional contexts. An example of this might be the type of writing done by professionals in certain scientific or technical research oriented positions which reflects many of the characteristics 82 of writing done by university-based researchers. However, this overlapping of professional and disciplinary purposes for writing was not evident in the Managerial Communications course. When describing course purposes on the first day of class, Diane mentioned that "academic writing (was) not a focus" of the course. By "academic writing", Diane was referring to disciplinary-based research report writing - the type of writing which extends the knowledge base of a particular discipline and which is the typical genre of communication in scholarly, academic journals. While Diane used the term "academic" to describe this type of writing, I prefer to use the term "disciplinary" to make a distinction between this type of research orientation toward writing and the "curricular" orientation (i.e., writing that is used to reinforce and test learning of course content). The distinction between "disciplinary" and "professional" orientations seemed to go beyond the instructor's personal beliefs to a distinction made within the professional literature of the management field itself. In our first interview session, I asked Diane about the distinction she had made in class between "academic" and "business" writing and asked if such a distinction could be found in-professional publications within the field of management studies. Diane responded affirmatively and referred to the Academy of Management (the leading publication in this'field) which maintained three distinct journal formats to She 83 to appeal to different audiences. As described by Diane, the lead publication, the Agaggpy pf Managepept Jggrnal, is written as a disciplinary forum for the field of managerial studies. A second Agaggpy__gfi Mgpagement publication is the Review. However, Diane didn't find "too much difference" between the two journals as they both were "research oriented." She described the third Academy of Management publication, The Executive, as the publication written for professionals in business rather than academia. As Diane told me, the Executive's focus is not on reporting’ research findings, but. in jpresenting' practical professional concerns and issues to its readership. In the MC classroom, the distinction between professional and disciplinary or "academic" writing was brought out in several ways. On the first day of class, Diane told the students that she wanted to take one class period to look at academic research repOrt writing in case any of them "were thinking about writing a thesis or going on for a Ph.D." On the day set aside for "academic writing", Diane brought in several examples of this type of writing. Her examples consisted of experimental study reports taken from two different professional journals, including one example from the Aggggpy pfi_napgggpgpp_ggg;pgi. While going over handouts of these articles with the students, Diane criticized the style of writing in these articles several times and concluded the session by stating, "If our mission as a college is to get new 84 knowledge and disseminate it, we're not doing people a service when we do it this way." As I would discover, Diane's portrayal of disciplinary research writing was but one indicator of a general aversion to such writing throughout the College of Business as indicated by both the instructor and students. In an interview session, Diane mentioned that a College of Business colleague had told her recently that he "didn't read the Agademy pf Management Journal any longer" because of its highly academic and less practically relevant orientation. One of the student informants mentioned her surprise at the attitude of business college faculty toward disciplinary research writing: Student A: There is a lack of enthusiasm for scholarly writing (among the faculty) which seems strange because professors are required to publish. On the other hand, another student informant felt that this attitude toward disciplinary research writing was consistent with the nature of the business major: Student C: There's a strong underlying current of dislike among (business) faculty for academic writing. You don't do anything with (academic writing) - just contributing to academia...the art of BSing - a lot of it is. There are several possible reasons for this general attitude toward disciplinary research writing among the students and faculty in this particular business college. First of all, the College of Business at the institution where I conducted my study did not have a Ph.D. program in any of 85 the majors. Williamson's (1988) study of writing in undergraduate courses (see Chapter 2) in three separate disciplinary settings illustrated that an academic department's orientation to future graduate study had a significant impact on the instructors' orientation toward writing in the classroom. Although the MC course was a graduate course, there was not an expectation by the instructor or students that their Master's program was a stepping stone to the Ph.D. degree. Several comments by Diane and the student informants seemed to bear out this possible explanation. Diane told me that she thought of her students as future managers and professionals, few of whom would "use the academic style (of writing)" or "go on for Ph.D's." One of the student informants (Student C) stated his attitude toward academic writing in this way, "Academic writing is a turnoff - I won't have to do academic writing unless I'm in a Ph.D. program." Perhaps, in a college of business awarding Ph.D. degrees the attitude toward disciplinary research writing would be different. Diane provided another perspective on this attitude toward disciplinary research writing when she described the College of Business faculty's distinctive connection to the external business community: I think our business faculty is a little bit different than other faculty across campus because we do work with businesses so much and we hear from them what they want. Whereas, some of these specialties (i.e. , other academic fields) are not tied to a business community like we are, 86 and so they're definitely more academically oriented and they're groomed to look more at the academic style of writing. Several of the student informants agreed with Diane that the writing assigned in the College of Business classes was oriented to professional applications, not disciplinary research writing: Student B: In (academic writing) you write to impress, use ten dollar words, punch it up a little bit - not so much in business. (Writing) is more professionally related in business courses. Student C: Business profs. want you to get to the point - similar to business contexts...I'n1not surprised.by the lack of academic writing (in the business college), because the business world is not focused on academic writing. The attitude of the MC students and the College of Business faculty toward disciplinary research writing seemed to indicate a shared institutional value and served to illustrate a distinction between "professional" and "academic" orientations toward writing. Near the end of the course, I attempted to further validate this distinction between disciplinary and professional orientations from the perspective of the participants. I did this by explaining the various orientations toward writing an instructor might exhibit in a particular classroom (i.e., developmental, curricular, «disciplinary, and professional) to the student informants and Diane. I then asked them to rank these possible orientations (1 = highest priority, 4 = lowest) as they applied to the MC course.. As I mentioned earlier, though I prefer to use the 87 term "disciplinary" in describing academic research writing, I used Diane's term of "academic" when describing the various orientations toward writing to the participants. Table 1 Student/Instructor Rankings of MC Course Orientations Toward Writing Type of Orientation MC Instructor MC Students (N = 4)” Academic (disciplinary) 4 4,4,4,4 . Curricular 3 1,3,3,3 Developmental 1 3,1,2,1 iProfessional 2 2,2,1,1 '— iKey: 1 = highest priority, 4 = lowest priority 1 .As can be seen in Table 1, the students and Diane indicated by their rankings that the MC course was professionally, not academically oriented. While the students ranked the primary orientation of the course as "professional", Diane ranked it as "developmental". However, both rated the "academic" orientation as the lowest priority for the course. Assigned Writing Tasks In the previous sections, I have considered the impact of setting influences and Diane's values about writing on her classroom orientation and purposes for writing in the MC course. In this section, I will consider how these context variables were reflected.in the type of writing tasks selected by the instructor. I will begin my discussion of assigned writing tasks by describing the classroom setting in which these assignments were given. Within this section, I will provide a brief 88 vignette 'of a "typical" MC classroom session as well as a description of the main instructional roles that Diane held within the classroom. I will then describe the writing tasks assigned in the course, including the audience designated for each of these assignments. A Cigsszogp Setting Vignette Diane enters the classroom. A few students have already arrived and arranged the first two rows of the classroom into a single semi-circle facing the blackboard. Diane acknowledges the students' presence and proceeds to place her briefcase on a table at the front of the room. She carefully lays out separate stacks of handouts, notes, and overheads. Diane is soon engaged in a brief discussion with several of the students regarding an upcoming college sponsored career seminar. Within a few minutes, the rest of the class has assembled.and some informal conversationiamong'the students is taking place. Diane begins class and catches their attention, "So far, for the routine assignment, we have used a direct plan (for organization). For our next assignment we'll consider how'the indirect plan is used." Diane introduces the next writing assignment or "case": the "bad news" or refusal letter; 'To Ihelp illustrate her points, Diane displays examples of "bad news" letters on the overhead. Both "good" and "poor" examples of such letters are illustrated. Diane asks the students for their opinions on the various aspects of each model letter and the students offer comments and suggestions. Diane passes out a description of the bad news 89 letter assignment. Students are given a few minutes to look over the assignment and are encouraged to ask her questions about it. Several questions are asked about the format and the necessary items needed in the letter. Students appear to be negotiating and/or rehearsing appropriate ways to structure their assignments. The students seem to be satisfied with Diane's answers. Soon, no more questions are asked and the class is dismissed. t t C assroom Ro es In the setting influences section of this chapter, I described Diane's broader context or setting roles (e.g., member of the College of Business faculty). In the preceding section, I provided a brief vignette of a "typical" MC class which gives an indication of Diane's classroom presence or instructional style. In this next section, I will describe the classroom roles Diane maintained in the MC course to accomplish her instructional plans. In the MC classroom, Diane held two distinct roles: business colleague and authority on language and writing. Diane's classroom role as business colleague was evident in the way she perceived her relationship with the MC students. Although Diane also taught business communications to undergraduate students, it was clear that she viewed the MC students, astgraduate students, differentlyu On the first day of class, when asked by the MC students how they should address her, Diane told them, "You can call me Diane, but don't let the undergraduates hear you." Diane viewed the MC 90 students as future managers and fellow colleagues in business and referred to them several times during the course _ as "professionals." When classroom.discussion involved relevant business concepts and issues, Diane expected and relied on students to be conversant with these concepts and issues. Although Diane maintained a relatively collegial relationship with the MC students as fellow business professionals, she was clearly the authority and expert when it came to matters of language usage, style, and format. Several times early’ in ‘the course ‘the instructor's authority was challenged by one of the students (non- informant) who did not want to accept the instructor's guidelines for completing assignments. In one situation, the instructor and student held differences of opinion regarding 'the choice.of a particular word for one of the course writing assignments. The student wanted to use the word "require" in his reply against the advice of the instructor: Student: To