supporting scholarly exchange about communication across the curriculum
Content Area:
Communication Across the Curriculum
Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum
Writing to Learn vs. Writing in the Disciplines
Discipline:
Welcome to the WAC Clearinghouse Theses and Dissertations Page. The theses are displayed below. If you'd like us to add a new thesis or dissertation to our list, please contact Kevin Eric De Pew.
This qualitative inquiry explored the writing experiences of mid level undergraduate education students, who wrote eight required assignments during a sixteen-week education course. An eclectic research framework was designed to explore students' experiences. This design was based primarily on Elliot Eisner's model of the researcher as Educational Connoisseur and Critic. The design also drew from phenomenological methods to refine access, analysis and interpretation of students' writing experiences. These methods included heuristic interviews and hermeneutic readings of student written log entries through which they described what they experienced when they wrote each required assignment.
Analysis of students' descriptions partially revealed many complex and dynamic qualitative features or qualities of students' writing experiences. These qualities formed the content of ten categories, which were further combined into five organizational themes. These themes were illuminated through detailed narrative descriptions supported by students' own words. Description and analysis also revealed two meta-themes, which illustrated the autobiographical characteristic and highly interactive and constructive nature of students' writing experiences.
Explanation of the meaning of students' experiences was best achieved through the socio-historical perspective of Vygotsky in relation to students' conscious awareness of inner speech and the use of language as a tool to assist learning. Also, the Vygotskian Theory of scientific versus spontaneous concept development provided a way of understanding students' frequent use of past experiences in their efforts to construct meaning and understanding of new concepts encountered in the course. Using Dewey's criteria, for judging the educational worth of students' academic experiences, found the writing activities worthwhile in contributing to students' intellectual growth and promoting their future engagements toward becoming new teachers.
This inquiry employed an Approach different from that used in past research in writing and explored students' lived experiences related to their writing activities. It used phenomenological methods and illustrated the many private qualitative features that could be evoked, through students' engagement in academic writing activities. These private features of students' writing experiences had important meanings to the students who participated in this inquiry and may have meaning as well to researchers who might continue to explore students' writing engagements in the future.
Because collaborative writing has become more frequent in both academic and professional business settings, I became interested in the cognitive and affective dimensions of collaborative writing. Very little research with a cognitive-affective focus has been done on collaborative writing. Most writing research before the late 1980s and early 1990s had the individual writer as the unit of analysis, not a team of writers.
In many academic disciplines and in the professional workplace, writing projects are carried out by teams of writers. As these writers work together, they socially negotiate agreements about writing goals, readers' expectations, planning, division of labor, drafting, revision, conferences, and integration into a final draft. Such complex social interactions offer occasions for conflict. At the same time, writers may encourage each other or develop a stronger involvement with the work because of an obligation to the other writer(s).
Writing teams are, in essence, distributed cognitive systems, with each writer having skills, knowledge, and abilities that may complement and overlap those of the other writer(s). Technological tools also interact with both the cognitive and affective aspects of collaborative writing. {Paragraph Break} To learn more about the dimensions and interactions of collaborative writing, I selected and interviewed writers from five academic and professional teams. Because these teams included two or three writers each, any implications or conclusions I reached may have less applicability and relevance for larger teams.
This study could be useful for most academic or professional writing teams. The five case studies showed that conflicts could be reduced through several means: effective early planning; clear definitions of roles, goals, audience, and purpose; acceptance of constructive criticism; strategic use of face-to-face meetings and e-mail; flexibility in the event that writing conditions change; and ability to distinguish personal from substantive conflicts. These case studies also revealed the value of collaborative writing for mentoring and teambuilding. Also, writers were able to blend their individual voices into a team writing voice. The participants reported satisfaction with and pride in their collaborative writing, saying it was better than it would have been with only one writer involved. Finally, collaborative writing generates new ideas and understandings.
Much recent composition research has focused on writing difference. Deviations from standard written English have been studied regarding gender, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status. for example, after the implementation of open admissions policies, composition scholars researched methods to assist “basic writers” in developing their writing skills to collegiate levels. One group of writers which has not been studied, though, is honors students. A review of twentieth-century American college-level honors education demonstrates that honors programs focus their curricula and instruction upon developing critical thinking skills; similarly composition and language Theorists argue that writing instruction, both in the composition classroom and throughout the college curriculum, is a key tool in developing those critical thinking skills. Therefore, I contend that honors students need to strengthen critical thinking skills and that participation in a comprehensive writing program designed specifically for honors students is essential in strengthening such skills. To facilitate development of such programs, I propose a set of guidelines for this development which include program admission exercises, composition courses and seminars, capstone projects, and extracurricular writing activities. Information for these guidelines was gathered through a survey of composition components within 300+ National Collegiate Honors Council member programs at two-year, four-year, and graduate degree-granting colleges and universities. Guideline sections also include discussion of differentiationbetween honors and nonhonors courses and writing assignments. From these guidelines, honors program directors and writing program directors should develop honors composition components which meet honors students' needs in building their writing and critical thinking skills.
The purpose of this reading and language arts study was to determine how the use of portfolio evaluation in the curriculum of 6th grade students would effect: (1) students' correct use of grammar and mechanics in writing, (2) students' overall writing ability, (3) student attitudes towards writing, and (4) teachers' perception of portfolios. The participants were 20 students in a sixth grade middle school.
Students were administered pre- and posttests which included a writing sample and the Writer Self Perception Scale (Bottomely, Henk, & Melnick, 1998). Students were offered the chance to provide self reflection on their portfolios through the use of journals. The writing sample was analyzed for its overall writing score as well as for grammar and mechanics. The teacher was also given a pre- and posttest questionnaire and was interviewed regarding portfolios. T tests were used to evaluate the data.
The results indicated no statistically significant improvement in students' correct use of grammar and mechanics after being exposed to portfolio analysis. It was found that students' performance in overall writing did improve significantly. Results indicated no statistically significant increases in students' attitudes toward writing, however, students did produce positive feedback regarding attitude towards writing in their journals. The teacher developed a more positive attitude regarding the use of portfolios in the classroom and for instructional decision making.
The focus of this study was to examine the effect of guided Internet writing activities on students' writing. The W/IT plan (Writing using the Internet as a Tool) was a step-by-step guide with purposeful online literacy activities. Specifically, the study was designed to investigate the effect of using writing/Internet activities upon the writing of second grade children.
