SUPPORTING STUDENTS-AS-STAKEHOLDERS IN UNIVERSITY WRITING
PROGRAMS THROUGH ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTION
Katrina Love Miller
B.A. California State University, Sacramento, 2007
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
ENGLISH
(Composition)
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2010
©2010
Katrina Love Miller
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ii
SUPPORTING STUDENTS-AS-STAKEHOLDERS IN UNIVERSITY WRITING
PROGRAMS THROUGH ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTION
A Thesis
by
Katrina Love Miller
Approved by:
___________________________________, Committee Chair
Fiona Glade, Ph.D.
___________________________________, Second Reader
Daniel Melzer, Ph.D.
_______________________
Date
iii
Student: Katrina Love Miller
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
formal manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for this thesis.
_________________________, Graduate Coordinator
________________
David Toise, Ph.D.
Date
Department of English
iv
Abstract
of
SUPPORTING STUDENTS-AS-STAKEHOLDERS IN UNIVERSITY WRITING
PROGRAMS THROUGH ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTION
by
Katrina Love Miller
In 1976 the California State University system mandated that every campus
certify the writing skills of its graduates by requiring students to meet a Graduation
Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR). For nearly three decades California State
University, Sacramento required students to take a pass/fail timed-writing exam to fulfill
the GWAR. In 2008 the GWAR at CSUS University was completely overhauled in favor
of a new two-step process emphasizing placement and instruction rather than proficiency.
These changes prompted the need for a pilot program of a new one-unit group writing
tutorial known as English 109X.
Using data from review of scholarly sources and local research, this thesis
examines the pilot program for student stakeholder concerns through a theoretical lens
informed by Critical Pedagogy and Fourth Generation Evaluation. This study aimed to
document the stakeholder concerns of students and emphasize the importance of student
voice. Additionally this thesis reviews, revises, and extends upon theories of peerresponse by positing that students do not perform discreet roles of reader, responder, or
writer, but perform all three simultaneously as co-apprentices to their peers.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Fiona Glade, Ph.D.
________________
Date
v
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to
Marjorie Love Blodgett
and
Suzanne Love Blodgett.
Thank you for always believing in me.
I love you.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my committee for providing essential guidance not only for
this thesis, but for my entire graduate school experience as CSU, Sacramento. This
project would not have been possible without Fiona Glade, whose dedication to process
has inspired me as a student, teacher, and scholar. For the many discussions, coffee dates,
reviews of drafts, problem-posing questions, and encouragement, thank you. And thank
you to Dan Melzer for being a supportive and thorough second reader who praised my
work and pushed me when necessary. You both are excellent mentors and friends.
Thank you to the students and tutors who allowed me into their classes, shared
their experiences, and shaped much of this project.
Thank also to Sonya Hale for being my dear friend and research partner for so
many projects. Thank you for imagining with me and making work feel like play these
last few years.
Finally, thank you to my loving wife, Mikyla, for supporting me in everything I
do and helping make so many dreams come true.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication
vi
Acknowledgements
vii
List of Tables
x
List of Figures
xi
Chapters
1. INTRODUCTION
1
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: HOW CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND FOURTH
GENERATION EVALUATION THEORY CAN INFORM WRITING
ASSESSMENT AND WRITING PROGRAM PRACTICE
17
Section 1: Defining Critical Pedagogy
17
Section 2: Theories of Assessment
20
Section 3: Directed Self-Placement: A Model for Students-as-Stakeholders
32
Section 4: Students-as-Stakeholders in Writing Assessment and Instruction
40
3. WRITING GROUP SCHOLARSHIP LITERATURE REVIEW
45
Section 1: Anne Ruggles Gere’s Writing Groups: History, Theory, and
Implications
45
Section 2: Diverse Origins: Scholarship on Writing Groups
51
4. RESEARCH FINDINGS
62
Section 1: Research Context and Data Collection
62
Section 2: Findings
65
viii
Section 3: Discussion
84
5. CONCLUSION
94
Section 1: Reflective Research Narrative
94
Section 2: The Social Nature of Writing
101
Appendix A, CSUS GWAR Flowchart
114
Appendix B, Initial Survey/Questionnaire
115
Appendix C, Anonymous Quantitative Evaluation
117
Appendix D, Anonymous Qualitative Evaluation
118
Works Cited
120
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Page
1. Table 1: Generations of Evaluation
23
2. Table 2: Traditional Writing Assessment: Procedures, Purposes, and
Assumptions
29
3. Table 3: New, Emergent Writing Assessment: Procedures, Purposes, and
Assumptions
30
4. Table 4: List of Majors
66
5. Table 5: List of WI Courses
66
6. Table 6: Students’ Past Experiences with Courses that Emphasized Writing at
CSUS
67
7. Table 7: Students’ Past Experiences with Courses that Emphasized Writing at Other
Institutions
67
8. Table 8: Students’ Past Experiences with Group Tutorial Courses Like English
109X
68
9. Table 9: Students’ Past Experiences with Writing Tutors
69
10. Table 10: Students’ Goals for WI Course
70
11. Table 11: Student Goals for English 109X
72
12. Table 12: Components of 109X Perceived to Work Well
80
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1. Figure 1: Extent to Which Components of English 109X were Helpful to Students
Completing Their WI Courses
76
2. Figure 2: Perceived Extent to English 109X Helped Students Meet Learning
Outcomes
77
3. Figure 3: Perceived Benefits of English 109X for Students
79
4. Figure 4: Perceived Grade Increase in WI Course
89
5. Figure 5: Anticipated Final Grade in WI Course
90
xi
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Just as Basic Writing (as a subfield of Composition) was born out of a need for
practical solutions to an immediate issue, writing groups in academic contexts first
emerged as ideas that were put into practice without much theorizing. But theorizing as a
part of revising is not necessarily problematic, for such critical reflection on a
pedagogical practice that has been adopted in varying degrees by such a large number of
practitioners in the field and has become so robust with lore can be an excellent site for
intellectual inquiry about what teachers actually strive to accomplish pedagogically and
politically when we ask students to participate in writing groups.
This thesis project is a study of the pilot program conducted as part of the
introduction of the new English 109X course —a one-unit writing workshop designed as
an adjunct tutorial for upper-division writing-intensive GE courses at CSUS1. Since 2005
the University Writing Program has been in the process of making dynamic changes to
the decades-old Graduate Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR). In June of 2009,
the GWAR at CSUS switched to a new two-step process. First, students choose how they
would prefer to receive a GWAR placement. Specifically, juniors with a minimum of
sixty units will be offered the choice of enrolling into English 109W2 to prepare a course
portfolio that will be given a placement or taking the new Writing Placement for Juniors
1
California State University, Sacramento was renamed CSUS in 2004 although the official name of the
remains California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). I will refer to the University by its official name
but there are some references in my own work and several of my sources which refer to the school by its
secondary name.
2
CSUS offers two versions of this upper-division writing course: English 109W for native speakers of
English and English 109M for multilingual students.
2
(WPJ) exam as the method of upper-division writing intensive placement (see GWAR
flow chart in Appendix A). Second, students complete the coursework designated by their
GWAR placement. In this new system both the 109W3 and WPJ scorings result in
variable credit placements for students. GWAR placements assign students one of four
coursework paths: a ten unit placement that requires students to complete prebaccalaureate Learning Skills course (LS 86) then English 109W or M and finally the
upper-division writing intensive course; a six unit, two-semester placement that consists
of English 109M/W prior to enrollment in an upper-division writing intensive course
(depending upon students’ end-of-term portfolio placements); a four-unit placement
consisting of an upper-division writing intensive course with a one-unit group tutorial
(English 109X, the site of my local research); or a three-unit placement, allowing them to
enroll directly into the upper-division writing-intensive (WI) course. Ultimately,
successful completion of all designated coursework and successful completion of a WI
course with a grade of C- or better will result in the student fulfilling the GWAR.
History of the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement
In the mid 1970s, the California State University (CSU) system was positioned on
the front line of a new wave of assessment mandates. In 1976, the CSU Committee on
Educational Policy authored a Proposal on Student Writing Skills that resolved (among
other things) “that the Board endorses the principle that all students entering the CSUC
after implementation of the proficiency/diagnostic examination be required to
3
The new version of English 109W and 109M are upper-division composition courses. Both courses are
semester-long portfolio-based courses which require students do extensive rhetorical analysis of writing
conventions in their major. Writing assignments vary depending upon instructor preferences, but all course
portfolios must include twenty pages of revised, polished writing in four different genres.
3
demonstrate their competency with regard to writing skills as a requirement of
graduation” (1) and instituted the requirement that all students would need to prove their
writing competency throughout the CSU system (nineteen campuses at the time). In May
of 1978, the CSU Chancellor’s office circulated a coded memorandum (EP&R 78-27)
approved by the Chancellor’s Writing Skills Advisory Committee and endorsed by the
Academic Senate of the California State University and Colleges (1), the Educational
Policies Committee of the Statewide Academic Senate, the CSUC Student Presidents’
Associate, as well as faculty and administrators (EP&R 78-27 2). The memo included the
following program planning recommendations:
1. The need for certification of upper-division writing proficiency is
more apparent and important now than ever before.
2. At this time, there are persuasive arguments against imposition of a
single statewide upper-division writing proficiency examination.
3. Writing Skills proficiency requirements for graduation, distinct from
lower-division curricula and tests, should be made known as soon as
possible. Certification should be made available for students as they
enter the junior year, and requirements ideally should be completed
before students enter the senior year (for graduate students, before
advancement to classified standing).
4. Attention to the issue of student writing is an all-campus
responsibility. Individual campuses may find it desirable, and possible,
for this certification to occur at the department level including all
4
disciplines. On the other hand, it may be that campuses would prefer to
institute or reaffirm schoolwide and campuswide certification
procedures.
5. Certification may rely upon evidence of writing ability as
demonstrated in written coursework, essays, subjective examinations,
and similar materials produced by students. It is expected that any such
measures will be developed to fit the local student needs and campus
situations.
(EP&R 78-27 3)
At CSUS, the Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE) was adopted as the sole method
for students to complete what has become known as the GWAR. For three decades, the
two-hour timed-writing barrier exam served as a high-stakes assessment students had to
pass in order to graduate. The WPE was first given in 1977 at CSUS as a test that
consisted of a short prompt that asked students to respond to a controversial topic. By
1979, the test became a campus-wide requirement. In 1997, the test prompts were
expanded to include short readings on the particular issue students were asked to write
about. In the last ten years, little has changed about the WPE. A passing WPE score was,
until fall 2008, the sole method of completing the GWAR. Students who failed the WPE
twice were required to take and pass English 109W, a course designed to give them a
refresher on timed-writing strategies so that they could achieve an early exit from the
course by passing the WPE offered as the 109W course midterm. Students who did not
5
achieve early exit remained in the course and compiled a portfolio of expository essays to
submit as evidence of their preparation for the upper-division writing intensive course.
2005 Momentum Shift
In the 2005 Report on the Comprehensive Writing Program, the CSUS Faculty
Senate Writing and Reading Subcommittee proposed changing the GWAR in light of
more recent research about writing so that the writing exam would become a tool for
placement rather than proficiency. According to the Subcommittee proposal, the new
WPJ would be used a placement exam for upper-division writing intensive courses. The
Subcommittee felt strongly that the WPE was an inappropriate “mechanism for certifying
students' advanced writing capabilities” and should therefore not be the sole method of
satisfying the GWAR (Faculty Senate 1). The Writing and Reading Subcommittee
concluded that completion of an intensive writing course would be a significantly better
method of satisfying the GWAR:
The Subcommittee feels that this newly focused writing intensive
requirement should fulfill the GWAR; thus, a passing grade in this
course would more accurately satisfy the writing assessment
requirement. We believe the course method of satisfying the
GWAR is a better alternative because it offers instruction in and
demands proficiency in the kinds of writing students will use in
their future courses and careers. (Faculty Senate 1)
The Subcommittee’s approach to redesigning the GWAR sought to address the stagnant
GWAR system that was ineffective and detrimental to students. The shift from a barrier
6
exam-based proficiency requirement to an instruction-based requirement was intended to
encourage students and other members of the campus community to approach the GWAR
differently.
Additionally, in this new system students are viewed as important stakeholders in
this upper-division writing assessment process. Instead of facing an extremely anxietyprovoking barrier exam such as the WPE, students are presented with a choice of either
enrolling in a course or taking the WPJ. The re-conceptualization of this assessment
moment is driven by Daniel J. Royer and Roger Gilles’ Directed Self-Placement (DSP)
approach, in which students are provided detailed information about different course
options and are given the opportunity to have final decision-making power. At CSUS,
students receive GWAR DSP counseling in one of three ways: as members of a section of
English 20 (a sophomore-level composition course) which all receive a DSP visit from a
trained facilitator; as participants in the junior-level orientation for transfer students from
orientation leaders who have been trained by the GWAR coordinator; or as attendees at a
GWAR workshop offered in the weeks leading up to a WPJ test date. All of these
opportunities are designed to give students as much information as possible to help them
make an informed decision about how they would like to receive their GWAR placement.
The GWAR Coordinator, Dr. Fiona Glade, has striven for as much transparency as
possible so that students may make the most informed choice possible. These curricular
and programmatic changes embody assessment scholar Ed White’s argument that a “test
cannot in itself improve student writing; it can only at best lead to a strengthened writinginstruction program” (White 156).The Writing and Reading Subcommittee’s
7
recommendation and subsequent Faculty Senate directive paved the way for the most
significant changes in the GWAR since the WPE’s creation over thirty years ago.
Research Process
My goals as a researcher were to delve into the intricacies of creating the English
109X program and analyze the data collected to examine how the pilot tutorial served as
an appropriate addition not only to the GWAR program at a moment of major overhaul
but also to the comprehensive university writing program in the midst of a rhetorical
revolution.4 Although thoroughly inclusive of assessment and pedagogy theory, much of
this research project includes vital information gleaned from my extensive work with the
GWAR program as a graduate research assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Fiona
Glade.
This idea of rhetorical revolution in this context is derived from Thomas Kuhn’s work on scientific
revolutions. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn maintains that all paradigms,
although centered on a particular current theory, are constructed by and exist within a particular worldview.
A narrative of a rhetorical revolution in a writing program admittedly diverts somewhat from Kuhn’s
representation of scientific revolutions because the academic community operates so differently from the
scientific community. Science has such an intense focus on testing that problems and anomalies arise often
and are discussed within the discourse community without necessarily threatening the “normal science” (5).
Kuhn contends that there is a point when “the profession can no longer evade anomalies that subvert the
existing tradition of scientific practice—then begin the extraordinary investigations that lead the profession
at last to a new set of commitments, a new basis for the practice of science” (6). Academic institutions,
however, are arguably less likely to initiate such “extraordinary investigations” because of a deep-seeded
belief in maintaining the status quo as a means of validating existing power structures and dominant
worldviews. Preservation is more highly valued than innovation in such institutions.
Kuhn explains that a dominant paradigm of normal science “is predicated on the assumption that
the scientific community know what the world is like” (5). The Writing Program Committee challenged a
similar assumption by positioning the established paradigm of the GWAR as a system in crisis in order to
empower themselves to articulate a solution to that crisis, an articulation that was obviously shaped by a
particular worldview that was fundamentally different than the dominant paradigm. That articulation of the
situation made visible a crisis and created an exigency for change against the normal currents of
institutional inertia.
4
8
Several questions fueled this research endeavor:

How will English 109X be a resource for both students in and instructors of
Writing Intensive courses?

What makes English 109X a valuable addition to the current sequence of
writing courses for CSUS students?

How will particular stakeholders react to the course?