me "require" doesn't sound that strong. Diane: To let you know, I would mark that down. If I were to grade it, I would grade it down - so you know my perceptions. The same student objected to the instructor's insistence CH1 including the concept of "resale" in the "bad news" letter assignment. Diane reasserted her authority by stating, "That's an example of how your opinion might be different than someone else." When the student persisted further in arguing this point, Diane took a firmer stance: When you leave this class, (student's name), you can do 91' whatever you want. This is what the experts say is the way to do it, and I have a lot of examples to show that this is the way they do it. These exchanges illustrate that although Diane perceived the students in. the iMC course to be professionals and colleagues in terms of content or professional knowledge, she was clearly“ the authority on the procedural aspects of writing. Diane's role as language/writing authority can be seen as consistent with her prescriptive views about language and writing. Diane's classroom roles as a business colleague and as the:authority on language/writing are worth noting since these disparate roles presented some difficulties for the students. This was probably most evident in the problem they had in reconciling Diane's role as a hypothetical professional. audience for class writing assignments with her extremely high standards for form in the written product. Types pf Wpitipg Tasks Assigned A brief description of the writing tasks assigned in the MC course is provided below: routine communications case: involved writing a memo to employees outlining a proposed series of training courses. "bad news" case: involved writing a letter in response to a customer complaint (situation provided by instructor). notebook project: involved preparing a personal resource manual including all class notes, assignments, and several student-selected professional articles. final report proposal: involved writing a proposal to a 92 hypothetical supervisor explaining the rationale and outline of the formal report. progress report: involved writing a memo to the hypothetical supervisor several weeks after the proposal describing progress made towards completion of the final report. formal report: involved writing an approximately twenty page report addressing a particular company problem or issue. The assignments listed above reflect the multiple purposes for writing in the MC course. The initial cases (routine communication and "bad news" letter), proposal, and progress memo were designed by the instructor to represent authentic business applications. The notebook assignment fulfilled developmental and curricular purposes in that the assignment was designed to reinforce the procedural concepts and skills presented in class. The formal report was designed by the instructor as another representative business format. This formal report also fulfilled a curricular purpose for the College of Business as a possible substitute option for the required professional paper. While Diane believed her assignments to have direct professional application (except for the notebook assignment), the students did not always agree with her perceptions. One student informant (C) saw the progress report as an unrealistic business format designed by the instructor to "keep tabs" on the students to make sure they were doing the assignment "correctly." In his view, "(the progress report) seemed unnecessary - a good supervisor would give oral 93 feedback or e-mail." Another student informant (B) didn't think the length of the formal report (a minimum of twenty pages) accurately reflected expectations in the business world and stated that he "...would have liked to write more short reports, four to five pages - this is a more representative format." This student's attitude illustrates the conflict in having this assignment fulfill a College of Business curricular need (i.e., to have this paper count as an option for the professional paper requirement) and represent an authentic professional format. The difficulties the students experienced in reconciling the instructor's developmental and curricular purposes with her avowed professional orientation were even more noticeable in regard to the instructor's designated audience for the writing tasks described in the next section. Designated Audience for Assigned Writing Tasks Defining the intended audience was an important.aspect of each MC course assignment. Diane believed this to be an essential element of effective business writing: In a business situation where you're dealing with employees or people outside the organization... there's always that process of reminding yourself of who the audience is or who the reader is and how do you adapt what would seem natural if you were writing to this person, but now adapting it over here to this person." In establishing audience for the writing tasks assigned th the MC course, Diane made it clear to the students that "they (were) to write to a hypothetical business person,’ not 94 to (her)" and to "make it as realistic as possible as if (they were) writing it in the business community." Diane's desire was that the students would begin to think and adjust their writing ‘for the demands of an anticipated professional audience. For the first two assignments, the audiences were prescribed by the instructor. For the routine communications case, the audience was designated as employees at the same company as the writer. For the "bad news" letter, the imagined audience: was described by the instructor as a disgruntled hotel guest. For the proposal, progress report, and final report the students were asked to create their own Ihypothetical.professional audience‘which.would.be the same for each of these three assignments. Even though Diane thought the graduate students, as experienced professionals in the business world, would have little difficulty in writing to a fictitious audience, the students themselves expressed concern with designating such an audience because they felt that they would then be writing to a: dual audience: the hypothetical business audience and the "real" audience (Diane). Their perspectives can be summarized as follows: Student A: It's kind of hard as a student because we're supposed to write to this business audience but as a student we also know that we're writing to our teacher. It's almost like having two audiences to please. Student C: Audience was close to professor even though it was in a business context. The person is a professional who wants to see me do better - like the teacher. Student D: (I have to) think about the business audience 95 and the instructor - follow the guidelines the teacher gives and try to please the teacher - do it like she wants, but at the same time, think about the business audience. Only student informant.B believed that the instructor was able to read the papers keeping both audiences equally in mind. That students have difficulties with an audience other than the instructor is consistent with Nelson (1990) who found that students' written responses are significantly affected by their perception of the instructor's expectations for their writing. For the MC students, the reality that Diane was the primary audience and evaluator of their assignments prevented them from fully accepting her desire for them to write to a "professional" audience. Feedback and Evaiuation of Assigned Writing Tasks In this next section” I will describe Diane's approach to providing feedback and evaluation on student texts. As I noted in outlining my research questions (Chapter 1), I have chosen to make a distinction between feedback and evaluation by considering feedback as the guidance and critique given by an instructor on the students' writing before the completion of a written task, while evaluation refers to instructor critique on a completed assignment.' melted: In keeping with Diane's top-down approach to writing, feedback was given during the planning rather than the y 96 drafting stage of writing. When introducing each assignment, Diane provided a sample outline or format. She would then illustrate good and poor examples of each assignment. After going over these, Diane would provide opportunities for students to ask questions and explore possible ways of structuring the individual assignments. This "routine" constituted, in effect, a type of corporate mental rehearsal of the assignment and allowed the students to receive feedback in the pre-drafting stage of each writing assignment. For the major class writing assignment (the "formal report"), Diane asked each student to come to her office individually to discuss his/her outline. For most students, a minimum of three drafts of an outline were necessary before individual outlines were "approved." Once students began writing, there was little formal feedback offered. This was consistent with Diane's estimation that writing is "two thirds planning and editing." gyeiuatiop Diane provided clear guidelines for how she would evaluate each assignment. For each assignment except the final report, Diane distributed a scoring sheet which outlined the evaluative categories she would use with the corresponding weightings for each category (see example, Appendix C). The categories corresponded to Diane's "Seven C's" (completeness, conciseness, consideration, concreteness, clarity, courtesy, and correctness) criteria and to the overall organization of 97 a.written assignment. The Seven C's were weighted at seventy percent of the:grade while organization was weighted at.thirty percent. On the assignment scoring guide (see again, Appendix C), the category of "correctness" was broken down into two categories: "grammar/punctuation" and "word usage/spelling/ proofreading" and was actually worth thirty percent of the overall grade, which reflects the instructor's emphasis on correct form. A further illustration of the instructor's evaluation priorities can be seen in her scoring of individual assignments.. I chose three assignments (the routine communications case, the proposal, and the formal report) to review. I counted up the number of points lost for each category by all the students (n=8) in the class, divided this total by the total of the two "correctness" categories points lost and arrived at a percentage of correctness points lost per assignment: Table 2 Type of Student Errors Corrected: MC Course % of Correctness Total Points Lost Total Student Correctness vs. Overall Assignment Points Lost Points Lost Points Lost L 75 45 60% ll Proposal 36 26 72% u I Formal Report 52 15 29% ll As can be seen, the percentages in Table 2 provide another example of Diane's strong emphasis on correct language 98 and mechanics. While the percentage of correctness errors for the formal report was lower than the other two assignments surveyed, this percentage was much higher than the students had anticipated for the type and length of this assignment which I will report in the final part of this section. As I mentioned previously, the students knew the categories that would be used to evaluate each writing task, as well as how each of these categories would be weighted except for the final formal report assignments 'They expressed their appreciation for Diane's clear grading expectations in our interview sessions: Student A: (I'll) make sure all the elements are included that she's looking for. Student B: She's really outlined what you need to include. Student C: (We) have a pretty clear idea of (her) evaluation. Student D: There are guidelines. You know what to expect. When asked what was needed to do well in the class, the students repeatedly referred to carefully following the .instructor's directions and including all the required details. Although her grading standards were made clear to the students, they still had difficulty at times reconciling Diane's high expectations for "correctness" on their written assignments with the presumed professional focus of the course. Student informant A, who had prior experience writing in a corporate context, expressed her frustrations in this 99 way: A lot of us in this class wondered about her high expectations for language and mechanics. We would say, "o.k., but this is acceptable in the business climate." In the real world, we wouldn't have to (edit for every detail). Unlike the other course assignments, a scoring criteria guide for the final formal report was not provided. Because of the longer length of the formal report, most students expected the instructor's grading of language and mechanics to be less strict than earlier assignments. However, several of them did not find it to be so after receiving back their graded papers. Student 8 believed that "she caught every little detail that I could have done wrong" and that Diane was "really nit-picky" about language and formatting details. Student A remarked, "The grading was as strict as the earlier assignments." The students' difficulties with Diane's high expectations for correctness on the course assignments can be seen as a conflict between these expectations and Diane's attempt to designate a hypothetical professional audience as evaluator. W To summarize Diane's approach to writing instruction in the Managerial Communications course, I will begin by schematically representing my findings according to a modified framework of contextual variables and then follow this with a textual summary. A schematic summary of context variables 100 influencing writing instruction in the MC course is represented in Figure 9. As the reader will notice, I have included a "professional" setting influence category and have designated a "classroom instructional roles" variable in the framewOrk. The latter variable designation is important in that. these classroom :roles reflect. higher order context variables (e.g., setting' influences, 'values/beliefs {about writing) while also having a direct impact on the instructor's classroom practice and evaluation of assigned writing tasks. 