Two groups of second grade students were the subjects in the study. Twenty-eight students were in the control group and twenty-eight students were in the experimental group. The study coordinator administered a pre-test writing activity to all of the students (experimental and control) to obtain a writing sample. The twenty-eight students in the experimental group were required to have Internet access. The two groups were similar in that they were second grade students with Internet access.
Students in the experimental group followed a step-by-step guide (twice a week for 25 minutes or more) with a parent. The study coordinator provided the parents with the W/IT Guide. No training for parents or students was provided. This guide was used at home with a parent. This guide included Internet based writing activities, The students in the control group did not participate in the use of this guide. The control group did not receive a treatment.
The experimental group used the W/IT program from October 19 through December 13. At the conclusion of eight weeks, the study coordinator administered a post-test writing activity yielding a writing sample from all 56 students. The pre-writing and post-writing samples were analyzed using holistic scoring. This procedure yielded scores which were compared. T-tests comparing the means were conducted and it was decided if there was a significant difference. This study attempted to determine whether or not guided Internet writing activities improved students' writing ability.
The purpose of this study was to examine the collaborative implementation of an early literacy curriculum in a full-inclusion primary grade classroom comprised of students with mild disabilities and their general education peers. The curriculum, known as the Early Literacy Project (ELP) curriculum (Englert, Garmon, Mariage, Rozendal, Tarrant, & Urba, 1995), encompassed an integrated, curricular Approach to literacy instruction guided by the enactment of literacy principles informed by sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky, 1978, Wertch, 1991).
The inclusion classroom under study was co-taught by a general education and special education teacher. The study sought to examine four questions about the process of inclusion, co-teaching, and the implementation of the ELP curriculum that addressed, (a) how the co-teachers negotiated their instructional roles in the context of full-inclusion, (b) how the co-teachers enacted the literacy principles and activities of the ELP curriculum, (c) how special education students negotiated their roles as learners in inclusion process, and (d) special education students' performance and participation in the literacy community Across the school year.
The collaborative implementation of the ELP curriculum was examined from a descriptive analytical Approach. Data sources included: (a) fieldnotes from direct observations of the classroom, (b) transcribed audio- and video-tapes of literacy activity in the classroom, (c) informal interviews and conversations with the teachers and students, (d) students' pre and post assessments in reading, (e) classroom artifacts, and (f) personal reflections recorded after classroom observations.
This study extends the research on inclusion by examining questions about the process of general and special educators' negotiation of literacy principles that informed and shaped their co-enactment of an integrated literacy curriculum designed to enhance the reading and writing performance of students with mild disabilities. Further, the study provides important implications regarding the potential for a co-teaching model to bring about important changes in the general education literacy curriculum and to help special and general education teachers begin to define what it means to teach in more inclusive ways.
Classroom response groups have been widely advocated as a method for providing students with abundant, immediate feedback to their writing in progress. Teachers have experienced continuing difficulties implementing writing response groups, however—particularly at the high school level. High school teachers who use writing response groups typically manage the groups through scripts of questions for each writer to ask the group. Sociological Theory suggests scripting writing response groupwork is a mismatch with the nature of response to writing as an “ill-structured problem”: a task for which there is no single right answer nor any single means of reaching a right answer.
This study compared scripted peer response with a role-based method. The scripted treatment entailed partial delegation of authority by the teacher and structures for producing sequential interdependence. The role-based method entailed full delegation of authority by the teacher and structures for producing reciprocal interdependence. Both treatments included features that allowed the researcher to control on elements of the treatments other than the variable of type of supervision that could be expected to produce talk within groups and subsequent achievement. Four high school teachers implemented both treatments in different classes. Throughout the study the two treatments were presented as being equally promising. The population of students experiencing the treatments was ethnically and socioeconomically diverse.
Research assistants reached 90 percent or greater reliability with the researcher before observations of ten target students in each of the eight classes that produced the dataset. These students were observed five times each, in three-minute increments, for various kinds of talk and behavior. Achievement in writing was measured through a portfolio of writing by each student, including an epistolary essay characterizing the writings. Criteria for achievement were growth, the taking of risks as a writer, range, quality of the writings, and reflection on one's own and others' writing. Portfolio scorers achieved reliability with the researcher of 94 to 96 percent. With controls for students' previous achievement and teachers' rigor of implementation of the treatments, role-based versus scripted treatment was a significant predictor of the rate of specific, actionable talk about writing and of writing achievement.
As Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) enters its third decade, it is faced with the challenge to advance collaborative models of program development. Older models, characterized by a missionary zeal to spread the Gospel of writing-based pedagogies, have recently been criticized by scholars as imperialistic. Susan McLeod, Catherine Blair, Christine Farris, and Mary Minock all have argued that these models ignore important differences in how writing is taught within the disciplines. Moreover, they charge, the missionary zeal that characterizes much of WAC scholarship also ignores the cultural differences of the disciplines. Needed is a multi-cultural model of WAC that fosters rather than inhibits disciplinary interaction.
In this dissertation, I Theorize a “contact zone” model for WAC program development. In “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Mary Louise Pratt describes the indeterminate space where cultures come in contact. She notes that this space can either be a site of colonialism or a site of dialogic exchange. While Pratt neither addresses WAC nor disciplinary cultures, her model of the “contact zone” provides a useful analogue for conceiving a dialogic exchange among disciplines. In order to apply Pratt's model to WAC, I rely on the work of Julie Thompson Klein who has Theorized the various types of multi-disciplinary, transdisciplinary, and interdisciplinary exchanges among the disciplinary cultures that can be collaborative and productive. Klein provides the disciplinary antecedent to Pratt's multi-cultural Theory. In addition, I suggest Donald Schon's reflective practices as a methodology for negotiating these exchanges. Schon's Theory focuses on the experiential knowledge of professionals that contributes to their expertise. By linking Pratt, Klein, and Schon, I Theorize WAC as a space where disciplinary cultures come in contact to reflect upon and to discuss writing-based pedagogies. The outcomes of this activity, I argue, are various forms of multi-disciplinary, transdisciplinary, and interdisciplinary knowledge that help build on WAC's foundation.