How will English 109X help students successfully complete their Writing
Intensive courses and prepare them to become successful upper-division
writers within their majors?
These four primary questions guided my initial research, but were open to revision as the
year-long pilot program ran its course. My findings reflect these preliminary research
questions, but my analysis extends beyond their scope as well.
Theoretical Positioning
Through the theoretical lens of Critical Pedagogy and Fourth Generation
Evaluation Theory, this thesis provides a thorough analysis of the English 109X pilot
program. My analysis has been both guided and informed by these framing theories. The
specific focus of this analysis will be on the benefits of allowing students to assume a
more participatory role in the assessment moment and in the subsequent instructional
moments, particularly in the English 109X adjunct workshop; this, ultimately, should
allow students to become more successful academic writers.
Research Methodology and Rationale
In fall of 2008, a small group of CSUS students were permitted to enroll in a pilot
9
of English 109X. For the pilot group, the three-unit WI course and single-unit English
109X replaced the standard GWAR requirement of a three-unit English 109W or M
course followed by the three-unit WI course recommended by the major. In addition to
enrolling in the single-unit, credit /no credit English 109X course, students were also
allowed to concurrently enroll in an upper-division WI course recommended by their
major in order to meet the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR).
The first semester of the pilot program for English 109X included three sections
of the course, with each section enrolling twelve students. The recruitment process was
conducted by the GWAR office and began in the spring of 2008. Seventy students
received a letter from the GWAR coordinator inviting them to participate in this pilot
study. All students originally solicited by letter were selected because they scored a
particular score on CSUS’s Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE) in the spring 2008. These
students received scores of “3” (labeled as “Inadequate” based on the old WPE scoring
rubric) and “4” (labeled as “Adequate” based on the old WPE scoring rubric) from WPE
readers, which means that they were on the cusp of passing the exam (total combined
score must be “8” or above to pass). Exams in this category were always read by a third
reader to decide if the exam would receive a passing score. All seventy students solicited
for the pilot program received a score of “3” from the third reader and earned a final
score of “6” on the WPE. Only thirty-six students were selected for the fall 2008 English
109X pilot courses based on eligibility, submission of required paperwork, and
attendance at a mandatory pre-semester informational meeting. The recruitment process
was repeated after the late spring and summer WPE test dates until all three pilot sections
10
were filled. This recruitment process was repeated for the spring 2009 pilot, which also
included three sections of English 109X.
The data collection for this study began at the start of the fall 2008 semester and
consisted of student surveys at the beginning and end of the semester, tutor interviews,
classroom observations, collection of students’ online reading and writing journals, and
review of the two reflective essays assigned by the tutorial instructors. Surveys given by
me were separate from any evaluations done by the English 109X instructor or any
representative of the English Department. Copies of the reflective mid-term and end-ofterm essay assignments in English 109X were submitted by all individuals who agreed to
participate in this research project.
As I prepared to embark on my research about how the new English 109X adjunct
tutorial affected student writing skills, I deliberately shifted away from assessing the
products the students produced for their Writing Intensive courses; I focused on soliciting
authentic and qualitative responses from the students about the tutorial. My focus as a
researcher evolved from my initial interest in studying the writing of students to measure
the effect of the English 109X tutorial; my graduate Composition training has
emphasized process over product in terms of assessing student writing in my classroom
and cultivating an active learning environment by fostering a high-level of student
ownership of the class. Consequently, I found that my initial research goals of analyzing
student writing by English 109X for indicators of improvement were not aligning with
my pedagogical beliefs.
11
For the purposes of this project, the success of the English 109X pilot program
was assessed from a variety of data. Although other individuals associated with the
university—for example, the English Department Chair and other administrators such as
the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters—may choose to focus on the 109X students’
rate of passing their WI courses, I believe that a more qualitative project such as my
study will help fully inform various stakeholders—such as WI course instructors, Writing
Programs faculty, University administrators, and most importantly students—by
providing the student perspective on the course.
In addition, this approach created space for organic reciprocity within my
research. Not only does honoring the students’ feedback make this research reciprocal,
but participants also benefited because they were given the opportunity to complete twosemesters of coursework in one semester (since they would have been required to take the
old English 109W or 109M course before enrolling in their WI course due to the fact they
had not received a passing score on the WPE). As Powell and Takayoshi note, recent
composition scholars and theorists are “calling for more reciprocal, collaborative, and
mutually enriching relationships between researchers and their subjects” (394). Powell
and Takayoshi describe reciprocity as “a context-based process of definition and
redefinition of the relationship between participants and researcher [that] helps us
understand how our projects can benefit participants in ways they desire” (396).
Although it violates traditional masculinist notions of objective research, such a process
is very natural to those of us who find connections between our own pedagogy and the
tenets of Critical Pedagogy. Scholars and theorists Paulo Freire and Ira Shor challenge
12
educators to give rigorous consideration of how theory and practice are intrinsically
related and how that praxis can fuel student-empowerment within the classroom. As a
researcher, I believe that research in Composition studies should be held to similar
standards of scrutiny as Composition pedagogy. As such, this research project highlights
student voices within a student-centered tutorial not only to value the student perspective
for purposes of assessing the efficacy of English 109X, but to also give participants
valuable opportunities for critical self-analysis of their writing processes and their selfefficacy as writers. During the data collection process, I intentionally asked many
questions about students’ own learning goals, not only because of the focus of my
research, but also because I believe such articulation and reflection of goals to be a
valuable learning opportunity. I attempted to create a research method that would not
only allow me to champion the voice of the students, but also allow for unique moments
of self-reflection by the participants. Additionally, students from the 109X pilot sections
expressed interest in participating in my study of the pilot program with altruistic
intentions. Although they did acknowledge the more obvious and self-serving benefit of
being allowed to complete their GWAR course requirement in one semester rather than
two, when it came to my study of the pilot program, they were for the most part very
interested in providing feedback to improve the program for future students.
Qualitative research methods most adequately suit the goals of this study due to
the narrow scope and the small number of participants. I gathered much more data
through qualitative methods than I would have been able to using quantitative methods
such as collecting academic performance indicators like participants’ GPA and WI course
13
grades.5 Before the new programmatic GWAR changes were fully implemented, it was
very important to document and analyze the experience of the first groups of English
109X students. I feel justified in my decision to rely heavily on qualitative methods
because they will complement and give more weight to the other quantitative
measurements of the English 109X efficacy. As such, my study complements the
research done by these other campus entities and helps satisfy all stakeholders involved
in the creation and implementation of English 109X.
Definition of Key Terms
The language used to describe writing tutorials varies from institution to intuition;
to help aid my readers, I provide this list of terms that may be variously defined
according to context. In this thesis, I will use the terms tutorial, group tutorial, writing
studio, and academic writing group synonymously in reference to a course like English
109X. Group tutorials exist in various forms and fulfill a variety of functions at many
post-secondary institutions by operating within (or across) a variety of disciplines.
Sometimes these tutorials are referred to as link courses, adjunct workshops, or
supplemental tutorials. I will not be using these terms because my research indicates that
English 109X does not operate as a traditional adjunct tutorial that solely supplements
another course; English 109X sections operate independently from the WI courses in
which their students are co-enrolled, and the course goals extend beyond just helping
students pass the their WI course. Also, the English 109X program does not currently
5
I explain this further in Chapter 4 as I discuss my research findings.
14
have any systematic cohorting of students from particular WI courses into particular
English 109X sections, which increases the independence of these tutorials.6
Similarly, I am aware that some institutions refer to individuals who facilitate
tutorials similar to English 109X as writing fellows, WAC fellows, or WAC tutors, but I
will use the terms tutorial instructor, instructor or tutor in reference to the graduate
students and advanced undergraduates who teach English 109X because those are the
terms most commonly used at the site of this research project.
Overview of Chapters
In Chapter 2 I discuss how Critical Pedagogy as a process that is both theoretical
and practical can inform not only instruction but also assessment to establish writing
programs that honor students’ rights and responsibilities as stakeholders. Scholars such as
Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, bell hooks, Min-Zhan Lu, and Ira Shor provide early and
powerful calls for more critical consciousness in the process of teaching. Similarly,
much of the discourse of writing assessment has understandably situated assessment in a
place of simultaneous reverence and revulsion, which in some instances has established a
pattern of assessment practice disconnected from current writing assessment theory (e.g.
large-scale proficiency exams as the sole means of fulfilling the GWAR at ten of the
twenty-three CSU campuses7). In contrast to traditional evaluation, Egon G. Guba and
Yvonna S. Lincoln describe a new, emergent form with two main elements: responsive
focusing and constructivist methodology. Specifically, in this chapter I demonstrate how
I discuss students’ reactions to these programmatic features at length in Chapter 5
See “A Review of the CSU Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) in 2002” by Bethany
Shifflett, et. al.
6
7
15
Fourth Generation Evaluation theory offers a set of theoretical principles that are
consistent with much past and recent Writing Assessment and Critical Pedagogy
scholarship.
In Chapter 3 I review relevant scholarship on writing groups to provide a
theoretical framework for student-centered tutorial courses. The literature reviewed
includes historical studies of writing groups, theories of collaborative learning, and social
cognitive theories of self-efficacy. This chapter also includes a brief literature review
from several theoretical positions—still under the broader umbrella of students-asstakeholders—with a critical focus on articulating what attributes make group writing
tutorial courses most effective. Although scholarship regarding group tutorials is rather
limited, I review relevant articles that provide solid theoretical frameworks for such
student-centered courses.
In Chapter 4 I describe English 109X within the context of the University Writing
Program at CSUS. My methodology is discussed, as well as a brief overview of my
findings from the Initial Survey, Final Survey, Anonymous Course Evaluation, and
weekly Sac CT journal posts. All of this demonstrates the success of the program.
Finally, I present the findings from my original research on the English 109X pilot
program and discuss some of my findings in the context of my larger argument about the
need to incorporate students as stakeholders in university writing programs.
In Chapter 5 I engage in some critical self-reflection about my own reading and
writing process in regards to this thesis project, and I conclude with some investigation
into a common trope in Composition—namely that writing is social. I argue for a new
16
definition of social to help conceptualize new ways of making writing programs more
receptive to students not only in new roles, but also with greater degrees of authority and
agency.
17
Chapter 2
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
HOW CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND FOURTH GENERATION EVALUATION
THEORY CAN INFORM WRITING ASSESSMENT AND WRITING PROGRAM
PRACTICE
-Section 1Defining Critical Pedagogy
According to Amy Lee, Associate Professor of the Department of Postsecondary
Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota, Critical Pedagogy is not just a
label to be applied to certain methods or methodologies of teaching, but a process that is
both theoretical and practical. The inclusion of the word critical advances the notion that
this pedagogical approach values authentic, analytical, self-aware intellectual
engagement. One could define Critical Pedagogy as a combination of teaching methods
that aim to engage students in a more critical way. However, as a subfield or tradition of
Composition Studies, Critical Pedagogy is also the intersection of theories posited by
scholars such as Paulo Friere, Ira Shor, and Henry Giroux which explicitly dare educators
to strive for a similar self-aware level of consciousness in regard to the task of teaching.
As Friere so emphatically asserts, this consciousness must be facilitated by action and
reflection (87). The duality of this task correlates with Lee’s contention that Critical
Pedagogy is a continuous and recursive process. Similarly, Giroux’s notion of teachers as
transformative intellectuals elevates the practice of teaching by establishing it as an
object worthy of intellectual inquiry, but this does mean that teaching is thus stripped of
more material and practical concerns. The goal of education remains firmly rooted in
social action; social action in a composition class is firmly rooted in the idea of literacy.
18
When considering how to define Critical Pedagogy, it is crucial to acknowledge
the challenges that arise when teachers try to balance the theoretical and the practical
aspects of what it means to have a critical classroom. For instance, rigid and nonnegotiable institutional constraints still exist such as teaching the mechanics of writing,
which cannot and should not be ignored nor neglected for the sake of our individual aims
as critical teachers. Indeed, these practical concerns do have an impact on our theoretical
standpoints. These concerns highlight the reality that praxis will always be in flux: theory
cannot dominate a classroom because students may consequently fail to meet
standardized and acontextual deadlines, which would be a disservice to them; yet,
practice alone does not suffice because teaching is then devoid of theoretical
underpinnings and will become a rote rehearsal of standardized classroom methods and
methodologies. If our goal as educators is to foster the critical literacies of our students,
thus enabling them to read the world and to recreate that information in a communicative
manner meaningful to them in light of their own lived experiences, then we must
consider our practice in concert with our theory and, most importantly, with our students’
own goals. Only then will we be aspiring to a Critical Pedagogy; a pedagogy that is a
dynamic and self-aware text that is conscientiously and carefully revised through a
process of action and reflection and is both formed and informed by contextual factors.
In Composition as a Cultural Practice, Alan France presents a detailed critique of
Composition Studies that calls for increased critical awareness and critical process in
writing instruction that mirrors methods and theories of cultural studies. He advocates for
a critical consciousness that would foster critique of the cultural and socio-political forces
19
that influence what types of knowledge are valued and who has access to that
information. In his own words, France claims to present “a critique of dominant
theoretical and pedagogical discourses of composition to propose alternatives” (xviii).
France explicitly demonstrates the need to assume a counter-hegemonic approach to
language inquiries that would result in student-teacher and teacher-students, to borrow
Freire’s terms, challenging dominant discourses.
France offers particular insight into issues of language and power with critical
attention given to ecologies of discourse that factor into cultural reproduction in sites
such as educational institutions. His argument regarding the problematic “displacement
of public discourse by the languages of commodity production and consumption” seems
to evoke not only Freire’s concern with the banking method of teaching, but also
Giroux’s insight that the language of education increasingly resembles the language of
Capitalism and consumerism (xvi). These debates concern not only the discourses
themselves, but also the material consequences of such capitalistic ideas about education.
For instance, this problematic situation arises in traditional remedial practices including
tracking via pre-baccalaureate non-credit bearing courses and emphasis on basic skills
instruction. Students who are labeled remedial are, in essence, experience a form of
knowledge and learning that is intentionally different from mainstream courses. Those
separate constructions of knowledge and learning are then upheld as the new standard
they must meet in order to prove their eligibility for credit-bearing non-remedial courses.
20
Once students meet this assigned standard they are permitted access to the more highlyvalued knowledge of the academy.8
Critical Pedagogy can provide a framework for refection about how university
writing program practices affect students and serve as a catalyst for implementing new
practices and policies that would better reflect the philosophy of a program or university,
especially in regards to if and how students are viewed as valuable stakeholders. Such a
theoretical and practical critical process must focus on instruction but also assessment to
help create writing programs that honor students’ rights and responsibilities as valued
stakeholders.
-Section 2Theories of Assessment
Evaluation Theory
It is our intention to define an emergent but mature approach to evaluation that moves
beyond mere science—just getting the facts—to include the myriad human, political,
social, cultural, and contextual elements that are involved. We have called this new
approach Fourth Generation Evaluation to signal our construction that this form moves
beyond previously existing generations, characterizable as measurement-oriented,
description-oriented, and judgment-oriented, to a new level whose key dynamic is
negotiation. (Guba and Lincoln Fourth Generation 8, their emphasis)
Assessment theory is one place where students can become more participatory
stakeholders through innovative theories and practices (Directed-Self Placement, for
example) and for that reason, it is crucial to explore some assessment theory as it pertains
to students-as-stakeholders. In the context of contemporary United States universities,
such libratory pedagogy goals can be understood as being less about freeing students
8
Kenneth Bruffee writes extensively about what types of knowledge are valued in the academy in his book
Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge, which will
be further discussed in Chapter 3.
21
from overt social oppression and more about opening up space for students to assume
more active roles as stakeholders in their own education.
Before delving into a discussion guided by the principles of Fourth Generation
Evaluation, it is imperative to discuss the previous three generations of evaluation. In
their book Fourth Generation Evaluation, Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln describe
the previous three stages as preconditions for the emergence of the fourth generation.
First generation assessment was focused on measurement: schools, which were
responsible “to teach children what was known to be true,” used evaluation to determine
content mastery (Guba and Lincoln Fourth Generation, their emphasis 23). The second
generation of evaluation, according to Guba and Lincoln, “was spawned by serious
deficiency in the first generation, namely, its targeting of students as the objects of
evaluation” (Fourth Generation ,their emphasis 27). The shift created an approach
“characterized by description of patterns of strengths and weaknesses with respect to
stated objectives” (Guba and Lincoln Fourth Generation, their emphasis 28). Third
generation evaluation shifted the act of evaluating once again from one of description to
one of judgment (Fourth Generation Guba and Lincoln 29). Hence, this third generation
was “characterized by efforts to reach judgments, in which the evaluator assumed the role
of judge, while retaining the earlier technical and descriptive functions as well” (their
emphasis 30). Although one generation of evaluation undeniably influences the next,
each is distinguishable from the previous and subsequent one by not only its evaluative
methodology, but also the larger assumptions that were generated by the dominant
paradigm of evaluation theory at the time.
22
The following table offers a more comparative organization of the four
generations of evaluation (see Table 1). The topics for organization were chosen to
represent the unique qualities of each generation and offer a quick-reference guide for the
roles and amount of authority of various stakeholders in each generation. For each
generation, the table lists evaluation focus, defining characteristics of the generation, type
of information collected by the evaluator, role of evaluator, role of student, and
identification of which stakeholder(s) were granted authority (see Table 1).
23
Table 1
Generations of Evaluation
Role of
Evaluator
Role of
Student
Individual
scores on
instruments that
putatively
measure chosen
variables
Technician
Object of
evaluation
Evaluator
Clear identification of
objectives; descriptions of
patterns of strengths and
weakness of stated objectives;
evaluation of curricular
practices, not just principles;
measurement of whether
students learned what
instructors had intended them
to learn; quasi-formative
evaluation; measurement only
one part of evaluation
Congruence
between pupil
performance
and the
described
objectives
Describer,
technician
Indirect
object of
evaluation
Evaluator
Judgment
Inclusion of judgment in
evaluation; standards become
requisite for judgment;
objectives taken as
problematic; goals and
performance subject to
evaluation; standards
understood as value-laden;
evaluation still understood as
