Mindmap #2: Foucault (ENG 894)
28 Thursday Jan 2016
28 Thursday Jan 2016
07 Sunday Dec 2014
Tags
composition, English studies, epistemologies, genre, history, interdisciplinary, L2, labor, linguistics, matsuda, methodology, Objects of Study, praxis, research, second-language writing, teaching, TESOL, theories, transdisciplinary, writing, writing across the disciplines
A Scholar of… How I Got to Here
When I think about what it means to be a scholar within a discipline, I have to think about what discipline that actually is for me. I started to think about this last fall in my first ODU class and as a burgeoning scholar in English Studies and find I am thinking of myself as someone with research interests and a professional presence both in the library and the classroom.
In Paper #5, I looked at the final draft for the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, the main epistemological basis for library instruction. Information Literacy: what it is, its place in the curriculum, higher education, and how it guides what I do is fundamental to who I am as a professional librarian. Yet, where do I place myself within English Studies, Composition & Rhetoric and Second-Language Writing that I have spent this term investigating? How do librarianship and information literacy fit in this paradigm?
From Janice Lauer’s exploration of the discipline in “Rhetoric and Composition” and her article “Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline” to Paul K. Matsuda’s scholarship in second-language writing, there is a wide range of possible focus areas available to me as a scholar within Rhetoric and Writing Studies. Looking a bit broader to Writing across the Curriculum (WAC), Transfer Theory- how first-year skills transfer into subsequent courses and knowledge, Social-Constructivism (Bizzell, Bartholomae, Berlin, Harris) – the “social turn” in writing, or Swales’ work in Discourse Communities and Genre Theory — I keep adding to the “these too are needed” part of my future scholarship. But can all of these be combined into being “a” single scholar? I hope so.
Paul K. Matsuda writes on the “disciplinary division of labor” within composition studies and second-language learning [PAB #1 and PAB #2], while Janice Lauer echoes similar concerns of “disciplinary status” and long-standing labor issues within English departments over the teaching of composition and writing in “Rhetoric and Composition.” Throughout the library profession, librarians too often see themselves and write about straddling similar “whose job is it” or “where do we fit within the curriculum” scenarios (Badke, Bewick, Elmborg, Fister, Elmborg, Weiner).
There are also similar questions within librarianship, much as in the early years of composition’s service and disciplinary status questions, as to whether librarianship can be considered a theoretical discipline. A recent chapter in Theories of Information, Communication and Knowledge looks at “Information Science and its Core Concepts: Levels of Disagreements” as author Birger Hjorland poses the question as to whether Library and Information Science can be considered an academic discipline – citing challenges that “it is not a monodiscipline, but rather an interdisciplinary field…as well as not being scholarly or scientific. Rather it is a ‘professional’ field based on the teaching of some practical skills such as searching electronic databases and cataloging books according to certain norms” (208).
Hjorland also points to the necessity of a set of theories and “body of relatively accepted knowledge” that is considered part of a common “reference point” in being a discipline – but yet in all of his discussion, no mention is made to the instruction or pedagogy aspects of librarianship.
While libraries become more digital and students are exposed to technology at a younger age, many question what the future will hold for librarians and libraries. As an academic librarian, I have faculty status, but not faculty rank. I teach both credit and non-credit classes, but am not “really” considered teaching faculty. I am involved in research and concerned with pedagogy initiatives, but my involvement with student learning is most often only achieved through collaboration with individual classroom faculty.
On a broader scale, while some are unaware of the services that librarians offer to help students and faculty with their research and library needs, others do not see any benefit to librarian collaboration in courses or with individual students. What “is” an academic research librarian…what do I “do”?
There is often little acknowledgement for how much students do not know about research. Yet, students do not inherently know how to research – how to think like a researcher or how to write using research and sources. Where do they learn these abilities? As I work with students, I have fundamental questions about what students are doing with resources or how they are using the research they find? Whose job is it to teach research skills, critical thinking, critical reading, evaluation of resources, “the” literacies: technology, digital, information? We saw how long the list could be in our Internet searches.
We hear all the time that students’ research abilities are not at the level that faculty expect and as librarians, we are often frustrated and question how to move beyond providing students with just a surface understanding of resources and the research process—often in one class session or a single assignment where we may be asked to help. It is often as if we take students to the edge of the information cliff and then push them over without continued guidance. But, whose role is it to provide continuing guidance: Librarians, English Faculty, FYS Faculty?
Wardle and Downs remind us that writing tasks given to students are “flexible genres that serve various purposes in various contexts,” and change based on the discourse communities the students are writing in. They suggest that we “give students the same frameworks for analysis and the same access to research about how texts work” that we use. There is a need to prepare students for different rhetorical situations by providing them with different rhetorical contexts for writing and research. There are no one or two composition classes that can “teach students to write” (as cited in Wittig, “Final Paper”).
We can teach “about” research as a process, focus on information literacy as part of the rhetorical canon and encourage critical thinking, exploration and growth. But we cannot expect that students at the end of a term will be versed to take part in specific discourse communities. Students are not able to join in the conversation; because they have difficulty understanding what the conversation is or that there even is a conversation. (Wittig 9)
How do I see myself contributing to the Major Debates?
One specific moment — a kairotic experience of sorts – that pointed me to the scholarship in areas aligned with my professional interests came when I met Rebecca Moore Howard and Sandra Jamieson at the Georgia Information Literacy (GIL) Conference in 2010 and they detailed the nationally scoped Citation Project. The Citation Project was responding to “educators’ concerns about plagiarism and the teaching of writing,” and addressing concerns that “little empirical data is available to describe what students are actually doing with their sources.” They were English professors, speaking at an Information Literacy conference to both librarians and faculty, one of the few anomaly conferences that draws in a “mixed” audience.
Plagiarism, writing from sources, connections to English classes – what seemed like totally logical collaborations to me surprised disciplinary faculty when I expressed interest in collaboration: librarians “do” that? When I attended CCCC in 2012, I went to every session about research and writing – and asked questions in the sessions about collaborative efforts as so much of what was being said involved resources and libraries; but yet, no mention of librarians — kind of like the missing link. We found two other librarians there – out of all those attendees. I realized I had found my place and where I could make a difference within my profession.
As librarians refer to a writing assignment called a “research paper,” it often wrongly implies a one-size fits all, generic form. When scholars refer to their own writing, they rarely use that label. Excessively rules-based, the research “paper” is too often still taught as a “product,” what Jennie Nelson referred to as a “rhetoric of the finished word” rather than a “rhetoric of doing.” The result is that students are often “passive spectators,” outside of any academic discourse community (66). The benefits of research assignments are overshadowed by a focus on concerns about grammar, punctuation and appropriate types or numbers of sources.
