In the interest of fostering deep student transactions with texts, the purpose of this research is to study a particular approach to teaching writing, and to observe and investigate the impact of a dramatic shift in the methods and frequency of assignment of writing in a college-level philosophy class, and the ways in which the students and instructor negotiate this new territory and these different demands over three cohort years, from Fall 2014 to Spring 2017. This dissertation is an empirical study of what happens when an inquiry-based apprenticeship approach to teaching academic writing (Blau 2011) is employed in a required sophomore- level interdisciplinary humanities course in a highly selective college. This classroom research project seeks to undertake an examination of whether students can be successfully inducted into the academic community through a particular assignment in a Philosophy course. This writing assignment, the “commentary,” encourages students to focus on questions and therefore functions as an instance of writing-to-learn, which belongs to a long tradition across disciplines and cultures. This dissertation will also undertake an examination of the potential capacity of the commentary to create an academic discourse community of practice that supports critical reading and interpreting of literary and philosophical texts. The strategy of this new method is to have the students write twice-weekly 300-500 word commentaries of exploratory and sometimes argumentative writing on assigned texts twice a week, posting the writing in an online discussion board. They receive responses immediately, from each other, and get credit for completing the assignment (on time, relevant, and of appropriate length). The instructor never replies to their postings and never grades their postings on a scale or for quality. Students simply earn credit for completing the full number of required commentaries. The research is not experimental, but rather a qualitative observation of the effects of an approach established by the instructor in this class and in other similar classes as an adaptation of a model for learning academic writing through participation in an authentic academic discourse (Blau). The approach represents an enactment of situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger) in a college classroom and is constructed to advance academic learning while providing an opportunity for situated performative assessment indistinct from instruction. The place of the commentary in this course is established in a literary and historical context as it is authorized, valorized, and illuminated by a tradition of writing-to-learn grounded in the ideas of Isocrates, Quintilian, Cicero, and Montaigne. It is also supported by current seminal research in writing instruction, including James Moffett’s theory of abstraction in writing (1983), Sheridan Blau’s pedagogical applications of apprenticeship systems (2011), James Gee’s theories of discourse analysis (2001), and John Dewey’s “How We Think” (1910). Where decorum permits, there will be deeper meditations and excursions into and elaborations on the auto-ethnographic metacognitive writing of Michel de Montaigne, exploring the history of the practice of writing to learn and its relationship to critical thinking and Dewey. My analysis is situated in examining the culture of writing in this class and the markers of growth in thinking in student writing, using tools out of ethnography and the tradition of teacher research. Based on asking the initial question, “What happens when students write regular commentaries on their reading of difficult texts?” analysis of the collected student writing explores students’ attempts to channel curiosity into productive interpretive techniques, embrace uncertainty, make meaning and connections, and grow in the capacity to welcome and seek out productive confusion and doubt. I will focus primarily on whether this assignment contributes to the construction of a class culture whose implicit and explicit rules, conventions, and patterns of interaction are consistent with those that characterize the knowledge-building communities of the kind that colleges and universities aspire to in their departments, organized research units, and professional associations. I am also interested in exploring whether this shift in the culture of writing impacts whether students come to perceive themselves as contributors to the construction of knowledge as members of an academic community.

