CHI TIẾT NGHIÊN CỨU …
Tiêu đề
General readers and classroom tutors across the curriculum
Tác giả
Soliday M.
Năm xuất bản
2005
Source title
On Location: Theory and Practice in Classroom-Based Writing Tutoring
Số trích dẫn
0
DOI
Liên kết
Tóm tắt
With the rapid expansion of writing across the curriculum (WAC) programs, many of us wrestle with understanding the differences between teaching writing in composition courses and teaching writing across the disciplines. While a lively debate has long existed over whether we can teach writing effectively in composition courses, it has gained fresh life from WAC scholars like Aviva Freedman, who "question the value of GWSI," or general writing skills instruction (1995, 122). A similar debate has also spilled over to tutoring programs, where scholars and program directors wonder whether tutors trained in GWSI can cope with the more distinct forms of writing that readers trained in special fields may assign and evaluate. Peer tutors in WAC classrooms or in writing centers that support WAC face complex challenges when they read a range of different assignments (see Mullin 2001; Soven 2001). How will these tutors best support WAC, which stresses faculty development and writing in specialist settings, as opposed to their more traditional support for composition programs, which stress student empowerment and writing for broad audiences? Can tutors translate their generalist training to new learning environments? Can an English major cope with a lab report for a biology class or a research paper for an upper-level chemistry elective? Can a psychology major cope with an essay exploring the causes of the American Civil War? A dilemma results when we wonder whether readers trained in a generalist tradition can be reasonably expected to read and react to so many distinct assignments. In this chapter, I will examine how content knowledge affects the success of classroom tutors in WAC programs. Adopting a perspective called writing in the course (Thaiss 2001), I will focus on the fit between general rhetorical knowledge and what naturalistic research shows that professors in content courses expect from student writing as well as how students respond to those expectations. Generally speaking, writing in the course suggests that even within the same discipline, professors can diverge widely in their purposes for assigning writing. The goals professors may have for their students' writing evolve partly throughout the life of a course (Prior 1998) in response to the rhetorical situation of a class. Several factors could influence the situation-the quality of students' responses to an assignment, the professor's alignment with a discipline, the different resources that students draw upon during the semester, or the relative importance of the writing to the overall course design. For these reasons, writing in the course suggests that a tutor's knowledge of content is an important but not exclusive factor determining his or her success. The quality of a tutor's relationship to the course professor or understanding of the assignment would also influence how a tutorial unfolds. From this perspective, classroom tutors-peers who participate in the ongoing life of the course-are admirably situated to bring their general strategies to bear upon a dynamic rhetorical situation where, at a given moment, content may be more or less significant. Linking tutors to courses in their majors surely enhances their work (and their confidence), and therefore is advisable whenever possible. But content knowledge is not the major precondition for success, especially in liberal arts and general education courses. Despite the fluid differences between the rhetorical situations in WAC classes, WAC faculty do share a common ground. Within disciplines, for instance, many assign official genres that tutors can learn to recognize. Another similarity concerns how WAC faculty organize writing in their courses: many use peer group learning in their classrooms, and professors often assign research projects that involve writing as a mode of inquiry. Peer tutors from any major can act as peer group leaders in content courses, and they can also, again regardless of their majors, promote writing as a form of inquiry across the curriculum. Though classroom tutors will have to adjust to their new circumstances, they can play influential roles in promoting those aspects of writing that are common to all the disciplines and in this way contribute to WAC's overall mission: To improve undergraduate teaching. © 2005 Utah State University Press.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
Nơi xuất bản
Utah State University Press
Hình thức xuất bản
Book chapter
Open Access
Nguồn
Scopus