Organizing Ideas for the chapter

A key point that Dias et. al help me make is the focus on the social motive of academic writing--in school, writing is undertaken for epistemic as opposed to instrumental or practical purposes (to get things done). This is a key point to make in regard to my participants...

Another key point: the point that Ketter/Hunter makes, via Geisler, I believe, about the identity that academic writing requires--that of the novice.

An idea I am having...genre analysis of three documents:

Tony: Run-Report, Medical journal article

Joe: reports/proposals (current-state, desired-state, plan for implentation)

Compare to:

Tony: Popular Culture essay

Joe: literary analysis essay

The ideas I'm wanting to discuss have to do with genre, identity, activity theory or discourse community.

This might be an interesting organizational structure to consider...the chapter begins with an analysis of work genres, what these genres make available to these individuals. Then, a movement to school genres and what these make available to them. The lens or tool I might use is the Pare/Smart--"Observing Genres in Action" chapter.

Section 1: Analysis of workplace genres (patient-care report and C/D/P)

Section 2: Analysis of academic genres (pop culture essay and literary analysis essay)

Michelle Cox, Identity, Second Language Writers, and the Learning of Workplace Writing

It is through language that a person negotiates a sense of self within and across different sites at different points in time and it is through language that a person gains access to--or is denied access to--powerful social networks that give learners the opportunity to speak. Norton Peirce as qtd in Michelle Cox, p. 75).

student identity vs. professional identity

How the student envisions his or her identity as a professional while in graduate school may affect success in school and confidence in pursuing additional degrees or a career as a practitioner in that field. (76)

emerging professional identities

Literature on situated learning has suggested that there are powerful connections between forming an identity as a part of a community of practice and learning the activities of that community. In their seminal work on situated learning theory, Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss identity as integrally tied to learning, to the overall practice of becoming a professional, and to membership in a community of practice. According to Lave and Wenger, "learning involves the construction of identities" (p. 53). They explain

Learning only partly--and often incidentally--implies becoming able to be involved in new activities, to perform new tasks and functions, to master new understandings. Activities, tasks, functions, and understandings do not exist in isolation; they are part of broader systems of relations in which they have meaning. These systems of relations arise out of and are reproduced and developed within social communities, which are in part systems of relations among persons. The person is defined by as well as defines these relations. Learning thus implies becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these systems of relations. (p. 53)

Lave (1991) describes identity formation as the catalyst for learning when becoming a member of a community of practice, saying, "developing an identity as a member of a community and becoming knowledgably skillful are part of the same process, with the former motivating, shaping, and giving meaning to the latter, which it subsumes" (p. 65). Wenger (1999) focuses on identity theory in a more sustained way, describing identity as dynamic, a "way of being in the world" (p. 151). Arguing for a "dual relation for practice and identity" (p. 17), Wenger describes "changing participation and identity transformation" as going hand in hand (p. 11).

Though Lave and Wenger help us see the important connection between social interaction, activity, and learning, they do not connect this discussion to writing, an activity at the heart of many professional communities of practice. In composition studies, this consideration would be part of larger discussions of rhetoric, particularly rhetorical genre theory. (77-78)

genre theory provides a generative framework for examining writing practices...

As Devitt explains, "writers and speakers do not create genres in a generic void, that people's knowledge and experience of genres in the past shape their experience with any particular discourse and any particular genre at any particular time. (p. 28 in Writing Genres) (80)

In their description of the relationship between identity and learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) state, "[a]s an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; not only a relation to specific activities, but a relation to social communities--it implies becoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person" (p. 53). They describe learning as "not merely a condition for membership, but . . . an evolving form of membership," explaining, "we conceive of identities as long-term, living relations between persons and their place and participation in communities of practice. Thus identity, knowing, and social membership entail one another" (p. 53). Learning, then, is social, an interpersonal process that involves both becoming part of a community and taking part in the activities of that community. (86)

Gee

It is a truism that a person can know perfectly the grammar of a language and not know how to use that language. It is not just what you say, but how you say it... It is not just how you say it, but what you are and do when you say it. (5)

At any moment we are using language we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes. Thus, what is important is not language, and surely not grammar, but saying (writing)-doing-beling-valuing-believing combinations. These combinations I call "Discourses," with a capital "D". Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes.

