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Carol Wittig

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Monthly Archives: October 2014

PAB #7/#8: Theories in Second-Language Writing: Genre, Process (or is it Post-Process now), and Translingualism  

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB, Papers (810)

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2L, genre, second-language writing, theory, translingual, writing

translingual

The world and language

My digression for the week and apology for the length – but as with all topics this term, both new and interesting are a lethal combination and I want my blog to continue to be useful to me in my studies…thus a bit more verbose than even previous posts.  Selecting articles for this week’s theories in second-language writing was the most difficult of the term as it was a bit like falling into a rabbit hole. Every article led to two more that “had” to be included, with names, terms and references that were all aha moments.  All looked important, but all could not be covered in these last two PAB posts.  I am going to miss these posts!  I have had the chance to explore second-language writing without having to commit to a narrow research focus – perusing the literature and amassing an entire folder (bordering on hoarding) of “must reads.” But alas, just like Alice, I did have to return to real life and settle on this week’s articles – albeit, four articles, but identified within two theories: genre and translingualism…well, actually genre by way of process and post-process.

℘

 Hyland, Ken. “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1 (2003): 17-29.

Hyland, Ken. “Genre Pedagogy: Language, Literacy and L2 Writing Instruction.” Journal of Second Language Writing 16 (2007): 148-164. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2007.07.005

Hyland and Genre Theory

“Genre refers to abstract, socially recognized ways of using language. It is based on the assumptions that the features of a similar group of texts depend on the social context of their creation and use, and that those features can be described in a way that relates a text to others like it and to the choices and constraints acting on text producers” (21).

“Genre theory seeks to (i) understand the ways individuals use language to orient to and interpret particular communicative situations, and (ii) employ this knowledge for literacy education” (22).

Ken Hyland’s articles on genre pedagogy in 2003 and 2007 reflect his even longer publication history, with over 10 published articles on just this topic.[1] In his 2003 article, “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process,” he outlines how genre theory can “complement process views” in second-language writing “by emphasizing the role of language in written communication” (17). He posits that genre theory offers “explicit and systematic explanations of the ways language functions in social context” that “represent the most theoretically developed and fruitful response to process orthodoxies.” While process methods in writing have had “a major impact,” Hyland maintains that they have not resulted in improved writing due to approaches “rich amalgam of methods [that] collect around a discovery-oriented, ego-centered core which lacks a well-formulated theory of how language works in human interaction” (17).

Throughout the article, genre theory and approaches are offered as not just complements to process, but as ways to save writing from it.  Process is offered as “decontextualized skill” with “little systematic understanding of the ways language is patterned in particular domains” that “disempower teachers and cast them in the role of well-meaning bystanders” (19-21). While Hyland stresses that he is not out to “condemn process approaches,” it is evident from this article, that he favors genre theory in the writing classroom for the ways it offers a “socially informed theory of language and an authoritative pedagogy grounded in research of texts and contexts” (18). With processes approaches, inherently lacking as a complete theoretically-sound writing pedagogy, genre is its “social response” (27).

Hyland points to three schools of genre theory: 1) New Rhetoric Approach, influenced by post-structuralism, rhetoric and first language composition; focusing on the “relationship between text type and rhetorical situation.” 2) ESP Approach, that looks at genre as “a class of structured communicative events” within discourse communities and a shared purpose. 3) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), known as the “Sydney School,” this approach “stresses the purposeful, interactive, and sequential character of different genres” through lexico-grammatical patterns and rhetorical features (21-22).

Assumptions and concepts Hyland points as essential to genre theory are that “writing is dialogic,” discourse community is a “powerful metaphor” central to “joining writers, texts and readers in a particular discursive space” and are not “overbearing structures which impose uniformity of users” (23).

While most of Hyland’s article focuses on the broader understandings of genre theory, he does connect it specifically to second-language writing as a way to “acknowledge that literacies are situated and multiple” whereby “writing cannot be distilled down to a set of cognitive processes.” For second-language writers this allows for them to “gain access to ways of communicating that have accrued cultural capital” and make “the genres of power visible and attainable” (24).  Addressing critics to genre theory in second-language writing, Hyland offers that failure “to provide learners with what we know about how language works as communication denies them both the means of communicating effectively in writing and of analyzing texts critically” (25).

In practice, genre can offer practices as well as views about writing, with a more supportive structure for teaching. Hyland notes that the theoretical basis for pedagogy using a genre approach is from Vygotsky, who emphasized “interactive collaboration between teacher and student” and a supportive environment that utilized scaffolding, with the teacher as an authority (26).

