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 thesis describes the process by which tour community college students came to write academics essays which were based on their personal experiences, and it analyzes how readers such as their peers and instructors responded to such texts. It is the author's claim that experience-based writing, which is Theoretically based on a critical pedagogy, has certain limitations in the academy.
The thesis begins with a statement of the problematic, the purpose of the research, the researcher's understanding about a critical Approach to learning, and her own Theory of composition. A Theoretical framework for Theory and practice is discussed. After setting composition Theory within this critical context and articulating the qualitative methodology used, the thesis analyzes the themes which emerged from the interviews of four community college students. The interviews resulted in the following three themes: a description of the participants' complex psychological and social motives for writing about personal themes, an analysis of how their texts were read by their peer-readers, and an analysis of how their texts were read by various instructors.
The thesis is grounded on the assumption that writing is both a social and psychological activity. The various kinds of knowledge that the participants, their readers, and their instructors create is context-specific, and meanings and interpretations vary from the sender to the receiver. Theoretically, colleges are not neutral sites of learning. As readers interpret a written text, it is possible that dominant themes and writing styles are reproduced.
The thesis concludes with a restatement of the major findings of this study. After evaluating the problems associated with experience-based writing in the academy, the thesis ends with recommendations for critical educators. This thesis describes possible ways for educators to create safe learning environments in which to encourage novice writers in the development of their voice. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
This dissertation focused on literacy practices as interpretive social activities. This is to say that the Theoretical framework for this study viewed literacy practices from an interpretive perspective or, more specifically as discourse. Literacy as discourse means that literacy practices are also ways of enacting one's identity and social relationships. The problem this study focused on then, concerned the ways in which students made sense and use of the discourse of the literacy instruction they received in relation to their family and peer discourses. A secondary problem this study focused on was the differences in the discourses of high school, community college, and university writing classes..The design of this study consisted of case studies in three sites: a semester in a 12th grade English class, and a quarter each in a community college and university composition class. for each site, there were three case study participants. Data collected consisted of participant observation, documents, and interviews. The data collection was directed at the variety of discourses students engaged in their everyday life (i.e., classroom, peer groups, family, church) and the ways in which they forged and suppressed links and understandings among them. This study includes thick descriptions of students' literacy practices and the literacy pedagogies they encounter as discourses..This study was not designed to be generalizeable. Instead this study illustrates that if literacy learning (and literacy teaching) are interpretive social activities, and that the everyday is a complex socioliterate site, then literacy curriculum and pedagogy need to be designed (1) to account for and build upon the social practices that students are already proficient in, and (2) to guide students to understand that they are learning not simply new forms of written language, but that more so, they are learning to participate in unfamiliar forms of social interaction.
This study addresses questions and issues that lie at the heart of the writing Across the curriculum movement, primarily whether writing enhances learning and what mode of writing is most efficacious. In a project where all participants were asked to read a short story and then answer a series of questions about it, the responses of 462 community college freshman composition students who were randomly divided into three groups were examined. In two of the groups, students wrote about their reading before proceeding to the short answer sections. One group responded to a prompt designed to generate self-directed writing, the other to a prompt asking them to produce teacher-directed prose. The groups were compared with regard to how students approached the work of fiction read, their ability to comprehend and interpret the story, and their appreciation of it. for those who wrote in response to the reading, additional comparisons were made, particularly with respect to the kinds of discourse statements in the written texts, the fluency of the texts, and the relative convergence or divergence of the written responses. The central finding of this study is that no statistically significant between-groups differences were observed in either approaches to the text or performance indicators; however, several subsidiary trends were apparent. The type of story assigned as well as its relative level of complexity were factors that influenced students' responses. Certain sub-groups such as English as a Second Language (ESL) students and students who had taken remedial reading and/or writing classes also demonstrated some specific performance differentials.