“It is critical to dispel the ‘schoolmarmish’ (Nelson, ‘Scandalous’) and trivialized views associated with IL often found when library instruction is referred to in the literature, moving toward a ‘situated, process-oriented literacy relevant to a broad range of rhetorical and intellectual activities’ (Norgaard 125). Placed within a first-year writing curriculum which purports to teach students how to think critically, develop a sense of inquiry and write informative, well-researched academic prose, the research paper assignment often fails to teach, or even to assess, any of those skills” (Wittig and Ludovico 2).
From this first meeting at the GIL Conference and during subsequent follow-up workshops, I have initiated, with the librarians at Boatwright Library, a longitudinal study with our entering 2013 class, looking at student research papers and how IL instruction translates into the ways information is used. Using the Citation Project as our inspiration, we have an opportunity to study the ways that students apply rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and writing abilities. What we plan to address and a core area of my planned scholarship, is what was noted as absent in the Citation Project, that of “the entire discipline of library science and the sub-discipline of information literacy” (Veach 105).
Yet, there are philosophical questions that both faculty and librarians ask: whose role is it to teach students about appropriate citing and instill good research practices? This represents a step beyond what some librarians are used to teaching and what classroom instructors recognize as “what librarians do” — as it moves into what to do “with” the resources, rather than just finding or evaluating the resources.
My moment at the GIL Conference eventually led me to my current PhD program at ODU. During my first ODU class in Fall 2013, Composition as Applied Rhetoric, I researched and wrote on the history of the research paper in first-year writing. This was my prelude to thinking about first-year writing and how librarians are/are not involved in student learning and writing from sources. More importantly, it points out the vast opportunities available for combined scholarship and collaboration in these areas. In my paper, “The History and Relationship of Information Literacy to the First-Year Research Paper,” I found that “[t]here have been calls over the last 20 years to improve librarians’ understanding of rhetoric and to better connect with a theory-based curriculum within the academy” (Wittig 10).
Only in the last few years have connections begun to show up in scholarship that join rhetoric, research and writing. One of these is the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework, mentioned earlier and now in its final draft. It was previously known as the IL Standards; but the language change has the potential to align the scholarship in the fields of library instruction, rhetoric and writing studies more clearly. I outlined the framework and the “threshold concepts” that are being defined in Paper #5.
But what can my scholarship and study add to the field? I see possibilities every time I search for library, librarians, information literacy + composition, second-language writing, writing across the curriculum, etc…there are very few crossovers in scholarship or in the literature. IL is written about by librarians –writing is written about in the disciplines. Theory is embedded in the disciplines — “how to” articles and practices illustrating how librarians teach the skills appear in library journals.
“Reading in the literature of composition and library science, I am struck by the fact that there have been very different assumptions and expectations for writing and research from librarians and faculty in the disciplines. With little mention of rhetoric or composition theory in most library literature and even less of information literacy discussed in composition scholarship, it is critical for librarians and faculty to agree on a common praxis related to student research and writing practices (Townsend, 2011; Brent, 2012; Detmering, 2012; Veach, 2012; Walker, 2012; Donovan & O’Donnell, 2013; Zepke, 2013)” (Wittig 4).
What types of genre, theoretical, and professional knowledge does it take for me to be a scholar?
I looked through a very narrow lens this term as I surveyed second-language writing. With a growing, diverse student population at UR, this is a necessary part of my scholarly identity. In Paper #5, I identified the theories within second-language writing as important to my entrance in the field. Seeing not only second-language students, but all first-year students as my main Objects of Study, I look to Composition & Rhetoric theories and pedagogies, as well as Literacy Studies (critical, information, digital…the list is long, but the focus is all on student learning). There is also great interdisciplinarity within this knowledge base: English Studies, Education, Library Science, Psychology, and Philosophy. While I joke that Foucault is mentioned in almost everything I read, the truth of it is that current literacy and writing studies are based on broad theoretical foundations, ones not included in library science education or studies. These are areas of knowledge I need to acquire as a scholar.
During my fall reading, I discovered the scholarship of Rolf Norgaard and Grace Veach. Both wrote of the disconnects often found between librarians, information literacy efforts and theoretical knowledge within writing studies. Rolf Norgaard in companion articles called for improved connections between the writing classroom and information literacy (IL). He focused on composition classrooms and libraries “shared impulse for reform” as he examined what rhetoric and composition could provide to information literacy from theory; while in his second article, he explained how theory could be reflected in a pedagogy of practice for information literacy (220).
Norgaard expressed concern, writing “…it is nothing short of surprising how little that field [rhetoric/composition] has written about information literacy and library collaboration” (125), but he also stressed that it is not just a one-sided problem, as information literacy has paid “little attention to the theoretical foundations and pedagogical frameworks that inform rhetoric and composition”(125).
Norgaard placed the blame on both fields — due in part to libraries often representing nothing more than “images of the quick field trip, the scavenger hunt, the generic stand-alone tutorial, or the dreary research paper” to writing teachers and students (124). Norgaard’s articles were written in 2003 and 2004 in Reference Services Review. All cited references since have been in library or information literacy publications, except for Doug Brent’s in 2013, writing in Writing Program Administration. He is a visiting professor at ODU this year and will be teaching our 840 class next term; so I look forward to continuing the conversations and my research focus with him.
In his article, “The Research Paper and Why We Should Still Care,” he makes connections between information literacy as written about by librarians and the research paper as written about in composition scholarship. In his article, he draws from Activity, Genre and Transfer Theories, as well as Composition pedagogy and research. But, he is writing in a writing journal. How many librarians saw this?
“An important, and frequently overlooked, source of information on writing from sources can be found in the literature of our colleagues, the academic librarians who often must help our students navigate the tasks which we have assigned them. While much of the literature on information literacy concentrates on the narrow problem of how to help students locate and evaluate sources, other variants locate this problem in terms of how students approach the entire activity of writing from sources. In fact, much of the literature on information literacy calls explicitly for more rapprochement between the library and the disciplines, particularly the discipline of writing studies . . .
On the other hand, most of the writing studies literature seems blissfully unaware of this important source of cognate studies. Since the librarians frequently are the ones to clean up our messes when we create ill conceived research assignments, we would do well to listen more closely to what they are saying” (Brent 42-43).