101. Professional -Instructor as business consultant Dissinlinazx Instructor as member of business communications field I l' l' ] Instructor as member of college of business faculty 6% We - top-down approach to writing - a high standard for “correct“ form in the written product - a belief in unitary writing competence/writing skills transfer :;> - professional - developmental [l - {l W - to prepare students for anticipated professional business writing tasks (instructor/professional) - to learn to write better overall (instructor/developmental) - to write better course reports (institutional/curricular) - to substitute for professional paper (institutional/curricular) _ WW - business colleague - authority on language/writing ll W - representative business formats (professional) - notebook assignment (developmental) - formal report (professionallcurricular) {l Eesdbasklfixaluation 1 feedback: during planning stage - evaluation: clear guidelines, expectations for grading -tevaluation: emphasis on ‘correctness'lform Figure 9 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction In a Managerial Communications Course 102 As Figure 9 illustrates, writing instruction in the MC course is impacted by institutional, disciplinary, and professional setting influences. The corresponding setting roles illustrate the unique and various demands each setting influence has on Diane's approach to writing instruction in the MC course. Diane's perception of the needs of the business community (professional setting influence) seemed to have the most impact on her stated purposes and design of course writing tasks. Her focus on an audience outside of the university prompted me to distinguish a separate "professional" setting influences category. The negative characterization of disciplinary or "academic" research writing by the instructor and student informants seemed to further illustrate this distinction between professional and disciplinary writing purposes and seemed to represent a particular institutional perspective shared by the students, instructor, and other business college faculty. The distinction between "disciplinary" and "professional" writing also highlighted the fact that writing in this graduate level course did not represent "disciplinary enculturation, " but rather, a focus on non-academic professional writing. The two curricular purposes for the course are an outcome of Diane's role as a member of the business college faculty and represent an institutional setting influence in the MC course. These two curricular purposes, while recognized and accepted by Diane, were not totally in harmony with her 103 professional objectives for the course and demonstrated the difficulty an instructor has in attempting to fulfill too many diverse purposes within one course. Diane's role as a business communications instructor (disciplinary setting influence) seemed to be a factor in Diane's strong developmental orientation for writing in the MC course. This orientation was reflected in Diane's high standards for form on the students' written products. Diane's developmental orientation was also supported by values and beliefs she held about writing in terms of both the process (a "top-down" approach) and product (expectations for a highly polished text) . Diane believed her prescriptive standards for language were desired by the business faculty and the business community and were in contrast to the standards held for form in "English" courses. Diane's purpose in the course was not to teach new content knowledge. In fact, she considered the students to be "professionals" and "colleagues" in terms of the relevant professional knowledge they shared. Her instructional goals, ‘ therefore, were procedural - to help students learn how to effectively present their ideas. In terms of procedural knowledge about writing, Diane clearly played the role of authority and expert in the classroom. Diane's choice of task formats represented the professional, curricular, and developmental purposes of the course, but her evaluation criteria appeared to the students to primarily reflect her developmental emphasis on correct 104 language and form. While the students welcomed the notion of learning to write for professional purposes, they experienced difficulties with accepting a hypothetical professional audience when they perceived that their papers were being evaluated more carefully for language considerations than seemed reasonable for a supposed "authentic" professional audience. This example also indicates the tension between the anticipatory 'professional writing needs of the MC students (i.e., to learn to write for a professional audience) and their immediate institutional need to satisfy the evaluative expectations of the instructor. The validity of the required length for the formal report was also questioned by students who saw the format as being inconsistent with their experience in the business world. These findings are similar to Herrington's study (1985) of writing in two engineering courses in which she found that it was difficult for faculty to integrate curricular and professional purposes in a given course. Although Diane herself was able to reconcile the diverse purposes of the course (i.e. , professional, developmental, and curricular) by seeing good writing as a unitary set of transferable skills, the students perceived inconsistencies Ibetween.the instructor's stated goals and designated audience (professional), the design of certain course writing tasks (e.g., progress and formal reports = curricular) and the evaluation of these tasks (e.g., high standards = developmental). Nevertheless, in the last interviews, the 105 student informants all stated that their writing had improved as a result of the course and that the course had prepared them well to address professional writing tasks. Several factors seemed to be responsible for helping the students overcome the inconsistencies they perceived in the various course purposes and orientations. These included: (1) a shared sense of values and expectations about writing; (2) opportunities for feedback prior to drafting; and (3) clearly stated expectations for class assignments. One of the facilitating factors in the MC’course appeared to be the sense of shared values for writing among the instructor, the students, the business faculty, and the business community as perceived by both the instructor and students. These values seemed to be represented in the attitudes they shared toward the product (e.g., presentation is important - though the instructor's standards were perceived as a bit high by the students) and the orientation they shared toward writing (e.g., professional, not academic research). In terms of feedback, although Diane's top-down emphasis on outlining may not have been the MC student informants' preferred writing strategy, they appreciated the feedback they received on these outlines, the chance to review "good" and "poor" models of each assignment in class, and the opportunities to discuss and negotiate the requirements of 'writing assignments when these assignments were first presented . 106 While Diane's meticulous evaluation of language and form was thought by the students to be a bit unrealistic, her high standards of evaluation were moderated by the clear expectations for grading she provided. Student B stated that there was a "good relationship between the (course) assignments and grading." Student C believed that the course goals, assignments, and evaluation of assignments "showed a good logical progression" and were "not contradictory to each other." Although the students may have felt that the instructor's evaluation standards were a bit high, they at least knew in advance what these standards were. Wpiting Instruction in an Advenceg English for Academic Pungses Course Ann, the instructor of the advanced English for Academic Purposes (hereafter, EAP) writing course, is an experienced writing instructor with nearly twenty years of ESL teaching experience and is co-author of an introductory ESL writing text. Although she is experienced in teaching writing, she has specialized in other areas of the EAP program curriculum (e.g., oral communication, grammar) as well. As I mentioned in Chapter 3, the EAP course Ann taught is the: last general written communication course in the curriculum of the particular intensive English training jprogram site chosen for the study. While some attention was given in the EAP writing course to improving students' reading abilities, reading assignments were used to support course 107 writing objectives (e.g., summarizing, paraphrasing, etc.). This course typically enrolled a majority of graduate students. However, in the particular term in. which I conducted my study, there were more undergraduate students enrolled in the course (8>5). Although my primary interest was to look at the advanced writing instruction of graduate level EAP students, this unexpected development provided me with an opportunity to see if the instructor anticipated making' any' significant. pedagogical changes based on the students' mixed academic levels. I will begin, as I did for the MC case, by considering 'the. EAP instructor's stated. purposes for 'writing' before looking at the setting influences and instructor values which influenced these purposes. I will then consider how setting influences, instructor values about writing, and instructor ;purposes for assigned writing have influenced Ann's design of ‘writing tasks and her feedback and evaluation of these tasks. Goais end Purposes for Writing in an Advanced EAP Course Just prior to the beginning of the course, I asked Ann *what her main goals for the EAP writing course were. She :replied in this way: To prepare students when they get out into the academic setting to be able to approach a writing assignment with a sense of direction and to be able to write at a level acceptable to most university professors. I don't think all of them are capable of achieving a level, especially in terms of language, that's going to be perfectly acceptable. And so, it may be that some of them are going to have to learn how to use some coping strategies, maybe in the form of using native speaking editors, but 108 developing a sense of their own awareness of where they are in writing. And then things like using sources and incorporating statistics - I know that's one of (the EAP programflWritten Communication Supervisor's) major stated objectives for the course...I think they need to have a stronger sense of audience, and so, that's one of the things that's important to work on. I have chosen to quote her entire statement because embedded within this statement are a variety of instructional purposes. These purposes can be grouped in two ways: ecademic purposes for writing - how to approach an academic writing assignment - how to write at a level acceptable to the university audience (faculty) - how to develop a stronger sense of audience (I have included this here because of the instructor's focus on meeting the needs of the university audience) - hOW’tO use (primary) sources and incorporate supporting statistics developmeptal purposes for wpieing - how to develop a sense of one's language competence (in relation to the expectations of the academic audience) - how to develop coping strategies (e.g., the use of native speaking editors) to meet perceived deficiencies in writing competencies It is clear in her initial statement that Ann's primary objectives for the EAP writing course were oriented to academic jpreparation and. the anticipated. desires of the academic audience. Her concern was that students would be ;prepared to complete representative academic writing tasks to the satisfaction of the academic audience. She also alluded to the EAP program goal of helping students learn how to .incorporate outside resources and statistics to support their writing. A developmental writing focus was indicated by Ann's 109 desire that the students learn how their present writing abilities related to the anticipated academic audience's standards and, if needed, that students learn to develop strategies to address competencies ‘which fall below' the standard of expectation. While these goals can be thought of as "developmental", they are stated in terms of how they support the instructor's primary academic objectives. When asked about the instructor's main purposes for the EAP'course, the.selected student informants cited.the purposes and goals of the EAP course in primarily academic terms: Student 8% To improve (my writing) ability...how to do research - how to get information from other sources. Student C: To teach students how to write in academic style.