,Ir: a K . I‘M‘wm... .73.“. “a. . . I... .. . ‘ l finwn . , “$2 . ~ w a for: 5. , . , ... a. . . .. {£an . . ,r :L k. ‘55 5. gnaw. 53.2.... . . gear: :« .33: . .. 2:: Jun. , EuerL-u. . . V. . hum.» : it but . 4.9.... 4‘” run. 5. r 4..» In .r... 2. v... :5.....~..5.svx 9.. n , , V :Rm '3 a «m. 1.. , .1113 L. .132" 7. v _. . I. .lmu . . : . Her)... .1 if THESIS :3 00 i This is to certify that the dissertation entitled THE ACQUISITION OF DISCIPLINARY RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND CONVENTIONS PORTRAITS OF TWO UNDERGRADUATES presented by Mary Ann Sherby has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. English degree in Major professor Date August 30, 2000 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0- 12771 LIBRARY MIchIgan State Unlvorslty PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE 11m mossy.“ THE ACQUISITION OF DISCIPLINARY RHE'I‘ORICAL STRATEGIES AND CONVENTIONS PORTRAITS OF TWO UNDERGRADUATES by - Mary Ann Sherby A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 2000 ABSTRACT THE ACQUISITION OF DISCIPLINARY RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND CONVENTIONS: PORTRAITS OF TWO UNDERGRADUATES By 1 Mary Ann Sherby The process by which students acquire disciplinary rhetorical expertise has been the subject of extensive research in the field of composition recently. A major difficulty students face in learning to write as professionals in their disciplines is the tacit nature of rhetorical expertise. In this dissertation, I focus on the process through which two university undergraduates develop as professionals in their respective disciplines by investigating the ways in which they acquire rhetorical conventions in chemistry and music therapy. Through interviews with the students and selected professors who are teaching them, as well as through examining texts written by the students and documents provided to instruct them in writing, I investigate their use of the scafi'olding in their disciplinary writing intensive classes. The theoretical framework through which I view their acquisition of disciplinary rhetorical conventions and strategies is legitimate peripheral participation. In this theoretical framework a novice, working in conjunction with a master practitioner, develops not only particular skills and abilities in a trade or a discipline, but acquires an identity as a novice practitioner. Using this framework, I study how students develop this identity as they are developing the ability to write in disciplinary genres. I investigate the challenges they face as they work with each other and their professors to accomplish specific tasks during this process (for example, to compose abstracts in chemistry and to construct goals and objectives and session evaluations for clients in music therapy). I also investigate how professors provide feedback on students’ writing and how undergraduates simultaneously construct personas as students and as developing professionals. Copyright by Mary Ann Sherby 2000 For Tom, with deepest gratitude ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was able to write this dissertation because of the intellectual nudging, the previous research, and the generous and consistent support of many individuals. I wish to express my deepest thanks to the co-chairs of my committee, Sharon Thomas and Jay Ludwig, who guided me in conceiving of this project and consistently provided me with advice and support during the time I was completing it. Thanks also to the other members of my committee, Diane Brunner, Kathleen Geissler, and Marilyn Wilson, and to Leonora Smith, who gave me helpful responses as I was writing. In addition, Marcellette Williams, of the University of Massachusetts, a member of my original committee, commented on my initial plans for this research and helped me to believe in myself throughout my graduate studies. I want to express my deep appreciation to Patricia Lambert Stock, Director of the Writing Center, who initiated the Portfolio Project and who consistently expressed enthusiam for my research, and to my colleague, Julie Galvin Bevins. As the coordinator of the Portfolio Project, she was extremely generous and helpful in sharing the data that she and other Writing Center faculty and staff had collected before I began my research and in helping me to contact students. Thanks also to my colleagues in FIPSE, who commented on a draft of part of my fourth chapter as I was developing it, and to Janet Swenson, co—director of the Writing Center, Laura J ulier, former co-director, and all of my colleagues in the center during these past two years for their camaderie, their unfailing sense of humor, and their collective support. Profound thanks to my writing group comrades, Terri Trupiano Barry, Peggy Cunniffe, and Elizabeth Demers. They set deadlines, provided vi extensive comments on draft after draft of various segments, and helped me remain committed to finish. Finally, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to my husband, Tom, and to all the other members of my family for their patience and their encouragement while I was completing this dissertation. Thanks, also, to all of my friends, especially to Linda Beth Tiedje and Eleanor Morrison, who consistently encouraged and sustained me. Mary Ann Sherby August 25, 2000 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction - 1 Rhetorical practices invisible - 6 Chapter2 ‘ . Tacit Aspects of Disciplinary Rhetoric and Research in Its Acquisition 11 Belief in language as transparent 1 1 Theoretical issues - 1 5 Using disciplinary genres skillfiilly 16 learning the nuances required in addressing one’s audience 17 Anticipating readers’ expectations - 18 Understanding how the construction of knowledge may be simplified 20 Engaging tacitly in disciplinary rhetorical strategies ..... 22 Integrating declarative knowledge with procedural knowledge 23 Viewing writing as recursive - h 25 Research in the acquisition of disciplinary rhetoric .......... 26 Focus of this study 31 Chapter 3 ResearchDesign: Context, Participants, Data, andAnalysis” .34 Introduction 3 4 Academic context 34 Portfolio project and participants 3 7 Developing metacognition: Discoveries about disciplinary discourse - _ _ _ 40 Revising: Moving between “content space” and “rhetorical space”.. - 41 Integrating academic knowledge into personal interests.......4 1 Becoming acclimated to disciplinary terminology ................... 43 Mastering disciplinary conventions by using language flexibly 4 4 Data previously collected _ 47 Participants in research on disciplinary writing ................. 48 Data collection in disciplinary writing 48 Questions -- - - -- 51 Anabsis of data 52 Constructing texts in the zone of proximal development .54 Chapter4 I Portraits of Nicole and Julie as They Engage in Disciplinary Writing 62 Introduction _ 62 Nicole-Personal portrait _ -66 Previous experience in writing 68 Professional-in-training - 69 Gainingan understanding of disciplinary discourse”... ........... 69 Acquiring disciplinary knowledge, conventions, and strategies 7 2 Writingtolearn ' 72 Focusing on detail in laboratory reports 7 2 ix Conducting experiments: interpreting data and communicating findings 7 4 Constructing an abstract: Responding to feedback on tense and the use of detail 7 9 Writing “editorials” for students: Providing scaffolding through mediated authorship 85 Invoking science as the “superaddressee”: Using third person and passive voice to establish authority ........ 88 Considering audience: contraditions between teaching and practice 90 Using graphics to compose 93 Scafi'olding for conducting graphics 93 Thinking in terms of image: Viewing formula as art........96 School writing and writing in the workplace 99 Writing in the workplace 100 Constructing a persona: Writing for “display” and “real work” 101 Summary 105 Julie-Personal porn-Lit 108 Previous experience in writing 109 Protessional-in-training 111 The role played by writing in the music therapy curriculum 111 Gaining an understanding of disciplinary discourse: learning to be objective 1 1 4 Acquiring disciplinary conventions for working with clients in music therapy 1 1 7 Establishing denotative meanings: Using Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan (S.O.A.P.) to document a client’s behavior _ 1 1 7 x Describing behavior: Measuring a client’s achievements 119 Measuring behavior precisely 12 1 Writing goals and objectives: Mastering a genre ............ 123 Participating in “situated, mediawd” activity ................. 127 Setting goals and writing evaluations - 129 Learning to persuade “outside” audiences . 13-2 Responding to feedback on a progress report. ................. 134 Being enabledtowrite. 139 Acquiring disciplinary conventions and strategies for conducting rwearch 140 Conducting a psychological experiment 14 1 Becoming an ethnographer 144 Summary 1 55 Chapter 5 ‘ SuggestionsforDisciplinaryPractice 158 Focusing on rhetoric in freshman composition classes..162 Investigatingand modeling disciplinary practices ......... 164 Reading practices - 165 Examining experts’ practices 165 Modeling experts’ practices 167 Writing practices 167 Writing for“real work” - - 167 Modeling composing - 168 Investigating disciplinary conventions -_ ..... . _-_-17 1 Examining genres in particular discourse communities.-- ........ - - - - - l7 1 Examiningchangesindisciplinary genres ........................ 171 Helping students to recognize their knowledge of genre.1 72 Examining sentence-level discourse .................................. 1 7 3 Enabling students to critique discourse communities... 1 7 4 Engaging injoint teaching practices ...................................... 177 Team teaching a disciplinary course .......................... 1 7 7 Teaching a course in rhetoric and another disciplinary course in tandem .................................................................... 178 Conducting research with faculty in other disciplines...179 AppendixA Consent to Participate in Stuck (Students, Professors) Sample Questions Asked of Students and of Professors ....................................................................... 184 Appendix B Abstracts for Reports rn Analytical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory (Nicole) ................................................................. 19 1 Appendix C Music Therapy Plan: Activities: Goals and Objectives; ‘ Semester End Progress Report (draft and revised version) (Julie) 197 Appendix D Research Papers ........................................................................... 207 The Efl’ect of Music on the Essay Writing of Undergraduate Females (Julie) ................................. 208 Corned Beef and Tacos: An Irish Creoliaation (draft and final version) (Julie) ................................. 214 Works Cited ............................................................................................... 225 Chapter 1 Introduction [Lliteracy is not merely the capacity to understand the conceptual content of writings and utterances, but the ability to participate fully in a set of social and intellectual practices. It is not passive but active; not imitative but creative, for participation in the speaking and writing of language is participation in the activities it makes possible. (James Boyd White 72) Ifteachers of English are to offer courses that truly prepare students to write in other disciplines, they will have to explore why those disciplines study certain subjects, why certain methods of inquiry are sanctioned, how the conventions of a discipline shape a text in that discipline, how individual writers represent themselves in a text, how a text is read and disseminated, and how one text influences subsequent texts. . . . Ifteachers of English succeed in this endeavor, they will help to restore rhetoric to the central place in the college curriculum 1 that it once held. (Lester Faigley and Kristine Hansen 149) Since Lester Faigley and Kristine Hansen issued this challenge to English teachers in May of 1985, substantial inquiry has been focused on both discourse communities themselves and on the process through which students enter into these communities, how they acquire rhetorical strategies in specific disciplines at both the graduate and the undergraduate levels. Discourse communities in a wide variety of disciplines and professions have been analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. The discourse of science, . in particular, has been carefully scrutinized (Bazerman, LaTour and Woolgar, Knorr-Cetina, Myers). And researchers in composition and rhetoric have undertaken a number of studies of students writing in the disciplines, both in classrooms and individually (Chiseri-Strater, Geisler, Berkenkotter and Huckin, Walvoord and McCarthy, Herrington, Prior). However, much remains to be discovered through viewing disciplinary writing from the perspective of individuals in the process of endeavoring to enter into a particular community and of faculty assisting them in this process. In this ethnographic study, I explore how two students at Michigan State University engage in the process of learning to write and to think in the rhetorical constructs of chemistry and music therapy. I examine how the disciplinary discourse begins to penetrate students’ texts and how they integrate this discourse into their thinking and their identities as preprofessionals. One of the facets of undergraduate writing explored by Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater in her ethnographic study of two students at the University of New Hampshire, as well as by Bartholomae and Petrosky and - other researchers, is the conflict which often occurs “between the public and private discourses” of students (Chiseri-Strater xxiii). Students may find it difficult to accept the perspectives embedded in a particular disciplinary discourse that they are involved in learning. While such discord is revealed in my research, I focus my analysis not upon conflict, but upon how students incorporate “public discourses” into their identifies. ' Grounding this study in a view of knowledge as socially constructed (Burke-LeFevre) and of language as dialogic (Bakhtin), I focus on students’ 2 and teachers’ work in disciplinary classes: their struggles, their achievements, and their expectations for themselves. I view their work through the lens of “legitimate peripheral participation” as it is defined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a process in which novices begin to take part in a community, first assuming responsibility for minor tasks and gradually for more significant ones (14). Through such participation over a period of time, they acquire not only new skills and abilities, but they begin to identify with members of the community. In the case of novices in an academic discipline (whom I view in this discussion as also engaged in “legitimate peripheral participation”), they incorporate the community‘s discourse conventions and the viewpoints implied by them into their own identifies. ' As students begin to enter into the disciplinary discourse communities in their upper level classes, they struggle to work appropriately within what Bakhtin calls the “semiotic interaction” of a group. Consciousness takes shape and being in the material of signs created by an organized group in the process of its social intercourse. The individual consciousness is nurtured on signs; it derives its growth from them; it reflects their logic and laws. The logic of consciousness is the logic of ideological communica- tion, of the semiotic interaction of a social group. (Bakhtin, Marxism 930) In seeking to participate in exchanges within a particular discourse community, preprofessionals face the formidable task of becoming familiar with its terminology, its thinking patterns, and its rhetorical imperatives. Bakhtin’s description of what an individual undertakes in grappling with language emphasizes the complexity of this task: 3 Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated—overpopulated—with the intentions of others. Expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a dificult and complicated process. (M 294) Students in the process of becoming preprofessionals must enter into a disciplinary discourse which is, indeed, teeming “with the intentions of _ others.” And in the midst of sorting through these “intentions and accents,” they must establish their ethos as knowledgeable persons who can skillfully use specific terms and genres appropriate to this discipline, entering into the dialogue already established within it. As they engage in this dialogue, using the language of a discipline and grappling with disciplinary precepts, they incorporate the perspectives embedded in disciplinary language into their identities (Herrington, Berkenkotter and Huckin). This process illustrates Vygotsky‘s notion, closely allied with that of Bakhtin, that “the self only comes into existence through community” (Zebroski 240), and that “[t] he discourse of the self tends to shift from public languages to private languages” (240). James Zebroski explains this shift by noting Vygotsky’s theory that “symbolic activity [entails] a specific organizing function that penetrates the process of tool use and produces fundamentally new forms of behavior” (mg 24) and describes the reciprocal process that is established through this activity. “At first language forms the social self, but then the self forms language. As the self speaks language, new linguistic forms arise. Through new words and texts, the self becomes able to conceive of new worlds and new selves“ (Zebroski 242). It is in this process of immersing herselfin disciplinary language and thus forming her “social self” within a discipline that a student becomes a 4 preprofessional through the process of participating within a disciplinary community. Such participation is a gradual, often lengthy process of “learning -of both absorbing and being absorbed in-the ‘culture of practice” (Lave and Wenger 95). During this process, the learner both observes experts performing and engages in performances of her own, at first in response to explicit instructions from others and eventually in response not simply to instructions but to meta-information that she has acquired (Lave and Wenger 74). Through “partial participation” in “segments of work that increase in complexity and scope,” a novice becomes identified with the community (80). In this study, the texts students compose and read are viewed as centered in genres within “sociorhetorical” discourse communities (Swales 24), in which “discoursal characteristics” are not simply social but are frequently developed in response to a particular community’s “goals” (24). Such characteristics inculcate not only a way of writing but a way of viewing knowledge. As Carolyn R. Miller notes, [Wlhat we learn when we learn a genre is not just a pattern of forms or even a method of achieving our own ends. We learn, more importantly, what ends we may have. . . . We learn to understand better the situations in which we find ourselves and the potentials for failure and success in acting together . . . . [Flor the student, genres serve as keys to understanding how to participate in the actions of a community (165). While genres of a specific community do, indeed, provide students with a means through which to enter into it, they can also become stumbling blocks for them as they struggle to acquire appropriate registers and diction (Berkenkotter and Huckin, Walvoord and McCarthy, Geisler, Herrington). 5 Rhetorical practices invisible When students write as initiates in a disciplinary community, many of the rhetorical strategies in which they need to engage are partially concealed from them or are, in fact, invisible. In the course of immersing themselves into a new discom'se, students may work with little or no rhetorical modeling. Professors already inculcated into the thinking patterns and the rhetorical constructs of a particular discipline may no longer be consciously aware of these patterns and constructs because, as Richard M. Coe notes, “many- perhaps most—experts use their genres without explicit conscious knowledge or control” (158). David Russell points out that “[a] discipline uses writing as a tool for pursuing some object [not as a goal in itself]. . . .. Thus, writing tends to become transparent, automatic, and beneath the level of conscious activity for those who are thoroughly socialized into it. Activity theory, as developed by Ieont’ev (1981) argues that using a certaingenreofwriting. . . aspartofanactivitysystemislike usingthegearshifiofacar . . . . Whenfirstlearningtodrive(or write), one must devote much conscious effort to using the tool. After sufficient participation . . . over a period of time, these conscious actions become automatic and unconscious. . . . As a result, experts may have great difficulty explaining these operations to neophytes. (“Activity Theory” 70) Because of this “unconscious” functioning, professors are likely to employ rhetorical strategies matter of factly, and, therefore, to see little need to explicate such strategies for their students. In addition, they may not recognize that learning to write is a recursive process rather than a linear one, in which “breakdown” of formerly mastered abilities is inevitable in the 6 face of writing tasks which impose new levels of sophistication (Williams and Colomb) and in which errors may be viewed as evidence of learning (Shaugnessy). Even those who are aware of their own rhetorical moves may . find it dificult to initiate their students into such moves (Geisler). Thus without being provided with explicit modeling of rhetorical strategies, preprofessionals must do the best they can to emulate in writing the texts they are reading. In his oft-quoted article on fi-eshmen, David Bartholomae describes students as being compelled to “invent the university” as they begin to write at the college level. But more advanced students, too, can be characterized to be “inventing,” finding their way into writing within their disciplines, in the sense that they must learn, by trial and error, both explicit strategies for writing and tacit stipulations in the process. For example, Berkenkotter and Huckin describe in detail the difliculties encountered by “Nate,” a first-year Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric Program at Carnegie Mellon, during his “cognitive apprenticeship” (118). As he attempts to master the genre of “social science expository prose” (121), Nate grapples with the discrepancies between it and writing that he has previously valued. And he consciously resists becoming completely identified with the disciplinary community he is . entering (122-28). Entering a disciplinary community is a complex undertaking that resists explication and that is ofien regarded by those outside .the field of composition as, in fact, needing none. Yet the experience of “an outsider trying to get in” is undergone by nearly all college students at least once and “happens to our best students many times over” (Williams and Colomb 108). ‘ In order to make the tacit process of entering into a disciplinary community more visible, I reflect on two upper level undergraduate students’ 7 observations as they are learning to write and think in disciplinary courses. I investigate how they deal with the difliculties facing them and acquire insights into disciplinary writing, how they and their professors perceive this enterprise, and how they engage in it together. Thus I heighten the visibility of how students go about “inventing themselves” as preprofessionals. The primary lens through which I view students’ enculturation into disciplinary writing is their engagement in legitimate peripheral participation, the process previously mentioned through which students begin to align themselves with the practices of a particular discipline and to identify themselves with its practitioners. A significant element of this process is the concept of scaffolding, a supportive construct which a student makes use of with the help of a teacher or a mentor in order to accomplish a ‘ task which she or he could not accomplish alone and unaided. As the student becomes more adept at a particular task, she or he becomes less dependent on the scafi'olding provided and eventually is able to perform the task independently. This concept, developed by Jerome Bruner (Cazden 102), is based on the “zone of proximal development,” described by Lev Vygotsky (in , the context of children’s development) as the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adultguidance or in collaboration with more capable peers [emphasis in original]. (M 86) As used in this study, scafiblding is the structure which a professor creates in a disciplinary writing class in order to enable students to complete the writing he or she expects of them: the class syllabus, the readings for the course, the specific instructions for writing assignments, models of writing 8 the professor provides, class discussions of writing and individual conferences, and written feedback the professor provides for students. Such a framework, provided during the process of the student’s learning to write and to think in the discipline, presents the rhetorical imperatives of a given discipline such as music therapy, engineering, or chemistry both explicitly and implicitly. This scaffolding, or its absence, also reveals how professors in a department view writing in their discipline. In the context of the scafi‘olding in place in selected disciplinary courses, I study how two undergraduate students (one majoring in chemistry and one, in music therapy) construct and revise their texts as they work within their “zone[s] of proximal development” to develop rhetorical competence as preprofessionals. Six students engaged in upper level disciplinary writing courses at Michigan State University participated in my original research, and I collected data from all six, eventually choosing two on whom to focus. The coursestheyweretakingwere part ofawritingprogram restructuredin 1992-93 in order to begin a “two-tier program of writing across the curriculum” (mm of the Joint Committee on Wrig_ng' Lguirements 1) in which each academic department was expected to establish “a systematic and coherent plan, including courses or groups of courses which certify that students are writing at an acceptable level for that field” (6). . Freshman students (except for those enrolled in colleges that ofi‘ered their own first-year writing sequence) were expected to take a one-semester course in the Department of American Thought and Language, which focused on writing. Students also were to take two writing-intensive courses in Integrative Arts and Humanities. Finally, they would take writing- intensive courses in their major fields of study or a “cluster of courses, each with modest writing components” (6). The six original participants in this study were members of the “portfolio project,” a Writing Center study initiated in the fall of 1993, in which they were invited to voluntarily collect the writing they did over the four or five years they studied at the university and to reflect on it in writing, in conversations with each other at the Center, and in individual interviews with the director of the project. At the time I began interviewing them, these students had been participating in this project for either three or four years, so they were accustomed to reflecting on their writing and to being asked questions about it. Thus it was in a context familiar to them that I asked them to tell me what they knew about writing in their disciplines and what they were questioning, what they were learning and what they remained puzzled about or found difiicult. Simultaneously I interviewed professors who were teaching these students, as well as one teaching assistant, asking them about their practices in initiating students into disciplinary writing and in respondingtotheir writing. , By talking with students and professors as they were directly involved in disciplinary writing, I hoped to capture some sense of what Valerie J anesick calls their “lived experience” (210). Comparing qualitative research design to dance, she notes that both are “interpretive” and “about lived experience” (210). In this qualitative study, I focus on university students as they engage in legitimate peripheral participation within the context of their disciplinary writing courses and struggle with the demands of these courses. By doing so, I hope to illuminate (albeit with a narrowly focused beam of light) the process of how they become encultm'ated into specific disciplines as preprofessionals. 10 Chapter2 Tacit Aspects of Disciplinary Rhetoric and Research in Its Acquisition In this chaptet, I first explain some underlying causes of the tacit aspects of disciplinary writing by briefly discussing why language is often viewed as transparent. Next, I describe some of the theoretical issues in disciplinary writing, and, finally, I review the research in the acquisition of disciplinary rhetoric that is most closely related to this study and describe the focus of my research. Beliefin language as transparent A significant factor underlying the lack of explicit rhetorical instruction in disciplinary writing is a longheld belief in writing as a simple reflection of “reality” (Remus, Locke). The view of language “as transparent recorder of thought or physical reality,” expressed in “the Scottish Common Sense rhetorical theory,” was adopted by Americans near the beginning of the nineteenth century (Russell, V_Vri_ti_ng 10). As writing became a much more significant part of higher education during the latter part of the nineteenth century, its role “in academia-both research and teaching- remained largely transparent, unexamined” (10). This belief is aptly illustrated by George Campbell in his insistence that “every sentence” should be permeated with perspicuity (216). Perspicuity originally and properly implies transparency, such as may be ascribed to air, glass, water or any other medium 11 through which material objects are viewed. From this original . . '. sense it hath been metaphorically applied to language, this being, as it were, the medium though which we perceive the notions and sentiments of a speaker. Now, in corporeal things, if the medium through which we look at any object be perfectly transparent, our whole attention is fixed on the object; we are scarcely sensible that there is a medium which intervenes, and can hardly be said to perceive it. (221) Campbell cautions the speaker [and by extension, the writer] against “any flaw in the [linguistic] medium” which might deflect a listener’s attention “ofi‘ the object to the medium” (221). A speech [or a text] exhibits “perspicuity,” he says, when “the diction” is so unobtrusive that a listener “can scarcely be said to be conscious that it is through this medium he sees into the speaker’s thoughts” (221). In this view, meaning resides in “presymbolic imagination, biologic imperatives, and sensory apprehension of reality. . . . [O]nce we grasp these referents, we can discard the clothing of public language that allows us to locate this presymbolic reality” (Bazerman, Shapmg‘ 19). Therefore if the mind perceives an idea correctly, it need only be “clothed” in words. What a - speaker or writer must focus on, then, is “clarity and precision” (19). Lan- guage is viewed as a tool “to help us locate what we need,” after which it can “vanish” (19). This view of writing gained an even stronger hold as academic departments became increasingly specialized. David Russell explains that “persuasion became . . . so bound up with the genres (and activities) of a specific community‘s discourse, that it could be taken for granted by members of the community. Scholars saw . . . little benefit in making their 12 own discourse accessible to outsiders. . . .” (Mg 12). In focusing on discourse that is centripetal to particular fields of inquiry, academic disci- plines have contributed to keeping “writing instruction . . . an informal and largely unconscious dimension of the regular activity of each community, a transparent part of business as usual” (30). But it is not only this disciplinary focus that has fostered a notion of rhetoric as transparent. It is also the tacit nature of rhetorical expertise. One might picture the process involved in acquiring disciplinary rhetorical strategies as taking place in two locales, or on two “stages” viewed simul- taneously in a play, one of which is highly visible to the participants and their teachers and one of which remains veiled to them. The visible stage is one on which the players learn to name objects and concepts, to perform experi- ments, and to undertake the work of the discipline. 0n the stage underlying the first one, the same players simultaneously take part in less visible activities: learning how to employ technical terms in their speaking and writing, how to gauge the significance of particular concepts and debate appropriately with each other about them, how to report on their experi- ments and activities in a manner that will be respected by disciplinary . practitioners. ‘ The tacit quality of these activities makes it natural to overlook them, or at least to underestimate their significance. Thus many faculty members, regardless of their own facility in writing or of their dedication to teaching, view writing as “a generalizable, elementary skill,” and continue to be “constantly disappointed when student writing faills] to measure up to the local, and largely tacit, standards of a particular social class, institution, discipline, or profession by which they were in fact judging that writing” (6). 13 Because teachers frequently engage in rhetorical strategies on a subconscious level rather than a conscious one, students lack explicit models for developing such strategies. In order to function as an expert in a particular discipline, a teacher must be able to perform some rhetorical tasks tacitly. Someone who must consciously struggle with each minute aspect of how to formulate a report, how to construct a grant proposal, or what to include in a lecture is, by definition, still a novice. Rhetorical . strategies, once mastered, tend to become barely noticeable to the individuals who use them. Once a professional has demonstrated competent use of these strategies and has been inducted into a particular community, she is likely to concentrate on thinking through problems and discussing them but not on the rhetorical precepts she employs in doing so. And while she may carefully choose words and discourse conventions in doing so, she is likely to do so at a subconscious level rather than a conscious one. Indeed, notes Russell, “Islcholars and researchers come to view the particular genres . that the disciplinary community has evolved (and each member of it has internalized) not as rhetorical strategies . . . ; instead, the community’s genres and conventions appear to be unproblematic renderings of the fruits of research“ (16-17). . It is easy to understand how, under such circumstances, a teacher might simply not accord significance to the endeavor of learning to write in a particular discipline. This process is “gradual and subtle,” as Russell points out, “bound up with the activity of the discipline,” and because of this, “faculty have tended to mistake the inevitable struggles of students to acquire the rhetorical conventions of a discipline for poor writing or sheer ignorance” (18). Williams and Colomb concur with Russell, noting that an emphasis on ”steady, linear development” (99) in writing encourages the 14 belief “that ‘regression’ is had. A student who does not continue to perform at a level ‘reached’ earlier has “fallen back’ to a ‘lower’ level of performance” (98). They stress that despite the insistence with which this model of development is imposed on writing, “’novice’ behavior is not limited to the young and untalenteduthe efi‘ort to join a discourse community invites it even at very high levels of professional writing” (103). The view of language as transparent, the tendency of faculty members to employ disciplinary rhetorical strategies tacitly and not to explicate them, and the insistence on conceiving of progress in writing as necessarily linear all contribute significantly to students’ perplexity as they try to make their way into disciplinary discourse and learn to use it effectively. Another factor that may well contribute to their perplexity is the expressivist emphasis on writing as personal expression, on a writer coming up with an creative idea and explicating it primarily (at least initially) for her own pleasure. In addition, the image of the lone writer in a “garret” (Brodkey 54) obscures the fact that much, if not most, professional writing is done in communities in which writers operate with a strong sense of the knowledge and the discourse employed by others in the community. A number of factors are inherent in the process students undertake as they begin to write within specific disciplines. Theoretical issues Researchers have discussed in some detail the exigences faced by students who are “new to a knowledge community “ (Williams and Colomb 102). The challenges faced by students entering into particular rhetorical arenas can may be grouped into the following categories: 1) using disciplinary genres skillfirlly, 2) learning the nuances required in addressing 15 one’s audience, 3) anticipating readers’ expectations, 4) understanding how construction of knowledge may be oversimplified, 5) engaging tacitly in disciplinary rhetorical strategies, 6) integrating declarative knowledge with procedural knowledge, and 7) viewing writing as recursive. 1) Um discigangg genres skillfully Proprofessionals must begin to master a variety of genres appropriate to their specific discipline in addition to learning the language appropriate to them. And they may need to vary the genres they use from class to class and professor to professor even within the same discipline (Herrington, “Writing”). Simultaneously, students must construct an ethos for them- selves as being knowledgeable in the terminology and thinking patterns of their fields. Thus they must be flexible. And because mastering a genre entails more than form, they must study it not only in terms of the texts placed in front of them but in terms of the substance of the conversations taking place among experts in their field and of the vantage point of these experts. They must learn that genre entails not simply form, but the practice of a discipline (Miller; Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman; Bazerman). Charles Bazerman speaks of “the stance and attitude” called for in the entire context of a rhetorical situation at a particular time (Shaprp‘g' 320) in classical terms, ethos and kairos. He urges teachers to provide students not merely “the formal trappings” (320) of requisite genres, but to help them to comprehend the social practices encompassed by particular genres. Students and teachers, be emphasizes, need to be able not only to use rhetoric but to make judgments about its use and to “transform” it if need be (320). Genre, he notes, “only gains meaning throughits use as an 16 interpretive, constructive tool” (320). The extent to which it shapes knowledge is emphasized in Faigley and Hansen’s comment that “[t]he conventional four-part organization of a psychology report specified in the APA Style Sheet embodies a world view about how knowledge can be verified . . . . ”(148). In the study they conducted with Ackerman, Berkenkotter and Huckin characterize “genre knowledge” as coming into being when an individual engages in ”what Lave and Wenger . . . called lqitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice” (1 17). Such participation occurs when a novice takes part in the activities of a discipline (investigating, writing, debating) in a scope more limited than that of a professional. Thus as preprofessionals initiate their entry into professional discourse, their level of participation in disciplinary activities needs to be taken into account. “A person’s intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. This social process includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills” (Lave and Wenger 29) This process involves observing, imitating, and role playing; in other words, it involves identifying with practitioners first, in envisioning oneself as a full participant - and, eventually, in becoming one. 2) mm the nuances rguired in addressmg' one’s audience Students, then, must master not only the use of particular forms or linguistic terms but must learn to situate themselves in a conversation. Situating one’s self entails more than simply knowing what to say (master- ing “domain content”). It means knowing what to leave out and how to address one’s audience (Williams and Colomb 101). This is never a simple 17 task, but it is especially complicated when a writer or speaker is still in the process of acquiring the domain knowledge of a discipline and is not yet certain what can be taken for granted. In their education as undergraduates, students do not necessarily become “full participants” in a discipline. Much of the writing they do may be for display. And in cases where they are performing tasks only in a school setting, the social process does not ordinarily “subsume” the learning of knowledgeable skills. The students’ task is to demonstrate that they have mastered specific content and that they can speak or write about this content in terms acceptable to the experts in that discipline. 3) Anticithng' readers’ eMtions In order to situate themselves, to establish an ethos of capability, students must become readers as well as writers (Haas, Wineburg). They must begin to read as those in the discipline read, to discern the key concepts and the current areas of disagreement in the field. They must also begin to comprehend how their audience reads and produce the sort of texts which , their audience expects to read. Ifthe author works successfully, she composes a text which, as Eco explains, “builds up, by a discursive strategy, the type of reader [a Model Reader] who is supposed to cooperate in order to A actualize the text such as the Model Author (that is, the objective textual strategy) wants it to be” (128). (See Eco, 123-36, for a detailed explanation of this strategy.) A knowledgeable reader (a professor) reads not simply surface information but a text which “goes beyond a reconstruction of the intentions of the author, beyond the use of language as a linguistic technology for persuasion” (W ineburg 498-99). The reader of such a subtext focuses not simply upon the information obviously provided, but upon the 18 “authors’ assumptions, world views, and beliefs” (499). For the studentjust being initiated into a discourse mode, however, writing for such a reader is a daunting prospect because she may not share enough “assumptions . . . and beliefs” with this knowledgeable reader to be able to construct a text that can hold up to such scrutiny. The student may encounter dificulty in creating a persona, an ethos, in which to securely position herself, not only because she lacks domain knowledge in the discipline, that is has only “thin . . . knowledge” (Williams and Colomb 99). but because she is unfamiliar with the context for the conversation. She does not yet know what the limits of this conversation are or how she might begin to extend those limits. In this situation, she may justifiably fear stating the obvious within her text. As Giltrow and Valiquette point out. Shared knowledge-of-the-world can be a boundary-forming condition of the discourse community that uses the genre . . . . Capable writers know when to speak out and when to keep quiet, when to assert and when to assume. This knowledge of knowledge forms part of the writer’s knowledge of the genre. (49) In addition, the student knows she is writing to be examined, to demonstrate what she does know. She must include evidence of having mastered key terms and concepts. Because she is writing to display her knowledge, she is prohibited from leaving out some of the “knowns” that would be left out by an experienced professional. 