The argument of this study is that trainers responsible for teaching two-year college instructors the principles and methods of writing-to-learn activities must take into account the ideas and beliefs that participating instructors hold, at the outset, regarding teaching and learning. Failure to identify these ideas and beliefs, and to have the participating instructors examine them, will yield uneven results, with many of the trained instructors not adopting the lessons they have learned. for this study, sixteen community college instructors, of two two-year colleges, were interviewed regarding their ideas and beliefs about teaching and learning, about their attitudes about writing Across the curriculum training they had received, and about how the training has affected their teaching practices. Interviews were also conducted of these instructors' writing Across the curriculum trainers, regarding their own beliefs about teaching and learning, and their goals as trainers. The data gathered from these interviews is analyzed with the Swanson-Owens locus of attention framework, by which an instructor's primary instructional concerns can be located on a grid controlled by four factors that shape classroom instruction--teacher, student, knowledge, and materials/activities. After identifying each instructor's and trainer's locus of attention, this study focuses on the correlations between the six loci of attention and the extent to which the instructors adopted the lessons of their training. This study concludes with recommendations for writing Across the curriculum trainers.
To describe instructor's pedagogy of using writing and thinking in three discipline-specific classrooms (gunsmithing, nursing, and sociology) at the two-year college level is the purpose of this research project. Over a period of 4 months, from the start of Spring Semester 1992 to its completion, I maintained an ethnographic research stance in each of these 3 classes at a rural community college in northern Arizona. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the contexts of my research; Chapter 2 examines research during the last 30 years in writing and thinking, specifically WAC at the community-college level. In Chapter 3 I explain my methodology and design, which includes not only observations of instructors, but also student interviews and journals. In addition to triangulation, I incorporated questionnaires to check student and instructor responses in areas of writing and thinking activities, instructors' rationales and Theories and metacognitive awarenesses, and uses of writing and thinking in classrooms. All four instructors possess varying degrees of metacognition in their rationales; most of their writing assignments incorporate writing to show learning. Chapters 4 through 6 are case studies of four instructors in specific disciplines. Each chapter has five sections: instructor background and history, teaching philosophy and rationale, summary of my observations, my interpretations and commentary, and finally instructors' responses to my interpretation of their classroom practices. Chapter 7 and 8 are analyses and conclusions about the research data, and chapter 9 provides recommendations for administrators of two-year institutions, content-area instructors and composition instructors. Following the precedents of experimental ethnographic writers, such as Clifford Geertz, Mary Ann Pratt, Stephen Tyler, Wendy Bishop, Marcus and Cushman, I have written this text as a collage of points of view, attempting wherever possible to allow student and instructor voices to emerge. Instructors have the last words in their chapters. Although much writing and thinking Across the curriculum is occurring at Yavapai College in northern Arizona, which has no formal WAC program, I have many suggestions about ways to foster student thinking and writing. Finally, I conclude with suggestions about possible models for WAC at the two-year college.
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) literature was surveyed to determine the most widely supported recommended practices. Forty-one Core WAC Recommended Practices were identified as guidance for content area professors' attempts to help students write more proficiently. A questionnaire was constructed and administered to professors at one of Ontario's largest community colleges to determine how closely the professors of specialist subjects were adhering to those recommendations from the professional literature. of 41 recommendations made by experts in WAC, faculty were commonly practicing fewer than half. of the independent variables (length of teaching career, extent of education, gender, and discipline area), only the discipline area substantially influenced the professors' choice of writing supportive practices: English professors teaching content area courses (literature), practice more of the WAC recommended practices.
Recent trends in undergraduate institutions toward establishing general education requirements and writing Across the curriculum have increased the urgency of 'bridging the gap' between skills instruction and content area coursework for ESL students. This study describes one Approach to bridging the gap in an intermediate-level ESL reading course (taught by a cooperating instructor) using the processes and materials designed by the researcher. These included the use of content-area readings drawn from textbooks, newspapers and magazines; integrated reading and writing exercises; a theme-centered course format related to the college's core curriculum; and a class format incorporating individual work, collaborative groups, and a full class forum. Five students were randomly selected and their responses to pre-and-post interviews and questionnaires analyzed to determine their feelings about the bridge Approach and any indications of change or growth; the instructor's responses were similarly analyzed. In addition, the researcher observed class sessions and held conferences with the instructor on a weekly basis. The data gathered regarding the students' and instructor's perceptions indicate a consensus regarding the bridge Approach course's linguistic, academic skills, and affective benefits. The content-area materials were perceived as more difficult but also more interesting and relevant than those used in non-bridge courses, and the theme format as a unifying infrastructure enhancing comprehension of individual texts. In addition, the collaborative group work and integrated exercises were perceived as constituting real communication situations, providing the students with both opportunity and motivation to develop their speaking and listening as well as reading and writing skills. The consensus of students and instructor suggests that the greatest benefits of the bridge Approach course were affective: as students gained practical hands-on experience of what would be required of them in the mainstream curriculum, their confidence and sense of belonging to the college community increased, with a corresponding growth in self-esteem. These outcomes were used as a basis for recommendations for use of the bridge Approach in college ESL programs and for further research.