Grace Veach, Dean of Library Services at Southeastern University, wrote her dissertation in 2013 on “Tracing Boundaries, Effacing Boundaries: Information Literacy as an Academic Discipline,” arguing that IL needs to have a disciplinary home. She puts forth that much like writing studies, it has often “been pushed to the outskirts of academia.” Expanding on this, she expresses how “blissfully unaware” librarians have been of a great majority of the research paper criticism, as ‘a good part of their disciplinary identity derives from teaching information literacy as it relates to the research paper in composition classes.” Veach adds that “if the skills involved in information fluency represent both art and science, librarians tend to concern themselves more with the science, while compositionists try to teach the art” (110). Compositionists tend to see librarians and instruction as problematic, creating “at least part of the divide “when they teach research and citation techniques divorced from disciplinary (i.e. rhetorical) theory” (Veach 112). She goes so far as to argue, that when it comes to composition theory and rhetoric, “librarians have shown a tendency to be rhetorically tone-deaf” (113).
“Instructors may envision their students engrossed in the masters of the discipline while synthesizing their own new thesis, but this rarely matches the reality of the undergraduate research process, especially in general education courses. While graduate students do often allow their writing process to influence their topic choice, undergraduates rarely leave themselves enough breathing room to do this kind of exploration. When they start the paper twenty-four hours or less before its due date, reading, summarizing, and learning will be sacrificed to efficacy and word-count inflation” (Veach 114).
Hjorland’s earlier comments echo some of the same concerns as to where an appropriate disciplinary home might be for LIS; while Veach draws in potential connections to be made if only each knew of the other’s discussions. Those are just a few scholars, writing just a few articles; but they provide such great potential for future scholarship and work in the fields. What does it mean to be a scholar in these areas? In some respects, it will be about creating new alliances and paths as evidenced from what is not found or written about in the literature.
Where does all this leave me as I finish my exploration this term and will eventually need to stop collecting research and actually begin articulating who I am and where I plan to place myself within the research fields? What does a scholar look like in the blended fields of Writing, Rhetoric, Literacy, and Librarianship? My lingering questions from Paper #5 deal with where I align myself . . . but I do not feel at all ready to answer those yet as with every text I read, I find more rabbit holes to explore.
My bibliography and reading list have grown all term and I have begun to align them into focus areas: Information Literacy, Libraries and Research; English Studies: Rhetoric, Writing and Literacy; and Second-Language Writing. Across each of these areas, I can make connections and see ways to draw from writing studies, first-year composition, transfer theory, writing across the disciplines, second-language writing, literacy studies and research/writing from sources. I look forward to establishing my voice within the field.
~The End~
My reminders – the definitions:
Epistemology: the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.
Methodology: a set of methods, rules, or ideas that are important in a science or art; a particular procedure or set of procedures.
Axiology: the study of value, or goodness, in its widest sense. The distinction is commonly made between intrinsic and extrinsic value—i.e., between that which is valuable for its own sake and that which is valuable only as a means to something else, which itself may be extrinsically or intrinsically valuable.
Theories: an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events; an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true; the general principles or ideas that relate to a particular subject.
Works Cited & Further Reading
The articles listed below, many of which I have cited in previous posts, provide the intersections in scholarship that I am interesting in pursuing next.
Information Literacy, Libraries and Research
Accardi, Maria T. Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2013.
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Accessed: November 18, 2014.
Badke, William. “Why Information Literacy Is Invisible.” Communications in Information Literacy 4.2 (2010): 129-41.
Bewick, Laura, and Sheila Corrall. “Developing Librarians as Teachers: A Study of Their Pedagogical Knowledge.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 42.2 (2010): 97-110.
Bivens-Tatum, Wayne. Academic Librarian|On Libraries, Rhetoric, Poetry, History, & Moral Philosophy [blog]. Accessed December 5, 2014.
D’angelo, Barbara J., and Barry M. Maid. “Moving Beyond Definitions: Implementing Information Literacy across the Curriculum.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 30.3 (2004): 212-17.
Delaney, Geraldine and Jessica Bates. “Envisioning the Academic Library: A Reflection on Roles, Relevancy and Relationships.” New Review of Academic Librarianship (2014). [pre-pub online]. DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2014.911194
Drabinski, Emily. “Toward a Kairos of Library Instruction.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (2014): 480-85.
Elmborg, James. “Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32.2 (2006): 192-199.
Fister, Barbara. “Teaching the Rhetorical Dimensions of Research.” Research Strategies 11.4 (Fall 1993): 211-219.
—. “The Library’s Role in Learning: Information Literacy Revisited.” Library Issues 33.4 (2013).
Georgas, Helen. “Google vs. The Library (Part Ii): Student Search Patterns and Behaviors When Using Google and a Federated Search Tool.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 14.4 (2014): 503-32.
Hattwig, Denise, Kaila Bussert, Ann Medaille, and Joanna Burgess. “Visual Literacy Standards in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Libraries and Student Learning.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 13.1 (2013): 61-89.
Head, Allison J. et al. “What Information Competencies Matter in Today’s Workplace?” Library & Information Research 37.114 (2013): 74-104.
Hicks, Allison. “Cultural Shifts: Putting Critical Information Literacy into Practice.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.1 (2013): 50-65.
Hjorland, Birger. “Information Science and its Core Concepts: Levels of Disagreement.” Theories of Information Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Eds. Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan and Thomas M. Dousa. London: Springer, 2014. 205-235.
Hofer, Amy R., Lori Townsend, and Korey Brunetti. “Troublesome Concepts and Information Literacy: Investigating Threshold Concepts for Il Instruction.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 12.4 (2012): 387-405.
Hofer, Amy R., Korey Brunetti and Lori Townsend. “A Thresholds Concepts Approach to the Standards Revision.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 108-113.
Holliday, Wendy and Rogers, Jim. “Talking about Information Literacy: The Mediating Role of Discourse in a College Writing Classroom.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 13.3 (2013): 257-271.
“Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” 2000. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). Accessed: December 1, 2014.
Jacobs, Heidi L. M. “Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34.3 (2008): 256-62.
Jacobson, Trudi E., and Thomas P. Mackey. “Proposing a Metaliteracy Model to Redefine Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 84–91.
Koltay, Tibor, Sonja Špiranec, and László Z. Karvalics. “The Shift of Information Literacy towards Research 2.0.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship (2014). [prepub]
Leckie, Gloria J. “Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering Faculty Assumptions about the Undergraduate Research Process.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 22.3 (1996): 201-08.
Lloyd, Annemaree, Mary Anne Kennan, Kim M. Thompson, and Asim Qayyum. “Connecting with New Information Landscapes: Information Literacy Practices of Refugees.” Journal of Documentation 69.1 (2013): 121-44.
Lloyd, Annemaree. “Information Literacy as a Socially Enacted Practice: Sensitising Themes for an Emerging Perspective of People-in-practice.” Journal of Documentation 68.6 (2012): 772-83.
—. “Framing Information Literacy as Information Practice: Site Ontology and Practice Theory.” Journal of Documentation 66.2 (2010): 245-58.