19 4) Undw' how the construction of knowledge may be oversimplified Knowledge ofien appears to be objective in textbooks because the rhetorical process through which it is constructed is concealed. Students studying assignments in such “autonomous” textbooks read accounts that appear to be authoritative sources of information rather than exchanges of viewpoints between disciplinary experts (MacDonald, Geisler). A novice who uses such a textbook as a model for her writing may understandably pose as an authority presenting “the truth” (Geisler) rather than as an individual picking up the threads of a conversation in the discipline. Textbooks risk masln'ng the intricacies of the construction of knowledge in a discipline. For example, in scientific writing they commonly take a highly codified approach, thus inculcating a reductive view of language which encourages “following prescriptions and avoiding prohibitions” (Bazerman, Sham 155). Such “prescriptions” separate writing from the scientific work which precedes and surrounds it, “making it merely an editing- ]br-propriety process, rather than a complex social event [emphasis mine]” (155). In the field of history, the materials read by students may be composed as narratives even though historians themselves usually focus on analysis. Such texts do not demonstrate for students the kind of writing that they will be required to do. In the words of history professor John R. Breihan, Historians . . . read (and write) opinionated arguments about what the past was like, and they often say why contemporary eyewitnesses and even other historians had it wrong. College history courses should introduce students to . . . what historians actually do. This usually involves introducing them . . . to the concept of conflicting opinions in print . . . and teaching them to 20 recognize and adopt a critical approach to the opinions of others. (qtd. in Walvoord and McCarthy 99) Although some academics might argue that basic concepts or historical events in a discipline should be conveyed to students in an authoritative, narrative form, such a form presents an obvious dificulty for students as they begin to analyze events and to struggle with the rhetorical conventions required in history. Psychology texts provide another example of the dificulties students face as they write. Possible conflicts among the goals of “transmitting knowledge, engaging students in inquiry, or initiating students into the disciplines” in the “intermediary prose” used to orient novices to a particular field are pointed out by Susan Peck MacDonald (180). She notes that psychology textbooks, although simplified, are modeled on the writing professionals in the field actually do. However, she says that students may read “epistemic” phrases such as “it has been widely suggested that” or “[rJesearchers have attempted to test” as if they are “indicators of authority” and not “ways of negotiating claims” (182). While simplifying prose might help students to avoid “transitional gafi‘es” in their own writing, says MacDonald, they must read “epistemic and synoptic prose,” in order “to understand. . . competing models of explanation and interpretation” (183). If students do not read sufficient texts that model the writing they need to do (or if they do not read texts of suficient complexity), they may learn how to absorb information effectively, but they may still not acquire the tools requisite for writing in a particular discipline. 21 5) Em‘ tacitly in disciglm' rhetorical mm‘ As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, textbooks do not always provide models for students. And teachers may not do so either, simply _ because the more able a teacher becomes in exercising the rhetoric of a . discipline, the more likely she or he is to skillfully employ tacit knowledge and strategies. And in this process teachers may easily (and inadvertently) become distanced fiom the struggles of newcomers to the discipline. They employ rhetoric successfully themselves, but in doing so, they have come to view the tools they use and the thinking they do as tranSparent. They may not know how to intentionally model rhetorical strategies for their students. Or they may not regard such modeling as necessary. “[AJnalytic strategies,” Lee Odell warns, can “become so internalized that it is difl'icult to bring them to conscious awareness” for the purpose of explicating them (97). For example, citing a study of how teachers at both the college and high school level deal with subject matter, Judith Langer states that the results “parallel other research suggesting that the closer teachers’ comments get to their actual work in classrooms, thegreater the emphasis on specific content at the expense of the rules of argu ment and evidence that represent the ways of thinking unique to each discipline - [emphasis mine? (83). Her findings are seconded by Joliffe and Brier’s statement that part of the difficulty involved in “coming to know one’s audience as a discourse community” results from the fact that “experienced writers in the discipline often do not consciously think about their use of community-specific kinds of discourse competence and teach them to their students” (41). Even when a teacher is highly aware of rhetorical strategies and attempts to incorporate them into classroom discussion, the process of 22 integrating such discussion simultaneously with that of “domain content” may prove difi'rcult (Geisler). For one thing, the teacher’s ethos is that of someone who has mastered the “domain content” and “knows” the material. For him or her, the process is so ingrained that it may be barely discernable. Institutions stress the need to evaluate students’ knowledge and to demonstrate effective teaching. Teachers who possess specific expertise naturally feel responsible for disseminating their knowledge and for being able to prove (to the extent this is possible) that their students have mastered this “domain content” (Geisler). 6) Inmang' dflgative knowledge with Mural knowlggg ' Even in classrooms in which rhetoric is very much foregrounded, dis- ciplinary content and the rhetorical process may be discussed as separate entities. And students and professors who are consciously dealing with rhetoric may still have difficulty in meshing rhetorical stategies and conventions with content. Cheryl Geisler’s study of “an upper level writing course in an English department” in which students studied “philosophical _ literature on the ethical issue of paternalism” illustrates this apparent dichotomy (214). Geisler describes a course in which a professor who was keenly aware of disciplinary rhetoric and intent on teaching it to his students , had considerable difliculty in discussing “rhetorical process” in conjunction with “domain content” with the students in his classroom (228-29). What took place instead was a process in which classroom conversation (during the entire semester) centered first on rhetorical process, then on domain content, and, finally, again on rhetorical process. Geisler attributes this alternating pattern of discussion to mo factors. First, the students’ expectations: In responding to the teacher, they 23 influenced him “to separate rhetorical process and domain content and attend to them in an order that matched their expectations,” dealing first with domain content and secondly, with rhetorical process (228). Second, the teacher’s need to be convinced of the accuracy of his opinion as an expert who is responsible to his students: He changed his own opinion in the face of new evidence, and he went through a struggle in doing so, but he did not make this struggle explicit for his students because he feared confirsing them or making himself look inadequate (229). In observing the conduct of the class, then. it looks as if the class resolved domain content issues prior to and independently of rhetorical process even though, in effect, both discourses were simultaneously albeit tacitly distributed across the classroom floor and the teacher’s own private reflec- tions. This instructional situation, then, appears to have reproduced rather than challenged the cultural myth of the autonomous text by making the relationship between the two components of expert practice appear linear rather than interactive. (228) What the teacher did suceed in doing was to illustrate for his students the connection between “rhetorical process” and “domain content” in his own practice (albeit not directly) thus achieving a “tacit integration” (229) of the two. The dificulty of integrating declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge is also illustrated in Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman’s study of “Nate.” At the end of the year, he seems better able to demonstrate “subject matter knowledge” than to demonstrate command of “linguistic and rhetorical conventions” (37). Although he demonstrates increasing skill in 24 writingtheacademicproseexpectedofhim,he“stillneedstodevelopwaysof creating more coherent and cohesive texts” (36). In order to try to demonstrate the rhetorical strategies that they have previously mastered, highly experienced teachers must separate into pieces what they know and perform automatically. Such a process entails a high level of consciousness of one’s own rhetorical process as well as the willingness to engage creatively in teaching this process to the students. This consciousness is likely to be foreign to teachers who are not composition theorists. Faced with the pressures of conducting research simultaneously with teaching, even those who do recognize their own rhetorical strategies may feel they simply can not afl‘ord to engage in the time-consuming process of scrutinizing their practices and finding ways to demonstrate them. Thus students must frequently learn how to write by trial and error, emulating the texts which represent a particular discipline as best they can. 7) Vieng mm as recursive Students struggling to master disciplinary writing, novices, can be characterized not as “’lower level’” thinkers but as writers who behave in ”concrete” ways which “may in fact indicate thin categories of knowledge, not some intrinsic quality of mind” (Williams and Colomb 99-102). In their description of the “Little Red Schoolhouse,” a writing program developed at the University of Chicago to assist undergraduates to develop their discipli- nary writing abilities, Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb point out that we tend to stress linear metaphors for learning in contrast to “metaphors of natural development and growth” (97 ). They employ the metaphor of “the outsidertryingtogetin . . . ofthe novicetryingtojoin acommunityof experts” which reflects “an experience that happens to our best students 25 many times over” (108). Students themselves, Williams and Colomb point out, need to be made aware ofthe recursive aspect oflearning to write in varied contexts, stressing the need to “make . . . [them] self-conscious about their own academic and professional progress” (108). Articulation is not a mechanical process. “It means teaching the student to articulate himself to a community of knowledge and to anticipate those predictable anxieties-the temporary deterioration of performance and the specific forms it will take” (108). Students who develop such an awareness can then use it constructively in seeking to learn the rhetorical strategies required in fields new to them. Research in the acquisition ofdisciplinary rhetoric In the face of issues such as these, what have researchers learned about how students acquire knowledge of disciplinary genres and skill in the use of specific disciplinary rhetorical strategies? From the early ‘80’s until the present, researchers in composition and rhetoric have been investigating disciplinary writing (See Endnote 1). They have questioned and observed both students and professors, and in the course of doing so, they have elicited valuable information about how students enter into discourse communities and acquire competence in disciplinary genres. In their collaborative inquiry into classrooms focusing on disciplinary writing, Walvoord and McCarthy conducted “a naturalistic study of the thinking and writing of students in . . . [a particular] teacher’s classroom” (1). They identified six “areas of difficulty” facing students” in their struggle to produce texts using rhetorical conventions of a particular discipline. 1. Gathering sufficient specific information 2. Constructing the audience and the self 26 3. Stating a position 4. Using appropriate discipline-based methods to arrive at and support the position 5. Managing complexity ’ 6. Organizing the paper (231) These researchers, who worked in conjunction with professors in four areas (business, history, human sexuality, and biology), point out that to enter successfully into the discourse in a specific field, students need to use “specialized, discipline-based categories with which to ‘see’” (235). Such categories make up a part of the procedural knowledge which they must master. Yet they found that students tended to interpret assignments “narrowly and literally as recipes and as rulebooks” (234). They also had difliculty formulating definitions, tending to regard them a “fixed entities” while teachers were asking them “to construct definitions” to use in “argument or research” (235). The reason for such narrow interpretations may well lie in the empha- sis on “facts” and on formulaic writing in elementary education, and often even throughout high school (Jolliffe and Brier 47-48, Crowley 148-49). Cheryl Geisler, in Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise, discusses - the widespread use of “autonomous texts” that conceal the rhetorical process in constructing knowledge (and the way some teachers reinforce these texts). She argues that this approach leads to stress on “domain content” rather than “rhetorical process” for students throughout their education in elementary and high school. Students may be encouraged to adhere to answers located directly or indirectly in the text rather than reasoning in terms of their own experience (32-36). 27 This strong emphasis on “facts” throughout Students’ early education means that for many college students analyzing information or critiquing it is a demanding task with which they have little previous experience. And this ability must be developed incrementally, over a considerable period of time. Students develOp their analytical abilities recursively rather than linearly as they employ repeated efi‘orts to effectively question acquired knowledge and to make judgments about it (Sternglass). Walvoord and McCarthy’s research yields useful insights into classroom practices and into professors’ thinking about the writing the assignments they construct for students. It also includes students’ comments on selected dificulties they face in writing. However, because their study is focused more strongly on classroom interactions and groups of students than on individuals, it does not provide a rich description of the experiences of individual students. In a study of “the context of writing in two college chemical engineering classes” (331) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Anne Herrington emphasizes that initiation into academic discourse communities is not . specific simply to a discipline, but to individual situations. Each of the two classrooms she observed formed its own community. She observed and took notes at class lectures, observed lab activities, and surveyed individuals “to ' obtain their perceptions of the audience and purposes for both Lab and Design reports” (336). Having interviewed both professors and students about the discourse and style employed in the students’ group reports, she states that “even within one discipline, chemical engineering, different courses may represent distinct forums where different issues are addressed, difl‘erent lines of reasoning used, difl‘erent writer and audience roles assumed, and different social purposes served by writing” (354). Like Walvoord and 28 McCarthy’s study, Herrington’s focuses more on classrooms and on how these classrooms flmction as discourse communities than on how individual students within these communities acquire skill in employing rhetorical conventions. - Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman illustrate the recursive aspect of developing analytical ability in their case study of “Nate,” a Ph.D student in a rhetoric program at Carnegie Mellon University. Focusing on the, texts Nate produces for his courses over one academic year, as well as interviews with him and informally written “self reports,” they construct a chronological narrative of his initiation into the disciplinary writing required and a linguistic analysis of his formal texts. Thus they discuss his gradual acquisition of the rhetorical conventions and strategies as a “visible index of his initiation into an academic discourse community” (11). Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater’s longitudinal study of two students at the University of New Hampshire emphasizes not only their academic work but the economic and social factors in that affect their academic development. I She studies “Anna” and “Nick” in a prose writing course, and then as each engages in the process of acquiring the rhetorical stategies and conventions needed to write in art history (Anna) and in political science (Nick) respectively. As she studies their initiation “into the culture of a university” and “the discourse of a particular discipline” (xvi) and their perceptions of their education, she stresses the holistic aspect of literacy, highlighting how these students’ personal lives intertwine with and influence their educational processes and the need for more closely integrating the two. The research done by Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman and by Chiseri—Strater focuses on individual students over a period of some months, illuminating interesting details about how they acquire disciplinary 29 conventions and how they view both the processes of doing so and the contexts within which they are working. However, both of these studies view students singly without the context of a group in which students interact and discuss their experiences with each other. In a project closely related to my research (albeit with basic writers), Marilyn Sternglass conducted a longitudinal study of nine students at City University of New York, focusing on their development of “metacognitive awareness of the relationship between writing and learning“ as they wrote in various disciplines during the entire time they were in college (xiv). She examines ways in which these students use writing to develop “complex . reasoning strategies” (xiv) and “to construct knowledge that was new to them, even if not always new to the discipline” (26). Her research also supports the view that students develop their analytical skill in irregular patterns rather than linearly. ' Students who have been flmctioning at an. analytical level in some areas may find themselves reverting to definition and textbook language when they are confronted with new comflex materials or when the instructional demands restrict them to reciting “facts” that have been presented to them, fi-equently in “official jargon.” (59) Sternglass focuses on students who began their academic careers identified as basic writers rather than students from the general college population, and on the economic and social factors that play into their academic lives. And she, too, focuses more on students as individuals than on students in the context of a group of individuals inquiring into their own learning strategies. However, even though her research difi'ers from mine in these fundamental respects, it provides a model for conducting a longitudinal study of the type I 30 am: and sta Foe him am undertaking, i.e., an inquiry into how students from a variety of academic and social backgrounds develop both disciplinary rhetorical conventions and strategies and metacognitive awareness of these conventions and strategies. Focus of this study In studies of disciplinary writing «:1me related to this one, scholars have observed undergraduates working in the context of a program specifically designed to strengthen their ability to write in disciplinary areas (Williams and Colomb). They have conducted semester-length studies of classroom interactions between a group of students and a professor as these students worked to develop rhetorical competence in a particular disciplines (W alvoord and McCarthy, Herrington). They have compared the rhetorical processes undertaken by experts and novices in constructing an ethical argument (Geisler), and they have studied one student, at the graduate level, in the process of acquiring rhetorical conventions and strategies (Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman). They have also conducted longitudinal studies of students as they developed rhetorical competence in particular disciplines while simultaneously focusing on social and economic factors which afiect them and on their personal development in conjunction with academic progress (Chiseri-Strater, Sternglass). In order to complement the insights gained from the aforementioned studies of disciplinary writing, I focus primarily on Nicole and Julie (pseudonyms), undergraduates who have extensive experience in discussing and reflecting on their learning and their writing. By observing them as they work in disciplinary classes and studying how they construct and revise texts, and how they develop rhetorical strategies or refine those they have already developed, I examine the process through which they learn to begin 31 to “participate in communities of practitioners“ (Lave and Wenger 29) and to take part in “the actual practice of an expert, but only to a limited degree” (14). The theoretical lens through which I view these students, legitimate peripheral participation, emphasizes learning as “an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice” (31), a “comprehensive understanding involving the whole person” (33). In making use of this lens to study students’ acquisition of disciplinary rhetoric, I employ Lave and Wenger’s view of learning as an “integral part of generative social practice in the lived-in world” (35). Thus I emphasize in Chapter Three, students’ conversations with each other and with writing center facilitators as they participate in a portfolio project designed to encourage them to investigate their own writing and learning and in Chapter Four, not only the texts that two of these students, Nicole and Julie, compose but their comments on the labs and classes in which they were participating. By conducting a longitudinal, interpretative study of two upper level undergraduate students, Nicole and Julie, focusing especially on their engagement in writing courses in their respective disciplines during the 1997-98 academic year, I hold a microscope up to the process which such students undertake, under the tutelage of their professors, to develop - disciplinary rhetorical strategies. In investigating the ways in which they are learning to “inhabit the worldIs] they imagine” (Geertz 155), I examine how they engage in legitimate peripheral participation and their perceptions of this process as well as those of their professors. 32 Endnote 1. See particularly, Carol Berkenkotter, Thomas N. Huckin, and John Ackerman; Elizabeth Chiseri—Strater; Lester Faigley and Kristine Hansen; Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway; Cheryl Geisler; Anne J. Herrington; Paul Prior; Marilyn Sternglass; Barbara Walvoord and Lucille McCarthy; and Dorothy Winsor. 33 Chapter 3 Research Design: Context, Participants, Data. and Analysis Introduction In this chapter, I describe the structure of the writing program at Michigan State University and the writing center, which is an integral part of this program. I contextualize the portfolio project designed by writing center faculty, a project in which dialogic exchange was emphasized as fundamental to learning and students were engaged as co-researchers to gain insight into , their learning and their writing experiences. I also discuss selected aspects of what the students who volunteered to be in this project learned through their participation in it and how their engagement in metacognitive discourse made them excellent candidates for my research. I briefly describe the six portfolio project participants for whom I collected data after the project ended and my reasons for choosing two students fiom among those six on whom to focus my investigation of their acquisition of rhetorical strategies in disciplinary writing. Finally, I describe the methods by which I collected my data, the questions on which I focused, andthemethodslusedtoanalyzethisdata. Academic context In 1992-93, several years before this study was conducted, Michigan State University restructured its writing program. In order to “significantly improve writing instruction for . . . undergraduate students ,” the Joint Committee on Writing Requirements recommended in its report (1991) that 34 the university “[rJeplace the current first year writing program with a two-tier program of writing across the curriculum” (1). In the belief that “[slubject matter faculty are best qualified to make assignments, evaluate written work, and provide feedback to student writers,” the committee recommended that “each department” develop “courses or groups of courses which certify that students are writing at an acceptable level for that field” (6). A unit within a department might develop “specific courses” which require “continuous attention to writing” or “identify a cluster of courses, each with modest writing components, which collectively satisfies the requirement” (6). This committee also recommended that Tier I courses should consist of a four-credit developmental course [required on the basis of placement testing] and a fourocredit first year can rse. Provide continuity to the writing experience by assigned writing in the Center [in Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities courses. Tier II requires students to write in upper level courses within disciplines. Academic units need to identify “W'courses and / or clusters of courses which meet the requirement [emphasis in original} ( Mn of the Joint Committee (_in Writing kguimments 1-2) An additional recommendation made by the committee was for the university to support faculty teaching disciplinary writing intensive courses by establishing a Writing Center and for this center also to support students “seeking assistance with writing” (5). In 1992 this report was accepted and implementation of a two-tier writing program was undertaken, and in the fall of 1992, a university Writing 35 Center was established as a division of the College of Arts and Letters. Conceived of as a place where members of the campus community come together to talk and write, to consult with each other about writing, and, in the course of this process, to teach each other about writing, this center serves the entire campus population: students, faculty, and stafi‘. Underlying the work of the writing center is the theory of a dialogic curriculum defined by Patricia Lambert Stock, Director of the Writing Center, as one in which teachers and students engage together “in a broadly outlined field of inquiry” and which is grounded in “topical inquiries-issues, questions, problems-that their [students’] prior experiences have prepared them to explore” (24). In such a context “learners enable one another to enrich and extend the understandings and to improve the competencies with which they entered the field [of] inquiry” (24). Students and teachers who come to the center to work and to consult about writing projects serve as “resonators” for each other, defined by Karen Burke LeFevre (incorporating quotations fi'om Harold Lasswell’s discussion of ”resonance”) as groups of students or colleagues, accepting .“apostles” who allow a person to investigate ideas in a safe place. . . . Resonance comes about when an individual act-a “vibration”-is intensified and prolonged by sympathetic vibrations. It may occur when someone acts as a facilitator to assist or extend what is regarded as primarily another’s invention, or when people are mutual collaborators at work on a task. (65) An equally significant form of “resonance” is present in “a supportive social and intellectual environment that nurtures thought and enables ideas to be received,” one in which individuals receive assistance from each other in 36 “completing the inventive act” (65). In functioning as this sort of environment, the university Writing Center enables students and faculty members to learn from each other. Portfolio projectandparticipants . Participants for my research were recruited from a group of students in the Portfolio Project, a longitudinal study of undergraduates’ writing and academic experience. Initiated by Writing Center faculty in 1993 and carried out between the fall semester of 1993 and the spring semester of 1997 , this project was conceived of as “individual case studies” and a “collective ethnography” that would provide researchers with “richly detailed narratives of undergraduates’ writing experiences” (2. P. Chronology Report to Asst. Provost, 28 June 1994). In keeping with Patricia Lambert Stock’s goal of establishing a “culture of writing” within the university, its purpose was twofold: i first, to help faculty in Michigan State learn more about the writing that students are asked to do across the university and in their lives outside the university in order that we may develop programs that prepare students to do that writing; and second, to provide students the opportunity to make sense of their education in reflective conversations—both spoken and written—about their writing. (LP. Chronolgg Flier, 1993-94) Participants were recruited over three semesters, first by invitations mailed randomly to a diverse group of students fi-om all colleges in the univer- sity and, later, by additional invitations extended to students in several freshman composition classes. Students in the project collected various types of writing they did throughout the time that they were undergraduates 37 and came into the Writing Center at least twice during each academic year to meet with other students in small groups and with Julie Bevins, the graduate assistant who coordinated the project. In these meetings, they reflected on the writing they were doing in the context of their classes and on what they were learning in the process by talking about their work with each other and with writing center faculty and teaching assistants. Some also took part in individual interviews with Bevins. Students were asked to write reflections in which they responded to open-ended questions focused on their writing and on the kinds ofpractiws that enabled them to learn and to write. Inbeinginvited“to talkand write as well astolisten and read their way to understanding” (Stock and Robinson 166), students in this project were given the opportunity to serve as “resonators” for each other within the context of a mutual intellectual undertaking. They talked of new discursive demands being made upon them and of new (or more fully developed) intellectual and personal qualities. They talked about their ability to grasp - rhetorical concepts and to perform rhetorical tasks in the company of peers or of mentors, to write and to learn in ways which they could not have done , (or could not have done as well) without the assistance of these others. They discussed their struggles to incorporate the “centripetal” (Bakhtin, M 272) language of the disciplines into which they were entering into their - identities as developing professionals. In the course of students’ efforts to make a variety of disciplinary languages “their own,” the portfolio project served as a ln'nd of scafi'olding for them. Their inquiry into their own writing and learning fostered “an active comprehension of the things known, [emphasis mine] an action that requires skill. Skilful [sic] knowing and doing is performed by subordinating a set of particulars, as clues or tools, to the shaping of a skilful achievement, 38 whether practical or theoretical” (Polyani vii). As they participated in this project and became increasingly conversant with their own writing processes, students came to view themselves as writers and readers in the process of working within (and gaining proficiency with) genres in a variety of discourse communities. As data accumulated, the project evolved into an eclectic history of students’ academic experiences, a mosaic that provided glimpses into both their triumphs and their struggles. These students varied in their abilities and interests, their academic achievements, and their ethnic and social backgrounds. Some earned excellent gradepoint averages; others did not. Some planned to enter the work place immediately upon completing their bachelors’ degrees; others applied to graduate programs. Unlike many other students in the university, however, they became consciously aware of how they learned and of how particular classroom activities and individual practices of conversing and writingfacilitated their learning and their abilityto compose. In the process . of learning to work with terminology and genres in a variety of disciplinary areas, they reflected on how they were learning to do so. Thus they became able not only to employ disciplinary diction appropriately and to write in particular formats but to engage in metadiscourse about their use of disciplinary conventions. ‘ “Good classroom instruction . . . can and should lead to meta-knowledge, to seeing how the Discourses you have already got . . . relate to those you are attempting to acquire, and how the ones you are trying to acquire relate to self and society” says James Paul Gee (141). While the portfolio project was definitely not “classrom instruction” in the usual sense of that term, it did extend to students an opportunity to intentionally examine their own literacies and the discourses they were in the 39 process of acquiring. And it gave them responsive listeners who were genuinely intrigued with their comments. As they deepened their understanding of the requirements of disciplinary writing and of their own literacy practices, students became astute observers of their writing and of their learning processes. ' . The acquisition of disciplinary rhetorical conventions and strategies by two portfolio project participants whom I interviewed as they increased their competency in the conventions of two of these communities (chemistry and musical therapy) is discussed in detail in Chapter Four. However, in order to provide a context within which to base my interpretation of their work, I. first discuss the metacognitive awareness evident in conversations with portfolio project students. This awareness was elicted through repeated opportunities provided for them to reflect on their academic experiences by taking part in small, informal group conversations and by writing responses to open-ended questions. Such exchanges encouraged them to pay close attention to their schooling and to the ways in which they were learning to write and to think. Thus they were especially promising candidates for my research into the acquisition of disciplinary rhetorical strategies and conventions. Developing metacognition: Discoveries about disciplinary discourse Operating on the assumption that learning is most meaningful to students when they actively participate in their education (Patricia Stock, Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater) and that participation includes reflection, facilitators of this project elicited students’ perspectives on the work they were doing in the university. In engaging in conversations with each other and with Writing Center facilitators, students became increasingly aware of the ways in which dialogue enhanced their learning and of how they 40 integrated academic knowledge into personal interests and acquired competence in disciplinary genres, repeatedly demonstrating the “active comprehension” to which Polanyi refers. Rem ' : mg_vr_ng' between “content space” and “rhetorical space” In an interview with Julie Bevins, Laura, a very active portfolio participant, emphasizes how talking with another individual helped her learn to be a reader of her own work and to revise it accordingly. She comments about “stepping back fi'om” her text and revising it in the process of responding to it, demonstrating an increased understanding of how to evaluate her writing in response to her anticipated reader(s) and how to incorporate changes into it. As she regards her work from the perspective of a reader, Laura uses “knowledge transforming” strategies (Bereiter and Scardamalia 358), moving “back and forth between a content space,” in which she deals with issues of “fact and belief’ and “a rhetorical space,” in which she deals with “achieving objectives of the composition” (356). Students must develop this ability to move back and forth between “knowledge” and “rhetorical space” to develop skill in disciplinary writing (Geisler, Blakeslee). my academic knowlggg into personal interests Laura demonstrates a newfound ability to connect personal concerns with academic interests when she talks about writing for her major (social science). Having been asked to consider incorporating “a more personal style into your academic papers,” she explains how she achieved it. L: I just wrote this motivational speech for applying to the PeaceCorps . . . andthe personwhoreadit. . . [said]“0h,you 41 can tell you’re a social science major!”. . . That made me feel goodbecausel. . .WROTE likeasocial science [major]. . . . I was writing analytically, and . . . then I added personal and he [said]. . . ,”Why?” . . . andthenwebegandoingittogether. . . . I had a whole new style. Not just separate fiom each other- integrated . . . . Community service is important to me. I see so many disasters whether it’s because of humans. . . . It’s like . . . that was the driving force of WHY I’ve done the things I’ve done. Before I just listed them . . . THAT was personal writing. (2. P. Chronolgn Interview, 28 Feb. 1996) As she integrates her knowledge of the discipline she is entering with her personal interests, Laura demonstrates the deliberate, conscious “fusion of the personal and the objective” in which she is engaged, defined as “Personal Knowledge” by Michael Polanyi (viii). He states that “into every act of knowing there enters a passionate contribution of the person knowing what is being known, and . . . this coeflicient is no mere imperfection but a vital component of his [sic] knowledge” (viii). (See Endnote 1.) Laura expresses distinct pleasure. in being identified “as a social science major.” Seeing oneselfas an incipient member of a group of practitioners in this - manner “is central to the careers of newcomers in communities of practice, and thus fundamental to the concept of legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave and Wenger 115). Activities, tasks, functions, and understandings do not exist in isolation; they are part of broader systems of relations in which theyhavemeaning. These systems . ariseoutof. . . social communities, which are in part systems of relations among persons. . . . Learning thus implies becoming a different person 42 with respect to the possrbzlztresenabled by these systems. . . [emphasis mine]. (53) Such “active comprehension” (Polyani vii) involves identifying with knowledge in such a way that the individual does not see it as “out there” but exerts agency in coming to terms with it. As students connect the academic to the personal, they are thinking in terms of an entire process rather than atomistically. They are subordinating the “clues or tools” (vii) involved in the specific tasks they undertake to an all encompassing view of who they are becoming. Beco ' acclimated to disci ° terminol ' As Laura'and other students in the portfolio project became more familiar with particular communities, they became increasingly aware of disciplinary terms. In the following group conversation during a portfolio project meeting, both of the participants on whom this study focuses, Nicole and Julie, demonstrate their awareness of the distinctive role played by language in disciplinary communities. Elizabeth; I’m getting into biochemistry. . . . I’m just . . . absorbingit. ‘ Nicole: [I]t’s just like you’re learning a difi’erent language, and it’sjust excitingtobe abletotalkinthat . . . language andtobe able to talk with other people and understand what they’re saying. . . . Julie: It’s the same as writing. . . . [Tlhere is a whole language with writing. There’s a whole language within the Writing Center. . . . [Tlhere’s lingo in music, there’s lingo in biochemistry. . . . 43 Nicole: You’re just surrounded by it; you’re hearing it all the time. . . . [Iij started so . . . mildly—you didn’t even know that you were kind of entering the environment, and then all of a sudden . . . it’s like, “Heyll know this stuff, and I know what thesepeoplearetalkingabout!”.... [Alsafi'eshman...[it seems asifJ“o.k. . . . I’m . . .learningthis stufi',”butthefull impact doesn’t really hit you until you’re actually talking with these people. . . . [Elven this summer I worked in the chemistry department . . . with professors and post—docs. . . and . . . I’m able to talk on their level now somewhat, and it’s just exciting. (2. P. Chronolgg B. Group Meetings, 1995-96) In this discussion of talking “in a different language,” Nicole demonstrates awareness of her ability to be “competent within a discourse community . . . by learning to use its determinate patterns of language-its syntax and its diction” (J ollifl‘e and Brier 51). She identifies with others in the disciplinary community she is beginning to enter. 4 . Masteg_ng' dissimilar conventions by PALM lggggggg flexibly As students in the portfolio project became familiar with disciplinary terminology, they were able not only to identify its use by others but to make more .efi‘ective use of it themselves. As they learned to regard linguistic conventions as flexible tools rather than as systems dominated by absolute rules, their confidence in their writing increased. Julie Bevins: [Y]ou were talking about how in a difl'erent discipline you have to write in different ways. Can you tell me more about that? Laura: [Y]ou askedme how I was ableto lookbackandreadit 44 asaresponseandnotbesocriticalofmyself. . .itwas. . . realizing that there is no one standard way of writing like I thought that there was [emphasis mine]. . . . [Tlhere’s just difi‘erent forms, and there’s no one right way. Like psychology as APA. It’s very stringent, very hypothetical, deductive style. It’s scientific-oriented. As opposed to English, which is much moreflowery. . . . Biology. . . [wlhattheywantis . . . facts . . . , [n]ot your personal reasons. . . .” (E. P. Chronology Interview, 28 Feb. 1996) In viewing language as a pliable instrument, students discussed not only: the skillful use of a variety of genres but also the integration of the conventions of difl‘erent disciplines. As Sarah, another portfolio project student, discusses alternating between the stylistic requirements of journalism and English, she speaks of evaluating when and how to apply the “rules” required by a genre and when to break them, employing disciplinary conventions in ways that she does not see herself as having been explicitly taught to do. Sarah: [F]or the State Journal, I am using more of my English skills . . .;itusedtobe . . .thepyramid, forjournalism,writing. . newsworthy stuff on top, and then just it trickles down, but I amusingmore detail writing, especiallylikewithfeatures . . . I get a better article if I’m looking at the whole picture and not just what’s important. Mary Ann Crawford (graduate assistant): How do you think that has evolved? Sarah: I can use some of my English skills because I feel a little bit more like I can challenge . . . a pyramid concept, and get more out of my articles. 45 Julie Bevins: So you’re kind of breaking rules, in a sense. Sarah: In one sense I think so, but . . . all the experienced journalists do this. . . . (P. P. Chronolggy Group Tape Transcript, 19 Feb. 1996) ' By integrating the skills she has acquired, making use of her English training in conveying explicit details and modeling her texts on those composed by “experienced journalists” who employ such details in their articles, Sarah moves toward “fully inhabitlingT' the pieces that she writes (Winsor 22). In the process of doing so, she identifies hemelf more thoroughly with the community that she is entering. She is beginning to display the sort of understanding stressed by Charles Bazerman when he cautions teachers of science not to look at the “genre of experimental report” as a rigidly defined “social fact” (Shapr_r_rg’ 8). In reminding us of the history inherent in any genre, he states the largest lesson that this study holds is not that there are simple genres that must be slavishly followed, that we must give students an appropriate set of cookie cutters for their anticipated careers, but rather that the students must understand and rethink the rhetorical choices embedded in each generic habit to master the genre. Although genre may . . . simplify the many rhetorical choices to be made, the writer loses control of the writing when he or she does not understand the genre. (8) In their discussions of composing in different disciplinary arenas, students in the portfolio project gained a deeper understanding of their “rhetorical choices.” As preprofessionals in the process of learning to use disciplinary genres more skillfully, they increased their understanding of the 46 discourse communities which they were entering as well as their sense of identification with these communities. Such identification inevitably entails questions not only of inclusion but of exclusion. Writers work within a particular “discourse with its projects and agendas that determines what . . . [they] can and will do” (Bartholomae I39), and, as James Paul Gee reminds us, “Discourses are resistant to internal criticism and self-scrutiny since uttering viewpoints that seriously undermine them defines one as being outside them” (132). Issues of power and identity involved in the acquisition of discom'se conventions are discussed in more detail in Chapter Five. Data previouva collected Portfolios for the work these students had collected throughout their undergraduate careers were available to me in the Writing Center. Texts in their portfolios consisted mostly of students’ writing for their coursework at the university, but because they were encouraged to bring in pieces significant to them, they occasionally included writing from high school or personal writing (for example, poems or essays). Before the project culminated formally in April of 1997 , shortly before many of the participants in it graduated, they were invited to select tens . from among those they had collected to put together into portfolios for display as part of a celebration to be held in the Writing Center. In these portfolios, they were asked to create portraits of themselves with texts they chose. Thus, each of the students who composed a portfolio for display had two portfolios in the center, one original and one containing selected copies of his or her writing. Also available to me were materials that had been collected throughout the portfolio project: tapes and transcripts of group meetings, 47 copies of reflections students wrote during these meetings, tapes and transcripts of Bevins’ individual interviews with selected students, and copies of email exchanges between portfolio project students and Bevins. In addition, I had access to the Portfolio Project Chronology in the Writing Center, which contains all fliers and letters sent to participants or potential participants and to members of the faculty, as well as project reports sent to university administrators. Participants in research on disciplinary writing Dming the fall of 1997 , after the portfolio project had formally ended, I began collecting data. Eight of the thirty-three students originally in the portfolio project were still on campus (exact numbers in the project varied from year to year); of these eight, one had entered the school of veterinary medicine. From the remaining pool of seven juniors and seniors, I interviewed six students and observed four of them in classes and one of these four in a - laboratory. Each of the six participants whom I interviewed was a traditional undergraduate. Four were women and two were men, all of whom , were native speakers of English. Four were Caucasian, and two were Hispanic. They were working toward bachelor’s degrees in the fOllowing disciplines: chemistry, chemical engineering, music therapy, - telecommunications/fine arts cognate, andjournalism/English, and Data collection in disciplinary writing In addition to the materials collected during the portfolio project, I collected data related to disciplinary classes in which these six students who were working. This data included: 48 1) syllabi and handouts. (For the two primary participants, I also collected a few textbooks.) 