A number of recent books, articles, and nationwide assessments tell us that students are not learning history. In response, individuals and groups, from a wide variety of cultural and political perspectives have engaged in intense debates over what history should be taught. They suggest remedies that, no matter what the political or cultural perspective, tend to view the students as lacking any historical knowledge and understanding. But what seems to have gotten lost in these debates, which have centered on such issues as multiculturalism, the content of textbooks, and national standards, is the question of pedagogy--how a subject is taught and knowledge is transmitted. Thus, these debates over content have tended to ignore the recent research into reading and composition. This research finds that these are processes to which individuals bring their prior life experiences, knowledge, and beliefs. This dissertation focuses on how a pedagogy, which utilized students' prior knowledge and experiences as one starting point for instruction, impacted student learning. Were the students able to refine, revise, and add to their own views as they learned and developed historical narratives about key events, individuals, and eras in United States History? What did they learn in terms of historical thinking and understanding? To answer these questions I studied the work of a racially and ethnically diverse eleventh-grade U.S. History class and four case study students. I learned the importance of developing reading and writing strategies that provide students, as points of departure, opportunities to articulate their views and questions about U.S. History. I discuss the hard work necessary to help students, once engaged in this process, refine and revise their views as they encounter and study the varied individuals and events that make up U.S. History. In a diverse classroom, this process created moments of tension as students, in trying to explain their ideas, stated and argued different perspectives on individuals and events, both historical and contemporary. I conclude that these classroom challenges and dynamics highlight the teacher's critical role in helping students move towards the development of historical thinking skills and historical understanding.
The purpose of this study is to propose, justify, and Theorize a cultural studies-based pedagogy for the rhetoric of science that would be useful in composition and writing Across the curriculum courses. In contemporary western society, which ascribes truth to knowledge gained by science, scientific discourse reigns as the most privileged rhetoric and is often not questioned. The development of a cultural studies-based pedagogy would potentially allow students to gain a critical perspective of this type of discourse—that is, to learn to recognize the inherent rhetorical characteristics of producing and analyzing it—so that they can make more well-informed decisions about the numerous scientific and technological issues that face them and so that they can learn to recognize that their writing can help to construct science. To Theorize this pedagogy, work from postmodern Theorists on disciplinarity and power (Foucault), language (Lyotard), and education (Usher and Edwards) is combined with Althusser's notion of an ideological state apparatus to demonstrate how science operates as a powerful cultural institution that inscribes subjects. The roots of contemporary scientific discourse in the Renaissance are then explored to demonstrate that scientific rhetoric, as with any other form of rhetoric—arose from specific historical circumstances and self-interest. To connect these explorations of science/scientific discourse with the mission of composition, various conceptions of literacy as perceived by humanities scholars and scientific literacy as perceived by scientists and science educators are discussed. The contrast demonstrates that scientific literacy is often thought of in uncritical terms. Cultural studies is then introduced as a means of establishing a pedagogy for achieving a more complex scientific literacy. A case-based pedagogy that results from this Theorizing is introduced.
This study was designed to provide a description of Speaking Across the Curriculum programs (SAC) in four year public higher education institutions in the United States. Each institution was sent a cover letter describing the investigation and a survey inviting them to participate by responding. A total of 583 institutions were sent the Phase I survey instrument; 562 (96.4 percent) responded. A total of 52 institutions responded that they currently have a SAC Program and were sent a Phase II survey that requested information in the following areas: Background and Historical; Assessment; Administration; and Funding. The findings indicated the following trends: (1) The majority were implemented during the 1990s; none were reported in place before 1984. (2) Overall program goals were "student" oriented. (3) Junior and Senior levels offered a greater number of speech-intensive courses than Freshman and Sophomore. (4) Workshops, seminars or discussion groups supplied instructional development to help faculty deliver speaking-intensive courses. (5) Most institutions responded that they currently had an individual considered the SAC Director/Coordinator. (6) The most prevalent Director/Coordinator duty was developing SAC assessment/evaluation methods. The second and third duty was determining internal and external departmental involvement. (7) The training process involved the Director/Coordinator and communication faculty, outside sources, the Director of the Writing Center, or Graduate Assistant. (8) Over 50 percent responded there was no requirement for specialized faculty outside Communication Departments. (9) Student and faculty evaluations were the most prevalent mode of assessment. (10) Over 50 percent indicated the final authority was the SAC Program Director. (11) Program funding method answers were varied, with budgeting as the only commonalty. This investigation also indicated that SAC programs: (1) Increased in number during the 1990s; (2) Are more prevalent in institutions with less than 10,000 student enrollment; and (3) Are more prevalent in institutions with Carnegie Classifications of Master's I.
This dissertation documents new curriculum and instructional strategies for teaching writing in a first and second grade classroom during the eight years of the Writing Box project. It is a first-person account of ongoing change as I, the teacher-researcher experienced and understood it. My descriptions of change and children's writing samples show how teaching practices and learning activities developed and evolved through incorporating writing at the core of student learning. My experiences demonstrate how substantive change can occur in elementary schools through the efforts of a teacher and students working together to create successful academic achievement. One hundred seventy-five first and second graders were given Writing Boxes to use at home and they were in a classroom that featured writing Across the curriculum. Six conclusions are drawn from their experiences. First, choice of writing materials makes a difference in how willing children are to write. Interesting, open-ended materials are prerequisites for children to write all year. Second, teachers must create many writing times throughout the day. My students wrote during regularly scheduled writing times as well as before school began, during snack and 'you-choose' time, and at recess and lunch. Third, how teachers talk with children about writing is crucial to children becoming active writers. I changed my vocabulary and Approach to emphasize that children are writers right now with ideas and pictures in their heads to communicate to others through text. Fourth, process models for teaching writing based on the experiences of adult writers must be modified to create 'a writing process fit for a child.' This child-centered Approach includes diverse ways of opening up writing, generating first drafts, revising and editing, and publishing. Fifth, writing can be integrated into the study of mathematics, science and social studies using 'I Wonder' journals, fiction-nonfiction stories, and math comics. Finally, computers and other technologies promote writing. Having more than one computer in the classroom allowed me to do more small group instruction with writing. The machines provide different ways to write and to publish while supporting children's creativity and self-expression.
