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.
Intervention efforts were initiated in an experimental group to develop expertise in writing expressions of conceptual understanding among students taking educational psychology courses. Sixty preservice teacher certification students from two mid-western universities participated in the study. Participants were enrolled in one of three 'Introduction to Educational Psychology' courses. One of the courses was used as an experimental group and two of the courses were used as comparison groups. The experimental group participants ( n = 20) were enrolled at a public, state-supported university. Comparison group 1 participants (n = 20) were enrolled at a state supported university, and comparison group 2 participants (n = 20) were enrolled at a private university. Two dependent measures were used: (1) a concept map representation sheet; and (2) a short essay question sheet to assess the participants' written expressions of conceptual understanding of motivation Theory. for the experimental group, instructional scaffolding interventions (ISI) followed mapping and writing activities. ISI was used as a method of instruction to support struggling-novices by giving increasingly specific hints to help the student develop an appropriate schematic representation of the concept being taught. A two-factor, multivariate repeated measures analysis revealed a significant difference between test phases on the dependent measures (concept maps and essays combined) Wilks' Lambda value =.254, F value = 11.00, Sig. =.000 with observed power =.998). An ANOVA revealed a significant difference between the experimental group and comparison group 1 during phase three LF = 5.614, Sig. =.023). Specifically, the experimental group had a higher mean total score (map and essay combined) (M = 33.10) than comparison group 1 (M = 24.80). More participants in the experimental group (n = 8) than in the comparison group 1 (n = 4) were identified as expert-novices in the last phase. of all the groups, the participants in the comparison group 2 had the highest mean total score for phase three. ISI and concept mapping activities may be more necessary at institutions with sampling characteristics that are similar to the experimental and the comparison group 1 participants. Fourteen sets of interview and retrospective think aloud protocol comparisons between types of learners suggest that expert-novices have highly organized knowledge structures and more developed monitoring skills. Knowledge structures were reported to facilitate written expressions of conceptual understanding.
The purpose of this naturalistic study was to better understand the experiences of interns as they engaged in literacy instruction during, the second semester of the year-long internship. Through increased understanding about how interns' experience teaching literacy during the year-long field experience those in positions of educating new teachers may gain insight into how to structure teacher education in literacy in ways that may be more meaningful and relevant. Qualitative methods of data collection included classroom observations, interviews, and document examination. Data were collected from three elementary school interns over a five month period which spanned the Spring semester of their internship year. One interns was teaching first grade, two interns were teaching fourth grade. Qualitative analysis of the data was used to answer the following research questions: (1) What does literacy mean to interns? (2) How do interns construct their perceptions of literacy? (3) What does literacy instruction mean to interns? (4) How do interns experience literacy instruction in the classroom context? (5) How do interns construct their perceptions of literacy instruction? Findings from data analysis revealed the following similarities Across interns: (1) Literacy means reading and writing in ways that communicate meaning for enjoyment, for learning, and to accomplish one's goals in life. (2) Interns construct their perceptions of literacy in literate environments, with literate role models, and expectations for literate behavior. (3) By the end of the internship year, interns articulated clearly that literacy instruction meant the teaching of reading and writing as integrated processes, in both student-directed and teacher-directed-ways. (4) Interns experienced literary instruction as the application of social strategies that enabled them to assert autonomy in stressful situations. Interns used conformity, compromise, and change to actively adapt to perceived contextual constraints. (5) Interns constructed their perceptions of literacy instruction through school biographies, teacher education course work, field experiences, and professional development activities. Implications for teacher education in literary were based on the findings that interns saw themselves as learners throughout the internship experience. Interns completed the year-long internship with the perception that they were still learning to teach literacy.
Much of teachers' resistance to integrating writing instruction in their classroom comes from their poor perceptions of themselves as writers, and uncertainty about how to teach and foster writing. The present study was conducted to discover how future teachers viewed themselves as writers and writing teachers and how these identities were being addressed in teacher education programs. Two hundred twenty-six student teachers responded to a questionnaire designed to measure both writing apprehension and beliefs about the role and responsibility of all teachers in teaching writing. In addition, 60 teacher education students responded in journal form to questions about themselves as writers. These responses were analyzed for recurring patterns and themes. Finally, faculty from a large teacher education program were asked to respond to questions related to how and to what extent the identity of the teacher as a writer and a teacher of writing was treated in their respective courses and programs. State guidelines for teacher education, along with course outlines, were also reviewed. Results revealed that future teachers' feelings about writing are heavily influenced by the nature of the writing task and whether or not the writing is being evaluated. In addition, most future teachers desire more writing instruction than what they receive. Regarding teaching writing, future teachers believe in the importance of writing Across the curriculum and teaching writing as a process, but do not express a desire to teach writing. Specifically, they lack confidence in evaluating the writing of others. It was also discovered that the identity of the teacher as a writer and teacher of writing is addressed minimally in teacher preparation programs. Recommendations for improvement of teacher education in addressing these important issues include allowing for more student choice in writing assignments, using journals extensively as tools for expression and reflection, reducing writing apprehension through process-oriented approaches, building more writing instruction and training in teaching writing into the teacher education program, addressing the identity of the teacher as a writer earlier in the preparation program, and providing more training for teacher educators interested in developing the writing attitudes and abilities of their students.
This research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of an alternate method of teaching writing Across the curriculum as a means to optimize the writing process at the college level. A pilot study, a pretest and a posttest were administered to gather data. A statistical analysis of the data generated a major conclusion (i.e., the students in the experimental group taught revision skills achieved significantly higher writing scores than those in the control group not taught revision skills). From the statistical analysis of results, five other conclusions can be drawn: (1) The alternate teaching method had the same effect on students in different majors. (2) The alternate teaching method had the same effect on students who had learned revision previously and on those who had not learned revision before. (3) The alternate teaching method had the same effect on students who took one writing course before and on those who took more than one writing course before. (4) The alternate teaching method had the same effect on male students and female students. (5) The alternate teaching method did not make a significant difference in the efficiency of text production for students.
Potentially, the most important response to widespread criticism about the quality of writing and writing instruction is Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC). WAC can mean a total immersion in writing, horizontally in all departments and vertically at all grade levels. It can encompass current writing Theory, but only if teachers understand such Theory and can apply it. WAC Theory must be incorporated into the entire process of professional preparation. WAC philosophy believes that (a) writing can be learned and should be taught, (b) writing is a way to clarify thought, (c) writing is a way to learn, and (d) writing is a complex, individualized process. This understanding is required to teach in a successful WAC program. The literature offers little evidence that schools of education feel a responsibility to emphasize writing and writing instruction at the preservice level. Therefore, a study was initiated to survey the eight Florida schools of education that are members of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for the purpose of determining practices and perceptions regarding WAC. This descriptive research called for two survey questionnaires, which invited responses from 8 administrators and 250 secondary education students and tested 11 hypotheses. These hypotheses related to required courses for writing and writing instruction, student understanding of WAC Theory, student perception of WAC status, level of student confidence to write and use writing, student willingness to become writing teachers, and student perception of the importance of writing. The conclusions indicate that WAC is not a well-known, well-used, or well-respected term: a majority (59%) had never heard the phrase before; a majority (63%) do not know writing-to-learn strategies; a majority (60%) do not support WAC programs. Only 6% feel WAC is an important focus in their schools of education. The remainder of the study recommends a required preservice course in WAC for all future teachers and suggests some components that course should contain.
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