Hyland (2007) outlines key principles of genre-based theoretical teaching:

  • Writing is a social activity
  • Learning to write is needs-based
  • Learning to write requires explicit outcomes and expectations
  • Learning to write is a social activity
  • Learning to write involves learning to use language

℘ 

Map of World

Map of World

Horner, Matsuda and Translingual Writing

Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur. “Opinion: Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (2011): 303-321.

Matsuda, Paul K. “The Lure of Translingual Writing.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 478-483.

Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster and John Trimbur are current scholars within the field of translingual writing. In their 2011 opinion article, they outline an alternative to the inadequacies they see in the “traditional ways of understanding and responding to language differences.” With a translingual approach, the focus shifts from “barrier to overcome” in language differences, to “resource for producing meaning” (303).

They point to other scholars and the CCCC declaration of “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” for the rights of students to use their own “varieties of English” (discussed earlier in Paper 2). In recognizing a translingual approach, they acknowledge that it is an ongoing discussion, one these authors started at a 2009 Symposium at the University of Louisville.  They note that this article,

“is neither all-inclusive on the issues it does address, nor the final word. We have developed this piece because we believe it is far past time for the issues it addresses to be engaged more aggressively in our field, and we hope to open a much-needed conversation that will be continued in many places, in many genres and forums, from many different points of view—with an eye toward change in the conceptual, analytical, and pedagogical frameworks that we use here” (315).

By arguing for the fluidity of languages, translingual approaches “questions language practices,” asking “what produces the appearance of conformity, as well as what that appearance might and might not do, for whom, and how” (304). With translingualism, there is no “standard” English, described as a “bankrupt concept” by the authors. Rather the varieties of English, as well as other languages, are looked at by way of what “writers are doing with language and why” (305).

“Traditional approaches to writing in the United States are at odds with these facts. They take as the norm a linguistically homogeneous situation: one where writers, speakers, and readers are expected to use Standard English or Edited American English—imagined ideally as uniform—to the exclusion of other languages and language variations” (303).

Power, and “dominant ideology” are mentioned throughout by Horner et al. as writers using a translingual approach would “negotiate standardized rules in light of the contexts of specific instances of writing” (305). The authors list three points that translingualism argues for:

1) honoring the power of all language users to shape language to specific ends

2) recognizing the linguistic heterogeneity of all users of language both within the United States and globally

3) directly confronting English monolingualist expectations by researching and teaching how writers can work with and against, not simply within, these expectations. (305)

Set against two historical approaches to teaching language differences, 1) the traditional approach – that seeks “to eradicate difference in the name of achieving correctness” and 2) tolerance—distanced from the first by “codifying” changes in language and “granting individuals a right to them.” Horner et al points to this as more tolerant on the surface, but segmenting language use to “assigned social sphere[s]” (306).

“A translingual approach requires that common notions of fluency, proficiency, and even competence with language be redefined” (307).

“A translingual approach rejects as both unrealistic and discriminatory those language policies that reject the human right to speak the language of one’s choice” (308).

“Taking a translingual approach goes against the grain of many of the assumptions of our field and, indeed, of dominant culture. At the same time, it is in close alignment with people’s everyday language practices” (313).

℘

 “It seems that translingual writing has established itself as an intellectual movement” (Matsuda 478).

Following Horner et al’s article text is a list of teacher-scholars who “have seconded the project outlined,” and while Matsuda’s name appears on the list; in subsequent articles, he has questioned a translingual approach.  For Matsuda, translingual writing theory “refers to loosely related sets of ideas and practices that have been articulated by scholars”[2] and in his most recent article on the topic, he interrogates the movement’s tendency for “linguistic tourism,” stressing that for it to move from the current “rage among scholars,” that it needs to move beyond “intellectual curiosity” and that the field of writing studies as a whole needs to “recognize the problem and to engage with issues surrounding language differences more critically” (483). Matsuda recommends learning “more about language—its nature, structure, and function as well as users and uses” and to “develop a broader understanding of various conversations that are taking place—inside and outside the field” (483).

“I am happy to see the enthusiasm. At the same time, I am often puzzled by the zeal with which some scholars and teachers approach a concept that they do not fully understand. More problematically, some scholars seem to use translingual writing not for its intellectual value but for its valorized status” (Matsuda 479).