2) for five students, texts they wrote in response to assignments. 3) for four students, observations of one or more classes and/or laboratory sessions. 4) for four students interviews with professors, and for one of these four, one interview with a teaching assistant and one with a staff member. 5) for all six students, one or more open-ended interviews and one or more responses to open-ended questions in short written reflections (usually one or two pages). (For examples of interview questions, see Appendix A.) I collected data from September of 1997 through August of 1999, with most of the interviews taking place between September of 1997 and June of 1998. (One interview was conducted in March of 1997 as part of my . participation in a class on conducting research prior to the formal beginning of my research. In addition, I conducted a follow-up interview with one student and had a brief follow-up conversation with one professor in April of 2000.) I first contacted participants by email during the spring of 1997 to seek their permission to interview them and contacted them again at the beginning of fall semester of 1997 (late August or early September). Prior to emailing these students, I had met most of them either by sitting in on small groups in the portfolio project during the 1996-97 academic year or talking with them at the portfolio project celebration at the Writing Center in the spring of 1997 . Participants were asked to sign release forms giving me permission to use their written materials and quotations from interviews. These forms 49 guaranteed them confidentiality and stated that I would identify none of them individually and would change the names of individuals whom I mentioned in reporting my research. I also assured them that their professors would not know their identities unless I secured written permission from a student to reveal his or her identity. (See Appendix A). Because I was not evaluating these students’ work, I felt they would be willing to be forthright in their responses to me. I used open-ended questions to elicit observations about their experiences in the disciplinary courses in which they were enrolled. I chose to concentrate on two students, Nicole and Julie, from among the six students whom I originally interviewed because both of their portfolios contained a variety of writing and because both of them were particularly thoughtful and informative. (During the course of my research, the original portfolio for Julie was misplaced in the writing center, and I was no longer able to get access to it. However, she had included such a variety of material in her portfolio for display that I was able to characterize her through studying her work in that collection.) I studied the scafl'olding in disciplinary courses in which these participants were studying (one course in chemistry and a sequence of courses in music therapy, focusing mainly on four of them): syllabi, textbooks, instructors’ assignments, their stated goals during interviews, and their comments on students’ texts. I conducted two interviews with Nicole’s chemistry Professor, Professor Y., during the semester he was teaching her and talked with him a third time some time afterward in the process ofreviewing mydatato clarify some details. I also conducted interviews with two of Julie’s professors in the music therapy department, Professor G. and Professor N., (one interview for each one). Thus I was able to triangulate the data accumulated by studying 50 students’ comments during interviews and in their written reflections, the assignments given by the professors and the texts that students wrote in response to these assignments, and comments professors made on students’ texts and during interviews. - Questions In investigating Nicole’s and Julie’s experiences as they endeavored to enter into the thinking and writing of their disciplines, I focused on the following questions: 1) What were some of each student’s previous experiences in writing? 2) What rhetorical conventions and strategies were emphasized in each student’s discipline? .What kinds of scafl'olding did the student’s professor provide for her as she constructed specific genres (for example, abstracts or session evaluations)? Did the professor(s) provide models for her to emulate? 4) How did she use the scafi'olding provided by her professors as she entered into the writing and thinking of a particular discipline and developed as a preprofessional? In what ways did the scaffolding for a particular course support or complicate her efl‘orts to acquire disciplinary conventions? 5) How did professors provide feedback to assist her in this process and if so, how did she respond to this feedback? 6) How do students and professors perceive “school writing” as compared to the way they perceived writing in the workplace? How did students go about constructing personas of students and of professionals simultaneously? (For sample questions, see Appendix A.) ' 51 Anabsis of data In portraying Nicole and Julie working with their professors and teaching assistants in order to compose the disciplinary texts required of them, I view them as learning to employ rhetorical conventions and strategies by engaging in legitimate peripheral. participation (Lave and Wenger). That is, as previously described, they begin to “participate in communities of practitioners” (29) and to take part in “the actual practice of an expert, but only to a limited degree and with limited responsibility for the ultimate product as a whole” (14). In this context, disciplinary rhetorical conventions for writing and conversing become integrated into each student’s identity over a period of time as she makes her way into the status of preprofessional; Because legitimate peripheral participation is the primary lens through which I view the learning and the exchanges between students and professors which take place in this study, I will briefly firrther explain and illustrate it before employing it to discuss the work of the two students on whom I focus. Legitimate peripheral participation is discussed by Lave and Wenger as it occurs in settings outside of academia, situations in which individuals (novices) are not necessarily tested formally. Instead, they are . learning in order to take part in an actual performance which entails direct consequences. For example, they describe how novices participate in, and gradually assume responsibility for, the duties of a midwife or of a tailor, at first by simply observing more experienced practitioners, including a “master,” then by running errands or performing very simple tasks, and finally by assuming responsibility for the most essential activities of the profession. (e.g., The culminating task the apprentice tailor is allowed to 52 perform is that of cutting out a suit.) Learning is highly interactive and the learners are tested by performing “real work” tasks. legitimate peripheral participation is viewed by Lave and Wenger not as a possible curricular device but as a theoretical lens through which to view learning and to analyze it, whether this learning takes place inside academia or outside of it. (See Endnote 2.) They caution that learning in a school context can easily involve a “fundamental contradiction between the use and exchange values of the outcome of learning, which manifests itselfin conflicts between learning to know and learning to display knowledge for evaluation” (112). The participants in this study are definitely engaged in “displaying knowledge” in an academic setting, i.e. in demonstating that they can produce appropriate texts in particular genres (a point which is emphasized in my discussion of their learning). However, acquiring disciplinary rhetoric involves performance (not simply rote learning). It is an inherently social - undertaking, one that entails the same type of engagement that Lave and Wenger ascribe to legitimate peripheral participation. “[Pleripherality,” they _ state,”crucially involves participation as a way of learning-of both absorbing and being absorbed in— ‘the culture of practice” (Lave and Wenger, 95). Thus, although the students in this study are primarily involved in displaying knowledge, they are simultaneously involved in a type of legitimate peripheral participation. The process through which students are enabled to write is a highly interactive one involving other individuals and/or their texts. As they are learning and writing, the two students on whom I focus interact in specific settings with their professors and teaching assistants. As they increasingly identify themselves with their respective disciplines, they begin to 53 incorporate disciplinary language into their sense of themselves. Thus they undergo “changes in cultural identity and social relations [that] are inevitably part of the process” of aligning oneself with a new community “[wlhen central participation is the subjective intention motivating learning,” (Lave and Wenger 112). Therefore, I view them as engaging in a form of legitimate peripheral participation, and I employ this theoretical lens as a means through which to investigate the process by which they acquire disciplinary rhetorical conventions and strategies. Constructing texts in the some of proximal development As a student learns disciplinary writing conventions through engaging in legitimate peripheral participation, she can be viewed as working in her “zone of proximal development” (defined by Vygotsky as “[t]he discrepancy between a child’s actual mental age and the level he [sic] reaches in solving problems with assistance,” Thought 187). Although Vygotsky is discussing the intellectual development of children, this concept can be used in . analyzing any situation in which a learner is assisted by someone more accomplished than she to perform tasks that she could not perform independently (See Endnote 3.) For example, a student who is acquiring disciplinary writing conventions fi'equently constructs texts in accordance with models and/or instructions provided to her by a professor or a teaching assistant. In this situation, the form of the models (and the instructions she is given) show her what her goals can be within a discipline, to paraphrase Miller. She writes in ways that she could not yet write by herself, but frequently she does not employ disciplinary conventions with ease. She employs (perhaps with the help of the instructor) the appropriate forms but without demonstrating the 54 flexibility or the perceptual framework possessed by an expert. Dorothy Winsor makes this point in observing that the four engineering students whom she studied as they worked in cooperative apprenticeships were supported in constructing “professional” texts even though they had not yet attained professional viewpoints. In this context, she states, they often wrote documents that followed the correct form and contained the correct information. However, their understanding of what they were doing sometimes lagged behind their ability to do it. That is, there was a fissure between their ability to execute the form of an act of writing and the fully inhabited activity of the expert writer. At this point it is perhaps less correct to say that they had learnedtowritethanthattheyhadbeenenabledtowrite [emphasis mine] (22). Winsor points out that “theorists see genre moving fiom purpose to form” but that “novices‘ understanding of genre” is likely to begin with the use ofa form and move to purpose (27). [Novices] typically enter a community in which there are models for their writing that they can use even before under- standing the purposes that shaped the models into their characteristic form. Their understanding of purpwe may actually come from using the forms that address it because when novices are learning to write the genres common in a field, they are also being exposed to its common goals and to the ways ofthinking thefieldfinds acceptable in meeting thosegoals [emphasis mine] (27 ). 55 This movement from form to purpose is evident in the work and the com- ments of both students in this study. As disciplinary discourse and “ways of being in the world” (Geertz 155) permeate each individual‘s thinking and become part of her practice, she begins to incorporate these modes of writing and acting into her identity and to view her surroundings through a disciplinary lens. This process of social cognition reflects Vygotsky’s concept of “all higher mental functions” as “internalized social relationships” (“Genesis” 164) in which “the very means (especially speech) used in social interaction are taken over by the individual child and internalized” (W ertsch, Concept 146). “In essence,” states James Zebroski, “Vygotsky is arguing that the social act is relawd to and in fact leads individual cognition (which, of course, itself then reconstructs and redirects the social act)” (157). In this view of cognitive development, “individual consciousness needs always to be viewed as both a social and an individual creation” (157-58). This concept of internalization of the “means . . . used in social interaction” applies to students in this study (although they are not children but young adults). For them, social interaction includes their classroom interchanges with other students and their professors, the textbooks they use, the comments they receive on their texts, and the responses they make to these comments. Within the theoretical fi'amework of legitimate peripheral participation, I view the student as learning the rhetoric of a particular discipline within the context of others’ practices and of their communications to her (whether these instructions are explained to her verbally, demonstrated physically, or embedded in disciplinary texts). Through these exchanges, she gains the ability to employ particular conventions and strategies and to view situations she encounters through the lens of that 56 discipline. She participatesin socialactsusingthegenres prescribedfor them, forms that show her “what ends . . . [she] may have” (Miller 165). Through participating, she increases her awareness of what is involved in , performing these acts and of what these forms allow her to do. Thus she is able to improve her performance. Eventually, afier actively participating in this setting over a period of time, she is likely to be able (in Vygotsky‘s terms) to independently “reconstruct and redirect” the knowledge she has gained (Zebroski, 157 ). During this process, the student is working not only within the immediate context of her coursework and of conversations with her peers and her professors but with the terms used by members of the discipline she is entering. That is, she is employing the historically established “chains of utterance and activity” in a particular discipline, the linguistic behaviors prescribed for performances by its members (Prior 228). Thus, even if she appears to be acting alone, this process is always interactive because she is continually acting in response to the community. As she engages in the process of legitimate peripheral participation, initially with very little responsibility for the product and then gradually gaining a deeper understanding of the process and assuming more responsibility for its , outcome, the student acquires a disciplinary perspective through which she views her activities. The student learns to engage in disciplinary practices as she participates in a structured activity, for example, a chemistry class and the laboratory for that class, in conjunction with others, using what Vygotsky calls “psychological tools” such as “language . . . [or] algebraic symbol systems” (“Instrumental” 137). As such a tool is made use of “in the process of behavior,” it“slters the entire flow and structure of mental functions. It 57 does this by determining the structure ofa new instrumental act” (137). In explaining the implications of Vygotsky’s theory, Bazerman states that the student’s repeated use of such a “psychological tool,” together with her use of physical tools (laboratory equipment, for example), eventually becomes incorporated into her approach to her task and into the items she perceives as significant in her physical surroundings. It also becomes incorporated into her interpretation of those surroundings and her view of the social and intellectual milieu in which she finds herself (Sh—apipg 305-07). In the course of using both physical tools and “psychological tools,” she gradually internalizes both the procedures and the language used in a given discipline. Bazerman discusses development of this sort in terms of gaining a “perceptual fi'amework.” Thus the apprentice chemist learns to think and behave like a chemist, such that when she walks into a laboratory, she will perceive the surrounding material through the acquired framework of dhemical formulations and will behave with respect to the material so as to reliably reconstitute phenomena accepted by chemists as reliably reconstitutable. She knows how to make recognized chemical phenomena appear to those who have the appropriate chemical perceptual fi'amework. And finally . . . how to interact with chemists—to discuss the happenings in chemical laboratories in terms of significant chemical issues and so as to make an appropriate contribution to a communal endeavor [all emphases mine]. @hppipg 307) As the student is learning how to reflect on her activities and those of others from a particular viewpoint and to use this viewpoint to identify 58 problems specific to her discipline, she learns how to work and talk with others in the discipline to effectively examine and solve these problems. In doing so, she acquires the conventions and strategies of her discipline. 59 Endnotes 1. Thus the “knower” takes part personally in all acts of understanding. But this does not make our understanding su bjective. Comprehension is neither an arbitrary act nor a passive experience, but a responsible act claiming universal validity. Such knowing is indeed objective in the sense of establishing contact with a hidden reality; a contact that is defined as the condition for anticipating an indeterminate range of yet unknown (and perhaps yet inconceivable) true implications. It seems reasonable to describe this fusion of the personal and the objective as Personal Knowledge (Polanyi, vii-viii). 2. Lave and Wenger stress the theoretical aspect of legitimate peripheral participation. We should emphasize, therefore, that legitimate peripheral participation is not itself an educational form, much less a pedagogical strategy or a teaching technique. It is an analytical viewpoint on learning, a way of understanding learning. We hope to make clear as we proceed that learning through legitimate peripheral participation takes place no matter which educational form provides a context for learning, or whether there is any intentional educational form at all. (40) 3. Vygotsky discusses the sense in which imitation is more a mere “mechanical activity,” and denies vigorously that “anyone can imitate 60 almost anything if shown how” (Thopght 187 ). To imitate, it is necessary to possess the means of stepping from something someone knows to something new. With assistance, every child can do more than he [sic] can by himself— though only within the limits set by the state of his development. I ' Ifimitative ability had no limits, any child would be able to solve any problem with an adult’s assistance. But this is not the case. The child is most successful in solving problems that are closer to those solved independently; then the difficulties grow until, at a certain level of complexity, the child fails, whatever assistance is provided. The ease with which he is able to move from independent to assiswd problem solving is the best indicator of the dynamic of his development. (187-88) This concept of “assisted problem solving” resembles what takes place as a student engages in legitimate peripheral participation. She works under the supervision of expert practitioners, and in the process of doing so, she is given the opportunity to observe their habits, their activities, the ways in which they speak and write. In some instances, she receives the find of direct assistance in problem solving to which Vygotsky refers, and in others, she works through them independently, albeit within the scafi‘olding structured by the professor. Over time, she gains the ability to perform tasks that she was previously unable to perform by worfing within a situation in which she is challenged (implicitly or explicitly) to do so. 61 Chapter-4 Portraits of Nicole and Julie as They Engage in Disciplinary Writing The more deeply they [students] understand the worlds they interact with through written language, the better able they are to interact more fully and to understand who they become through the interactions. They learn to move from being the minor functionary, unreflectively carrying out narrowly defined tasks, to being able to understand and control the symbolic actions that shape the endeavor they are part of. (Bazerman, “Theories” 11 I) Introduction Within this chapter 1 construct detailed portraits of Nicole and Julie, the two students for whom I collected the richest data as they worked within the scafi'olding provided to them by their professors in the process of making . their way into the disciplinary communities of chemistry and of music therapy respectively. In order to establish a context in which to discuss how they engage in legitimate peripheral participation as they acquire disciplinary discourse and how they incorporate this discourse into their identities and then participate in it in increasingly significant ways, I construct a portrait of each student. Incorporating materials from portfolios and interviews with the student and her professors, this portrait includes a brief biographical sketch and a selective history of her previous experience in 62 writing. Finally, it focuses on a detailed discussion of her as a “professional-in training” [Walvoord and McCarthy’s term for an individual in the process of becoming “either a professional in the teacher’s own field or a professional in some other field who would be able, as an informed citizen, to employ knowledge about the teacher’s discipline"] (9). Students’ previous writing experiences include selected pieces of writing they did in high school, freshman writing classes, an integrative arts and humanities class required of undergraduates at Michigan State University, and some disciplinary classes that each student took prior to participating in my research. (In the case of Nicole, a chemistry major, these included a physics class, and in the case of Julie, a music therapy major, an introductory music therapy class.) I describe particular facets of each student’s experience that she considers significant, pieces of the writing which she has included in her portfolio, and the strengths she demonstrates in this writing. In discussing each student as a “professional-in-training” in one or more of her disciplinary writing classes, I describe the scafi‘olding which her , professor makes available to her in a particular situation in order to enable her to write and thus to engage in a form of legitimate peripheral participation. To do so, I use interviews with each student and with one or - more of her professors, materials fiom the class (syllabi, textbooks, assignments) and texts constructed by the student, focusing on how she uses this scaffolding and how her professor expects her to make use of it as she acquires disciplinary rhetorical strategies, thus increasing her “functional competence in language activity” (Bazerman, Sham 306). For Nicole, 1 have data for only one semester and interviews with one of her professors. For Julie, I have a greater variety of material, as I was able to collect data 63 over a period of two semesters, during which she wrote in several courses, and to interview her once during the semester prior to my formal data collection. In examining the ways in which each student engages in legitimate peripheral participation as she works in her zone of proximal development, I focus on how she struggles to work successfully within the constraints of disciplinary conventions and how she constructs disciplinary texts in response to instructions. I also discuss how her instructors provide feedback to her through “mediated authorship” (Prior) and how she interprets and works with this feedback. Finally, I discuss each student’s “school writing” (texts that display her knowledge) in contrast to her “work writing” (texts used for professional purposes) and the personas that she must construct as a student and as a preprofessional within the context of the university. I use persona here in the sense that Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee use “invented ethos,” meaning a character that the “rhetor . . . constructs forherself within her discourse” (110). In addition to doing “school writing,” both of these students I either compose, or contribute to, documents that are incorporated into the process of exchanging texts and accomplishing goals in actual disciplinary work settings. In these situations, they engage in legitimate peripheral participation in precisely the manner in which Lave and Wenger discuss it. ’ The portraits of Nicole and Julie presented here are intended to focus on each of these young women as an individual, not as a prototype representative of students in her discipline. They are created from inquiries into the ways in which these two individuals learned in particular settings and the ways in which their professors and teaching assistants worked with them during this process. Because of their participation in the portfolio project, both of these students are very aware of genre and of ways in which 64 language plays a part in their continued entry into their respective communities. Each sees herself not only as a preprofessional learning a particular type of academic discourse, but as a writer possessing varied interests and abilities. Both students speak of using writing purposefully not only within the genres prescribed by their disciplinary communities, but in other contexts as well. In her introduction to her portfolio for display, Nicole speaks of having been consistently encouraged to develop her ability to write, and Julie comments on being able to “express . . . different outlooks by the way I write” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997). These close-up glimpses of Nicole and Julie as each works in her zone of proximal development within the scafi'olding of disciplinary writing courses, and of their instructors as they respond to this work, are subject to the limits inherent in an ethnographic study, limits imposed in part by the lens of the researcher. “’[Alll ethnographical descriptions are homemade,” notes Clifi'ord Geertz, “’they are the describer’s description, not those of the described” (qtd. in Chiseri-Strater, xxii). While I make frequent use of direct quotes from my interviews with Nicole and Julie and and of their written reflections, the choices I made out of the rich data collected inevitably emphasize particular aspects of their experience, thus resulting in a “homemade” description of them and of their experiences. These portraits are also circumscribed by the limitations of space. Within the scope of this study, it is not possible to do justice to the complexity of these two women’s experiences or to the liveliness and intellectual curiosity which they bring to their interviews and their texts. Nevertheless, by conducting “a finegrained analysis of individual minds, in action, in problematic rhetorical situations” (Flower 17 2), I hope to provide insight into how they engage in legitimate peripheral participation within 65 their disciplinary communities in a university setting and how, by doing so, they acquire the disciplinary rhetorical strategies and conventions that they need as preprofessionals. Nicole . Personal portrait A lively young woman with wavy black hair, Nicole, a senior, is majoring in chemistry. While growing up in a Detroit suburb, she studied Spanish, and she has travelled in Mexico and is eager to travel more both there and in Latin America. A conscientious student, she enjoys “camping, backpacking and scuba diving.” She also kickboxes, finding it “an excellent stress reliever.” Writing outside of school, Nicole says, is “a good release” which “gets rid of tension.” In her introduction to the portfolio she has put together for display at the end of the project, she characterizes writing as an important part of my life. I was always encouraged to write creatively, analytically, and thoughtfully, throughout my education . . . . I guess I have always realized that writing was an important part of the learning process, but being involved in the Portfolio Project has helped me realize that even more through our numerous discussions and reflective writings. In interviews, Nicole responds thoughtfully to questions about her writing and her learning process. She thinks of chemistry as firn, explaining that Ilikedchemistryinhigh school alot. . . . Iliked . . . solving puzzles . . . , the fact that you have to fit things together and find the end product. . . . [Her teacher] didn’t fit the stereotypical teacher. . . . [H]e would jump up on top of the desk 66 . . . singing chemistry songs that he made up for us to remember formulas. (Interview, 3 Sept. 1997) Finding a way to ”fit things together” is a recurrent theme in Nicole’s . comments about her work. In a small group conversation during the portfolio project, she speaks of beginning an outline for writing through talfing. For me . . . if I’m doing papers, it’s easier lots of times to talk out generally beforehand with somebody that doesn’t even know what you’re talking about usually—and you can get general concepts out . . . then writing with outlines, and just writing down everything I do know and then going back and loofing at the work with that. And then it’s easier for me to discuss things . . . that way.” (2. P. Chronolggy Conversation, 24 Oct. 1995) Nicole’s persistent approach to writing appears to carry over into other parts of her work, both in her classes and outside of them. During most of her undergraduate education, Nicole, now a senior, has worked in a chemistry lab on campus. As the only undergraduate in this lab (her co-workers are all graduate students or hold postdoctoral positions), she began as a dishwasher and has gradually assumed responsibility for . conducting experiments. At the time I interview her, she has been involved in a project in this laboratory for which she has written one segment of an article accepted for publication and is listed as one of its co-authors. Because of her position in this laboratory and her associations with other chemists worfing there, Nicole already possesses abundant experience in her discipline. 67 Previous experience in writing Nicole’s characterization of herself as having been consistently ”encouraged to write creatively, analytically, and thoughtfully” is reflected in the writing she has done for her initial undergraduate courses. In her portfolio are essays composed for her freshman writing class and for an integrated arts and humanities class, for which she has received praise for the sfillful use of evidence and for her analytical ability. An essay written in response to “Dustan’s Indian Slaughter,” a selection from the “Hannah Dustan Narratives” included in Nicole’s coursech for American Thought and Language, elicits comments from her freshman writing professor on her “excellent analysis” and her “attention to both detail and language.” A passage in which Nicole discusses Hannah Dustan reveals these qualities: The language used in describing the scene portrays an out-of-control Dustan, bloodily filling even the children for no substantial reason, especially afier the Indians had been so . caring with the captives. After the filling was finished, Hannah was described as “tromping off into the woods.” The word “tromping” makes it seem as though Hannah was proud of what she had accomplished and she was satisfied with a “job well done.’ If she had simply crept away, it may have portrayed a better image of her, one that showed she realized what she had done and was a bit nervous or scared. But to strongly “tromp” away emphasized what an unfeeling wicked deed she had done and that her attitude when it was over was also unfeeling and wicked. (3—4) In commenting on this paper, Nicole’s professor stresses the need for her to “focus on the text, not the authors.” She suggests, for example, that 68 Nicole should consider the difference between saying “the authors wanted the reader to see Hannah Dustan as ignorant and bitterly vindictive. They used words with negative connotations when describing Hannah and her actions,” and using phrasing such as “words with‘ negative connotations create an image ofHD as . . .” (3). The professor draws a line through “The writers also felt,” replacing it with “This account suggests.” She cautions Nicole that “You can’t know that [the authors’ intentions]. What you can know is- what the language does.” Nicole’s essay on “Columbus’s Motivations,” written for an Integrative Arts and Humanities class (Sept. 9, 1994) is characterized by her instructor in a summative note as “thoughtful and clearly written. Good use of quotations as supporting evidence.” On another essay written for this class on “Diverse Roles in Society,” (Sept. 23, 1994), her instructor comments, “Good use of quotations, specific evidence. Good comparisons. Good close reading of the texts demonstrated.” Professional-in-training ' ' anunderstan ' ofdisci ' discourse Nicole states that writing is “extremely important” in the discipline of chemistry, thus demonstrating her understanding not simply of disciplinary requirements but of some of the beliefs underlying these requirements. Asked what qualities are significant when writing in chemistry, she replies, Be analytical . . . and factual . . . lab reports, you’re just basi- cally . . . stating the facts. You don’t include your opinion. This is just what happened and these” are the results . . . . What you add and how thorough your results are, that’s up to you, but the more thorough, the better, ‘cause you want to include as much 69 detail . . . . Cover all your bases so they can’t question what you did. (Interview, 2 Oct. 1997) Nicole emphasizes recording “facts. . . . This is just what happened and these are the results,” voicing a commonly held view of scientific writing as consisting of statements that reflect an objective reality. A similar comment is made by Elizabeth, another portfolio project student, who states, “[T]he paper I happened to write about . . . this theory [of gases] is so old. . . . It’sjustsomethingthat. . . is this way. Soit’s notlikeyoucan debate it or bring up new arguments . . . as far [as] why it happens, it just happens. Because of this formula” (2. P. Chronolggy Conversation, 13 Mar. 1996). In both of these remarks, students adhere to the notion of science as establishing or confirming objective “truths.” Nicole’s definition of facts, however, is anchored in a disciplinary perspective extending beyond the one indicated in her flat statement “This is just what happened.” In her response to a questionnaire given to her in the spring of 1997 , she states that writing like a chemist means “to write analytically and factually. I have learned, however, that many ‘facts’ in my field are not necessarily facts but just ideas supported well enough not to be argued with.” In defining “facts” in this way, she demonstrates awareness of the rhetorical processes that are incorporated into the development of scientific knowledge (Bazerman, Shapgg’ 6). Her description of facts as “ideas supported well enough not to be argued with” implies an understanding of how language is employed intentionally to further disciplinary perspectives. The “concrete” aspects of language embedded in particular professions are stressed by Bakhtin: [T]hese [professional] languages difi'er from each other not only in their vocabularies; they involve specific forms for 70 manifesting intentions, forms for making conceptualization and evaluation concrete. . . . What is unportant to us here is the intentional dimensions . . . of the “shared” language’s stratification. . . . [T]hese possibilities are realized in specific directions, filled with specific content, they are made concrete, particular, and are permeated with concrete value judgments; they knit together with specific objects and with the belief systems of certain genres of expression and points of view peculiar to particular professions [emphases mine]. M 289) Some of the “intentional dimensions” embedded in the linguistic representation of science include 1) how findings should be quantified (how much detail to include in reporting them), i 2) what kinds of details to include in abstracts, 3) how to employ present and past tense in reporting findings, 4) prescriptions about when to use third person and passive voice, and 5) ways in which graphic representations (tables, graphs, and formulas) can be thoughtquy integrated into a text. As Nicole writes in her physics and chemistry courses, she must struggle to attain these disciplinary conventions of language, genre, and graphic representation as well as to construct personas appropriate for herself as a preprofessional and as a student in an academic setting. In the following discussion, I examine how she is further initiated into the “belief systems” of chemistry through a variety of experiences and how she and her instructor work within the scaffolding of the “concrete, particular” possibilities of disciplinary language. In addition, I examine how she'manages to construct 71 (simultaneously) appropriate personas as a preprofessional and as student. Mm ‘ disciplinag knowledge, conventions, and strategies Writing to learn ‘ I The genre of the lab report serves as scafi'olding for Nicole as she constructs her reports and reviews what she has done during experiments. In the portfolio she constructs for display at the end of the project, she describes writing as a way to make sense of what she is learning to do. “[I]n writingthese labreports . . . , I actuallylearned whatlhaddone inlab that previous week.” And in an interview, she adds, ‘1th reports are what—in writing—makes you really understand and see what you did and why you did it” (3 Sept. 1997). Nicole uses the process of writing the lab report not only to gain an understanding of a particular experiment and to preserve a record of the steps she took in performing it, but to gain an increased understanding of the type of information valued in chemistry experiments and how she can record it in a way that is meaningful to chemists. In working with this type of report, she is learning to think like a chemist. Form leads to increased understanding. Indeed, seen as a lens through which to learn, form becomes an essential means of “Composing One’s Self in a Discipline” (as Anne _ Herrington phrases it, 91), providing students with “a step in the learning process” (W insor, 22). Nicole engages simultaneously in writing for display and in legitimate peripheral participation. Focusing on detail in laboratory reports Experiments for undergraduate students are likely to be structured in such a way that reports will contain only predictable findings that will not deviate fiom previously established norms. Yet even in composing “cut and 72 dried” reports such as these, in which she writes expressly “for display,” Nicole faces a more complex task than is apparently indicated by its standardized form. In writing lab reports, she must demonstrate precision and accuracy in making measurements and, thus, her ability to engage competently in scientific work. The issue of how much detail to include in writing about an experiment can present a dilemma for “undergraduates who are often . . . novice researchers” as well as “novices in . . . [a] discipline” (Chamey and Carlson, 89). “[W]hile students writing a Method section lmow that they must include ‘enough detail to allow a reader to replicate the experiment,’ they often cannot determine which details are required to assure an acceptable replication [emphasis mine]” (89). I In Physics 191, during the spring semester of 1997, Nicole is asked to attend to precision in language and the degree of detail which she is to include in a lab report. Although she is not in a work situation, the focus of the report she places in her portfolio is on quantifying her findings as she will be' required to do in future work situations. Thus she is engaging, albeit in a very limited way, in a form of legitimate peripheral participation. In a report on - “The Simple Pendulum,” (10 Feb. 1997) her instructor questions her about her list of sample calculations. “How did you measure L? How did you estimate this [percentage]? Why is SL different in the Sg/g calculation for ‘ photogate timer?” When Nicole reports in her results section that “Both of these results difi‘er from the accepted value of gravity in East Lansing, which is 980.4 cm/s 2.” her instructor requests her to “Give number . . . % difference.” And when she reports that “if the string was held too taut the string would have a value too high,” her instructor writes in the margin, “the string would break before stretching more than a . . . mm!” In the comments at the end of this report, the instructor notes, “Your lab report is much better 73 this time—you have put in more information-Good. Give % difl'erence when comparing measured value with ‘given’ value. Note that errors--such as st. deviations also have units.” (5) As demonstrated by this example, the genre of the experimental report, although it appears to be deceptively simple, is filled with potential choices. Thus, for Nicole, or for any other neophyte in a discipline, it is filled with opportunities for potential errors. In addition to understanding the “content, structure, and style” required in a particular genre such as this report and “the assumptions underlying “ them, she must know how to work within such “constraints to fit the peculiarities of the task at hand” (Charney and Carlson, 89). As a researcher becomes more skilled, she must also use rhetorical strategies to emphasize the impor- tance of the new work in the context of the existing literature; to recognize when departures from standard practice are great enough to require explanation or justification; to anticipate readers’ rival interpretations of the data (89). Thus increasing levels of participation in a discipline involve increasing awareness of exchanges with other authors and of intertextuality, an awareness that Nicole demonstrates and that I return to in discussing the writing she does in the chemistry lab where she is employed. Conducting experiments: interpreting data and communicating findings As she moves into her senior level chemistry courses, Nicole continues to struggle with-and to extend her knowledge of—conducting experiments and reporting on them. In the fall of 1997, Nicole takes an advanced Analytical- Physical Chemistry Lab, a disciplinary writing class focused on conducting experiments and on developing students’ ability to use appropriate 74 instruments in undertaking specific experiments. In the preface to the recommended text, Principles of Instrumental Analysis, Douglas Skoog and James Leary note the “impressive array of powerful and elegant tools for obtaining qualitative and quantitative information about the composition and structure of matter” and the need for students in the sciences and engineering to learn “how they are used to solve analytical problems” (iii). In order to provide a context for my detailed discussion of Nicole’s work, I quote fiu'ther from Skoog and Learfs preface. It is the authors’ belief that the choice and efficient use of modern analytical instruments require an understanding of the fundamental principles upon which modern measuring devices are based [emphasis mine]. Only then can intelligent choices be made among the several possible ways of solving an analytical problem; only then can appreciation be developed for the pitfalls that accompany most physical measurements; and only then can a feel be developed for the limitations of measurements in terms of sensitivity and accuracy. . . . [I]t is the goal of the fourth edition to provide the student with an introduction to the principles of spectroscopic, electrometric, and chromato- graphic methods of analysis, as well as to engender an appreciation of the kinds of instru ments that are currently available and the strengths and limitations of these instru ments [emphasis mine]. (iii) Professor Y. sees the students’ central task as grasping particular principles “and then communicate that they understand those ‘fundamental principles.” He describes the need for students entering into the workplace to adapt to equipment in the particular settings in which they find 75 themselves. “The students, when they go out in the job force, are not going to have the exact instruments. They may have something different. And so the key is that . . . [they] fundamentally understand how all these work . . . . It’s developing a basis and not actually specific skills for a specific device” (Taped personal conversation, 20 Apr. 2000). Nicole’s Analytical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory met in a classroom once a week and in a laboratory twice a week. Because of space constraints in the laboratory, I was not allowed to observe the students as they did their work there. I did, however, attend most of the lectures for this laboratory; I also interviewed Nicole three times during the fall semester and once during the following spring semester. I interviewed her professor twice during the semester (and conversed with him once some time later to confirm details about my data). In his weekly lectures, Nicole’s professor, Dr. Y., discusses experiments which students have recently done in the lab or those which they will be doing in the coming week. Graphic representation of information dominates the classroom lectures and discussion. Professor Y. focuses on formulas, which he writes across a lengthy expanse of blackboard at the front of the classroom, carefully explaining their meaning and significance in connection to experiments which the students will be conducting. In speaking about her work, Nicole stresses the need to be methodical, to attend to details in conducting experiments, and to “be able to present your findings in a way that everyone else will understand.” Professor Y. requires students to write four formal lab reports in a format he describes as ”taken out of a standard chemistry journal.” In the course syllabus, the requirements for these reports are listed as “Title, Author, Abstract, Introduction, Experimental Technique, Results (including figures and tables), 76 Discussion, Conclusion, References,” and the requirements for the six short lab reports are described as “Title, Author, Abstract, Block diagram and brief description of experimental apparatus, Results (short descriptive text, including figures and tables) and answers to any questions in the experimental handout.” In addition, each student is required to complete a prelab assignment and “to keep a laboratory notebook to record procedures, observations, and results from each experiment” (Syllabus). Dr. Y. explains that he requires students to complete a “homework set” constructed through a “computer-assisted, personalized assignment system” prior to working in the lab. “So we hand out the laboratory experimental report that the students must read before they come into the lab. . . . And they must answer questions . . . relative to the lab before they actually perform the lab” (Interview, 17 Oct. 1997). Handouts provided to Nicole contain instructions for conducting experiments: substances and materials needed, as well as directions for making mathematical calculations and for operating laboratory equipment safely. They also pose questions about experimental results for her to consider, request her to compare difi'ering types of procedures, and, in some instances, ask her to construct diagrams. ' In the carefully controlled environment of the Analytical-Physical . Chemistry Laboratory, Nicole and her classmates are enabled to conduct experiments that may be beyond their capability to execute alone, in the same way that Winsor explains that students are “enabled” to write even though they can not yet undertake “the fully inhabited activity of the expert writer” (22). As they work in pairs, using specialized equipment to perform their experiments at laboratory work stations, a teaching assistant or the professor is present for each pair of students. Thus assistance and feedback 77 are immediately available to them. Nicole views this situation as one in which, “I think I’m learning a lot more because I have my interaction with somebody who knows what they’re doing. . . . Instead of us just fumbling blindly . . . ’Oh, does this work? Does this work?’ We have [someone really] explaining to us why this works, and then we can apply it” (Interview, 2 Oct. 1997). In this constructive atmosphere, students can work within their zones of proximal development to extend both their skill in conducting experiments and their knowledge of chemistry Communicating well, both with their partners in the laboratory and in constructing written reports, is emphasized in tandem with performing experiments correctly. In an interview, Dr. Y stresses that “this is crucial, if one student is making solutions and another student is making measurements, that there’s proper communication, not only about what’s just going on but chemically what they’re trying to look for . . . . Are there certain trends in the data they should be observing?” (17 Oct. 1997). Simultaneously, he emphasizes writing effectively. My goal when I took on this class . . . was to teach these stu- dents to be effective chemists. But . . . my modified goal is to have them be effective communicators in chemistry . . . whether it’s [to] somebody in a level below them, somebody at their level as a peer, or somebody who may be above them. . . . [Iln this class, we’re not only seeing if the students can perform, but then [that] they can express those results in some form that’s understandable to their peers and others in the [field]. (17 Oct. 1997) Nicole and her classmates engage in legitimate peripheral participation as they learn to make effective use of measurement tools commonly employed 78 by chemists and to report their findings in appropriate genres and in language that is useful to other chemists. Constructing an abstract: Responding to feedback on tense and the use of detail In attempting to achieve Professor Y.’s goal for her to communicate clearly, one of the scaffolding devices with which Nicole struggles is the requirements for writing an abstract. Y. comments on the significance of this genre. [Wle’ve done a lot of work with writing abstracts . . . with the idea being that a student should be able to [in a] few hundred words or less, describe what they did . . . succinctly. And with hardcore results. . . . As scientists, you know, it’s like reading a newspaper. This is the first thing somebody comes across . . . in a scientific publication. Everything should be there. And the idea is, you want to entice somebody to read on. And so you want it to be exciting. You want it to state what you did and how you did it and what were the results. . . . So . . . that’s one thing that they have succeeded very well in . . . is understanding this idea of an abstract, how to get their ideas across. (Interview 25 Nov. 1997) The instructions for writing an abstract provided in Nicole’s handout on “Writing the Report,” (a xeroxed copy of Chapter 8 of Phys; cal Chemisg'y Methods, Techniques and Emriments, by R. Sime) are stated more tersely. “In a very few lines, give a statement identifying the experiment or investigation and perhaps the method or apparatus. Always give a numerical result of the experiment. Be brief” (159). A section further on in 79 the same handout explains the appropriate use of tense. You must report your work in the past tense and the work of other scientists in the present tense. . . . Since the introduction is essentially a summary of other scientists’ work, it is written in the present tense. On the other hand, the experimental section, a presentation of your work, is written in the past tense and is usually chronologically ordered. Take care to avoid the future tense; it is almost never appropriate in scientific report writing. (170) Nicole’s abstract for a short report (one that does not require an introduction) on “Atomic Absorption Spectrometry” (26 Sept. 1997), shown below, receives detailed editing from Professor Y. and a score of 2 points out of 5. oprgmicsolventsoncoppcrabsorbanch Thirdly, thcinwrferenceof Abstract: 0;. | ”him MCAWWSWMUMIC - . . l _ fetid: TuWY?‘ 0‘ “'9 analysisofanunknown. .IH.| H. at .. I ..onmwkkh5£ QL-Mwflwww " slow pcrformcdtodetcrminecommonaromsandionfoundmudgs. Weficctof _ H's W(M&Rv~dhsw.--- M m phosphate will-beobserved along withtthDTA releuingincalcirnnabsorbancc w . determination. Finally,thc calciumabsorbance inasarnplc ofbloodsenrmthg medic deteminc the amount ofcalciumin blood\(~_& {(9.43 4am Nicole explains the procedures she followed in her experiment, but she doesn’t State her findings. Through his editing, Professor Y. shows her what she needs to change, illustrating how she can shorten sentence structures and where she should change from future tense to past tense. Thus he reinforces 80 the instructions in the handout. He also requests the specific findings (measurement) of a substance with which she was experimenting. Since Nicole works in a chemistry lab and keeps her own notebook for the work she does there, she is aware ofthe necessity for keeping careful records of her experiments. Her difficulty with this abstract may stem from confusion about how she needs to write in order to “display” knowledge in a course that is new to her. Having been told that she is expected to extend her knowledge of measurement devices in this course, she carefully describes the “steps” in performing this experiment, but not the results she obtains from it. In reponses to this abstract and to later ones as well, she is directed to focus on reporting details, giving her the opportunity not only to improve her grade but to record information she gains from experiments in such a way that her abstracts will be considered pertinent by other individuals in the discipline. The abstracts for her following reports are less heavily edited, and each receives four out of five possible points. On the abstract of her short report, “ESR Experiment,” (1 Oct. 1997), Professor Y. suggests finding a word other than “used,” which is repeated five times in this abstract. He also corrects one use offuture tense, changing it to past, and, again, he requests that she include the specific results of her experiment. On her abstract for “Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry” (8 Oct.), Professor Y. crosses out part of the phrase “instrument used to determine,” replacing it with “method for determining,” changes “from the lowest to the greatest boiling points” to “based on boiling points” and questions Nicole about one missing term. In keeping with the rotating laboratory schedule for the class, Nicole’s first set of reports is returned to her in mid-October. (See Endnote 1.) 81 On her abstract for Pulsed NMR Spectroscopy (29 Oct), Nicole is corrected for an’ error in describing the substances of the experiment she conducted. “Deuterated water” is underlined. And a note reads, “No, you , looked directly at methyl- l-bromopropane (which is circled in the text) and 06(H10)‘ .” She is also questioned about two missing calculations. On her abstract for Visible Ultraviolet Spectroscopy (5 Nov.), Professor Y. does no editing within Nicole’s text except for underlining the word “substantial’ in the sentence “All theoretical calculations produced substantial error.” At the bottom, he notes simply “too wordy! Could condense!” On her report on “Microwave Spectroscopy: Determination of Structural Parameters and Dipole Moments by Rotational Spectroscopy” (19 Nov. 1997) a full report with an introduction, shown below, she receives a 10 out of 10 from her teaching assistant. Abstract Microwave spectroscopy employs electromagnetic radiation to explore the rotational energy levels of molecules and hence their bond length and bond angles. This experiment is divided into to two parts, the first being determining the structural parameters of the molecule 008. To determine the parameters, first a spectra was taken of the parent 160120328 molecule. Then spectra were taken with an 180 substituted into the molecule followed by 348 and finally 13C. The frequencies of the central transitions were then recorded and used to find the rotational constant for the three labeled molecules. This information was then used to determine the moment of inertia. the z coordinate for each atom and finally the CO and CS bond lengths, which were found to be 1.1605 A 2 crvo I s - and 1.5597 A respectively. These experimental values are close to the literature 82 valueszof1.1578 A for the co distance and 1.5601 ii for the cs distance in that they deviate from the literature values by-:l:0.0027 i. for the co distance and 10.0004 A for the CS distance. The second part of the experiment dealt with determining the dipole in ' ' moment of NH, by means of the rk effect Spectra was obtained from OCS and NH3 at five different voltages ranging from 500 V to 900 V. The frequencies of the stark effects were then obtained and used to first determine the cell spacing with the OCS molecule and then the dipole moment of NH,. The experimental value of 1.441 D compares to the literature valuezof 1.471 D with a 2 21:0.0304 deviation. ' em” . r‘ Q\\ m”? (3) P The teaching assistant capitalizes one proper name, crosses out one singular verb (spectra was) and changes it to spectra were, and questions . Nicole in two places about the errors (deviations) in her findings, writing “sig figs” at the bottom of the abstract. When Professor Y. reviews this abstract in a conversation with me after the course is over, he critiques it much more stringently than the teaching assistant did. My rule is a science number is not a number unless it has its error reported with it. . . . The student did not communicate how significant their values were, so that, for me, in an ab- stract, would automatically count for a deduction. . . . There should be a standard deviation. And that . . . on these numbers, 83 is a very complicated calculation. . . . This mass is actually incorrect. . . . These should all be superscripts. . . . An abstract should never be more than one paragraph. . . . This would not have been a 10 out of 10 [if he had graded it]. . . . I would say, 7 out of 10. . . . [I]t would have been an average abstract. (Taped personal conversation, 20 Apr. 2000) However, he comments enthusiastically on this text in general, noting that Nicole has composed it much more purposefully than the abstract she wrote early in the semester. But if I read through this, the language is much better than the first one. So . . . if you look at this [the earlier abstract]. . . , this is a total disaster. . . . [Alnd if you look at this [the abstract on Microwave Spectroscopy] at least the format is correct, and the person is really trying to communicate what they’re doing . . . . [H]ere [in the earlier abstract] it’s just . . . it’s like they’re talking and taking dictation, and here [in the latter ' one] they’re really thinking about what they’re writing. . . . The person’s actually learned something. . . . [SJhe’s thinking about what she has to do and communicating ideas to people in a much more succinct way [emphasis mine] (20 Apr. 2000) Despite his sharp difference with the number of points assigned by the teaching assistant to Nicole’s abstract, Y. confirms that over the course of the semester, she has definitely acquired a stronger sense of the rhetorical conventions required in this genre. (For copies of abstracts, see Appendix B.) In providing Nicole with explicit guidance in terms of diction and phrasing, Professor Y. and his teaching assistants enable her to write by helping her to state her findings using the language needed to converse 84 efi‘ectively with other members of the profession. In some instances, she may view the process of responding to their comments (changing tense and providing specific numeric results of the experiments) simmy in terms of meeting the requirements for this course, i.e., writing for display. However, in continuing to function as a chemist, she is also engaging in legitimate peripheral participation. In the terms used in Lave and Wenger’s description of apprentice tailors, she is moving closer to the point where she will be able to envision the shape of the entire garment. Writing “editorials” for students: Providing scaflhlding through mediated . authorship Professor Y.’s comments (along with those of the teaching assistant) enable Nicole to produce an abstract which conforms more closely to professional standards in chemistry than her earlier ones did. In an interview, Dr. Y. describes how he was able to do this for many of his students, explaining how he goes about providing feedback. Y: [I]n the cases where the abstracts weren’t satisfactory, I would basically rewrite the abstract for the student so they saw . . . . [T]hey may have had a core there-and so I showed them basically, through comments on it, how they could take that core and actually rewrite it into a decent abstract. . . . [S10 they can see their words and maybe my editorials, you know. M: [W'Jhen you say editorials, you actually would show them a different way to word a sentence? Y: Absolutely I may rewrite the whole entire . . . . M: or a way to make something more concise or- Y: Yes. Absolume . . . . They may have a three-paragraph 85 abstract, which is meaningless in terms of what I’m looking for. So I would basically condense it down for them and show them. . . . ”This is whatyouhad. This is whatlwas really looking for in terms of a decent abstract.” And . . . I think students understand what an abstract is now, which is good. (Interview, 25 Nov. 1997) ‘ This sort of “in-depth” editing in which Professor Y. engages provides a model for his students. Working with the “core[s]” provided by students in order to “show them” how to construct “a decent abstract,”he rewrites segments of texts (and/or eliminates other segments). In doing so, he demonstrates how to write within this genre. As his students respond to the changes he makes, incorporating the conventions he demonstrates and gradually gaining the ability to construct abstracts that conform more closely to disciplinary norms, they engage in legitimate peripheral participation. The means through which “textual exchanges” of this sort play a role in “the historical (re)production of persons and communities of practice” are discussed in depth by Paul Prior in Writing/Disciplinarity (215). He uses the term “mediated authorship” in exploring the “interactions” between three graduate students and their professors as they work on written texts in tandem or as a student revises a text in response to the teacher’s written comments. Describing such interactions as “dialogcally open and interpenetrated,” he examines “what footings the speaker/ writer takes to her words, whose voices are present in an utterance [emphasis mine], and how those voices are being (re)appropriated” (215). By conducting a detailed, close-up study, he examines the “textual exchanges” between Moira, a graduate student in sociology, and her mentor, Elaine West, in order to 86 investigate “the extent to which West’s responses were authoritative or internally persuasive to Moira” (226). In his intertextual analysis, Prior illustrates the blurring of authorship which takes place between West and Moira. Although Moira demonstrates “resistance” on occasion or engages in “unprompted revision” (226) Prior states that. West’s words came to populate Moira’s texts, altering not only their style, but also their content, their motives, what they indexed socially, and what disciplinary discourses they referred to intertextually. Over the course of seven drafts, Arenas [Moira’s conference paper] was incrementally refashioned toward West’s voices, what she found internally persuasive [emphasis mine] (241). West’s influence on Moira during this enculturation process, however, involved not only this sort of interspersion of “her” language with Moira’s. It also involved the use of “disciplinary taxonomies” (i.e.' terms such as “’it is hypothesized that’” or ”psychological and behavioral”) by both West and Moira. Through this incremental process, Moira becomes increasingly aware of the “intentions and accents” (Bakhtin, Qiglggig 293) of the language employed in sociology. These “disciplinary taxonomies” with which she . becomes acquainted correspond to the “superaddressee,” an entity designated by Bakhtin as the ultimate audience present in disciplinary exchanges. Disciplinary rhetoric is reinforced, says Bakhtin, by “an invisibly present third party who stands above all the participants in the dialogue” representing an “ideological” position “(God, absolute truth, the court of dispassionate human conscience, the people, the court of history, science, and so forth). . . . Each dialogue takes place as if against the background of the responsive understanding” of this “superaddressee” (Speech, 126). 87 As Moira struggles with language that is “saturated” (Bakhtin) with sociological terms, she also absorbs—and simultaneously struggles withuthe perspectives incipient within her discipline. She learns to compose a text congruent with the “superaddressee” in the wings. Prior holds a lens close up to her texts in order to examine microscopically how particular terminologies are instantiated in researchers during their schooling and thus how disciplinary beliefs and attitudes continue to be reinstated and reinforced as those researchers become experts in their own right. Nicole and Professor Y. engage in a similar process as he writes “editorials” on her abstracts (although they almost certainly do not have the same level of face-to-face contact with each other as West and Moira do). Nicole learns not only the appropriate forms to use on a superficial level, but how these forms workin the discipline. Gaining the abilityto use a genre enables us to “learn . . . what ends we may have” (Miller 165). As she becomes familiar with the “ends” available in chemistry, Nicole is increasingly enabled to view her work through the disciplinary lens. . Invoking science as the “superaddressee”: Using third person and passive voice to establish authority Underlying the scafl‘olding provided by Nicole’s interactions with . Professor Y. and the assignments he provides her are the expectations inherent in the discipline of chemistry itself. In characterizing “facts” as “just ideas supported well enough not to be argued with,” Nicole demonstrates her awareness that “stratification” in scientific genres and terminology is formed through the consensus of the scientific community (Knorr-Cetina, LaTour and Woolgar, Bazerman). In discussing the formation of such consensus, Bakhtin stresses the way in which “particular points of 88 view on the world” are promulgated by language M 293). However varied the social forces doing the work of stratification-a profession, a genre, a particular tendency, an individual personality—the. work itself everywhere comes down to the (relatively) protracted and socially meaningful (collective) saturation of language with specific (and consequently limiting) intentionsandaccents [emphasis mine] . . . As a result of the work done by all these stratifying forces in language, there are no “neutral” words and forms-words and forms that can belong to “no one”; language has been completely taken over, shot through with intentions and accents. (293) One of these “intentions” in science is reflected in the voice of the experimenter as a dispassionate observer. In learning to employ the disciplinary conventions of chemistry, Nicole must adopt a persona in keeping with this role. Establishing authority through the use of third person and passive voice, one of the “specific (and consequently limiting) intentions”- with which scientific language is “saturated,” is foregrounded in a handout on “Writing the Report” provided for Nicole in her Analytical-Physical , Laboratory. This handout contains a page long section on “Voice” which begins “Scientists writing articles for scientific journals are generally required to avoid the first person, especially “1” (and also “we” when the article is coauthored)” (172). An “Explanation of the . . . [Analytical-Physical Laboratory] FTIR Grading Sheet” describing the requirements for various sections in a report contains the following statement under “Style.” Scientific writing is difi‘erent from other writing you have been exposed to. “Y on must not use the first person in your report. The report should 89 be written wholly in the third person. The use of passive voice is acceptable and espected [emphasis mine].” Nicole talks about the requirement of consis- tently using third person in unequivocal terms. “[For] the short reports . . . ., [y]ou don’t have to include all the little details they want you to include in the longreports . . . . But . . . theywantyoutousethe samevoiceinboth. That doesn‘t change . . . . Third personuno ‘I, we” (Interview, 2 Oct. 1997). Even though Nicole is very clear on this point, two uses of “us” are circled in her report on Atomic Absorption Spectrometry, and, in another sentence, the words “around us” are crossed through and replaced with the words “in tube.” Despite making these few errors, she has previously been thoroughly immersed in scientific writing and seems to have little dificulty with the requirement of writing in third person. Considering audience: contradictions betwaen teachingand practice Notwithstanding his corrections on Nicole’s report indicating the necessity for third person, Professor Y. states that he uses the first person in much of his own writing. “I generally, when I write in journals, don’t write in the third person,” he notes (25 Nov. 1997). Yet he insists on teaching the more formal usage to his students. This dichomtomy between his instructions to them and his own firmly established use of first person is determined by audience. [Wle always tell—students . . . this third person approach. . . . And I always like this impersonal approach . . . you want them to be very formal because if you teach them the formalities, then it’s easy to be informal. You can always regress back. . . . I’ve reached the point of total regression now I think. So . . . my abstract’s always “We did this. We did that. This was 90 measured. This is what these other people did.” Very informal style. I mean it’s still written in terms of an abstract . . . succinctly stating . . . what was done but it’s . . . more informal. M: And you can do that because you’re a tenured professor and because you have experience in your field? Y: No. M: Could a graduate student do that, for example? Y: I think so. . . . I publish in physics journals in terms of nuclear chemistry and nuclear physics. And our field is so small that it tends to be a very personal field. . . . [P]eople are going to . . . recognize your name—so I think it’s a lot less formal . . . . Ifeelthatl’m writingtopeers. . . . Now likeIsaid, Ilike very much the very formal approach with student writing . . . not in terms of . . . ”I’m in charge” . . . but in terms of they need to know what the limit is. And they can always back off from the limit as necessary or as they progress. . . . I think . . . [they’ll] develop a simpler approach. It comes very easy. But this formal approach comes very hard. . . . I tend to write very informallly]. . . . [N]ow I say that in journal publications, but when I write for grant money . . . , I tend to be very formal. M: But that’s not really to peers- Y: Well, it is, but it may not be the same peer group . . . . [T]hat’s kind of contradictory. Why do I do that? . . . to seem more respectfiiln’cause these are the people with the money . . . . [I]t’sTheMan. . . . [Ylouhavetobasicallytakeadifl'erent approach to the people with the money. . . . [T]he people who evaluate are your peers. But . . . [these] ominous people [at the 91 top] . . . [are] holding [these] bags of money. So in that form of writing, you tend to be much more formal. (Interview, 25 Nov. 1997) - In recognizing this carefully constructed, formal persona that he adopts in negotiating with authority figures for grant money, Professor Y. again acknowledges the imperatives imposed by a particular audience. As a professional “fully inhabiting” the form in which he is writing, he considers these imperatives in constructing his grant proposals even though he may not directly discuss them with his students. He feels responsible for teaching them this more “diflicult” approach, the formal one used traditionally, and he is confident that they can evolve into the use of a simpler style in that “they can always back off from the limit.” Professor Y.’s insistence that his students use third person to report their findings “objectively,” in keeping with scientific practice, and to negotiate with those in authority is well warranted since the use of third person is firmly entrenched in some kinds of scientific writing. Establishing their perspective in relation to a text is an aspect of rhetoric with which ' students might be expected to need assistance. Thus even though Y. transgresses this rule in his own writing as a skilled practitioner “fully inhabiting” the genre of the professional journal articles, his emphasis on his students’ use of third person is understandable. This contradiction does, however, provide an opening for him to explicitly initiate his students into the linguistic requirements of chemistry, an opportunity that will be further discussed in Chapter Five. 92 Um mphics to comm Scaflblding for constructinggraphics Thecarefuluseofgraphics embodies acrucialpartofcomposingin the sciences. Indeed, graphics appear to. take precedence over words in evoking richly imaginative response from readers in science (or in engineering). Charts, tables, formulas, and graphs play a significant role in providing evidence in scientific prose (Rosner, Bazerman), and formulas, in particular, are integral to reading and writing about chemistry experiments. Bazerman notes that the “graphic features—drawings, graphs, tables, plates, and equations” which “interrupt the block of prose” in scientific articles “shift the argument into difl'erent symbolic media, but the decisions of when and where to employ them, how they should be designed and what information to include, are as much writing decisions as are word selection or organization” [emphasis mine] (Sham 172). Whether students define formulas or charts and graphs as writing or not, these representations involve rhetorical strategies. In the handout in ‘ “Writing the Report” provided to Nicole and her classmates in Analytical- Physical Laboratory, graphic features are clearly treated as Writing decisions” (W‘msor). The information provided in the handout enables the student to anticipate what she will need to do in order to demonstrate a concept or a part of an experiment to an audience. In other words, graphics are part of the part of the composing process and the rhetorical effect. Emphasis is placed on the careful use of graphs and tables in reporting an experiment in a textual format which enables readers to visualize an experiment and reproduce it. In the sections on tables and graphs preceding the section on “texts,” students are provided with just over two pages of instructions on constructing tables, including a sample table, and 93 approximately two and one-half pages of instructions on how to present graphs, including examples of two graphs. (Graphs are labeled as figures within a report.) Flow is emphasized in the instructions for constructing tables. The flow of information in a table is from lefi: to right and from top to bottom. This means that primitive data fall into the leftmost columns, while numerical data calculated from primitive data go into the columns to the right. The column on the far right, then, contains the final calculated results. (161) The final two sentences instruct the student as to how she can engage in legitimate peripheral participation through keeping in mind the purpose of the table for the. audience. Keep in mind what this table is being used for. The author is communicating to the reader what he [sic] did experimentally, what he calculated from those measurements [emphasis mine], and an honest assessment of the quality of all of these data. (163) Detailed instructions for constructing graphs are also provided, again with an emphasis on the reader. A Even more than a table, a graph serves to inform the reader very quickly of the relationship between an experimental parameter (the independent variable) and the calculated physical chemical quantity (the dependent variable). (163) The purpose is to be able to read quickly in order to visualize the result that is being represented and to be able to accurately replicate the work of another researcher. For a chemist, it seems, a formula or a graphic 94 description of an experiment may communicate much more efi‘ectively than words. The graph itselfconsists ofa line and a set ofpoints. The line may be straight or curved,-but in either case it should be smooth, not drawn from point to point. Each point should consist of a small, precise dot surrounded by a simple geometric figure, usuallyacircle. Thecircleisofiendrawninasizethat corresponds approximately to the uncertainties in the variables. When a smooth curve is drawn through the points, the line should not go through the circle, but should be drawn up to the circle on each side. (165) The significance of graphic features in thinking through concepts is also emphasized by Mary Rosner in her study of “two engineers at a large manufacturing plant in the midwest” (320). She notes that they acknowledge that visuals are more important than words as they work out their ideas. For them sketches and blueprints are tools [hr invention and revision, not simply a way of recording data . . . . These visual images help engineers think, plan, and revise their plans [all emphases mine]. . . . [One of the engineers] revised his design 20 to 25 times before he started to draft his detailed description in prose. (321-22) These engineers, she says, “treated designs as pretext; they imaginatively juggled choices of materials, sizes, locations, complexity, and costs before transcribing their designs” (322). The professional engineer studied by Jack Selzer in “The Composing Processes of an Engineer” engaged in “an impressive array of invention procedures-analyzing audiences, reading, consulting colleagues, brainstorming, and reviewing previously written 95 documents” (181) though he made minimal revisions after composing documents, consisting of “little more than superficial editing” (184). Although engineers may not extensively revise their manuscripts once they have drafted them, it would appear from these studies that they strategize and revise extensively in the process of inventing. Rosner’s emphasis on the significance of “visuals” and the use of “designs as pretext” draws attention to the need to acknowledge the writing and thinking generated by engineers through graphic representations. Thinking in terms of image: Viewing formula as art Underscoring the significance of graphic representation for a chemist, in addition to the emphasis placed on tables and graphs in “Writing the Report,”are Y.’s comments on how he regards graphic representations as opposedtowords inthe course ofreadingajournal article. In response to a comment during an interview that “logic isn’t necesarily all separated ofi‘ from creativity . . . or imagination,” he agrees. Y.: “That’s right. . . . I consider myelfan artist [emphasis mine] . . . . I consider a scientist as . . . you have to be creative. M: [I]fI think of someone like Einstein . . . , it seems to me there’s an element of play and of art. Y: The fact is, formula’s [an] art. I mean if you go back to the journals and look up the layouts and formulas [emphasis mine] . . . . [I]f you go back and look at, some of these earlier journals andlookathow . . . thoseequations andthefigures were presented . . . , it was an art. . . . I would consider a novel almost as lacking art in a sense that if you look at page after page after page, it’s just words. If . . . you read it, contentwise, 96 it’s art. . . . Butifyoulookatit, it'snotart. . . . Iwould sayif you look at scientific journals . . ., I would see them as there’s a lotofflow inthere. Imean, it’s verydry reading. ButifIlookat it, it’s very exciting. . . . A novel is very boring when you look at it, but it flows very nicely. It’s not dry reading. It involves you. It captures you. (Interview, 17 Oct. 1997) Inexploringhowthinkingisengenderedinresponsetothe“structural properties” in a graphic representation, Vygotslq‘s concept of ”psychological tools” is useful. He defines such “tools” as “artificial devices for mastering mental processes,” explaining that “[tlhey are directed toward the mastery or control of behavioral processes . . . just as technical means are directed toward the control of processes of nature” (“Instrumental” 13637). Included in such tools and “the complex systems” within which they are embedded are “language; various systems for counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems; works of art; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps, and mechanical drawings; all sorts of conventional signs; etc.” (137). When individuals incorporate a “tool” of this sort into their _ behavior, says Vygotsky, it “alters the entire flow and structure of mental fimctions. It does this by determining the structure of a new instrumental act [emphasis mine] just as a technical tool alters the process of a natural adaptation by determining the form of labor operations” (137). In the process of learning to read formulas and to interpret them as courses of action or means of furthering her thinking about a theoretical construct, Nicole can be viewed as taking part in an “instrumental act” that changes the “structure” of her thinking. In participating in the scaffolding present in an academic course (or courses) and acquiring, to use Bazerman’s phrasing, “control of the structured meaning/behavior system transmitted 97 through” this scaffolding, she can then begin “to incorporate parts of the scaffolding in her own behavior” ( Shaprpg’ 306). In this way, gradually the neophyte becomes socialized into the semiotic-behaviorial-perceptual system of a community with language taking a major and multivalent role in the organiza- tion of that system, but with that system also shaped around concrete worldly activities. In terms of contemporary cognitive psychology, she will have developed the . . . schema . . . appropriate to participation in the community. (307) By incorporating such schema into her own modus operandi, she engages in a limited form of legitimate peripheral participation; thus in Vygotsky’s theoretical construct, she “reconstructs and redirects the social act” (Zebroski, 157). The significant role played by visual materials in the form of formulas, tables, graphs, or drawings—in texts in chemistry and in other scientific disciplines (Bazerman, m as well as in engineering (Winsor), is underscored by Rudolf Arnheim’s statement that ”[T]hinking is done by means of structural properties inherent in the image’” (qtd. in Rosner 321, her emphasis). Professor Y’s response to formulas and his remark that he considers himself “an artist” indicate that it is formulas rather than the text accompanying them that elicit his initial response to journal articles. In view of his comments and the emphasis placed on graphs and tables in the handout given to Nicole, it would appear that in chemistry, graphics may take precedence over words in evoking richlyimaginative responses in readers. Writing, clearly, is only one element of functioning successfully within the rhetorical context of chemistry, an element that can not be 98 isolated from formulas, charts, and other illustrations. Graphics are linked to writing in Nicole’s experience through Professor Y.’s requirement that she demonstrate her comprehension of laboratory equipment by constructing a block diagram “with the idea being thatthey [students] should be able to understand what they’ve done in the'laboratory and write that down in words, basically what the equipment’s doing . . . , not really discussing the content of science, but basicallyjust a descriptive paragraph” (Interview Oct. 17, 1997). In asking students to demonstrate their understanding through words in combination with an illustration, Professor Y. facilitates their learning to think and express themselves as chemists. A student- working in her zone of proximal development, emphasizes Bazerman, acquires “functional competence in language activity” within a particular environment through the use of a particular set of tools-physical, graphic, and linguistic-sud these tools are essential to functioning successfully within that context (Sham 306-307). In such a context, the student learns not just to mimic language or behavior but to execute a performance. School writr_ng’ and wri_tr_ng° in the workplace Although students learn to construct disciplinary texts with the help of professors who are “master practitioned 8]” in a discipline (Lave and Wenger), they are unlikely to be able take part in “fully inhabited activity” until they are in a “real” work situation (a position outside of the classroom in which they are responsible for certain tasks). Thus, as Freedman and Medway note, it is impossible to secure “full induction into the genres of working science for a student while still in school, because the exigences that motivate the strategies embodied in the genre impinge only on the working scientist. School writing may imitate and adapt features of working genres 99 but cannot be those genres” (13-14). Writing done in an instructional situation is distinct from writing done as a part of one’s employment, i.e., it is done for different purposes, and the consequences for doing it well or poorly differ from those in a work situation. - Writing in the workplace Some “real work” exigences do, in fact, exist for Nicole, who is employed in a chemistry lab on campus (in a capacity separate fi‘om her course work in the laboratory for Analytical-Physical Chemistry). She has contributed one segment of a published article written by one of the scientists in this professional laboratory and and has been involved at least minimally in its “revision. Questioned about her work in this setting, Nicole suessestheneedtodocumentresearchcarefirllyandtopresent itin such a way that the reader will be able to replicate an experiment or a procedure. I keep my own lab book of my own experiments. . . . I’ve given presentations on . . . my research. . . . A]s far as notes, notekeeping and preparing for presentations, that’s the extent of my writing at work. . . . Document everything. . . . “This is what I did here, so the next time, I can do this. This is what I did here, and it worked good. I’ll try that again”. . . . [Ylou’re not going to remember what you did at the beginning of the week . . . . [It]takesweekstodoanexperiment, soifyoustarted with a certain sample . . . and you add certain things, you’ve got to write it down and remember what you did, so down the line, when you look back, “That’s what I did.” So you can replicate it. (Interview, 3 Sept. 1997) 100 Nicole describes the ease with which the professionals and graduate students in the research laboratory where she works provide feedback for each other. “[Pleople [who] work on publishing things . . . always turn a copy in to our boss, and he’ll read it, and they’ll sit down and talk about it . . . , and then they'll go make revisions. . . . There’s always somebody there to discuss it with and review it.” (Interview, 2 Oct. 1997) Asked about her contribution to a forthcoming journal article composed by several members of this group, she says, “I did part of the research that she put in it, so I just gave her my results and she actually wrote up the whole paper [one segment of it]” (Interview, 2 Oct. 1997). Nicole’s feel for language is revealed in her matter-of-fact description of the feedback she provided when asked to comment on a draft of this article. “[I-Iler style’s her own. . . . [A] few things I thought maybe sounded awkward, I suggested revising, changing words around a little bit” (2 Oct. 1997). In contributing to this report, Nicole is assigned partial responsibility for one part of a bona fide professional activity. Through this experience involving “real work” instead of “school writing,” she has the opportunity to observe (and to participate to a small extent in) the activities undertaken in the process of writing a scientific piece and getting it published. By helping to construct this journal article, even . though she does so in a subsidiary role, Nicole engages in legitimate peripheral participation. She takes part in the intertextual process of exchanging ideas with other scientists by publicizing experimental results. Constructing a persona: Writing firr “display”and lbr “real work” Nicole must construct for herself a persona which involves two perspectives: one as a competent writer in the discipline and another as a competent student. As she participates in the activities of a professional 101 lab, she is engaged in a level of peripheral participation that appears to be beyond that of some of her peers. Simultaneously, however, in her Advanwd Analytical-Physical Laboratory, she is required not only to construct texts in appropriate genres, but, in specific instances, to add information to a report that emulates a professional text in order to demonstrate that she has learned a particular concept. In other words, she must engage in classroom writing, which focuses “on a textual version of Initiation—Reply—Evaluation (IRE) discourse in which the teacher initiates the writing task (assignment), the student replies (text), and the teacher then responds to or evaluates the test (evaluation)” (Prior 249). Nicole clearly illustrates the distinction between “writing for display” “and writing “for “work” in discussing how she writes an introduction to a report for Advanced Analytical-Physical Laboratory. M: The introduction section is where. . . . N: It’s . . . a little bit of the history that’s been found before—As far as the difference . . . in our reports, would be more the 1 history of-at least I did a little bit of history of the technique whereas in the lab [where she is employed], you wouldn’t do the technique so much ‘cause everybody knows the technique. It’s more the research that’s been going on, why you’re doing the experiments—that you’re doing. So that would be a difference from what we wrote and what you would write in . . . real work. [emphasis mine] M: [Y]ou wouldn’t do that in the real work situation because it would be an assumption that. . . . N: ‘Cause here we’re learning the technique and learning the instrumentation and how [they] work, and that’s what he 102 [Professor Y.] wanted to see. [emphasis mine] M: And you’re demonstrating that in your introduction-— N: That we understand the theory. . . . [But]. . . that wouldn’t be done in a work paper [emphasis mine]. (Interview, 5 Dec. 1997 ) Nicole’s explanation, distinguishing explicitly between “real work” and schooling, is noteworthy when placed in contrast with the handout with which she has been provided. “Writing the Report,” an excerpt from provides a succinct set of instructions for the introduction : With a short summary of relevant theory and important chemical and mathematical equations, put the investigation into perspective firr the reader. [Emphasis mine] Number each equation near the right margin, for example, (1). Use the present tense. Clearly define terms and symbols to follow. Be original and be brief (159) . “Put the investigation into perspective for the reader” does not suggest that students expand their introductions in any specific way in writing for the professor. In fact, the dictum to “be brief” would suggest that they should not expand them. Yet because she is in a school setting, Nicole understands that she must demonstrate her knowledge of the techniques involved in a procedure. Although he describes the “formal reports” for this laboratory as modeled on a “format . . . taken out of a standard chemistry journal, some- thing that you submit for review publication in the field,” Professor Y. confirms the distinction which Nicole makes between long and short reports. Y: [There is a significant difference. . . . [The short reports don’t require an introduction. . . . [They’re [the students] not required to introduce the science. . . . The long reports do 103 require that. . . . [They need to know how to use reference materials and to get this information. M: So when you say introduce the science, what should they putinthat ideally? - Y: [F]or example, they had a nuclear magnetic resonance laboratory that . . . [involved] a formal report. And what we wanted them to do was basically describe the technique. What was nuclear magnetic resonance? How can you use it to learn something about a molecule? And the experiment they were doing . . . they were looking at the kinetic reaction between two forms of a certain molecule. . . . And so they should have introduced this topic in terms of “How can you use this technique to get this information?”