Mok, Joyce Mee Luen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-133). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract (English) --- p.i / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / List of Tables --- p.x / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Background to this study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of this study --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3 --- Organisation of this thesis --- p.7 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Cognitive Approaches to Task Performance / Chapter 2.2.1 --- The Information-Processing Theory --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Levelt's Model of Speech Production --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Cognitive Models of Task-Based Performance --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Two Types of Task Planning - Pre-Task Planning and On-line Planning --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4 --- Manipulating Task Characteristics under Different Planning Conditions --- p.24 / Chapter 2.5 --- The Two Types of Narrative Prompts -- Picture Sequences and Video Snippets --- p.31 / Chapter 2.6 --- Learners' Perception of Task Performance --- p.35 / Chapter 2.7 --- Research Questions of This Study --- p.38 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Method / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.40 / Chapter 3.2 --- Participants --- p.40 / Chapter 3.3 --- Task Type --- p.43 / Chapter 3.4 --- Pilot Studies / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Pilot Study on Picture Prompts --- p.44 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Pilot Study on Video Prompts --- p.46 / Chapter 3.5 --- Task Design --- p.47 / Chapter 3.6 --- Data Collection Procedures --- p.52 / Chapter 3.7 --- Pre-task / Post-task Questionnaires --- p.53 / Chapter 3.8 --- Quantitative Measures / Chapter 3.8.1 --- Fluency Measures --- p.55 / Chapter 3.8.2 --- Complexity Measures --- p.56 / Chapter 3.8.3 --- Accuracy Measures --- p.57 / Chapter 3.8.4 --- Data Analysis --- p.57 / Chapter 3.9 --- Qualitative Measures --- p.58 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Results / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2 --- Descriptive Statistics / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Overall Means and Standard Deviations --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Means and Standard Deviations under Four Conditions --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3 --- Correlational Statistics / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Intercorrelations of Dependent Variables --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- "Two-way ANOVAs for Fluency, Complexity and Accuracy" --- p.69 / Chapter 4.4 --- Summary of Data Elicited in Language Production --- p.72 / Chapter 4.5 --- Learners' Perception of Task Performance / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Learners' Perception of Task Difficulty and Task Enjoyment --- p.73 / Chapter 4.5.1.1 --- Descriptive Statistics: Learners' Perception of Task Difficulty and Task Enjoyment --- p.74 / Chapter 4.5.1.2 --- Correlational Statistics: Learners' Perception of Task Enjoyment --- p.75 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Learners' Planning Strategies and Difficulties Encountered While Speaking --- p.77 / Chapter 4.5.3 --- The Benefits of Different Prompt Types --- p.84 / Chapter 4.6 --- Summary of Learners' Perception of Tasks --- p.86 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Discussion / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.88 / Chapter 5.2 --- Research Question One / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Summary of Results on Fluency --- p.88 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Explanations for Results on Fluency --- p.91 / Chapter 5.3 --- Research Question Two / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Summary of Results on Complexity --- p.94 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Explanations for Results on Complexity --- p.95 / Chapter 5.4 --- Research Question Three / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Summary of Results on Accuracy --- p.100 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Explanations for Results on Accuracy --- p.104 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary on the Language Production of Learners --- p.107 / Chapter 5.6 --- Research Question Four / Chapter 5.6.1 --- Summary of Results on Learners' Perception of Task Performance --- p.108 / Chapter 5.6.1.1 --- Learners' Perception of the Usefulness and Adequacy of Planning Time --- p.109 / Chapter 5.6.1.2 --- Learners' Perception of How to Spend Their Planning Time --- p.109 / Chapter 5.6.1.3 --- Learners' Perception of What Would Help Improve Their Task Performance --- p.109 / Chapter 5.6.1.4 --- Learners' Perception of the Benefits of Different Prompt Types --- p.111 / Chapter 5.7 --- Summary of Questionnaire Data --- p.113 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Conclusion / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.114 / Chapter 6.2 --- Integrating the Present Study with Previous Studies --- p.115 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Previous Findings on Fluency --- p.116 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Present Findings on Fluency --- p.117 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Previous Findings on Complexity --- p.118 / Chapter 6.2.4 --- Present Findings on Complexity --- p.118 / Chapter 6.2.5 --- Previous Findings on Accuracy --- p.119 / Chapter 6.2.6 --- Present Findings on Accuracy --- p.119 / Chapter 6.3 --- The Trade-Off Effect / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Previous Findings on the Trade-Off Effect --- p.121 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Present Findings on the Trade-Off Effect --- p.122 / Chapter 6.4 --- Limitations of the Present Study / Chapter 6.4.1 --- The Use of Different Prompt Types --- p.123 / Chapter 6.4.2 --- Interpretation of Learners' Perception of Tasks --- p.124 / Chapter 6.4.3 --- Pedagogical Studies vs. Language Testing Studies --- p.125 / Chapter 6.5 --- Implications for Language Pedagogy --- p.127 / References --- p.129 / Appendices / Appendix A Picture Sequence Extracted from Huizenga (2000) --- p.134 / Appendix B Instructions to the Participants (English Version) --- p.135 / Appendix C Language Background Questionnaire --- p.136 / Appendix D Task Difficulty Questionnaire --- p.139 / Appendix E Consent Form --- p.142