objective
Depends on modelJudge,
(whether decision-describer,
oriented, goaltechnician
free,
connoisseurship);
elements include
variables,
objectives, and
decisions
Indirect
subject
Evaluator
Negotiation
Responsive constructivist
evaluation; parameters
determined through interactive
process; begins with
determination of what
questions shall be asked and
what information will be
collected; evaluator conducts
evaluation in such a way that
each group of stakeholders
must confront and deal with
the constructions of all the
others (e.g. hermeneutic
dialectic); each group’s
constructions become better
informed and sophisticated at
end
Stakeholder
claims,
concerns, and
issues; claims,
concerns and
issues that have
not been
resolved
become the
organizational
foci for
information
collection
Active
participant
All
Generation Focus
Characteristics
Info collected
Measurement
Positivist view; content was
defined by reference to
authority; emphasis on content
mastery; variable
identification; influenced by
social science and patterns for
human development; students
seen as “raw material” in need
of “processing” to become as
efficient and effective as
possible
2nd Gen.
Description
3rd Gen.
4th Gen.
1st
Gen.
Moderator
Authority
Table created by Katie Miller from information presented in Fourth Generation Evaluation Chapter 1.
24
Guba and Lincoln contend that “each succeeding generation [of evaluation] represented a
step forward, both in the range of substance or content included in the construction held
as well as its level of sophistication” (Fourth Generation 31). Furthermore, they contend
“evaluation would have stagnated” at the first level “had not the second generation shown
the way to evaluate non-human evaluands as well—the programs, materials, teaching
strategies, organizational patterns, and ‘treatments’ in general” (Fourth Generation 31). 9
Understanding the trajectory of evaluation theory is crucial in order to critically examine
Fourth Generation Evaluation as presented by Guba and Lincoln.
Fourth Generation Evaluation: A New Paradigm
In their book, Guba and Lincoln argue that “the conventional mode of evaluation,
which effectively reserves power and decision-making authority to them, is not only
morally and ethically wrong, but also politically naïve and conceptually narrow” (Fourth
Generation 15). In contrast to traditional evaluation, Guba and Lincoln describe a new,
emergent form with two main elements: responsive focusing and constructivist
methodology. The first element indicates that stakeholders should have a role in design of
evaluations so that the information being collected reflects their input and not only the
evaluator’s (Fourth Generation Guba and Lincoln 11). The second element denotes how
the inquiry process is conducted under the constructivist paradigm and, therefore,
operates from a worldview with a particular set of epistemological and ontological
assumptions (Guba and Lincoln Fourth Generation 11). According to Guba and Lincoln,
In much of their work, Guba and Lincoln use the term evaluand to designate the “entity to be evaluated”
(Fourth Generation Evaluation 188), which is similar to Freire’s use of educand in Pedagogy of Hope. In
their 1980 Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis article, “The Distinction between Merit and Worth
in Education,” Guba and Lincoln credit Michael Scriven with the proposal of this convention (61). See
Scriven’s definition of evaluand in Evaluation Thesaurus for further explanation of this convention.
9
25
this form of evaluation has several interesting properties, many of which have parallels to
the most recent writing assessment theory in Composition Studies, which are further
explained in the next sub-section.
First, Fourth Generation Evaluation “takes the position that evaluation outcomes
are not descriptions of the ‘way things are’ or ‘really work,’ or of some ‘true’ state of
affairs, but instead represent meaningful constructions that individual actors or groups of
actors form to ‘make sense’ of the situation” (Fourth Generation 8). This paradigmatic
shift indicates a new understanding of constructions of truth. From this perspective,
evaluations inherently become more subjective since notions of objective truth are cast
away.
Second, such a form of evaluation “recognizes that the constructions through
which people make sense of their situations are in a very major way shaped by the values
of the constructors” and that most societies are “value-pluralistic” (Guba and Lincoln
Fourth Generation 8). As such, evaluators must consider which stakeholder values are
being honored in any given situation and make room for negotiation between numerous
and diverse value positions (Fourth Generation 8).
Third, the emergent form “suggests that these constructions are inextricably
linked to the particular physical, psychological, social and cultural contexts within which
they are formed and to which they refer” (Fourth Generation 8). Context, in this sense,
“provides the ‘surround’ within which the personas forming the constructions live and of
which they try to make sense. At the same time, the surround remains formless until the
constructions of the people in it endow it with parameters, features, and limits” (Fourth
26
Generation Guba and Lincoln 8-9). Fourth Generation Evaluation is attuned to the
contexts within which an evaluand is created although the boundaries and specific
elements of those contexts may not always be easily identifiable and may be mercurial in
nature.
Fourth, a form such as this describes how “evaluations can be shaped to
enfranchise or disenfranchised stakeholder groups in a variety of ways” (Fourth
Generation 9). Due to the emergence of such blatant power-relationships, Fourth
Generation Evaluation considers the political aspects of an evaluation on both small and
large scales.
Fifth, the form “suggests that evaluations must have an action orientation that
defines a course to be followed, stimulates involved stakeholders to follow it, and
generates and preserves their commitment to do so” (Fourth Generation 10). This
emphasis on the consequence or post-evaluation protocol implies an awareness of
stakeholder concerns existing beyond the scope and duration of the evaluation.
And lastly, Fourth Generation Evaluation “insists that inasmuch as an evaluation
involves humans (as clients, as stakeholders, as information sources, and in many other
ways), it is incumbent on the evaluator to interact with those humans in a manner
respecting their dignity, their integrity, and their privacy” (Fourth Generation 10-11).
The authors clarify that “‘respecting their dignity, their integrity, and their privacy’ goes
well beyond the standard protections. It reaches the level of full participative
involvement, in which the stakeholders and other who may be drawn into the evaluation
… are accorded a full measure of political parity and control” (Fourth Generation 11).
27
Furthermore, Guba and Lincoln explain that stakeholder participants should be “accorded
the privilege of sharing their constructions and working toward a common, consensual,
more fully informed and sophisticated, joint construction—they are accorded a full
measure of conceptual parity.” (Fourth Generation 11). This element of Fourth
Generation Evaluation further emphasizes interactive participation by many stakeholders
and ensures multiple levels of parity and control.
Theory and Discourse of Writing Assessment in Composition Studies
Fourth Generation Evaluation offers a set of theoretical principles that is
consistent with much past and recent writing assessment scholarship. For instance, in her
1999 article, “Looking Back as We Look Forward,” Kathleen B. Yancey traces the
trajectory of writing assessment over the last sixty years in very similar ways as Guba
and Lincoln describe the evolution of evaluation. Yancey prefaces her historical overview
with an argument that assessment has always been part of writing instruction, even if it
was once invisible (131). Yancey identifies “three waves in assessment” from first wave
objective tests to third-wave portfolio and programmatic assessment (131). By focusing
on these waves of assessment, Yancey acknowledges that there will be new innovations
in writing assessment theory and practice in the future. Yancey’s article is unique in its
treatment of these waves as more than just a sequence of popular assessment methods in
given time periods, but situates them—as Guba and Lincoln do— within specific
paradigms that valued particular worldviews. Her article concludes with an argument that
assessment is now constructed as a rhetorical act; one that is specific, purposeful,
contextual, and ethical (146).
28
In response to the pervasiveness of writing assessment practices that were devoid
of theoretical backing, in his 1996 article, “Toward a New Theory of Writing
Assessment,” Brian Huot attempts to connect what were new assessment procedures
“through their common sets of beliefs and assumptions in order to create the possibility
of a theoretical umbrella” (552). Huot begins by deconstructing the dominant paradigm
of evaluation that was solely informed by the measurement community that had “roots in
a positivist epistemology” and assumed “that student ability in writing, as in anything
else, is a fixed, consistent, and acontexual human trait” (“New Theory” 549). Huot notes
that writing assessment procedures created in that paradigm emphasized refining the
technology of measurement, which lead to increased attention to notions of validity and
reliability; however, as writing assessment practices affected the teaching of writing more
and more, those assumptions were challenged and those notions were reconsidered in
light of Composition theory. Huot explains that much writing assessment scholarship (for
example, White’s Teaching and Assessing of Writing) draws attention to the fundamental
“theoretical differences” which exist between the educational measurement and
Composition communities; these incompatible beliefs and assumptions create and
perpetuate the tension that surrounds traditional writing assessment practices (“New
Theory” 549). In his article, Huot contextualizes his new call for more conscious
theorizing about assessment practices within assessment scholarship. Huot uses a variety
of practical examples of new assessment procedures employed at universities, but
maintains his emphasis on the theory that drives (and can be derived from) these
emergent procedures.
29
The assumptions which drive what Huot calls Traditional Writing Assessment can
be understood best by examination of the table he presents in his article on the new,
emergent theory of writing assessment:
Table 2
Traditional Writing Assessment
Procedures, Purposes, and Assumptions
Purpose
Assumption
Procedure
Scoring Guideline
Recognize features of writing quality
Writing quality can be defined and
determined
Rater training
Foster agreement on independent
rater scores
One set of features of student writing
for which raters should agree
Scores On Papers
Fix degree of writing quality for
comparing writing ability and making
decisions on that ability
Student ability to write can be coded
and communicated numerically
Interrater Reliability
Calculate the degree of agreement
between independent raters
Consistency and standardization to be
maintained across time and location
Validity
Determine the assessment measures
what it purports to measure
An assessment’s value is limited to
distinct goals and properties in the
instrument itself
Source: Huot, Brian. “Toward a New Theory of Writing Assessment.” CCC 47.4 (1996): 551. Print
Traditional test theory, as Huot’s chart suggests, isolates and protects authority and works
from an assumption that is a fixed, measureable skill; consequently, traditional test theory
places high value on validity and reliability of assessment procedures. Such assessment
practices can affect curricular and pedagogical decisions in negative ways. For example,
in the old GWAR system at CSUS the mandatory proficiency test certainly drove the
instruction the older version of the English 109W courses in such ways as the exam
becoming the midterm for the course, which lead a significant number of instructors to
teach timed-writing for the first half of the semester and only turn to portfolio process at
the midpoint with students who failed the exam yet again. White contends that among
teachers there is a “well-founded awareness that assessment can and often does function
30
as the enemy of instruction” (3). The assessment-instruction link does not necessarily
have to be an unfruitful relationship. A meaningful feedback-loop can be created to
maintain the two in a symbiotic relationship and avoid one dominating and driving the
other.
While traditional test theory “put enormous faith in the technology of testing
things like the development of scoring guidelines or rubrics, the training of raters, the
scores paper receive, and the statistical calculation of interrater reliability,” by contrast,
emergent placement procedures place faith in teachers’ knowledge of curriculum, process
pedagogy, and most importantly students’ self-awareness of their writing abilities and
needs as learners (Huot “New Theory” 550). Huot offers another table listing the
characteristics of the new, emergent writing assessment:
Procedure
Table 3
New, Emergent Writing Assessment: Procedures, Purposes, and Assumptions
Purpose
Assumption
Raters from specific courses
place students into their courses
Writing placement
Placement is a teaching decision based
on specific curricular knowledge
One rater reads all essays and
places 60% of all students; other
40% placed by expert team of
consultants
Writing placemen
Placement largely a screening process;
teachers recognize students in primary
course
Rater groups discuss portfolios
for exit or specific level of
achievement
Exit and program assessment
Discussion of multiple interpretation
necessary for high stakes decisions
about students or programs
Validity
Determine accuracy of assessment
Value of an assessment can only be
and impact on process on teaching
known and accountable in a specific
and learning for specific site and its
context
mission and goals
Source: Huot, Brian. “Toward a New Theory of Writing Assessment.” CCC 47.4 (1996): 556. Print.
As evidenced by the characteristics listed on the table, Huot envisions the theoretical
umbrella of emergent writing assessment procedures as “supported by evolving
conceptions of validity that include the consequences of the tests and a linkage of
31
instruction and practical purposes with the concept of measuring students’ ability to
engage in a specific literacy event or events” (Huot “New Theory” 561). Such a focus
more overtly emphasizes the role of context in assessment and moves beyond the
traditional test paradigm into a more social constructivist paradigm.
Much of the discourse on writing assessment has understandably situated
assessment in tenuous relationship with instruction. Many assessment scholars have
prefaced their work in the last decade with a statement about Composition’s contentious
relationship with assessment. For example, White describes how “assessment of writing
can be a blessing or a curse, a friend or a foe, an important support for our work as
teachers or a major impediment to what we need to do for our students” (Teaching and
Assessing Writing 3). Much of the tension surrounding assessment comes from what
Huot identifies as teaching lore, which maintains that “assessing student writing
somehow interferes with our ability to teach it” (“New Discourse” 163). White suggests
that instructors often “equate assessment…with testing” although the terms carry
different meanings (3). Similarly, Huot posits that “[t]his slippage of assessment, grading,
and testing as interchangeable provides a discourse about assessment that is often critical
and unexamined” (“New Discourse” 163). Such inaccuracy in discourse lead to cases
where assessment practices are created, implemented, and even distributed to other
educational institutes that lack the necessary theoretical foregrounding and awareness of
context.
To describe and, hopefully, dissuade others from falling into this pattern of
assessment practice devoid of or detached from theory, Huot examines beliefs and
32
assumptions that shape and support practices “to bring to light the often unexamined and
untheorized ideas that inform our current assessment practices” and eventually alter
future practice in a significant way (“New Discourse” 164). The first step, according to
Huot, is “to create a new shared discourse for understanding assessment as a positive
force for the teaching of writing” (165). Assessments that function as placements
communicate what a program or institution values about writing. The skills that are
assessed in an assessment are the most potent representation of what a program values,
regardless of what emphasized in course curriculum and instruction, because assessment
moments are usually so high-stakes. Understanding how beliefs and assumptions function
in the creation of assessment methods is essential to best practices in writing assessment.
Ultimately, Huot offers a framework for the discourse of assessment in his 2002
article (which can be read as a culmination of much of his previous scholarly work). He
not only argues how organically-created current discourse could be revamped, but also
discusses how students have a stake in assessment and bear the burden of some
significant responsibility when we invite them to take part in assessment processes.
-Section 3Directed Self-Placement: A Model for Students-As-Stakeholders
A Brief Overview
According to creators Daniel J. Royer and Roger Gilles, Directed Self-Placement
(DSP) was born out of their and their colleagues’ dissatisfaction with traditional
placement methods (“Directed Self-Placement” 237). Their first step in addressing this
frustration was to improve placement procedures by abandoning the old exam-based
33
placement system in lieu of a contextualized placement. According to Huot,
“contextualized placements” involve an alteration of focus “from how student writing
matches up against general and fixed criteria to how it fits with the actual curriculum”
(Huot “New Theory” 553-4, qtd. in Royer and Gilles “Directed Self-Placement” 237).
DSP goes one step beyond “‘contextualized’ placement” by shifting away from a deficit
model of assessment that requires students to prove proficiency, and adopting instead a
placement model (Royer and Gilles “Directed Self-Placement” 233). With the move
away from measuring student performance in comparison to their peers, newer placement
methods result in variable credit placements (i.e. placement into specific courses or
course sequences).
DSP removes the reductive testing procedure and instead focuses on distributing
information to students about the expectations and requirements of several composition
course options. Students use the information provided by the institution to make an
informed decision about which course to take. Simply put, students place themselves.
Benefits of DSP
DSP is an Opportunity for Students to Make Their Own Authentic Educational Choices
DSP gives students an authentic educational choice of two or more course paths
and helps them arrive at that decision based on their own perceived writing ability and
histories as writers. Royer and Gilles explain that “The power that directed-self
placement taps is the desire among new college students to get started on the right foot
and finally make some choices. Freshmen come to the university hyper-ware of their own
educational background, their capabilities, and the promise of success” (246). In addition,
34
since students are expected to make myriad decisions during their post-secondary
educational experience, DSP communicates to students that their judgment is trusted.
Students’ choices can be more strategic than they may appear. For instance, in
their 2004 study comparing a six week accelerated summer composition course and a ten
week non-accelerated summer course, Susan McLeod, Heather Horn, and Richard H.
Haswell found that
the accelerated [summer] classes offer highly motivated students who are
not particularly strong in one area a chance to immerse themselves in just
that area where they know they have difficulties, where their experience
during the regular academic year showed that they might procrastinate.”
(McLeod, Horner, and Haswell 571)
Students in their study responded that “By focusing their energies on just one or two
courses, and in addition by choosing an accelerated course, they knew they would do
better” (McLeod, Horner, and Haswell 571). This study is just one example of students
using their decision-making skills to set themselves up for success in specific academic
situations.
As McLeod, Horner, and Haswell note, “standardized tests like the SAT II and
[their campus-specific] writing placement test, while they do provide some data about
student writers, do not capture some of the qualities—like motivation, task persistence,
and the metacognitive abilities that allow students to take courses strategically—that
count most heavily toward success in the university” (574). For this reason, DSP is a
viable method which allows students to demonstrate some of those special qualities that
35
would be overlooked or ill-measured by traditional direct and indirect writing
assessments.
DSP Properly Emphasizes the Consequences of Placements
Another benefit of DSP is that its overt emphasis on the consequences of
assessment allows for a clearer connection between assessment and instruction while
simultaneously eliminating some of the negative consequences of labeling students by
placing them into ranked categories (see footnote on p. 12) Students who are placed in
these non-mainstream courses by an institutional entity may face institutional and social
stigmata by the very nature of being segregated from the mainstream student population.
Similarly, in The Politics of Remediation: Institutional and Student Needs in Higher
Education, Mary Soliday provides a historical review of remedial programs at the
university level in a large state system similar to the California State University. She
contends that “remediation exists also to fulfill institutional need” (1). She discusses the
“broader material and ideological conflicts surrounding literacy instruction within higher
education” and offers extensive research that contextualizes remediation and the
segregation of struggling writers (2). She concludes that student needs must be
paramount in the creation and evolution of writing programs. Similarly, Hull et al. warn
that “inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being somehow cognitively defective
and in need of ‘remedy’ can be created and played out in the classroom” (299).
Consequently, the pedagogies of the instructors of remedial classes may be altered
because of a perception that those students are not capable of handling the regular rigors
of a college composition classroom. Although some may argue that the label does not
36
inherently guarantee a different educational experience, any synonym for remedial marks
students as decidedly different and therefore subjects them to very tangible material
consequences of that naming.10
DSP has Elements of both Fourth Generation Evaluation and Third-Wave Assessment
Theory
Although Royer and Gilles do not explicitly utilize any of Guba and Lincoln’s
elements of Fourth Generation Evaluation, many parallels can be drawn that demonstrate
DSP is a sound mode of assessment. First, a DSP process asks “students to measure their
own perceptions of themselves against our expectations” which signifies an honoring of
student-as-stakeholders in their own education. This emphasis on stakeholders is
paramount in Fourth Generation Evaluation. Similarly, in order to make DSP work
effectively and efficiently, its implementation must be preceded by an in-depth process
involving all stakeholders (teachers, students, administrators, etc.), a process Guba and
Lincoln would describe as responsive constructivist. Such a process would ideally
include many of the characteristics previously listed on Table 1 for Fourth Generation
Evaluation, including:

having parameters and boundaries determined through an interactive
process;

beginning with determination of what questions shall be asked and
what information will be collected;
10
To address the concern of the social and political ramifications of how basic writers are labeled, Royer
and Gilles contend that “conventional notions of ‘remediation’ may not apply to students who in effect ask
for an extra course” (their emphasis 241).
37

being facilitated by an evaluator who conducts evaluation in such a
way that each group of stakeholders must confront and deal with the
constructions of all the others (e.g. through hermeneutic dialectic);

resulting in each group’s constructions become better informed and
sophisticated;

and (unfortunately) being resource and time intensive at the beginning
due to extensive process.
(see Table 1)
DSP is Context-specific and Emphasizes Local Needs
Instead of viewing evaluation of writing in a vacuum, an assessment process
should facilitate the design of procedures with a more transparent and meaningful
connection between the teaching and the assessing of writing, more thorough
consideration of local needs, and a hyper-awareness of context. Huot makes a similar
argument when he states that writing assessment procedures should “emphasize the
context of the texts being read, the position of the readers, and the local, practical
standards teachers and other stakeholders establish for written communication” ( “New
Theory” 561). DSP accomplishes this emphasis on context by allowing the instruction to
drive the assessment; the goals and expected learning outcomes that have been designed
to meet the local needs of the student population become the core of a DSP placement
process.
38
DSP Embodies Current Best Practices for Writing Assessment
A current professional publication that reinforces this notion of theory as
invaluable to assessment is the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Position
Statement on Writing Assessment. The position statement clearly articulates the
organization’s assumptions as well as common understanding about writing assessment.
The authors frame the statement with five guiding principles of writing assessment:
1. Writing assessment is useful as a means of improving teaching and
learning
2. Writing is by definition social because learning to write entails learning to
accomplish a range of purposes for a range of audiences in a range of
settings
3. Any individual’s writing ability is a set of skills used in a diversity of
contexts, and ability fluctuates given these varieties
4. Perceptions of writing are shaped by methods and criteria used to assess
writing
5. Assessments should be solidly grounded in the most current research on
learning, writing, and assessment.
DSP is a prime example of best practices in writing assessment because it can easily
embody all five of these principles in both theory and practice:
1. By functioning as a way for students to sort themselves into courses that
will fit their own learning needs, DSP demonstrates that writing
assessment is useful as a means of improving teaching and learning
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2. By asking students to consider their reading and writing skills in both
academic and non-academic contexts, DSP communicates the belief that
writing is by definition social because learning to write entails learning to
accomplish a range of purposes for a range of audiences in a range of
settings
3. By directing students through a process of critical self-reflection and
forecasting their perceived chances for success, DSP acknowledges that
any individual’s writing ability is a set of skills used in a diversity of
contexts, and ability fluctuates given these varieties
4. By focusing on students’ own self-assessment of their own writing
abilities and abandoning large-scale assessments such as proficiency tests
or entrance exams, DSP embodies the principles that perceptions of
writing are shaped by methods and criteria used to assess writing
5. By focusing on the promises provided by course expectations and goals
presented in the DSP pamphlet or talk, forcing careful examination and
revision expectations, and soliciting feedback on students’ experiences in
courses, DSP embodies the most current research on learning, writing,
and assessment.
The most important benefit of DSP for the context of this thesis is that it would help a
university writing program give students more authority as stakeholders. DSP theory
disrupts “prevailing student/teacher power relations by presenting the students with an
authentic educative choice” (Royer and Gilles 233). DSP provokes a shift from an exam-
40
based proficiency requirement to a qualitative and self-reflective process that defers to an
authentic choice on the student’s part for placement into an instruction-based
requirement.
-Section 4Students-as-Stakeholders in Writing Assessment and Instruction
Contemporary Composition theory and practice should be further informed by
Fourth Generation Evaluation and Critical Pedagogy as theoretical frames for shifting
more authority to students. By utilizing constructivist methodologies and responsive
focusing, a writing program can create an assessment process which invites more
stakeholders into the assessment moment as full participants, honoring input from
multiple stakeholders. For example, in practice students could be invited to contribute in
a hermeneutic process from the initial steps of creating the DSP system for an institution.
Because each group would bring along its own worldview and set of concerns, such
inclusions would result in each stakeholder group’s constructions becoming better
informed and more sophisticated. By positioning students as active participants rather
than merely as “targets” of assessment, a placement method such as DSP becomes a
moment of communication between stakeholders.
Honoring students as stakeholders in the placement process further revises the
current writing assessment paradigm to be more critical in nature. Writing teachers’
reclamation of writing assessment from evaluation experts outside of the profession of
teaching was coupled with a proclamation of their own stake in assessments. The next
41
step in continuing to revise this assessment paradigm is to allow and encourage students
to seize their authority as stakeholders.
In Composition Studies, assessment can be understood as either formative
(intended to improve student writing) or summative (specifically designed to provide
information about student writing ability in groups) (White 133). Perhaps the most
exciting and complicated aspect of writing assessment is that it communicates values.
Formative assessments, for example, are individualized evaluations used to help students
improve as writers or help improve a particular student-written text. White describes this
second kind of evaluation as “a personalized teaching device, to help students learn more
effectively” (12). Formative assessments offer constructive responses to student writers
and such assessments communicate what is being valued in a particular writing situation.
For example, written feedback by an instructor on a draft provides students with an idea
of what the instructor is valuing and in most cases is intended to support the teaching of
writing. On the other hand, summative assessments, as White explains, are “designed to
produce information about the writing ability of students in groups” (133). Summative
assessment moments can occur within various contexts with more narrow purposes:
placement for first year writers, proficiency for rising juniors, or barriers for nearlygraduated seniors. Such assessments offer students very little opportunity to be critical
agents in their own education. Instead, a student is seen as just a number or as a member
of a group. What is particularly dangerous about this “grouping” of students is that if it
continues for a long enough period of time and is reinforced by the assessment tools it
42
becomes a naturalized concept. However, all of those groups are constructions created by
the institution and are in no way true or authentic categories.
Concerns about Students-as-Stakeholders
Some have criticized the increased responsibility students bear in DSP, despite the
benefits of students assuming a more active stakeholder role. For example, although
Pamela Bedore and Deborah F. Rossen-Knill agree with much of Royer and Gilles’
theory behind DSP—namely that such a placement method honors students as
stakeholders in their own educational success and leads to greater investment in their own
learning— in their article “Informed Self-Placement: Is a Choice Offered a Choice
Received?” they question whether incoming first-year students are capable of making a
truly informed decision about their post-secondary academic future based only on their
high school experiences (56). However, it would be more detrimental to strip students of
their rights and responsibilities as stakeholders to assume that they are incapable of
making the “right” choice. But, just as Bedore and Rossen-Knill emphasize, students do
need to have enough information and support to make an informed decision.
Consequently, program and course expectations need to foreground DSP practice; a clear
articulation of course goals and description of all course options is a pre-condition for a
successful DSP program to fulfill the directed part of Directed Self-Placement.
Critical Pedagogy in Composition Classrooms and Writing Programs
Dynamic classroom pedagogy can replace what may seem in retrospect to be
reactionary practices that Composition scholars, such as David Bartholomae, criticize
when they write in opposition of classroom practices and theories that operate under a
43
gatekeeping paradigm. For example, instead of focusing course curriculum on fixing
what are perceived to be deficits in some students’ writing ability, a more progressive
pedagogy will do everything teacher-scholars like Mina Shaughnessy and Bartholomae
say it should: encourage student engagement, move beyond mastery teaching methods,
ask students to become critical agents of their own education, acknowledge the political
nature of education to some degree, and introduce students to academic writing in a
meaningful way. A large-scale revision of assessment and instruction is still necessary to
answer Mike Rose’s expansive call in “The Language of Exclusion” for a disciplinary revisioning of Composition courses by “affirming a rich model of written language
development and production” (357). Such revisioning is not just philosophical, but also
practical; there must also be support for this practice on a programmatic level, which may
require a shift in perspective in regards to the role of students-as-stakeholders in their
own educational endeavors.
Whatever the local context, programs should be cautious of hopping on the
practice bandwagon without a theoretical rationale and a justification for how such a
change is appropriate for their particular context. Emergent theories and practices of
writing assessment and new trends in pedagogy should not be ignored in favor of
stagnated and standardized procedures, but embraced if they are appropriate to the
context and serve to inform the practices and policies that guide a writing program.
Assessment and instruction can and should be opportunities to empower students.
By focusing on writing, considering student writing history, being contextually
appropriate, and existing within a transparent process a placement can function as a
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positive force for both assessment and instruction. Rather than becoming an oppressive
force wielded by institutional entities or agents functioning as gatekeepers, such a strong
philosophical link between assessment and instruction provides an outstanding
opportunity for students to assume a more explicit role as stakeholders in their own
education.
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Chapter 3
WRITING GROUP SCHOLARSHIP LITERATURE REVIEW
Several independent theories can be woven together to help create a theoretical
framework applicable for an undergraduate academic writing group like English 109X.
Most of the points of congruence between pieces of scholarship are derived mainly from
theories of collaborative learning and language acquisition. This section will present a
brief literature review from a more hybridized theoretical position that considers both of
these theoretical positions—still under the broader umbrella of students-asstakeholders—with a critical focus on identifying the defining characteristics that make
group tutorial courses most effective.
-Section 1Anne Ruggles Gere’s Writing Groups: History, Theory, and Implications
By far the most extensive inquiry into the history and theory of writing groups to
date is Anne Ruggles Gere’s Writing Groups: History, Theory, and Implications. As the
Foreword of her book states, Gere “makes explicit some of the underlying assumptions of
writing groups’ procedures and results” (x). Gere’s research creates a roadmap for tracing
the evolution of writing groups in both academic and extra-curricular contexts, and Gere
seems astutely aware of the contribution of her study to the field of Composition and
Rhetoric. Indeed, she asserts that “[c]reating this scholarly tradition means moving from
exigency to exegesis, from responding to the needs of the moment to thinking about what
that response means” (2). By laying the foundation for further historical research and
critical reflection about the practices contemporary compositionists have inherited, Gere
46
also creates the intellectual space for critical inquiry about writing groups such as the
local research of this thesis project.
In her introduction, Gere acknowledges the myriad terms that emerged to describe
the phenomenon of sharing writing with a group of peers: “Writing groups, the partner
method, helping circles, collaborative writing, response groups, team writing, writing
laboratories, teacherless writing classes, group inquiry technique, the round table, class
criticism, editing sessions, writing teams, worksession, intensive peer review” (1). Gere
also predicates her book with an introduction of some procedures that define the essence
of a writing group, such as the instructor’s role (for writing groups in academic contexts)
and what she terms “codes for response” within individual groups (1). For instance, if the
instructor of a course is too involved in a peer writing group activity, she can accidently
interrupt the important social processes that must happen in order for students to give
each other authority just with her presence because of the authority she automatically has
as the teacher. Similarly, the “codes of response” characterize particular types of groups.
For instance, Gere explains that in some groups members actively “intervene” in their
peers’ writing by participating in the invention process and guiding the writer’s process
by dictating what she or he should do next, while other groups are limited to responding
to whatever a writer brings to share. Such an “ambiguity of terminology and procedure,”
she argues, “reflects the larger ambiguity facing the field of composition studies” (1). In
the context of the late 1980s, Gere’s assertion makes sense; however, in the wake of the
social turn in the last part of that decade, Composition Studies experienced a theoretical
shift away from positivist thinking to more humanistic theories. As a result, much of that
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ambiguity has been replaced with an informed acknowledgement of diversity in theories
and practices which ultimately helps foster a stronger sense of disciplinary cohesion.
Writing groups, however, although highly popular, remain one of the practices influenced
by lore more than by scholarship, which makes praxis about endeavors involving writing
groups in academic settings all the more crucial.
Historicizing Writing Groups
Gere accurately declares that “Writing groups are new and old” (her emphasis, 9).
As she explains, “In all their manifestations, however, writing groups conceive of writing
in social terms” (Gere 9). Gere’s study offers a thorough account of the historical origins
of writing groups in academic and extra-curricular contexts. Most relevant to this thesis is
her explanation of how the work of literary societies was appropriated and wielded as a
mechanism for college curriculum design (Gere 13). Gere explains that, “When English
composition began to enter college curricula in the late nineteenth century, it rarely
included the peer critique central to literary societies”, but “Many colleges and
universities followed this pattern of adapting literacy society/writers’ club activities to
fiction and poetry classes” (15). Gere describes how the practice of peer-response
remained part of creative writing and did not become integrated into Composition
curriculum for a long period. She explains that the “long-standing division between
‘creative’ writing and the other kind [“regular” writing done in Composition classes] bred
suspicion between representatives of the two” (Gere 15). This division also implies issues
of student-autonomy and authorship. As writing groups were brought into the curriculum,
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in what contexts and for what purposes students were allowed to act as experts became an
issue that would need to be resolved in local and broad contexts.
Gere recounts other relevant historical highlights from the first few decades of the
20th century such as the trend of Composition classes at some Ivy League institutions
requiring a component of the final grade to be critiques of peers’ writing; the emergence
of writing groups as a more common component of secondary school curriculum; and
writing groups receiving a heightened level of attention from educational researchers.
The subsequent increase in research is where Gere reveals how “contemporary authors
seem[ed] largely unaware of earlier work” (18). Without a clear trajectory for scholars to
identify and place themselves in, practitioners and researchers wrote in relative isolation
and the development of a rich tapestry of writing group scholarship was stymied. Amidst
these changes in loci and purpose for writing groups in academic contexts, Gere identifies
a rising tide of educational philosophies that changed the landscape of the American
educational system:
The movement of writing groups from student-sponsored organizations
intro the curricula of schools and colleges coincided with the emergence
of several interest groups whose philosophies shaped curricula in this
country. These interest groups include what Kliebard, in an effort to
untangle some of the misapprehensions associated with progressive
education, terms advocates of humanism, social meliorism,
developmentalism, and social efficiency. Each contributed to writing
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groups, but their diversity, while enriching in many ways, blurred the
intellectual force of these groups. (20)
As Gere suggests, the contending philosophies surrounding education at the time that
writing groups become more prevalent in academic setting were partly responsible for
obfuscating the “intellectual force” of writing groups (Gere 20). Writing groups were
appropriated as a particular teaching method by a wide array of contesting theories.
The historical accounts gathered by Gere illuminate the reality that academic
writing groups first emerged as ideas that were put into practice without much attention
to pedagogical theorizing, if any. Theorizing, even in hindsight is necessary part of
establishing the “intellectual force” of writing groups (Gere 20).
Theorizing about Writing Groups
Like many hot topics within Composition Studies, writing groups were written
about by educators who wanted to share their success stories; often, they offered a model
for such collaborative writing activities, but the focus was always on methodology, on the
how-to. For instance, Gere cites C. J. Thompson’s 1919 study on the “socialized” method
of composition and Burges Johnson’s 1930s research using prose models to teach literary
response in writing groups (17). According to Gere, both studies focused on the
researcher’s own writing group method and aimed to measure its effectiveness. Gere
argues that the influx of such publications focused on methodology served to “create the
impression that writing groups constitute one more approach, one more in a series of
remedies for beleaguered instructors” (2). Consequently, writing groups tended to
“receive the isolated treatment frequently given ‘mere pedagogy’” (Gere 2). As evidence
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for this claim, Gere points to the many articles published in relative chronological
proximity that portray writing groups as “‘novel’ or ‘innovative,’” as something that has
just been “discovered” (2). Gere analyzes the negative effects of such disconnected
discourse about writing groups as something that has historically fragmented discussion
about writing groups:
This recurring assertion of the novelty of writing groups not only
impoverishes the quality of discussion about them but also emphasizes
their differences rather than their similarities. Each author who employs
this terminology of innovation contributes to an artificial separation of one
writing group from another: artificial because regardless of their multiple
names and various procedures, writing groups of all sizes share a number
of common features. (2-3)
Such disunity created the impression that critical work on writing groups seems to exist
in a vacuum, and it stifled possible critical discussion and debate since scholarship did
not emerge organically from on-going cycle of scholarship. A more clearly identifiable