“Graduate programs in rhetoric and composition need to take more seriously, and be more ambitious in making use of, what is now all too often treated as a token second language requirement of its graduates” (Horner 308).

[1] Xiaoli Fu and Ken Hyland (2014) “Interaction in two journalistic genres: a study of interactional metadiscourse;” (2013) “Genre and Discourse Analysis in Language for Specific Purposes;”  (2011) “Genre in teaching and research: an approach to EAP writing instruction;” (2009)  “Genre analysis;” (2008) “Genre and academic writing in the disciplines;” (2002)  “6. Genre: language, context and literacy; (1992) “Genre Analysis: Just another fad?;” (1990) “A genre description of the argumentative essay.”

[2] The scholars Matsuda points to within his article as current voices in translingual scholarship are A. Suresh Canagarajah, Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jackie Jones Royster and John Trimbur, and Vershawn Ashanti Young. Matsuda acknowledges that while he has been “implicated in this movement,” he considers it to be a “work in progress” (478-479).

Paper #3: Objects of Study in Second-Language Learning ~ Portfolios & Student Identity

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), Papers (810)

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2L, composition, L2, Objects of Study, second-language, second-language writing

Self-Identity

Identity

“Any discussion of ‘‘identity’’ in writing presents a slippery slope. Identity can be defined in terms of how we define ourselves, how others define us, and how we represent ourselves to others. In its singular usage, the term identity represents a monolithic, fixed category of ‘’being’’ (i.e., we are who we are because that is who we consistently are), a view that necessitates further philosophical encounters with Aristotle, Locke, Durkheim, Freud and Barthes, among other such eminent framers of western intellectual heritage. More concretely, however, identity can be seen as plural and dynamic—as an act of ‘‘doing’’ in the process of constructing social identity.” (Oullette 259)

Initially, as I thought about objects of study within second-language writing, I focused on students’ writing as the product of writing instruction and looked to portfolio assessment. However, after my interview with Dr. Kevin DePew[1], I realized I had missed the most important object of study of all in second-language writing, the students themselves. He pointed out that the writer was the primary object of study and that his/her writing was secondary. The goal, he emphasized, was to “help the writer communicate in English” as well as help him/her negotiate to the “expectations of the audience” and the forms that may take. In some instances, this is work to change the expectations of the audience, regarding the potential for language discrimination or language reduction.  He asked how, as writing instructors, can we help the writer, as well as be advocates for the writer? This was my aha moment in reframing my thoughts about objects of study withsocionic-identity-coverin second-language writing.

“The author’s explicit appearance in a text, or its absence, works to create a plausible academic identity and a voice with which to present an argument.  Creating such an identity, however is generally very difficult for second language students.” (Hyland 352)

While portfolio assessment is a popular way to provide feedback both in second-language and composition classrooms, Selami Aydin notes how studies examining portfolio assessment have been “mainly concerned with the decisions of language teachers rather than students’ perceptions” (195). However, she also points to prior research that shows how portfolios can “improve students’ self-confidence, help them learn actively…and motive students” (196). Descriptive words used throughout many of the articles on second-language writing reflect students’ emotional well-being, looking at ways to encourage their individual identities — who they are, as well as how they write.

Scriptorium monk at work

“Understanding of the ways learners give the symbolic meaning to themselves, to their perceptions, reactions, and thoughts that orient their relationship to others provides teachers with critical perspectives of viewing language learners not as L2 learners but as multilingual subjects.” (Kramsch, 18) [6]

One of the major questions in second-language writing is how to provide useful and constructive corrective feedback to students (paper #2). Recognizing how different forms of interaction and feedback affect students’ formation of their writing identity is essential if the goal is encouraging learning and students’ multi-literate capabilities, over viewing their writing as needing to be fixed. Throughout  the relatively short history of second-language writing, moving the focus away from debating grammar (examined in Paper #2) gave room for research to addressed second-language students as individuals, whose perceptions, reactions to feedback and identities were worthy of study.

Xuemei Li points to four “strands of studies” within second-language writing research, with a focus on students’ identities as the fourth strand, noting that they have become integrated only in recent research.[2]  She posits that “research on writing processes has mostly focused on the strategies of writing and learning to write. Writing processes where we can see the evolution of the writer’s identity and beliefs have been less adequately addressed.” Her research examines the “relationship of culture, identity, and beliefs with regard to the writing process” as a way to understand how a learner “reshapes” and “reconstructs” his/her identity “in terms of education and writing” (41). Fan Shen describes how he reconciled his Chinese and English identities in “Identities and Beliefs in ESL Writing: From Product to Processes,” the article that Li views as initiating the discussion for fourth strand research (46). Shen writes that his writing in English was helped through “becoming aware of the process of redefinition” of his identities (94).