‘ Student D: Related to writing in university. Student A stated the course goals in more developmental terms: To express yourself in a shorter, precise, right way. . When asked about the relationship of the instructor's goals with their own anticipated needs for writing in their academic studies, the students responded in this way: Student A: Some (academic) papers tend to be theoretical or have theoretical parts, like discussion of results, and this course will be helpful for these parts. Student B: I hope or I assume that it will be helpful next term and for my research in the future. Student C: (I) must support essay - maybe (I) will write thesis in the future. Ann's statement of purposes as well as the students' perspectives of the EAP course's goals and usefulness .indicated that the course was oriented to academic writing, 110 and in particular, the writing skills needed for academic research. Ann's initial purposes for writing in this advanced EAP course can be summarized as follows. The source and type of orientation are indicated in parentheses: (1) to learn how to approach an academic assignment/how to meet the writing expectations of an academic audience (instructor/academic) (2) to learn how to incorporate statistics and outside sources in order to support ideas (EAP program/academic) (3) to develop self-awareness of writing ability and to develop strategies for dealing with deficiencies in this ability (instructor/developmental) As I will illustrate later, the third goal was modified by the instructor because of the pressure to teach all of the academic skills prescribed by the EAP program curriculum. Setting influences Impacting Writing Instruction in an Advanced EAP Course Two main setting influences appeared to impact Ann's approach to teaching writing in the advanced EAP course: institutional and disciplinary. As I have characterized the setting influences in the MC course in terms of the roles the instructor functioned in as the MC course instructor, I will also attempt to illustrate the impact of setting influences by highlighting the particular roles Ann held as the EAP course instructor. 7 In terms of institutional setting influences, Ann appeared to function within two institutional roles. One .institutional setting role was as a faculty member of the EAP 111 program. In this role, Ann needed to be responsive to the curricular goals and aims of the EAP program. Her other institutional role ‘was. as a representative of the host institutional faculty. I have identified this as a distinct role because, in this role, Ann needed to be aware of the standards and expectations of university faculty across the curriculum who would be working with the students once they completed the EAP writing course. In anticipating the needs of the university audience, Ann referred to her belief that the main concern of university faculty was for the clear communication of meaning, not correct language form: The other thing is that I think it's very important for our students to know when they are communicating clearly and when they're not 'cause that seems to be one of the problems that occurs when you leave the sheltered EAP classroom and go into the university classroom - that it isn't the spelling errors that drive professors crazy - it is - from the people I've talked with - it's, "I can't understand what he's trying to get at." Another effect of the institutional setting influence on the goals and purposes that Ann set for the EAP course was her perception of the students' academic level (i.e., undergraduate versus graduate). I have categorized this as an "institutional" influence because it stems from Ann's jperception.of the varying needs of graduate and undergraduate students relative to the writing demands she believed they would face in their academic programs in the host institution. .As I mentioned previously, the composition of this advanced EAP writing course was typically graduate students. However, 112 the fact that there was a higher percentage of undergraduate students in the term I observed caused the instructor to reconceptualize her course goals and instructional expectations. First.of all,.Ann mentioned that.because of the unusually high number of undergraduate students in the class, her expectations for content would change: I think that because the majority of the class are undergraduates that we'll have to bring down the level of expectation in terms of the content, and probably, the topics they're getting. So, instead of requiring that people write in their major field which is what I would have the graduate students do, they'll be working with topics that they're interested in... Ann's assumption in this regard was that the graduate students in the course would select topics related to their academic :major for their research.paper, while the undergraduates would opt for less field-specific topics. Another way in which the mixed student population affected writing instruction in the EAP course was in Ann's selection of instructional activities. One of Ann's preliminary curricular ideas was to involve the students in reviewing some representative course assignments from different academic disciplines (e.g. , engineering lab reports) as a type of textual analysis, consciousness raising activity. However, she decided not to do this after taking the undergraduate composition of the class into consideration. In our last interview, when I asked what she would change if she were to teach the class again, Ann stated: 113 I wouldn't go and.do the library with that particular set of (specialized research) indices because I don't think it was appropriate for the majority of the class. It would have been fine if they had all been graduate students. At one point, when Itasked.Ann‘whether she graded student assignments differently based on their academic level, she stated: Normally, I would say "yes" - that I would read the graduate papers with greater expectations for the content and the specificity of the paper and the focus would be extremely controlled because they have much more knowledge about a narrow field. But this time, I had some undergraduates who were really good. Although the quality of writing produced by Ann's undergraduate students in this particular term was better than she had expected, her standards of evaluation were typically higher for graduate student writing. In our final interview, I asked Ann how she would have altered the EAP course if the majority of students had been graduate students and.hoW'she would have structured the course to better meet the particular needs of these students. Ann responded in this way: Giving them more extensive assignments, I think. And still more work with bringing in others' research. Probably, if we had had more graduate students, I probably would have spent some more time doing some text analysis so that.they could look at their specific fields and see how the language varies and how the organization varies. As I have illustrated, Ann believed that the writing needs of graduate students were distinct from those of undergraduates and that the graduate students needed more opportunities to work with field specific genres and writing 114 tasks. However, her realization that more undergraduates were enrolled.than usual in her EAP course necessitated a change in her expectations for content, the writing tasks assigned, and her preliminary expectations in grading these. Another institutional setting role affecting the instructor's goals and purposes for writing in this particular course was her role as a faculty member of the EAP program. In discussing her preliminary goals for the EAP course, Ann mentioned that learning to incorporate outside resources was an important goal of the course as designated by the supervisor of written communication courses in the EAP program. This institutional (EAP program) goal had an impact on.Ann's other instructional goals. For instance, at the end of the course when I asked Ann which writing skills the students needed.more work in, she said that she wished she had had more time to work on "editing skills" with the students. She went on to say that she thought the students had made little progress in improving their language skills which she found.to be "controlled, to an extent, by the syllabus." When I followed up on what she meant by this, Ann said she thought that attention to improving students' language skills (e.g., grammar, mechanics, etc.) was controlled or constrained by the EAP program curriculum syllabus in that so many academic writing skills (e.g. , incorporating outside sources) needed to Ibe.covered in the course. Thus, one of her own instructional (goals (improving students' self awareness of language competence/editing abilities) became subordinated to the 115 curricular goals of the EAP program. Another setting influence impacting Ann's writing pedagogy was the disciplinary setting influence which is reflected in Ann's roles as a language instructor and composition.instructor. Ann herself made this distinction between these two roles. As a language teacher, Ann believed that her role was to help students develop their language skills through feedback and exposure to and practice with new language forms (e.g., vocabulary). As a composition instructor, Ann believed that she needed to focus on helping students to improve their rhetorical writing skills, such as teaching them how to organize and support their ideas. These disciplinary roles had an impact not only on Ann's initial purposes for the course but were also represented in the 'values and beliefs she held about writing and the way in which she designed classroom activities and course writing tasks. To summarize, the setting influences and setting roles impacting Ann's approach to writing instruction can be represented as follows: 116 Influence Influence Role: Representative Role: Language/ of University Faculty Composition Instructor Role: Member of EAP Program Faculty EAP Writing Course Instructor J Figure 10 Context/Setting Roles of the EAP Course Instructor s ructor Values and Beliefs about Writin Ann's most strongly held values about writing are evidenced in her beliefs about classroom community, peer collaboration, risk-taking, and her emphasis on the process of writing. giassroop Community One of Ann's strongest pedagogical convictions involved her belief in the necessity of building classroom community. Ann's concept of classroom community in the EAP course .invelved establishing a community of learners who knew each other and who were comfortable in expressing their ideas to one another. Ann confided with me during our second interview session that she was disappointed that the students in the EAP course weren't "vocalizing" (i.e., speaking out in class; expressing ideas, etc.) as much as she had expected them to at 117 that point in the course and that she wished that the "class has spent more time at the beginning getting to know each other." She went on to mention that she had thought that the students had already known and worked with each other in the preceding term. However, it turned out that because there had been two sections of the prerequisite writing course the previous term, the students in Ann's class didn't all know each other before the current term.beganu .About one week into class, after a new student joined the course, Ann took time to have the whole class participate in some activities to get acquainted with each other. In reflecting about the delay in having the students get to know each other, Ann stated: I think I blew it because at the beginning of the class, I would have normally had some kind of exchange or activity...I just assumed that they all knew each other, and 'they don't. And so, to some extent, they're operating in a vacuum. For Ann, establishing classroom community was important not.only'in.encouraging classroom.interaction but also because establishing classroom community supported two additional pedagogical values of hers: peer collaboration and risk- 'taking. Bee; Collaboration Ann's belief in peer collaboration was evidenced in the ‘workshop format of the course. A majority of class time was spent in a workshop formats in which students worked together in pairs or small groups to read and provide feedback on each other's papers. Since the groups re-formed for each task or activity, a well established classroom community was essential 118 for the workshop format to operate smoothly. Ann believed that peers could not only help each