. . . . I think that was the major difference between the two types of reports. And the students kind of missed that-how different they are. The fact that in one, I’m not asking any introduction of your subject. Basically all you’re doing is writing an abstract. Tell me what you did—and stating your results. (Interview, 25 Nov. 1997) Nicole and her classmates are asked to write on two levels. They must emulate not only the rhetorical competence of professional chemists who write an introduction in order to “put the experiment into perspective for the reader,” but, in addition, they need to write as students. In “writing to the teacher,” Prior notes, students are often asked “not [to] take common ground as common” (249). In this sort of exchange, “students’ texts function less as messages than as tests, read to assess students’ intelligence, knowledge, efl‘ort, and attitude [emphasis mine]” ( 249). In other words, Nicole is required to demonstrate that she has mastered a particular technique and that she can 104 explain to her instructor how she used this technique in conducting an experiment. Summary In the process of becoming a more highly skilled preprofessional, Nicole makes use of a variety of scaffoldings, some of which she creates for herself and some of which are structured for her by others. She finds work in a university laboratory in which she works with graduate students and with chemists in post doctoral positions. In this setting, she keeps a laboratory notebook of the experiments she conducts, constructs a poster that she presents at a conference, and writes a segment of an article for publication. In addition, andnperhaps of more significance than the performing of any particular task, she has the opportunity to become immersed in the language employed in this professional laboratory and to observe, and begin to participate in the habits and attitudes adopted by chemists. Simultaneously, she uses the scaffolding provided by Professor Y. in Analytical-Physical Laboratory, specifically 1) the assignments that provide guidelines for how to conduct particular experiments in advanced analytical-physical chemistry, 2) immediate verbal feedback from teaching assistants or Professsor Y. on questions she has in the course of conducting and observing chemical reactions during these experiments, 3) a handout that explains stylistic conventions for “Writing the Report,” 4) another handout labeled “Explanation of the [course number] FTIR Grading Sheet” that explains briefly what should be included in each section of a report (abstract, introduction, experimental, Data/results, Calculations and Discussion), gives examples or how to reference 105 sources, and briefly states the expectations for the use of third person and passive voice in the report, and 5) oral feedback on written reports provided by Dr. Y. during class lectures, , 6) and written feedback on these reports from either a teaching assistant or Dr. Y. (including Y.’s “editorials” in which he rewrites parts of abstracts in order to demonstrate the correct style in which to construct them). Underlying the scafi'olding designed by Dr. Y. are the accepted practices of the discipline itself and the genres that provide a structure for the work in which chemists engage (Miller 165). Nicole’s movement toward full participation in disciplinary discourse appears to be recursive (i.e., occurring not in a steadily increasing progression, but through participation at varying levels of skill and depths of involvement from situation to situation). For example, in the abstract she writes early in the semester, she does not include the appropriate documentation. Even though she is employed in a professional laboratory, has had considerable exposure to the terminology used among the chemists there, and has contributed a segment to a professional article, she lists the steps in the process of conducting her experiment rather than giving the . results of it. Nevertheless, as she engages in legitimate peripheral participation in her required coursework and in the laboratory in which she is paid to work, she demonstrates that she is adopting the viewpoint of a “professional-in-training” (W alvoord and McCarthy). She is learning not simply to perform particular experiments and to use the specified terminology in reporting on them, but to view the problems and activities in which she is involved from the standpoint of a practicing chemist. 106 Endnote 1. Because students are organized into three groups that are scheduled to complete laboratory experiments in rotation, Professor Y. returns reports only after they have been submitted by students in all of the groups. Thus Nicole (who is in group 1) does not receive her graded reports back individually but in a cluster. Both she and Professor Y. express chagrin about this method of feedback and evaluation, but because of his concern about the potential for students to copy each other’s reports, he sees no feasible alternative. 107 Julie Personal portrait A vivacious, friendly young woman with dark brown hair and brown eyes, Julie, a music therapy major, sings soprano and plays the piano as well as the trumpet. In her role as a peer consultant in the Writing Center at the university , she is energetic and outgoing, greeting clients warmly and , frequently volunteering to present at writing center conferences and language arts conferences, locally and regionally. During the summer, Julie works as a counselor in a camp for disabled children operated by Easter Seals Foundation of Canada. “Camp is big chunk of my life and always has been,” she says (Interview, 18 Apr. 2000). In her portfolio for display, she states that her work has “provided a new understanding of hardships . . . these children have. I was inspired by their unique abilities and encouraged by their determination.” During the summer of 2000, she was the director of a camp run by Easter Seals, and eventually . she would like to start her own camp for children with disabilities. In this portfolio, personal pieces are juxtaposed with formal academic ones. She includes reflective pieces, a research paper, music therapy goal sheets, a critique of a recital, emails from fellow camp counselors, and photos of her. friends and family. This collection reflects her diverse interests and her genuine interest in the people around her. In a reflection near the beginning, she comments that Writing for me is still a continuing exploration. . . . I have included a few “spurts of creativity” that I consider quite significant, as therapeutic and meaningful jaunts. . . . Much like music is used in music therapy, writing [has] given me a 108 way to connect the experiences and the thoughts I have, and to deal with the tragedy and celebration in my life. Previous experience in writing Julie’s portfolio reflects her ability to connect the topics she writes on to her own interests. “[There’s always been a trend . . . [in] what I write,” she says, “I write about people . . . how they affect me and how I affect them” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997). She uses writing as a means of coming to terms with emotion. In describing a poem about a child for whom she was a caregiver, and who later died, she says, [In] . . . losingalittle childthatltook care offorthreeyears . . . , Ineededtogetitdownonpaper. . . . This littlegirll babysat . . . was a very disabled child. . . . I had to . . . [write] a poem about her. . . . I’ve never worked that hard on anything in my life. . . . [I]t wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t everything it had to be to describe her. . . . But it’s as close as I can get it right now . . . . Ihadtokeepheralive. . . . [I]thadtobesomething physical for me to have. . . . [Alfter it was all over. with- realizing, “Wow . . . I’d found a new medium for me to deal with [emotion].” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997) The painstaking care with which Julie strives to encapsulate this child in her memory demonstrates the value this poem has for her. Another piece which has particular meaning for her is one she wrote in grade 13 (a year of coursework following four years of high school, taken by Canadian students to prepare for university classes). In describing the process of composing it, she says, 109 [M]yteacher. . . gotus writingon. . . . ”Whatissublimeto you?” I was so happy with what I’d written. Because to me, . . . it was every essence of what I thought the sublime was . . . . It really did capture everything that this place was to me . . . . Ihadworkedthroughallthesepapers, andhe[her teacher] had pushed me, saying. . . , “[What are you getting at here?” And finally by the end of the semester, I was getting into the fact of “O.K., I have to . . . describe what I’m talking about.” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997) The value Julie places on writing as an expression of her feelings is clearly demonstrated in interviews with me and in her collected pieces. However, she also makes a point of connecting her personal interests and experiences to academic subjects often conceived of as impersonal. “Somehow I always relate my writing to me. That’s how I can write. . . . Give me a science paper on biological cell formation, I will sit and stew over it for awhile until I can find a connection to it and relate it to myself’ (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997). Julie makes this kind of intentional link between her own experience and the subject of United States history in writing for her Integrated Arts and Humanities class. To do so, she interprets it from the perswctive of a foreign observer. “I’m a Canadian, so American [U.S.] history is really tricky for me. . . . I flipped a lot of my papers to how I’d been taught American history. . . . “[Fh'om my perspective I was taught it this way.” (10 Mar. 1997) By speaking from the viewpoint of an “outsider,”Julie establishes a persona. In this way, she is able to succeed in writing what might otherwise have been a problematic assignment for her. Relating writing to personal interests in the way that Julie manages to do is emphasized by researchers working with the portfolio project, who 110 state that [mlany students maintain they can not produce “good” academic writing if they are not connected personally in some way to the topic. They need to be able to make connections between topics and their professional development and/or life experiences in order to write effectively. (Thomas, Bevins, and Crawford 8) In fact, the ability to connect an academic topic to personal experi- ence is central to learning. “[T]o learn to participate in a new village- whether anthropology or composition studies—requires, as Michael Polanyi claims, an act of ‘personal assimilation’ (61) to internalize those ways of speaking and thinking as our own,” says Anne Herrington (“Composing One’s Sell” 111). Such an act of assimilation involves identifying with individuals in a particular group and with the ways in which they communicate with each other. “[Plarticipation in social practice . . . suggests a very explicit focus on the person . . . as member of a sociocultural community. This focus in turn promotes a view of knowing as activity by specific people in specific circumstances” (Lave and Wenger 52). By identifying with a specific community, imagining herself within it, and learning its discourse . conventions, a student can establish the persona she needs to connect herselfto a “new world” and thus begin to take on a new identity for herself. Profedonal-in-training The role played by writigg in the music therapy curriculum During the first few semesters that Julie is in the portfolio project, she states matter-of-factly that music therapy classes require “no writing.” However, in the the second semester of her junior year, she begins to speak 111 in terms of writing as a preprofessional. “As a music major . . . , [ilt’s all note- taking, learning about writing music, performing music, and . . . there wasn’t . . . formal writing. . . . There wasn’t writing at all until this semester” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997). Her engagement in specific genres of disciplinary writing begins as she learns to construct reports to prepare for the therapy sessions she will conducting the following year in the Music Therapy clinic. “[W'le’ve started to do some writing with clinical reports,” she states, “[kleeping track of progress, keeping track of activities and how to run a session, and now we’re starting into the writing process” (10 Mar. 1997). Julie’s initial impressions notwithstanding, writing plays a significant role in the music therapy curriculum. During her junior and senior years in the program, she receives extensive instruction in writing for the music therapy clinic (activity plans, goals, session evaluations, progress reports) as well as some instruction in research-oriented writing. Students in the music therapy program are initiated into disciplinary discourse through a carefully structured sequence of assignments described by Mr. (3., one of Julie’s professors. This scafi‘olding is designed to enable them first to begin to , become aware of terminology and beliefs in music therapy introduced to . them in their initial coursework, then to gradually increase their levels of participation in disciplinary discourse, giving them responsibility for clients in . the music therapy clinic during their fourth year in the program. It is followed by a fifth year internship. “IMly colleagues and I conceptualize . . . the development of . . . professional thinking and writing as being a process that comes from the very first classes with us to the very end,” states Professor G. (Interview, 3 Mar. 1998). He describes a threefold perspective within which students are initiated into the discipline of music therapy. 112 ['Wle look at developing the student as an academic scholar as much as we can at every level. We look at them as develop- ing therapists, and we look at them as developing musicians [my emphasis] So all three . . . are . . . developing at one time throughout their work. (Interview 3 Mar. 1998) Julie’s development as a therapist and as a researcher is the focus of the remainder of this chapter. Before examining her experience in detail, how- ever, it seems useful to point out some specific differences between her disciplinary training and that in which Nicole is immersed. Julie’s experience as a professional-in-training difl‘ers from Nicole’s in that her formal training is designed in such a way that she spends a good deal of time writing for “real work” as opposed to writing “for display.” Although Nicole is employed in one of the university’s professional chemistry laboratories in addition to participating in her required classes in chemistry, and she does a poster presentation in connection with her work there, her writing in advanced Analytical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory is strictly “for display.” And in the last chemistry class Nicole takes as an undergraduate, she reports that she is required to take exams, but not to do any writing. Julie’s writing in her 400 level classes, on the other hand, which is focused on her clients in the music therapy clinic at the university, becomes an integral part of these clients’ activities as well as of their records. Thus, her writing, while it is done for display, also becomes increasingly an integral part of the “real work” she does. This specific, training in “writing for real work” gives her the opportunity to learn how texts are integrated into work being done in a social context. As discussed previously, it is only within a disciplinary community that a writer is able to employ a particular genre at 113 its most meaningful level (Freedman and Medway). In this situated learning, Julie is offered the opportunity to become aware of developing an identity as a music therapist in very concrete ways. Although the focus of measurement in music therapy is the client’s behavior rather than the behavior of substanws, the need for obtaining precise measurement and presenting reliable evidence is stressed in much the same way it is in chemistry. Despite some of the obvious difi‘erences in chemistry and music therapy, the same sorts of values are “stratified,” in Bakhtin’s terms, in these two disciplines. Similar guidelines are stressed for reporting the results of an experiment or interactions during a music therapy session, in particular, the need for specific measurements. Because of this similarity, Julie’s experiences resemble Nicole’s in several respects: 1) Measuring phenomena carefully and constructing reports that facilitate replication of an experiment or activity are significant in both disciplines. 2) Both require establishing an objective stance in presenting evidence and strictly separating description and interpretation. 3) Mediated authorship is used to provide feedback in both. 4) Each student faces the task of establishing a persona as both a preprofessional and as a student. In the next section, I discuss in detail the experiment Julie sets up and the report she writes for a psychologically-oriented music therapy class as well as her ethnographic research paper. Professor G. describes music therapy as a discipline in which students are being trained to recognize and express their feelings and (insofar 114 as possible) to separate them from their observations and their judgments. This compartmentalizing is encouraged in order to inculcate in them the ability to set aside their feelings as they evaluate their clients, to envision what the clients are capable of doing, and to help them achieve particular goals. Underlying the observation, discussion, and journal keeping Julie is asked to do in her classes are principles very similar to those Nicole must observe in the physical sciences: close observation of phenomena and strict separation of subjective and objective judgments. In the introductory course in the music therapy curriculum, Julie and her classmates are encouraged to write reflections in which they recognize and explore their feelings. Simultaneously, they learn how to discuss these feelings separately from behavior that can be observed, to distinguish their feelings from their assumptions, says Professor G. The intent is to create a context of dispassionate objectivity in which an individual’s emotions are not allowed to cloud her judgment. In the [introductory] course . . . , we ask them about their feelings and thoughts, their perceptions of themselves in relation to what they've seen [on field trips to Music Therapy settings]. . . . And in a sense it’s a desensitization to . . . the appearance of the person [with disabilities], the behavior. . . . [T]hose all can create an emotional reaction and . . . impede our ability to be objective, professional therapists. . . . And so, you try to help . . . [students] to see that what they feel is not wrong, it’s not right. . . . [H]ow that influences their work . . . [alnd . . . [the way] they understand what they feel is what’s important. (Interview, 3 Mar. 1998) 115 In describing the writing students do in response to their volunteer work, Professor G emphasizes a “distinction we try to make in all their thinking and writing in the profession of the understanding of objective and V subjective kinds of material [emphasis mine]” (Interview, 3 Mar. 1998). While he notes the dificulty of completely compartmentalizing one’s feelings, he stresses developing the ability to reflect on one’s work and to analyze events and behaviors. [I]n . . . that sameclass . . . ,Ialsohadthemwriteasingle anecdote in great detail of what one interaction . . . between . . . themselves andaclient. . .oragroup . . . ,todescribe . . . what happened as objectively as they possibly can. And then I ask them to describe what they think was going on. And then . . . to compartmentalize out and separate what they felt about the wholething. Sowetrytogetthem to . . . understand . . . that they’re not separate experiences but they can be . . . separately conceived of. (3 Mar. 1998) This emphasis on objective and subjective is clearly present in the scaffolding of texts and other materials provided for Julie. She is immersed in lan- guage that conveys measurement and clarity and in genres stressing . precise descriptions and definitions. Throughout her courses in music therapy, she is enabled to write through written and verbal instructions provided by her professors, her teaching assistant, and her classmates. In the following discussion, I examine this process, incorporating excerpts from Professor G.’s overview of the curriculum, texts, syllabi, and written comments provided to Julie, her own comments on her work, and the comments of Professor N., who teaches ethnographic research. 116 Agppppg' ‘ discim convenfions for worln_rg‘ with clients in music therapy Establishing denotative meanings: Using Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan (S. OAP.) to docu menta client’s behavior Examples of activity plans, goals, -and other disciplinary genres are provided to Julie in both her textbooks and in a departmental handbook. App Introduction to Music Therapx. Thm and Practice emphasizes ‘ compartmentalizing and recording details in order to objectively depict clients’ behavior. Under DOCUMENTATION, it states that “regular and accurate written reports” should “contain assessment data, goals and objectives, treatment plans, progress notes, and a final report. The information must be written in a clear, concise manner using noniudgmental, objective terminology [emphasis mine]” (Davis, Gfeller, and Thaut, 297). One type of treatment plan presented, S.O.A. P., described as “frequently used in hospitals,” emphasizes separating “subjective” and “objective” data. Students are asked to examine their client’s behavior, describe it, quantify it if necessary, and assess and make plans for the client based on the reports which they construct. Emphasis is placed on . communicating with other therapists through unmistakeably clear denotative meanings which reflect actual conditions and behaviors, thus conforming to what George Campbell and other enlightenment rhetoricians - called “perspicuity.” “S.O.A.P.,” is described as follows: SaSubjective. This section is used by the therapist to report the feelings or concerns expressed by the client. OsObjective. This part consists of the therapist’s report of the client’s present condition and a summary of objective data collected during the session. 117 AzAssesment. In this section, the therapist provides an interpretation of the subjective and objective data as it relates to progress toward treatment goals or identification of new problem areas. - PzPlan. This part outlines steps to be taken in subsequent sessions. The therapist may also make recommendations regarding the need for continuing and/or modifying the treat— ment plan. (297) An example of planning for clients in the Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual presents the following questions as guides to be used in constructing “MUSIC THERAPY PLAN.” Problems - What characteristics limit or impair his/her [the client’s] present or future functioning? _G_ga_l_s_ - What §_k_i_ll§ or attributes need to develop and grow (long term) to bring about improvement in the problem area? Objective - What specific sequence of behaviors when ' (short term) accomplished, will indicate that the Goal has been achieved? 9m; - What specific behavioral measurements will be used to indicate that the desired level of performance has been reached? Activities - What specific musical psgkg require these behaviors to a degree to stimulate improvement? (10) _ In constructing therapy plans and session evaluations, Julie is asked to envision activities in which she and her client (or clients) will participate by 118 using clearly established denotative terminology, to engage in them, and to evaluate the degree to which they have been effective. Describing behavior : Measuring a client’s achievements In a more advanced Music Therapy class, students learn to “write technically precise descriptions of human behavior,” says Professor G. These descriptions, based on close observation of clients’ activities, include both ’ formulating treatment plans and goals for the clients and writing progress reports. Thenthethird course . . . is . . . geared towardteachingthem how to observe and measure behavior and assess clients for purposes of documenting treatment results and assessing clients’ needs. The writing in that course hinges upon writing very precise behavioral descriptions so that if . . . you want to know if the client is making progress, you ‘can do an observation on a specific behavior or a set of behaviors and do the same observation six weeks later and see if there’s been a change in that behavior. [emphasis mine] (Interview, 3 Mar. 1998) In describing record keeping, how to use language in such a way as to enable other therapists to clearly understand clinical documents, Professor G. reiterates the need for precise, descriptive language and for separating behavior which was actually observed from behavior which is intuited. [Wlhen we do our documentation . . . , we emphasize the objective. We emphasize . . . what we think is going on because that’s important too, to understand, based on educated conclusions [emphasis mine], what’s going on in the client. Even though we didn’tsee it in totally objective behavior, we may 119 have some interpretations or some intuitions. . . . And we teach them [students] to . . . [c]all them intuitions. . . . Don’t call them facts . . . . [Y]ou can say you think the client was going to raise his hand . . . .‘ And then at least anyone reading your writing will say, “OK, I understand. You didn’t see him raise his hand but you thought he was going to, and that means something to me.” (3 Mar. 1998) Professor G. stresses the significance these notes will have for therapists who are trained to read them, the fact that they will be able to interpret what a particular behavior means as they work with a client. In stressing the need for students to be mindful of how their reports will be interpreted by their colleagues ,‘ he is describing how they can engage effectively in legitimate peripheral participation. Thus by learning to distinguish between an actual movement and one that is anticipated, students are learning how to evaluate and record their clients’ behavior in terms that will be of significance in the music therapy discourse community. Examples of how to describe behavior in “technically precise” terms are also provided for students in the Music Therapy Clinic Procedures _M_ap_p_a_l In the section titles “MUSIC THERAPY TREATMENT PROCEDURES,” students are instructed to “Write in third person (he, she, the therapist, the client) and express yourself as objectively as possible. Any opinions or inferences should be stated as such” (11). In the section on Music Therapy Treatment le’pg, students are instructed to state “each Goal as a positive expression of the gain or change desired in your client to bring about improvement in the associated Problem area. Use wording such as ”To improve. . .” or “i‘o increase . . .” (8). Objectives, which are to be stated after a given goal, ‘.‘are the short-term 120 behavioral steps that will help the client to reach the established Goal” (8). The student is instructed to Use wording such as “Client will initiate conversation with.” or “Client correctly identifies. .. . . ” Each Objective should include (a) a clearly stated behavior (sometimes referred to as “operationally defined”), (b) a context in which the behavior is expected to occur and (c) specific criteria for success. The context indicates the conditions under which the behavior will be evaluated (such as, “when directed by the therapist”, “spontaneously throughout the session” or “during group discussions”). The criteria Ibr success will indicate the level of performance necessary for the Objective to be consi- dered accomplished (such as, number of times the behavior must occur, how long the behavior must be sustained, or the percent of trials that must be correct [emphasis mine]). (8) Measuring behavior precisely Julie uses drums, rhythmic songs, and movement to draw her client out and involve her in planned activities. (For examples of a portion of an . activity plan fi'om the Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual and of Julie’s goals and objectives, see Appendix C.) In order to establish denotative meaning, she must establish criteria by which to measure behaviors. Methods for such criteria in An Introduction to Music Therapy include frequency recording and data recording, described as among the “most popular methods” of accumulating information about clients (296). Frequency Recording. In this very practical observation technique, the therapist simply counts the number of discrete 121 (separate) occurrences of the behavior under observation. . . . For example, a patient may be very restless and unable to participate in group therapy. In order to determine if restlessness has subsided, the therapist may count the number of times the patient leaves his or her seat during a music therapy session. (296) Duration Recording. . . . Duration can be measured either in the total amount of time (seconds, minutes, hours) or in the percentage of time that a behavior occurs during a given period. For example, the therapist working with a hyperactive child who spends a great deal of time out of his seat might want to record elapsed time of out-of-seat behavior during the session . . . . (296) In a manner that closely resembles reporting experiments in the “hard sciences,” the client’s activities during a session are measured. On the basis of these numerical measurements, Julie can assess her client’s progress and plan further sessions for her. Unlike Nicole, who reports after completing an . experiment (clarifying for herself what she had actually accomplished) in writing up her lab report, Julie must plan out the activities in which she will be engaging with her client and then report on the extent to which the client performed these activities with her. Unlike Nicole, who employs sophisticated equipment to obtain precise measurements of movements, vibrations, and reactions of substances, Julie uses only her eyes and ears and her disciplinary training to assess her clients’ behaviors and their interactions with her. Nicole is learning to examine physical phenomena--the reactions of substances—during the experiment. Julie is learning to examine the tasks she has undertaken with her clients to see if their achievements 122 measure up to what she had planned for them to accomplish. In both situations, the student is being asked not only to measure specific entities but to interpret these measurements in a manner consistent with disciplinary conventions. Writinggoals and objectives: mastering a genre Julie begins writing goals and objectives in spring semester of 1997, learning how to formulate treatment plans and goals. In an interview on March 10, 1997, Julie speaks of the writing she’s doing in her music therapy classes as “really challenging me.” It’s a . . . new perspective . . . the wayI have to write. It’s a very formal process that our professor expects for writing clinical reports. He wants . . . you to be able to do a standardized form . . . . But it’s a challenge to make sure that the language you use is correct, that the decriptive forms are correct, and that they’re precise, to describing behavior and describing what you I expect to happen and what is happening. And making sure your goals are orienting to your objectives. Julie continues to write goals throughout the fall of 1997 and the spring of 1998. The format for the activity plans and the goal and objectives which Julie is composing show her “what ends . . . [she] may have” (Miller 165) as she is designs and evaluates performances. In the fall of 1997, she begins working with an actual client, writing treatment plans and goals as she also undertakes the process of implementing them. In an example of a goal provided in the Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual a problem is stated in one phrase and a goal is written in response to this problem in One concise sentence. “II. PROBLEM: Poor 123 lateral and bilateral coordination of upper extremities .” Next, on a separate line is listed “A. GOAL: Client will gain increased coordination of upper ahemities, using each arm independently and in conjunction with the other. “ Finally, seven objectives for achieving this goal are listed, each on separate line, i.e. “1. Client will successfully move his Right arm in response to directions in an activity” (35). Julie’s goal sheet, one of many written during her experience in the clinic) is structured in this manner. Goal writing involves a very high degree of agreement on definitions. Contrary to the experience of reading a novel or a poem, in which I connotations of words may evoke varying associations among individual readers, the goal in music therapy is for readers to agree precisely upon connotations evbked by particular words or phrases. This stress upon ensuring specific associations with particular terms resembles the emphasis on the precise measurements of substances and the replication of experiments emphasized in chemistry. By stressing precision in the training of apprentices, these communities replicate specific values and establish themselves “in developing . . . [their] modes of regular discourse” (Bazerman, Shaprpg' 79). One scafi‘olding device used by Julie’s professor to assist students to gain familiarity with terms used in music therapy is a classroom exercise in which they work inductively with each other. J: [W]e’ll do an assignment and . . . then he’ll have us . . . break into groups of three [in class] and [ask] “What do you think about the goals and objectives they wrote? Do they make sense?” [We’re all guessing at this point . . . ,“Yeah . . . it sounds right, but he probably won’t think ifs right”. . . . [I]t’s still hard because we still aren’t sure what exactly he wants 124 [emphasis mine]. . . . [I]t’s a modeling practice of going over . . . ”I did it this way, but it’s still not right.” And he’ll . . . [say] . . ., ”The tense of verbs-or the verb choice you’ve used isn’t right. You have to be more specific.” Or “[Y]ou’re being too specific. You need to be more general.” And it’s hard . . . finding the balance. . . . “[Hlow do I pick the word that’s ri t?” (Interview, 10 Mar. 1997) By collaborating with each other in this situation, the students develop and refine their knowledge conventions and increase their sensitivity to the nuances of music therapy discourse. As they compose in these prescribed forms, Julie and her classmates are striving to please their professor, to provide him with “what he wants.” But as she participates in this activity, Julie is doing more than simply pleasing an individual in a position of authority or mimicking terminology. She is slowly, incrementally acquiring her own meta-information about the conventions “stratified” in music therapy. Initially, what she does is defined by prescribed forms and hypothetical situations. In a later interview, she describes the scaffolding provided to her as she was learning the music therapy discourse conventions. The three hundred level is more . . . “Here’s a situation. How would you write this?