Post on 13-Dec-2015
From FLC to TLC: An Exploration of Linguistic
Differences & Student Experiences with Academic
Writing
Cynthia Kopp, Writing Arts Instructor
Sharada Krishnamurthy, Director, Rowan University Writing Center
Welcome & IntroductionsPresenters:
What is a Faculty Learning Community Origins and evolution of this FLC Theoretical framework Pedagogical Implications Question / Answer
Agenda
What are Faculty Learning Communities?
A “communit
y of practice (Wenger,
1998)
Trans-disciplinary
8 – 10 members
Topic-based
Sustained• 8 meetings over the course of a year
Informal; not focused extensively on negotiated timing or other formal structures at meetings
While including the efficiency of getting things done, have more focus on the social aspects of building community
Emphasis on the team aspect (while still consulting about and developing a project)
Emphasis on the ultimate beneficiaries of the community’s work: the students
They are also……
Motivation for starting our FLC Communication and collaboration between the campuses and
departments Identifying interested faculty and staff members which share
common needs and goals.
This FLC: Linguistic Differences and Student Experiences of Academic Writing
Multiple perspectives◦ Composition studies◦ Second language acquisition / ESL◦ Science (no background in teaching writing)◦ Education – K-12
◦ Theoretical framework evolved over time to incorporate combination of: Composition studies Transformative education Academic literacies
Theoretical framework
At the Intersection of SLA & Composition
Krashen, S. (2004) Explorations in Language Acquisition & Use. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.
---(1982) Principles & Practice in Second Language Acquisition. NY: Prentice Hall MacMillan.
Comprehensible Input Hypothesis:
The learner can only acquire or learn language she can understand by connecting it to prior knowledge & known concept. Language is that not understood is just “L2 noise.”
I +1 or Input +1
In SLA, input hypothesis presents viable alternative to immersion models, but where can they fit in a composition classroom?
i+1 model might make sense on a language learning class, but becomes problematic for composition classes in that it might boil activities down to the mere retrieval and transmission of information.
Krashen’s theories re-imagined for the field of Composition
Bartholomae suggests:“We want our students to learn to compose a response to their reading (and, in doing so, to learn to compose a reading) within the conventions of the highly conventional language of the university classroom. We are, then, teaching the language of the university and, if our course is a polemic, it is so because we believe that the language of the university can be shown to value
‘counterfactuality’ ‘individuation’ ‘potentiality’ ‘freedom’”
What are we teaching?
Bartholomae, D. & Petrosky, A. (1986)Facts, Artifacts, & Counterfacts: Theory & Method for a Reading & Writing Course. Boynton/Cook Publishers.
First year students don’t feel they have the status or authority to cast readings in their own terms.
“A classroom performance represents a moment in which, by speaking or writing, a student must enter a closed community, with its secrets, codes and rituals (8).”
The problem of authority
Bartholomae, D. & Petrosky, A. (1986)Facts, Artifacts, & Counterfacts: Theory & Method for a Reading & Writing Course. Boynton/Cook Publishers.
“A philosophy of writing instruction based on Bakhtinian precepts entails that educated language users ‘recognize and respond to’ the ideological implications of their own and others’ discourses” (7)
“the discourse of college writing classrooms,like the dialogized language of the novel, is interanimated ideologically and stylistically by the discourses of others” (7).
Ideological Implications
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
“Through the concept of dialogism, Bakhtin establishes the critical need to sustain dialogue in the unending quest to maintain difference and diversity, hallmarks of intellectual growth and health, or what de Man refers to as the ‘heterogeniety of one voice with regard to any other’” (8)
Dialogism & Heteroglossia
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
“In the end, alerting first-year writing students to the political power and cultural significance of language may be all we can manage in first-year writing classes” (34).
“Encountering new and strange discourses might not be dramatic or dangerous, but it can damaging, for a student’s survival in the university depends upon her ability to decipher and encode into her own discourse the language and rhetorical strategies of the academy” (36).
Student Voices & Power
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
According to Bizzell, basic writers suffer less from being ill-prepared and more from ideological disenfranchisement.
“Their difficulties are best understood as stemming from the initial distance between their world view and the academic world view, and perhaps also from the resistance to changing their own world-views that is caused by this distance” (36).
Ideology & Resistance
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
“It remains one of educations most ironic demands that a student who gains admission to the academy must lose, deny, or neglect her home knowledge in order to acquire the power to defend and argue for the validity of that same world view.”
In a Bakhtinian sense, the student must “become adept at producing centripetal discourse while simultaneously seeking to create centrifugal discourse.” (36-37)
Identity & the Centrifugal Force of Language
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
Students bring the discourse that they are most familiar with into their writing, for instance, parental and instructional voices, the discourse from their home and school, which are often moral in nature.
Halasek argues that instructors of basic writing include and validate these discourses as a starting point rather than resist them (41).
Identity & Student Voices
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
Halasek sees referring to our students as “writers” as a “colonizing gesture” we make in claiming the right to name them.
This gesture “necessarily subordinates students’ wishes, self representations, and other voices to the teachers’ expectations and demands” (48).
Naming students as writers protects our own self interest our privileged positions in the academy (50).
Identity & Student Voices
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
Halasek challenges the view of the writing class as a “community of writers” by suggesting that students often do see themselves as writers.
She suggests that we foreground the various communities to which students “(un)consciously and (c)overtly pledge allegiance” so that we may invite them to celebrate, investigate, and ultimately begin to question those communities (51).
Identity & Student Voices
Halasek, K. (1999). A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press.
Instead of “input + 1” we are suggesting:
Identity + 1
Or even…..
I2 + 1 (Identity + Ideology + 1)
Re-imagining Krashen and i+1
Writing centers can serve as valuable resources in language acquisition and development of academic writing
Writing Centers provide a supportive environment with peer tutors to help students with SLA
Writing Centers and SLA
Understanding the theories that inform SLA Incorporating this understanding in tutoring
techniques Serving as cultural informants
How can writing centers help?
Behaviorist – You learn by drill and practice Innatist – You are hardwired to learn a
language Cognitivist – Noticing is important Interactionist – It helps to talk with an
expert
Tseng, T.J. (2004) Theoretical perspectives on learning a second language. In S. Bruce & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers- A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Theoretical Approaches to SLA
Receiving input Imitating and practicing it repeatedly Getting encouragement (positive
reinforcement) Forming associations between words and
objects
Tseng, T.J. (2004) Theoretical perspectives on learning a second language. In S. Bruce & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers- A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Behaviorist
Innatist Includes Krashen’s theory
◦ Comprehensible input hypothesis Helping with simplifying and gesturing
◦ Affective filter hypothesis Providing a low-stress, judgement-free environment
Tseng, T.J. (2004) Theoretical perspectives on learning a second language. In S. Bruce & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers- A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Noticing Practicing Making the skill automaticWCs provide the space to practice in a safe, nurturing environment
Tseng, T.J. (2004) Theoretical perspectives on learning a second language. In S. Bruce & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers- A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Cognitivist
Interactional Tactics: Checking comprehension Requesting clarification Confirming meaning Self-repeating Paraphrasing
Tseng, T.J. (2004) Theoretical perspectives on learning a second language. In S. Bruce & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers- A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Interactionist
Contrastive rhetoric – language and writing are cultural phenomena
SLA cannot happen without understanding cultural contexts
Tutors serve as cultural informants
Tutors as Cultural Informants
“High schools can fully prepare students only for admission to college, not for the challenges of being a college student.”
Hjortshoj, K. (2009) The Transition to College Writing. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Transition from High School to College Writing