The single largest divide in academia is centered between humanistic and scientific disciplines. The separation of these two disciplinary ideologies stems from centuries of stereotypical assumptions about both modes of interpreting reality. for example Albert Levi confidently states In The Humanities Today that " (I) f those in the science and those in the humanities ... misunderstand one another, ... this is hardly surprising ... they think differently ... (and) speak two separate languages"(56). Thomas Kuhn argues that when universities teach science as a "linear," left-brain only process, they misrepresent how the practice of science actually works. One group of students particularly vulnerable to the effects of polarizing humanistic and scientific ways of knowing are medical students, since until the early 1980s, the majority of medical schools exclusively relied on the sciences to teach medical students how to be effective practitioners. In the last ten years, however, a group of scholars known as medical humanists have begun to work against medical students' narrowly focused schooling by exposing them to literature and writing, two rarely required activities in medical school. In targeting their efforts toward humanizing the field of medicine, medical humanists are filling a gap in academia since few current interdisciplinary programs link the science and the humanities. This dissertation is a qualitative ethnographic study of one medical humanities program located at the University of Missouri- Kansas City Medical School (UMKC). It centers on two questions: (1) In this medical humanities interdisciplinary environment, what instances are there when medical students exhibit thoughts/behavior/ideas not considered during other stages of their medical training? and (2) What instances are there when medical students exhibit traditional, academic or science-based behaviors in this non-traditional, humanities-based educational environment? In its concluding chapters, this study demonstrates that although medical students primarily utilized traditional science-based learning tools during this particular medical humanities experience (e.g., they recorded 'facts,' resisted abstract descriptions, and tuned-out 'irrelevant' (e.g., personal) stories), they did begin to conceptualize themselves as active participators in the world of medicine by recognizing that there is an interpretive level to doctor/patient interactions. In summary, because these medical students had "to read in the fullest sense," and learn how to " (tolerate) ambiguity" during this medical humanities experience, they had to begin realistically preparing for actual "doctor/patient encounters" (Trautmann 32).
A difference between Stanford Achievement Test scores achieved by eighth-grade students in science and social studies in Alabama gave rise to the question of whether science teachers were using different and more effective instructional practices than were social studies teachers, or whether they were using the same practices more effectively. Current research in language arts recommends the incorporation of writing in content areas Across the curriculum as a means for the students to learn content and for the teachers to evaluate students' mastery of content. This study focused on eighth-grade teachers to investigate their practices and beliefs regarding the use of writing in the content-areas of science and social studies, and then to compare the findings. The study surveyed all eighth-grade science and social studies in 147 public schools randomly selected Across the State of Alabama. of the 390 teachers in the selected schools, 190 returned the surveys. The instrument used Likert-type scales based either on frequency of use of given practices or degree of agreement with various belief statements. Responses were counted, percentages calculated, and contradictions or consistencies with the research review and between the two groups were noted. The data showed that a larger percentage of science teachers were implementing the recommended writing practices, assigning weekly opportunities to write for different purposes, including graded and non-graded work (logs, journals, essays, and reports). A larger percentage of science teachers also focused primarily on content in giving feedback, which also is recommended. Both groups strongly believed in the value of writing as a learning tool to help clarify content and sharpen critical thinking skills. Science teachers reported that assigning additional writing activities would not require changing their teaching practices, in contrast to social studies teachers, who reported that increased writing assignments would require them changing their teaching practices. Deterrents to using writing included: students' attitudes, lack of writing skills, insufficient time, curriculum demands, and the number of students. Motivational support for increased use of writing assignments was perceived by both groups from principals, fellow teachers, and school goals. Technical support from inservice was offered infrequently, and was seen as ineffective when offered. Both groups identified benefits from inservice that provided specific, content- related activities and opportunities for teachers to discuss successes and problem-solving strategies with associates.
Statement of the problem. The goal of this study was to determine the writing requirements of four freshman courses, describe the effects of the perceptions of students and instructors on student writing performance, and identify patterns of writing Across the curriculum. Methods. Selected data from a larger study were analyzed to describe similarities within and among these courses, the effect of the perceptions of students and instructors on student writing performance, and ways in which student writing activities were repeated Across the curriculum. Several research questions guided the data analysis. The questions encompassed the following four parameters: (a) writing requirements revealed through cognitive units of the four courses, (b) writing connections among courses, (c) student and faculty approaches to writing, and (d) patterns of writing requirements Across courses. Data from student surveys, classroom observations, interview transcripts, faulty dialog transcripts, audiotapes, documents and other materials were analyzed on a post hoc basis using constant comparison, componential analysis, and analytic induction. Specific strategies employed during this study included coding categorizing, questioning, annotating, triangulating, synthesizing, and arranging data in tabular form. Results. The data analysis revealed that writing requirements were of two kinds, stated and implicit. Teachers assigned stated writing requirements, while students identified and tried to meet implicit writing demands. Student approaches to writing occurred at three levels, global, academic, and subject. Most students seemed to have perceptions of writing at the subject level that were determined by the requirements of their freshman composition classes. Evidence of writing Across the curriculum was seen in the strategies students employed Across courses to meet implicit writing demands. Conclusions. Students are forced to evolve their own strategies for success at college. The students likely to do this belong to three categories: Those who had advanced courses in high school, those who completed development studies in college, and those who were mature adults. Secondly, strategies students used in meeting implicit writing demands were used Across the curriculum. This fact provides a rationale for expanding the focus of writing Across the curriculum programs to include student writers rather than just concentrate on writing teaching.
This study recursively constructed a view of Cognitive Apprenticeship--an educational Approach introduced in 1989 by Collins, Brown, and Newman--and a research-based view of the collegiate writing motivations endemic to first-year, second-year, and fourth-year college students. The view of Cognitive Apprenticeship ultimately constructed was influenced by a two-year case study of Business Administration students' writing motivations foundational to project, but so, too, were that case study and its findings strongly influenced by the represented features of Cognitive Apprenticeship. The overall purpose of this project was to define a body of Theory informative to a more consistent, more learning-focused Approach to writing throughout the college curriculum. The body of Theory suggested in the text was based on current Theories of cognition, learning, and motivation, expanding and particularizing Collins, Brown, and Newman's concept of Cognitive Apprenticeship. The project was based upon five major goals: (1) to provide a view of Cognitive Apprenticeship and its concomitant Theories comprehensive enough to prove its worthiness as a pedagogical Theory and comprehensible enough to be applied by all collegiate instructors who teach with writing, (2) to gain evidence of curricular motivations' interactions with cognition and learning, (3) to establish congruity between Cognitive Apprenticeship's features and characteristics of intentional, higher order learning, (4) to identify and model evolving collegiate writing attitudes and motivations, and (5) to determine the influences on subsequent writing motivations of students' causal attributions regarding college writing outcomes. The study concluded that Cognitive Apprenticeship is highly congruent with the reported motivations of collegiate writers. Furthermore, all groups in the study were determined to have relatively high motivations toward intentional, higher order learning, with first- year students determined to be the group most strongly motivated by the intrinsic characteristics of a college writing task or writing situation. Though not an original study focus, potentially crucial gender-based differences in writing-focused attitudes and motivations were also noted. Suggestions for first-year college writing, implications for writing programs and writing Across the college curriculum, and suggestions for further, similarly focused empirical studies were also included.