A Discourse is a sort of "identity kit" which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize. (6-7)

How does one acquire a Discourse? Discourses are not mastered by overt instruction, but by enculturation ("apprenticeship") into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse... If you have no access to the social practice, you don't get in the Discourse, you don't have it. You cannot overtly teach anyone a Discourse, in a classroom or anywhere else. Discourses are not bodies of knowledge like physics or archeology or linguistics. Therefore, ironically, while you can overtly teach someone linguistics, a body of knowledge, you can't teach them to be a linguist, that is, to use a Discourse. The most you can do is let them practice being a linguist with you. (7)

The various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons are constantly changing and often are not fully consistent with each other; there is often conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world which two more Discourses represent. (7)

After our initial socialization in our home community, each of us interacts with various non-home-based social institutions--institutions in the public sphere, beyond family and immediate kin and peer group. These may be local stores and churches, schools, community groups, state and national businesses, agencies and organizations, and so forth. Each of these social institutions commands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently to the extent to which we are given access to these institutions and are allowed apprenticeships within them. Such Discourses I call secondary Discourses. (8)

Finally, and yet more importantly, we can always ask about how much tension or conflict is present between any two of a person's Discourses. We have argued above that some degree of conflict and tension (if only because of the discrete historical origins of particular Discourses) will almost always be present. However, some people experience more overt and direct conflicts between two or more of their Discourses than do others. I argue that when such conflict or tension exists, it can deter acquisition of one or the other or both of the Discourses, or, at least, affect the fluency of a mastered Discourse on certain occasions of use. (8)

Two discourses can interfere with one another, like two languages; aspects of one Discourse can be transferred to another Discourse, as one can transfer a grammatical feature from one language to another. (9)

Furthermore, if one has not mastered a particular secondary Discourse which nonetheless one must try to use, several things can happen, things which rather resemble what can happen when one has failed to fluently master a second language. One can fall back on one's primary Discourse, adjusting it in various ways to try to fit it to the needed functions; this response is very common, but almost always socially disastrous. Or one can use another, perhaps related secondary Discourse. These processes are similar to those linguists study under the rubrics of language contact, pidgenization, and creolization. (9)

...someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less than fluent manner. You are either in it or you're not. Discourse are connected with displays of an identity; failing to display an identity is tantamount to announcing you don't have that identity, that at best you're a pretender or a beginner. (10)

This theorem has one practical consequence: notions like "functional literacy" and "competency-based literacy" are simply incoherent. As far as literacy goes, there are only "fluent speakers" and "apprentices." (10)

Not all Discourses involve writing and reading, though many do. However, all writing and reading is embedded in some Discourse, and that Discourse always involves more than writing and reading (e.g. ways of talking, acting, valuing, and so forth). You cannot teach anyone to write or read outside any Discourse. Within a Discourse, you are always teaching more than writing or reading. When I say "teach" here, I mean "apprentice someone in a master-apprentice relationship in a social practice (Discourse) wherein you scaffold their growing ability to say, do, value, believe, and so forth, within that Discourse, through demonstrating your mastery and supporting theirs even when it barely exists. That is, you do much the same thing middle-class "super-baby" producing parents do when they "do books" with their children. (11)

BRAD:

It is often felt that good listeners and good readers ought to pay attention to meaning and not focus on the petty details of mechanics, "correctness," the superficial features of language. Unfortunately, many middle-class mainstream status-giving Discourses often do stress superficial features of language. Why? Precisely because such superficial features are the best test as to whether one was apprenticed in the "right" place, at the "right" time, with the "right" people. Such superficial features are exactly the parts of Discourses most impervious to overt instruction and are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered. Since these Discourses are used as "gates" to ensure that the "right" people get to the "right" places in our society, such superficial features are ideal. A person who writes in a petition or office memo: "If you cancel the show, all the performers would have did all that hard work for nothing" has signaled that he or she isn't the "right sort of person" (was not fully acculturated to the Discourse that supports this identity). That signal stays meaningful long after the content of the memo is forgotten, or even when the content was of no interest in the first place. (11)

When we have really mastered anything (e.g., a Discourse), we have little or no conscious awareness of it (indeed, like dancing, Discourses wouldn't work if people were consciously aware of what they were doing while they were doing it). However, when we come across a situation where we are unable to accommodate or adapt, we become consciously aware of what we are trying to do or are being called upon to do. (12)

Classroom instruction (in language, composition, study skills, writing, critical thinking, content-based literacy, or whatever) can lead to metaknowledge, to seeing how the Discourses you have already got relate to those you are attempting to acquire, and how the ones you are trying to acquire relate to self and society. Metaknowledge is liberation and power because it leads to the ability to manipulate, to analyze, to resist while advancing. Such metaknowledge can make "maladapted" students smarter than "adapted" ones. (12-13)

Participants and Academic Literacy

Charlene Belanger

Charlene is really able to show me the way her writing, her academic work, affirms her identity, enables it...I think affirm is the key word here.

The way academic literacy can be used to connect to students personal and professional identities... It's worth pointing out that there are clear connections in her life between school and work--in work, she is in school, she is working with students, teaching them--there is an interesting praxis going on in her life, her academic life and her work life are not separate--there is crossover. She's in the classroom and she is the novice, but she can see how what she's learning connects with what she wants to do and she's given opportunities to make explicit connections between school and work.

I'm thinking of two assignments:

1. The Grief Storm, which she wrote for The WRiting Process, I think.

My current writing, besides school—I am trying to recount my husband and my story for the kids. One of the pieces I wrote for Creative Writing is called Grief Storm, a look at the journey and it’s about what we went through when he was diagnosed and what it was like for those 16 months up until now. Then, 2003. It chronicled the time up until we arrived back here, and into that writing class—The Writing Process. I haven’t taken any more writing classes since then because behavioral science is my base because I need that for Special Ed. I’m looking forward to a few more writing classes as I move through my bachelors.

