4/5 (Summarizing Reviewer #2 Feedback)

As I said in an earlier posting, R2 gave some really great feedback. I thought I would take a moment to bullet it here.

• Although the emphasis on genre studies seems appropriate in light of the focus on professionally literate, working students returning to college, the article would be improved by more attention to scholarship on adult learners and nontraditional students, especially research that illuminates their points of view. Specifically, the author might consider more fully the perspectives of returning adult students who call into question the assumptions of college administrators and teachers as well as the general public (see, e.g., Hallet, “She Toiled for a Living…” in Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education, ed. B.T. Williams, Utah State UP 2006) and of workers (see Hull, “Hearing Other Voices: A Critical Assessment of Popular Views on Literacy and Work,” in Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook, Ed. E. Cushman et al, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001). Mike Rose’s recent book, The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, might also be relevant to the author’s research.
  
• While the author appears to be primarily concerned with the question of how best to teach returning adult learners, it is the key ideas of antecedent genres and assemblage in relation to such instruction that I find most original and compelling. These ideas need both to be more fully theorized and their relevance to returning students like Tony more clearly demonstrated. 
  
• The narrative at the beginning is too long; the author should state the focus or thesis sooner (see p. 5, first full sentence, as a thesis that could be moved closer to the front of the article) and anticipate the two focal points of antecedent genres and assemblage. 
  
• There are also problems with the examples of Tony’s writing; in the first case, the fact that we never know the assignment makes it difficult for the reader to evaluate the essay (which struck me as a fine first draft, one that would be quite easy for a teacher to comment on effectively); in the second case, the plagiarism is so extreme that its use as a pretext for a discussion of assemblage seemed overly abstract. What were the teacher’s comments on the popular culture essay? What grade did the paper receive? The assignment for “1960s” presentation is likewise vague and the teacher’s response omitted. 
  
• Finally, the author’s conclusions pertain to reverse commuting students but not to the insights on antecedent genres and assemblage and recommended practices for their teachers, reaffirming my sense of the article’s somewhat skewed focus. 
  
• More descriptive subtitles throughout might help focus and unify the article.
  

Today. Tried to rework the damn introduction. I seem to be going around and around and around with it. Frustrating. Today was not a confidence booster of a day.