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Over the past ten years, the use of student writing journals has become increasingly widespread in the TESOL field. Such journals serve a wide variety of purposes: a cultural diary, a free writing exercise, a forum for reaction or comment on readings or classroom discussions, in addition to a form of teacher/student dialogue. The main purpose of this study has been to determine the relationship of topic assignment to the quantity and quality of resulting entries. The data, 144 journal entries generated by ten adult ESL students over a period of ten weeks, were measured for length, in terms of total words and total number of T-units, and quality as assessed by the Jacobs profile (1981) which considers the following areas: content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. In addition, student reactions to instructor comments and attitudes toward journal keeping were explored in an end of term questionnaire. It was found that, on a group level, the assignment of four specified topic types (A. Topics relating to class lectures and discussions, B. Topics relating class discussions to the students' respective cultures, C. Topics relating to class or personal experiences and D. No topic assignment) did not appear to have any relationship with either the quality or quantity of writing. However, on an individual level, topic assignment did seem to have a relationship with the quantity of writing and in some cases, the quality as well. In considering student reaction to instructor comments, all students reported reading instructor comments, but rarely responded to them. When considering topic assignment, 74% of the students stated preferring an assigned topic, yet 60% actually wrote more when given a free choice of topic. Also, on the individual level, students stated a variety of topic type preferences that roughly corresponded with an increase in entry length. Finally, students seemed to have a positive attitude toward journal keeping as 80% stated they would like to keep a journal next term.

Abstract not available

The purpose of this study was to identify if differences existed in perceived barrier factors and perceived attitude factors toward distance education between faculty and administrators in the decision stage and those in the implementation stage of distance education technology adoption. Information was gathered from teaching faculty and program leaders involved in agricultural education teacher preparation programs across the United States during the 1999-2000 academic year. The barrier statements were reduced to nine barrier factors and the attitude statements were reduced to five attitude factors through Principal Components Analysis. Respondents were grouped into the decision stage or the implementation stage of distance education technology adoption according to Rogers' (1995) innovation-decision process. Statistically significant differences existed for various technology types between the groups for both barrier factor scores and attitude factor scores. The following conclusions were formulated from this study: (a) a majority of the participants were in the decision stage of the innovation-decision process for distance education technology adoption; (b) on-line delivery of courses was the distance education technology most respondents were currently using or planning to use; (c) distance education was not a major factor helping to meet program level goals; (d) training opportunities were available for faculty who teach using distance education; (e) the majority of the population indicated they were not adequately supported by the department to teach using distance education technologies; (f) participants were planning to have resources available for students taking courses via distance education technologies, yet were noticeably indecisive for some resources; (g) cost barriers, course quality, student contact, and equipment concerns were considered barriers for a majority of the respondents; (h) each type of distance education technology had barrier factors that showed significant differences between participants in the decision stage and those in the implementation stage; (i) overall the respondents' attitudes were favorable to distance education, but significant differences in attitude factor scores were evident between deciders and implementers when viewed by type of distance education technology; (j) all but one of the barrier factor scores were considered reliable, and (k) all of the attitude factor scores were considered reliable. / Graduation date: 2003

First year college writing classes originated in the United States at Harvard University in 1874. Since then, theorizing such a course has proven a place of contention, as its purposes and subjects have proven difficult to sort and impossible to agree upon. When Harvard first began teaching introductory composition, literature played an integral role in the course, both as subject matter and as a means of acculturation for an increasingly diverse student body. Since then, many universities have continued to use literature as an important component of what has remained the only course largely required of all first year students. However, the use of literature in introductory composition has been contested since such courses began. Conflicting ideals have typified the conversation concerning the role(s) of reading in writing classes, in large part because of how the discussion has been framed. The difficulty in framing in part stems from participants thus far addressing the issue in limiting ways. For example, some have claimed that the issue had already been resolved, while others have argued to separate the discussion of literature in first year writing from theoretical, institutional, and historical concerns, given contradictory accounts of that history, or denied it altogether. Re-examining that history demonstrates that the uses and purposes of literature in first year writing have been continually and critically implicated in issues far more complex than whether or not a poem appears in a writing class. Institutions subordinated composition to literature in English departments, which led first to writing departments turning to literature as a validating subject matter, then later rejecting it to assert the independence of writing as a discipline. Institutional and political struggles have clouded adequate theorization of reading and writing in first year classes as well. The discussion has sometimes treated both reading and writing unproblematically, and even recent efforts to introduce to the conversation multiple ways of writing have ignored related and multiple processes of reading. Rewriting a historical narrative of how literature has been used in first year writing that includes theoretical and institution concerns clarifies how those concerns underwrite more recent discussion. Bringing those concerns to the surface allows a richer theorizing of introductory composition and literature's role in it, particularly with the inclusion of recent challenges to the privileged nature of the category "literature." Transferring a prevalent model of writing as a cognitive, expressive, or social-cultural process to similarly identify reading processes offers one means by which we might reconfigure first year writing, inviting students to engage various ways of reading and writing. Addressing ways in which theoretical, institutional, and historical forces have shaped first year writing provides the means by which we might be more reflexive and critical in shaping such courses in the future. It also might allow the conversation of the role(s) of literature in composition to leave its 120 year stasis and take a progressive turn. / Graduation date: 1999