Ludovico, Carrie and Carol Wittig. “A Universe of Information, One Citation at a Time: How Students Engage with Scholarly Sources.” Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning (2015): [pending – http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1533290X.2014.946343
Mackey, Thomas P., and Trudi E. Jacobson. Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2014.
Marcum, James W. “Rethinking Information Literacy.” The Library Quarterly 72.1 (2002): 1-26.
Martin, Justine. “Refreshing Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 114–27.
McClure, Randall, and Kellian Clink. “How Do You Know That? An Investigation of Student Research Practices in the Digital Age.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 9.1 (2009): 115-132.
McCluskey, Clare. “Being an Embedded Research Librarian: Supporting Research by Being a Researcher.” Journal of Information Literacy, 7.2 (2013): 4-14. DOI: 10.11645/7.2.1815
Meulemans, Yvonne Nalani and Allison Carr. “Not at Your Service: Building Genuine Faculty‐Librarian Partnerships.” Reference Services Review 41.1: 80 – 90. DOI: 10.1108/00907321311300893
Meyer, Jan H.F., and Ray Land. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. New York: Routledge. 2006.
Mills, Kathy Ann. “A Review of the “Digital Turn” in the New Literacy Studies.” Review of Educational Research 80.2 (2010): 246-71.
Morgan, Patrick K. “Pausing at the Threshold.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 15.1 (2015): prepub, n.p.
—. “Information Literacy Learning as Epistemological Process.” Reference Services Review 42.3 (2014): 403-413. DOI: 10.1108/RSR-04-2014-0005
Nazari, M., and S. Webber. “Loss of Faith in the Origins of Information Literacy in E-environments: Proposal of a Holistic Approach.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 44.2 (2012): 97-107.
Nelson, Jennie. “The Research Paper: A ‘Rhetoric of Doing’ or a ‘Rhetoric of the Finished Word?’” Composition Studies/Freshman English News 22.2 (1994): 65–75.
Ng, Wan. “Can We Teach Digital Natives Digital Literacy?” Computers & Education 59.3 (2012): 1065-078.
Norgaard, Rolf. “Writing Information Literacy: Contributions to a Concept.” Reference Services Review 43.2 (2003): 124–130.
—. “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and Implications.” Reference Services Review 43.3 (2004): 220–226.
Nutefall, Jennifer E, and Phyllis Mentzell Ryder. “The Timing of the Research Question: First-Year Writing Faculty and Instruction Librarians’ Differing Perspectives.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 10.4 (2010): 437–449.
Oakleaf, Megan. “A Roadmap for Assessing Student Learning Using the New Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (September 2014): 510–4.
O’Connor, Lisa, Melissa Bowles-Terry, Erin Davis, and Wendy Holliday. ““Writing Information Literacy” Revisited.” Reference & User Services Quarterly 49.3 (2010): 225-230.
Otto, Peter. “Librarians, Libraries, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2014.139 (2014): 77-93.
Rabinowitz, Celia. “Working in a Vacuum: A Study of the Literature of Student Research and Writing.” Research Strategies 17.4 (2000): 337-46.
Rosenblatt, Stephanie. “They Can Find It, But They Don’t Know What to Do With It: Describing the Use of Scholarly Literature by Undergraduate Students.” Journal of Information Literacy 4.2 (2010), 50-61.
Saunders, Laura. “Culture and Collaboration: Fostering Integration of Information Literacy by Speaking the Language of Faculty.” Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference. 2013.
Simmons, Michelle Holschuh. “Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5.3 (2005): 297-311.
Spiranec, Sonja, and Banek Zorica Mihaela. “Information Literacy 2.0: Hype or Discourse Refinement?” Journal of Documentation 66.1 (2010): 140-53.
Swanson, Troy. “A Radical Step: Implementing a Critical Information Literacy Model.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 4.2 (2004), 259-273.
Townsend, Lori, Korey Brunetti, and Amy R. Hofer. “Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 11.3 (2011): 853-69.
Tucker, Virginia, Christine Bruce, Sylvia Edwards, and Judith Weedman. “Learning Portals: Analyzing Threshold Concept Theory for LIS Education.” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 55.2 (2014): 150–65.
Weiner, Sharon A. “Who Teaches Information Literacy Competencies? Report of a Study of Faculty.” College Teaching 62.1 (2014): 5-12.
Wittig, Carol. “The History and Relationship of Information Literacy to the First-Year Research Paper.” Final Paper. ENGL 721/821 Composition as Applied Rhetoric (Fall 2013). [Available in Google Shared Class Folder]
Veach, Grace L. “At the Intersection: Librarianship, Writing Studies, and Sources as Topoi.” Journal of Literacy and Technology 13.1 (2012): 102-129.
English Studies: Rhetoric, Writing and Literacy
Adams, Katherine H., and John L. Adams. “The Paradox Within: Origins of the Current-Traditional Paradigm.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17.4 (1987): 421-31.
Alexander, Jonathan, and Susan C. Jarratt. “Rhetorical Education and Student Activism.” College English 76.6 (2014): 525-44.
Baca, Damián. “Rethinking Composition, Five Hundred Years Later.” JAC 29.1/2 (2009): 229-42.
Baer, Andrea. “Why Do I Have to Write That?: Compositionists Identify Disconnects between Student and Instructor Conceptions of Research Writing that Can Inform Teaching.” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 9.2 (2014): 37-44.
Bartholomae, David, and John Schlib. “Reconsiderations: ‘Inventing the University’ at 25: An Interview with David Bartholomae.” College English 73.3 (2011): 260-82.
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Writer Can’t Write: Research on Writer’s Block and other Writing Problems. Ed. Mike Rose. New York: Guilford, 1986. 134-166.
Beam, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review 27.1 (2008): 72-86.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2011.
Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class.” College English 50.5 (1988): 477-94.
Brent, Doug. “The Research Paper, and Why We Should Still Care.” Writing Program Administration 37.1 (Fall 2013): 33-53.
—.“Transfer, Transformation, and Rhetorical Knowledge: Insights from Transfer Theory.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25.4 (2011): 396-420. DOI: 10.1177/1050651911410951
—. “Reinventing WAC (Again): The First-Year Seminar and Academic Literacy.” College Composition and Communication 57.2 (2005): 253-276.
—. “Keeping the ‘Literacy’ in ‘Information Literacy.’” Inkshed: Newsletter of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning 17.3-4 (Autumn 1999).
Carr, Jean F. “Composition, English, and the University.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 435-41.
The Citation Project: Preventing Plagiarism, Teaching Writing. Accessed: November 18, 2014.