Thai storytelling with puppets

Thai storytelling with puppets

“the process by which a non-native speaker learns to write academic text in English at a Western university involves creating a new identity that meets the expectations of the professors or teachers representing the discipline of which the student is becoming a new member. Writer identity in the text inevitably references the author’s cultural heritage, as well as his or her understanding of the ideologies in the host culture” (Shen as cited in Li 46)

 Using social networking sites as a way of exploring how multilingual writers create their “multiple identities” as writers, Hsin-I Chen of Tunghai University argues that better understanding of these practices can inform pedagogy in the classroom by assisting instructors with discovering the “learners’ language learning journey.”[3] Chen points to Lam’s literacy research as it places literary practices within a broader “social process in which language learners/users actively participate, enacting particular social roles and negotiating their situated identities”[4] and stresses that the “identity of the language learner indicates the ways in which language learners understand their relationship to the target language and to the social world” (143).

Viewing identity more broadly within composition studies, Mark Oullette, discusses how plagiarism has been recognized by scholars as “part of literacy practices governing identity construction” in “Weaving Strands of Writer Identity: Self as Author and the NNES Plagiarist” (255). Problematic in non-native speakers however is the established view of plagiarism as a “binary” – asserting that students plagiarize either because of “an absence of ethics or an ignorance of citation conventions” (Howard 788). As second-language students are negotiating identity as they write in English, positioning plagiarism as a breach of ethics is yet another instance in which second-language learners can be challenged. “For NNES writers, [this can] situate them in a double bind, challenged by their developing linguistic proficiency and differing cultural ideologies” (Oullette 256).

Rethinking how plagiarism is taught is certainly a bigger topic outside the scope of this paper and of just second-language writing, but as a hotbed issue within writing studies, it does raise concerns and questions both through the historical ethical binary, as well as application in a digital age of mashups and collaboration. Oullette asks for NNES in a writing classroom, “whether such an ethical discourse provides for a learning environment sensitive to the principles academic communities espouse” (269).

Why is identity as an object of study important within second-language learning? Chen asserts that it is students’ development of identity within their multilingual discourse that helps “foster their personal growth as multilingual subjects, and engages their real life practices and purposes” (163). She sees further study of online literacy practices necessary, as “these practices provide insights into how [students] present themselves in relation to others in Internet-based discourses and how they engage online, linguistically, socially, culturally, and historically” (164).

As objects of study, recognizing the differences in students’ cultural and social backgrounds and how these are reflected in their writing in English can be of benefit, as Shen stresses that “the process of learning to write in English is in fact a process of creating and defining a new identity and balancing it with the old identity” (101). Not only acknowledging, but appreciating these differences is essential in helping the student navigate his/her multilingual identities and I wonder how thinking more about identity could impact all writing classrooms, as there continues to be more diversity across higher education.[5]

old-map “In the contexts of global English language learning, the ability to use Standard Written English usually symbolizes affluence, good education, and high social class—important social capital (Bourdieu). As a result, in these contexts language learners desire to acquire such a powerful discourse. This desire to belong to an imagined community (Norton) of prestige usually encourages L2 students to invest in forms of writing in a second language that reconstruct their identities in the pursuit of symbolic value in U.S. classrooms.” (Liu & Tannacito 355)

**šš

Works Cited & Further Reading

Aydin, Selami. “EFL Writers’ Attitudes and Perceptions toward F-Portfolio Use.” TechTrends 28.2 (2014): 59-77.

—. “EFL Writers’ Perceptions of Portfolio Keeping.” Assessing Writing 15.3 (2010): 194-203.

Chen, Hsin I. “Identity Practices of Multilingual Writers in Social Networking Spaces.” Language, Learning & Technology 17.2 (2013): 143-70.

DePew, Kevin E., & Miller-Cochran, Susan K. (2010). “Social Networking in a Second Language: Engaging Multiple Literate Practices through Identity Composition.”  Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing. Eds. Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, & Gwen Gray Schwartz. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2010: 273–295.

Hyland, Ken. “Options of Identity in Academic Writing.” ELT Journal 56.4 (2002): 351-358.

