Tracing Discursive Resources:

How Students Use Prior Genre Knowledge to Negotiate Writing Realities

Anis Bawarshi, Cathryn Cabral, Jennifer Halpin, Megan Kelly, Shannon Mondor, Angela

Rounsaville *Researchers Not Present: Sergio Casillas, Rachel

Goldberg, Melanie Kill* University of Washington

Conference on College Composition and Communication • New Orleans • 2008

Motivations for Inquiry

Research Questions

*Why do students draw on some genres over others when traversing the boundaries between high school and college?

*Based on what they report in open-ended interviews, how do students use prior genre knowledge when they encounter “new” writing tasks in first year writing?

*What can facilitate the acquisition of genres across activity systems and domains?

Research Design & Methods

Phase One: Survey of First Year Composition students re: past literacy experiences (reading, writing, digital literacy), both in and out of school; Phase Two: Discourse-based interviews asking students to reflect on how they called on previous discursive resources in order to write both high and low stakes papers in FYC;Phase Three: Collection and analysis of interviewees’ writing produced in FYC, as well as syllabi and writing assignments from instructors (in progress).

Student Sample

Surveys distributed to all students enrolled in 33 sections of ‘English 131: Expository Writing’ during Fall Quarter 2006 (N=748)

Number of students responding to the survey: 64

Number of follow-up interviews: 18

Phase One: Survey

• Part I:

Demographic Information (gender, race, class, educational background, intended course of study)

• Part II: Access to technology at home and school

• Part III: Identification of types of communication written in school, at work, and outside of school and work

Phase One: Survey

Part IV: Reflective Questions (open-ended)1. What types of writing do you most enjoy? Why?2. What types of writing do you least enjoy? Why?3. What do you consider to be your most

successful piece of writing? Why?4. What do you consider to be your least

successful piece of writing? Why?5. Considering the syllabus you have received for

English 131, your first week preliminary essay, and your work towards your first major paper, what high school writing experiences (if any) do you think will help you succeed in the course?

Phase Two: Interviews

Basic Interview Questions• What did the Preliminary Essay assignment ask you to

do?• From the kinds of writing you’ve done in the past, what

did the Preliminary Essay remind you of?• From the kinds of writing you’ve done in the past, what

did you use or draw on in writing the Preliminary Essay?

• What did the Major Paper assignment ask you to do?• From the kinds of writing you’ve done in the past, what

did the Major Paper remind you of?• From the kinds of writing you’ve done in the past, what

did you use or draw on in writing the Major Paper?

Preliminary Findings Overview

• Hidden Riches• Locked in Domains• Boundary Crossers vs. Boundary

Guarders (as indicated in 3 ways)• Genre research is appallingly hard

to design when we think of genre as ‘social action’

Findings in Context

Student Sample Demographics

Findings in Context

1. To demonstrate an awareness of the [rhetorical] strategies that writers use in different writing contexts.

2. To read, analyze, and synthesize complex texts and incorporate multiple kinds of evidence purposefully in order to generate and support writing.

3. To produce complex, analytical, persuasive arguments that matter in academic contexts.

4. To develop flexible strategies for revising, editing, and proof-reading writing.

Shared Learning Outcomes

Findings in Context

Shared Curricular Structure

Preliminary Essay (shared across sections)

Sequence 1: culminating in “First Major Paper” (5-7 pages)

Sequence 2: culminating in “Second Major Paper” (5-7 pages)

Portfolio Revision Sequence (70%)

‘Hidden Riches’ in Student Discursive Resources:

Genres Written Most in School61

59 5958 58

5756

54 5453

48

50

52

54

56

58

60

62

# o

f Re

spon

ses

Genre Type

‘Hidden Riches’ in Student Discursive Resources: Genres

Written Most at Work19

17

15

10

8

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

# o

f Re

spon

ses

Genre Type

‘Hidden Riches’ in Student Discursive Resources: Genres Written Most in Other

Domains

5954

44 4339

33

26 25 25 23

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

# of

Res

pons

es

Genre Type

Genre% of Respondents

who wrote genre in any context

Genre % of Respondents who wrote genre in any context

five-paragraph essay 95%email 94%lab write-up/report 92%lecture notes 92%compare/contrast paper 91%argumentative essay 89%informal presentation89%formal presentation 89%literary analysis 84%instant messaging 84%research paper 83%book report 81%opinion/position paper 81%PowerPoint 80%analysis of acad. essays 77%reading notes 77%Soc networking profile 77%personal letter 75% fiction 73%creative nonfiction 72%

poetry 72%free-writing 72%resume 72%text messaging 69%summary 69%journal writing 69%description 66%evaluation paper 64%speech 64%personal narrative 59%blog or online journal

52%storytelling 50%business letter 50%online discussion board 42%newspaper article 41%blog or online journal 38%song lyrics 34%letter to the editor 27%web page text 27%web page design 25%

Prior Experience with a Genre in Any Context

Reported Genres in Survey Reflective Questions

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Most Successful

Least Successful

Most Enjoyable

Least Enjoyable

Finding 1: ‘Hidden Riches’

(Lack of) Domain Overlap

Finding 2: Locked in Domains

• Students have written in many diverse genres

• They’ve written in all three of the domains we supplied--school, work, and outside of school and work--although they wrote most extensively in school and outside of school and work

• Their writing did not tend to cross those domains, except for a select few genres, most of which represent correspondence-type writing

