This dissertation project centers on student engagement inside the composition classroom. Through an in-depth synthesis on engagement in three major fields of engagement research—Rhetoric and Composition, Education, and Psychology (the three disciplines with the most database hits on engagement)—I discovered that engagement is used disparately in its literature, resulting in difficulty in its application inside the classroom. Due to this difficulty in applying engagement to the classroom, especially to the writing classroom, I conducted a discourse analysis—through using artifacts, an initial coding scheme, and a category provided from the synthesis—to further understand engagement and to find a more beneficial characterization of engagement for writing instructors to foster inside their classrooms. The findings of this dissertation study resulted in the creation of a model of how the engagement process manifests inside a classroom environment. Within the classroom, the instructor guides students between procedural and substantive engagement, using action terms found from the discourse analysis. While instructors seek substantive engagement, I argue that procedural engagement can be beneficial if instructors and students learn to be metacognitive about the engagement process, willing to work together and to try new actions to foster engagement in the classroom (instructors) and in themselves (students).

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Faculty of Humanities School of Education 0201596p m.hendricks@ru.ac.za / This thesis analyses the classroom writing of learners in their additional languages at four differently resourced schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The choice of languages on offer at schools and the medium of instruction seldom meet current language education policy requirements of additive bilingualism needed to support children’s home language and general cognitive growth. The central question of my study concerns how school writing practices contribute to the development of learners’ writing ability. The data collected and analysed in order to investigate this were all the regular classroom writing of Grade 7 children in Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa, where these were additional languages, not the children’s home language. My findings were that there is no check by the Education Department on whether schools meet the official national curriculum policy requirements with regard to the amount of curriculum time allocated to language. Also, that there is a mismatch between the languages on offer at schools and the home languages of learners, and teachers, which is not monitored. My key findings with regard to writing were that there are significant differences and inequalities in the amounts that learners write at these schools across Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa. Decontextualised grammar tasks predominate in what learners write in all three languages at all four schools. Children write relatively few extended texts, and these are mainly personal expressive texts which are unlikely to develop their ability to write abstract, context-reduced genres. Teachers’ neglect of impersonal formal and factual genres at all four schools makes it difficult for learners to experience the benefits of writing these genres – that these genres set the basis for the development of abstract cognitivelydemanding language proficiency and disciplinary knowledge. In the case of English, which is the commonest medium of instruction even though it is the home language of less than 10% of the population, this shortcoming is especially serious.

This dissertation is an a/r/tographic inquiry (Irwin & Springgay, 2008) that explores postmodern picturebooks and writing theory. Postmodern picturebooks have been described as texts that blur traditional literary boundaries and text-image relationships, while employing devices like metafiction and playfulness (Goldstone, 2002; Sipe, 2008). As meaning becomes more ambiguous, readers are positioned as co-constructors of meaning (Serafini, 2005). Research has shown students enjoy reading postmodern picturebooks and constructing meaningful transactions despite the complex nature of these texts (McGuire, Belfatti, & Ghiso, 2008; Pantaleo, 2004, 2007, 2008), but few have begun to explore how these texts are written. Therefore, I used a/r/tography (Irwin & Springgay, 2008) to theorize about the relationship between these texts and what it means to write. As a method of inquiry, a/r/tography is an arts-based approach to research that is interested in how artistic practices produce meaning and a/r/tographers use art to “construct the very ‘thing’ [they] are attempting to make sense of” (Springgay, 2008, p. 159). In this study, I wrote and illustrated a postmodern picturebook and interpreted how this experience generated understandings about what it means to write. In response to the process model of writing (Flower & Hayes, 1981), the data led to representations that offer new perspectives on contemporary writing theory, in particular, the interpretive, public, and situated nature of writing (Kent, 1999). As a result, I use theories of metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003; Lakoff & Turner, 1989) to critique writing process theory (Elbow, 1973, 1981; Flower & Hayes, 1981) and propose that a/r/tographic inquiry creates openings for new possibilities within the post-process movement (Kent, 1999) by demonstrating how a writer’s evolving questions (Irwin & Springgay, 2008) relate to writing pedagogy.

In recent years, US elementary and secondary education has put more emphasis on advancing students’ academic literacy. To address this need, many teachers have looked to systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory to frame writing instruction. Drawing from this literature, this report identifies major pedagogical principles relevant for an English as a foreign language (EFL) instructional context, delineates the linguistic markers characteristic of academic registers, and expands on the existing literature in regards to feedback and error correction. SFL-informed literacy instruction can benefit English language instruction in countries such as South Korea, where learners’ writing development has traditionally been neglected. The report begins with a brief overview of systemic functional linguistics, and follows with a review of the literature on SFL-based writing pedagogy. Implications for EFL educational settings are discussed. / text

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2008. / Title from screen (viewed on June 24, 2009). Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Karen M. Kovacik, Susanmarie Harrington, Robert Rebein. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-78).

