Background and Research Questions

A great deal of recent research in the field of rhetoric and composition studies has focused on the transfer of skills learned in first-year writing courses to other courses across the disciplines, but little research has been done on the knowledge of conventions that students bring to the university from their previous literacy experiences in home communities, publics, or their previous schooling. In order to understand more fully what transfers from first-year writing courses, we need to understand more fully what genre knowledge students bring with them into first-year writing courses.

At the same time as some researchers have been concerned with the question of transfer, others have recently called on teachers of first-year writing courses to become more attentive and responsive to the linguistic and cultural differences students bring with them to the university, looking for ways that students could be encouraged to utilize their discursive resources as they encounter and adapt to academic writing conventions. But research has not yet identified what these resources are and how students deploy them when they encounter academic writing tasks. This research study will fill these gaps by addressing writers’ prior discourse knowledge and experience reading and writing genres and investigating how this experience influences their ability to adapt to (and adapt) academic writing expectations.

The study addresses the following research questions: What genres (written, oral, digital) do students already know when they arrive in first-year writing courses? How do students use their prior genre knowledge when writing new genres for first-year writing courses? To what extent does this prior knowledge help or hinder the student’s ability to gain access to academic discourse? What factors contribute to how and why students transform prior genre knowledge into new genre knowledge? How do the antecedent genres that students draw on reflect and reinforce broader cultural variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, educational history, family literacy patterns, and to what extent do these variables play a role in students’ ability to access academic genres?

CCCC Presentation 2008--University of Washington

Download:


CCCC Presentation 08.ppt (984KB)

(Powerpoint slides)

Writing Research Across Borders Conference, Santa Barbara, CA 2008

Title: Researching Transfer of Writing Across Situation, Time, Medium, and Genre

Description: With the ongoing development of university-wide writing programs and the continued growth of WAC and WID comes an increased need for research into how FYC responds to entering students' abilities and matriculated students' needs. In his proposal for a “R/Evolutionary” writing program and curriculum, David Smit identifies “transferability” as a primary consideration, concentrating on related factors of instructional focus (what is taught), genre (what students write), and context (the numerous situations in which students write).

This roundtable brings together faculty and graduate student co-researchers from four interconnected studies undertaken recently at two different public research universities. The studies include two cross-institutional inquiries into college students' transfer of prior genre knowledge into FYC; a two-year investigation into FYC students' transfer of rhetorical knowledge across academic writing situations and media; and a survey-based study of how students perceive the transferability of FYC research skills. In a structured, three-part conversation, researchers will offer a comparative analysis of their research findings, and they will reflect on their research practices, addressing in particular questions about effective study design and effective strategies for collaboration between faculty and students and between colleagues at different institutions.
• Part I will focus on the collective conclusions researchers draw from interlocking studies of first- and second-year students' transfer of genre, rhetorical, and research knowledge across mediums, assignments, and writing situations.
• During part II, speakers will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their studies' designs, interview and survey protocols, and strategies for working with undergraduate research participants.


Downloads:


SBPart1Bawarshi.doc(48KB)
(Part 1: Study Results)



SBPart2Reiff (32KB)
(Part 2: Overview of Methods)




SBUT-UWstudy.ppt (172KB)

(Part I Powerpoint slides)




SBUT-UWstudyPart2.ppt (87KB)

(Part II Powerpoint slides)

Survey Questions and Interview Protocol

University of Tennessee:

Link to UT responses from Zoomerang survey.

Downloads:


UTSurvey.doc (42KB)
(survey of past writing experiences)



UTinterview_protocol.doc (29KB)
(protocol for conducting the interviews)


University of Washington:

Downloads:


UW_Survey.pdf (95KB)
(survey of past writing experiences)



UW_Interview_Protocol.doc (35KB)
(phase two interview protocol)

WPA Conference Presentation

Researching FYC Programs: Investigating Student Readiness, Program Relevance, and Relationships between Writing Programs
(Presenters left-right: Megan Kelly, Rachel Goldberg, Angie Rounsaville, Anis Bawarshi, Sergio Casillas, Mary Jo Reiff, Bill Doyle)


Photo by Angela Jones

Download the PowerPoint file (1.6MB)


WPA2007_ResearchingFYC.ppt