This study examined the implementation of an innovation called the Cumulative Writing Folder (CWF) Program. Data were gathered to identify the quality of classroom implementation by elementary, middle, and high school teachers. While resources were allocated equitably Across schools, comparative data from the three school levels indicated that the CWF Program was implemented best in the elementary schools, then the middle schools, and least well in the high schools. In addition to examining the quality of implementation by school, this study focused on the impact of specific context factors affecting the implementation success. To examine contextual differences, both individual factors and organizational factors were studied. Individual factors included the teacher's existing belief system, the perceived benefits of the innovation, and the teacher's prior experience with innovations. Organizational variables included the quality of the training, whether or not the training was voluntary or mandatory, and whether sufficient follow up occurred. Also assessed was the impact of school culture as well as the strength of administrative support, both from the building level and from the central office. In other words, the study looked at variables that had the potential to impact the implementation success either positively or negatively. Data reveal that of the two factors, individual variables are associated most frequently with having the greatest influence on implementation efforts. This finding is intriguing because it suggests that regardless of the context in which the change is attempted, individual teacher values and beliefs play a powerful role in determining whether or not the practice is institutionalized. This finding also indicates the need for staff development activities to address both content considerations, such as those related to CWF strategies, as well as those related to the human dimension, in terms of creating and nurturing the beliefs necessary to implement and sustain the new practices. As a result of the findings regarding factors influencing implementation, a model was created to assist with planning and evaluating staff development efforts. During the planning, implementation, and maintenance phases of a change process, this model will enable district staff to focus upon individual and organizational variables, which appear to be critical to innovation success.
Social reform in the 1960's initiated growth in two seemingly separate educational movements in response to dissatisfaction with the traditional positivistic education system. These two movements, writing-Across-the-curriculum (WAC) and homeschooling, share pedagogy and methodology based upon social epistemology, and they share two teaching techniques stemming from this methodology: collaboration and writing. While homeschooling was the successful method of education for centuries, the last two centuries have seen an evolution through the one-room schoolhouse to present day positivistic educational institutions. Language-centered teaching techniques have existed as long, beginning with such educators as Isocrates and continuing with such educators as Aristotle, Quintilian, Augustine, Erasmus, George Campbell, and Fred Newton Scott, and during the past two decades, WAC proponents have incorporated the use of collaboration and writing as instruments of learning in every discipline. Unfortunately, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these teaching techniques in existing WAC programs because of the number of variables involved. These techniques were measured in a homeschool situation, however, where the variables could be controlled. This ethnographic study, which took place during the Spring 1994 semester with three ninth-grade female students placed in a homeschool situation, used both quantitative and qualitative methods to measure the effectiveness of collaboration and writing in all disciplines. Pre-tests revealed that, at the beginning of this study, these three students performed at very different levels of ability; regardless of ability, however, each experienced dramatic increases in learning. The quantitative measures, Wechsler Individual Achievement Test and Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test, revealed unprecedented gains in math reasoning, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, oral expression, written expression, language composite, and critical thinking skills. These pre/post-tests, triangulated with assessment of reading journals, daily journals, individual essays, collaborative essays, and video-taped sessions, produced a narrative which describes each student's characteristics, learning style and response to these learning/teaching methods. The results imply that homeschool education has been successful due to collaboration and writing. Furthermore, this study strongly suggests that collaboration and writing effect learning in all disciplines and recommends restructuring of traditional education to implement these teaching/learning techniques.
Writing-Across-the-curriculum programs, which have focused chiefly on the differences that characterize writing in the various university disciplines, have encouraged faculty members and students to believe that while academicians function together within an academy and share some common ground, each discipline and its discourse is quite different from the other. This study argues that defining academic discourse communities principally by their disciplinary differences may obscure commonalities Across disciplines that also may be important. It re-examines the primary WAC framework of discipline and proposes a second framework of pedagogy, asserting that the intersections of discipline and pedagogy are more useful than is either alone in explaining the discourse communities in which faculty members ask their students to write. As it reports an ethnographic study of two academic disciplines, accounting/finance and anthropology, the study probes two questions: (1) How do faculty members map and sustain the discourse communities in which their students must write, and (2) how may WAC projects help faculty members and students understand and describe what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they might do it more successfully? It describes data gathered through interviews with faculty members, observations of classes, and reviews of course syllabi and of student writing. The interpretation of these data, which reveals similarities and differences that both observe and cross disciplinary lines, supports the addition of the framework of pedagogy to WAC considerations. It demonstrates that the inquiry into pedagogy can explain how faculty members Theorize their roles, the roles of their students, and the nature of the curriculum. The study concludes by generalizing its work with WAC boundaries to a larger conversation about creating and using categories. It proposes that engaging the dualisms and contradictions found in the margins leads to a more fluid vision of discourse and other communities while it models productive boundary blurring for faculty members and students.
