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Although it may not seem possible that a student could graduate from an Ivy League institution without basic writing skills, a 2003 Chronicle of Higher Education article concluded that it is not only possible, but that it does happen. Some students are actually suing colleges and universities because they do not believe they have been taught the skills necessary to succeed in the area of written communication. This deficiency reflects poorly on universities, and even small liberal arts colleges are not exempt from this problem. This dissertation was driven by a desire to learn how professors at one small liberal arts college viewed the use of writing in their courses. The professors were interviewed to determine how they viewed writing, how they viewed their students" writing, how familiar they were with writing-across-the-curriculum practices, and how much writing was assigned in their courses. The study results indicated that many professors use writing extensively in their courses, and that they considered their assignments appropriate and successful in achieving their goals. The study also revealed that some professors use little or no writing, and their reasons for doing so were varied. The most common explanation was a lack of time to create assignments and to read and assess written assignments. Some professors also concurred that they felt uncomfortable using writing because their own writing skills were lacking. Other professors were discouraged by poor student writing and had given up on using additional writing assignments. The most surprising result from this study was the professors" lack of knowledge concerning the use of writing as a learning and thinking tool. Most were comfortable with the standard research paper, case study type of writing assignments, but few used writing-across-the-curriculum methods or practices. Writing prompts, journals, and non-graded pieces were not part of their teaching repertoire. Even professors in the field of education reported that they have not adopted the newer teaching strategies. The concluding chapter addressed faculty concerns and provided suggestions for overcoming these concerns. / Ph. D.

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This study was designed to build on the existing research on teaching and learning in community college contexts and the literature of college writing in two-year schools. The work of Pierre Bourdieu formed the primary theoretical framework and composition theory was used to position this study in the literature of the college writing discipline. Employing qualitative research methods and a critical working-class perspective, this study reflects a combined data set of participant observation, in-depth personal interview, and document analysis, giving shape to the experiences of fourteen students in one section of a first-year college writing course. This ethnographic study provided fruitful data regarding the nature of student/teacher relationships and students’ negotiation of authority in the classroom and in their writing. The results showcase the value of in-depth, qualitative research in college writing classrooms, a perspective with great potential to reveal underlying factors for student behaviors and outcomes in two-year literacy education. / Urban Education

Among scholars of applied linguistics and composition studies, the notion of academic literacy has generated discussions regarding L2 students' intellectual growth and academic performance in the college context. Several studies provide a detailed account of how students adapt their literacy practices in response to their perceived needs for task completion; however, as the notion of academic literacy has gradually been linked to concerns of disciplinary enculturation, a situated process of becoming involved in disciplinary discourse, there has been a call for attention to the disciplinary discourse communities into which students are initiated through literacy tasks. Although some previous studies have forged early linkages and integrated disciplinary discourse into the notion of academic literacy, the empirical data comes from graduate students (Casanave, 2002; Prior, 1998) or L1 students (Hass, 1994; Herrington, 1985; Sternglass, 1997). The study reported in this dissertation, however, investigates the situated and enculturating literacy practices of L2 students in undergraduate settings. Also, as compared to previous studies that describe the literacy strategies in or students' views of disciplinary discourse, the present study attempts to schematize the connection between literacy practice and disciplinary enculturation, drawing on the notion of genre and its framework. This study has a clear focus of analysis by discussing the literacy practice of two L2 students as they engage in genres, mostly written work, in class, herein referred to as genre practice or genre-mediated literacy practice. This study follows the L2 students' learning throughout their undergraduate college experience, providing an analysis of their genre practice across disciplines from their first year to graduation, and at the same time tracing the factors that contextualize their genre practice, such as previous genre encounters, class work, writing assignment guidelines, cultural norms, individualized perceptions of disciplinary expectations, etc. Through careful textual analysis and interviews, this study focuses on the L2 students' developing academic literacy as mediated by discipline-specific genre practice in three different learning contexts: writing in general education courses, writing in business writing courses, and writing in courses in their majors. The results of the study show that both students' genre practices varied, depending on how genre was cued, interpreted, and performed, by social affordances such as lectures, class readings, class discussions, and interactions with peers and instructors. The study shows the students' genre practice taking shape in the way they were situated in disciplinary discourse, while at the same time their understanding of disciplinary discourse was mediated by their engagement in genre. In addition, by looking at the students' genre practice in four different knowledge dimensions—formal, rhetorical, procedural, and subject matter (see Tardy, 2009)—this study documents a detailed process of constructing discipline-specific literacy. Despite its context-dependent, individualized positioning in disciplinary discourse, this study captures a series of patterns of literacy practice cutting across the two L2 students' approach to genre and highlights the issues inherent in classroom-based instructional settings. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of this study suggest the need to reexamine the role of writing for discipline-specific literacy, both to enhance college writing instruction and to advocate for writing across the curriculum.

Writing academic papers continues to be a struggle for college students. Many universities provide tutoring services for a range of academic subjects including writing. Currently, there are few experimental studies to support the effectiveness of two frequently used tutoring methods: directive and nondirective tutoring. Based on existing knowledge about the acquisition of written language, this study aims to determine if directive (expert-directed) tutoring is more effective than nondirective (student-directed) tutoring in improving students' writing skills. In addition, this study sought to determine if changes in macrostructure and microstructure correlated to instructor assigned grades. Participants were recruited from undergraduate courses that included an initial paper and a revised final paper. Participants who chose 30-min of free tutoring were randomly assigned to one of the tutoring conditions: expert-directed (ED) or student-directed (SD). Participants who did not choose to receive tutoring were allocated to the control condition. There were 16 participants: ED group [n=7], SD group [n=7], and control group [n=2]. A descriptive analysis on measures of microstructure, paragraph structure, overall rating, and instructor assigned grades for the initial and final paper was conducted for 6 participants: ED group [n=2], SD group [n=2], and control group [n=2]. On measures of microstructure, the ED group decreased the average number of errors, the SD group maintained the same number of errors, and the control group increased the number of errors. Both the ED and SD tutoring groups decreased the average number of internal paragraph structure errors, while the control group maintained the same number of errors. All three groups received an increase in average overall rating; however, the control group received the smallest increase. All three groups received a comparable increase in average instructor assigned grade. The preliminary results suggest that tutoring is beneficial compared to no tutoring. Furthermore, there does not appear to be a relation between changes in the measures used in this study (microstructure, paragraph structure, overall rating) and instructor assigned grades. Further examination on whether directive tutoring is more effective than nondirective is required. The theories supporting directive tutoring (i.e. writing development, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, learning theory) suggest that this method would be more effective than nondirective tutoring. In addition, research into the relation between grades and changes in macrostructure and microstructure is warranted.

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