main trajectory of scholarship would help facilitate critical examination because of its
discernable emerging, dominant, and fading theories. Due to the lack of a cohesive
scholarly tradition, much theory of writing groups was borrowed from the scholarly
traditions of collaborative learning and language acquisition.
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-Section 2Diverse Origins: Scholarship on Writing Groups
Scholarship regarding group tutorials specifically is rather limited, but there are
several common threads that can be woven together to help erect a theoretical framework
applicable for academic writing groups. Most of the points of congruence in the
scholarship are derived mainly from theories of collaborative learning and language
acquisition. Examining group tutorials from a more hybridized theoretical position that
considers both of these theoretical positions helps to maintain a critical focus on how
such groups can be more student-centered and socially-informed.
Kenneth Brufee’s Collaborative Learning Theories
In his 1987 article “Making the Most of Knowledgeable Peers” for Change,
Kenneth Bruffee outlines collaborative peer work in higher education institutions. He
begins with the rather unsubstantiated claim that “Students learn better through noncompetitive collaborative group work than in classrooms that are highly individualized
and competitive” (“Making the Most” 2). This piece by Bruffee seems to rely more on
the anecdotal claim that “the rest of the world now works collaboratively almost as a
universal principle” (“Making the Most” 2). Bruffee argues that preparing students for
future employment that “depends on effective interdependence and consultation for
excellence” must include work to increase “students’ level of social maturity as exercised
in their intellectual lives” (“Making the Most” 3). Although this reliance on the claim
that collaborative work prepares students for future professional endeavors permeates the
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first part of the article, Bruffee does move on to more theoretical arguments that hit on
the pedagogical benefits of collaborative work.
First, he underscores the important connection of our understanding of knowledge
and learning. He claims that “Interest in collaborative learning is motivated also by recent
challenges to our understanding of what knowledge is” (“Making the Most” 2). Here he
is obviously referring to social constructivist views. Fittingly, he contends that
“Collaborative learning is related to these conceptual changes by virtue of the fact that it
assumes learning occurs among persons rather than between a person and things”
(“Making the Most” 2).
Next, he establishes that the social act of learning requires interpretation,
judgment and communication–all things that are reinforced by collaborative group work.
He focuses on “interdependence” and how the level of the group’s autonomy affects
group dynamics and efficacy. While reviewing the work of M. L. Abercrombie, Bruffee
reflects that:
The aspect of Abercrombie’s book that I found most illuminating was her
evidence that learning diagnostic judgment is not an individual process but
a social one. Learning judgment, she saw, patently occurs on an axis
drawn not between individuals and things, but among people. But in
making this observation, she had to acknowledge that there is something
wrong with our normal cognitive assumptions about the nature of
knowledge. (“Making the Most” 3)
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Specifically, Bruffee notes that Abercrombie
infers from this observation that we learn judgment well in groups because
we tend to talk each other out of our unshared biases and presuppositions.
And in passing, she drops an invariable hint: the social process of learning
judgment that she has observed seems to have something to do with
language and with ‘interpretation’. (“Making the Most” 3).
Critical interpretation leading to judgment requires one to assume a specific role and take
up a particular critical lens while performing that role. In a tutorial course such as English
109X, one of the goals of the course is to allow students to practice such interpretation
and focused critique. Just as Abercrombie saw a notable difference in the way medical
students learned medical judgment it would be reasonable to expect 109X students to
gain a more nuanced sense of rhetorical judgment. For example, students may gain a
greater understanding that all writing tasks exist within rhetorical situations.
Lastly, Bruffee highlights issues of authority (origination and acceptance). His
article ends with the question: “How can knowledge gained through a social process have
a source that is not itself also social?” (“Making the Most” 6). This question becomes the
basis for Bruffee’s subsequent work on collaborative learning.
Bruffee’s 1993 book, Collaborative Learning: Higher Education,
Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge, reasserts his conclusion from “Making
the Most of Knowledgeable Peers” that both knowledge and learning have social origins.
According to Bruffee, “the central educational issues today hinge on social relations, not
on cognitive ones: relations among persons, not relations between persons and things”
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(Making the Most 3). Bruffee extends his arguments in “Making the Most of Knowledge
Peers” by focusing on the concept of knowledge being constructed through interaction
and negotiation within a community of knowledgeable peers. Such a view of knowledge
contests the idea of teacher-as-knower. Rather than depending on the teacher as an
authority figure able to dispense knowledge, students in this new paradigm become active
agents in their own education.
The reflective narrative in the preface of Bruffee’s book explains that he felt the
need “to reevaluate and recontextualize” his previous work to extend and complicate the
ideas implied within those earlier texts (Collaborative Learning x). The result of that
reexamination is the following conclusion about the way teachers teach:
[T]he way college and university teachers have been taught to think about
what they know and how they know it drive the way they teach it. So
teachers can change the way they teach only by changing what they think
about what they know and about how they know it. (Collaborative
Learning x)
Bruffee’s book is divided into two parts: part one explains collaborative learning
concepts and goals, while part two investigates issues surrounding the authority of
knowledge in higher education. Throughout his book, Bruffee reasserts his position that
“Collaborative learning makes the Kuhnian assumption that knowledge is a consensus: it
is something people construct inderdependently by talking together” (Collaborative
Learning 113). Specifically, he identifies one particular purpose of collaborative learning
as affording students a unique opportunity to “give college and university students
55
opportunities to experience this reacculturative, conversational process” (Collaborative
Learning 53). With this emphasis on the social aspect of knowledge, Bruffee also
challenges traditional notions of writing as “a private, solitary, ‘expressive’ act in which
language is a conduit from solitary mind to solitary mind” (Collaborative Learning 54).
Collaboration in Other Composition Studies Scholarship
In her Keywords in Composition entry, Maureen Daly Groggin notes that
“collaboration refers not to a unified object but rather to a variety of pedagogies and
practices, each grounded in somewhat different, and often conflicting, epistemological
and ontological assumptions” (35, her emphasis). Like Groggin, I contend that
collaboration is not just a pedagogical tactic to be employed by composition instructors;
rather, a collaborative classroom denotes a deeper more philosophical and intellectual
acknowledgement of the social aspect of writing. As Groggin contends, “Although
collaborative pedagogical techniques were at times invoked to support traditional teachercentered classes, most often they were advocated as a way of disrupting the traditional
hierarchical power relationships between teachers and students” (Groggin 36). Upsetting
the traditional power relations by using liberatory pedagogy theory creates a space for
students to assume more participatory roles as stakeholders in their own education. For
example, a class like English 109X is the prime space for such a disruption of the
foundational teacher-student dichotomy. By organizing students into an interdependent
tutorial group, English 109X overtly emphasizes the value of knowledgeable peers. Such
an increase of student agency and critical reflection should help students develop into
more successful academic writers.
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Muriel Harris’ article “Collaboration is Not Collaboration is Not Collaboration”
addresses the benefits and provides theoretical as well as practical information about two
highly common forms of writing pedagogy: Writing Center individual tutorials and peer
response groups. Harris notes that “Both tutoring and response groups are studentcentered approaches that rely on collaboration as a powerful learning tool-to promote
interaction between reader and writer, to promote dialogue and negotiation, and to
heighten writers' sense of audience” (Harris, “Collaboration” 369). Harris offers a clearly
articulated argument that it is crucial to delineate the form and function of such
collaborative writing endeavors:
Collaborative writing thus refers to products of multiple authors while
collaboratively learning about writing involves interaction between writer
and reader to help the writing improve her own abilities and produce her
own text—though, of course, her final product is influenced by the
collaboration with others. (“Collaboration” 370, my emphasis)
She asserts that “The emphasis on general skills in response groups rather than
individualized concerns in the tutorials also explains why the collaboration is so different
in each setting” (Harris, “Collaboration” 373). Specifically, she focuses on the reciprocal
nature of the collaboration in peer response groups due to the intent for students to learn
from the comments of their colleagues, as well as from students stepping into the role of
responder (Harris, “Collaboration” 373). What Harris identifies as the “agenda for
collaboration” is another distinguishing factor between writing center tutorials and peer
response groups, because “the agenda for students in a response group is usually to read
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and respond to each other’s writing—the response taking various forms, as determined by
the teacher” (374).11 Harris’s article reaffirms some of Bruffee’s concepts while
addressing some practical and material concerns that shape academic writing groups.
English 109X was designed to operate within a tutorial methodology that
capitalizes on the benefits of both group response and individualized tutoring. The
tutorial model suggested for English 109X has potential to be a hybrid of traditional oneon-one writing center tutorials and peer-response groups. For instance, a student may
elect to have her paper read silently by the rest of the tutorial class while she individually
discusses her draft with the tutorial instructor, then she could solicit feedback and
suggestions from her peers once the group has finished reading and responding to her
paper. This workshop format is supported by Harris’ claim that in one-to-one tutorial
students “talk more freely and more honestly because they are not in the confines of a
teacher/student relationship” (“Talking” 28). Many workshop formats were available to
tutorial instructors so as to vary the types of activities done in English 109X and to ensure
tutors can function within what Ira Shor describes as a “Frierean notion of situating
pedagogy in the real needs of the learners” (4).
11
Harris also addresses potential problems of peer response groups, such as the tendency for students to
offer only directive comments on a draft; pressure to withhold comments for fear of misdirecting or
insulting the writer; and writer reluctance to assimilate responder suggestions due to lack of confidence in
the knowledge of their colleagues (“Collaboration” 377-78). Those concerns are less likely to be
problematic in a tutorial course English 109X because the classroom dynamic will be more consistently
student-centered. A peer response activity within the context of a traditional classroom environment would
more likely elicit this type of apprehension and resistance from students because they may not be as
accustomed to serving as knowledgeable peers for their classmates.
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Self-efficacy and Social Cognitive Theories and Writing Groups
Self-efficacy is a concept borrowed from social psychology and refers to belief in
one’s ability to perform a particular type task in a given context. Self-efficacy in writing
involves issues of autonomy, confidence, and engagement, among others. For the purpose
of theorizing about writing groups, self-efficacy can also include social comparison
(explained further below). By including social cognitive theories, this project can remain
writer—instead of writing—focused and further explore how students can be more active
stakeholders in philosophical and practical ways.
In their 1994 article, “Confidence and Competence in Writing: The Role of Selfefficacy, Outcome Expectancy, and Apprehension,” Frank Parajes and Margaret J.
Johnson aimed to retest Albert Bandura’s 1986 psychological study which was designed
to explore students’ self-efficacy beliefs about writing (316). According to Parajes and
Johnson, Bandura’s Social Foundations of Thought and Action “argued that the beliefs
people hold about their abilities and about the outcome of their efforts powerfully
influence the ways in which they will behave” (313). Self-efficacy is identified by
Bandura’s social cognitive theory “as the most influential arbiter in human agency and
helps explain why people's behavior may differ markedly even when they have similar
knowledge and skills” (Parajes and Johnson 313). In other words, Parajes and Johnson
operate from Bandura’s theory that “what people do is often better predicted by their
beliefs about their capabilities than by measures of what they are actually capable of
accomplishing” (313). This difference between anticipated outcomes and reflective selfconfidence is a crucial part of Bandura’s study. According to Bandura, self-efficacy can
59
be defined as "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of
action required to attain designated types of performances" (Bandura 391). Parajes and
Johnson explain that “Because the outcomes people expect reflect their own judgments of
what they can accomplish, Bandura (1986) argued that, under normal circumstances,
expected outcomes are less likely to predict behavior than are judgments of selfconfidence” (314). Consequently, self-confidence emerges as a significant contributing
factor in writing performance.
Parajes and Johnson identify three key variables to be measured independently
and inter-influentially: “writing self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and writing
apprehension” (316). They measure the change in these variables over the course of a
semester. The researchers also examine “the relationship between students' confidence in
their general abilities and the other variables in the study.” (316). Parajes and Johnson
explain that their intent was “to establish a clear relationship between writing selfefficacy, appropriately defined and assessed, and writing performance (with other key
variables controlled)” (317). The authors also note that “Self-efficacy theorists argue that
the development of self-confidence in academic areas is partly a result of teacher
feedback and social comparisons,” which would make a class like English 109X valuable
for offering a chance to reflect on self-efficacy and also to allow that natural process of
social comparisons with peersto occur in a positive way (317). Parajes and Johnson’s
findings indicate several important conclusions regarding the three variables they
identified. According to the researchers, “As expected, full-scale writing self-efficacy (a
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composite of both the skills and tasks scales12) was significantly related to writing
performance” (321). Furthermore:
The one clear finding to emerge from this study was the significant
relationship between writing skills self-efficacy and a writing performance
assessed in terms of those skills. As predicted, it was the students'
confidence in their writing skills that accounted for the correspondence
between writing beliefs and writing performance, and not their confidence
that they could accomplish various writing tasks. (my emphasis, 322-23)
In other words, the researchers’ hypothesis was proven correct: higher levels of
confidence in writing skills correlated with student writing performance in particular
writing tasks.
Self-efficacy, although an important factor in student success with writing tasks,
is difficult to foster in the context of just one writing course, let alone a single-unit
tutorial such as English 109X. Parajes and Johnson conclude that “students' confidence in
their writing skills did not change over the semester, whereas their confidence to
accomplish various writing tasks increased” (323). The key to enhancing student selfefficacy is to allow for multiple opportunities for students to gain confidence in specific
writing tasks as a means to build writing task self-efficacy. The design of a tutorial such
as English 109X can and should include multiple opportunities for students to practice
writing tasks and receive constructive feedback on those tasks. For example, in English
In the context of Parajes and Johnson’s study, writing skills self-efficacy refers to beliefs about general
writing abilities and writing task efficacy refers to beliefs about ability to complete specific writing
assignments.
12
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109X the writing tasks students work on include assignments from their WI courses and
lower-stakes writing tasks done as part of the tutorial course requirements. The frequency
and nature of these lower-stakes assignments can allow students to experience
successfully completing writing tasks and, subsequently, increase writing task selfefficacy.
Parajes and Johnson are adamant in their affirmation that their findings were
correlational and not causal, but acknowledging this correlation is important to
Composition pedagogy in general. That correlation becomes particularly important for a
supportive tutorial such as English 109X because students have multiple chances to
reflect on their own writing processes which could correlate with a positive increase in
their self-efficacy. The clear correlation between self-efficacy and performance leads to
the conclusion that “assessing students' self-efficacy can provide teachers with important
insights” (327). Therefore, asking students to engage in self-assessment can be an
excellent way to not only have students critically self-reflect, but also to get a sense of
students’ self-efficacy.
62
Chapter 4
RESEARCH FINDINGS
My original research investigated how the new Graduation Writing Assessment
Requirement (GWAR) system—English 109X in particular—met student stakeholder
concerns. In this chapter I describe the English 109X Program within the context of the
University Writing Program at CSUS, explain my data collection methodology, present
my data, discuss my findings, and make specific recommendations for improving the
English 109X program. Such reflection about the English 109X pilot embodies the
concept of praxis by incorporating theory and practice in symbiosis. As a researcher, I
have critically examined a practice to inform my own theory about writing, which I
discuss at length in Chapter 5.
-Section 1Research Context and Data Collection
Institutional Context and Overview of the English 109X Pilot Program
CSUS is one of the twenty-three campuses in the CSU system; it is a highly
diverse campus of 28,000 students, including a large number of non-traditional students
and upper-division transfer students from local community colleges (California State
University). Beginning in the 2008-2009 academic year, the GWAR program at CSUS
shifted from a barrier exam-based proficiency requirement to a placement and
63
instruction-based requirement. In fall of 2008 and spring of 2009, the GWAR program
ran three pilot sections of the new English 109X course.13
English 109X is a unique component of the new GWAR process. The four-unit
placement option allows students to enroll in their upper-division Writing Intensive (WI)
course and requires them to co-enroll in English 109X. According to the English 109X
course proposal, the class is “designed to support the writing that students do in upperdivision writing intensive courses” (Glade 1). The course is designed to be a studentcentered writing workshop that focuses on developing discipline-specific rhetorical skills,
as well as on documentation and editing skills (Glade 3). Because all students enrolled in
English 109X will be concurrently enrolled in upper-division writing intensive courses
from any department, the tutorial addresses all aspects of the writing process as well as
discourse conventions of the particular disciplines represented and addressing the task
sets presented in particular writing assignments. The tutorial is a credit/no credit course
that requires regular attendance and participation by students. Learning outcomes are
stated on the proposed course description for English 109X:
Students will:

be more aware of their own writing processes, including prewriting,
drafting, revising, and editing;

develop an increased understanding of the importance of giving and
receiving feedback throughout the writing process;
13
Please see Chapter 1 for more specific information about my research methodology and rationale,
including how pilot program participants were selected.
64

develop an increased understanding of the discourse conventions of
academic discourse communities;

develop critical self-reflection and self-assessment skills through
writing.
(Glade 1)
These outcomes are achieved by creating a tutorial course that strongly emphasizes
writing as a process and gives students the tools they need to succeed in upper-division
WI courses. Tutorial instructors are graduate students or advanced undergraduate
students from across the disciplines hired, trained, and supervised by the GWAR
Coordinator, Dr. Fiona Glade.
Data Collection
After receiving approval from the Institutional Review Board, the data collection
for this study focused on the year-long pilot that began in the fall of 2008 and ended in
the spring of 2009 and included six sections total (three sections per semester). The forms
of data consisted of:

Initial student surveys (see Appendix B).

Collection of students’ reading and writing journals posted on the class
Blackboard site throughout the semester.

Anonymous quantitative evaluations (see Appendix C).

Anonymous qualitative evaluations (see Appendix D).

Review of the two reflective essays assigned by the tutorial instructors.
65
-Section 2Findings
Pilot Participant Information
The first data I collected from students was the Initial Survey designed to gather
some information about the population of students in the pilot. Students completed these
forms during the second class meeting. Several questions were designed to capture the
diversity of students in terms of their declared majors and the WI course in which they
enrolled as a co-requisite of English 109X. For such questions, I did not omit any
answers. For the purposes of this table, majors are listed by academic program. Certain
majors such as Business Marketing and International Business appear under the category
Business Administration since that is the official title of the program. Double majors are
listed as such.
The survey results indicated that students in this study came from a variety of
majors and were enrolled in a diverse set of WI courses (see Table 4). As Table 4
demonstrates, the fifty-eight students who filled out the initial survey represented twentyfour different majors.
66
Table 4
List of Majors
Business Administration (18)
Family & Consumer Sciences (1)
Child Development (2)
Graphic Design (1)
Civil Engineering (2)
Health Science (3)
Communications (3)
History (1)
Computer Engineering (1)
Kinesiology (1)
Criminal Justice (1)
Mathematics (1)
Double Major (Business Administration/English) (1)
Mechanical Engineering (1)
Education (1)
Nursing (2)
Electrical Engineering (1)
Psychology (3)
English (2)
Social Work (4)
Environmental Studies (2)
Sociology (3)
Ethnic Studies (1)
Speech Pathology & Audiology (2)
24 different majors total
Students in the pilot were co-enrolled in one of fourteen different WI courses (see
Table 5). One of the unique aspects of the English 109X program is the diversity of WI
courses in which students may enroll. As I explain in the discussion section and later in
Chapter 5, although this diversity complicates the work of English 109X tutorial
instructors, it also enables the English 109X course to emphasize writing as the course
subject.
Table 5
List of WI Courses
Anthropology 102 (3)
Criminal Justice 195 (1)
Ethnic Studies 100 (21)
Environmental Studies 112 (2)
Family & Consumer Sciences 112 (4)
Government 165 (1)
Humanities & Religious Studies 136 (1)
Humanities & Religious Studies 140 (3)
Music 129 (7)
Recreation, Parks, & Tourism Administration 122 (16)
Social Work 126 (1)
Women’s Studies 138 (1)
14 different courses total
The Initial Survey also asked students about their past experiences with writing
courses and writing tutoring at community colleges and/or CSUS. The purpose of these
questions about previous courses that emphasized writing was to discern what kind of
67
writing instruction students had prior to English 109X. Students wrote one or more
answers depending upon how many courses they had taken, so the total number of
responses was greater than the number of surveys collected.
There were 41 responses that I coded as required lower-division English courses
(see Table 6). As expected, students indicated these were transferable General Education
(GE) courses they took in preparation for transferring to CSUS.
Table 6
Students’ Past Experiences with Courses that Emphasized Writing at Other Institutions
Course Type
# of Responses
41
Required lower-division English
18
Other course
6
No Response
4
No courses taken at other institutions
Many students reported taking at least one non-English course that emphasized
writing at CSUS, which is not only exciting news for the University Writing Across the
Curriculum program, but also indicates that students come to English 109X with some
experience in disciplinary writing conventions (see Table 7).
Table 7
Students’ Past Experiences with Courses that Emphasized Writing at CSUS
Course
Other non-English courses
# of Responses
45
None
English 20 (Sophomore Composition)
Most in-major classes
English 1A (First-year Composition)
English (unspecified course)
English 1 (Basic Writing)
16
9
5
3
2
1
No response
1
68
It is important to remember that CSUS has a large number of junior-level transfers from
regional community colleges, which explains why 16 students responded “none.”
Students who indicated having taken no courses emphasizing writing could likely be
first-semester transfer students who completed their lower-division Composition course
work elsewhere. Transfer students have historically struggled with the Writing
Proficiency Exam (WPE) and consequently receive a score of “6” or lower in the old
GWAR system, so it makes sense that the group for the English 109X pilot program
consisted of many such transfer students.
The Initial Survey also asked students if they had ever taken a tutorial course like
English 109X before. In my past experience as a tutorial tutor for the English 1X (firstyear level) tutorial I discovered that students are sometimes skeptical about the benefits
of tutorial courses emphasizing the importance of peer-response if they have not been a
participant in such a writing group before. The survey results indicated only a minority of
students (13 of 58) had prior experience with a tutorial course (see Table 8).
Table 8
Students’ Past Experiences with Group Tutorial Courses Like English 109X
Response
# of Responses
No
43
Yes (no specific course mentioned)
7
14
CSUS Learning Skills Center course
3
English tutorial at community college
3
No response
2
14
The Learning Skills Center offers two levels of preparatory courses for students in various program areas
including “composition, reading, study skills, mathematics, English for multilingual speakers, and special
services for students with learning disabilities” (Learning Skills Center). According to the CSUS University
course catalogue, some Learning Skills courses only count for “workload credit” which means units earned
“may be counted only toward establishing fulltime enrollment status.” Such courses are considered
“precollege” and, thus, are “not applicable to the bachelor’s degree” (“Learning Skills”).
69
Similarly, the Initial Survey asked students if they had any prior experience with a
writing tutor and, if so, to describe the tutoring. 12 of the 58 respondents reported having
prior experience with a writing tutor. Most of these responses described visiting the
CSUS University Writing Center to work one-on-one with a tutor, but others mentioned
visiting a writing center or taking a tutorial course at a Sacramento area community
college. Another two students reported working with a tutor designated for a specific
class (see Table 9).
Table 9
Students’ Past Experiences with Writing Tutors
Response
Yes
No
# of Responses
12
46
Descriptions:
University Writing Center at CSUS (6)
Writing Across the Curriculum Writing Center at local community college (2)
Tutorial course at local community colleges (2)
CSUS course with a section tutor (2)
Student Responses about Learning Goals
Several questions on the Initial Survey were purposefully written to be openended in order to record students’ learning goals for the WI and English 109X courses.
The first such question asked students about their goals for their WI courses. Student
responses varied from the pragmatic (“Honestly, I just want to pass the course”) to the
idealistic (“To get an A in the class”) to the humorous (“Kick the perverbial [sic] English
butt, writing-wise”). Many students listed multiple goals, which fit into several different
categories. For instance, one student wrote that she/he wanted “To pass the course and
hopefully be able to express my opinion in English better.” This response was recorded
70
under just pass and communicate ideas more effectively. Because of such multifaceted
goals, the number of responses listed on Table 10 exceeds the total number of surveys
collected. Aside from the pragmatic goal of passing the course, a large number of
responses listed improve writing skill as their main goal for their WI course (see Table
10).
Table 10
Students’ Goals for WI Course
Goal
# of Responses
Pass WI course
Just pass (12)
Pass with an A or a B (11)
Improve writing skills
General improvement or “Become a better writer” (10)
Improve weaknesses (3)
Improve focus in writing (2)
Improve structure (2)
Improve Grammar (2)
Clarity (1)
Style (1)
Write faster (1)
Understand specific writing formats (1)
Produce better written work
23
Increase knowledge of subject matter of WI course
Communicate ideas more effectively
Increase confidence as a writer
Other
Express self
Improve time management
4
4
3
3
1
1
Enjoy self
1
21
5
21 responses were categorized under improve writing skills. Students expressed this goal
in a variety of ways.
71
For example, the following quotes were all counted under the improve writing skills
category:
To become a better academic writer.
To strengthen my writing weaknesses.
Improve my writing skills.
Be a better writer and improve on my weakness.
Table 10 also includes sub-lists for the top two categories of response to show the diverse
ways students articulated what it would mean to improve their writing skills. This sub-list
was created from student responses that listed a particular writing skill they would like to
improve. For example, these two responses mention specific writing skills:
To learn more about sentence structure or grammatical structures.
To become a more structure writer.
The second open-ended goal-orientated question on the Initial Survey was
designed to solicit students’ goals for the English 109X course. Again, responses were
organized into categories and sub-lists, if necessary (see Table 11).
72
Table 11
Student Goals for English 109X
Goal
# of Responses
Improve writing skill
General improvement or “Become a better writer” (23)
Improve weaknesses (2)
Improve structure (3)
Improve Grammar (3)
Clarity (3)
Remember or learn new writing techniques (3)
Style(1)
Expand vocabulary (1)
Understand specific writing formats (1)
Understand particular citation method (1)
Learn more about writing process (1)
35
Pass English 109X
Use 109X to pass WI
Take advantage of extra help
Get feedback
Improve time management
Increase confidence as a writer
13
5
5
2
2
2
Give feedback
Mutual help from peers
None, I see no value in this class as it adds no substantive knowledge
Produce better written products
1
1
1
1
Interestingly, in their responses about their goals for English 109X, there was a
preponderance of responses falling into the first category on Table 11 improve writing
skills. This indicates students’ awareness of English 109X’s function as a writing tutorial
rather a traditional content-based adjunct tutorial.
Similarly to the coding process for Table 10, student goals about specific writing
skills are presented in sub-lists under the heading improve writing skills. For example, the
statement: “I would like to understand more of my weaknesses in writing and be able to
fix them” was coded as a goal to improve writing skills category and listed on the sub-list
as improve weaknesses. One student wrote the following goals for English 109X: “To
produce a high quality paper. To have a better understanding of the writing process and to
73
feel good about my final papers.” This response fell into several categories. It was
marked in the increase confidence as a writer because the student indicated she would
like to “feel good” about her final drafts. This statement was also counted in the improve
writing skills category because she/he mentions wanting to better understand the writing
process. Lastly, this response was counted in the produce better written work category
because of the student’s statement about wanting to “feel better” about her final written
products.
Student responses about wanting to feel more comfortable with writing were read
as desire to increase writerly confidence. For example, statements such as “To increase
my comfort level with when writing a paper” were coded as increasing confidence as a
writer.
Some students were more specific when listing their goals for English 109X. One
student responded that her/his main goal was “To be able to write clearly and
understandable [sic] for the reader.” Another wrote that her/his goal was “To gain more
competency with APA style to work out the kinks in my writing processes.” Several
students further specified what they meant by qualifying their statements with
parenthetical elements. These two quotes demonstrate such qualification:
To learn to write properly (grammar improvement).
Perfect my writing skill, organization.
One participant focused more on specific concerns about choices of structure and genre
when she/her reported this goal: “To be a stronger writer. Have a better understanding
how to structure a paper, and learn the difference between the different types of papers
74
you can write.” Similarly, another student wrote that her/his goal for English 109X was:
“To provide a support base for my writing in a field highly foreign to me.” Both of these
statements evidence the kind of rhetorical awareness expected of upper-division students.
The first student is obviously aware that different academic genres and understands there
are the differences between those “types of papers.” The second student seems highly
aware of potential disciplinary differences in regards to writing and sees the tutorial as a
“support base” for navigating those disciplinary differences.
In response to these two questions (their goals for their WI course and their goals
for English 109X) some students also extended their goals of improving their writing
skills to future academic contexts. For instance, one student wrote that she/he would like
“To gain the skills for not only my writing intensive course but also to take those with me
in future classes.” Other participants responded with similar future academic contexts in
mind:
To polish my writing skills to the level that I will be able to function
successfully at the graduate level.
To improve my writing for my future career.
I want to improve my writing and prepare for my thesis.
Student Responses About Components of English 109X:
The Anonymous Quantitative evaluations were distributed at the end of the
semester and asked students to rate components the course on particular scales adapted
from the Likert Scale. A total of 48 evaluations were collected from five of the six
sections due to a scheduling conflict with the sixth section.
75
The first part of the evaluation asked students evaluate four components of
English 109X in terms of how it helped them successfully complete their WI courses.
Components in this context refers to classroom activities that were part of the design of
English 109X curriculum such as analyzing prompts for writing assignments and learning
how to respond to others’ writing. The first four questions asked students to evaluate the
extent to which particular components of English 109X helped them complete their WI
course using one of the following five ratings:
1
Not helpful at all
2
Minimally helpful
3
Neutral
4
Helpful
5
Very helpful
Student response was generally positive for these four components. 39 of 48
students responded that learning how to read and respond to their peers’ writing was
helpful or very helpful in completing their WI courses (see fig. 1). Fewer students (17 of
48) rated workshopping prompts for major writing assignments in WI course as very
helpful. Interestingly, students rated receiving feedback on drafts of WI papers as less
helpful than learning how to read and respond to peers’ writing (see fig. 1).
76
30
Figure 1
Extent to Which Components of English 109X were Helpful to Students
Completing Their WI Courses
Number of Students
25
Workshopping prompts for major
writing assignments for WI course
Receiving feedback on drafts of
writing assignments for WI course
20
15
Discussing aspects of effective
academic writing
10
Learning how to read and respond
to peers' writing
5
0
Not helpful Minimally
at all
helpful
Neutral
Helpful
Very
helpful
Reponse
Student Response about English 109X Course Learning Outcomes
The next section on the evaluation asked students whether or not they perceived
that English 109X helped them complete a variety of potential learning outcomes. The
first four outcomes listed are expected learning outcomes listed on the English 109X
program syllabus. I included another five potential learning outcomes that were outside
of the official course goals. The evaluation asked students to select one of the following
five ratings that most closely corresponded to their assessment of whether the tutorial
helped them meet a particular learning outcome:
77
1
Strongly disagree
2
Disagree
3
Neither agree nor disagree
4
Agree
5
Strongly agree
Of the four English 109X learning outcomes, half of the respondents (24 of 48) strongly
agreed that the course helped them become more aware of their own writing processes
(see fig. 2). 21 of 48 students responded that they “strongly agree” that English 109X
helped them develop an increased understanding of the important of giving and receiving
feedback through the writing process (see fig. 2). Overall students responded that they
agreed English 109X met the four learning outcome. The one outcome that received a
significant amount of negative responses was the goal of helping students “develop an
increased understanding of the discourse conventions of academic discourse
communities.” 15 of 48 students responded neutrally about that particular goal.
78
Figure 2
Perceived Extent to English 109X Helped Students Meet Learning
Outcomes
(English 109X Course Expected Learning Outcomes)
English 109X helped me become
more aware of own writing
process
Number of Students
30
25
English 109X helped me develop
an increased understanding of the
importance of giving and
receiving feedback throughout the
writing process
English 109X helped me develop
an increased understanding of the
discourse conventions of academic
discourse communities
20
15
10
5
0
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Neither
agree nor
disagree
Response
Agree
Strongly
agree
English 109X helped me develop
critical self-reflection, self-editing,
and self-assessment skills
Student Responses Evaluating the Success of the Pilot Course:
The last section of this evaluation asked students to rate five other outcomes or
perceived benefits of English 109X on the same five point scale. Roughly one-third (17
of 47) students responded that they strongly agreed that English 109X helped them:

Complete minor writing assignments, such as homework or other
informal writing, for their WI course

Complete major writing assignments, such as essays and other graded
assignments

Understand the prompts for the WI course
(see fig. 3)
79
Figure 3
Perceived Benefits of English 109X for Students
18
helped me complete minor
writing assignments (such as
regular homework or other
informal writing)
helped me complete major
writing assignments (such as
longer essays or other
assignments that were graded)
helped me understand the
prompts for writing assignments
for my WI course
16
Number of Students
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Neither
agree nor
disagree
Response
Agree
Strongly
agree
helped me manage my time more
effectively in terms of
completing my work for my WI
course
helped me understand written
feedback about my writing from
my WI instructor
Student Responses Qualitative Evaluation of the Pilot Course
In addition to the quantitative evaluation, I also distributed an anonymous
qualitative evaluations comprised of eleven questions (see Appendix D). The open-ended
questions on this evaluation asked several questions about the English 109X and solicited
feedback on particular aspects of the course. In the tables below I have included the
student responses to the questions most pertinent to this study. All data was coded into
categories in order to track overall trends. Because this purpose of this evaluation was to
gather more qualitative data, I also include student quotes from the survey to highlight
individual responses.
80
The first two questions on this evaluation asked students what did and did not
work well for them in the English 109X class. Table 12 shows the coded data for student
responses about what worked well.
Table 12
Components of 109X Perceived to Work Well
Student Response
# of Responses
Peer Response
22
Classroom discussions
10
Journals on WebCT
8
Tutor helpfulness
8
Assignments helped improve writing product for Writing Intensive class
6
Process essays
3
Small class (size of the class)
3
Freedom in class
2
Revision techniques
2
Time allotted to think about writing
2
Workshop Scripts
2
Cohort created based upon writing intensive course
1
Low stakes
1
Students’ responses suggest that the peer-response component of the course worked well
for many students. One student responded with the following comment: “The editing of
other peers papers gave me a new perspective.” Responses that used one of several
different phrases (editing, responding, giving feedback, reading, giving suggestions)
which were all coded into the peer-response category even though such activities may
have slightly different connotations to Composition Studies specialists. Students seemed
to be referencing the same type of intellectual work with any one of these phrases.
Comments which specifically mention the role of talking about writing were
included in the classroom discussion sub-list. For example one participant reflected that
“Talking over, and about others writing obstacles and what works, doesn’t work in each
81
of our writing process” worked well for her/him. Another responded that the “ability to
ask questions and get responses” worked well for her/him in this course.
Other highlights of the responses to this first open-ended question included the
reading and writing journal posts on WebCT and tutor helpfulness (see Table 12).
Responses that fit into these two categories were relatively straightforward.
Another student wrote the following in response to the question about what
worked for her/him in this class: “The time I was allowed to think about writing.” The
student’s use of the phrase “time to think about writing” is evidence that for this one
student English 109X was an impetus for thinking about writing and engaging in critical
self-reflection about writing rather than simply producing texts. This particular example
encompasses a sentiment expressed in many of the student writing process essays I
collected from the participants.
The next question asked what did not work well for students. The most popular
response was that there was never enough class time. Some students offered a particular
reason for needing more class time, but most participants who choose to write a response
expressed the general idea that meeting once a week for fifty minutes was not enough
class time. For example, participants wrote the following comments in response to this
question about what did not work well for them:
The limited amount of class time.
50 min time allowance; should be increased.
It only met for one hour per week.
82
That we only meet once a week & not having enough time to get a lot of
feedback in class.
Students seemed to value the work that happened during class time since they suggested
future sections of English 109X have a longer class period. Some students specifically
mentioned extending the class period from fifty to seventy-five minutes as one of their
recommendations for the program in the Final Survey.
Final Survey Student Responses
This qualitative evaluation was also distributed at the end of the semester, but
unlike the Anonymous Evaluation, it asked students to respond to one open-ended
question focusing on students’ individual goals and another open-ended questions
focusing on what changes they would recommend for the English 109X program. The
survey included the following two questions:
1. How did English 109X help you meet your individual goals for your
WI course?
2. What specific changes you would recommend for the 109X program?
What are your reasons for suggesting these changes?
Many students responded that English 109X helped them improve their writing
process which in turn helped them better meet their individual goals for their WI courses.
One student attested to the positive effect of receiving feedback from peers prior to
submitting a draft: “I have come more comfortable sharing my writing with others,
whereas when I started this course I didn’t like other to read my writing.”
83
Other students gave more in-depth feedback about the particular skills they felt
they strengthen as a result of taking English 109X. For example, these two students wrote
the following reflections about the course:
English 109X helped me realized that I never fully grew from high school
to college writing. It helped focus my concerns on important elements of
critical thinking such as paying attention to my audience, tone, and
audience. Prior to this class I was more concerned with lower order
concerns such as grammar and spelling.
[English 109X] helped me meet my individual goals because I feel like I
have improved as a writer, and I have more confidence in my writing. I
have learned how to better myself at editing my paper and other’s [sic]
papers. I have learned how to make my papers flow better and make
statement using less words or being repetitive. I have learned little tricks
that really help wean out extra words like “that” and “which.” I have
gained confidence in my writing because I have done well on most of the
papers I turned in this semester.
Both reflections highlight several benefits of English 109X. Such benefits come in
the form of student learning (such as picking up the “little tricks” and learning editing
strategies) and student experience (such as gaining confidence in their writing and having
a positive peer-responding experience).
Some recommendations made by the participants include: allowing more class
time; making more connections to WI courses; cohorting students from the same WI
84
course into one section of English 109X; requiring fewer journal posts; and providing
more one-on-one time with the instructor. These recommendations will be discussed
further in the next section.
-Section 3Discussion
To begin my analysis of these findings, I returned to my preliminary research
questions which imply my initial hypotheses. Each question operates off the assumption
that the course would be beneficial for students, but attempts to create one particular lens
for analyzing exactly how it was beneficial to students and/or faculty.
Research question #1: How will English 109X be a resource for both students in and
instructors of Writing Intensive courses?
Some students, but not as many as I predicted, found the class helpful in terms of
helping them complete the WI course. From the student responses and tutor interviews, it
seems that it may be more difficult to coordinate a schedule for students to bring in drafts
for workshop than the tutors and I had anticipated. For instance, several students
indicated that they feel as though they did not get enough feedback on their writing. In
fourteen weeks, it would be ideal to have each student be the featured writer responsible
for bringing in a longer draft for the whole group to respond to at least once; however,
this was not the case in most sections. One possible explanation for this scheduling
difficulty would be a preponderance of WI course instructors assigning long research
papers which created a bottleneck of students with long papers near the end of the
semester. As the English 109X program continues to develop over the next few years, the
85
GWAR Coordinator should continue to evaluate exactly how the tutorial is functioning as
a resource for students and assess how the course sections can be better organized to
allow students as many opportunities for feedback as possible.
According to my research, the English 109X pilot sections were not resources for
instructors at all, which is to be expected given that the goal of the course is to help
students. In the pilot and current English 109X program, WI instructors are not officially
informed of who is in the tutorial unless the student chooses to disclose that to her or his
instructor. On one hand, it would arguably be beneficial for the WI instructors to know
which of their students received a four-unit placement and were, thus, identified by
highly trained placement exam readers as needing a little extra help to pass a WI course
with a grade of C- or better. Such transparency could promote more communication
between WI instructors and English 109X tutors. This communication should be about
the writing assignments for the course, not course content, because English 109X tutors
cannot and should not be responsible for tutoring students on content specific to the WI
course. The goals of English 109X extend far beyond a traditional adjunct tutorial and
tutors much approach the teaching of writing from a critical perspective that
acknowledges disciplinary conventions as well as general conventions in academic
discourse. On the other hand, some WI faculty may not understand the tutorial and
therefore may purposefully or unwittingly hold students accountable (in a negative way)
for getting extra help their peers who received a placement of three units rather than four
would not receive. Further publicity of the new GWAR process, specifically more
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explanation of what the goals of English 109X are, would help alleviate this potential
issue.
Research Question #2: What makes English 109X a valuable addition to the current
sequence of writing courses for CSUS students?
According to the results of my research, English 109X is effective in a number of
ways. Specifically, student responses suggest that English 109X:

Supported writing as process of skills that involves more than just
creating a final product for submission.

Demonstrated the value of giving and receiving feedback and allowing
writers to practice several roles such as writer, reader, responder and
reviser.

Raised student confidence.

Asked writers to do significant amounts of critical self-reflection and
revision.