Dean, Deborah. “Shifting Perspectives about Grammar: Changing What and How We Teach.” English Journal 100.4 (2011): 20-26.
Dirk, Kerry. “‘The “Research Paper” Prompt: A Dialogic Opportunity for Transfer.’” Composition Forum 25 (2012).
Downs, Douglas and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching About Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.'” College Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 552–84.
Elbow, Peter. “Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond ‘Mistakes,’ ‘Bad English,’ and ‘Wrong Language.’” JAC 19.3 (1999): 359-88.
Faigley, Lester. “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.” College English 48.6 (1986): 527-42.
Flower, Linda. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 32.4 (1981): 365-87.
Howard, Rebecca Moore, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences.” Writing & Pedagogy 2.2 (2010): 177-92.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (1995): 788-806.
Johns, Ann M. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1997.
Johnson, J. Paul, and Ethan Krase. “Coming to Learn: From First-Year Composition to Writing in the Disciplines.” Across the Disciplines 8 (2011): 1-30.
Kaiser Lee, Karen A. From Telling to Transforming: Rhetorical Invention and the Genre of the Research Paper. PhD Dissertation, Purdue University, 2011.
Kell, Catherine. “Ariadne’s Thread: Literacy, Scale and Meaning Making across Space and Time.” Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 81 (2013): 1-24.
Kolb, Kenneth H., Kyle C. Longest, and Mollie J. Jensen. “Assessing the Writing Process: Do Writing-Intensive First-Year Seminars Change How Students Write?” Teaching Sociology 41.1 (2012): 20-31.
Krashen, Stephen. “The Composing Process.” Research Journal: Ecolint Institute of Teaching and Learning. International School of Geneva 2 (2014): 20-30.
Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. 106-52.
Löfström, Erika and Pauliina Kupila. “The Instructional Challenges of Student Plagiarism.” Journal of Academic Ethics 11 (2013): 231-242.
McClure, Randall. “WritingResearchWriting: The Semantic Web and the Future of the Research Project.” Computers and Composition 28.4 (2011): 315–326.
Mendenhall, Annie S. “The Composition Specialist as Flexible Expert: Identity and Labor in the History of Composition.” College English 77.1 (2014): 11-31.
Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Ed. Victor Villanueva. Cross-talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.
Panetta, Clayann Gilliam, ed. Contrastive Rhetoric Revisited and Redefined. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 2000.
Pierstorff, Don K. “Response to Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, ‘A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.’” College Composition and Communication 34.2 (1983): 217.
Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review 5.1 (1986): 34-47.
Purdy, James P., and Joyce R. Walker. “Liminal Spaces and Research Identity: The Construction of Introductory Composition Students as Researchers.” Pedagogy 13.1 (2013): 9–41.
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.
Royster, Jacqueline Jones, and Gesa E. Kirsch. Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. Carbondale, IL: SIU Press, 2012.
Schneider, Barbara. “Ethical Research and Pedagogical Gaps.” College Composition and Communication 58.1 (2006): 70–88.
Schwegler, Robert A., and Kinda K. Shamoon. “The Aims and Process of the Research Paper.” College English 44.8 (1982): 817–824.
Swales, John M. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H. Brooke Hessler, eds. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2014.
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. “Reflecting Back and Looking Forward: Revisiting Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions Five Years On.” Composition Forum 27 (Spring 2013).
Welch, Barbara. “A Comment on “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty”” College English 58.7 (1996): 855-58.
“WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition.” Council of Writing Program Administrators. 2014. Accessed: December 1, 2014.
Zwagerman, Sean. “The Scarlet P: Plagiarism, Panopticism, and the Rhetoric of Academic Integrity.” College Composition and Communication 59.4 (2008): 676–710.
Second-Language Writing
Atkinson, Dwight. “Between Theory with a Big T and Practice with a Small p: Why Theory Matters.” Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing. Eds. Tony Silva and Paul K. Matsuda. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2013. 5-18.
Belcher, Diane. “The Scope of L2 Writing: Why We Need a Wider Lens.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 438-39.
—. “Considering What We Know and Need to Know About Second Language Writing.” Applied Linguistics Review 3.1 (2012): 131-150.
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. “Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment.” Research in the Teaching of English 48.1 (2013): 40-67.
—. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Costino, Kimberly A., and Sunny Hyon. “Sidestepping Our ‘Scare Words’: Genre as a Possible Bridge between L1 and L2 Compositionists.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 24-44.
Ferris, Dana and John S. Hedgcock. Teaching L2 Composition. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Gunderson, Lee. ESL (ELI) Literacy Instruction: A Guidebook to Theory and Practice. Routledge, 2008.
Hirvela, Alen. ““Why Am I Paraphrasing?”: Undergraduate ESL Writers’ Engagement with Source-Based Academic Writing and Reading.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013): 87-98.
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.
Huang, Kun and Diane Kelly. “The Daily Image Information Needs and Seeking Behavior of Chinese Undergraduate Students.” College & Research Libraries 74.3 (2013): 243-61.
Hyland, Ken. “Genre Pedagogy: Language, Literacy and L2 Writing Instruction.” Journal of Second Language Writing 16.3 (2007): 148-164.
—. “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1 (2003): 17-29.
Iannuzzi, Patricia A. “Info Lit 2.0 or Deja Vu?” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 1-17.
Imai, Junko. “Review: Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing.” TESOL Quarterly 46.2 (2012): 430-33.
Ishimura, Yusuke and Joan C. Bartlett. “Uncovering the Research Process of International Students in North America: Are They Different from Domestic Students?” Information Research, 18.1 (2013): paper 564.
Johns, Ann M. “The Future of Genre in L2 Writing: Fundamental, but Contested, Instructional Decisions.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 56-68.
–. “Genre Awareness for the Novice Academic Student: An Ongoing Quest.” Language Teaching 41.2 (2008): 237-252.
Journal of Second Language Writing 22 (2013). “Disciplinary Dialogues.” and “Selected Bibliography of Recent Scholarship in Second Language Writing.” 425-459.
Keck, Casey. “Copying, Paraphrasing, and Academic Writing Development: A Re-Examination of L1 and L2 Summarization Practices.” Journal of Second Language Writing 25 (2014): 4-22.
Kubota,Ryuko. “Critical Approaches to Theory in Second Language Writing: A Case of Critical Contrastive Rhetoric.” Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing. Eds. Tony Silva and Paul K. Matsuda. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2013. 191-208.
Li, Yongyan and Christine Pearson Casanave. “Two First-Year Students’ Strategies for Writing from Sources: Patchwriting or Plagiarism?” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 165-80.
Li, Yongyan. “Undergraduate Students Searching and Reading Web Sources for Writing.” Educational Media International 49.3 (2012): 201-15.