other generate ideas but that they were also capable of providing feedback on each other's writing. Ann also mentioned to me that the peer- oriented workshop format supported her individual teaching style: The other thing that I like about any kind of group work for my teaching style is that I'm sure that it has become clear that I do a lot.of my teaching as I move around the room while they're in groups. The EAP student informants believed that peer work was beneficial in certain ways as well: Student A: Peer work is very important. . .Open discussion is quite good for me. Student B: I can get more information and new ideas from peers. Student C: We can exchange ideas...further develop ideas. Student D: I can get more ideas (from peers) - not enough information on my own. Although the students mentioned the usefulness of peer work in helping to generate ideas for their writing, I will illustrate in my discussion of task audience that they had more difficulty in receiving evaluative feedback from their peers. ’s - 'n Another important pedagogical value of Ann's involved student risk-taking in writing; Ann's concept of risk-taking involved a student's willingness to experiment with language (e.g., try new expressions in his/her writing) even if it. 119 involved.making mistakes in the process. ‘When asked about her purpose for requiring student writing journals, Ann replied: If the journal isn't going to be looked at in terms of evaluation feedback, for language or vocabulary, then it seems logical to me that (the students) are going to be a little bit more willing to take risks [my emphasis]. When I asked Ann why she included so much peer work in her class, she framed her response:to emphasize its advantages for fostering risk-taking. I think that a lot of students will benefit from being able to bounce their ideas off someone else and get reactions from other people. And I think that they may be more willing to take risks, because they are sharing the blame [instructor laughs] or praise, as it were... Ann expected that her students would be willing to experiment and take risks with language while writing. For example, Ann admitted her surprise when one student revealed a learning strategy which reflected a lack of risk-taking in his composing process: I told him that I would like to see him try to extend himself a little bit, and if he can't come up with an appropriate word, in English, then to write the word in Thai. Don't let searching for that word stop your flow of ideas. Conversely, Ann praised the efforts of students who attempted to experiment with language. In one student's journal, Ann wrote, "I am impressed with the breadth of your vocabulary. You are willing to risk using a broad range of words. It's a good way to learn." Ann's belief in the importance of risk-taking stemmed from her belief as language instructor that a student's willingness to experiment with language was a necessary step 120 in his/her acquisition of particular language forms. 3 s o e W 'tin Process Ann's use of the peer oriented workshop format and her belief in the necessity of risk-taking indicate the value Ann placed on the process of writing. In describing how the students could improve their writing skills, Ann would often use analogies (e.g., "Writing is like playing the piano, it takes practice") ‘which.reinforced her belief that.writing was a continuous process of improvement. Ann's emphasis on the process of‘writing'was also:evident in other ways. One indication of this emphasis is the multiple drafts Ann required students to complete for the two major writing assignments of the term. Students were required to submit three separate drafts of each assignment and Ann provided feedback on all of these. Another indication of her emphasis on the process of writing was Ann's use of the weekly student writing journals. Ann believed that the journals were an important place for students to experiment with language and ideas without a great deal of correction or concern about the surface features of their entries. In one student entry, the following written exchange occurred between instructor and student: Student: Please correct all errors! (written at the end of one journal entry) Ann: Sorry, (student's name), I'd rather not correct eii [instructor's emphasis]. I'll mark "a couple" in each, "all" in one. O.K.? The journal is pp; a place to worry as much about corrections as about ideas. T1113 journal exchange illustrates .Ann's belief that the 121 practice of expressing one's ideas (without correction) was a worthwhile objective in itself. This was borne out further when I asked Ann about her purpose for in-class, non-graded peer writing activities, and she replied, "I think the process is more important than the product in that." W While Ann's course included a developmental orientation 0f building language skills, her primary orientation was to Prepare students for the demands of academic writing. "Academic" writing preparation in the EAP course involved Primarily developing the requisite skills needed to conduct aCademic research (paraphrasing, incorporating outside sO‘urces, providing sufficient support for ideas, using appropriate citation, etc.). Because the focus of the EAP COurse was on developing these types of research writing Skills, I considered the instructor's orientation toward Writing in the course to be "disciplinary" according to my framework of orientations. This disciplinary orientation was maintained in the course even though Ann made modifications to the course because of the greater number of undergraduate students enrolled. Ann's strong academic orientation in the EAP course was also evident in the way she couched many of her pedagogical expectations for classroom activities, assignments, and language development in terms of their relevance to the "academic" setting. When discussing the importance of peer work, Ann stressed the importance of "exchanging ideas in 122 academic contexts". When she first assigned the academic reading logs, she asked the students to bring in a representative textbook from their academic field of study. In looking over the textbook brought in by one particular graduate student (non-informant), Ann did not find it "academic enough" and requested that the student find "a more teClinical (field-specific) text". When one student (Student 3) (czhose to write about his academic field of study in his journal, Ann wrote, "I'm glad you're writing about your aC=El - developmental - risk-taking - emphasis on writing process 11 ll W - prepare for academic tasks/audience (university-EAP/ academic research) - develop language competence through experimentation, risk-taking (instructor/developmental) WW — facilitator: consultant, provider of language feedback, expert (on formatting, mechanics, etc.) {1 E . i H . . I l - survey results paper, library research paper, reading logs (academic/disciplinary research) - mid-term/finals, homework (academic/curricular) - journals (developmental) WW - feedback: during process of drafting - evaluation: focus on clarity, meaning, support - evaluation: semi-holistic grading Figure 11 Context Variables Influencing Writing Instruction in an Advanced English for Academic Purposes Writing Course 141 Ann's approach to teaching writing in the EAP course was significantly impacted by institutional setting influences (e.g., her perception of the students' anticipated academic writing needs and her perception of the students' academic levels) and disciplinary setting influences (e.g., her personal values about teaching and writing). Ann's main orientation toward writing in the EAP course was academic. Her goal was to prepare students for the writing demands of university studyu In particular, her focus was on developing the students' academic research skills. Most of her assignments were designed to develop these skills in authentic writing contexts (e.g., research paper, survey results paper). Although Ann maintained her orientation toward academic research throughout the course, the student composition of the class altered some of her instructional plans. Because there were more undergraduate students enrolled.than she:had expected, Ann's focus became less field- specific or disciplinary-based (e.g. , she omitted her plans to do textual analyses of engineering reports). The graduate student (Student A) at the highest academic level (Ph.D.) in the class appeared to have the most difficulty with the changes Ann made in the course because of the greater number of undergraduates enrolled. He felt that because of the mixed (undergraduate/graduate) composition of the class the course was not as beneficial as it could have been: 142 Student A: Graduate and undergraduate mix of class creates some difficulties - the problems are different - the way of thinking, level of education, and ability...A graduate oriented class may have changed my writing; but this class as a mixed class didn't. In contrast with Student A's expressed disappointment with the focus of the course, the other student informants seemed to appreciate the training they had received in the EAP course and felt that the course had met their original expectations. When I asked the students what their original expectations for the course were, they stated: Student C: To learn how to write from research. Student B: To give strategies on how to write research paper. This term is good for preparation for academic writing - how to do research, how to locate (research) papers. In. noting that these students expressed their appreciation for the research writing focus of the class, I decided to look over Student A's responses again to determine why he held his particular perspective. When I asked Student A what his expectations for the EAP course were, he mentioned that he thought the EAP course would be "a graduate course" for "researchers" and that he would learn such skills as "how to write an abstract" and "how to progress from wide, general ideas to (the) specific focus of (a research) paper." While the other students seemed content in learning general academic research skills, this student desired a more specialized approach to research writing which focused on the particular genres of disciplinary-based research (e.g., the research article). 143 While Ann did have developmental goals for the class (e.g., developing compensating strategies/ editing skills), these goals were subordinate to her overall academic orientation. In addition, her original developmental goals had to be modified because of the demands of the EAP program syllabus. Thus, Ann's developmental goal became modified to developing students' language abilities within the context of other class activities. Ann's values as a language/composition teacher were most evident in' her desire to create a classroom community for writing. Ann believed that in order to develop the students' language and writing skills, they needed to experiment and take risks with language. To facilitate this type of risk- taking environment, Ann attempted to a create a classroom community in which students would feel comfortable expressing ideas. Her efforts to create this type of environment for writing were evident in the way she structured classroom activities (e.g., peer oriented workshop format), her attitude in developing students' language abilities (e.g., encouraging risk-taking, emphasizing the process.of‘writing), and the role (e.g., facilitator) she attempted to function in within the classroom. Ann's method of feedback (during the brainstorming and feedback stages of writing), and the focus of her evaluation (focus on ideas and support > language errors) seemed to be consistent with her values on writing process and risk-taking. Her attempts to use peers as evaluators of each other's 144 writing was met with resistance by the students in the EAP course'who had.difficu1ty in accepting an evaluator other than the teacher. Comparing Writing Instruction in Advanced EAP and Managerial Communications Courses In the preceding sections, I have provided case descriptions of writing instruction in two post-secondary settings. My purpose in this section will be to make comparisons between these two cases. Because of the non- experimental, naturalistic design of this study, direct generalizable comparisons between the two cases are not possible. My goal, instead, will be to consider the similarities and differences between writing instruction in these two settings from a contextual perspective. As I have done with the individual cases, I will first present.a schematic summary followed.by a textual account” In Figure 12, I have summarized some of the main differences between these two cases according to the context variables I used to present the results of each case individually. 