“ And the four hundred level is, “It’s your client now”. . . . In three hundred [classes] it was learning how to use the language in . . . mock type situations on paper or the professor describing them or observing. And then the four hundred was actually doing it in practical training. (Interview, 18 Apr. 2000) The experience she describes as she initially composed activity plans and goal sheets resembles Nicole’s experience with Professor Y. as he writes 125 “editorials” on her abstracts. They sort of hold your hand when you start. They dictate to you how do you use this. They give you an example in writing,“Here’s the session that’s happening. How would you write the activity sheets?” And you hand them in and they cross out words and they reword things for you and you rewrite them. . . . [F]or the four hundred level, they still collect the sheets and go through them and help change the language . . . , but you’re a little more on your own. (18 Apr. 2000) Meeting regularly with a graduate teaching assistant to review her activity plans and revise them to more closely conform to disciplinary discourse is another form of scaffolding provided to Julie. When I had my client(s) I would meet with her [the assistant] aboutwhatwaslgoingtodoinasession . . . goingthroughmy activity sheets, making sure that what my language said I was doing, I was actually doing. Talking after a session about what happened in the session, related to where my goals and objectives were being obtained, how I was getting to them, as well as stylistically as a therapist, what was I doing? What should I work on? (18 Apr. 2000) Most of Julie’s sessions with her client(s) are videotaped so that she can review them and see if she needs to change her behavior. At times she reviewed a tape with her teaching assistant or one of her professors, who provide feedback on her interactions with the client. Sometimes your supervisor will go through the tape with you and point out things like “Do you see how the client is reacting? Are you picking up on how they are responding to you? Are you 126 noticing that maybe you were expecting this response, and they gave you a different response that you can use to meet your goal?” So you may change your objectives or change how you want the reasoning for your activity or how the activity runs. (18 Apr. 2000) During the course of three semesters (spring and fall of 1997 and spring of 1998), Julie acquires the ability not only to write activity plans, goal sheets, and session evaluations in the manner in which she is instructed, but ultimately, through the varied forms of feedback she receives, to instruct herselfin how to work with her client(s) and to write in these genres. “’As [the novice] becomes more competent, he will do both the part of this task that he [performed before], and also the organizing part that was done [for him]"’ (Hutchins qtd. in Lave and Wenger, 74) It is in taking over this “organizing part” that Julie becomes involved in deeper levels of disciplinary participation. ’ Participating in “situated, mediated” activity , The acquisition of genres by students needs to be viewed not only in terms of their specific interchanges with other individuals but through the long term lens of disciplinary activities. Julie speaks of speculations about - terms between students responding to a professor’s instructions (“He probably won’t think it’s right”). Professor G. speaks of specific instructions for his students (“You can say you think the client was going to raise his hand”). Underlying these exchanges between individuals, however, are the norms of community discourse within which students learn to make meaning. As Paul Prior notes, “Genres and spheres of activity are . . . not products of the long, slow turns of individuals, but of long histories of socially 127 distributed and mediated activity, within which utterances and other tools are worked and reworked, visited and revisited by multiple participants over time” (154). In striving to agree upon disciplinary terminoloy among themselves and in conjunction with their professor, Julie and her classmates are engaging in a form of the “mediated activity” to which Prior refers. In stressing the incremental nature of the complex process through which genres are developed, he emphasizes that genres are inextricably intertwined with the “literate activity” at hand, the disciplinary work being undertaken. Seeing writing as situated, mediated, and dispersed in literate activity, we have an alternative way to account for what Geisler identifies as literate expertise and Bakhtin as the complexity of secondary genres. Secondary genres (in talk as well as text) are not secondary simply and circularly because they are embedded in highly organized spheres of activity. Genre and sphere alike become highly developed because of the . concrete and sedimented nature of the mediated activity by, from, and within which they are constituted [all emphases mine]. (153-54) In their attempts to decipher the appropiate uses of disciplinary language, Julie and her classmates are striving to incorporate the authoritative (what Bakhtin calls “centripetal”) discourse of music therapy into their own identities as preprofessionals. As they compose texts, students struggle consciously with authoritative language and with the content and form prescribed by the genre. In his description of individual learning and expression,Voloshinov (1973) argues “that inner speech [is] a transformation of external speech, and that consciousness is formed through 128 interiorization of the culture’s historically developed semiotic means [emphasis mine]” (qtd. in Prior 153). “The process of speech,” he states, broadly understood as the process of inner and outer verbal life, goes on continuously. It knows neither beginning nor end. The outwardly actualized utterance is an island rising fi'om the boundless sea of inner speech; the dimensions and forms of this island are determined by the particular situation of the utter- ance and its audience. (qtd. in Prior 153) Thus when Julie and her classmates seek for “the right word,” they are selecting such a word from a “sea of inner speech” that they have absorbed from the “outer speech” of the community, have internalized and now, in a collaborative effort, have extemalized again. They are developing conscious- ness of disciplinary conventions through the “historically developed semiotic means” of music therapy (153). Settinggoals and writing evaluations In the process of implementing goals, Julie must master not only writing goal statements but she must also write session evaluations for her clients, making judicious use of person and tense. Instructions for students in haw to write such evaluations are provided in The Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual (1997). The person and tense to be used in “MUSIC THERAPY TREATMENT PROCEDURES” are specified in “Section III” under the subtitle 6. W: Write in third person (he, she, the therapist, the client) and express yourself as objectively as possible [emphasis mine]. Any opinions or inferences should be stated as such. In completing your SESSION EVALUATION, use past tense in the section 129 labeled “Observation and Evaluation of Activities and Objectives for this Session” (Section II). This is an account of the behaviors that have just occurred in the session. Use present tense in the section labeled “Progress of Client in Relation to Goals” (Section III). Section III can be thought of as a reflection of the level of skill or behavior achieved by the client at the present moment. It may or may not be the actual performance of the client during the just-completed session. (1 1-12) This demarcation between “behaviors that have just occurred” (past tense) and a more general, continuous “level of skill or behavior achieved by the client” (present tense) resembles the distinction made in chemistry between an individual experimentjust completed (past tense) and a fact or condition generally accepted in the discipline (present tense). Julie describes constructing goals and evaluating therapy sessions not simply in terms of a stringent format which she must adhere to (even though the format she uses is strictly prescribed) but as texts that must be thoroughly integrated into the work she will be doing. In other words, as she regards these texts not simply as “school writing” but as part of her performance in the workplace, as documents which enable a process to take place and govern how it takes place. In describing goal writing in terms of designing activities which can be precisely integrated, one into the other, to function (as the client achieves them) in an orchestrated relationship, Julie notes that this depiction is an ideal, one not always easily translated into practice. So by setting your goal and then the objectives within that goal, you have to lay out how your session’s going to run to 130 accomplish goal number one, which relates to objective number tivo. And making sure that everything’s going to relate so it movesinapattern. And. . . itmaynotworkatalllikethat. . .. So it’s tricky. . . . Are you going to be able to reach this goal? (10 Mar. 1997) When Julie begins working with a three-year-old child as her client in the fall of 1997 , she must evaluate what occurred in a session, the discrepancy between the “structure” she devised and what actually took place. With the assistance of her supervisor, she then alters her plans accordingly, revising the goals and objectives she establishes for later sessions. Julie’s description of the close relationship between what her client is able to do and the goals she constructs indicates that she has a good understanding of the ways in which genre needs to be integrated into her work. J: You have to re-evaluate constantly. . . . “Am I meeting my goals? No. . . . She can’t do this one, why? What am I missing? [S]he hasn’t got this skill, so we have to go back and do this skill before she can obtain it.” So I have to constantly be analyzing and evaluating and revising what I’m thinking and how the client is developing to make sure that we’re meeting the stages. . . . [T]hat’s why this [her goals and objectives] needs to be specific because then I can notice. “Oh, I’m not meeting this criteria. . . . Is she playing the drum? Is she playing the drum with her left hand on beat?” There’s a big difference. (Interview, 9 Oct. 1997 ) As she develops a better understanding of the genre with which she is working, as well as of her clients, Julie is able to revise goals and objectives in 131 order to integrate them and to meet the needs of her clients. Thus, she engages in deeper levels of legitimate peripheral participation in a fluid context in which “[tlhe production, reception, and distribution of textual and other artifacts are central [to literate activitfl” (Prior 154), i.e., to the work being accomplished in the music therapy clinic. Through engaging in goal writing as an interactive performance Julie learns to employ disciplinary conventions in her writing. “For newcomers,” state Lave and Wenger, “the purpose is not to learn from talk as a substitute for legitimate peripheral participation; it is to learn to talk as a key to legitimate peripheral participation” (109). The complementary relationship between Julie’s work and the writing in which she is engaged signals her increasingly skillful participation in the exchange of texts within a disciplinary genre. Mastering writing, Anne Freedman states, always involves the interrelationship of form with content. “We do not . . . learn the ‘content’ of a game [such as tennis]—whatever that could be—and then learn its rules. A gameuand likewise a genre—is constituted by its rules and the techniques for implementing them . . . ” (62). The“rules” for Julie entail the , relationship of the goal sheets she composes to her interactions with her clients, her session evaluations, and the ways in which she learns to revise her goals. Learning to persuade “outside” audiences In mastering goal writing, Julie must learn not only to communicate with other music therapists; she must also learn to write concise treatment goals in language aimed at audiences outside the discipline. As she does so, she enlarges her awareness of the function of goals in relating to audience, thus increasing her engagement in legitimate peripheral participation When 132 she first begins to learn how goals must be formulated, in an interview on March 10, 1997, Julie states [I]t’s tricky when you have to do it [write a goal] in one sentence . . . . They have to be precise . . . one or two sentences at the most, and you have to be smack on. There . . . [can’t be any] barrier because if you’re trying to explain to an insurance company why you need money and explaining to medical doctors or people who aren’t in musical therapy, they have to be able to understand what you’re saying. So you can’t always use musical therapy terms. . . . You have to use terms that. . . everybody else can understand [emphasis mine]. In revising goals as she actually works with her client(s), Julie must focus on the “precise description of human behavior” described by Professor G. The goals and session evaluations she constructs will enable other therapists or medical professionals to make judgments about how efi'ective this particular . therapy has been, whether or not it should continue (or sessions should be increased), and whether a client may need assistance fiom other sources. These goals also enable individuals in insurance companies and funding agencies to make decisions about paying for music therapy. “Learning to write,” says Freadman, “is learning to appropriate and occupy a place in relation to other texts” (63-64). Julie is gaining an understanding of how the documents she composes can be used in tandem with “other texts” in order to plan for the care of chants. As she begins working with her client in the fall of 1997, she states [T]hat type of work [notes] has to be clear enough that some- one else can interpret it. Whether it be the next therapist who works with her, or her parents if they want to read the file, or 133 my supervisor, or a medical doctor who wants a referral from a therapist. “Well, what has she done in therapy?” . . . . It has to be clear enough in my writing that they understand it without me being there to interpret what I’m saying. (Interview, 9 Oct. 1997 ) ' The documents discussed by Julie illustrate how genre is woven inextricably into a succession of actions and how it facilitates or impedes these actions. It is this succession of actions, integrated with the genres of music therapy (the actual goals and objectives, session evaluations, and progress reports), that “shapes the response of the reader or listener to substance” (Miller. 159). Responding to feedback on a progress report Near the end of fall semester of 1997, Julie drafts a Semester End Progress Remrt on the client with whom she has been working. The changes she makes as she revises it in response to her professor’s comments, thus producing a report that conforms more closely to disciplinary conventions, show her engaging in legitimate peripheral participation. Her initial draft, composed in the “narrative” format requested in the handbook, is “organized by headings,” including “Areas of disability and strength . . . Goals and Objectives, Assessment of progress . . . , [and] Recommendations” (Lippi; Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual 46). In a comment pencilled across the top, Julie’s instructor chararacterizes it as “Too vague and regimented.” Several additional comments request changes in statements Julie makes in the first section, “Areas of Disability and Strength.” The client showed strength in a number of areas including interest and enthusiasm for music. Client at initial contact was 134 receptive to a variety of activities and continued to enjoy activi- ties throughout the semester. (In margin, is the notation “as evidencedby. . . .”) Clientisveryopen and trusting, and is minimally inhibited with new situations. (In margin, “I think this is difl’erent from what we initially observed”) Client is willing to try new things and makes it quite clear when finished or uninterested in the activity—verbally and functionally. (In margin, “Be more specific in order to help the future students, please”) In requesting Julie to “help future students,” her professor is asking her not only to “correct” her work but (at least implicitly) to function as a model for these students as they work with their clients and thus to participate simultaneously in the roles of both learner and practitioner. One of the significant qualifies of legitimate peripheral participation is its function as , an interactive process in which the apprentice engages by simultaneously performing in several roles-status subordinate, learning practitioner, sole responsible agent in minor parts of the performance, aspiring expert and so forth-each implying a different sort of responsibility, a different set of role relations, and a different interactive involvement (W illam F. Hanks, 23). As Julie works in the clinic with her client under the supervision of her professors and instructors and in her classes with her fellow students, she engages in this sort of multi-level process. Within the scaffolding of the form provided by the genre of the progress report and the feedback she is given by her professor, Julie is prodded to elaborate, and as she elaborates, she becomes increasingly knowledgable about writing such a report. 135 In Julie’s final report, she provides substantially more detail, focusing on the “precise technical description of human behavior,” on behaviors of the client that can be observed, measured, and replicated. Her textual performance then becomes more integrated into the performance of the music therapy clinic, and consequently she becomes more sophisticated in making moves. Rather than merely observing or being tested, she is engaging in the performance itself. Italics indicate selected phrases that Julie altered or that she added to her text in response to her instructor’s comments. (For complete texts of the draft and revised copy of this report, see Appendix C.) In her initial assessment, showed strength in numerous areas including her interest and enthusiasm for music through her attention to songs that were sung by the therapist. She was openly receptive to a variety of activities although her attention span was short. ___is willing to try new things and made it quite clear when she was finished or uninterested in the activity. Actions of stopping participation early, and openly expressing her dislike or lack of interest by dropping instru ments, throwing instru ments, physically rolling away from the therapist, burying her head in her arms while lying on the floor, as well as vocalized screams were prominent indicators. Her enjoyment of activities was evident by smiles, giggles and performance of activities. Under Assessment of Progress, Julie reports “Rhythm based activities produced good response with functional use of right hand.” (In the margin she is asked “What does this mean?”) In her final version, she adds specific details. “Rhythm based activities such as drumming with the large 136 floor tom or large paddle drum were effective for use of both hands.” She also adds details, as illustrated in the following sentence. “Initial contact was positive and has continued with acknowledgment of therapist through client’s attention to therapist’s voice, physical contact with therapist involving hugs and the client sitting on the therapist’s lap as well as facial and verbal expression.” “Movement activities have been successful, evoking smiles and vocalizations” becomes “Movement activities involving the client walking around the room with assistance, as well as being held by the therapist to dance, have been successful in evoking smiles, giggles and vocalizations.” “Client responds well to positive reinforcement and requires periodic reassurance” becomes “Client responds well to verbal positive reinforcement such as “good girl” and vocal praise, hugs, and occasionally being picked up and held.” A sentence reading “Reports from parent indicate increased verbalization as do increased vocalizations in session” is marked “awkward.” In her final report, Julie writes this sentence as “Reports from parents, along with previously mentioned clinic events, indicate increased vocalization.” Other changes, both of which are requested in the instructor’s pencilled notations, include noting client’s age at the beginning of the report and avoiding the use of first person at the end of the report in making recom- ’s turn” and requires periodic reassurance with . mendations. In response, Julie composes her recommendations in passive voice, using third person and conforming to the objectivity required in music therapy. “I would highly suggest continued MT sessions” becomes “It is therefore suggested that Music Therapy sessions continue, with goals involving language acquisition, increased movementand independence.” And “I would also encourage the use of new experiences involving sensory items, as well as opportunity for continued vocalization” is changed to “New experiences involv- 137 ing sensory items such as texture, sound and smells, as well as continued opportunity for vocalizations, would be beneficial.” The use of passive voice eliminates the therapist fi'om these statements and places the focus on events. In the prescription for passive voice is embedded the assumption that these recommendations are being made upon the basis of objective information about the client. The changes suggested center on specific descriptions of activity which take place in an intimate setting on a personal level with the client and Julie. These descriptions will assist individuals reading this report in envisioning precisely what has taken place and in continuing the therapy and replicating it. The recommended changes could be put into practice not just by Julie but by any music therapist 'who works with this client. To paraphrase Bazerman, in his discussion of novices in chemistry, Julie is in the process of learning to compose flitterances” which are meaningful in field. She must add more details to her reports in order to produce a document which conveys “meaning within the socially shared system” LS_h_api_ng 304), one which will evoke appropriate responses from her readers. She is learning “how to interact with . . . [music therapistsluto discuss the happenings in . . . [the clinic session] in terms of significant . . . [therapy] issues and . . . to make an appropriate contribution to a communal endeavor” (307). Each document that Julie constructs becomes part of a system signalling others as to how to treat the client (evaluating treatment, ending it or making further treatment available, and seeming money to continue it). As Julie becomes socialized into the community norms of discourse and learns to formulate goals and objectives for clients and to modify them in 138 accord with her client’s behaviors and needs, she is participating in activities integral to the music therapy community. Being enabled to write In the same manner that engineering students are enabled to write before they can “fully inhabit” a genre (W insor), Julie and her fellow music therapy students learn the genres of goal writing and session evaluations before they fully understand how they function in the discipline. Julie does “school writing” in her first few music therapy classes in the process of learning various genres and the appropriate disciplinary vocabulary. She learns first to compartmentalize her thinking and her feelings, and then she begins to learn how to write in particular genres. However, as she begins to work in the music therapy clinic and, simultaneously, to take advanced classes, she writes treatment plans and session evaluations that affect clients and their activities. At this point, she is learning to more skillfully employ the conventions required for a music therapy plan (in constructing goals and objectives) and for the reports on her sessions. In composing her plans and reports, she is evaluated in the form of a grade. Thus she writes “for display.” However, she is also assuming direct respOnsibility for a client by placing her plans and reports in her client’s permanent file to be used by members of clinic stafi' and future students in the music therapy program. As she engages in these activities, she is learning to interact with music therapists, using language they understand and know what to do with just as Nicole is learning to interact with chemists. Thus she engages in legitimate peripheral participation. In Bazerman’s terms, as she “gains control of the structured meaning/behavior system transmitted through the scaffolding, she starts to incorporate parts of the 139 scaffolding in her own behavior. . . . [And she] gradually . . . becomes socialized into the semiotic-behavioral-perceptual system of a community,” a system which relies both on “language” and “concrete worldly activities” W 306-07). ’ gm ' disciplinm conventions and strat_eg'es for conducthg' research The two courses in which Julie is expected to begin to learn to write as a researcher, one of which is focused on psychological research and one on ethnographic research, provide a different perspective on her training in music therapy and entail the construction of different scafl‘oldings. In the setting of her apprenticeship, Julie writes for the academy and the “real world” simultaneously as she composes goal and objectives and reports to accomplish the day-to-day clinical work of music therapy. In her research-oriented classes, however, her writing is strictly academic. In one, the focus is conducting an experimental study and writing a report on it; in the other, the emphasis is on observing a musical event and writing about that event from an ethnographic perspectiveln both instances, she chooses the topic on which she will focus, but she is not writing these reports with the intent of getting them published or presenting them at conferences. Both of them are “school writing,” done in order to learn how to write in a particular genre and to be evaluated by the professor in order for her to earn a grade. For Julie, these assignments entail a different orientation fi‘om that required in her music therapy courses. While they offer her considerably more choice in selecting the event she observes and describes than does the clinic setting, they require her to adopt the persona of an analytical, scholarly observer rather than the persona of a therapist working to effect change in a client. 140 Conducting a psychological experiment Julie’s syllabus for the psychologically oriented research course stresses the skills and attitudes she is expected to develop in designing and conducting an experiment. The goals for students in the course are outlined as follows: The course is designed to involve direct experience in planning an experimental study of the effects of some variable(s) on musical behavior, conducting the study, and preparing a written report of it. Such experience is expected to provide: 1. some understanding of the efl‘ects of the particular variable examined; 2. some understanding of the experimental research process and variables influencing the outcome of a study; 3. some development of skills in conducting experimental research and data analysis; 4. some appreciation of experimental research as an objective and systematic mode of inquiry [emphasis mine]. Julie describes this assignment as one in which “We have to design and implement the experiment, and then we have to do the formal documentation _ and the write-up of the formal experiment. So doing methodology, purpose, research and limitation, results—in a formal paper. “ She explains that she did a report of this nature “in high school . . . ., a sociology paper,” but that she has not done “a standard psychology paper style . . . [which] fits . . . more into a sociology, psychology area of writing” in any of her previous courses in her music therapy curriculum. (Interview, 2 Feb. 1998) Julie describes the rhetorical conventions of this research paper in terms very similar to those Nicole uses to describe her laboratory reports. 141 [Y] on have to be able to write it and give it to someone else and they can run the experiment again exactly the same way you did it. So your language has tobe concise. . . . “Well, what exactly did you do? How did you run this experiment? What does the research say to give you reason to do this? What was your control? What were you exactly experimenting for?” So the methodology has to be precise. (Interview 18 Feb. 1998) In describing how she is to write up her report, Julie states, [Y]ou have to stick to specifically what the research is saying . . . . You can’t say what you think about it. You have to just state . . . , “Here’s what they’ve done . . . , and that relates to what I want to do.” M: [Wlhen you’re reading the articles . . . , dose that give you any additional ideas about how to write your own? Julie: Yes. Because . . . a lot of them are journal articles written the way I’m supposed to write. . . , so that helps me to read and realize, “OK, when they write this article, this is similar to how I have to write. So to remember, OK. the language that they use in their introduction. The language they use for their set-up. When they review the literature that relates to what they’ve written is the same way I have to write my literature review for what I’m writing. So I am reading the same style that I have to write which is helpful . . . , [and] that models what I have to do. (18 Feb. 1998) Julie states the purpose of her study as an “attempt to determine if music, used as a background, can influence language in a written form, 142 specifically the ability to develop ideas. Does music enhance creative ability in writing and will it affect the written structure?” In her report on this research, Julie states that she studied “ten female subjects. . . . Each . . . [was] an undergraduate at Michigan State University.” Seated at a table in the conference room of the writing center, these young women were asked to write for fifteen minutes “on the . . . subject of ‘winter sports.” Halfof them wrote while listening to “The Blue Danube Waltz” on earphones while half wrote without listening to this background music. Their texts were “then analyzed by highlighting and counting the number of topic sentences each paper had and the number of descriptive words (adjectives) per topic sentence.” Julie says the report is to be a “straightforward psychology research paper,” formatted according to APA conventions (Interview 18 Feb. 1998). The format of the text she composes is that of a traditional research report: Introduction, Review of Literature, Method, Results, and Discussion. She turns the first three sections of it (introduCtion, review of literature, method) and her bibliography in to her professor in draft form before she turns in her final version. In a handwritten note on a copy of this drafi, she notes “handed in to Dr. . He reviewed did not return before final paper.” These sections (a total of a little over four pages, incorporating some changes in text) comprise most of Julie’s final report. Her results and discussion sections on this final page are each one paragraph in length. In the course of composing her final report, Julie lost her revised draft when a computer crashed. She was forced to reconstruct it fi'om memory and flour her initial draft: as best she could the night before she turned it in to her professor. As a result, the drait(s) she composed between the final version of her report and the initial draft she had previously submitted to her professor were not available to me. 143 Her report is written in third person, and the results are presented quantitatively, as shown below. (For entire report, see Appendix D.) Results Using and Independent sample T-test (Appendix A) on the computer program SPSS, the mean difference in description was 1.2 with a significance of .189. This indicates a minimal variance between the two groups and no significant difference. With the assessment of topic sentences the mean difierence was 1.8, indicating no significant difference. The group with music did not score significantly higher than the group without music in either category. While this report itself is not remarkable, the work Julie does in preparing to write it is fairly extensive (choosing her topic, conducting a review of literature, and describing the methods she will use in a draft submitted to her professor prior to the final version, arranging a time and place to interview her subjects, and providing the necessary materials for them). This assignment coincides closely with the goals stated on the course syllabus, reintroducing Julie to protocols for research and reporting and requiring her to demonstrate her knowledge of these prOcedures. Even though the text she Mposes in response is not lengthy or polished, the process of designing and conducting an experiment and reporting on the results encourages her to think and behave like a psychological researcher and elicits the use oflinguis- tic conventions that will be understood by disciplinary practitioners. Becoming an ethnographer In discussing the scafi'olding that he constructs in a course focused on regional music, in which he asks each student to assume the persona of an 144 ethonographer, Julie’s professor, Dr. N., stresses that he wants his students “to feel somehow connected to the process of writing.” When I interview him in his oflice in the music building on campus late one afternoon, he speaks of writing in a manner very similar to that of a professor of composition. Indeed, he views musicology as “the writing unit of the music school.” lMlusicology is a discipline with a model of inquiry that uses evidence and . . . requires people to formulate arguments and support those arguments with evidence. . . . [I]t’s . . . of interest to us to to see how quickly we can get students to think of themselves as writers [emphasis mine]. And to look at writing projects or problems as opportunities for them to be able to practice and to get help, to share work with other people and to talk about it. (1 June 1998) Constructing a persona (situated ethos) Even though his students are writing in the context of “school,” Professor N. emphasizes conceiving “of themselves as writers” and the need “to share work with other people.” He is focusing not simply upon the use of language or of genre as a form with which students must acquaint themselves but in terms of writing as a means of working with other people and of exchanging information with them (Miller, Freadman). He explicitly incorporates the entire writing process in the ethnic observation paper he assigns to students. Throughout our interview, he stresses the importance of specific aspects of the students’ writing: choice of topic (and assuming ownership of one’s work), drafting, revising and rethinking, working collaboratively in groups, workshopping papers in class, and providing 145 feedback for students by holding individual conferences with them and by responding to their work orally as well as in writing. The music observation paper consists of a “mini-fieldwork exercise” in which Professor N. asks them to observe “some sort of live [musical] performance” and write an observation and analysis of it. This paper (five to seven pages) must involve “some aspect of Caribbean music” (syllabus). In doing this piece, he says, “I want them to look at how people use music . . ., [at the] context of musical performance.” He stresses observing minute detail, taking on'the persona of an ethnographer. As an ethnographer, it’s my job to observe and ask questions of things so just simply act like an ethnographer and say, “Well, if you’re an ethnographer too, tell me . . . what happened. . ., more. . . . I’m goingtoneedmore . . . whatdid theysay?. . . . [W]hat about the behavior ofulet’s say, maybe five people that you saw ?. . . . [T]ell me what they did”. . . . [T]heir initial narrative . . . might just have a couple of little hints of some of these behaviors, but . . . if I can talk to them and tell them, “These are the kinds of things you need to do . . . [for] yourself,” then often they can go home and they’ll write another narrative. (Interview, 1 June 1998) Demonstrating by using oneself as a model for students constitutes one form of scaffolding, incorporating a playful type of behavior, much like the art professor and the intern who compose an “impromptu” critique in fiont of the class (Williams and Colomb 94-95). Professor N. elaborates only briefly on how he models the role of an ethnographer for his students, but the very fact that he presents himself as a model for them to emulate (and thus attempts 146 to demystify the process of researching and writing) is significant. Implicit in his instruction is the stance of an inquiring, academic persona. In writing a “five-page observation paper on . . . [a musical] event,” Julie and her classmates are asked to attend an event, observe the people attending it, analyze their behavior, and explain how their behavior relates to the culture reflected in the event. Julie describes the process of writing about a St. Patrick’s Day celebration which she calls an “Irish creolization,” (in a note to me) as follows. “The required outline is on the post-it. All my thinking is on the paper. I typed first, then read through the next day and [made] revisions, then retyped.” Her outline, written on two post-it notes, is actually more like a set of instructions. ' ' CARIB Paper Intro—brief statement w/ hmthesis body—detailed description of musical event lg; analysis ID behaviors but don’t analyse until conclusion Conclusion analysis of event relate to hypothesis Julie’s initial draft: is typed with her editing written on it in both ink and . pencil. At the top of the first page, she adds a brief, two-sentence concluding paragraph. She makes some sentence level changes and additions, adding details or clarification. She also considers organizational changes. On the second page, she highlights one sentence at the end of the second paragraph and two sentences in a following paragraph, “The limited space made it feel like one big group.” “Initially I was unaware of the band as the atmosphere was comforting and friendly. I was drawn into the group immediately.” She 147 brackets each in ink and indicates in pencil “at end.” On the third page, she marks and highlights two more sentences, both of which describe the efi‘ects of the dancing and the music on participants in the event. ‘Their energetic and fluid movements enticed many in the crowd to participate with clapping and observational activity. The back three-fourths of the room, although focused in conversation, remained a part of the bigger group occasionally being pulled out on the dance floor, or diverted by the strong rhythm and loud music.” After each, she writes “end,” placing question marks around “end” after the second sentence as though she is debating whether to move it or not. On the final page, she crosses out her last sentence. (For draflzs of this report, see Appendix D.) On the report she first hands in to Professor N., Julie receives a 2.7. In the text he notes a place at the end of Julie’s second paragraph where she needs to “finish with analogy using Creolization,” stating that “you haven’t give[n] the year yet.” He also comments on one run-together sentence and one tense shift, indicates the nwd for a new paragraph at one point, and questions word choice or spelling in several instances. He indicates one place in the text where “you are evaluating, try only to describe [emphasis mine].” In requesting that Julie separate description from evaluation, Professor N. is asking her to compartmentalize much as she must do in reports in her clinical courses. Having taken part in an event, she must now distance herself from that event in analyzing it, concentrating on separating what she did and felt during it from the comments she makes about it. In undertaking this rhetorical performance, Julie is asked to consciously project herself into the role of an ethnographer, asking herself what to look for in observing an event of this sort and how to compose a report from that perspective. The scaffolding provided by N. as he elicits this ethnographic 148 report from Julie helps her learn to “compose herselfin the discipline” as Herrington phrases it in her article (“Composing One’s Selfin a Discipline” 91). I Analyzing and interpreting: Avoiding “words on the printed page” By designing this assignment in which students work with an event they observe firsthand and a text they construct in response to it, Professor N. designs scaffolding to enable them to report on something they experience personally in order to create their own knowledge, instead of struggling with the texts written by others. In asking his students use this “direct” method, he hopes to keep them fiom being intimidated by authoritative language, and he stresses the need for them to analyze their own evidence carefully. Although he does provide them with a model in the form of an article written by himself, he explains to them that he wishes for them to engage in “research which will not involve taking somebody else’s words on the printed page.” This is an opportunity, he stresses, for students to seize control of the entire project, both the observation and the interpretation. I find sometimes that students are reluctant to take that authority because they feel overwhelmed with the sources. . . . So if I can intervene in the early stage and say, “Let’s have something where you generate the evidence, you do all the analysis of it, so therefore there’s no one else to get in your way. You can use secondary sources if you want to but I really don’t encourage it for this assignment. (Interview, 1 June 1998) He emphasizes that becoming an ethonographer involves not just recording details of an event but analyzing what went on during it. The student needs to find an ” insightful” question, look closely at evidence, and ask herself whether her conclusions complement or contradict the question. 149 Working within “disciplinary taxonomies” Even though Professor N. tells students to present this evidence “any way you want,” with the intention of keeping them away from “somebody else’s words on the printed page,” their discourse is inescapably intertextual. As Prior points out, analyzing the “concrete, historical co-production” of a specific text reveals only part of what is taking place. Terminology and stylistic conventions are based not just in individuals but in “disciplinary taxonomies” which have evolved through “chains of utterance and activity” in a particular discourse community (227-28). In Bakhtin’s terms, “any utterance . . . always responds . . . in one form or another to others’ utterances that precede it” M 94). Although they are observing events firsthand, students must work within what the genre of the ethnographic report allows them to do (Miller 165). In a complex rhetorical situation, they must reconstruct the event they observe and interpret it by adhering to the linguistic conventions required in ethnography. Thus even as students are asked to focus strictly on what they themselves observe and not to incorporate secondary sources which might “get in . . . [their] way,” they are likely to struggle to express themselves appropriately. “[T]he word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language (it is not, after all, out of a dictionary that the speaker gets his words!), but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own ” (Bakhtin,m 294). They must employ language that “’is of necessity provided to . . . [one] by others and modified in. . . lane’s] use of it’” [emphasis mine] (James Boyd White, qtd. in Stock and Robinson 171). They must learn to make disciplinary terms serve their own purposes and learn to adopt the appropriate stance in 150 reconstructing and analyzing the event they interpret (Herrington, “Composing” 110-11 and Shaughnessy, “Some Needed Research” 319). Modeling the role of an ethnographer Although Professor N. urges students not to use secondary sources, he is intentionally inviting them to begin to work within “the reading, writing, talking and thinking patterns of the discipline” which Elizabeth Chiseri- Strater characterizes as often fi‘emainIing] powerfully invisible” to students (144). He expects them to emulate the thinking and the analytic methods which he models for them and to employ the ethnographic genre of the observational report. In doing so, they must undertake the process of attum'ng themselves to the appropriate expressions and the key words used in analytic discourse in musicology. As they begin speaking as ethnographers speak and acting as ethnographers act in the course of constructing this paper, these students are being given the opportunity to identify themselves with the discipline of musicology. Professor N. assigns students the task of producing a text within a genre before they completely understand it, enabling them to write in the manner described by Winsor (21-22) by involving them closely in the _ process. He questions them as they are in the process of observing an event and writing about it, elicits their observations, and reflects their ideas back to them. In short, he models being an ethnographer. By holding up his own practices for students to observe and to imitate as they work with a particular genre, and by limiting what his students can do and forcing them to channel their energies in certain ways, he provides a scaffolding for them. 151 Providing feedback on an ethnographic report and responding to it Professor N. provides another form of scaffolding for Julie in the form of the substantial comments he writes for her in a “Paper Evaluation Formal Analysis”: Julie, You’ve got some nice moments in this paper, especially as you describe the dynamics of the crowd toward the end of the paper. I have some suggestions, however, that I think will help make your paper say even more about the event you observed. First, while you have a more elaborated introduction to your research problem than most, I still think you need a sentence or two at the end of paragraph 2, page 1 in which you go beyond the idea of bringing the E L community together and say, for example, how this event is an example of Irish creolization (since you put it in your title!). Second, while you have many nice ideas in the description portion of the paper, I would like to see more straight description and less analysis in the body of the paper. You can save the analysis [hr the conclusions. Finally, with a more specifi- cally focused research question [all emphases mine], you should be able to come up with conclusions that go beyond a confirmation of this event as a community celebration. N.’s request to see “more straight description and less analysis” resembles G.’s emphasis on compartmentalizing one’s observations of client behavior from reactions to that behavior (what the student saw, what she felt, what she thought). Julie’s post-it note to herself states “body-detailed descrip of musical event, No analysis, ID behaviors but don’t analyze until conclusion.” However, Professor N. must still remind her to heed this 152 instruction. As Chamey and Carlson point out, a novice may be aware of the particular elements required in a genre but may still have trouble in knowing exactly how to execute the task required of her (89). In response to Dr. N.’s comments, Julie adds a sentence about creolization at the end of her second paragraph. Commenting on Julie’s statement that “it was evident that participants were eager to socialize and that the purpose of the event was not only to raise much needed funds but more to socialize and celebrate,” Professor N. writes “You are evaluating, try only to describe.” Julie changes this sentence to “participants were mingling and talking in groups while food and music surrounded them.” In response to a peer’s suggestions during the revising process, she reorganizes one paragraph, adds. a transition sentence at the beginning of another, and makes some changes in wording. The peer also sugests that she “make more of a connection with this event and the creolization topic. Descriptions were good but it left me with a question about where it was going.” In the final version of her paper, Julie adds a concluding paragraph discussing “creolization.” In class we have discussed the idea of creolization being a blending of cultures within a society. This blending often occurs net only within the physical population, but also within the culture of the community as traditions, food, music and celebrations are shared and integrated. The East Lansing event, in support of the East Lansing Boys and Girls Club, is an example of this process. The event brought together people in the community and allowed them to share food, music and customs of the Mexican, Caribbean and Irish communities in East Lansing. Although I am only moderately familiar with 153 these traditions, I became a part of the event and 'a greater part of the community. Julie’s revised drafi: receives a 3.7 from Professor N. as well as complements on her revisions. ‘ . Your revision has strengthened this paper considerably. The opening two paragraphs are much tighter and focused. In addition, you’ve got some nicely crafted sentences, although I’m sure my ability to appreciate that is enhanced by the improved organization of the paper. Your evidence is also improved by the focused research question since it allows the reader to “see” the creolization process taking place in your description. The conclusions nicely tie together many of the points you make in the description and return us to the research question. The scaffolding in Julie’s ethnographic research class is constructed in such a way that students are initiated into the ethnographic research of musicology through engaging in a limited form of legitimate peripheral participation. They are enabled to report on an event employing the conventions and the form used by ethnographers. The genre of an ethnographic report difl'ers from that of a clinical treatment plan in that the participants in the event observed will not take part in activities structured by the writer. She is not trying to change their behavior but to describe and analyze it. However this report resembles the treatment plan in that the writer must observe an event in which she participates, and (later on) must gauge how the participants reacted to the activities which took place and sharply delineate between description and analysis or interpretation in constructing her report. 