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Articles Conference Reviews |
2008A9GlennonHow to Get from Here to There: Research on Student Writers’ Self-Assessment, Reflection and Goal-Setting First in “Charting Their Own Course as Writers: A Study of Writing-intensive Students’ Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting at Start of Term,” Tracy Ann Robinson and Vicki Tolar Burton, colleagues at Oregon State University, described their institutional study of writing-intensive (WI) courses. Robinson, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Tolar Burton, the Director the Writing Intensive Curriculum, engaged in this study to fill what they saw as a gap in the research about the writing across the curriculum experience (WAC) for students. Specifically, Robinson and Tolar Burton wanted to know what students were experiencing and what they saw as the goals of their WAC courses. To this end, they have developed what they believe is an easy tool to help students take more personal responsibility for their WI/WAC experiences, and this tool is a survey called the “Writer’s Personal Profile” or WPP. According to the presenters, this research started with the identification of several “roadblocks” Robinson and Tolar Burton have encountered with implementation of a WI curriculum at their institution. These roadblocks include an incomplete understanding about the purposes of the WI curriculum, uncertainty about the goals and expectations for this curriculum, and a problem with faculty and student burnout. When class size and teaching loads are increasing, it can be hard to justify adding writing components to content classes. Therefore, the WPP survey serves several functions. The survey is based on the question “What is a WI course?” and is designed to help instructors to get to know students, include students in the course outcome-setting process, and enhance the perceived value of WI courses for students. Robinson and Tolar Burton add that the data gathered via the WPP can also be useful for program assessment and improvement. Their first use of the WPP at Oregon State included a pilot group of five WI classes that was then expanded into a larger pilot of 22 instructors and 256 students. Robinson and Tolar Burton then reported on results of this larger pilot. According to the presenters, the WPP begins by asking students to state two personal goals for their writing. These goals were then aggregated and shared with the class, and the goals often served as conversation starters during instructor-student conferences, according to the participants in the larger pilot. Students were also asked to submit “Process Memos” when submitting papers in which they were asked to refer to their personal writing goals. Finally, students were asked to self-assess their progress toward these goals halfway through and at the conclusion of their WI course. Tolar Burton moved from the setup of the WPP to a discussion of how it supported the goals of increasing students’ self-awareness and intentionality. Since the WI courses are often capstone courses in the students’ disciplines at Oregon State, administering the WPP at the start of the course helped to shape the students’ experiences of the course and helped them to realize the important role writing played in the course and also in their field, according to Tolar Burton. Tolar Burton also mentioned some of the benefits the WPP provided to the WI program including verifying assumptions about students’ earlier writing experiences, such as their finding that only 44% of students in the surveyed courses had taken first-year composition at OSU. Tolar Burton also noted that many of the student participants had not taken a WI course since first-year composition, in spite of university requirements. It is clear that the results of this survey can help to identify future faculty training needs. It can also be very useful for program assessment and strategic planning. Robertson and Burton plan to expand the use of the WPP, and they mentioned that the instrument will be available for use by others in the future. The presenters then concluded with two questions for future research:
In the end, Robinson and Burton’s presentation was well-organized, and it is clear that their study has very interesting implications for helping both students and faculty in WI courses. Next, Carmen Werder gave her presentation “Telling Metaphors: A Study of Student Self-authorship.” In her presentation, Werder discussed her research on student attitudes about writing and writing instruction and the power of these attitudes on shaping their writing experiences. Werder supports her research through her work as the Director of the Writing Instruction Support Program and the Teaching-Learning Academy at Western Washington University, What do students think of themselves in terms of their writing? In researching this question, Werder has studied four sections of her 300-level Communications course over a four-semester period and worked with close to 100 students in this research. Most notably, Werder has observed that there is little evidence of agency in the attitudes expressed by students, and little or no edge to the claims they make. “What do you want me to say?” was a typical question regarding writing assignments in this Communications course. For example, readings in her course address topics such as “Conversational Narcissism,” and one such reading presents a recent study of 16,000 college students using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory that shows a 30% rise in narcissism over the last 25 years. Werder believes this rise in narcissism creates a concern for writing teacher as she wonders, “Can students be effective rhetoricians if they have a blurred, undeveloped, or inflated sense of identity – of their own ethos?” This concern has led Werder to survey her students through the use of the following metaphor: “When I am at my best as a communicator, I am like _____________, because ________.” In analyzing her student responses, Werder noted that nearly all the metaphors chosen by students were inanimate, although in explaining them further, they revealed the potential for agency. Many students were sponges, but active, living sponges that energetically soaked up information and ideas, noted Werder. In fact, 75% of students changed their metaphors over the course of the semester. Werder then went on to discuss the nature and power of metaphors as thinking tools. She made reference to Bateson’s discussions of metaphor vs. logic, Capra’s Uncommon Wisdom, Johnson’s The Metaphors We Live By as well as work by Kittay, Richards, and Lakoff. Werder also related a story about a conversation she had with a colleague who insisted that he did not find metaphoric thinking to be useful. When asked to talk about his teaching style, he enthusiastically talked about the strands of his teaching and the way he liked to map things out for his students. Through this example, Werder showed that metaphors are everywhere, a linguistic phenomenon in every language. Throughout her presentation, Werder convincingly argued for the use of metaphor as a teaching tool, part of what she calls an “economical pedagogy.” This pedagogy does not require a great investment of time, but it is capable of leading to powerful and profound learning. |