Lam, Ricky. “Promoting Self-regulated Learning through Portfolio Assessment: Testimony and Recommendations.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (2013): 1-16. Web.

Li, Xuemi. “Identities and Beliefs in ESL Writing: From Product to Processes.” TESL Canada Journal/Flevue TESL du Canada 25.1 (2007): 41-64.

Liu, Pei-Hsun Emma, and Dan J. Tannacito. “Resistance by L2 Writers: The Role of Racial and Language Ideology in Imagined Community and Identity Investment.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 355-73.

Ortmeier-Hooper, Christina. “English May Be My Second Language, but I’m not ‘ESL’.” College Composition and Communication 59.3 (2008): 389-419.

Ouellette, Mark A. “Weaving Strands of Writer Identity: Self as Author and the NNES ‘Plagiarist’.” Journal of Second Language Writing 17.4 (2008): 255-73.

Shen, Fan. “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition.” College Composition and Communication 40.4 (1989): 459-466.

Romova, Zina, and Martin Andrew. “Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing via the Portfolio: Benefits for Learners of English as an Additional Language.” Assessing Writing 16.2 (2011): 111-22.

Ruecker, Todd. “Challenging the Native and Nonnative English Speaker Hierarchy in ELT: New Directions from Race Theory.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 8.4 (2011): 400-22.

**

Notes

[1] Interview, September 24, 2014, Dr. Kevin E. DePew, Associate Professor of English, Old Dominion University.

[2] The four strands, according to Li are 1) Studies on comparative rhetoric; 2) Studies of the writing processes and strategies of ESL writers; 3) Studies of beliefs about language learning, education and writing; and 4) Studies involving the notion of identities in ESL writing.

[3] Chen cites numerous other scholars who have written on second-language students’ formation of identity in face-to-face communities but notes that how students form their identity in online communities has not been as widely explored as of yet: Pavlenko & Norton (2007), Norton (2000), Kramsch (2000), Greenhow & Robelia (2009), DePew & Miller-Cochran (2010)

[4] Wan Shun Eva Lam. “Second Language Literacy and the Design of the Self: A Case Study of a Teenager Writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2000): 457–483.

[5] Christina Ortmeier-Hooper’s article “English May Be My Second Language, but I’m not ESL” addresses the resident ESL student, often identified as “Generation 1.5” – those students who had some U.S. secondary schooling, but speak a second language at home. She posits that all of the terms, “ESL,” “ELL” and “Generation 1.5” are “fraught with all kinds of complications for resident students and for us as compositionists” (390).  She draws from the work of Robert Brooke and identity negotiation; Erving Goffman and theories on performance and social identity; as well as Linda Harklau and her case studies involving Generation 1.5 students and their “ambivalent identities as immigrants.”

[6] Claire Kramsch. The Multilingual Subject. What Language Learners Say about Their Experience and Why it Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

PAB Posts #5-6: Portfolio Assessment and Student Identity ~ Objects of Study (OoS) in Second-Language Writing

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2L, composition, e-portfolios, English studies, facebook, portfolios, second-language, second-language writing

world map

World Map

Selami Aydin, of Balikesir University, Turkey, Zina Romova, of Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand, and Martin Andrew, Victoria University, New Zealand teach English as a second-language at their respective universities and have written on portfolio use in second-language writing classes. Aydin’s focus in both of her articles selected for this week is on students’ attitudes and reactions to portfolios, balanced against their use as a means of assessment. Of interest is that these authors are writing on students outside of the U.S., providing an opportunity to compare pedagogical practices in a broader setting than just U.S. institutions.

Portfolio

Portfolio

Aydin points out that while portfolio use has been studied and determined that they “make considerable contributions to foreign language writing,” that rarely have students’ perceptions been studied or addressed, despite that “use of portfolios creates an interactive assessment process that involves both teachers and students and forges a partnership in the learning process” (195). Asking 39 EFL first-year teaching students in the English Language Teaching Department (ELT) at Balikesir University, Turkey, she discovered that while the portfolio ”contributes considerably to vocabulary and grammar knowledge, reading, research, and writing skills” and that students recognize this, they also “complain that portfolio keeping is boring, tiring, and takes too much time.” Students also felt that checklists, as a part of portfolio-keeping were confusing, and that it was “difficult to study with a peer,” but they did not “experience anxiety” as part of the process (198-200). Concluding that while beneficial, there is also room for improvement in informing teachers “about motivational issues and autonomous learning” as a method to solve some of the problems; she further expanded her examination in her second article, by studying Facebook portfolios, noting, “in general, existing research reveals primarily positive effects of Facebook on educational activities, and research on portfolio keeping in EFL writing shows both benefits and problem areas” (60).