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe eight content area teachers' experiences and beliefs about ongoing in-service training in the uses of reading and writing Across the curriculum. Case studies of three participants provided useful insights into educational practice and offered understanding of the Content Reading Including Study Systems (CRISS) in-service and its meaning for the participants. Procedures. This descriptive study involved multiple data sources to explore the participants' experiences in the CRISS program. Questionnaires, interviews, audio tapes of in-service meetings, written responses, and field notes comprised the data. The data were analyzed in the following categories: (1) CRISS strategies used, (2) self-reported beliefs about literacy and cross-curricular instruction, (3) teachers' experiences in attempting to implement the CRISS program, and (4) participants' descriptions of their roles in the classroom, on the seventh-grade team. Findings. Twenty-one strategies were used by the eight participants. Teachers reported twelve benefits of using writing to learn in content classes. They stated their belief that new knowledge must be tied to prior knowledge, and that students must be an active part of the learning process. Promoting general literacy through sustained silent reading and reading and writing in content classes was voiced. Seven participants reported readiness for cross-curricular studies. The participants noted positive aspects of the in-service program and reported a heightened awareness of their own uses of reading and writing as they incorporated strategies in content areas. Conclusions. Ongoing support groups are essential to effective in-service education. As teachers implement these strategies in content classes, they face the problems of institutional barriers, time constraints, and age and personality factors. Given time, support and models, content teachers can develop positive attitudes toward reading/writing strategies and in-service education and affect student learning through mutually-supportive strategies. Teachers can examine personal learning as they implement strategies in their classes. Participants and facilitators benefit from writing at the end of in-service sessions.
This dissertation describes in-depth, using participant's words, experiences of undergraduate college writers. The study was undertaken in an attempt to understand from a student perspective what it is like to write in one's major course of study and throughout the university curriculum. There were seven students, representing different academic majors at a large university. Each were interviewed in a series of three open-ended interviews totaling four and one-half hours. Key questions followed Seidman's (1987) protocol for phenomenological in-depth interviewing: What was writing like for you before college? What is writing like for you now? And, What does your writing mean to you? Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, Three participant's transcripts were edited into profiles of the individual writers while other interviews were used to illumine themes common to all the participants. Insights from this study suggest students are "practitioners" and possess a certain "practitioner-expertise" in being student writers. This practitioner knowledge reveals student experiences are more complex than indicated by previous research. Among these complexities are students' interactions with their instructors, and their own procrastination, which produce tension about writing. Forms of this tension are explored in the histories and current experiences of different students. These experiences indicated that when student writing is perceived as a "task" which must be completed simply to comply with a course requirement, there is a tendency to Approach writing in a formulaic way, with little attention paid to the writing processes. On the other hand, the participants expressed that writing is a positive experience at times when they are consciously aware it has contributed to their learning in a subject- area or when it has aided them in their personal growth. The study indicates writing in college is often shaped by the bureaucratic enterprise of grading and sorting students. Recommendations include making teacher-student interactions consultative and personable, teachers and administrators stronger advocates for smaller class size, and giving students choices of instructional approaches to writing so individual needs as writers are being met in composition courses and Across the curriculum.
Teachers-in-training for elementary and middle school education often exhibit high levels of anxiety and low self-confidence in teaching mathematics. The objective of this study was to design a training program that made mathematics exciting, enjoyable, and clearly understandable so that preservice teachers could communicate positive feelings about mathematics to their students. Building on extensive research regarding the different ways in which people process spatial and numeric information and the relationship between visual-spatial thinking and mathematics, a multi-modal Approach in teaching and writing Across the curriculum was created that uses pictures, numbers, and words to facilitate comprehension and retention of basic mathematical concepts. The dissertation consists of two main parts. The first part is a teacher's guide called 'Pic-Jour Math' which incorporates pictorial journal writing into its multi-modal presentation of the essential numerical equations taught at the elementary and middle school levels. The second part consists of a study of preservice teachers to test the impact of using pictures in the journal writing processes. The study compared the attitudes of teachers-in-training who used journal forms that included pictures, words and numbers versus those that used journal forms with words and numbers alone. The effect of using pictorial diagrams on math anxiety, perceived ability to teach mathematics, level of self-confidence in mathematics, ability to have a clear sense of task, to write a focused introduction, create a smooth transition of thought between steps, offer evidence to support every major point, generate a clear logical order, use a proper choice of words, express oneself succinctly, avoid repetition, convey ideas comfortably, coordinate the modes, and clarify ideas through the writing process was assessed. Results of the study indicated a marked change in attitudes when pictorial note-taking was incorporated in the journal writing process. With all forms of journal writing, math anxiety decreased and self-confidence and perceived ability to teach in math increased. With the added dimension of pictures, teachers-in-training believed that they were able to express themselves more easily, were better able to execute their task, and were more metacognitively aware.
Many claims are made about writing-Across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs now in place at more than one-third of the nation's community colleges, yet there has been little systematic study of the construction of college writing in WAC contexts. This naturalistic investigation uses methods of grounded Theory (open coding, axial coding, Theoretical sampling, and integrative memos) to trace discursive representations of college writing in a cross-disciplinary writing center. The center is staffed by faculty from various departments who participate in training sessions that function as an ongoing WAC seminar. Data sources include writing center conferences, student and tutor interviews, writing assignments, drafts and final copies of student texts, meetings of tutors and other faculty, and archival documents. The result is two-fold: a description of several dimensions of college writing (process, product, audience, purpose, and student-as-writer) and an analysis of the presence and absence of tensions in student, tutor, and faculty representations of college writing. I found that faculty-tutors represent college writing as a complex, social practice; that representations of college writing are negotiated in writing center discourse; and that a WAC environment supports, but does not guarantee, a critique of college writing. At the institution where the study is set, faculty understand both writing-as-process and writing-to-learn; nevertheless, the products that 'count' in the academy have not changed, and the notion of student-as-writer does not inform institutional ideology. I conclude that WAC practitioners, student writers, and writing-center tutors can be valuable allies in a critique of college writing as a social practice and that such a critique is the next logical step for writing Across the curriculum to take.
In the past twenty years, a renaissance of scholarship in composition has fostered a wealth of research findings, Theoretical underpinnings, and diverse practices in undergraduate composition studies. Yet, no consensus on what undergraduate writing should be has emerged. Contemporary research and practice focus on either novice freshman writers or on students writing in upper-division courses. Virtually no research or programmatic attention has been given to identifying possible transitional writing experiences that might bridge the gap for students between freshman composition and Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing Intensive programs. The omission of this transitional phase from current writing program models is problematic--Theoretically, because it renders current program models incomplete, and practically, because it engenders writing programs that fail to complement and/or enhance optimally general undergraduate intellectual development. In this dissertation, I pursued two related purposes. First, modifying Lauer's and Asher's (1988) rhetorical inquiry Approach by integrating Warnock's (1984) definition of a model, I develop a set of seven criteria for a comprehensive undergraduate writing program model. These seven criteria are established by examining the relationships among research findings in three areas: (1) undergraduate composing processes, (2) undergraduate writing and learning, and (3) undergraduate intellectual development. My second purpose in this dissertation is to develop one possible course sequence compatible with my proposed writing program model. In this three-cycle sequence, Cycle One includes two courses designed for freshman writers and Cycle Three includes numerous writing intensive courses within the student's chosen academic major. The transitional Cycle Two includes two courses and introduces a common writing sequence--a sequence of writing occasions grounded in five generic discourse forms (field notes, stipulative definition, proposal, causal argument and metaphorical/analogic argument) designed to act as intellectual bridges for the undergraduate writer/learner. I conclude this dissertation by offering recommendations for both future research and institutional practices drawn from my proposed program model and course sequence.