Presenting and synthesizing several paradigms for the teaching of literature in American colleges, I investigate how definitions of reading, readers, texts, interpretations, and knowledge affect student acts of reading and writing. In addition, I draw upon specific examples of text-based, reader-based, and social-cultural based models for the teaching of reading to demonstrate how particular pedagogical theories and practices emerge from and reflect larger ideological concepts and paradigms. Cognitive-oriented models of reading that rely upon schema theory to explain comprehension and interpretation, for example, have been used by theorists who advocated a text-based approach to literary analysis. Even though cognitive models are based on scientific studies that focus on the mental faculties of individual readers, I classify it as a text-based model because when translated into classroom practice, interpretive emphasis has been placed on the text rather than the reader. Therefore, the reader is subordinated to the text in various ways. Expressive and social-cultural theories presented by Louise Rosenblatt, Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish, and Kathleen McCormick are used to demonstrate how the rhetorical emphasis of interpretation can be shifted away from the text and toward the reader. As a reader-based theorist, for example, Rosenblatt advocates personal response as the most rewarding form of textual interaction students can experience. McCormick declares that personal response should be analyzed more extensively than the expressive model suggests, however. Hence, she proposes a social-based model that asserts both the cultures of reception and production should be studied as a means for better understanding individual responses to texts. But reading is not my only focus in this project. In each chapter, I extrapolate as to how theories of reading, when translated into classroom practice, affect both student writing and student participation in the making of meaning. Therefore, to enrich my theoretical discussions of pedagogy and its affects on students, I draw upon my experiences as both a teacher and a student to provide practical classroom examples of student acts of reading, interpretation, and writing. Moreover, the application chapters of this project present two extensive examples of how theory can be translated into practice-the first is a discussion of a recent composition course I taught, and the second is an example student paper that performs a McCormickean analysis of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. From theory to practice, then, this project presents and challenges what it means to be a teacher and a student of literature and composition. / Graduation date: 1997

Like other social institutions, universities have been created and administered by and for a white-male dominant culture that continues to marginalize women and anyone else designated as -Other- according to race, class, ethnicity, ability, age, size, and sexuality. This discussion questions the dominant model of standard written discourse in the college English classroom where linear, abstract argument centered on autonomous thinking and reasoning prevails. It explores how such a discourse privileges a patriarchal system of education that subordinates other ways of learning and writing, particularly those that may be closely associated with contemporary women's learning, and it looks at some experimental writing strategies for teachers and students who want to challenge the dominant model of discourse within the institution and perhaps better enable students to write with a sense of their own goals and purposes. / Graduation date: 1994

The freshman course in "writing about literature" is a metaphor of the profession of English. Political disagreements with English departments, vocational pressures exerted from outside the English department, and philosophical differences among composition specialists intersect in the composition course based on literature as they do in no other course. A new paradigm for teaching writing and a revival of rhetorical studies have led many institutions to exclude the reading of imaginative literature from freshman composition courses.This dissertation argues, however, that to include literature in freshman composition is both desirable and possible. Through a history of composition teaching in America, Chapter One analyzes relationships among rhetoric; literature, and composition, demonstrating that writing and reading were effectively interrelated for almost 300 years. It attributes the ineffectivenessabout literature" courses in recent years to an unexamined rhetorical theory and an inappropriate method of objective literary criticism.To reintegrate literature with composition on more solid grounds, Chapters Two and Three explore the needs of freshman students as writers and readers. Chapter Two examines contemporary research in composition, proposing a substitute for current traditional rhetoric. Chapter Three examines literary theories and response to literature, proposing a substitute for objective criticism.Chapter Four reviews proposals to integrate reading and writing, revealing a widespread assumption that writing about literature--in freshman courses as in graduate seminars--means writing objective, analytical, critical prose. It cites significant evidence from many fields that developing writers need to express personal, affective, and poetic ideas as well as to develop critical understanding.Chapter Five proposes a rhetoric for freshman composition that includes the reading and writing of transactional, expressive, and poetic discourse. Organized by means of Janet Emig's "inquiry paradigm," it clarifies a view of reality, a set of assumptions, an intellectual heritage, and a theory for this rhetoric. Finally, it offers one example of an introductory freshman composition course consistent with the rhetorical framework. Using conventional readings in American literature, it suggests methods of teaching and evaluating designed to create an environment in which the activities of reading and writing can be expected to reinforce one another.