So, I’m trying to piece together our courtship and a few other things because they won’t have the opportunity to say, ‘hey dad, how’d you meet mom?’ This type of thing. So, I’m hoping to put it into a manuscript and copy it, make two copies, one for him, one for her, that they can eventually pass on. I’m trying to keep his memory alive.

While he was sick, he had a head-and-neck cancer. They had to operate on his tongue, so, after a while, the only way he could communicate was to write. We kept his journals and notebooks when he would write to us. They have those. And I want to put those—to have them laminated so they don’t fade with time. That’s his very own handwriting. It’s nice to have.

2. Her "term paper" for Expressive Art Therapy

And this piece of writing is a different kind of social, actually, it’s behavioral science—expressive art therapy and this is my own term paper, my own idea of school-based therapy treatment and practice and why I think every school should have expressive-art therapy in the school.

So, that’s the name of the course? Expressive Art Therapy?

Yeah. The content was expressive art therapy where the instructor introduced us into the world of art to get people to open up in counseling and other types of things. So, then when I wrote my paper, I chose a paper on school-based therapy, treatment and practice.

So, what was the assignment for this?

The assignment was to—after everything we learned, we were supposed to take it and write a paper on how we would apply it in the real world, on the job. Where I want to become a special ed teacher and then move into administration and/or counseling, and to become a counselor for special ed students as well as the regular student body, this is how I combined the two. Like, if I were to become that position, how would I use expressive art therapy, how would I integrate it into counseling on a school level and why would I integrate it?

So, you learned about what expressive art therapy is during the course of the class and then she wanted you to imagine how it could be used—you learned the theory in the class and she wanted you to spell out how it could be put into practice.

How, when, and where could you put it into practice, given your career field. We had others who were not teachers—one was a nurse, one was a counselor, one was an EMT by day and a part-time something-else by night. I can’t remember. All of us, even though we had different walks of life, were able to apply that.

---

And then this last piece was also a Writing Process piece. With this piece we were to choose something we wanted to know more about that we didn’t really have an expertise in.

When did you take this course?

I took this the same time as that other one, May 2003. The Maus book, this was required for the course and this was something that she asked us to do. So, as our term paper, one of our term papers—we had two—one, the personal paper I told you about and then this is the other one that we had to write about something that we didn’t know about that we wanted to know more about.

Did you have to do some research?

Yeah. I just realized that my mom was into button collecting and so I took a dive into button collecting as an educational adventure to see how—more about button collecting and how and if I could use it in the classroom. It’s pretty much—there are some quotes from my mom and some from the textbooks I read on buttons. It tells about how the classifications or design, the competition criteria for button-collection. And then the value of buttons. And then the educational impact—they can be used to relate history, to quote my mother, (reads from paper) “What captured my attention was the sheer joy and excitement when my mom said ‘from buttons we can learn and relate to geography, history, economics, art, style or fashion and sociologies. The possibilities are endless.’” Being that children learn in several different modalities, buttons can be learned in the classroom because they are a visual aide, for one, they are a tactile or touchable aide. To look at an everyday button vs. a button from way-back-when gives you a visual distinction and so, depending on the age of the classroom students, you could use buttons in many different ways. You could use them with small kids for counting out things—simple multiplication or addition or even division. So, it’s multi-modality.

So, did you want to add the part about—in terms of their usefulness or their application to the classroom—was that something that you added to the paper or was that something that she wanted you to add?

No, well yes. It was kind of two-fold. She said she wanted us not only to find something that you didn’t know about, but if you could apply that to what you do, do so. Show me how you would—As a teacher—where’s my quote? (Reads from paper): “I intend to make buttons and integral part of my teaching curriculum, hoping that I may inspire future colleagues to do the same and constantly think outside the box. I am charging myself and them to really use the world around them in teaching. Teachers should incorporate the man-made and the natural materials of society, such as buttons, into the classroom to enhance and enrich the learning experience for all students. Every student is the hope of the future, they are our leaders for tomorrow.’ And I close it with saying, “As a mother and a student, I’m learning new things everyday. If I ever need a button to mend a garment or help with homework, I’ll just ask my mother, the button-queen, as she was and still is my first teacher.” And that’s how I tied it all up. And I got an “A” for that one, so I went from just crazy, not knowing how to write a term paper, to getting to a point where I was getting “As” and the teachers were liking my work and I was being—I had flow and I had originality and I was able to pull it all together.

------------

Sum Up:

It seems like, you are often using—is it often the case, I’m sort of asking this question—is it the case that you often use your assignments in different courses as a way of tapping into your personal life in terms of your own experience with your husband and your children, but also your experience as a teacher?