145 MC Setting Influences professional institutional disciplinary institutional disciplinary Valves About strive to be be willing to Writing Writing perfect take risks - top-down approach - bottom-up - emphasis on approach product - emphasis on w process Primary Professional Academic Orientation Toward (research) Main Purpose to learn to write for business - to learn to write for fl context academic context Classroom - professional - facilitator Instructional colleague Roles - authority on language/writing Assigned Writing - designed to - designed to Tasks represent represent professional academic writing tasks research tasks Audience for Tasks - hypothetical - instructor/peers business person/ instructor Feedback - during planning/ - during outlining stage brainstorming/ drafting stage Evaluation - Figure 12 A Summary Comparison of Context Variables in MC and EAP Courses emphasis on form - emphasis on ideas/support 146 Whistles The instructors' approaches to writing instruction in both courses were impacted by institutional and disciplinary setting influences. The MC instructor was also influenced by a professional setting influence (the business community). In both cases, these.setting influenceswwere important.in shaping the instructors' perception of the anticipatory writing needs/audiences of their students. In addition to providing some of the goals and purposes far writing, institutional setting influences created some constraints and/or' conflicts ‘with. the instructors' other pedagogical objectives. For example, one of the most significant institutional impacts on the EAP course was the EAP program's policy of allowing both graduate and undergraduate students to enroll in this particular writing course. .As I indicated in the EAP case, this had an impact on the ‘teacher's goals, design. of ‘writing assignments, and expectations for student writing. In the MC course, the College of Business curricular goals for the course impacted the instructor's design of the final project which made it difficult for the MC students to accept the format of the project as an authentic professional task. There are two primary differences between these two cases in terms of setting influences“ ‘One difference relates to the "internal" and "external" coherency of each setting. The other difference has to do with the diversity of setting influences impacting each setting. The MC course had greater 147 "internal coherency" than the EAP course in that thezMC course students all shared the same academic field and academic level. In contrast, the EAP writing course enrolled students from a number of majors and enrolled both undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, the Managerial Communications course also had greater "external coherency" in that many of the purposes and expectations for writing in the MC course reflected purposes and expectations for writing in the College of Business and the business community. The greater internal and external coherency of the MC course is important in that the MC course instructor could assume a sense of shared purposes for writing in her course because her students were in the same major, at the same academic level, and held similar professional goals (to become managers in a corporate setting), while the EAP instructor had to deliberately attempt to build.community'among students with diverse academic majors and academic levels. The other primary difference between these two cases in terms of setting influences is that the MC instructor's approach to writing was impacted by setting influences both outside (i.e., business community) and within (i.e., College of Business) the university, whereas the EAP instructor's approach appeared to be primarily impacted by university related setting influences. Because the MC instructor attempted to satisfy the needs of the audiences represented by both settings, the MC course ended up serving more diverse purposes than the EAP course. Thus, while the MC course had 148 more coherency of setting than the EAP course, the purposes for writing in Managerial Communications were more varied because they reflected a greater number of setting influences. A Comparison of Instructor Values and Beliefs About Writing Both instructors held strong values about writing which affected their approaches to teaching writing. The differences between the instructors' values about writing can be best summarized in their attitudes toward the process and the product of writing. Attitudes Toward the Process of Writing While the MC instructor exhibited a top-down approach to writing which emphasized planning, outlining, and a straightforward composing process, the EAP instructor exhibited a bottom-up approach to writing which emphasized group brainstorming, peer feedback, and multiple drafts before a finished product was expected. The EAP instructor's bottom-up approach encouraged risk- taking and experimentation with language which she believed was necessary for growth in language development and for the creative synthesis and generation of ideas. The MC instructor's top-down approach reflected her own personal preference for organizing writing. It also emphasized her focus on the presentation of ideas. Attitgges Toward the Writteg Product The Managerial Communications instructor maintained a high expectation for form.on the finished product and told the students that they needed to "strive to be perfect" in their 149 writing. Examples of this are the instructor's insistence that students use a grammar checker program, her detailed grading criteria, and her evaluation of written products (e.g., seven.points taken off for the first spelling or "typo" in the paper). Her attitude toward the written product was consistent with her own prescriptive beliefs about language and writing and her belief that her high standards for form were desired by the two main anticipated audiences for student writing (i.e., College of Business and business community). In contrast, the EAP instructor was much more concerned that the students "be willing to take risks" in using language, and therefore, she did not place as great an emphasis on form as the MC instructor. This attitude was reflected in her use of journals (in which entries were not graded for language), multiple student drafts, and a grading system which did not penalize students for surface errors in the early stages of writing. While the EAP instructor did hold high standards for student writing, these were in terms of support and clarity of ideas. She believed that although university faculty held varying expectations for "correctness" in student writing, they were ultimately more concerned with "meaning" (i.e., the quality of the content/ideas). A ngpatisgp of Instructor Orientations Iowatd Writing The instructors' orientations toward writing illustrated one of the most fundamental differences between these two courses. The MC course as a graduate course was not focused on.disciplinary-oriented research writing but on professional 150 business writing applications. The MC instructor's de- emphasis on academic research writing reflected her own perception of the students' future needs (as managers, not academics). This attitude toward academic research writing seemed to be consistent with the students' perceptions of the Business College faculty's general attitudes toward this type of writing as well. The EAP instructor, in contrast, believed her role was to provide students with the skills necessary for academic research. For the graduate students, the EAP instructor's initial desire was to have them work with representative disciplinary-based genres and tasks. Even after the instructor had made some adjustments for the mixed student composition of the course, she still desired that the graduate students would research topics in their "own academic fields." While both instructors also maintained a developmental orientation toward writing in their courses, their expectations in this regard were different. The MC instructor expected to see progress in language skills although she did not feel that she would teach these skills directly in the course. The EAP instructor, though she planned to address language issues in the course, felt that she would see little progress in student's writing during the term and that the students needed to learn coping strategies (e.g., hiring native speaking editors). This was partly based on her belief that students at this advanced level of second language proficiency would make little progress in language skills 151 within the short duration of the course. Her reduced expectations for student language improvement were also partially based on the constraints she felt in meeting the expectations of the EAP program syllabus for the course (i.e. , too many "academic" skills to teach). A Cgmparison of Purposes and Goals for Writing Both instructors had multiple purposes for writing in their courses. While the EAP instructor had developmental and academic goals for writing, the developmental goals seemed to be in support of her primary academic objectives. Conversely, the goals of the MC course were more diverse and created more inconsistencies for her students (e.g., the length of the final course paper and her desire for it to reflect an authentic professional task; the use of a hypothetical business audience and her extremely high standards for evaluating form). A Qompatison of Classroom SettinglInstructional Roles The differences in the instructors' values about writing and the writing process were evident in the classroom activities each designed and the classroom instructional roles each one functioned within. The EAP instructor's use of the peer oriented workshop format supported her beliefs in the process of writing and was indicative of her attempt to establish a risk-taking environment for student writers. Her role as facilitator allowed her to provide evaluative feedback on language and helped promote a setting in which experimentation with ideas and language could take place. 152 A significant aspect of the MC instructor's classroom routine (see "A Classroom Setting Vignette" earlier in this chapter) involved a step-by-step illustration of model outlines for each assignment. Her presentation of these models actually constituted a type of corporate rehearsal of the planning and outlining process she expected the students to follow in completing written tasks. In terms of her classroom roles, the MC instructor's role as business colleague supported her professional focus and purposes for the course while her role as authority on language and writing emphasized her developmental orientations and values about language. Assigned Writing Tasks Both instructors used tasks to have students practice the representative genres and tasks that they anticipated the students would need after leaving their courses“ ‘While the MC course instructor believed that the writing skills she emphasized were also applicable to academic writing within the college, her assignments were designed to be representative professional formats. The tasks in the EAP Writing course were designed to be representative academic tasks which developed academic research writing skills. Both instructors attempted to designate audiences in addition to themselves. Although the students in both courses acknowledged the limited usefulness of these audiences (e.g., in terms of feedback (EAP); as a representative professional audience (MC)), they were not able to accept these audiences 153 as potential evaluators of their writing; The designation of a second audience created more difficulties for the students in the MC course because the instructor set the expectation that she would evaluate the students' papers as a "hypothetical business person." i A Eggpazisgp of Instructor Feedback and Evaluation Practices Both instructors provided opportunities for feedback prior to the completion of the final product. However, their methods clearly reflected the differences in their respective approaches. The MC instructor, in accordance with her top- down approach to writing, provided feedback during the planning or outlining stage. In keeping with her bottom-up view of writing, the EAP instructor provided feedback during the drafting stage. The attitudes of the instructors toward language were reflected in their grading systems. While the MC instructor used a discrete point grading system to emphasize the appearance of the product, the EAP instructor used a more holistic grading system which weighted the organization and support of ideas more heavily than language errors. Summaty The instructors' approaches to teaching writing in these ‘two courses represent significant differences in the purposes and expectations these instructors have for student writing at the advanced, academic level. Some of these differences are related to the unique setting influences impacting each 154 course, while other differences are a result of the personal values about writing each instructor brings to the course. The primary goal for writing in the MC course, even though one of the course's aims was to help improve students' curricular writing, was not the creation or addition of disciplinary-based knowledge but the effective presentation of ideas in representative professional genres. For this reason and because she assumed that the students