–. “Academic Staff’s Perspective upon Student Plagiarism: A Case Study at a University in Hong Kong.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education (2013): 1-14.
–. “First Year ESL Students Developing Critical Thinking: Challenging the Stereotypes.” Journal of Education and Training Studies 1.2 (2013): 186-96.
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.
Matsuda, Paul K. “The Lure of Translingual Writing.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 478-483.
—. “Response: What Is Second Language Writing—and Why Does It Matter?” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 448-50.
McCulloch, Sharon. “Citations in Search of a Purpose: Source Use and Authorial Voice in L2 Student Writing.” International Journal of Educational Integrity 8.1 (2012): 55-69.
Matalene, Carolyn. “Contrastive Rhetoric: An American Writing Teacher in China.” College English 47.8 (1985): 789-808.
Pecorari, Diane, and Bojana Petric. “Plagiarism in Second-Language Writing.” Language Teaching 47.3 (2014): 269-302. Web.
Pecorari, Diane. “Good and Original: Plagiarism and Patchwriting in Academic Second-Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.4 (2003): 317-45.
Petrić, Bojana. “Legitimate Textual Borrowing: Direct Quotation in L2 Student Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 102-17.
Plakans, Lia, and Atta Gebril. “A Close Investigation into Source Use in Integrated Second Language Writing Tasks.” Assessing Writing 17.1 (2012): 18-34.
Polio, Charlene, and Ling Shi. “Perceptions and Beliefs about Textual Appropriation and Source Use in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 95-101.
Racelis, Juval V., and Paul Kei Matsuda. “Integrating Process and Genre into the Second Language Writing Classroom: Research into Practice.” Language Teaching 46.03 (2013): 382-393.
Ray, Brian. “ESL Droids: Teacher Training and the Americanization Movement, 1919-1924.” Composition Studies 41.2 (2013): 15-39.
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.
Schneer, David. “Rethinking the Argumentative Essay.” TESOL Journal (2013): online prepub, n.p.
Shi, Ling. “Rewriting and Paraphrasing Source Texts in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 134-48.
Tardy, Christine M. “The History and Future of Genre in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 1-5.
Thompson, Celia, Janne Morton, and Neomy Storch. “Where From, Who, Why and How? A Study of the Use of Sources by First Year L2 University Students.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12.2 (2013): 99-109.
Thonus, Terese. “Tutoring Multilingual Students: Shattering the Myths.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 44.2 (2014): 200-13.
Van Beuningen, Catherine G, Nivja H De Jong, and Folkert Kuiken. “Evidence on the Effectiveness of Comprehensive Error Correction in Second Language Writing.” Language Learning 62.1 (2012): 1-41.
Yamagata-Lynch, Lisa C. “Chapter 2: Understanding Cultural Historical Activity Theory.” Activity Systems Analysis Methods: Understanding Complex Learning Environments. New York: Springer, 2010. 13-26.
Zhang, Jie. “Learner Agency, Motive, and Self-Regulated Learning in an Online ESL Writing Class.” IALLT Journal 43.2 (2013): 57-81.
Zhang, Lawrence Jun. “Second Language Writing as and for Second Language Learning.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 446-47.
19 Wednesday Nov 2014
Tags
composition, English studies, epistemologies, genre, matsuda, methodology, Objects of Study, second-language, second-language writing, theory
Faced with questions as I started to think about paper #5, I realized this paper has the potential to be my stream of consciousness post. It is not only about who I am and where I align myself within the field of English Studies, but also about what I am learning and what is out there in 2015 — the possibilities for scholarship, for aligning my various personal and professional objectives. As such, this paper will directly lead into my last Paper #6: Being a Scholar of . . .
How do I align myself theoretically and etymologically? This term, I have focused on second-language writing within composition studies for all of my readings and posts. I did this because it was an area I was interested in, but knew nothing about. I am only just beginning to explore how it aligns with who I am as a student, scholar, librarian and teacher. First, I need to explain the largest part of who I am as a professional librarian and educator for the past 25 years. I do this by providing background on my specialty area within information literacy, as this concept and its accompanying standards are the methodologies by which academic librarians base the majority of their epistemology related to library instruction. Within the library profession, the Information Literacy Competency Standards are the equivalent of the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Outcomes Statement. Used as both a theoretical foundation and guide for practice within librarian instruction, the IL Standards were first adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2000.
Now in the midst of a major revision, to be renamed the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, Information Literacy is defined by ACRL in this revised Framework as “a spectrum of abilities, practices, and habits of mind that extends and deepens learning through engagement with the information ecosystem. It includes
The Standards will be referred to in the revision as a Framework, as they will be “based on a cluster of interconnected core concepts, with flexible options for implementation” (1). In this revision, threshold concepts are introduced as those ideas within a discipline that are “passageways or portals to enlarged understanding of ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline. Six are identified within the Framework[1]
Added to these are knowledge practices, “demonstrations of ways in which learners can increase their understanding” of information literacy concepts, and dispositions, “ways in which to address the affective, attitudinal, or valuing dimension of learning.” Finally metaliteracies are to be included as they offer “a renewed vision of information literacy as an overarching set of abilities in which students are both consumers and creators of information who can participate successfully in collaborative spaces” (ACRL 1).
How I align all of this with my growing interest and scholarship in First-Year and Second-Language Writing are the current balls in the air. As I look to my posts and readings from the term, I see connecting threads amidst my interests, goals, and seeds…points I identify as areas for future study.
From PAB #1, I described how I came to my focus area of second-language writing for this term:
At my own university, as in many without a composition sequence in the first year, students all take first-year seminars and second-language students often face writing challenges during their first year, but only a small percentage of second-language students are enrolled in an additional course to support their second-language needs.
Much of the second-language writing research I have read so far is over 10 years old, but as I have no background in this area, it is informative to research and learn the history of the field, its relationship to composition studies and how best I can align myself within these two areas for my future research and study.
In PAB #3 and #4, the grammar debate both in L1 and L2 scholarship is of interest to me, as I began teaching English in 1985 as a staunch current-traditionalist amidst process composition frameworks. I didn’t know that was what I was, but over the years, my focus on grammar, “correct” writing and formalist traditions now make me cringe as I see how much scholarship and pedagogy has been focused on alternatives…ouch.
With the death of George Hillocks this week, my post discussing his 1984 article that Janice Lauer argued “discredited the full-frontal teaching of grammar” (128) begs for a reread in his memory.
How do my identified objects of study fit in? Moving to PAB #5 and #6, I identified students as objects of study within second-language writing. Looking ahead, I plan to expand to both second-language and L1 students, examining how they approach writing from sources and move into research-based writing.