Yes. And where I want to go as a teacher and where I want to go as a possible counselor. So, I went from looking back on my life and why things happened and how I handled them to looking at—taking in new information and saying, ‘Oh, well I can use it this way’—as a future reference point, a jumping off point, if you will, into the future, saying, okay, I’ve got this information with me and I’m going to take it with me and I’m going to apply it this way and if it works, great, if it doesn’t, then you rework it. It’s kind of self-therapeutic. Which, I told you, was my tool all along.

And I think I was drawn and I had to write the other personal piece in order to get some of the blockage out of the way and to put that behind me so that I could continue with school and I will say that I spent many a night crying as I wrote it because it was therapeutic for me.

Patsy McGee

Not much here on school work, but similar point as Charlene--she's in the schools, works in education, not a stretch to be taking classes herself.

Diane Wilkerson

The bio-ethics report experience definitely offers something about confusion and genre knowledge, lack of genre knowledge. There is less here than I thought...

But it’s not a news magazine, like Time?

Well, to some degree it is, yes. They had an interesting article on childhood obesity in the last issue that I found very interesting. And then went a little further on it and did some research and then did one of my human biology papers on childhood obesity, so I get certain ideas from things for home, for personal interest, or for school. It’s monthly. (4/5)

Can you describe some of the challenges you’ve faced as an adult student.

Doing term papers. Citations. Research. Writing. Making sure that I got all the parts that were necessarily—the introduction and the main article itself and the proper conclusion—just making it sound right.

That was a lot of different things. So, it was the research, getting on the internet, Ebsco—

That was all new. Feeling comfortable going there and doing that sort of thing.

And then it sounds like you were also describing the conventions of an academic paper, like learning a citation system.

Exactly. That was also a challenge. MLA and APA, and all of that, which I didn’t remember. So, I got some information here, which I found not all that useful because I found it too confusing. So, I basically said to my daughter, ‘what do I do?’

Your daughter the English teacher?

Yes.

Have you gone to her frequently?

I have. I have. I have said to her, ‘how do I go about writing a paper?’ I mean, I know it has to be written and you have to start—there’s the meat of the article and then there’s the conclusion. But how do you get from all of this research to there? And she said mom, write down what you have to say, make little notes, don’t try to put it together. What I was trying to do was get on the internet and start and write something. She said, don’t do that. Don’t go there, you’re making it too difficult for yourself. But she said, start writing it. You know it’s not going to be what your finished product is, but then you can go back and say, ‘wait a minute, this paragraph needs to be here.’ And she said, you need to have a dynamic introduction, but do the meat of the article first, and then do your introduction and your conclusion. We talked about citations and she gave me a couple of websites to look at which made it a little bit simpler and helped me see how to put things together and it helped a whole lot. It really do.

What about a couple of successes you’ve experienced so far, as a student.

Oh, that debate definitely was—on drilling in Anwar. We had to take the negative approach, that it wasn’t a good thing to do. We got assigned to a team—we were one side, they were the other. One person on our team said, ‘I want to take the negative approach because I don’t believe in it.’ The question wasn’t how you felt—it was, take an approach. Whether you were for it or against it. But, after all the research, I realized that that was the side I needed to be on, that I believed in—the negative side, that we shouldn’t be drilling in Anwar.

You didn’t have that opinion before?

No, not really. But doing the debate was—I’m not comfortable talking in front of a large group of people. But it really was amazing, that I got up there and gulped a couple of times and then got going and really got into it. And it was wonderful and I sat down and I was like, ‘wow, look what I just did.’ It was great. And I got an “A” in the course and I got an “A” in every course that I’ve taken and it was like, okay, yeah, I can do this.’

And it was wonderful and very rewarding to get this paper back and have her say, ‘fabulous job, you really did it well. It was a great term paper and great intro.’ It was like, ‘wow, this makes me feel good.’ You get that confidence and as it continues and you continue to do well and put your best effort into it, I think it’ll all go well. I really do. (4/5)

GENRE CONFUSION:

This is the website evaluation—he actually gave us the format. Which is the only thing that we got a format on. Everything else, there was no instruction. Just, in the syllabus, for example, interview, and that’s it.

Is that typical of the classwork you’ve done at GSC?

No. No, not at all. NOT IN THE LEAST. This was THE worst course. I gave this teacher a very poor evaluation based on the fact that there was very little instruction, very little guidelines as to what he was expecting. For example, I had never done an interview before. I had never done website evaluations—at least he had given a format for that.

So, this course is the exception?

Yes. Usually, my experience has been wonderful. I had a critical thinking course that was wonderful—the instructor was marvelous. Week by week she guided us through what we needed to do. She really guided us along the way as to what we needed to do and that turned out wonderfully. It really was a great experience. She was a marvelous teacher. And wonderful to have as a first instructor going back because she gave you an awful lot of confidence.

So, this assignment was to evaluate 16 websites—what kind of websites?

No guidelines, no nothing. I guess we all made the assumption—does this need to be medical or biology-related and the answer was yes. Again, this was not spelled out in the syllabus or in the first 3-4 classes.

Was this something you had done in other classes?

