As writing about writing (WAW) research enters its "second wave," characterized not only by an increase in data-driven studies that theorize and assess the effectiveness of WAW curricula (Downs) but also by an increase in its prominence and adaptation, particularly among emerging writing studies scholars and teachers (e.g., Bird et al.), a space has opened for more and varied types of research, especially empirical research, to determine its effectiveness and to produce more solid recommendations for training and curriculum development, especially for those who are new to the field. This case study, which highlights how a novice teacher responds to a new teaching experience, aims to address the dearth of empirical research on WAW curricula and to aid other graduate instructors interested in teaching WAW or program administrators interested in implementing WAW. The study reports results from data collected (e.g., interviews, in-class observations, teachings logs) on the experience of a second-year MA graduate student in composition and rhetoric as he taught a WAW-based curriculum in a first-year composition (FYC) class in the beginning of 2016. His twenty students were also research subjects, but only a small portion of their data is reported here. The instructor's experience, chronicled in narrative form, began optimistically, though with a hint of skepticism, and ended in discouragement and even pessimism. These results were largely unexpected due to the instructor's confidence with and knowledge of WAW history, assumptions, and pedagogy and experience teaching FYC. However, his struggle with the approach reveals and confirms several important points for anyone hoping to teach or implement WAW. Particularly, new WAW instructors need sustained training, support, and mentoring to help them properly temper their expectations for the course, correctly and usefully interpret their experiences teaching WAW, successfully transfer prior teaching knowledge and methods to the WAW classroom, and ultimately find their place in WAW instruction.

As writing about writing (WAW) research enters its second wave, characterized not only by an increase in data-driven studies that theorize and assess the effectiveness of WAW curricula (Downs) but also by an increase in its prominence and adaptation, particularly among emerging writing studies scholars and teachers (e.g., Bird et al.), a space has opened for more and varied types of research, especially empirical research, to determine its effectiveness and to produce more solid recommendations for training and curriculum development, especially for those who are new to the field. This case study, which highlights how a novice teacher responds to a new teaching experience, aims to address the dearth of empirical research on WAW curricula and to aid other graduate instructors interested in teaching WAW or program administrators interested in implementing WAW. The study reports results from data collected (e.g., interviews, in-class observations, teachings logs) on the experience of a second-year MA graduate student in composition and rhetoric as he taught a WAW-based curriculum in a first-year composition (FYC) class in the beginning of 2016. His twenty students were also research subjects, but only a small portion of their data is reported here. The instructors experience, chronicled in narrative form, began optimistically, though with a hint of skepticism, and ended in discouragement and even pessimism. These results were largely unexpected due to the instructors confidence with and knowledge of WAW history, assumptions, and pedagogy and experience teaching FYC. However, his struggle with the approach reveals and confirms several important points for anyone hoping to teach or implement WAW. Particularly, new WAW instructors need sustained training, support, and mentoring to help them properly temper their expectations for the course, correctly and usefully interpret their experiences teaching WAW, successfully transfer prior teaching knowledge and methods to the WAW classroom, and ultimately find their place in WAW instruction.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Marc Prensky’s digital natives theory became popular, because it supplied teachers with answer as to why students were unresponsive to their curriculums. In essence, Prensky’s theory asks: what has changed? In most cases, it is not the teachers’ curriculums that have changed, so it has to be something else. Prensky points to digital technologies, because teachers are now having to teach students who never knew a world without digital technologies—Prensky, of course, asserting that this changes the way students think, which naturally transfers over to how they learn. In short, it is the students that have changed due to digital technologies. According to Prensky, students, within the digital natives generation, would value their courses more if teachers utilized digital technologies in their classroom. However, critics of the digital natives theory assert that Prensky has not considered many variables that could have an effect on how students use digital technologies, such as socio-economic factors, gender, education, and geographic location, and ultimately there is no empirical evidence to support the use of digital technologies in Prensky’s pedagogy (see Sue Bennett and Karl Maton, Chris Jones et al., Anoush Margaryan et al., and Neil Selwyn). Although, I mostly agree with the critics evaluations of the digital natives theories, I believe that there are larger economic variables, such as Gee et al.’s new capitalism, that influence how students value digital technologies as well as literacy and learning. This concept was reflected in the survey that I conducted in order to examine how students value W131 in general, the writing done in W131, and writing done in social digital technologies. The survey demonstrated that students do not understand social digital writing to be writing; therefore, utilizing digital technologies in the writing classroom, as Prensky suggest, would not be beneficial, because it would take a great deal of class time for students to come to the understanding that social digital writing is writing. More importantly, the survey indicated that students are highly career motivated, which influences how students value their courses. For students, a course’s value is determined by how applicable it is to students’ career goals. The survey results suggest that while students recognize that first-year composition (FYC) has value, they do not necessarily see it specifically valuable to their primary goals. Although I believe it is important for students to be able to find value in a course, I am not suggesting that FYC should be tailored to cater to students; on the contrary, I believe that the ideal FYC course would acknowledge the values of the field of study that it pertains to, and attempt to demonstrate to students how those values relate to their own. This is ideal—however, by using the Writing about Writing pedagogy, designed by Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle, this kind of value system may be possible. Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy also has the potential to bridge the value systems of the students, and writing studies, because Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy focuses on students gaining a better understanding of writing studies as a field of study, by engaging and exploring texts that represent writing studies’ central beliefs and important works. Through texts that come out of the writing studies discipline students can gain a better understanding of concepts that come out of writing studies, as well as build a bridge between students’ values and the values of the writing studies discipline. Texts such as chapter six (“The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification as the Twenty-First Century) of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives, James Paul Gee’s “The New Literacy Studies and the ‘Social Turn,’” and Harvey Graff’s “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” offers students a new perspective on the economic climate that effects the job market, as well as provide a meaningful way into writing studies. In this chapter, I will discuss Downs and Wardle’s Writing about Writing pedagogy, how I would implement their pedagogy in a FYC course, and what would be the ideal learning outcomes for this course.

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