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.
This study examined the effect taking two literature courses as part of the Gordon Rule Requirement has on CLAST essay and writing subtest scores. Additionally, the question of amount of feedback given by the faculty to students via their written assignments was addressed through a survey designed by this researcher. A student survey was also designed and administered in order to address the issue of self-selection into certain courses. Transcripts from CLAST takers at Broward Community College, Broward County, Florida, from 4 administrations of CLAST were studied (March, June, October, 1990, and February, 1991). Students were divided into two groups: those who had taken two literature courses and those who had not, and a random sample of 150 from each group was drawn. This group was then divided based on college prep experience. The instructor survey was administered to all faculty who teach writing credit courses, and the student survey administered to a random selection of students. Based on anova, multiple regression, and discriminant analysis, results are as follows: (1) Students who took two literature courses scored significantly higher on both the essay and writing subtests of CLAST, but students ultimately passed at higher rates only for the writing portion. (2) On the writing subtest, as a predictor of higher scores, group membership does not seem to be a reliable factor; however, group membership does aid in separating those who passed from those who failed. (3) On the essay subtest, group membership is a significant predictor of higher essay scores; however, its use in separating groups on the basis of ultimately passing or failing does not appear to be significant. Based on these results, recommendations include that students should be urged to take more literature courses as part of their writing credits. By virtue of the fact that English teachers assign more frequent writing assignments throughout the term, they are therefore naturally giving more feedback to students. Non-English faculty should participate in writing Across the curriculum workshops so that they are made aware of the recent research and methodology related to teaching writing classes.
This dissertation traces the roots of the writing Across the curriculum (WAC) movement in England and provides a rationale for its implementation in American higher education, especially in our nation's open access community colleges where students exhibit severe deficits in writing. for one of the basic tenets of the WAC movement contends that writing can be employed as a tool for, rather than as a test of, learning in any discipline wherein the student is able use words to make connections and discover meaning. The emphasis exists on the process Approach of writing rather than the product Approach that stresses form and syntactical correctness, not that the WAC movement ignores rules of syntax. Proponents of the writing Across the curriculum movement argue that writing is central to the learning process and that all faculty should endeavor to assist students to communicate concepts with clarity, meaning, and accuracy. The centerpiece of this dissertation presents two published articles from The Journal of College Science Teaching. The first article, entitled 'Writing to Learn Biology', chronicles the author's initial attempts in her Biology classes at Queensborough Community College to implement WAC techniques such as journals, focused on freewriting and microthemes. In this first article the author concludes that these WAC strategies actively engaged students in their own learning. This active involvement resulted in improved student learning. Furthermore, students enjoyed the class more as active rather than passive participants. Encouraged by the positive student response and her own intuition about the efficacy of using WAC techniques to actively engage students the author continued to experiment with interactive classroom strategies that would not only actively engage the learner but also improve scientific literacy. The second article entitled, 'Clustering: An Interactive Technique To Enhance Learning In Biology', describes an innovative pre-writing technique and its implementation in the biology classroom to accomplish these goals. The conclusion of the dissertation includes: (1) a research paradigm for analyzing students summary writing; (2) student feedback on the learning process and implications for future practice; and (3) reflections by the author on her sense of development and professional renewal vis-a-vis faculty development within the City University of New York and at Teachers College, Columbia University.
A Faculty Orientation and Design for Writing Across the Curriculum is a case study of the work done to introduce the concept of writing Across the curriculum at an urban community college. Emphasizing the related processes of learning, thinking, and writing, the researcher describes private interviews and analyzes transcriptions of small group meetings designed to discuss ways to encourage increased quantity and improved quality of writing in vocational and university-parallel courses on the campus. The focus of the study is the transcription of the faculty meetings where teachers reveal their methodologies and educational philosophies as they discuss ways to provide increased writing opportunities to large classes of open-door students. The culmination of the orientation project is a faculty booklet of ways to increase writing. The researcher concludes that although a writing 'program' is not in place as a result of the year's work, essential groundwork for such a program is laid.
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 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.
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