No, never. And then, I did the fluoride debate—it was a bioethics report. We said, ‘what does that mean?’ Well, he said, ‘present both sides.’ We said, ‘how long does it have to be?’ Well, ‘whatever you feel is necessary.’ No guidelines whatsoever. So, you just sort of shoot from the hip and hope it’s right.

Were a lot of the assignments in this class just guesswork?

All of them were.

So, in this paper, what did you end up doing?

I presented both sides—the addition of fluoride. The debate over whether fluoride—The nice thing about it being in dental hygiene was, I knew a lot of this stuff. Part of my original question to him was, if you know something, for example, being in dental hygiene, I know about dental issues, so if I want to take, for example, the fluoride issue as a bioethic report—

What exactly does bioethics mean?

I don’t know. It’s a good question. One of the first things I did was go on the internet and look up the word bioethics. It gave different listings—it was talking about debates on issues in biology. And then it gave a list of them. You could go down that list and see what somebody might look at as a bioethic subject.

So, what I did was to take issues in dentistry—fluoride—go on a website that was associated with that and use that and also use it in my bioethics to make it so that it could be in different ways and cut down on the amount of work that I had to do.

Drawing on the knowledge that you already had?

Right. And also, drawing on the fact that I had done this research on this one aspect, so, how can I draw on this in different ways and cut down my workload?

You had done research on fluoride for your own purposes? For your life or as a dental hygenist?

As a hygenist I had learned about fluoride, had talked about fluoride, had talked in the practice about the benefits of fluoride. It was something that was very common and something I was very knowledgable about. Another thing I did was dental decay in children—as a website evaluation.

So, you weren’t reinventing the wheel?

No. Just trying to utilize my time as well as possible. It was an open course and really too open. Too loose.

I can understand. This is like an analysis or an evaluation (website project). And the bioethics—how many of these did you have to do?

Five.

And you had to do sixteen of those (website evaluations)?

Right.

I know it’s hard to talk about what he wanted, but can you tell me what you had to do in these bioethic reports? Did you just present both sides?

I did.

And did you have to take a position?

I did. I did. Whether it was necessary to do so or not, I don’t know. But I did.

And then, my grandson, the doctor’s son, who is out in Minnesota, Eli, had plagiocephaly—a malformation or misformation of the head, due to placing children on their back, as opposed to on their stomach or side to sleep. The incidence of plagiocephaly—and there are three different types of it… (explanation of plagiocephaly and Eli’s story)

So, what did you do with your paper?

I did a report and I called it “Eli’s First Helmet.” This was what I did for my term paper.

So, this is what prompted you to do a term paper on plagiocephaly?

Right. And people hadn’t heard about it so I thought it would be very informative. And I had to give an oral presentation on it as well.

What exactly did you do? Did you use a certain number of sources? Was the purpose to make an argument about something or to inform about something?

I think it was basically informative…but again. ‘Do a term paper.’ That’s all the information that was given. ‘How long does it have to be?’ ‘Four to eight pages.’ ‘Does it need to be cited?’ ‘Yes.’ It was very loose, very, very loose. And you also needed to give a 15-20 minute presentation on the subject, so I had overheads and I had his little helmet and I had some pictures of before and after. It was fun and informative. It was a good presentation.

So, it sounds like with all of these assignments, you were able to do what you wanted to do?

Yes. And that has made it interesting. The problem with the class is the expectation and the—you HAVE to do 16 website evaluations.

ANWR:

Critical thinking, yes. But I didn’t really draw on an interest. The major amount of work was on ANWAR and I didn’t have a clue about what was happening there, nor did I care about oil drilling. I didn’t. Until I got into it and determined, ‘hey, this is really kind of interesting.’ It wasn’t in a medical field, which tends to be my primary interest.

Did you all share your writing in this course at all?

Not at all.

In other courses?

Yes. In critical thinking, yes.

What did you do in that class?

We had eight people in class and four people took one subject and four took another. Out of the people in our group, two of us—there was a young kid in his 20s—both of us did against ANWAR and the other two did for ANWAR. So, we did collaborate frequently on the phone and got together before class, during class, after class. We did collaborate because we needed to know what to present and who was going to present what information.

And you tested out of or opted out of The Writing Process course?

I did.

World's Apart

Chapter 3: The Social Motive of University Writing

Willard makes a further distinction. Within specific disciplinary fields, one can further distinguish between discourse whose goal is to get things done (instrumental or practical) and discourse whose goal is epistemic (i.e., knowledge oriented), where the discourse is an end in itself. Thus, he distinguishes legal briefs used to persuade a judge or jury from scholarly writing for, say, legal journals. (45)

At university, the goal of the writing and writer is not practical...but rather epistemic... School writing whose goal is epistemic is very different from writing whose goal is to produce new knowledge for scholars. In school genres, the notion of epistemic applies to the writer: the writing is assigned as an occasion for his or her learning; it is typically not taken on as an opportunity to extend the knowledge of a discipline or of a community of scholars--at least at the undergraduate level. The idea that student writing will make a "contribution" to a discipline's knowledge does not arise until graduate work. (45)