154 Julie’s experience in the program is congruent with Anne Herrington’s previously mentioned observations that students’ experiences can vary widely, not only among disciplinary communities but in classes within a particular discipline such as Chemical Engineering. (See Endnote 1.) While each community requires the use of specific discourse conventions and strategies by its participants, a particular] class may form a subcommunity in which the conventions required of students contrast with those in another class. Although Julie’s clinical classes and her research-oriented classes share some common attributes, the rhetorical tasks expected of her within the music therapy program vary widely. Like Nicole, she must construct personas both for school and for work. Summary Because Julie was involved in a larger number of disciplinary writing classes than was Nicole during the 1997-98 academic year, this discussion of her writing encompasses more forms of discourse than my discussion of Nicole’s. Julie does her writing as part of a curriculum that incorporates substantial work with clients in the music therapy clinic on campus. The scafi‘olding created by her professors includes writing assignments specifying the genres in which she is to write and explaining their characteristics and the Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual, which provides sample forms for the clinical plans and reports that she must write, as well as forms provided by the music therapy clinic. Part of the scaffolding she makes use of in learning to write goals and objectives is made up of collaborative exchanges with her classmates in which she and other students challenge and support each other in learning the terminology employed in music therapy. The structure in which she writes for “real w'ork” during the latter 155 part of her program is provided through the requirement that she engage in therapy with clients in the music therapy clinic. As she writes treatment plans, session evaluations, and progress reports for these clients, Julie . models what she does on the forms provided for her. In modifying these texts, she relies on oral exchanges one-to-one with a teaching assistant or one of her professors and on written feedback from them. While the writing required in her classes varies from the very practical to the more theoretical, research-oriented modes, each genre provides Julie with the opportunity to take the stance of a “professional-in-training” (W alvoord and McCarthy). In the process of learning how to make the distinctions significant in music therapy and to write about them in genres that can be readily interpreted by members of her discourse community, she participates in disciplinary discourse in increasingly meaningful ways. In describing the difi‘erent experiences (albeit, in regard to conventions emphasizing objectivity, the very similar ones) of Nicole and Julie in this limited space, it is diffith to do justice to each as the complex, energetic, curious young woman that she is. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to capture some sense of who each is, and of who she is becoming during her upper level undergraduate coursework, as she constructs dual personas as a - student and as a developing professional in her discipline. 156 Endnote 1. Herrington states that even within one discipline, chemical engineering, difi‘erent courses may represent distinct forums where different issues are addressed, different lines of reasoning used, difi'erent writer and audience roles assumed, and different social purposes served by writing. (“Writing' 354) 157 Chapter 5 Suggestions for Disciplinary Practice Our job as scholars is to make the invisible visible, just as our job as teachers is to do the same and thus invite our students to join our groups as full participants. (Jay L. Robinson 153) In undertaking this research on disciplinary writing, I was thinking in terms of texts, of investigating how the texts students in specific classes produced in response to their assignments would represent their acquisition of conventions and strategies; of what students’ perceptions of their processes of writing and learning would be; and of how these might resemble, or contrast with, their professors’ perceptions. I considered how—and whether-J could plot a student’s “progress” over the period of a semester or ' an academic year. It was only as I got deeper into my research that I began to recognize the extent to which texts are only one part (albeit a crucial one) of students’ enculturation into a specific disciplinary environment. Also integral to their development as preprofessionals are the ways in which they come to conceive of the genres they acquire as embodying “shared expectations among some group(s) of people” and to better understand the activities being pursued by their mentors (Russell, “Rethinking Genre” 513) and the ways in which they come to see themselves as participating in these activities. In other words, a crucial aspect of their learning is through identifying with their disciplines. In the process of becoming preprofessionals, students must not only display the appropriate conventions and construct appropriate genres, they 1 58 must situate themselves (either by using their imaginations or by participating in an actual “work” situation) in the discipline that they are entering. Considering the ways in which students act as apprentices and identify themselves with disciplinary practitioners in order to acquire rhetorical conventions and strategies leads to the question of how teachers and scholars of rhetoric and teachers in other disciplines can best go about helping them to become acquainted with disciplinary strategies and conventions. Instead of conceiving of this process chiefly in terms of what they should be taught to write (i.e., in terms of genres), we need to be thinking, as frequently, of who students are being taught to become, of the qualities they need to develop in order to work and to think in a particular discipline. As Lave and Wenger remind us, Moving toward full participation in practice involves not just a greater commitment of time, intensified effort, more and broader responsibilities within the community, and more difficult and risky tasks, but, more significantly, an increasing sense of identity as a master practitioner (111). Developing an increasingly mature practice of disciplinary rhetorical conventions takes place in the course of identifying with a discourse community. One of the ways through which such identification can take place is for a student to identify with a mentor, a “master practitioner” (Lave and Wenger) who can help that individual to apprehend the intricacies of a system, whether in science, law, accounting or physical therapy, and model for her what must be done to function effectively in that system. Through such identification, ethos is foregrounded for students, assisting them to pierce the veil of invisibility in disciplinary rhetoric. This emphasis on ethos 159 can assist them to place themselves mentally within a discipline and to envision themselves as practitioners and researchers. Ethos appears to play an important role in Nicole’s experience in the laboratory in which she works as an employee (she describes the director as being someone with whom she can “always talk when I have a problem or try to solve something”) as well as in her Analytical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory. She notes that she appreciates “actually working with a professor [in conducting an experiment] . . . rather than just working with the TA’s. I really like that he’s involving himselfin the class too.” Professor Y. invites his students to assume the roles of scientists, in teaching them to write abstracts, when he stresses that “if you want people to be interested in the work you do, you have to be able to pass that information on to somebody so that they want to follow up with other things that you’ve done.” Ethos is also prominent in Julie’s experiences in music therapy classes in which students are encouraged to assume the roles of clients and therapists in classroom exercises and in Professor N.’s class where he models the role of working as an ethnographer for his students. Opportunities to begin developing the ethos of a professional are provided for both Julie and Nicole as their professors make a point of modeling particular aspects of disciplinary roles. Notwithstanding their experiences, this development of ethos is de- emphasized in much of modern education, which tends to stress quantification and “facts.” Many curricula emphasize the need for students to absorb information and to be tested on it (what) instead of the need for them to develop particular kinds of qualities and professional mindsets (who); however, as teachers, we need to keep in mind that the issues involved and debated in a profession or discipline and the people practicing in it are 160 inextricably intertwined. Providing novices with opportunities to identify with experts in a discipline and to begin establish their own ethos is of primary significance. The ways in which Julie and Nicole come to identify themselves with their disciplines, the comments they make on their work as they engage in it, the successes they achieve, and the dificulties they face all suggest focal points for further research into how undergraduates acquire the strategies and conventions of disciplinary rhetoric. We can undertake such research by working together with our students and with our colleagues in other disciplines, following up on work done by Geisler, Herrington, Walvoord and McCarthy, and McCarthy and Fishman. By doing so, we can learn to assist our students not just in their own composing and revising and in coming to a better understanding of texts in a discipline, though both of these tasks are of utmost significance. We can assist them in interrogating how systems of genres work in the process of accomplishing goals (Russell, Bazerman) and in seeing us and practitioners in other disciplines in the processes of composing and of negotiating who our audiences will be (Blakeslee). Our students need to study not only texts (their own and those of others) in the present and in the past, but to study the interactions and communities surrounding these . texts and the ways in which experts in a discourse community manage to compose and to interact skillfully with each other. In emphasizing ethos, we can encourage students to take on the role of ethnographers and engage in research about the disciplines that they are preparing to enter. We can think of them as our colleagues, inviting them to study the writing in which they are engaged, to exchange their observations on it with us, and to discuss their viewpoints on their learning with each other and with us. We can conceive of the term colleague more inclusively than we 161 often do, not only in terms of our students but of our colleagues across a variety of disciplines, creating opportunities to engage jointly with them in research and in practice. The experiences described by Nicole and Julie suggest the need to rethink the ways in which we approach the teaching of disciplinary writing, the need to incorporate rhetorical instruction more fully and more directly into the curriculum of undergraduates in the academy. Students need to be taught to reflect upon their practices, but they also need to be helped to situate themselves in particular tasks and settings and to be provided with examples of experts engaging in their practices. They need to be explicitly invited into the Burkean parlours of the disciplines which they are attempting to join, not left standing uneasily m doorways, to be encouraged to develop the expertise to enter into professional conversations. How can faculty in rhetoric and composition and faculty in other disciplines facilitate this kind of identification? We can do so by 1) focusing on rhetoric in freshman composition classes and stressing the dialogic aspect of composing, 2) modeling and investigating disciplinary practices in reading, writing, andthinking, ' 3) enabling students to critique discourse communities, 4) engaging in joint teaching practices, and by 5) conducting research with faculty in other disciplines Focusing on rhetoric in freshman composition classes Undergraduates can be presented with opportunities to analyze a variety of discourse communities, thus increasing their understanding of disciplinary rhetorical conventions. They can then use that understanding 162 as preprofessionals entering into particular disciplinary discourses. Teachers in freshman composition classes can assist students by teaching them how disciplinary discourse is shaped by the intent of a particular community and helping them to understand why particular genres and thinking patterns are in use. Students can be encouraged to inquire into the rhetorical conventions of political discourse, of the legal community, or of a discipline they are planning to enter. Teachers can guide them in conducting ethnographic research to determine for themselves in their own communities [or in the communities they plan to enter] the nature of the issues debated, the reasoning required, and the genres valorized. We can, for example, ask them . . . to interview experts in the relevant communities about the kind of writing required, [and] to find examples of the kinds of texts they will be expected to write (Currie 76). We can ask students enrolled in a science curriculum to investigate the genres in which experts in chemistry or biology are expected to write and the fimctions served by those genres. In essence, we can help them to become aware that they are “tenant[s] lodging in the social edifice of ideological signs” (Bakhtin, Marxism 931) and show them how they can move from one locale to another within this edifice, developing the ability to use language flexibly throughout their curricula and their professional lives. Students need to be immersed in intentional talk about discourse to understand that when they write, they’re not just reproducing particular forms (though in the beginning they may be doing just that) but setting up a dialogue with others in a group or a discipline. learning to think in terms of an exchange with others can help them to better develop the ethos required 163 to undertake such a conversation. Teachers can facilitate this understanding by foregrounding an understanding of discourse as dialogic in the sense in which Bakhtin discusses it. However monological the utterance may be (for example, a scientific or philosophical treatise), however much it may concentrate on its own object, it cannot but be, in some measure, a response to what has already been said about the given topic [emphasis mine] . . . even though this responsiveness may not have assumed a clear-cut external expression . . . . The utterance is filled with dialogic overtones, and they must be taken into account in order to understand fully the style of the utterance. @3991; 92) Teachers can assist their students to become aware of this dialogic quality and to carefully consider textual predecessors in their reading or writing of a disciplinary document. They can attune them not only to their readers’ potential reactions to a text but to intertextual exchanges in which writers relate their comments or their arguments to statements in previous texts. For example, they might examine how writers exchange comments on judicial rulings in arguments about an ecologcal issue such as constructing a mall on a wetland, or they might study the dialogues established in a series of articles, editorials, and letters to the editor of the New York Times on a controversial economic issue such as the benefits of trading with a particular nation. Investigating and modeling disciplinary practices To suggest the need for research in writing in the disciplines is to restate what scholars in rhetoric and composition have been emphasizing for 164 some time. The previously quoted plea from Faigley and Hansen, stressing the need for English teachers to “explore . . . why certain methods of inquiry are sanctioned, how the conventions of a discipline shape a text . . . , how individual writers represent themselves . . . , and how one text influences subsequent texts” (149) was issued in 1985. Since then, disciplinary writing has been the focus of a significant amount of research by professionals in the field of composition as well as by some in other disciplines (W ineburg, Greene, McCarthy and Fishman). Yet even though disciplinary writing has received much attention, both students and many disciplinary practitioners still appear to be working against the longheld tradition of language and rhetorical practices as invisible. How can we challenge this misperception? Teachers can show students how to display knowledge within a particular discourse community and help them become attuned to its rhetorical conventions by demonstrating in detail their own disciplinary reading and writing processes. Following the example of Professor N. in the School of Music Therapy, teachers can say, in effect, to their students “I’m an ethonographer (historian, psychologist, sociolinguist). Here’s the kind of information I seek out and some of the strategies I employ when I read. Here’s what I attempt to accomplish when I write. If you want to be initiated into the practices in this discipline, then here are some practices you can begin to experiment with and to emulate.” Rea ' ractices Examining experts’ practices As a means of engaging students in disciplinary practices, modeling reading practices for them may be as important as modeling composing practices. Because reading is done independently of other individuals and 165 tendstoberegardedasnotentailingagreatdeal ofefl'ort, disciplinary experts may be inclined to take their practices of reading even more for granted than their practices of composing. As a result, they may pay little attention to initiating students into the habits and strategies that they employ when reading in a discipline. However, maln’ng these habits explicit can expedite preprofessionals’ entry into a discipline. In order to help students become attuned to disciplinary discourse, teachers can instruct them in techniques for reading in the way that professionals read. Christina Haas suggests that teachers can encourage students to engage in “rhetorical reading” (24) by studying “the background of a text they have read and ‘reconstructfingl’ the ldnds of decisions” the author made in writing it, taking into account both “global text strategies” _ and “local word choice” as well as information about the “background” of the author, the influence exerted by “prevailing social trends,” and the author’s “intended audience” (30). Another strategy Haas suggests is asking students to “conduct field research [on reading] in their own areas of study, interviewing readers and writers of specific discoursecommunities” (30), inquiring into “how and why members of a discipline choose the texts they read; the actual processes . they go through in reading (or skimming or skipping) current publications; how they “use” (or ignore) such texts in their own writing” (30). By conducting such inquiries, students can increase their awareness of the rhetorical conventions considered significant in a discipline. For example, they can inquire into why a chemist might look at formulas before reading a text, why an engineer would be particularly concerned with the placement and size of graphics in a journal article, or how an historian would decipher subtexts in a document. 166 Modeling experts’ practices One means of helping students to become rhetorical readers is simply to encourage them to listen carefully to how experts in a discipline react to texts as they are reading them. In the research summarized below, Samuel Wineburg discusses “the cognitive representations formed in the minds of [eight] historians as they read a series of documents about the American Revolution [specifically the Battle of Lexingtonl” (89). “nth the intent of “presentling1 a terminology for discussing, analyzing, and difl’erentiating among the representations built by historians” (89), he asks, “What rules of thumb do they use to resolve textual contradictions and how do they get from sketchy document to comprehensive narrative?” (85). Excerpts fi'om the think-aloud protocols he conducted show historians using clues from the texts provided to them to reconstruct events by making inferences, interpreting on the basis of their prior knowledge, backtracking to reread and reinterpret, questioning the date of a text and the degree of its reliability and making assumptions about an author’s intention. A pair of professors or a group of three or four professors and graduate students could engage in a ‘ similar protocol in a classroom to demonstrate to students how historians interpret subtexts and make sense of what they read. 1 . Wri ' ractices Writing for “real work” Students gain the “keys to understanding how to participate in the actions of a community” through gaining knowledge of genres, states Carolyn Miller (165). This investigation of Julie and Nicole’s writing “for display”and for “real work” lays the groundwork for examining ways that teachers can engage students in gaining this knowledge through writing meaningful 167 discourse. In assisting novices joining disciplinary communities to gain “insider” knowledge, we need to invite them to participate in discourse practices. Not every student can work in a professional science laboratory or in a music therapy clinic. However, teachers of composition, as well as those in other disciplines, can involve students in meaningful intertextual exchanges by making a variety of disciplinary writing for ‘real work” available to them: grant proposals, field notes from research, laboratory reports, conference papers, letters to journal editors. Teachers can bring in drafts of their own work-in-progress to show to students and ask for comments. By examining and discussing texts such as these, students can further their understanding of what is entailed in disciplinary literacy. Teachers can also help students to engage in writing that involves an audience other than the instructor and their classmates. They can ask them to respond to an exchange of letters in a professional journal by writing a letter to the editor. They can invite them to participate in conference presentations or to draft segments of professional articles. Teachers can help to sponsor undergraduate forums in particular colleges or departments for which students prepare papers or presentations. Through studying and composing disciplinary texts, students can participate more actively in the professions or disciplines they have chosen and begin to “understand and control the symbolic actions that shape the endeavor they are part of“ (Bazerman, “Theories that Help” 11 1) Modeling composing . One of the most efi‘ective means of illustrating disciplinary practice is that of constructing a document in class as students observe. An example is a demonstration in the Little Red Schoolhouse Writing Across the ‘ 168 Curriculum program at the University of Chicago in which members of the art faculty and teaching interns (graduate students) analyze a work of art with undergraduate students observing them. [Bloth the intern and the instructor bring in a slide of a work of art. One projects the slide up on a screen and the other, with no preparation, verbally composes two papers out loud. The first is intended as a typically inappropriate analysis of the work; the second a paper that falls within the boundaries of what counts as appropriate discourse in the community of art criticism . . . . [S]tudents are able to watch an expert do what they in turn are asked to do, with all the uncertainties, false starts, backtracking to correct themselves, and so on that all professionals indulge in private, but rarely display in public. (Williams and Colomb 94-95) In this manner, teachers increase the visibility of tacit expectations embedded in a particular discourse community. Students get a firsthand look at both the qualities requisite in an artistic analysis and the uncertainties of composing, and they can ask questions of the instructors immediately, while the spontaneously composed text is still on display. According to Williams and Colomb, the ”game-playing” atmosphere of this exercise encourages both faculty members and students to engage in “spontaneous analyses” (95). In disciplines in which such an instantaneous display is more dificult to achieve, students might work collaboratively in small groups to analyze an historical document or write up lab report on an experiment and then place their texts on overhead projectors to be reviewed and discussed by the entire class. Composing collaboratively can provide students with the same 169 sense of “uncertainties, false starts, [and] backtracking” described by Williams and Colomb. Engaging in a critique of a piece immediately after composing it can assist them to become more aware of the infinite choices a writer must make and the role that rhetorical conventions play in these choices. Students can inquire into the circumstances requiring the use of a particular convention. In Professor Y.’s situation as the teacher in an advanced chemistry laboratory, his use of first person in writing for professional journals conflicts with the convention of writing in third person that he employs in his own practice when he writes for grant ftmding and that he requires students to use in preparing for their professional practice. This contradiction between practice and teaching ofl'ers an opportunity for him to examine with his students both the range of conventional rhetorical practices in chemistry and the power that is wielded within discourse communities. ' Discussing this discrepancy with them could be a useful tool to further their rhetorical knowledge. Although Dr. Y. feels that he must teach his studenm to use a formal approach, he could assist them to understand the flexibility with which he, as a skilled practitioner, adapts his use of language to varied situations by talking with them about his rationale for using the first person in writing for journals, and thus reversing the traditional convention of third person, even though he requires them to employ it. A discussion of this sort could also help them to understand the ways in which disciplinary language has been historically “permeated with concrete value judgments . . . knittogetberwith . . . the . . . points ofviewpeculiarto particular professions“ (Bakhtin, m 289), and the ways “in which intentional possibilities of language are being expropriated” (289). The “limit” 170 Professor Y emphasizes could then be discussed in connection with students’ status as undergraduates who must demonstrate mastery of particular conventions (“authoritative discourse”) to prove that they are gaining the ability to engage in professional discourse as a part of the personas they are developing for themselves as chemists-in-training. Inv ' a ' disci ' co ventions We can encourage students to examine a wide range of genres and conventions andtheir possible uses, both inside and outside of their own disciplines. Examininggenres in particular discourse communities Students can learn how to analyze the rhetorical aspects of disciplinary writing by studying language specific to their fields. For example, a linguistics course at the University of Michigan was designed to enable students from variety of disciplines to examine “student writing, didactic (textbook) writing, and research writing” (Hemp-Lyons and McKenna 261). According to the instructor, John Swales, students taking this course learn to see “'finer distinctions of language and to understand the process of . interaction of discourse and the comunity’” (261). Examining changes m disciplinary genres Students can investigate for themselves how a particular disciplinary genre has evolved. One efi'ective way to do this rs to ask them to engage in a study of a sequence of texts. To illustrate this practice, David Jollifi‘e describes a task assigned by Lester Faigley to students at the University of Texas. 171 [S]tudents in an upper-division course in writing in the social sciences studied an article on capital punishment in the major journal in criminal justice written in the same year of successive decades: 1906,1916, 1926,1936, 1946, 1956, 1966, 1976, and 1986. For each article, the students examined ideas about the subject matter and patterns of text organization and format, sentence structure, and use of key words. Then they drew comparisons and generalized about how what is considered “common knowledge” in the field has changed, and how principles of inquiry, organization, syntax, and diction had evolved in the discipline over the years. (40) Instead of simply studying others’ observations about disciplinary writing and what makes it efl'ective, students engaged in research of this sort are drawing conclusions for themselves. Helping students to recognize their knowledge ofgenre We can assist students to make use of the linguistic competencies _ they already possess. We need to recognize, says Don Bialostosky, the inherent abilities of students, who “come to us with some repertoire of everyday genres they can produce . . . , and that this everyday discursive , knowledge is the basis for learning to produce and read all the secondary genres of artistic, scientific, business, and political communication we are concerned to teach” (107 ). In order to help his students to understand what they already know about the conventions, he asks them to explore particular aspects of poems that resemble ordinary discourse, such as the genre of apology. Teachers can put to good use the “poetic imitations of and variations on the genres of everyday life,” he adds (112). 172 [Ploems may be taken to imitate utterances (and therefore genres) ofall kinds and, in doing so, to make typical communicative purposes, participants in communicative events, structures of communication, and situations of communication available for pleasurable contemplation (113). Examining the ways in which linguistic conventions are employed across the boundaries of discourse communities can enable students to gain the . confidence they need to compose texts in varied settings. Examining sentence-level discourse Another means of assisting students involves sentence level analysis of style and diction. Conventions employed in academic “intermediary prose” in psychology, history, and literature are discussed by Susan Peck MacDonald in order to forefront “issues that need to be resolved” in working with students as they engage in becoming preprofessionals (180). Pointing _ out the need to acknowledge “the historical situatedness” and “the complex of knowledgemaking goals and rhetorical situations represented in different kinds of academic writing (179),” she contrasts the terminology used in psychology texts and the humanities. The frequent use of noun phrases in psychology and social science stem from the desire to accrete knowledge, she explains. In the field of attachment research, for example, “sentence subjects” name what is regarded as current knowledge and “keep the disciplinary problem as the focal point through which the phenomenon of attachment is explored“ (174). In contrast, in the humanities (for example, the study of Shakespeare) colorful verbs and the use of specific cases reflect the value placed on particularity. Referring to these examples, as well as her discussion of 173 examples from the discipline of history, MacDonald points out that professional writing “involves sentence-level choices . . . deeply embedded in a variety of disciplinary practices, remnants of former preferences, favorite usages, attitudes toward convention, and convictions about knowledge making” (179). What we need to do, as teachers, is to assist our students in examining these conventions, asking them not simply to emulate the genres and conventions used in a particular discipline but to begin to understand the disciplinary assumptions and history underlying them. Enabling students to critique discourse communities This discussion of Nicole and Julie’s academic experiences focuses almost exclusively on their acquisition of disciplinary discourse. However, becoming an “insider” in a community entails more than simply acquisition. The mindset a novice begins to possess, the approach that she learns to take toward her work in chemistry, music therapy, or any other discipline, is as crucial in her identification with disciplinary practitioners as is any set of textual conventions. An understanding of what an individual is enabled to do through holding particular understandings and language in common with other members of an intellectual community is what students need to grasp, says Patricia Bizzell. Instead of poring over a text again in preparing to write a paper, her beginning literature students need to focus on previous class discussions, she points out, “[fJor what it is they have to ‘see,’ to find in order to write their papers, is not exactly ‘in’ the story, but rather in the disciplinary approach to it that I have been demonstrating [emphasis mine]” (146). Both acquisition of appropriate conventions and strategies and a sense of identification with disciplinary habits of thinking are essential to 174 becoming a knowledgeable practitioner. However, Jay Robinson’s call to “make the invisible visible,” and by doing so, to “invite our students to join our groups as full participants” (153) raises the question of what other kinds ofthinking are needed in becoming a professional. Specifically, it brings into focus the need to teach students to critique community practices and modes of discourse. Both Nicole and Julie demonstrate knowledge of discourse conventions as well as of some of the disciplinary requisites underlying them. But, as James Paul Gee reminds us, “Discourses are resistant to internal criticism and self-scrutiny since uttering viewpoints that seriously undermine them defines one as being outside them. The Discourse itself defines what counts as acceptable criticism” (132). In order to assume responsible roles in their respective professions, Julie and Nicole need to examine the implications of the disciplinary conventions they are being taught and the assumptions upon which these conventions are founded. When Nicole states that “a fact is just an opinion supported well enough not to be argued with,” she demonstrates rhetorical knowledge. In examining the social construction of knowledge, a pertinent question concerns how such support for a particular “fact” or line of reasoning is established through marshalling of scientific evidence combined with the careful use of rhetoric. What kinds of observations, for example, are forefronted in reporting experiments? How is authority established by the use of third person and passive voice in reporting findings? Ethical issues facing scientists demonstrate the need for students to be provided with opportunities to acquaint themselves with the varied ways in which rhetoric is used, both to construct knowledge in a discipline and to present selected aspects of that knowledge to the public. One such issue concerns the connection between the demands of the marketplace and 175 funding for university research projects. To what extent are projects investigating public issues such as health or the environment funded by corporations with vested interests? To what degree are the results of research in chemistry, biology, physics, and other disciplines influenced by communities and individuals who will profit directly from them? The moral implications of scientists serving “on boards of companies or doing sponsored research“ are questioned by Mildred Cho, a “scholar at Stanford’s Center for Biomedical Ethics” (Press and Washbum 42). In the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1996' she reports that “98 percent of papers based on industry- - sponsored research reflected favorably on the drugs being examined, as compared with 79 percent of papers based on research not funded by industry” (42). And since then a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association “found that studies of cancer drugs funded by pharmaceutical companies were roughly one eighth as likely to reach unfavorable conclusions as non-profit-funded studies” (42). In The Heat Is On: The High Stakes Battle Over the Earth’s Threatened Climate (1997), journalist Ross Gelbspan discusses the extent to which selected scientific researchers who downplay global warming are funded by “coal and oil industries” (33). He notes, for example, that “[O]ne of the most - visible and prolific of the climate change skeptics,” geographer Robert Balling, has been awarded “either alone or with colleagues, nearly $300,000 from coal and oil interests in research funding" (44-45). In the context of such potential misuse of research, students need to be encouraged to look critically at the ways in which disciplinary language is deployed and to examine the issues of ethics and power embedded in. its use. While the questions of power involved in the discourse of music therapy may be less well publicized than those of science, they are of equal 176 seriousness from the point ofview of individuals W by them. As clinicians-in-training, Julie and her classmates are taught to distinguish carefully between the feelings they recognize and express and the work they engage in (constructing plans and activities for their clients and evaluating their efi'ectiveness). In reflecting on Professor G.’s statement, “[W e] try to help them [students] to see that what they feel is not wrong, it’s not right . . . . How that influences their work is what’s important . . . [the way] they understand what they feel,” a question Julie might be asked to consider is the degree to which the emotions evoked in her experiences as a therapist can actually be separamd from her actions. She also might consider how the emphasis on such separation contributes to a hierarchical relationship in which a client may be viewed solely in terms of her “needs” or the qualifies she lacks and needs to acquire rather than as an individual. A related question is the extent to which keeping a professional distance from a client creates an environment in which that individual’s wishes may not given suficient consideration. Labels that music therapists attach to their clients in the process of diagnosing and treating them involve , these therapists very directly in the “distribution of social power” (Gee 132). While such labels may be viewed as essential to professional communication, they can also be viewed as reductive in terms of how a therapist views her - client. Ethical questions such as these underlie the responsible practice not only of chemistry and Music Therapy but of any discipline. Engaging injoint teaching practices , Teamteac ' a ' ' ° course Another way to assist students to successfully enter into disciplinary writing is by team teaching a course constructed by a teacher of composition 177 and a “content expert” (Currie 75) or working together informally with teachers in other disciplines in order to design“reading and writing tasks” that enable students to begin to write and to think in the ways requimd by a specific discipline—anthropology, for example (7 5-7 6). Currie points out that requesting advice from a disciplinary teacher about how to evaluate the texts produced by students could include “asking experts/specialists to evaluate actual student writing,” thus eliciting “an explication of conventions” which are often remain at the tacit level (7 6). Such an exchange promotes respect among content teachers and writing teachers and can encourage them to cooperate on more extensive projects. Teaglyg’ a course in rhetoric and another dim ' course in tandem Instead of teaching a course as a team, a professor of rhetoric and a disciplinary expert could teach two courses that students would take simultaneously, one in biolog, history, psychology or engineering, and the other, a workshop in rhetoric. In such a workshop, students could examine the genres and conventions of the disciplinary course and also focus on their own writing strategies and processes, comparing them to those of experts in the field. In doing so, they could enhance their awareness of the intricacies involved in disciplinary writing, of the fact that, “'a genre is a complex, an amalgam, a constellation of substantive, situational, and stylistic elements” (Campbell and Jamieson, qtd. in J olliffe and Brier 47). Such a course would give students the advantage of engaging in legitimate peripheral participation and of simultaneously studying their participation in disciplinary rhetoric. They could witness the fact that “even experts have difi‘erent styles and ways of doing things and different special aptitudes” (Collins, Brown, and Newman, 486), that specialists may have 178 contrasting viewpoints about how (fisciplinary genres can best be employed to accomplish rhetorical goals. Experience such as this could help students to gain increased sophistication in the practice of rhetoric and increased confidence in their own repertoires of disciplinary conventions and strategies. Conducting research with faculty in other disciplines In viewing emerts from other disciplines as fellow explorers in constructing scafi'olding for undergraduate students, we can join with them to make explicit some of the tacit practices in disciplinary rhetoric. Engaging in ethnographic inquiry requires us to thoughtfully and respectfully study the work of our colleagues in other fields. Essential to this process is a willingness to not only investigate practices in disciplines outside our own but to become aware of the reasoning underlying these practices. As experts in composition and rhetoric collaborate with professors in other disciplines, they can investigate precisely what can be made explicit within a given rhetorical situation. Emphasizing an ethnographic perspective, David Kaufer and Richard Young point out that underlying the development of disciplinary writing programs is an open invitation to engage in cross-cultural communication and collaboration. Neither the writing teacher nor the content teacher can select the role of anthropologist or native. Both must play both roles. Both must be willing to travel [emphasis mine]. (102) In their work with Linda Kaufinan, a biology professor, in a pilot project designed to investigate constructive ways to initiate cross- disciplinary writing at Carnegie-Mellon, Young and Lili Velez, a graduate student in rhetoric, learned “to look for what, at the beginning, they did not 179 know was there to be firund [emphasis mine]” (102). Since the particular intricacies of “rhetorical situations of the specialized disciplines” may or may not be “codified,” rhetorical emerts must make themselves aware of “these situations and help the subject-matter expert codify them” (102). Through such a process, instructors in disciplinary areas can become increasingly aware, as did the biology professor in this instance, that “writing is more than the last and, relatively speaking, less important step in a research project; it is an activity to be valued, studied, practiced, and motivated” (102). ' As researchers in their study continued to work together, Kaufer and Young note, they began to place more emphasis on “[t]he value of what they knew and could'bring to each other as outsiders, as nonexperts” (98). As “leho lmew what” and their roles as “specialists” became of decreasing importance. Velez and Young began to recognize that Kaufinan’s outside (allegedly naive) perspective about writing enhanced their own specialized understanding. Kaufi‘man began to recognize that Velez and Youngs outside (allegedly naive) perspective about biology, or perhaps more accurately the teaching of biology, could enhance her own. (98) The insights gained in this pilot project demonstrate how much those of us in highly specialized disciplines can learn from each other. Although this study (and further research in cross-disciplinary writing which continued as a result) is discussed in the context of the early 90’s, the message it conveys is an urgent one for us today. Warning that “we cannot afi‘ord disciplinary parochialism . . . [or] wasteful territorial disputes” (155), Jay L. Robinson urges scholars to “create forums” in which literacy 180 practices of various disciplines can be investigated and discussed from “multiple perspectives,” illuminating difi'erences and similarities among the discourse systems we construct, looking for their limitations and strengths. We need forums in which widely divergent positions can be stated and examined: forums, for example, in which ethnographers-with all their commitments to the particular—can talk fruitfully to cognitive psychologists-with all of theirs to generalization. (155) Considerable investigation has already been undertaken, as demonstrated by Bazerman, Blakeslee, Geisler, Herrington, Prior, Williams and Colomb, Kaufer and Young, and Walvoord and McCarthy. But still prevalent in academia is the “myth of transience” (Rose 355), the belief that developing writing ability is not a continuous task, making it the province of teachers of every discipline at every level of schooling, but instead, that particular prescriptive remedy of some sort can permanently alleviate students’ dificulties with writing. In the face of this myth, we need to view familiar disciplinary conventions through a rhetorical lens and to encourage other faculty A members to do so as well. We can then extend this lens to view conventions less familiar to us rhetorically, enabling ourselves to involve ourselves in the conversations advocated by Robinson. In undertaking such conversations, and in viewing om' colleagues and ourselves as practitioners who are forefronting disciplinary behaviors and habits of mind for the students in our classrooms, we can help our students to forge stronger senses of identity with their disciplines and to envision themselves as professionals. As they forge this identity and become more capable in the use of disciplinary genres, 181 they can simultaneously be encouraged to critique both the rhetorical stances and ethical problems in the professions they are entering. The choice and fluidity so vivid in Bakhtin’s concept of language is foregrounded by James V. Wertsch as he explains his choice of the plural voices for the title of his text Voices of the Mind: The Bakhtinian focus on dialogicality presupposes more than one voice. . . . [T]he notion of “heterogeneity” in thinking (Tulviste . . .) contrasts with the assumption . . . that there is only one way, or that there is an obvious best way, to represent ’ the events and objects in a situation. . . . [It] calls on us to consider why certain forms of speaking and thinking (voices) rather than others are invoked on particular occasions. It also forces us to recognize that we cannot answer this question simply on the basis of the metaphor of possession, which focuses on what humans “have” in the way of concepts and skills. Instead, we must consider how and why a particular voice occupies center stage . . . in a particular setting. (14) , As we ask undergraduates to become proficient in the use of diciplinary rhetoric, we can ask them also to pose questions such as those suggested by Wertsch and to examine the political and ethical dimensions of their disciplines implied by those questions. We can construct forums through which they and we can examine the values underlying academic discourse in general (i.e., the need to write for display) as well as the values underlying particular disciplinary discourses and the contradictions in these values. In investigating this question, we can begin to reinstate “rhetoric to the central place in the college curriculum that it once held” (Faigley and Hansen 149). Simultaneously, we can include our students in a level of 182 disciplinary exchange that extends beyond the deployment of the genres into they are being initiated. As they become more deeply engaged in disciplinary practices, we can enable them to join with us in extending our understanding of the role played by rhetoric in these practices and in assuming our joint responsibility to employ disciplinary conventions thoughtfufly and ethically. 