Facebook Portfolio App

Facebook Portfolio App

How can the two areas of portfolios and social media be combined for better student engagement while maintaining the benefits of portfolios’ learning elements? By using e-portfolios within Facebook, she attempted to see if this could alleviate problems of understanding of directions, or of students being bored, since “Facebook is a social network that, for many, is commonly used in daily life” and offers a “fresh environment for portfolio keeping in the writing process” (60). Citing numerous studies[1], she offers that there is value in using Facebook as a learning tool “about different cultures and languages” as well as for improving reading and writing in foreign languages. What she sees as lacking in the research to date is anything related to Facebook as a “portfolio tool” (61).

Students responding to this study felt “comfortable and excited with the idea of using Facebook as a tool for writing in English” and thought it had “considerable effect on the way they write in English” (67). They again demonstrated improvements in language, writing and reading. But, as in her earlier study, they still felt the portfolios were “boring, time-consuming and tiring” and that feedback was difficult to give, as well as revising and drafting (68). Students with computers responded with more satisfaction than student without computers, while overall those who were more familiar with Facebook faced increased fear of “negative evaluation from their peers” (70).

Interesting in this study, was that Aydin found that her male students felt “more comfortable with F-Portfolios” while female students exhibited more “fear of negative evaluations” (70). That in itself would be worthy of further exploration, as students perhaps recognized the breadth of social media’s visibility and gendered reactions to feedback in a web space vs. a written portfolio seen by only their class. While F-Portfolios were useful in writing instruction for improving vocabulary, reading, and writing skills, Aydin recognizes that this is still not a “tool that presents solutions to all problems encountered during the portfolio keeping process” (71).

While Romova and Andrew’s article, addresses basically the same pedagogical impact of portfolios, they also identify how students’ identities are “negotiated in text formation,” citing additional scholarship[2] on language use within “situated context and community” and “notions of imagined community”– all of which leads to students “affective roles of investment and belongingness in generating writing characteristic[s] of discourse communities” [my emphases] (114). They discuss students’ reactions to writing, research and citing conventions in Western academic writing, seeing vast differences in how students’ first-language knowledge is often at odds with academic English, noting that “academic literacy factors can be enhanced by increasing learner awareness of cross-cultural contrasts” (117).

oracle bone inscription

Oracle Bone Inscription – Jiaguwen refers to animal’s shell and bone writing, they form one of the most ancient written languages in Chinese history.

As Romova and Andrew provide insight into students’ reflective practices, they observe that the portfolios provide “a retrospectively and holistically reflective function” as a way students came to know themselves (119). I selected this article because of Romova and Andrew’s attention to student identity in the process of portfolio creation and feedback as I am interested in exploring how the students’ themselves are an object of study within second-language writing. In my interview with Dr. Kevin DePew, he discussed the importance of seeing the student as a recognized object of study and I plan to further research how students’ identities are established and exhibited through their writing and in response to feedback. I will expand on students’ identity and feedback via portfolios and other means as objects of study within second-language writing studies in Paper #3.

 Works Cited:

Aydin, Selami. “EFL Writers’ Attitudes and Perceptions toward F-Portfolio Use.” TechTrends 28.2 (2014): 59-77.

—. “EFL Writers’ Perceptions of Portfolio Keeping.” Assessing Writing 15.3 (2010): 194-203.

Romova, Zina, and Martin Andrew. “Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing via the Portfolio: Benefits for Learners of English as an Additional Language.” Assessing Writing 16.2 (2011): 111-22.

Notes:

[1] Just to name a few, Aydin (2012); Boon & Sinclair (2009); Bowers-Campbell (2008); Mills (2011); West, Lewis & Currie (2009); DePew (2011) and Dippold (2009).

[2] Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger 1998; Swales, 1988; Flowerdew, 2000; and Johns, 1995, 1997

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  • Mindmap #1: Rhetoric (ENG 894) January 24, 2016
  • Proposal: Object of Study (ENG 894) January 22, 2016

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Recent Posts:

  • Alas…not this term. May 16, 2016
  • Mindmap #2: Foucault (ENG 894) January 28, 2016
  • Reading Notes (ENG 894): Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge January 26, 2016

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  • Kairos
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