The goal of student writing is not to produce new knowledge for the reader (as is the goal of academic journal writing, for example), but rather to allow for new learning by the writer. (48)

...the writing enabled or constrained the students to take on certain ways of construing reality--ways that were similar to those expected in the fields to which they aspired. The social action undertaken in this writing is typical of that undertaken in much school writing, in that its purpose is epistemic--not in the sense of producing knowledge new to the reader, but rather in the specialized sense of enabling its writer to see and interpret reality in new ways... (57)

Textual features of other student papers pointed to other stances... (57)

Analysis of the composing sessions offered another window into the nature of enculturation suggested by our examination of textual features. (58)

The writing, more than the talk, revealed a seamless assumption of the values, stance, and ideology of the course...The students whom we observed responded ventriloquistically to the readings and classroom discourse, in the tasks set for them. As suggested earlier, they picked up the social language or register they heard. (60)

Through the mediation of and appropriation of the social languages modeled in the course, the students created the new genres expected of them, realizing the roles or subject-positions entailed, and the students produced the written social language designated by their professor as that of a financial analyst" (61).

Chapter 4: Complications and Tensions

Not much.

Novices and Identity

As Geisler (1994) notes in Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise, the sort of expository writing expected as a response to most academic writing assignments positions students as novices (p. 81). Geisler argues that attaining academic literacy has been viewed as a developmental process in which students slowly move toward expertise by being “apprenticed” as students of a discipline through the literacy activity demanded in their coursework. (from Ketter/Hunter article).

Notes on the reverse commute and identity

I'm thinking a bit about identity and how identity mixes with the transition from work to school literacy. I'm thinking about participants who embraced academic literacy for whatever reason and those who perhaps resisted it--in particular, Joe and Tony. Those embracing--Patsy, Charlene, Sarah, Diane--they may have embraced it for any number of reasons, but one reason may have been that academic literacy did not challenge their identities in some fundamental way. It's also worth noting that these were the women in the study.

So, in the case of Patsy and Charlene--well, they are in school to become educators. They feel a stake in academic literacy, in the acquisition of it. They desire to connect to it. Sarah, to come to terms with academic literacy--she sees it as working in concert with her, as enabling her own goals. Diane, perhaps some conflict, perhaps some questioning of why academic literacy, but a generally favorable disposition towards academic literacy--she was a good student in school, has a feeling of nostalgia for school and for learning, has a daughter who is an English teacher. I'm not sure that academic literacy or the demand to acquire it presents any real conflicts to these women's sense of self or of identity.

But with Tony and John, it may. One thing worth pointing out is the way that their identities are bound up with their work, perhaps in ways that are greater than the others. Both men have built careers and reputations and their work is highly intertwined with their identities. They are problem-solvers on the job. They are not newcomers--Brad teaches the newcomers. John also teaches or tells people what to do and makes

So I'm wondering about the ways in which certain professional or workplace identities conflict with or get in the way of participants process of acquiring academic literacy. The interaction of workplace identity and academic identity.

What does academic literacy require of these people, what does it ask of them, of their identities? On one level, it asks them to be a newcomer. And on another level, it asks for something different then reporting or proposing. It asks for a different move, one that may feel less interesting or useful? I'm thinking of Tony's American pop culture assignment and how he sort of made that assignment practical. I'm thinking of John's literary analysis assignment. What do such assignments, from liberal arts or humanistic traditions, ask of these people that they perhaps feel uncomfortable with? Don't want to engage? Challenge their identity in some way? These genres are asking for different kinds of moves--I'm just thinking of John writing a report which will be read by management in which he recommends some important initiative to meet the strategic objections of the company and the kind of identity that makes available to him (expert, insider) and the kind of identity that that literary analysis essay makes available to him. Totally different. You can see how that second one would feel meaningless.

I like the way I am moving away from just the experiences of John and Tony to think about identity in general--clearly, not all of the participants resisted academic literacy and the demands it required, created, demanded. There is a sense of balance here that strikes me as important. But there is a contrast, too. The way that John and Tony resisted or struggled to negotiate the identity that was offered/asked and others Charlene, Patsy embraced it. I like the sense of contrast here. Not ALL adults will react in this way. Some will react in this way. The important part is being to imagine the role of identity in all of this--the consequences or implications for literacy instruction of identity formation (and workplace identity). All GOOD.

Worth pointing out that Charlene, Patsy and Sarah all seek to align themselves and their identities with the institution of the school--Charlene and Patsy as teachers and Sarah in some kind of educational capacity.

It's also worth thinking, maybe, about the decision to return to school, the way that the individual's identity is at the moment when they enter school--Diane is excited and open, so is Sarah Knox. Charlene and Patsy are interested in becoming educators, so their identity is in line with school. Tony, push and pull--needs it and wants it but has a scary history. John...resignation perhaps? Values school, but also has achieved a certain degree of success in life which might conflict in some ways with starting over.