I looked to the section I wrote on students’ identities – how they 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 lead to students “affective roles of investment and belongingness in generating writing characteristic[s] of discourse communities” [my emphases] (114). There are very different student reactions to writing, research and citing conventions in Western academic writing, and students’ first-language knowledge is often at odds with academic English.
As I thought about my own agendas and professional/personal objectives, I looked to PAB #7 and #8 and my reading in Process, Post-Process, Translingualism and Genre Theories within writing studies as these opened up yet more areas for potential exploration. Genre theory, as Hyland’s 2003 article points out, can align itself with social contexts and “complement process views” even as post-process theories have now displaced the areas of process-based pedagogies,
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).
There are also many trans- theories I potentially see myself aligned with.
In reading Matsuda and Horner et al for PAB #8, I realized how translingual approaches can provide me with ways to think differently about the writing classroom, tying together my growing discomfort for how Standardized English and its accompanying rules privilege a minority of students in the 21st century educational environment.
By arguing for the fluidity of languages, translingual approaches “question language practices,” asking “what produces the appearance of conformity, as well as what that appearance might and might not do, for whom, and how” (Horner et al. 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” (Horner et al. 305).
I find that the more I read Matsuda’s scholarship, the more I am interested in aligning my professional work as a librarian and teacher, with continued scholarship and study in the field of second-language writing, concurring with Matsuda as he recommends that scholars learn “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).
As I continue to review my posts and readings for the term, thinking about these last few weeks of class and how I might align myself within the discipline, I return to Fulkerson’s, “Four Philosophies of Composition” (1979), and “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” (2005). He discusses the landscape of composition theory, in what he refers to as his “every ten years frustration” in trying to make sense of where composition studies has been, but also where it is going. Throughout his 2005 article, he looks at the “social turn” of composition (655) and I see myself most aligned with this latest social-constructivist approach to pedagogy and teaching as I move forward. The text that I have begun to look more closely at A Guide to Composition Pedagogies is helping me more clearly delineate the varied areas of focus within the field. I am really just beginning to return to this area of scholarship, since first teaching in the mid-1980s, having aligned myself with library research and instruction until this past year. Much has happened in the last 30 years!
Lingering questions of alignment to be explored in Paper #6…
While Matsuda’s work in 2L scholarship has opened up my eyes and interest to continue exploring in this area, I have three paths that are converging – first year writing (including how these skills transfer – and the connections to writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines), how students research and use sources (which includes the ugly P word, plagiarism), and from the library instruction and critical literacy lens, I include issues of English as a second language in writing/research in the first year. How these will ultimately align and play themselves out in my study and scholarship, I honestly have no idea at this point. I will look at this more in Paper #6 as I examine how I can contribute to the Major Debates in English and Library/Information Literacy Studies, as I plan to keep moving all three paths forward, adding theory, scholarship, new insights and knowledge. I am in a collection/learning mode for a little while more.
§
Notes:
[1] Threshold Concept Theory is noted by Ann Johns as “a relatively new framework that deepens our understanding of critical learning experiences. The theory provides a framework of characteristics for identifying crucial conceptual knowledge that represents learning portals within a subject area of discipline” (150).
Jan Meyer and Ray Land’s Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (2006) and Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines (2008) provide additional background and establish their Meyer and Land’s ground-breaking scholarship in this area.
§
Works Cited & Further Reading
A Work in Progress…Staring at the Labyrinth
As I start looking through all of my accumulated articles related to my posts, as well as those I have identified as “must reads,” I put them here in my blog as my growing learning path…
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Accessed: November 18, 2014.
Adams, Katherine H., and John L. Adams. “The Paradox Within: Origins of the Current-Traditional Paradigm.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17.4 (1987): 421-31.
Baca, Damián. “Rethinking Composition, Five Hundred Years Later.” JAC 29.1/2 (2009): 229-42.
Baer, Andrea. “Why Do I Have to Write That?: Compositionists Identify Disconnects between Student and Instructor Conceptions of Research Writing that Can Inform Teaching.” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 9.2 (2014): 37-44.
Bartholomae, David, and John Schlib. “Reconsiderations: ‘Inventing the University’ at 25: An Interview with David Bartholomae.” College English 73.3 (2011): 260-82.
Beam, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review 27.1 (2008): 72-86.
Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class.” College English 50.5 (1988): 477-94
Bewick, Laura, and Sheila Corrall. “Developing Librarians as Teachers: A Study of Their Pedagogical Knowledge.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 42.2 (2010): 97-110.
Brent, Doug. “The Research Paper, and Why We Should Still Care.” Writing Program Administration 37.1 (Fall 2013: 33-53.
—.“Transfer, Transformation, and Rhetorical Knowledge: Insights from Transfer Theory.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25.4 (2011): 396-420. DOI: 10.1177/1050651911410951
—. “Reinventing WAC (Again): The First-Year Seminar and Academic Literacy.” College Composition and Communication 57.2 (2005): 253-276.
Carr, Jean F. “Composition, English, and the University.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 435-41.
The Citation Project: Preventing Plagiarism, Teaching Writing. Accessed: November 18, 2014.
Costino, Kimberly A., and Sunny Hyon. “Sidestepping Our ‘Scare Words’: Genre as a Possible Bridge between L1 and L2 Compositionists.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 24-44.
Dean, Deborah. “Shifting Perspectives about Grammar: Changing What and How We Teach.” English Journal 100.4 (2011): 20-26.
Dirk, Kerry. “‘The “Research Paper” Prompt: A Dialogic Opportunity for Transfer.’” Composition Forum 25 (2012).
Downs, Douglas and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching About Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.'” College Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 552–84.
Drabinski, Emily. “Toward a Kairos of Library Instruction.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (2014): 480-85.
Elbow, Peter. “Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond “Mistakes,” “Bad English,” and “Wrong Language”” JAC 19.3 (1999): 359-88.
Elmborg, James. “Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32.2 (2006): 192-199.
Faigley, Lester. “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.” College English 48.6 (1986): 527-42.
Fister, Barbara. “The Library’s Role in Learning: Information Literacy Revisited.” Library Issues 33.4 (2013).
Flower, Linda. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 32.4 (1981): 365-87.
Hofer, Amy R., Lori Townsend, and Korey Brunetti. “Troublesome Concepts and Information Literacy: Investigating Threshold Concepts for Il Instruction.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 12.4 (2012): 387-405.
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.
Howard, Rebecca Moore, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences.” Writing & Pedagogy 2.2 (2010): 177-92.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (1995): 788-806.
Imai, Junko. “Review: Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing.” TESOL Quarterly 46.2 (2012): 430-33.
Jacobs, Heidi L. M. “Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34.3 (2008): 256-62.