already shared a base of relevant content (business) knowledge, the MC instructor's focus in the course was on developing’ the students procedural writing knowledge and skills. Furthermore, because of her belief that good writing skills were the same in any context, she believed that these skills were transferable, and therefore applicable to both academic and professional contexts. The primary goal of the EAP course was to develop students' academic research skills (e.g., summarizing, paraphrasing, incorporation of outside resources) which would help them synthesize and reformulate knowledge - what Cummings (1995) describes as "knowledge transformation." To do this, the EAP instructor attempted to create an environment in‘which ideas and language could be explored freely. In.conclusion, if NNES writers who have completed the EAP writing course were to enter the MC course, they would be faced with very different values and purposes for writing. The academic research focus of the EAP course would be replaced by an emphasis on professional (non-research related) 155 writing tasks. The developmental, risk-taking approach of the EAP instructor would be replaced by the strong prescriptive values for language and writing of the MC instructor. Although this would need to be empirically validated, these significant differences in the purposes and expectations for writing would likely present a considerable challenge for the EAP students, particularly in regard to the high standards for form expected by the MC course instructor. Even more significant, perhaps, is a larger question, and that is, if the advanced EAP course:is representative of other advanced EAP writing courses and the MC course truly does reflect values of writing within the Business College, is the strong academic research focus of the EAP course entirely valid for all advanced EAP students? The broader implication of this question and other related questions will be considered in Chapter 5. Chapter Notes 1The names of the instructors used in the study are pseudonyms. 2When reporting student responses, I will use the same letter designation (i.e. A,B,C,D) to represent the same student respondent throughout the study. Student D was the one NNES in the course during the term I observed. I have chosen not 'to highlight this student in the study because she came to the ‘university with high language skills (i.e., she did not have ‘to take any ESL courses) and because her language and :nationality profile (she was from a Scandinavian country) was not representative of students in the EAP program at the institution at which the study was conducted. 3'The EAP students' academic majors were as follows: Student A (Water Resources Management - Ph.D.); Student B (Construction Management - M.S.); Student C (transfer student 156 in Accounting - junior year of B.S. program); Student D (Finance/Management - M.B.A.). ‘When quoting the EAP student informants I have attempted to leave the language as near to the original as possible. In cases where the overall meaning is compromised or unclear I have changed the original text slightly. This is indicated parenthetically in the body of the quote. 51 estimated in my review of the tapes that at least fifty percent of all classroom time was spent in small groups or pairs working independently. ‘This is based on my observations of Ann's class in general in which she frequently took time to "loop" and focus on language related items. Chapter 5 CONCLUSION]RECOMMENDATIONS In this chapter, I will discuss the implications of my study for writing research and pedagogy in advanced post- secondary settings. Before I do so, I will provide a brief overview of the original purposes of my study. This will provide a context for the conclusions and recommendations I make in this chapter. In Chapter 1, I provided background to my study by describing the debate between EAP instructors on how to best prepare EAP students for the demands of academic writing. I then stated that to better frame this discussion the differences between the writing needs of undergraduate and graduate students needed to be considered. My assumption was that the academic writing needs of these two populations were different and that to prepare graduate level EAP students for the writing demands they would face, it was necessary to better understand the various purposes and uses of writing in advanced disciplinary-based settings. I also argued for an approach to studying writing in these disciplinary-based settings which would go beyond the identification of isolated representative tasks or genres, to a fuller understanding of the purposes and uses of these tasks and genres in the context 157 158 in which they were assigned. Consequently, I developed a contextually based study of writing which looked at writing from a functional and contextual perspective. I purposely chose to study writing in a disciplinary-based "writing" course because: I believed it would provide an explicit representation of disciplinary-based purposes, values, and expectations for writing. I also designed a contextual study of writing instruction in an advanced EAP writing course. My purpose in designing a dual study was to investigate and compare the instructors' approaches to teaching writing in both' contexts to see how similar or dissimilar their approaches to writing were. My hope was that such a comparison might provide insights for further research in advanced academic settings and for writing instruction at the graduate level, particularly ‘with, regard to EAP ‘writing instruction. - Having provided a review of my original purposes, I will now consider the implications of my study for writing research in advanced post-secondary settings, and for writing instruction_ in both advanced disciplinary-based and EAP settings. I will also include recommendations at the end of each section. A word of caution concerning these recommendations should be noted here. Because of the naturalistic, interpretive design of the study, the generalizability of the results to other settings is limited. However, this does not preclude the translatability of findings (i.e., comparisons of findings in similar settings - 159 see Goetz & LeCompte, 1984). It does mean, though, that the recommendations made in this chapter should be considered as suggestions, not directions, for practice. Implications of the Study for Writing Research in Advanced Post-Secondary Classrooms In this section, I will consider the implications of my study for writing research in advanced post-secondary settings. In particular, I will consider the value of using a framework of context variables to investigate writing, the usefulness of an interpretive, naturalistic research approach, and the value of a comparative study of EAP and MC classroom settings. Inn Vnine gt using a Framework of Context Vaniabigs One of my background assumptions entering this study was that the investigation of writing in advanced post-secondary classroom settings was a complex, dynamic, interactive, and contextually-dependent undertaking. Consequently, I desired to design a framework for research which would recognize the multiple variables and "layers" of context impacting writing in these advanced academic settings. With these considerations in mind, I developed "A Model of Context Variables Involved in the Production of Written Text in a Graduate Classroom" (see Figure 2, Chapter 2). This model highlighted the dynamic and interactive relationship between higher levels of context (setting influences, instructor knowledge sources), the instructor (his/her beliefs and 160 values, orientations toward writing, and representation of writing), and the student writer (his/her knowledge sources, perception of writing tasks, task production strategies) in the production of a written text in an advanced post-secondary classroom setting. Since the focus of my actual classroom studies was on the instructors' approaches to teaching writing, I modified this model to represent the various levels of context without.the student.writer dimension (see Figure 6, Chapter 2). I used this modified model as a framework for looking at the context variables influencing writing instruction in these two post-secondary settings. Although I considered this framework of context variables to be a preliminary representation, it turned out to be a useful heuristic with which to purposely and systematically consider the context variables affecting each instructor's representation of writing in the classroom. A useful dimension of the framework is the identification of distinct context variables. Identification of particular context variables is important in that certain variables impact other variables in the framework. Setting influences (e.g., professional, institutional) in both courses impacted the purposes and type of tasks the instructors assigned. For example, in the EAPon is... 4 3.8 a.“ 9 ac. u gsoa at.teoe_eoeo :— stereo c.« to .uu. ou.ogu use: :— gotta uso.sau to oasuxaa.eco o.e x. at z: use.tuu to ease to acute» toc.s o.n c.e sedan u_ae4 «cocoa cu>oa.x.w utottu use. «Lotto x...u>_u 3.3... n 2.8 ... so...eo 4. canto-tea < o— c ac.oaoe.oota :— stereo v.n e—.—— a e... use_eou u.cu— an.as z: to ca< .3 23.3 sec..- Yn o-.—— :a_uu< so o< stereo o>...tsoa o>_uuea «no-o .ceucsooe .nou-era ou.eu .no>.u .eLaxu «Lotto eco noose» ox arose. as - «eaten a: m— utoeeo as m— orocco oz op «taste a: 9— 050550 on :— utseto as o— utset. ex on ¢< ac.as— .uc_vaot.oota 65:2: .89.»: use: u gotta co_.osuucaa gone to. .. eo_uos.ucsa \tassaeo o a..to.u ec- unocuuotucou n snoutsou e nausea—ucou n 32.33989 N eo.uou_eauto — ZZGES LIST OF REFERENCES LIST OF REFERENCES Anson, C. (1988). Toward a multidimensional model of writing in the academic disciplines. In D. Jolliffe (Ed. ), Advances in writing research, volume two: Writing in acagenic discipiines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Baldauf, R.B. & Jernudd, B.H. (1983). Language of publications as a variable in scientific communication. Anstralian Review of Applied Linguistics, 5. 97-108. Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In M. Rose (Ed. ), When a writer can't write: Studies in pritaz's plock ang other composing processes. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Belcher, D. (1995). Writing critically across the curriculum. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writ'n 'n a second lan ua e: Essa s on research an pagagpgy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Belcher, D., & Braine, G. (Eds.) (1995). Academic writing in a second ianguage: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Berkenkotter, C., Huckin, T., & Ackerman, J. (1988). Conventions, conversations, and the writer: Case study of a student in a rhetoric Ph.D. program. Research in the Teaching of Engiish, gt, 9-44. Bizzel, P. (1982). College composition: Initiation into the academic discourse community. Curriculum Tnguiry, l2, 191-207. Braine, G. (1989). Writing in science and technology: An analysis of assignments from ten undergraduate courses. Englian far Specific Eutposes, a, 3-15. Brandt, D. (1986). Toward an understanding of context in composition. Written Communication, 1. 139-157. Bridgeman, C. & Carlson, S. (1984). Survey of academic writing tasks. Wr'tten Communication, T, 247-280. 266 267 Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., & Rosen, H. (1975). Tag development at wtiting abilitiea (ii-i8). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Carson, J, & Leki, I. (1994). Students' perceptions of EAP writing instruction and writing needs across the disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, lfi. 81-101. Casanave, C. (1995). Local interactions: Constructing contexts for composing in a graduate sociology program. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a aecond language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Chaudron, C. (1988). Second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connor, U., & Kramer, M. (1995). Writing from sources: Case studies of graduate students in business management. In D. Belcher and G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Connor, U., & Lauer, J. (1985). Understanding persuasive essay writing: A linguistic/rhetorical approach. Text, é, 309-326. Cummings, A. Fostering writing expertise in ESL composition instruction: Modeling and evaluation. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second iangpage: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Desruisseaux, P. (1995, November 10). Foreign Influx Slows. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A43-44. Doheny-Farina, S. & Odell, L. (1985). Ethnographic research on writing: Assumptions and methodology. In L. Odell and D. Goswami, Writing in nonacademic setting . New York: The Guilford Press. Dudley-Evans, T. (1995). Common-core and specific approaches to the teaching of academic writing. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second a : ss 5 on research and eda o . Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Durst, R. (1990). The mongoose and the rat in composition research. Coiiege Composition and Commnnication, Al, 393-408. Elbow, P. (1973). Wtiting without teachers. London: Oxford University Press. 268 Firth, J.R. (1935). The technique of semantics, Translations ot tne philological society. Reprinted in J.R. Firth, Papers in iinguistics 1934-195i. (Oxford University Press, London, 1959). Florio, S., & Clark, C. (1983). Understanding writing instruction: Issues of theory and method. In P. Mosenthal (Ed.), Research on writing. New York: Longman. Flower, L. (1989). Cognition, context, and theory building. Eoilege Composition and Communication, 5Q, 282-311. Froedsen, J. (1995). Negotiating the syllabus: A learning-centered, interactive approach to ESL graduate writing course design. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Agademic writing in a second language: Essays on rasearch and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (1983). Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretiye antnrpppiogy. New York: Basic Books. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of groundad tneory: Etrategies tar guaiitative resaarch. Chicago: Aldine. Goetz, J. & LeCompte, M. (1984). Ethnograpny and gpaiitative design in educational research. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc. Halliday, M.A.K., & Hassan, R. (1989). Language, context, and text: Aspects of langnage in a sociai-seniotic parspeptive. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, K. (1988). Rhetoric and epistemology in the social sciences: A contrast of two representative texts. In D. Jolliffe (Ed.), Advances in writing research, volume two: Writing in academic discipiines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hayes, J.R., & Flower, L. (1979). Writing as problem- solving. In A process model of composition. Technical report no. 1 ed. by L. Flower & J.R. Hayes. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie-Mellon University, 84-103. Heath, 8.8. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and wort in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 269 Herrington, A. (1985). Writing in academic settings: A study of the contexts for writing in two chemical engineering courses. Research in the Teaching of English. L9. 331-359- Herrington, A. (1988). Teaching, writing, and learning: A naturalistic study of writing in an undergraduate literature course. In D. Jolliffe (Ed.), Advances in yriting research, volume two: Writing in academic disciplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. ' Herrington, A. (1989). The first twenty years of Research in the Teaching of English and the growth of a research community in composition studies. Research in the Teaching of English, 2;, 117-138. Horowitz, D. (1986f. What professors actually require: Academic tasks for the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 2Q, 445-462. Hudson, 8. (1986). Context and children's writing. Research in the Teaching of English, A9, 294-316. Johns, A. (1990). L1 composition theories: Implications for developing theories of L2 composition. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Secgnd ianguage writing: Research insights ror the classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johns, A. (1991). Faculty assessment of ESL student literacy skills: Implications for writing assessment. In L. Hamp- Lyons (Ed.), Assessing second language writing in academic contexts. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Johns, A. (1995). Teaching classroom and authentic genres: Initiating students into academic culture and discourses. In D. Belcher and G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second iangnage: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Jolliffe, D., & Brier, E. (1988). Studying writers' knowledge in academic disciplines. In D. Jolliffe (Ed.), Advances in writing researchl volume two: Writing in the academic disciplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Kantor, K., Kirby, D., & Goetz, J. (1981). Research in context: Ethnographic studies in English education. Basaargn in the Teaching a: English, ii, 293-309. Leki, I. (1995). Good writing: I know it when I see it. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Acadenic writing in a second an ua e: Essa s on research and eda o . Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 270 Long, M., & Seliger, H. (1985). Classroom oriented research in secgnd langpage acguisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House . Lutz, F. (1981). Ethnography - the holistic approach to understanding and schooling. In J.C. Green and C. Wallat (Eds.), Ethnography and language in educational settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Malinowski, B. (1923). The problem of meaning in primitive languages. Supplement 1 in O.K. Ogden & I.A. Richards (Eds.), The meaning of meaning. London: Kegan Paul. McCarthy, L. (1987). A stranger in strange lands: A college student writing across the curriculum. Researgn in the Teaching of English, AA, 233-265. McDonough, J. (1986). English for academic purposes: A research basis? English for Specific Purposes, é, 17-25. Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Michaels, S. (1981). "Sharing time": Children's narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in mm. 1.9. 423—442. Mosenthal, P. (1983). On defining writing and classroom writing competence. In P. Mosenthal, L. Tamor, & S. Walmsley (Eds.), Research on writing. New York: Longman. Nelson, J. (1990). This was an easy assignment. Research in tne Teaching of English, AA, 362-398. Odell, L., & Goswami, D. (1982). Writing in a non-academic setting. Research in the Teaching of Engiish, in, 201- 223. Patton, M.Q. (1990). Quaiitative evaluation and research naphods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Perelman, L. (1986). The context of classroom writing. lelege English, ga, 471-479. Piazza, C. (1987). Identifying context variables in research on writing. Written Communication, A, 107-137. Prior, P. (1991). Contextualizing writing and response in a graduate seminar. Written Commun'cat' , a, 267-310. 271 Prior, P. (1995). Redefining the task: An ethnographic examination of writing and response in graduate seminars. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academig writing in a e 0 an e: Ess s on research n da 0 . Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Reid, J. (1984). The radical outliner and the radical brainstormer: A perspective on composing processes. TESOL Quarteriy, ig, 529-533. Rymer, J. (1988). Scientific composing processes: How eminent scientists write journal articles. In D. Jolliffe (Ed.), Advances in writing research. voiuna two: Writing in the academic disciplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Schneider, M., and Fujishima, N. (1995). When practice doesn't make perfect: The case of a graduate ESL student. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on researgh and pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Sevigny, M. (1981). Triangulated inquiry - a methodology for‘the analysis of classroom interaction. In J.L. Green & C. Wallat (Eds.), Ethnography and language in adugational settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Shulman, L. (1986). Paradigms and research programs in the study of teaching. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Spack, R. (1988). Initiating ESL students into the academic discourse community: How far should we go? TESOL Quarterly, AA, 29-51. Swales, J. (1990). Genre-analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ulichny, P. (1991, March). What is ethnography and how does it apply to L2 classroom research? Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, New York. Handout provided. Van Lier, L. (1988). Ine classroom and the language learner. New York: Longman. Watson-Gegeo, K. (1988). Ethnography in ESL: Defining the essentials. TESOL Quarterly, g2, 575-592. 272 Williamson, M. (1988). A model for investigating the functions of written language in different disciplines. In D. Jolliffe (Ed.), Advances in wriring resaarcn, volume two: Writing in academic disciplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. General References Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge: Tha ganra and activity of the experimental article in sgiance. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1983). Levels of inquiry in writing research. In P. Mosenthal, L. Tamor, & S. Walmsley (Eds.), Research on writing. New York: Longman. Bizzel, P. (1992). Academic discourse and critical consciousness. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Brodkey, L. (1987). Writing ethnographic narratives. Written Communication, A, 25-50. Canseco, G., & Byrd, P. (1989). Writing required in graduate courses in business administration. TESOL Quarterly, AA, 305-316. Carson, J., Carrell, P., Silberstein, S., Kroll,B., and Kuehn, P. (1990). Reading-writing relationships in first and second language. TESOL Quarterly, AA, 245-266. Cazden, C. (1990). Book Review. TESOL Quarteriy, 2A, 717- 724. Connor, U. (1987). Research frontiers in writing analysis. TESOL Qnarterly, 2;, 677-696. Connor, U., & Johns, A. (1990). Coherenge in writing. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Cross, G. (1990). A bakhtinian exploration of factors affecting the collaborative writing of an executive letter of an annual report. Research in the Teaching of English. 2&. 173-204- Doheny-Farina, S. (1986). Writing in an emerging organization. Written Communicat'on, ;, 158-185. 273 Dyson, A. (1984). Learning to write/learning to do school: Emergent writers' interpretations of school literacy tasks. Research in the Teaching of English, Ag, 233-264. Emig, J. (1971). The composing processes of tweifth gragers. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Emig, J. (1982). Inquiry paradigms and writing. College Qomposition and Communication, A;, 64-75. Erickson, F. (1985). Qualitative research on teaching. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Faigley, L., & Hansen, K. (1985). Learning to write in the social sciences. College Composition and Communication, aa, 140-149. Flower, L. & Hayes, J.R. (1977). Problem-solving strategies and the writing process. Colle e En lish, Q9, 449-461. Graves, D. (1981). Writing research for the eighties: What is needed. Language Arts, aa, 197-206. Hamp-Lyons, L. (Ed.) (1991). Assessing second ianguage yriring in academic contexts. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Harrison, T. (1987). Frameworks for the study of writing in organizations. Written Communication, A, 3-23. Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on written composition. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Johns, A. (1994). The author responds. TESOL Quarterly, Ag, 392-395. Johnson, D., & Roen, D. (1989). Richness in writing: Enpowering ESL students. New York: Longman. Jolliffe, D. (Ed.) (1988). Advances in writing researgnl voinne twp; Writing in the academic disciplines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Jones, N. (1994). Comments on Ann M. Johns' "Written argumentation for real audiences: Suggestions for teacher research and classroom practice." TESOL Quarteriy, ga, 389-392. Kaplan, B. (1988). Contrastive rhetoric and second language learning: Notes toward a theory of contrastive rhetoric. In A. Purves (Ed.), Writing across languages and cultures. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 274 Kroll, B. (1990). Second lan ua e writin : Reseac 'ns' hts for rhe classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mischel, T. (1974). A case study of a twelfth-grade writer. Research in the Teaching of English, A, 303-314. Mishler, E. (1979). Meaning in context: Is there any other kind? Harvard Educational Review, AA, 1-19. Mosenthal, P., Tamor, L., & Walmsley, S. (Eds.). (1983). Research on writing. New York: Longman. l Myers, G. (1985). The social construction of two biologists' proposals. Written Communication, A, 219- 245. . North, 8. (1986). Writing in a philosophy class. Research in the Teaching of English, AQ, 225-262. Nunan, D. (1990). Second language classroom research. (Contract No. R188062010). Sydney, Australia: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED FL 89 09). Parkhurst, C. (1990). The composition process of science writers. English for Specific Purposes, A, 169-179. Perl, S. (1979). The composing processes of unskilled college writers. Research in the Teaching of English, 1;. 317-336. Pianko, S. (1979). Composing processes of college freshmen. Research in the Teaching of English, AA, 5-23. Raimes, A. (1985). What unskilled ESL students do as they write: A classroom study. TESOL Quarterly, AA, 229-259. Voss, R. (1983). Janet Emig's "The composing processes of twelfth graders": A reassessment. College Composition d C mmunication, AA, 278-283. Winsor, D. (1990). Engineering writing/ writing engineering. Colle e Com osition and Communicatio , AA, 58-70. Zamel, V. (1983). The composing processes of advanced ESL students: Six case studies. TESOL Quarterly, A1, 165- 187.