Genre and Identity (Pare)

The piece begins with this epigraph:

...each act of writing is a potential struggle because there are competing systems of values and beliefs at work. (Clarke & Ivanic, 1997, p. 71)

A particular set of discourse conventions (e.g., for conducting medical consultations, or media interviews, or for writing crime reports in newspapers) implicitly embodies certain ideologies--particular knowledge and beliefs, particular "positions" for the types of social subject that participate in that practice (e.g. doctors, patients, interviewees, newspaper readers), and particular relationships between categories of participants (e.g., between doctors and patients). In so far as conventions become naturalized and commonsensical, so too do these ideological presuppositions. (94, quoted in Pare, 58).

Of course, I'm struck by the notion that discourse conventions embody ideologies and positions...but I'm also struck by the notion that genres embody relationships (e.g. between students and teachers). This is something I hadn't thought much of, but could play a role in Brad's reactions to some genres of school writing.

Coe argues that "genres embody attitudes," and adds that "[s]ince those attitudes are built into generic structures, they are sometimes danced without conscious awareness or intent on the part of the individual using the genre (p. 183, quoted on p. 59).

...the ways in which genre locate or position individuals within the power relations of institutional activity. (59)

...the chapter offers a peek through the chinks that develop when a genre's facade of normalcy is cracked by resistance, inappropriate deployment, unfamiliarity, or critical analysis (60).

...genre's illusion of normalcy may be cracked or exposed at certain moments: when an event occurs that does not match the anticipated, socially construed exigence to which the genre responds; or, in a related situation, when the genre is stretched too wide, and its forms and actions are inappropriate or ill-suited to the occasion (as when textual forms are transported out of the contexts in which they developed); when newcomers first begin to participate in a genre and find it "unnatural" or counter to their own discourse habits and aims (developed in school, for example); when there are shifts in power relations within institutions, so that the values produced by discourse practices no longer favor those with authority to change or influence those practices. (61)

According to Gee (1996) "[d]iscourses are ways of being in the world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes" (p. 127). A discourse, says Gee, is an "identity kit" (p. 127). (64)

BRAD ALWAYS WORE HIS UNIFORM

...entry into any new discourse requires new subject positions, new identities. (64)

The move into the professional persona is an ideological transformation that occurs through participation in workplace genres. (66) And so, perhaps, the same can be said to be true for the move into the academic persona via participation in academic genres...

KEY POINT: So, I'm reading about the genres of social workers and learning about how students receive advice to remove themselves from the social work text (author-evacuated) and I'm thinking about the writing that Joe and Tony, for example, do on the job--the way in Joe's reports and Tony's run-reports they evacuate themselves from the text to construct a voice of authority. This seems another important element of the identity and genre piece that I have not considered--the way that they have internalized these conventions but also the way these conventions have shaped their identities. The way one constructs oneself as a professional is to remove oneself as an individual...this could cause problems for students when asked to write in expressive genres or in the expressive/reflective mode. Of course, this depersonalized kind of writing might serve these writers well when writing other kinds of academic discourse, discourse which focuses less on the expressive/personal and more on--what are Perl's terms for describing these two kinds of writing--TRANSACTIONAL??? Of course, in many writing classes, we ask students to write expressively and reflectively and re-assuming the persona of the "I" may be difficult or awkward for someone who is used to constructing a professional voice of authority minus the "I".

So the point is that these two writers may be alienated from certain forms of academic discourse:

1. Academic genres create writers who are novices, whereas some adult students, via their participation in workplace genres, have come to embody professional subject-positions where they are the experts.
2. Certain genres of academic writing, specifically personal or expressive genres, may conflict with the professional persona or identity, the author-evacuated prose, that many adult students have learned to assume via their participation in workplace genres.

This erasure of the self or--more accurately, perhaps--this transformation of the self into a "professional" locates the learner anonymously within the institution's naturalized ideology. It is a transformation realized through participation in workplace genres..." (68).

Professional consciousness emerges through the intellectual practices required to do organizational work...Documentary production provides a basis for the practical expression and reification of a universalized professional consciousness. A documentary reality provides a space where the impersonal, general, and situationally transcendent standpoint of the profession and the organization can be substituted for the lived standpoints of those who are subject to and subjected themselves to its determination (de Montigny qtd. in Pare, 68)

Ketter/Hunter

Erin’s story of negotiating the transition between writing for academia and writing for work is unique. But her experience suggests one way in which students might learn about writing in different communities. Erin’s consciousness of her identity as a writer is heightened by her work on the boundaries of two contrasting communities of practice as she thinks about and comes to understand the constraints and freedoms afforded by each community. Her participation in the two communities of practice enhances her understanding of writing as a complex interaction between the writer’s identity and social cultural practices of the community. As do Dias et. al (1999), we see that the ways of learning about writing and the purposes of writing activity in academic and workplace communities of practice can differ, but we learn through this study that Erin benefits more from her participation in each because of her participation in both. (326)

I'm struck by a couple things here. First, there is the statement that her experience is unique--yes, unique for traditional-age students, but not at all unique for the population of students I am writing about, adults.