Finding 3: ‘Boundary Crossers’ vs. ‘Boundary

Guarders’Interviewees’ responses suggest that they

tended to either ‘cross’ (vigorously adapt) or ‘guard’ their prior knowledge, as indicated in the following three ways:

• Markers of confidence in describing task• Talk of whole genres vs. talk of

strategies• Emergence (or lack thereof) of ‘NOT’

talk

The ‘Boundary’ between the Preliminary Essay & the Major

PaperPreliminary Essay • first assignment• low stakes • not for credit• no established classroom community• no framing• uncertain purpose in course context• audience unspecified

Major Paper 1 • culmination of sequence• high stakes• significant part of grade• greater sense of classroom community• scaffolded assignments• clear purpose in course context• sense of audience

First Indication: Confidence Level

• All interviewees identified the key tasks of the Preliminary Essay with confidence

(e.g. Katrina: “evaluate whether the Common Book is a good idea or not”)

• Most interviewees exhibited a loss of confidence in defining key tasks of the (more complex) Major Paper

(e.g. Sonya: “hard to know… it’s so broad” or Kate: “make a claim about a subject”)

• A handful of interviewees expressed great confidence in identifying the complex new task

(e.g. Katrina: “developing a claim and arguing one side or how you present, ‘you thought of something’ versus just like explaining or guiding”)

Second Indication: (Whole) Genres to Strategies

“Uhm, just like a general book review, uhm, like you do like in a typical standard uhm, you know, literature class in high school, you know, like in American literature class”

“You read a book, analyze it, you know, write a five-paragraph essay about, you know, a theme or a symbol or something specific about the book and then you know... uhm, so just, it seemed pretty standard.”

“Uhm, it reminded me of a personal narrative, because the question in the prompt was asking you to draw on your experience. Uhm, and I have written, in high school I wrote a lot of personal narrative type things for scholarships, I applied for a lot of scholarship...”

“... uhm, you know, like introductions, like I had never used like a road map before…Uhm, the objection and response, I had never done that before.”

“So I remember the second prompt, uhm, I just thought a lot of my AP classes, especially the history ones where definitely they ask you to come up with a stance and to defend it”

“And one of the things that I always did when analyzing my quotes is, I use a quote and then two sentences analysis, at least two sentences, if not more...”

From Genres to Strategies

Preliminary EssayGenres Reminded of:

28

Strategies Reminded of:

17(6/14 students reported no

strategies)

Genres Used:

18

Strategies used:

23(3/14 students

reported no strategies)

Major PaperGenres Reminded of:

25

Strategies Reminded of:

28(6/18 students reported no

strategies)

Genres Used:

62

Strategies used:

101

‘Crossers’ & Strategies/ ‘Guarders’ & Genres

Pattern 1 (‘Crossers’):• Students drew on few whole genres BUT

many strategies(need e.g.)Pattern 2 (‘Guarders’):• Students drew on many whole genres

AND many strategies(need e.g.)

Third Indication: “NOT” Talk“Just because the claim changed it and it is not a five paragraph essay anymore, it is different, different style and so”

“Yeah, it was not like literary analysis but uhm, like just how to make my argument like clear and not like ambiguous or anything like that”

“Uhm, well the prompt was kind of on the lines of, if you were writing a review about a chosen topic, and I chose uhm, the man in my basement by I think Mosley, Walter Mosley. So I wrote it kind of in a new format so not particularly essay, but I put in like the kind of review aspect for like, this author wrote these books before, you know, like kind of giving a background of the author, but more then I would in an essay.”

“I never written a paper like this before really, uhm, I wrote a term paper in my junior year, uhm, about a novel, but I mean that was a lot different because she gave us a paper about what every paragraph was supposed to be like…. I guess it made it a little harder just because like my term paper was based on one work, one like a book, and then this was based on four main things. So I kind of used the same strategy a little bit, uhm, just when you are doing it on one book it is easier to focus because you only, you are only drawing from one thing, but uhm, here I had to kind of integrate it more”

“NOT” Talk, cont.

• The emergence of “NOT” talk by category -4 cases of NOT asked to do

9 cases of NOT genres “reminded of”

1 case of NOT strategy “reminded of”

5 cases of NOT genres “used/drawn on”

8 cases of NOT strategies “used/ drawn on”

• The emergence of “NOT” Talk by percentage -

Preliminary Essay: 57% use “NOT” Talk

Major Paper: 83% use “NOT” Talk

‘Guarders’ & ‘Crossers’ Defined

Prior Knowledge Boundary Guarders• Type A: No “Not” talk and maintenance of

known genres regardless of task• Type B: Some strategy-related “Not” talk

and modification of known genres (by adding strategies)

New Knowledge Boundary Crossers • Express uncertainty about tasks• Have many more instances of “Not” talk in

all categories• Tend to shift away from whole (identifiable)

genres toward strategies

Adapting Prior Genres & Strategies

Miles: “The exposure to diverse types of writing

I received in high school gives me confidence that I will know how to

approach each assignment. Also, my previous teacher’s emphasis on varied use of language and the elimination of

passive language (‘to be’ verbs) will help insure that my writing is not bland or

boring. Emphasis on how to construct a thesis was helpful, even as we break away from that basic construct into producing more complex claims.”

Discussion Questions

How do we tap into students’ hidden riches?

Do outcomes facilitate or hinder transfer of discursive resources?

What role can explicit teaching play in helping students negotiate writing realities?

How do we study genre?

To what extent does this research contribute to the study of transfer?