Jacobson, Trudi E., and Thomas P. Mackey. “Proposing a Metaliteracy Model to Redefine Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 84–91.
Johns, Ann M. “The Future of Genre in L2 Writing: Fundamental, but Contested, Instructional Decisions.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 56-68.
–. “Genre Awareness for the Novice Academic Student: An Ongoing Quest.” Language Teaching 41.2 (2008): 237-252.
Johnson, J. Paul, and Ethan Krase. “Coming to Learn: From First-Year Composition to Writing in the Disciplines.” Across the Disciplines 8 (2011): 1-30.
Keck, Casey. “Copying, Paraphrasing, and Academic Writing Development: A Re-Examination of L1 and L2 Summarization Practices.” Journal of Second Language Writing 25 (2014): 4-22. Kell, Catherine. “Ariadne’s Thread: Literacy, Scale and Meaning Making Across Space and Time.” Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 81 (2013): 1-24.
Kolb, Kenneth H., Kyle C. Longest, and Mollie J. Jensen. “Assessing the Writing Process: Do Writing-Intensive First-Year Seminars Change How Students Write?” Teaching Sociology 41.1 (2012): 20-31. Krashen, Stephen. “The Composing Process.” Research Journal: Ecolint Institute of Teaching and Learning. International School of Geneva 2 (2014): 20-30. Web.
Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. 106-52
Li, Yongyan. “Academic Staff’s Perspective upon Student Plagiarism: A Case Study at a University in Hong Kong.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education (2013): 1-14.
Li, Yongyan, and Christine Pearson Casanave. “Two First-Year Students’ Strategies for Writing from Sources: Patchwriting or Plagiarism?” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 165-80. Li, Yongyan. “First Year ESL Students Developing Critical Thinking: Challenging the Stereotypes.” Journal of Education and Training Studies 1.2 (2013): 186-96.
Li, Yongyan. “Undergraduate Students Searching and Reading Web Sources for Writing.” Educational Media International 49.3 (2012): 201-15.
Löfström, Erika and Pauliina Kupila. “The Instructional Challenges of Student Plagiarism.” Journal of Academic Ethics 11 (2013): 231-242.
Mackey, Thomas P., and Trudi E. Jacobson. Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2014.
Martin, Justine. “Refreshing Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 114–27.
Matsuda, Paul K. “The Lure of Translingual Writing.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 478-483.
McClure, Randall. “WritingResearchWriting: The Semantic Web and the Future of the Research Project.” Computers and Composition 28.4 (2011): 315–326.
McClure, Randall, and Kellian Clink. “How Do You Know That? An Investigation of Student Research Practices in the Digital Age.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 9.1 (2009): 115-132.
McCulloch, Sharon. “Citations in Search of a Purpose: Source Use and Authorial Voice in L2 Student Writing.” International Journal of Educational Integrity 8.1 (2012): 55-69.
Matalene, Carolyn. “Contrastive Rhetoric: An American Writing Teacher in China.” College English 47.8 (1985): 789-808.
Meyer, Jan H.F., and Ray Land. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. New York: Routledge. 2006.
Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Ed. Victor Villanueva. Cross-talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.
Nutefall, Jennifer E, and Phyllis Mentzell Ryder. “The Timing of the Research Question: First-Year Writing Faculty and Instruction Librarians’ Differing Perspectives.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 10.4 (2010): 437–449.
Oakleaf, Megan. “A Roadmap for Assessing Student Learning Using the New Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (September 2014): 510–4.
Otto, Peter. “Librarians, Libraries, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2014.139 (2014): 77-93.
Panetta, Clayann Gilliam, ed. Contrastive Rhetoric Revisited and Redefined. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrece Erlbaum Assoc., 2000.
Pecorari, Diane, and Bojana Petric. “Plagiarism in Second-Language Writing.” Language Teaching 47.3 (2014): 269-302. Web.
Pecorari, Diane. “Good and Original: Plagiarism and Patchwriting in Academic Second-Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.4 (2003): 317-45.
Petrić, Bojana. “Legitimate Textual Borrowing: Direct Quotation in L2 Student Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 102-17.
Pierstorff, Don K. “Response to Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing”” College Composition and Communication 34.2 (1983): 217.
Plakans, Lia, and Atta Gebril. “A Close Investigation into Source Use in Integrated Second Language Writing Tasks.” Assessing Writing 17.1 (2012): 18-34.
Polio, Charlene, and Ling Shi. “Perceptions and Beliefs about Textual Appropriation and Source Use in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 95-101.
Purdy, James P., and Joyce R. Walker. “Liminal Spaces and Research Identity: The Construction of Introductory Composition Students as Researchers.” Pedagogy 13.1 (2013): 9–41.
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.
Rosenblatt, Stephanie. “They Can Find It, But They Don’t Know What to Do With It: Describing the Use of Scholarly Literature by Undergraduate Students.” Journal of Information Literacy 4.2 (2010), 50-61.
Schneer, David. “Rethinking the Argumentative Essay.” TESOL Journal (2013): online prepub, n.p.
Schwegler, Robert A., and Kinda K. Shamoon. “The Aims and Process of the Research Paper.” College English 44.8 (1982): 817–824.
Shi, Ling. “Rewriting and Paraphrasing Source Texts in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 134-48.
Simmons, Michelle Holschuh. “Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5.3 (2005): 297-311.
Swales, John M. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
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Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H. Brooke Hessler, eds. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2014.
Thompson, Celia, Janne Morton, and Neomy Storch. “Where From, Who, Why and How? A Study of the Use of Sources by First Year L2 University Students.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12.2 (2013): 99-109.
Thonus, Terese. “Tutoring Multilingual Students: Shattering the Myths.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 44.2 (2014): 200-13.
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Tucker, Virginia, Christine Bruce, Sylvia Edwards, and Judith Weedman. “Learning Portals: Analyzing Threshold Concept Theory for LIS Education.” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 55.2 (2014): 150–65.
Van Beuningen, Catherine G, Nivja H De Jong, and Folkert Kuiken. “Evidence on the Effectiveness of Comprehensive Error Correction in Second Language Writing.” Language Learning 62.1 (2012): 1-41.
Welch, Barbara. “A Comment on “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty”” College English 58.7 (1996): 855-58.
Yamagata-Lynch, Lisa C. “Chapter 2: Understanding Cultural Historical Activity Theory.” Activity Systems Analysis Methods: Understanding Complex Learning Environments. New York: Springer, 2010. 13-26.
Zorn, Jeffrey. “English Compositionism as Fraud and Failure.” Academic Questions 26.3 (2013): 270-84.
21 Tuesday Oct 2014
“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 within 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.
“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).
“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]
“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)
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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.
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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.