The purpose of this study is to explore the writer identity of four preservice teachers from a large midwestern University. I utilized the narrative inquiry methodology. I interviewed participants four times: Once in January 2019, January 2020, March 2020, and May 2020. I also asked participants to submit a visual metaphor and reflection. Additionally, I observed participants teach in the secondary classroom. Primarily, the findings reveal that participant writer identities largely influence their secondary writing pedagogy. The findings also indicate that participant writer identities were strongly influenced by their k-12 English teachers. Lastly, the findings suggest that participants experienced trouble navigating tensions in writing instruction. The implications suggest that teacher educators can highlight identity work in teacher education courses to strengthen writer identity. Similarly, I recommend in the Implications section that teacher educators design activities to strengthen preservice teachers’ writer identities so they can strengthen the writer identity of future secondary students. The implications also underscore how teacher educators can highlight the tensions that preservice teachers may encounter as a secondary writing instructor, and how to navigate such tension. This study complements the research on writing teacher education and provides new possibilities to effectively prepare writing instructors.

In this study, genre is a central concept. With a theoretical basis in three pragmatical genre traditions, an analytical tool is formulated, making it possible through different criteria to identify varied expressions of the genre notion in the syllabus for Swedish with a focus on early compulsory school and three textbooks with explicit focus on the teaching of genres. The analysis mainly draws upon six writing discourses (Ivanič, 2004), which enables me to study the actual and potential expressions of genre in the curriculum and study materials.The analysis shows that the written genre expressed in the analysed text materials is heavily influenced by a sociosemiotic perspective of genre, emphasizing internal structure, and that it is, regardless of study material, situated within the genre discourse. The variation in how genres are expressed in the texts concern whether they are influenced by the process discourse or social practices discourse as well. Genre is also discussed from a sociorhetorical perspective, focusing on the social context, but is shown to have limited expression in the text materials within this study.The study concludes that the genre notion within the Swedish curriculum for the school subject Swedish in primary school and within the study materials have de-emphasised the social purpose of genres. It also concludes that genre is too varied and complex in its semantic and pragmatic variation in different discourses inside and outside of school practises to be recognized in actual teaching.

Recently, disability and writing studies scholars have demonstrated the extent to which widely accepted approaches to the teaching of writing fail to address the fraught intersection between mental disability and academic commonplaces, such as multimodal texts and assignments, with real consequences for the well-being of our students (Yergeau; Oswal; Selfe). Given the dramatic rise of online and other multimodal forms of instruction that has characterized and continues to shape college writing classrooms in the era of COVID-19, the barriers to access (social, physical, and institutional) that exist in multimodal writing classrooms require deeper examination. Drawing upon disability studies scholarship from Price, Kerschbaum, and Walters, my dissertation examines the complex relationship between writing instruction and mental disability in the context of Metro University’s First Year Writing Program (FYWP) and explores the affordances disabled students bring to bear on the multimodal spaces of their writing classrooms. In addition to examining the program’s standard syllabus, policies, and assignments, I conducted individual interviews with Metro undergraduate students, including students with disabilities, to collect data on students’ experiences of course policies (e.g., participation; grading) and practices (e.g., online peer review; multimodal composing) in the first-year writing classroom. I used methods drawn from critical discourse analysis and disability studies to identify elements of the curriculum that presented potential barriers to students with mental disabilities, including cumulative, interconnected penalties for absences, tardiness, and late work; a policy of not grading essay drafts; and the absence of policies designed to address issues linked to mental health. My analysis has revealed conflicting levels of access to participation in the course, pointing to the need for multimodal learning environments flexible enough to address a wide range of access needs at once. This work contributes to emerging writing and disability scholarship on the role of multimodality in developing non-normative writing pedagogies and inclusive program designs. The study was reviewed by the IRB and deemed not to be human subjects research. It was conducted in partnership with the university’s Disability Resources and Services and FYWP, which adopted attendant policy recommendations. / English

James Berlin, in his book Rhetoric and Reality, points out that our disparate epistemologies lead to inevitable classroom practices, which mean that different epistemologies impact our pedagogical approach and enforce certain views about the role and function of writing in classrooms. This thesis highlights the impact of Romantic beliefs about writing on creative writing pedagogy, as well as exploring how those beliefs hamper the critical function of the workshop. Romantic beliefs have enforced the idea that talent and genius is most important in creative writing, and that writing is spontaneous, organic, original, and expressive. Because of this, many creative writing teachers have come to believe that a structured pedagogical approach hampers creative writing, but this creates problems in workshop where the need for collaborative criticism conflicts with Romantic beliefs. The result is that students, who are assumed to know how to offer effective criticism, struggle to negotiate expressive ideals as opposed to critical response. This thesis therefore explores the problems of Romantic beliefs in detail. This thesis proposes the classical rhetorical curriculum, supported by appropriate rhetorical theory, as a solution to the problems created by Romantic beliefs. This curriculum provides a detailed, structured approach to teaching writing, which is best highlighted by the way it combined stylistic analysis together with production; therefore, helping students use criticism as a way to develop their writing. In doing so, I look at a rhetorical approach to style as detailed by Richard Lanham and Winston Weathers who emphasize helping students with stylistic analysis by helping students understand the function of style. Also, because I recognize that creative writers are often resistant to any discussion of the links between creative writing and rhetoric, this thesis emphasizes the critical links between creative writing and rhetoric, thereby showing that the view of rhetoric held by creative writers is a substantially reduced view of a more dynamic discipline. The truth is the two disciplines share a fundamental critical purpose aimed at assisting student in the production of new texts, and therefore, because the two disciplines have a great deal in common, there is a viable opportunity to build on their theoretical links in order to enhance pedagogy in both disciplines. Therefore, this thesis looks at some specific ways that the classical rhetorical curriculum can be applied within the constraints of the contemporary creative writing classroom.