I am struck by the argument that her participation in these communities of practice brings two benefits:

1. Her consciousness of her identity as a writer is enhanced (not sure I understand or can articulate the advantage of this).
2. Her understanding of writing as "a complex interaction between the writer’s identity and social cultural practices of the community" is enhanced (this makes sense to me).

Furthermore, I am impressed by the argument that "Erin benefits more from her participation in each because of her participation in both." This underscores the notion of dual-participation as a positive, not a negative and this is, I think, a different way for me to think about my own study. What are the points I've been trying to make about the experiences of these folks:

1. They bring discursive resources from another community of practice with them.
2. There is likely to be some level of interaction between these resources and those they are expected to acquire in the new community of practice (school).
3. The fact of this dual participation is not something one must work against, but, rather, something that, as Ketter and Hunter argue, might be perceived as a good thing, as a tool, in its ability to enhance items 1 & 2 (above).

---

...our study shows the benefit of providing opportunities for teachers and students to explore how contrasting communities of practice define successful writing activity and how writing activity operates in the cultural and political sphere of each community. Thus, we believe, academic communities of practice should provide students with opportunities to write in non-academic contexts and should encourage students to reflect about and discuss how these non-academic contexts frame writing activity. At the same time, students may benefit from discussing how the academic contexts in which college writing often occurs also affect writing activity. Such discussions should include how writing activity, both in academia and in other contexts, is a means of operating purposively in the world. (327)

Here, Ketter/Hunter argue for the importance of "providing opportunities for teachers and students to explore how contrasting communities of practice" do their work and define writing activity. Well, when it comes to adult learners, one need not seek out opportunities, the students BRING the opportunities with them when they arrive in the classroom. They are there to be exploited (or ignored or worked against).

Ketter and Hunter argue for providing students with not just the opportunity to experience contrasting communities of practice, but also the opportunity "to reflect about and discuss how these non-academic contexts frame writing activity." Well, this really is the starting point for a writing course for adult learners and this is the kind of course I have been kind of imagining for some time. Such a course might begin with the non-academic contexts and then shift to "discussing how the academic contexts in which college writing often occurs also affect writing activity." And what about school and academic histories? Those too.

Other passages of interest:

a portrait of a writer negotiating her identity as she becomes aware of and contends with the constraints of the genres she chooses to use. In working with and resisting the constraints of academic writing, Erin gains an understanding of how she can challenge the genre’s positioning of her as a novice who lacks agency. In experimenting with the genre of public relations writing, she enjoys its freedoms while learning about and challenging its constraints as well. (325)

Finding the writing activity in these two communities to be “worlds apart,” these researchers warn against “facile versions” of what Joliffe (1994) refers to as the “myth of transcendence,” the assumption that, while sites of writing may differ, the people who travel between them easily “transport or translate what they have learned as writers from one domain to the other” (Dias et al., 1999, p. 223). (308)

we show the complicated negotiation and transition Erin undergoes as she struggles to create coherence between two different writing communities, and how she uses writing to negotiate her identity as a future professional writer. (308)

By participating in the two communities, she experiences what Wenger calls "the demands of multimembership" 4 (1998, p. 159). (310)

What does academic writing require of you (or what demands does it make on your identity)?

The assignments themselves are usually perceived by both student and teacher as a display of what students have learned in the course and as evidence that they understand and can apply the theories in the discipline to new material. (311)

As Geisler (1994) notes in Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise, the sort of expository writing expected as a response to most academic writing assignments positions students as novices (p. 81). Geisler argues that attaining academic literacy has been viewed as a developmental process in which students slowly move toward expertise by being “apprenticed” as students of a discipline through the literacy activity demanded in their coursework. Underlying that view, she claims, is the assumption that “academic expertise is so cognitively complex that we can reasonably expect only some students to master it” (p. 89). Therefore, academic writing assignments often provide supports or scaffolding to move students toward more complex thinking in that discipline and to help students practice the modes of inquiry, the evaluation of evidence, and the theorizing about that evidence that represent the literacy practices of experts. Geisler claims that these approaches to teaching writing construct students as incapable of creating or revising theory and thus deny them access to meaning-making and hence, real learning. (312)

This is a goldmine for me and I need to get my hands on Geisler's text. The phrase that sticks is "positions students as novices." Additionally, the notion of "by being 'apprenticed' as students of a discipline through the literacy activity demanded in their coursework." Novices and apprentices. Are those identities which are in conflict with some students' work identities? Yes. Will they potentially create conflicts? Maybe.

For Erin, academic writing is primarily about producing writing that will display her knowledge to earn a good grade and win her the approval of her professors. (314)

As Dias et al. (1999) argue, genres often constrain and limit, but they also can be potential spaces for identity transformation and learning:
...we need to argue also for the potentialities of genres for creating spaces for forming and realizing new versions of self as one discovers new motives and transforms the self in response to the new communicative needs and opportunities. (p. 21) (319)