183 APPENDIXA Consent to Participate in Study Students Consent to Participate in Study Professors Samples of Questions Asked of Students Samples of Questions Asked of Professors 184 Consent to Participate in a Study of Inscribing Oneself as a Professional in a Discipline (students) Investigators Sharon Thomas, Assistant Professor ofAmerican Thought and Language Jay Ludwig, Professor of English Mary Ann Sherby, Ph.D. Candidate in English Education Purpose ‘ . To study how upper level undergraduate students inscribe themselves as professionals in their chosen disciplines, especially while they are taking writing intensive coursework in these disciplines. Confidmtiality All information obtained fi'om interviews in this studywill be kept confidential. If your instructor agrees to be interviewed or to have his or her class observed, he or she will be told that a student in the class is a part of this study. You will be identified individually to the instructor only with your written permission. In quoting material from interviews, names will be changed to protect your identity, and reports of findings will be written in such a way that no subject can be connected with a specific response or finding. All audiotapes of interviews and transcriptions of interview tapes will be kept in secured files in the writing center or in the investigator’s home. Description The audiotaped interviews in which you take part, the written work which you do for the writing intensive course in which you are now enrolled, the written work you have previously collected in your portfolio in the writing center, and the audiotapes and transcripts of previous interviews about your writing will be studied by a researcher who is trying to learn more about how the rhetorical demands of disciplines difl‘er, how individuals inscribe themselves as professionals, and how writing intensive courses contribute to this process. With your permission, the investigator may visit a writing intensive class which you are Right to withdraw You are free to refuse to participate in this study or to withdraw without penalty at any time. - Voluntary consent - I certify that I have read the preceding and that I understand its contents. Any questions I have pertaining to the research have been or will be answered by the researcher. My signature below means that I have freely agreed to participate in this study and to be identified to the instructor as a participant in this study. Signature: 185 Consent to Participate in a Study of Inscribing Oneself as a Professional in a Discipline (professors) Investigators Sharon Thomas, Assistant Professor of American Thought and Language , Jay Ludwig, Professor of English MaryAnn Sherby, Ph.D. Candidate in English Education Purpose To study how upper level undergraduate students inscribe themselves as professionals in their chosen disciplines, especially while they are taking writing intensive coursework in these disciplines. Confidentiality . All information obtained from interviews in this study will be kept confidential. In quoting material from interviews, names will be changed to protect your identity, and reports of findings will be written in such a way that no subject can be connected with a specific response or finding. All audiotapes of interviews and transcriptions of interview tapes will be kept in secured files in the writing center or in the investigator’s home. Description The audiotaped interviews in which you take part and the writing assignments which you give to your class will be studied by a researcher who is trying to learn more about how the rhetorical demands of disciplines difi'er, how individuals inscribe themselves as professionals, and how writing intensive courses contribute to this process. With your permission, the investigator may visit a writing intensive class which you are teaching. Right to withdraw You are free to refuse to participate in this study or to withdraw without penalty at any time. _ Voluntary consent 1 I certify that I have read the preceding and that I understand its contents. Any questions I have pertaining to the research have been or will be answered by the researcher. My signature below means that I have freely agreed to participate in this study. Signature: Name (please print): Date: Phone: E-mail: Ofice phone: 1 86 Samples of Questions Asked of Students Note: All students were not asked exactly the same questions, but these questions are typical of those asked in interviews. po-aaacn . What do you perceive as important qualifies for an individual entering into yom' field? . What experiences have been instrumental thus far in helping you to become a professional? . Who has been instrumental thus far in helping you to become a professional, in serving as a mentor for you? . Whatkindsofwrifingareyoudoingnow? Howdoesthiswrifingdifi'erfrom previous writing you have done? . What qualifies does your instructor stress as significant in this wrifing? . Does he (or she) provide examples of this wrifing for you? . Does he (or she) provide feedback on your wrifing? If so, in what way? Has the work you have done in this class been parficularly difiicult or parficularly rewarding for you? Could you give me an example? How does the wrifing and learning you have done previously connect with the wrifing and thinking you now do in your disciplinary courses? 187 End of Semester Questions for Students Nicole, Thinking back over the experiments, wrifing, and thinking you did over the course of this semester, what efl‘ect did Analytical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory have on you as a writer and as a scienfist? (Be as specific as you can in answering.) What changes did you make in your long reports after you reviewed the comments the teaching assistant made on your first one? How did your long report compare to or difi’er from the arficle you helped to write for the [professional] group? What changes did you make in your short reports after you got Dr. Y.’s comments back on your first ones? Julie, As you think back about the planning, studying, and writing you have done for this course, how would you say it has afi'ected you as a music therapist and as a writer? 188 Questions for Professor N. (Similar questions asked of Professor G.) 1. Whatareyourgoalsfor studentsinthisclassintheirthinkingandintheir ' writing? ' How do you hope to enable them to accomplish these goals? 2. What kinds of assignments do the students have in this class? How do students tend to respond to these assignments (any parficular difficulfies they encounter, any particular strengths they show in their wrifing or thinking)? What kind of feedback do you provide them on these assignments? Questions for Professor Y. (first interview) 1. What do you consider essential qualifies for students in chemistry to possess? 2. What specific atfitudes and skills do you try to inculcate in this course? What do you want the students to be able to do when they are finished with this course? 3. What are you noficing about the short reports that you have been evaluafing recently? 4. In general, what do students seem to have the most difliculty with in writing reports for this class? What do they seem to be the most successful in doing in wrifing these reports? 189 Follow-up Questions for Professor Y. (second interview) We talked in our October 17 interview about students’ awareness of audience. “What should I tell the person who is reviewing my work?” the need for them to efl'ecfively communicate their ideas as chemists to individuals above them, below them, or on a par with them, the nwd to look for trends in data in labs, the process of doing to thinking to wrifing, using a logical thought process inwrifing, and the need for feedback. Students ofien feel demoralized by faculty. They don’t realize there are mechanisms in place through which they can improve, don’t take advantage of these. They don’t hesitate to ask for feedback in terms of science “Did I do this right?” but rarely ask “How does this look?” in terms of written text. Now that you’ve had a chance to read a number of reports from students, I’m interested in any comments you have at this point. What are trends are you finding in students’ writing in the short reports you have evaluated up unfil now? What typical comments might you make on these reports? ' What do you see as trends in long reports which teaching assistants have graded? (And what kinds of feedback do you see teaching assistants proviging students? What kind of feedback do you want them to provr e . One central quesfion for me (which we’ve talked about previously, and which may be answered in discussing the questions above) is this one. In the discourse of chemistry (journals, reports) what do you consider to be significant conventions? What qualities do you want to see in this discourse? 190 APPENDIXB Abstracts for Reports in Analyfical-Physical Chemistry Laboratory (Nicole) 191 Abstract: The object of this experiment was to become familiar with Electron Spin (”DAL Resonance Specu'oscopy. To do so, organic anion radicals willebe examined. First, to become acquainted with the instrument, a sucrose standard used Four radicals were“ 7 9 W0 M made to examine with ESR These were catechol, hydroquinone, methylhydroquinonc, and dimcthylbydroquinone. The ESR w®a obtain spectra of each compound. A computer simulation was then used to obtain computer simulated spectra of the four radiuls. These use to compare to the ESR spectra and verify the identity of the compounds. Finally, Huckel calculate the electron densities of the catechol it and hydroquinonc. This information was® in order to deternjinc7hc hyperfine+ I g mini coupling constants of the two mentioned radical. Block Digggm and Description of Experimental Apparatus: V. Whites Q9." JV “W“: firm H/fifu Id Cashew “Wt“ “ :3 eat», U 55—1 32min:- °' 0 E57 553p]; ‘ y o 0 l Mlaflni-L O O O 0 0 A T An ESR consists of a bridge, which supplies the electromagnetic radiation source and the l detector, a console, which contains signal processing and control electronics. The ESR ‘l’ I y also contains a magnet to produce the clecfionic energy levels and a cavity which holds the sample and helps amplify weak signals from the sample. 192 Abstract: . . M H ( Gas chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) ts a very useful instrument uhdetermmflknown compounds, their concentrations and amounts. This GCMS experiment contains four parts of various analysis. First, four compour‘idg yeremaesrtSammed and their identities were determined by looking at the various/augfrom spectra. Secondly, it was determined that compounds are eluted from the GCMS from W boiling points. Thirdly, three stock solutions of naphthalene, anthraceneandd-8,mphthaleuewerepmmmtheGCMSinordermobsavewhemeach . component was eluted Finally, three standard solutions were examined, each containing the three above mentioned components in various concentrations. With this information, theconcenuationofthetmknownvurasexuapolatedontwographs, [naphthalene] vs. 4 9’: napthaleneld—S, naphthalene and [naphthalene] vs. anthracenc/d-8, hthalene, and determined to be Naphthalene: 104.93 ppm and Anthracene: 195? ppm. Block Diagram and Brief Description of Experimental Apparatus: sampbe ~ ‘- .- ’ - " —' — .- qo-‘Y':IO:9 TEA‘ - - - - l '. IV‘k“' to“ M633 *1 o J i L. - - - __,_ " _. r _ ,. -t 7 '— P + i. h - l a he! Men. Wm L pa...“ The sample($l micromolar)cntersthesystemthroughtheinletsomce,where,asinthis +3/Y- experiment, the sample is volatitized into gas phase. In the ion some, the gas is 00an ionic formwheretbenthemassanalyzerseparatestheionbasedonmassto charge ratios. The detector turns the information to an electrical signal which then goes through the signal processor to the readout. Lg SruJ‘ 5 6m, “Ward'. l 193 Abstract: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, NMR, is a very useful method for determining characteristics of compounds. This NMR experiment contained several interpreting J it M the spin-lattice relaxation, T,, and the spin-spin relaxation, T2, of deutmtyfwaterm erent temperatures. M (WM). the D20 experiment, it was determined that as the [Cuz‘] increased, the values of T1 and varying ammmts of copper, and ethyl-l-bromopropan at T2 decreased. The rotational correlation time, re, and the separation of the nuclei, r, were calculated to be 7' and 7. respectively. The trends of TI and '1‘2 were also examined for the various groups of 2 methyl-I-bromopropane. First the relaxation values were determined from the Spectrum at room temperature. Then the changes in T1 and r, were observed at 25°C and at are Here it was observed that as temperature decreased so did the T, and T2 values. Finally, Matlab was used to simulate pulsed NMR in order to examine the relationship between time and fi'equency-domain signal and bandwidth of frequencies by looking at the fourier transform of pulse-excitation functions. In the first Matlab experiment it was observed that as damping times for the time-domain signal increased, the resolution decreased and bandwidth increased. In the second Matlab experiment, it was observed that as pulse width increased, the resolution improved and the bandwidth decreased. + Q/S' 194 Abstract: Ultraviolet/visible light spectroscopy is an extremely effective tool used to determine percent transmittance or absorption. This experiment was divided into three portions. The first was an introduction to uvlvis. The Spectronic 20 was examined to illustrate the basic components of the instrument. Points were then taken using the spec 20 to form a spectra of 0.4 M Cr(l\l0:,)3 . The Hitachi UV- 4000 spectrometer was then used to obtain the same spectrum and the results were compared to that of the spec 20. The spectra’s matched very closely with both km values being approximately 406 nm and absorbencies in the 0.6 region. In the next part of the experiment, the maximum wavelengths and absorption's were taken of five solutions of Cr(N03), ranging in concentration from 0.01 M to 0.06 M. A plot was then made of absorbanoe verses concentration. The absorbance of unknown #1 was then found and using the plot linear regression values, the concentration was found to be 0.033: M Cr. Finally, in the last portion of the uvlvis experiment, three dyes were examined: 1,1’ diethyl-2,2’- cyanine iodide. 1,1’-diethyl-2,2’earbocyanine chloride, and 1,1’-diethyl-2,2’- dicarbocyanine iodide. The 7th,, for each was determined to be 523 nm, 702 nm, and 604 nm respectively from the spectrometer. Theoretical wavelengths for the three dyes were then calculated using the Free Electron Model (A = 478, 605, and 733 nm), and the Huckel Molecular Orbital Model (it = 870, 627, and 489). The Hartree conversion yielded it = 444, 500, 685 nm. All theoretical calculations produced substantial error. 4 M /S’ 76° M§M «I: W ta... 195 Abstract: Fluoreceince Spectrometry is a useful tool in the determination of small concentrations of compounds. Fluoreceince is highly used because of the high sensitivity in which the concentration of compounds can be read, large linear concentration ranges and high selectivity. In this experiment, the wavelengths of maximum absorption and emission for two fluorescent compounds, quinine sulfate and fluorescein, were determined. Next, the influence of excessive absorption on fluorescence was illustrated by adding increasing amounts of quinine sulfate and fluorescein to a'solution and then measuring the emission. Thirdly, the effect of quenching on fluorescence was determined and the Stem- Volmer quenching constant was determined for the bromide and chloride ions. These were determined to be 213.38 and -264.05 Lmor‘ respectively. Finally, the compounds in an unknown were determined to be, by evaluating a 3-D fluoreceince spectra. 196 APPENDIX C Music Therapy Plan: Activities (from Music Therapy Clinic Procedures Manual) Goals and Objectives (Julie) Semester End Progress Report (draft and revised version) (Julie) 197 Aum>ov .uemau mecca“. «emcee 33 «new: mmxwmxwe 3603 cf amen? 9.265285 .v use kc :oEuNQEQo unacknwea 33 we ”5233 92.. .v exits/we .Q l! .. .sofimmefieal 33 «8.3 m3 new 2H5 use. .. wrest . Pvt??? «Se ness”: 3 . «e .m m6 oEem .m. 45.8 seams eousz men 2.9 ezofieeanfi NMR IKAKAW m. cf meneeoNch “amuse 5.3 mace exp newest .m semaphore see song 3am is LYSCCQ 5.8 .33: 23 a? eem5mac5 :35?on more 382 do? see Season :8 5er 3 .moeaaeee «we «is mousse 45.8 «£me mo ”Eng cf em meoficoaufi N8» IRE—infirm. e am 36.38an $3 3033,. 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H .02 2,3330 .300 .5930; new >HH>HHO< 31va make message .N 525$: 333$. .N 925.8 ofiefifio xemnozh cams: r mufimno>acz mumum emwfizofiz mwmwm v mo m Oman m m H H H > m H 0 < nz produced good response with firnctinnalustmfldghthand. W 1410 1"!“- m 1 Currently self-stimulus activities have seemed to decrease. V’ocalizations have begun in session. and out of session vocalizations have increased (as noted by parent). Familiar activities frequently iitvoked physical response - f ' /actions. Response to therapist has been positive throughout sessr . Initial clontact was positive and has continued with acknowledgment of therapist through clients attention to therapisté voice, physical contact with therapist. and facial and verbal expression. Movement activities have been successful fiwoking smfles and vocaliutions. Initial response was positive but slow in engagement. Consequent activities grovided increased involvement in walking, marching and dancing. Cliené vocalizations anhfacial expressions ? suggest enjoyment of ac ' 'ty. Client responds well to positive reinforcement and requires periodic reassurance. M - - - 203 Recommendations Client has begun to develop verbal skills and reduce stimulus activities. Participation hastncteascdwintancnfiontommdmterestmacfiwfitfi‘k .. time... MW indicate increased verbalization as do increased vocalizations in session. Client shows a positive enjoyment of music and music activities ould highly suggest continued MT sessions. Goals involving language acquisition an increase movement and independence wouldbehighlybeneficial Clientis eagertouy wthingsandadaptswelltonew .I onQvouldalsoencouragetheuseof n experiencesinvolvingsensoryitems, as well as oppo continued vocalization. -& ODOW 0%; Wm Music Therapist date Supervisor date 204 Semester End Progress Report December 3, 1997 Areas of Disability and Strength The client is three years old, with visual impairment and development delay. She exhibits prominent stimulus activities involving her right hand in her right eye. Generally the client’s attention span is short and her verbal skills are minimal. Due to recent anival in the United States from Cambodia (July 1997), her adjustment to her surroundings is continuing as she is unsure of her new situation and does not explore things openly. In her initial assessment, showed strength in numerous areas including her interest and enthusiasm for music through her attention to songs that were sung by the therapist. She was openly receptive to a variety of activities althOugh her attention span was short. is willing to try new things and made it quite clear when she was finished or uninterested in the activity. Actions of stopping participation early, and openly expressing her dislike or lack of interest by dropping instruments, throwing instruments, physically rolling away from the therapist, burying her head in her arms while lying on the floor, as well as vocalized screams were prominent indicators. Her enjoyment of activities was evident by smiles, giggles and performance of activities. Goals and Objectives Focus of goals and objectives include: 1) Increase duration of functional use of the right hand 2) Increase frequency of attention to activities 3) Increase functional verbal skills Generally, enjoyment and participation were key in initial sessions. Activities involving engagement of the right hand, and increased involvement of the right hand were successful in beginning to decrease stimulus activities, while attention to activities varied. responded well to high pitch in the therapist’s voice and playful language, possibly due to her age. Rhythm based activities such as drumming with the large floor tom or large paddle drum were effective for use of both hands. 205. Currently, self-stimulus activities have seemed to decrease. Vocalizations have begun in sessions and have increased outside of sessions, as noted by parent. Familiar activities frequently evoked physical response. Response to therapist has been positive throughout sessions. Initial contact was positive and has continued with acknowledgment of therapist through client’s attention to the therapist’s voice, physical contact with the therapist involving hugs and the client sitting on the therapist’s lap, as well as facial and verbal expression. Movement activities involving the client walking around the room with assistance, as well as being held by the therapist to dance, have been successful in evoking smiles, giggles and vocalizations. Initial response was positive, but in some instances was slow to engage in activities. Consequent activities provided increased involvement in walking, marching, dancing and vocalizing. vocalizations of “mah”, “dab”, grunts, screams and facial expressions such as smiling, all suggest enjoyment of the activities and progress to primary goals. responds well to verbal, positive reinforcement such as “good girl”, and turn”, and requires periodic reassurance with vocal praise, hugs and occasionally being picked up and held. Recommendations Client has begun to develop verbal skills and reduce stimulus activities. Participation has increased with attention and interest in activities. Smiles when greeted by therapist, and sounds during activities are more ‘ prominent. Reports from parents, along with previously mentioned clinic events, indicate increased vocalization. shows positive enjoyment of music and music activities. It therefore suggested that Music Therapy sessions continue, with goals involving language acquisition, increased movement and independence. is now eager to try new things and adapts will to new situations. New experiences involving sensory items such as texture, sound and smells, as well as continued opportunity for vocalizations would be beneficial. Music Therapist Date Supervisor Date 206 APPENDIX D Research Papers The Effect of Music on the Essay Writing of Undergraduate Females (Julie) Corned Beef and Tacos: An Irish Creolization (drafl: and final version) (Julie) 207 THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON THE ESSAY WRITING OF UNDERGRADUATE FEMALES by A Research Project Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course MUS 477. Psychology of Music: Research Foundations MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY East Lansing, Michigan April. 1998 Running Head: MUSIC AND WRITING 208 MUSIC AND WRITING Michigan State University When thinking of education, the key elements of reading, writing and arithmetic have often arisen (Axelrod 1988, p. 12). The inclusion of “cultural" studies such as art and music. have also been included in these “necessities”. The effects music and culture have on society have been of interest to many psychologists and have become frequent t0pics of debate among school boards a local communities (Lansing State Journal. March 6, 1998). This interest in the necessity of the arts leads to the question of how the arts are afi‘ecting society. Numerous studies have been done to show the positive influence on behaviors and the proactive results in society and education. More specifically the relation between language and music has arisen, leading to the question of how these two key elements interact. As will be discussed . language acquisition is a key element of development. This study will attempt to determine if music, used as a background, can influence language in a written form, specifically the ability to develop ideas. Does music enhance creative ability in writing and will it effect the written structure? Review of Literature In human development, language development begins at an early age. Often labeled “telegraphic”, the first multiple word utterances a child makes are key foundations in written language. This development evolves from single sounds, imitative sounds, to words (holophasic speech). nonsense phrases and word combinations. to eventual sentences and 209 complete thought ideas (McNeil 1970, p.30-32). In a similar manner, writing is developed. At a young age, children are taught letter recognition and form. These skills build to word, sentence, and paragraph formation over an extended period of time (McNeil 1970, p.80—85). Skills involving writing are key in the education system to allow future participation in society (Darby,1994. ONLINE Feb 2). In early education in Germany (849 AD), music was considered a primary focus along with language acquisition (Livingston 1968, p.246). It was felt that all monastery boys: “ should learn reading, singing, the comutation of holiday’s of the calendar and Latin” (Livingston 1968, p.246). Similarly, in parish schools. the emphasis continue to be on reading, writing. an singing of Psalms an simple songs. These forms of education were seen as key elements in integrating young minds into society. As suggested by Darby, the arts are an integml part of education (1994, ONLINE Feb.2). Writing often began in conjunction with music learning under the influence of the singer Romanus. an educator in the 9th century at the schools of St.Gall and Metz in Germany (Livingston 1968, p.247). This initial music writing style agree with the development of the idea by theorist Huebald from the 9th century. Huebald wrote text syllables between different lines of music according to the distance between intervals. This event led to the stylistic development of teaching in the middle ages. emphasizing rules. examples an imitation (often involving memorization) (Livingston 1968. p.256). In current education.the development of language focuses on grammar. examples an practice skills (Lunsfortl 1989. p.70). 210 Peter Smagorinsky argues that “writing is not the most important factor in development of thinking. Other types of composition (e. g. music, art, dance) are seen as equally valid (Smagorinsky ONLINE Feb. 1998). Music has been discussed as a means of evoking thought, creativity and development. Vanderarks (1998) suggests a correlation between human creativity and music. In agreement with Vanderarks findings, Duke (1987) summarizes the findings in his statement: “music is uniquely suited to reinforce several basic skills which are part of a students’ reading and writing process.” (Duke 1987. p.152). The use of music to allow for idea development and promote analysis and reflective thoughts is also suggested. Duke feels: “ The process responding through writing is a valuable one, it encourages students t pay close attention to detail, it promotes reflection and thinking and it introduces the idea that writing can be used for learning as well as testing.” (Duke 1987, p.153). Duke provides assignments to students involving listening to music an answering key questions about the musical form as well as the images, ideas and thoughts that are evoked in the student. These key elements return to the idea discussed earlier. The connection between music and writing to heighten awareness suggests this connection is important in continuing language development. METHOD Design and Subjects 211 A 2x2 factorial design was used, employing the number of topic sentences used, and the number of descriptive words per topic sentence. Ten female subjects participated in the study. Each was an undergraduate at Michigan State University, at various stages of their Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Subjects were selected from a group of students at the Michigan State Writing Center who were present on March 30 at 3 pm. Apparatus and Materials A table was positioned in the conference room with 10 chairs around it. At each chair, one piece of blank paper and one pen was provided. At half of the seats, a portable walkrnan with ear phones and a copy of "The Blue Danube Waltz” by J. Strausse Jr. from the tape “ Mad about Cartoons” produced by Sony USA were provided. Procedure Subjects were escorted into the room and asked to be seated. Subjects were instructed that the experimenter would tell them to begin, and they were to write on the given paper on the chosen subject of “winter sports” based on the general nature of the topic. Those in seats with walkmans, were instructed to place the earphones over their ears and to listen to the music as they wrote. Subjects were informed the experimenter would tell them when to st0p. Experimenter instructed them to start. After 15 minutes the experimenter returned and collected the writing and tapes. Subjects were debriefed as to the nature of the study. 212 Writing was then analyzed by highlighting and counting the number of topic sentences each paper had. and the number of descriptive words (adjectives) per topic sentence. A 2x2 factorial design was use. Results Using and Independent sample T-test (Appendix A) on the computer program SPSS, the mean difference in description was 1.2 with a significance of .189. This indicates a minimal variance between the two groups and no significant difference. With the assessment of topic sentences the mean difference was 1.8, indicating no significant difference. The group with music did not score significantly higher than the group without music in either category. Discussion The results of the presented study indicate that music with writing does not serve as an enhancor of description. Both groups were able to develop ideas and produced focus topic sentences to direct the writing. The results were very general, without significant evidence to indicate a drastic difference between the two groups. Minimal research in this area has been done, and further study is needed to solidify the correlation between language and music. Although the results did not indicate significant variance. the subjects indicated they felt more focused on their writing. As Smagorinsky suggests. music is important in development, as is writing. The link between the two is not evident in this study, but with further research, a relation may be found. 213 - F/fiIMCWOWC“ 9% “m 1mnfie W7: 534’ fade! v » LU 60.: Lb‘we, $21: C13 4:) lop. ear \flCvfiJ d‘ ‘9 a? - ' . $1.3 4: SVLC.(3p-(r\(\ G‘i - ‘3.ng Lndi'LJICL-UC44 +3 {04“; 0 (“AI “WV -L’f"‘(¥ ,(alx easutmmmbovsanat'nnsciub theaenemsrepreaemuiueiolnngmherora Q“ “Lev . conunuuuuy. iheuiiversuuymmiamingiaunavoidable: mmema V a: 3%i’és:7 A g b F. tun university, Wig has a High minimal simian Won. winch W 9, <- s‘ '” 3 Laulswascgregatiou cfpeoplclwcauseofaiackofcommonaiityflhisyearlxal \OMV’( has...“ and the cczmacrdty at’mnptcd cab”: mgtitc East' “mars, unanimity closer :cgc-.... 2r: "Ne prairie: a back drop to much of the activity, Mule providing a focus 214 .r-—:- —. to the m. Enid; Upon at" \ JL‘IH' I. ' anon-tomb”mdthatthemn-pmenfflwewntWMmlvmmmmhneeded funds. hnmtosufializeandceiebrate. St. Pafiek’smyseamtnamgidealday tmsuchteatwutiesastvrncaflythennageofmy’a, heel-.mmichmdandfima'ecumjmed \lv‘fib Q6 J K W3 ”NS (new Wk“ M upauihesuggesuunofSG—W. Havingrehu‘iveawithhflurootshassiuownmeuhe minimum 01"de iviy ueiaiivcsumaidea duisdayalnliday andalWays garlic: every year a. slum stones, catch up on aid times and current events, and share a social and 5.3;: timc tcgctlza'... Thiswas dcfmtlytbccascinliastlansing. Greeters cncomagcsmow inthe lobby to findasect and enjoy the festivities. Iiveiymusicbeckonedtothoseinthe ticizuityanditwastheIrishligthatirxdicatedtometiuatwewereirimerigmplaee. Themmmdednddrasmafldancefloordimcflymsidemedommsma Mndheekmedfimnbehindthedameflmrand amoftahiesaqmtedduecmwdfmm thctlmr. Aberwasinfliemmiteumqndpaflemmgiedmnmdaafliefmdwas \ Mmmmmmmmmmm.mmmaf adultsbetweenttueaaeeorsuanaou.werenmginaingrounsarounomermé< » ’ "i'bemsn" Jigmaufimbeckunedmemwasthebackdmpwammbyé yumiggiuis. 'i'hewwsoa'labiwsuummaliugduedameflma werefdiedwithadm'u'hug relativ'csandfricnds. Asthcgidsdanced, audicmememberssocialized, watchedand fifigfi‘ 535:3”- ..3£sz£: £2? 215 found seats. Facingthe dance flooritwaseasyto seethesalsabandconsistingof’z trombones, ! trumpet apercussionistmadrumset,25axopbonists,abassguitrplayer mdadanceleaderwhofilledinpemmsimmkeepthecmwdmwing. ltwasquitedwicmtbismemanwasinchargeofthedancefloor. Hecmtinuaily mnndunedarmgsmdwmtedmecmwdmgetmemimflvedmthecdelwanm. Hewas persistent, evenuhoughufewofduelngecmwdjohedhinmduedanceflomfiebem withasalsalesumaudwlledhiswifeamlafew fiieualshelunewbynaunewthefau. [dequdahwiy salsabcat, hcqfnkiy gotthcpartidpamsinvdved. Ills cb'dcas dancing “‘ent maxed many tin-lockers as he and his wife took control of the 1 dance floor on the next ecti? "w. (v\(‘l-'F:'. ; ‘l ’7 ‘~ ‘ ' " '5 _ ., l y I Asimadcmywaytothefrmdtable. lumpngellxmwitbpewlewearingfiissme I’m Imh”maudmm‘greatlteitarwkqndinfluemd Altbmghlluadm Wontomemuenmmmem. l‘hetbodaelecumnofleredata mmtumewmdduobabiymkemymhciummmebeaofnnesl’mnuauco Ianbmwpiweuhanbeskiemiedbeefnaicabbagewasawhoienewexpaiencefor set me. Swidingva the food table it was difficult to beau anything the servers were saying. The “can, W off the ceiling. cleanly arrived over the crowed to the back of the room. 'N: ....-o-- .--.- A . a. .'. 361.». .. -". ' "Q' . ‘s'. “\- f: O a r. U . ' 5"“..3 .- a now. a ‘\ no. “t... mums... ti:c vcnntc c. “use sen», nwtacmg a. use "' ‘ us. a... 10031., " m «M w mmw-WM ‘3‘“ member: as maples attention was drawn in different directions. “‘5“va vvuarvuuvu MU 216 The .zncJ ead-., highly smedin dance st- u, had the dixectattention ofthosc adjacent tome dmceflmwhenltttmned totbetable. He mdh'swifewerewowingme cmedwlthfidrfmyfiwflwmlrandmggesfiwsalsam. 'l'beenetgyoffivemmicwas Waldtheirdamtngmqflifiedflweafi‘ect Anunfm‘liaritywiflathedancesteps seemedtokeepoemfle inmetrseomlnnwith“eneouagement”meywaeaflemcoaxa iew We" wthefloor. Widtowedtheleadwmle, lea-litigthedancesteps slowly asihclufldp'ayed. 'l'heumsieseemedwmy tlmnmdalthwghnmeofthe wuplw were ptofteient, all seemed to be enjoy'mg the activity. The music encompassed all lezels of ablitg, and even nose "he had obvious leaniqaa, 'a'eae able to dance in a snail space with 2h 3: where learning as fliey went. Even those in the crowd were encouraged as many tapped'b ...-.. eirfeet, their finger and hand clapping or tapping tables to the beat. Man) gnrwrrl tame-music and did ghoyt gtm gemmccg lath: Md The dance: flay was not vmuainedtnmem. hnmtmdafncalprimmmpetflemmdflvenmmd intermixthcm. Ahereachdance.annfleswlmhadmainedhflneirownqncewhiedatmg, mmmmmmmmmamnmaswefiasmeemgnewpeopie wthemmfirlgubiesuweilepleaitthgmommbknmimdwhymch undiwowiahinguulw,Mwmcquitchlmwdinmn‘rmmingfmm Behind us in the food and drink area, people continually chatted and unugled with each other. The am. a. W. m... "I" “I ‘ .5 .u' ' ' .‘O‘ 00“ A.” Q‘o.‘..\'nf ”A. ”I‘I‘...‘IA Sinus-a», wiamw sun: was“ ”1,1 my luv u yaw uy «nu any way»: vuduweuu. a :..w....i.,a is a key aspectin societj, main: mic is always a lac} element. This celebrati 217 was: no exception The live band prodded condnous interaction with the crowd, clawing on them md firming them to actively participate. The dance leader played on the crowd, singing to them. dancing with them; encouraging and fainting them to dance He beckoned toflmseatthehackofmenmandsingledomWheknewmflyinaneffm'tto get eveiyone involved. 1‘ 218 Corned Beef and Taco’s: An Irish Creolizau'on Within North American society, their are many ethnic, racial and social groups, each with diverse qualities. Members often associate themselves with a group because of certain characteristics they and the group share in common such as personal choices of dress, common language, food or music which provide group or “membership” identity. Groupsalsogamermcelebrateflteh'idenfitywimceremoniesandhohdays thatare significant to their group. These celebrations ofien incorporate music, food and dancing that is traditional or identified to their group. Integration ofthese identities could enable societytobefarmore diverse and tmderstanding ofthe individualityeach ofus tries to keep. The SLPatJick’s Day event is one opportunity to experiment with cross-culun'al integration, one I feel will be successful in bringing a diverse community together. Ihediversityirtfiastlansingis unavoidable as Michigan State, abigten university, has a high international student population. This diversity provides a rich cultural learning experience for many but sometimes leads to a segregation of people 11. .‘J \K L because of a lack of commonality. A common link between corned beef and cabbage, re- (“W lt/ flied beans and green ale, or salsa music, the mambo and a traditional Irish jig may not be ’ h/ A’ obvious to many people in the general population. On March 17 1998, local businesses and the community attempted to bring the East Lansing comrmmity closer together. For those I who attended the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in support of the East Lansing Boys and Girls club, these items represent the joining together of a community. The music provided a back drop to much of the activity, while providing a focus to the celebration. Combining 219 Irish tradition with Mexican and Caribbean customs of music, movement and food, and modern creolization was celebrated. j Upon arriving at the Ramada Inn, it was obvious where the celebration was. Entering the area adjacent to the pool, participants were mingling and talking in groups, while music and food surrounded them. St. Patrick’s Day seems to have been an ideal choice of day for such festivities as typically the image of party’s, beer, music, food and fimareconjm'edupatthesuggestionofthis wellknownIrishfestival. Havingrelativeswith Irishmotshasshownme the seriousness ofthe occasion. Myrelativesconsiderthis daya holiday and always gather everyyearto share stories, catch up on old times and current events, mdshareasocialandfimtimetogether. ThisseemedtobethecaseinEast Iansing Greetersencmuagedmoseinmelobbytofindaseatandenjoymefesfiwues, whilelivelymusicbeckonedtothoseinthevicinity. ItwastheIrishJigthathrdicatedtome that we were in the right place. The room was crowded with a small dance floor directly inside the door. The Salsa band beckoned from behind the dance floor and a row of tables separated the crowd from the floor. A bar was in the apposite comer, and people mingled around as the food was close by and the tantaliz’ng smells beckoned to everyone. The crowd, consisting of adults between the ages of 30 and 60, were mingling in groups around the room. The Irish Jigthatfirstcaughtmy attention was the back drop to adance performance by 6 young girls. The rows of tables surrounding the dance floor were filled with admiring relatives and friends. As the girls danced, audience members socialized, watched and relaxed. As the performance ended we easily found seats. Facing the dance 220 flooritwaseasytoseethesalsabandconsistingontrombones, l tnnnpetapercussionist onadrumset, Zmophonisaabassguitarplayerandadanceleaderwhofilledin percussion to keep the crowd moving. The danceleaderwasastronginluenceondresocialactivities.Itwasquiteobvious thisonernanwasinchargeofflredancefloor.Hecontinuallyintroducedsongsand worked the crowd to get them involved in the celebration He was persistent, even thought fewofthelarge crowdjoinedhimonthedancefloor.Hebeganwithasalsa1essonand pulledhiswifeandafewfiiendsheknewbynametothefloor.Usingsirnpledirections andalivelysalsabeathequicldygottheparticipantsinvolved.Hisobviousdancingtalent amazedmanyon-lookersasheandhiswifetookconu'olofthedanceflooronthenextset. Aslmademywaytothefoodtable,btnnpingelbowswithpeoplewearingfldssme I’mIrish”buttonsandlotsofgreen,Ifeltenvelopedinthecrowd. AlthoughIhadno associationrothegrouplfeltpartofthegrmtp.'I‘hefoodselections, ifofferedata difi’erent time, would probably make my stomach churn. At the best of times I’m not a taco fan, but to place them beside corned beef and cabbage was a whole new experience for me. Standing at the food table it was dificult to hear anything the servers were saying The music, bouncing oflme ceiling, clearlyarrivedoverthe crowdtothe back of the room. Thisincreasedthevohune ofthosesocialtyirrwractirrgatthebackoftheroomcausingan almost competition like atmosphere as peoples attention was drawn in difl'erent directions. Thedanceleader,highlysldlledindancesteps, hadthedirectattentionofthose adjacenttothedancefloorwhenlreunnedtome table. He andhiswife werewowingthe crowd with their fancy foot work and suggestive salsa moves. The energy of the music was 221 contagious and their dancing amplified the afl'ect. An mtfamiliarity with the dance steps seemed to keep people in their seats, but with “encouragement” they were able to coax a few “volunteers” to the floor. Couples followed the lead couple, learning the dance steps slowlyasthebandplayed. Themusicseernedtocarrythemandalthoughnoneofdre couples were proficient, all seemed to be enjoying the activity. The music encompassed all levels ofabilityandeventhose whohad obvious technique, were abletodance inasmall spacewiththosewhowereleamingastheywent. Even thoseinthecrowdwere encouraged asmanytappeddreirfeet, meirfingerandhandclappingortappingtablesto thebeatManyswayedtothemusic mddidshortstepsequencesinthecrowd. Thedance floorwasnotcontainedtoonearea, butwasusedafocal pointtomovepeople aroundthe room and intermix them. Afiereachdance, coupleswhohadremainedintheirownspacewhiledancing, intermixed, greetingoldfiiends withhandshakes andhugs, aswellasmeetingneWpeople with srrriles and cordial greetings. This fiiendly atmosphere moved beyond the dance floor to the surrounding tables as well. PeOple sitting at our table inquired why my companions and I were taking notes, and were quite interested in our reasoning for attending. Behind us in the food and drink area, people continually chatted and mingled with each other. The music, continuing throughout our stay, keep the energy up and the people connected. Celebrationisakeyaspectinsocietyandmusicisalwaysakeyelement. This celebration was no exception. The live band provided continuous interaction with the crowd, drawing on them and influencing them to actively participate. The dance leader played on the crowd, singing to them. dancing with them, encouraging and enticinging 222 themtodance. Hecalledtothoseatthebackofthcroomandsingledonupeopleheknew personaflyhranefiorttogeteveryoneinvolved. ’I'helimitedspaceprovidedmademeeventverysocialandmadeitfeellikeonebig group. Upon arriving I was initially unaware of the band as the aunosphere was comforting andfiiendlyandlwasdrawnintothegroupirnmediately..Gr-eeterstreatedmelikel belongedalthoughllorewno one associatedwiththe event. Duringtheevening, obtaining foodwasachallengeaspeoplewerecrowedtogether. Thelirnitedspaceandtheloud music encouraged and ahnost forced people to be close to each other. On the dance floor limitedspacewasalsoprominent,buttheirwasenoughroomforasmallgrouptoleam newdancesteps. lheenergcdcandflrfidmowmentsofflredancekadermdlfiswifeenficedmany mdwcrowdmparficipatebyclappingmdnppmgdrehfeetasmeyobsavedmeshow. 'lhebackthreequartersoftheroom, althoughfocusedinconversation, remainedapartof thcbiggergroupoccasionallybeingpulledomonthe dancefloor,ordivertedbythestrong rhythrnandloud music. Thosewhodidventure tothedance floor receivedlessonsonthe Merengue and the Salsa. Minglingin the crowd it was obvious the music was afi'ecting themasbodyswaying, solodancingandfootandfirgertappingwereevident. Although Wfimmnntmmanflmmaemmnfmmdam opportunityweredefinitelyprovided. In class we have discussed the idea of creolization being a blending of cultures within a society. This blending often occurs not only within the physical population, but also within the culture of the community as traditions, food. music and celebrations are 223 sharedandintegrated. IheEastLansmgevenginsupponoftheEastlansingBoysand GhlsClub,isanexampleofthisprocess.Theeventbroughttogetherpeopleinthe community, andallowedthemtosharefood, musicandcustomsoftheMexican, Caribbeanandlrishcommmifiesinliastlansing AlthoughIamonlymoderatelyfamiliar withthesetraditicms, Ibecameapartoftheeventandagruterpartoftheconuntmity. student paper revisons, Spring 1998 Your revision has strengthened this paper considerably. The opening two paragraphs are much tighter and focused. In addition, you’ve got some nicely crafted sentences, although I’m sure that my ability to appreciate that is enhanced by the improved organization of the paper. Your evidence is also improved by the focused research question since it allows the reader to "see“ the creolization process taking place in your description. 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