The purpose of this project is to explore the apparent absence of an application of classical rhetorical Theory in the teaching of writing to public high school students in the United States. The need for the project, the nature of the project, and the methodology employed are described. The history of classical rhetoric from its Aristotelian inception to the present day is briefly reviewed. Included in the study is a review of widely-used writing textbooks of the modern day. Two current approaches to the teaching of writing are explored. One Approach argues for process while the other argues for content. Current methods and movements are explored, including freewriting, writing Across the curriculum, computer-aided instruction, journal writing, the five-paragraph essay, and draft writing and peer review. Following the review of literature the project discusses the present need for a Theory of rhetoric that is more useful to high school students and teachers, and one that accounts in an organized way for more elements of the students' writing process. The second portion of this project is a handbook designed for high school students and teachers as a useful manual for writing in the classical tradition. The handbook includes the traditional five parts of classical rhetoric: invention, arrangement, memory, style, and written presentation. Additional chapters include a discussion of thesis, definition, credibility, and appeal. The purpose of this project is to provide students with a better means to help them learn to write for college and their careers. Writing is a complex enterprise, but it need not be so for beginning writers. Rhetoric, as taught in the classical tradition, is presented as a more complete Approach to writing than any one of the other singular approaches mentioned in this study.
This study provides a plan to implement writing Across the curriculum (WAC) at New Hampshire College (NHC), a 4-year business school. The study reviews current Theories relating to the writing process and to WAC and examines several successful models, including staff development and classroom strategies. Those components necessary to successfully implement a WAC program are noted, and criteria are set for the NHC model. A profile of New Hampshire College examines the environment, the student body, the faculty, the governance, administrative, academic, and financial structures, and the present writing program, noting those resources and deterrents that currently exist to support or to deter the implementation of WAC. The NHC model describes the administrative structure, develops faculty training in all disciplines, introduces writing-to-learn in the core courses in freshman and sophomore years and develops writing intensive courses in all majors in junior and senior years. Peer assistance includes writing tutoring through the Learning Center and classroom assistants in those courses throughout the curriculum requiring writing. The study notes ways to monitor and to evaluate success of WAC at NHC.
While Writing Across the Curriculum programs have flourished in American higher education in the past decade, evaluation of their efficacy in improving student writing and student learning is problematic. This study examines how much and what kinds of writing community college students are engaged in by analyzing the products produced during one semester in one midwestern community college that has in place a Writing Across the Curriculum initiative. The principal researcher collected the college writing from 80 community college students for three weeks of the fall semester of 1987. Using content analysis and James Britton's classification of transactional, expressive, and poetic writing, the researcher measured the amount and kinds of writing produced. Seventy-nine percent of the writing was determined to be transactional and 21 percent expressive. No examples of poetic writing were found. Students wrote a total of 460 scripts, an average of 1.92 scripts a week of 6.25 pages for each week of 3.6 classes per student. Community college writing is limited in amount and type. Most writing produced is either transcribed for later student use or produced to test acquired knowledge. Only one fifth of the scripts could be classified as expressive, the kind of writing that is used as a learning technique as students work through concepts and actively make sense of new information in their learning.
This study used Rogers' (1983) innovation-decision stage model to analyze the behaviors of individuals as they confronted an innovation; in this instance, writing Across the curriculum. Although Rogers (1983) has Theoretically described this innovation-decision process, his stage model has not been adequately validated empirically, especially in case histories (Ettlie, 1980). The sample selected to provide information regarding both the innovation-decision process and the factors affecting passage through that process included 11 full-time faculty at Raritan Valley Community College (formerly Somerset County College). All subjects particpated in a ten-week, FICE-funded writing-Across-the-curriculum (WAC) training program during the Spring 1986 semester. The research design was a case study based on an adaptation of the replication Approach to multiple-case studies by Yin (1984). Data came from documents, interviews, questionnaires, and observations. Several techniques were used to analyze the data including procedures recommended by Miles and Huberman (1984), King (1979), and Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). The study findings supported Rogers' (1983) innovation-decision process model involving five stages: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. Furthermore, the stages occurred in the sequence hypothesized by Rogers (1983). However, because an individual could already by using some WAC practices while trying new elements as well, some of the stages appeared to co-occur or reoccur. In this study a multiplicity of factors affected an individual's passage through the stages. Those cited by Rogers (1983) and corroborated were: perceived need for the innovation, previous practice, predisposition, awareness, perceived relevance, sufficient information, perceptions of the attributes of the innovation, attitude formation either positive or negative, perceived advantages or disadvantages of the innovation, acceptability of the innovation evaluated after trial, active seeking of information about the innovation, accelerating effect of the communication channel, and influence of peers and change agents. The situational factors cited by the subjects as inhibiting passage included time, workload, class size, and number of course preparations. The incentive of released time was cited as a facilitating factor. This case study validated the usefulness of Rogers' (1983) stage model to describe the complex process of adopting or rejecting an innovation.
The purpose of the dissertation is to provide a design for a Writing Institute for educators of the Deaf at Gallaudet. The design is meant to assist these educators in incorporating a Writing component into their disciplines. The first chapter explains the unique language situation of the deaf student. It describes the importance of writing for the deaf in the acquisition of English and the need for a method which allows them to maintain and improve their English language. The writing Across the Curriculum model is presented as the most viable method to be adapted for the deaf. An analysis of outstanding experiments in Writing Across the Curriculum undertaken by colleges around the country is the subject of the second chapter. Relevant publications by contributors to the Writing Across the Curriculum movement are also examined. The principles and practices garnered from this survey are specifically related to the plan of the institute proposed. Chapter three contains a discussion of a survey of the Gallaudet educators undertaken to determine faculty attitudes toward student writing and the amount of writing currently required in the different disciplines. The chapter provides detailed graphs and discussion of the survey instrument used and information gained. The data provides the foundation for chapter four which proposes a design for the Writing Institute. The design for the Writing Institute comprises chapter four and it includes a detailed model of weekly and daily activities for the participants. The schedules and explanations demonstrate ways to address the special concerns of the deaf educators. The conclusion explores implications for the future teaching of writing once the design is firmly in place.
This study asks questions about the nature of writing processes in classrooms. More specifically, how do students go into a classroom setting and figure out what the writing requirements are in that discipline and for that teacher, and how do they go about producing it? As students go from one classroom to another, they are presented with new speech situations, and they must determine what constitutes appropriate ways of speaking and writing in each new territory. How do they learn the rules for successful written communication in a particular classroom, rules which include many conventions and presuppositions that are not explicitly articulated? In order to answer these questions this study examines the writing experiences of three Loyola College students during their freshman, sophomore, and junior years. It focuses primarily on one of these students as he wrote in three consecutive semesters for Freshman Composition and his sophomore courses, Introduction to Poetry and Cell Biology. Follow-up data was collected during the fall of his junior year. Three research methods were combined in order to get as full a picture as possible of this student writer's experiences in the various classroom contexts. These research methods are ethnographic observation and interviews, composing-aloud protocols, and text analysis. Conclusions are drawn from the data about how this Loyola student figured out what constituted acceptable writing in each classroom and how he worked to produce it. Also presented are conclusions about what enhanced or denied his success in communicating competently in unfamiliar academic territories. Affecting his success were unarticulated social aspects of classroom contexts for writing as well as explicitly stated requirements and instructions. Conclusions are also drawn from the data about how this student's writing experiences in the various contexts related to each other, particularly how Freshman Composition related to his sophomore academic writing experiences. Implications from the data and conclusions are suggested (1) for students' writing development, (2) for the teaching of writing, and (3) for liberal arts education in general.
The decline of basic literacy in community college students has resulted in serious questions about the full-time faculty's role in providing writing practice Across the curriculum. The purpose of this study is to describe the practices and values of the full-time faculty, and to describe their views about the barriers and incentives to writing requirements. The data were gathered by two methods. First, surveys of 304 full-time faculty were gathered from four California community colleges; secondly, personal interviews were conducted with a random sample of 20 of the survey respondents. The major findings of the study focus upon how much and what kinds of writing activities were required by full-time faculty, in what areas or departments these activities occurred, what influences were in the instructors' background, and what was administrative support for these activities. In some data analyses, Composition and/or English departments were omitted to avoid distortion of results. About one third of the sample assigned formal papers; about two thirds assigned informal papers. There was a significant relationship between department orientation and formal and informal papers. Students' career goals and teaching experience were the primary influence on the methods instructors used to evaluate mastery. There was a significant relationship between the instructors' writing confidence, their writing practice and writing required. Where administrative support or college policy existed, faculty were more involved with using writing. Major barriers to writing were student resistance, discomfort with evaluating writing, and competing content or skills. Class size was not the barrier to writing that might be expected. As the literature suggests, there was limited appreciation of the importance of writing as a learning tool and of shared responsibility for providing writing practice. Writing proficiency appears to be a luxury that competes with other priorities.
Because of recent emphasis upon the process of writing, rather than the product of writing, educators see writing not only as a means of communicating knowledge, but also as a part of the acquisition of knowledge. What is not yet clear is whether writing about a discipline other than English should be an integral part of the English composition class, dual subject Approach, or whether writing about a discipline should be conducted within the discipline, single subject Approach (Kinneavy, 1983). Over a two-year period, writing samples, writing attitude surveys, and final grades in a history class were collected to determine which of the two approaches to writing about and within a discipline are effective in improving quality of writing, changing attitude toward writing, and enhancing learning. One group had a dual class program in which World Civilization content served as the reading content for the English class, and the students' writing assignments were about the World Civilization content. A second group had a single class program in which the content and writing assignments in the English class were the same as in all of the English classes at the college. The World Civilization class was the same for both groups; the students wrote more within the discipline under the direction of a professor who had received training at two writing Across the curriculum workshops. The English professor received the same training. Pre-writing and post-writing samples and pre-writing attitude and post-writing attitude surveys were taken from each group as well as final exam grades in the World Civilization courses. The writing samples and attitude surveys were scored, and t-tests were used to determine differences between pre- and post-writing samples and pre- and post-attitude surveys. Pearson product-moment correlations were used to determine relationships between post-writing samples and post-attitude surveys and between post-writing samples and final World Civilization grades. There were no significant differences in the pre-writing and post-writing samples of both the dual subject group and the single subject group. There were significant differences in the pre-writing attitude and post-writing attitude surveys of the dual subject group, but there were no significant differences in the pre-writing attitude and post-writing attitude surveys of the single subject group. There was no significant correlation between post-writing samples and post-writing attitude surveys for both groups, and there was no significant correlation between post-writing samples and final exam grades in World Civilization for both groups.
This is a case study of educational problem solving which subsumes two closely related problems--one educational, the other research. (1) The educational problem: how can faculty work together to improve the writing and learning of all students at the university? (2) The research problem: what processes were used in solving the educational problem? To what extent were they effective? What can we learn from analysis of these processes about effecting change among a university faculty? Solution to the educational problem was sought through faculty workshops, which were perceived by the researcher as the best means for gaining collegial collaboration--the sine qua non of writing Across the curriculum programs. Two principal Theories underlay all workshop and related activities: (1) a cognitive Theory of writing, i.e., a Theory of writing as a mode of learning, and (2) a process Theory of educational change, in this case, a Theory based on social interaction in a five-stage model of exploration, strategic planning, initiation, implementation, and incorporation. Solution to the research problem was sought through methodological processes of observation, monitoring, assessing, evaluating, and reflective analysis. Data were gathered from surveys, interviews, letters, memoranda, researcher's log, etc. Based on data analysis, the study reports changes in faculty attitudes towards writing as a mode of learning and changes in four important areas of instructional practice: (1) course requirements, (2) writing assignments, (3) classroom strategies, and (4) responses to papers. These curricular, pedagogical, and attitudinal changes are interpreted as positive signs of movement towards institutionalization of a writing Across the curriculum program.
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