Reinforced that writing is a social process and not just a soloperformance.
Research Question #3: How will particular stakeholders react to the course?
Most students appreciated the course, or at least understood how it could be
valuable to them. The majority of surveys and evaluations were positive in a number of
ways. Students seemed to appreciate the opportunity to receive feedback on their drafts.
Many also expressed that they liked how the tutorial was narrowly focused on writing.
Many students also commented on how helpful their tutors were.
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Although this study did not collect specific data to address how other stakeholders
reacted to the 109X program, I did gather anecdotal evidence from my work as the cocoordinator and staff trainer for the English 109X program that suggests faculty members
and administrators reacted positively to English 109X as an addition to the English
Department Writing Program. At Writing Placement for Juniors (WPJ) exam scorings,
for example, WI course faculty expressed that the course seemed to be a valuable
addition to the scoring possibilities because it allowed for a middle ground between the
three- and six-unit placements. Campus administrators seem to appreciate the fact that the
four-unit placement allows students to complete their GWAR course work in one
semester rather than two and, thus, decreases time to graduation. In addition, the English
109X tutors also reacted positively to the course. In their end-of-semester interviews,
tutors for the pilot sections mentioned how they appreciated the opportunity to gain more
experience teaching, particularly to teach at the junior level in a cross-disciplinary course.
Research Question #4: How will English 109X help students successfully complete their
Writing Intensive courses and prepare them to become successful upper-division writers
within their major?
The narrow scope of this research question should be adjusted to include how the
tutorial helped students become better upper-division writing in general, not just in their
major since most students do not take a WI in their major. Students responded that
English 109X helped them complete WI course assignments, specifically that the tutorial
helped them understand prompts via class discussions or brainstorms about their
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assignment, gave them an opportunity to write multiple drafts of an assignment, and
encouraged them to revise and edit assignments before submission.
On the course evaluations, students also claimed that the English 109X tutorial
helped them with time-management. Specifically, 29 of 48 students indicated they agreed
or strongly agreed that English 109X helped them manage their time more effectively in
terms of completing work for their WI course. Although improving time-management
skills is not a goal of the tutorial, this reflection from students can be interpreted as
evidence that the tutorial forced students to be accountable for drafts, and, therefore,
forced them to complete a drafting process instead of completing a paper last-minute
under pressure.
Students also reported that English 109X helped them learn more about writing
skills in general (more than they had in their WI course). As previously stated, 42 of 48
students agreed or strongly agreed that English 109X helped them become more aware of
their own writing process including prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Also, 31 of
48 students agreed or strongly agreed that English 109X helped them develop an
increased understanding of the discourse conventions of academic discourse
communities. Such an emphasis on teaching writing as a process, coupled with extensive
workshop experience correlates with many best practices in Composition.
Student feedback on the pilot program also suggests that students found the
opportunities for feedback to be very beneficial. Many students asked for more feedback
opportunities and some students asked specifically for more individual time with the tutor
in order to receive more in-depth feedback. Considering the philosophy of group tutorials
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such as English 109X, this request for more one-on-one time with the tutor is unlikely to
be granted because such an emphasis on the tutor’s response would negate some of the
authority given to students as knowledgeable peers.
When asked how they perceived that the English 109X class helped their
performance in their WI course, 18 of 40 students indicated they expected an increase of
at least 1/3 of a letter grade (for example, moving up from a B+ to an A-). Of those who
reported expecting a change, the majority (11 of 18) anticipated their WI grade would be
a full letter grade higher than if they had not taken English 109X concurrently (see fig. 4).
Figure 4
Perceived Grade Increase in WI Course
12
Number of Students
10
8
6
4
2
0
Two letter One and 2/3 One and 1/3 One letter
2/3 letter
grade
increase
increase
grade
grade
increase
increase
Perceived Grade Increase
1/3 letter
grade
increase
Furthermore, the number of students expecting to get an A in their WI course with
the assistance of English109X was twice as high as the number who predicted receiving
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an A if they had not had the tutorial as a concurrent requirement. The A grade range is
where the most dramatic changes occurred (see fig. 5). This high percentage of students
who predicted they would earn an A in their WI is further evidence of a higher level of
confidence about their own writing skills and confidence about meeting the expectations
of the WI course.
Figure 5
Anticipated Final Grade in WI Course
18
Number of Responses
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
A
A-
B+
B+
B-
with 109X
C+
C+
Grade
C-
D+
D
D-
F
without 109X
Specific Recommendations for the English 109X Program
Recommendation #1: Help align tutorial with WI courses by providing more oversight of
the WI courses.
Many students articulated concerns that the tutorial did not correlate with their WI
course as much as they would have liked. Many expressed that they would have preferred
to have been cohorted by WI class so they could work on the same assignment as their
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peers. However, considering the fact that the pilot groups came from thirty-one different
majors and were enrolled in fourteen different writing courses, it seems unrealistic to try
to cohort students based on WI course enrollment. On a curricular level there is certainly
opportunity to improve both the WI courses and the English 109X courses by aligning
them more. For example, more oversight of the WI courses by English Department
Writing Programs Committee would help programmatization of the WI courses with a
common set of learning outcomes and course expectations, which, in turn, would help the
English 109X tutors more easily coordinate their tutorial with the work of any given WI
course.
Recommendation #2: Consider alternative means of scheduling English 109X sections
Students in the pilot program suggested that enrollment in English109X be
carefully controlled so that more students are cohorted with peers from their WI courses.
Although such cohorting might have benefits in terms of students having shared texts and
assignments for their WI course, such restricted enrollment would be so logistically
complicated that it is an unfeasible suggestion with the current registration system at
CSUS. Moreover, cohorting based on WI course enrollment would detract from the
tutorial’s focus on writing in the academy.
Alternatively, some students involved in the pilot suggested English 109X
registration be based on schedule instead of WI course enrollment. For example, several
students noted that it was particularly difficult to pick a section for English 109X due to
the fact that they were fifty minute courses, instead of seventy-five minutes, which is the
norm for most undergraduate general education courses. For example, if a student
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enrolled in a 10-10:50am section of English 109X, she would not be able to enroll in a
10:30-11:45am course, which is a very popular timeslot at CSUS. Another suggestion
offered by students was to extend the in-class time for the course. Several students
recommended the tutorial be extended from fifty minutes to seventy-five minutes or even
two hours once a week. This suggestion indicates a high value placed on the work that
was done during class time. Students stated that they would like to do more workshops
and peer reviews, which would be doable with extended class times. I suggest the
University Writing Program Committee assess how effective and student-friendly each
option is for scheduling during the next few years of the English 109X program.
Final Thoughts
The data I gathered proves that the English 109X program allows for more
opportunity to create a critical writing space for upper-division students that emphasizes
authentic, analytical, and self-aware intellectual engagement—all practices employed by
successful writers. If the ultimate goal of writing programs can be distilled into the idea
that we want to foster the literacy development of our students, then we must establish
practice in concert with theory and, most importantly, in conjunction with students’ own
learning goals to make the learning as valuable to them as possible. Only then we will be
closer to achieving the dynamic and self-aware pedagogy we may label critical because it
is conscientiously and carefully revised through a process of action and reflection and is
both formed and informed by contextual factors. The English 109X pilot program was
just one step in a complicated process. I hope the voices of the students in the pilot group
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and in future English 109X classes can continue to be heard as more stakeholders engage
in critical reflection and informed action.
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Chapter 5
CONCLUSION
-Section 1Reflective Research Narrative
The focus of my graduate work at CSUS has been considering new practices that
would help writing programs empower students as stakeholders. However, through the
process of writing such an extensive (and socially-informed) text as a thesis, I found
myself circling around some well-received and oft-employed tropes in Composition. I
found it necessary to investigate what we really mean by them, and to consider how those
meanings can be re-imagined to be student-centered and socially-informed in a more
nuanced way.
At the onset of this project, it made sense to begin with large-scale theoretical
concerns that would include my research of the new English 109X pilot program:
namely, assessment and curriculum design. Thus, the theoretical framework based on a
synthesis of Critical Pedagogy and Fourth Generation Evaluation Theory presented in
Chapter 2 allowed me to follow my research with a sense of curiosity and an acute
awareness of concerns of authority, ownership, and engagement. Those factors are
indelibly social in nature, which guided my research trajectory to a more overt emphasis
on the social nature of writing by the conclusion of this process. Both the constructivist
methodologies and responsive focusing (see Chapter 2 p. 14) were social in nature, but
what I was left with at the end of Chapter 2 was a list of feel-good but arguably vaguelydefined concepts such as critical teaching, critical agents, agency, empowerment, social
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action, authority. In an attempt to move beyond this linguistic roadblock without
diverting too far from my initial research interests, I returned to broader concerns of
language and power. Those issues created the social spark that shaped much of this
conclusion. Revisiting the undeniably social aspect of writing seemed requisite,
especially when attempting to argue for students to be allowed more authority in a
writing program. The political nature of education stems from the social-construction of
educational paradigms, and issues of students’ authority in writing instruction denote
significant concerns about such politicizing.
The more narrowly-focused literature review in Chapter 3 served to provide the
necessary context for my original local research about the English 109X pilot program.
Without the contribution of Anne Ruggles Gere, my focus on the local may have possibly
seemed disconnected. Chapter 3 forms a more keenly focused inquiry into issues of
collaborative learning and writing instruction. While writing Chapter 3 I created of a list
of ideal criteria for tutorial courses like English 109X. This list originated as a rubric, but
was later converted to a list of goals, which I realized via discussion with my thesis
director was more valuable: to write about the goals of a tutorial was a way to return to
the social nature of writing as opposed to evaluating the success of the pilot program.
Thus, Chapter 4 is perhaps the most straight-forward chapter since it includes my report
of data explained from my perspective as researcher.
In the later stages of reflecting and revising, I initially worried that my thesis
would seem disjointed, with the process apparently leading me on a different trajectory
than I had originally envisioned. However, by trusting the process and allowing myself to
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research reflexively, I was able to trust the writing process I engaged in over the last two
years and be pleasantly surprised by the points of congruence and threads of continuity
that occurred naturally across the span of my thesis chapters. Now, on to the conclusions
that came by way of perennial pre-writing, rigorous reading and rereading, and countless
conversations with my advisors, my fellow thesisers, and anyone patient enough to listen
to me fuddle my way through my ideas for this project.
Conclusions
As university writing programs reflect and revise their practice, it is crucial that
they strive to be as student-centered as possible. The changes in the GWAR program at
CSUS are a model for such a paradigm shift because they relies on students functioning
as more active stakeholders both at the placement moment through the Directed SelfPlacement portion of the new GWAR process and within the instructional setting of the
English 109X tutorial course. Specifically, English 109X requires student engage in deep
collaboration and such deep collaboration is inherently social. The social nature of
writing is now an axiom in Composition and disciplinary conversations about the
teaching of writing commonly reflect that. However, one explicit way to examine how a
particular instructional context (such as an English 109X course) allows students to
engage in such work is to review the goals for a collaborative learning situation.
Goals of Collaborative Interdisciplinary Writing Tutorials
Anne Gere concludes that writing groups can “contribute to our understanding of
what it means to write. Specifically, writing groups highlight the social aspect of writing.
They provide tangible evidence that writing involves human interaction as well as
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solitary inscription” (Gere 3). As such, the main purpose of the English 109X tutorial is
to provide an opportunity for students to learn about writing as a complex process that is
social in nature. After consulting the English 109X program materials and discussing the
course goals with Dr. Glade I have surmised the following five sub-goals that support this
over-arching purpose.
English 109X:
1. Offers a subjective15 and interdisciplinary context for writing.
2. Helps students become more invested in their own education by
encouraging student agency through increasing writing task selfefficacy.
3. Give students the amount of help they need exactly when they need it:
4. Foster rhetorical awareness in the form of writers becoming more
aware of themselves as academic writers.
5. Functioning as a collaborative learning environment, one in which
tutorial instructors teach students how to work collaboratively.
Goal #1: Offer a subjective and interdisciplinary context for writing.
English 109X does not operate as a traditional adjunct tutorial would because it is
not designed to be a supplement to the WI course in terms of course content. The
objective of English 109X is to help students become more aware as academic writers,
which makes the tutorial focused, but with diverse perspectives. Because academic
discourse defies a tidy definition and requires discourse participants to make rhetorical
15
By subjective I mean contextually-bound.
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choices based on contextual factors, it makes sense to have a tutorial honor that diversity
by acknowledging that each discipline has its own conventions and expectations for
academic prose.
Students in English 109X have an authentic audience for their drafts since they
are required to bring their assignments to the 109X workshops and share them with peers
with whom they have worked throughout the course of the semester. Gere’s research
supports this practice: she explains that one of unique characteristics of writing groups is
that “In temporal terms, all writing groups provide response with an immediacy
impossible in teachers’ marginalia or reviewers’ evaluations” and “In physical terms,
writing groups reduce the distance between the writer and reader” (3). Moreover, English
109X gives students an opportunity to achieve critical distance from the writing
assignments in their WI courses.
Goal #2: Helps students become more invested in their own education by encouraging
student agency through increasing writing task self-efficacy.
As Parajes and Johnson’s study proved, “what people do is often better predicted
by their beliefs about their capabilities than by measures of what they are actually capable
of accomplishing” (313-4). Working to increase student self-efficacy would help
encourage students to take more ownership and authority over their own writing and
subsequently position them to be more powerful stakeholders. One unexpected outcome
of the English 109X course was that students expressed an increase in confidence in their
writing skills. As a result, they expressed pride in their written work.
Goal #3: Give students the amount of help they need exactly when they need it.
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Like most group tutorials, English 109X is designed to give students multiple
chances to get feedback. The English 109X emphasis on writing processes means that
ideally students receive responses to pre-writing, in-progress drafts, and finalized texts. In
addition, the tutorial places emphasis on Higher Order Concerns and delays attention to
Lower Order Concerns until the last stages of the writing process. Adjunct tutorials at the
first-year level, which have become a common method of mainstreaming, operate off a
similar premise that tutorial courses can give students the help they need within the real
context of a first-year composition course rather than requiring students to take a
semester of basic writing before their first-year composition course.16
Goal #4: Fosters rhetorical awareness in the form of writers becoming more aware of
themselves as academic writers.
Conventional notions of rhetorical awareness include an increased understanding
of the rhetorical situation, including elements such as audience, purpose, message, and
context; however, my definition of rhetorical awareness diverts from traditional notions
of rhetorical awareness by the addition of students becoming more aware of their writerly
selves. Through critical self-reflection students can gain insight and understanding about
how to approach diverse writing situations by considering the way they wrote in
particular rhetorical situations. Because the tutorial is so adroitly focused on writing,
For an example of tutorials as a means of mainstreaming see Judith Rodby and Tom Fox’s “Basic Work
and Material Acts: The Ironies, Discrepancies, and Disjunctures of Basic Writing and Mainstreaming.”
Two relatively recent MA thesis projects at CSUS University also present arguments about English 1X, a
first-year tutorial course that began at CSUS in 2000. See: Schmidt “Uncovering the Benefits of English
1X: A Consideration of Mainstreaming at California State University, Sacramento”; and Flynn “Using
Small Group to Tutorials to Mainstream Basic Writers at California State University, Sacramento”.
16
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students have an opportunity to try out a variety of strategies and as a result become more
aware of their own writing processes.
Goal #5: functioning as a collaborative learning environment, one in which tutorial
instructors teach students how to work collaboratively.
This teaching of collaboration includes providing ample opportunities for students
to assume different roles in the class community (e.g. writer, reviewer, and reviser) and
encouraging them to start thinking about those roles being simultaneous and
complrmentary. For example, for many of my students in the past, it has proven to be
helpful to encourage them to “read like a writer” or even “read as a teacher” as a way to
explain to them how to read with a critical eye. In her article “Improving Students’
Responses to their Peers’ Essays,” Nancy Grimm explains that “students do need
guidance through the response process, but they need a framework rather than a
blueprint” (92). As such, a collaborative workshop environment includes a clear
structure, while still allowing enough flexibility for activities to be organic so that
students can make their own meaning and not just solicit cookie-cutter responses. Grimm
explains that some of struggles students may encounter when they are first getting
acclimated to the idea of peer-response occur “Because students have for years been
trained to answer rather than ask questions” and, consequently, “they need to work hard
to perform the question-asking roles” (Grimm 92). With such a scaffolding and
opportunity to practice such roles, students can learn to take the hybrid position of readerwriter-responder and offer feedback on a draft with a specific purpose.
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Grimm notes that “Students [in workshops] often serve as surrogate critics. If
someone else will be evaluating the final piece, they must role-play that audience and
they must know the criteria that will be used for evaluation” (Grimm 92). Such roleplaying also helps build students’ critical reading, writing, and thinking skills while also
allowing them to assume specific imagined audiences and give a response from that
position.
-Section 2The Social Nature of Writing
“[S]een historically this 21st century writing marks the beginning of a
new era in literacy, a period we might call the Age of Composition, a
period where composers become composers not through direct and
formal instruction alone (if at all), but rather through what we might
call an extracurricular social co-apprenticeship.” --Kathleen Blake
Yancey, “Writing in the 21st Century”
Why Groups Matter
Writing is undoubtedly a social act: we write to learn, to express, to protest, to
reach out, to enhance our understanding of the world. When educators endeavor to teach
any literacy skill, they must nurture writing as a tool for social participation both inside
and outside the classroom. Although writing and the teaching of writing have been
perennial topics of academic conversation, critical inquiry regarding the social aspect of
writing—particularly issues of collaboration in writing groups—is necessary to protect
and develop such an important support service for students in a climate of disastrous
budget cuts to higher education.
In her 2004 College Composition and Communication Conference address
Kathleen B. Yancey declared, “Literacy today is in the midst of a tectonic change”
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(“Made Not Only” 298). As Yancey pointed out nearly five years ago, “Even inside of
school, never before have writing and composing generated such diversity in definition”
(“Made Not Only” 298). This mercurial and diverse perspective on writing is both
unsettling and liberating for educators given the task of helping students become literate
individuals.
Contemporary students are inundated with information from many sources that
go beyond traditional print-based texts common in academia; students now regularly
consume and compose texts in a variety of contexts that go beyond the walls of the
academy and become acts of social participation. For example, online social networking
sites such as Facebook blend textual production/reception and social participation.
Traditional notions of literacy, however, rely on limited definitions of what it means to be
a literate individual in the context of contemporary society and, thus, fail to include such
new media. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary entry traces the etymology of the
word literate as a Middle English adaptation of the Latin word litterātus (formed from
littera, meaning letter), denoting a person “acquainted with letters or literature; educated,
instructed, learned.” The word literate was first used to describe being a learned person
around 1550, but literate meaning one who can read and write (specifically as the
opposite of illiterate) appeared much later in 1894.
The term literacy, however, has had a slightly different evolutionary trajectory.
Literacy, according to the OED, was formed as an antithesis to illiteracy in 1883, which
makes it a relatively young term in the English language. Cultural Studies scholar
Raymond Williams articulates this particular trajectory of the term in Keywords with the
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brief definition of literacy as “both an ability to read and a condition of being well-read”
(184). This conception of literacy is imbued with a similar stress on skills improved by
direct instruction and does not consider the social aspect of writing. Complicating this
notion of literacy as solely the ability able to read and write texts is one preliminary step
for justifying the social aspect of writing.
To turn to one of the preeminent texts in Cultural Studies, Williams’ Keywords
offers little information about the word literacy. In the entry on “Literature,” Williams’
etymology of the term includes a short discussion of the word literacy as one derivative
of literature: “Literature, that is to say, corresponded mainly with the modern meanings
of literacy which probably because the old meaning had then gone, was a new word from
1C19” (184, his emphasis). Williams continues: “It [literacy] meant both an ability to
read and a condition of being well-read. This can be confirmed from the negatives:
Illiterate usually meant poorly-read or ill-educated” (184). A similar perceptible
emphasis on a binary construction of the term literacy is also addressed in Sandra M.
Gustafson’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies when she writes, “To call
someone ‘illiterate’ in the seventeenth century did not mean that the person could not
read; it meant that individual was not possessed of learning, notably knowledge of the
classics” (145). But, as Gustafson explains, in the last half of the eighteenth century
culturally dominant “associations of literature with literacy and polite learning began to
change” as a result of the advent and widespread use of the printing press, and
consequently rising literacy rates (145). These factors, Gustafson argues, repositioned
notions of literacy from “polite learning” to more complex notions of literacy as “the
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basis of an informed citizenry and an essential component of democratic civic
responsibility” as a result of emerging accessibility to literacy for the general populace
(145). That shifted definition is where I argue Composition Studies pedagogy can enter
the conversation because as a field that is focused on language, power relationships,
creation and reception of identity, discursivity, and situatedness this is precisely the kind
of conversation that should continually return to questions about what it means to educate
literate citizens in the twenty first century.
In the “literacy” entry in Keywords in Composition Studies, Darsie Bowden
devotes more attention to the positioning of the concept of literacy in the field of
composition studies than tracing its etymology. Bowden begins with an
acknowledgement of the conflict between professional and public concepts of literacy
because “literacy agonistically and antagonistically inhabits both popular and academic
spheres” (140). Specifically, she notes that “in the collective consciousness of the United
States, fueled by the media and political interests, the term literacy has come to mean
competence in reading and writing” (Bowden 140). In Composition Studies, the
epistemology of the dominant paradigm in a given era shapes notions of language and
power relationships, which ultimately constructs or re-affirms notions of literacy.
As Mike Rose explains in “The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the
University”, the defining and redefining of a term like literacy is crucial in the work of
writing teachers. Rose’s article deconstructs and challenges five ideas about writing that
he sees implicit in the language used to talk about writing in higher-education
institutions:
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
“Writing ability is judged in terms of the presence of error and can thus be
quantified”

“Writing is a skill or a tool rather than a discipline”

“A number of our students lack this skill and must be remediated”

“In fact, some percentage of our students are, for intents and purposes,
illiterate”

“Our remedial efforts, while currently necessary, can be phased out once
the literacy crisis is solved in other segments of the educational system”
(341)
Rose’s analysis of these five ideas begins with his claim that such language
“reveals a reductive, fundamentally behaviorist model of development and use of written
language, a problematic definition of writing, and an inaccurate assessment of student
ability and need” (341). His article continues with those large-scale concerns of rhetoric,
but also focuses on a particular conception of academic literacy. He begins that
discussion with the common definition of literacy as a familiarity with letters and writing,
but subsequently argues that expected behaviors are the medium through which literacy
becomes translated (352). Rose uses the example of the United State Census Bureau’s
definition of literate in the early 20th century as “anyone who could write his [sic] own
name” and the 1980’s era government’s definition of functionally literate as “to be able
to read and write at a sixth grade level” (353). After acknowledging that literate in the
public sphere can means this admitted low level of acquaintance with words, Rose
addresses the broader and more complex concept of cultural literacy, which he states
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“most often refers to an acquaintance with humanistic, scientific, and social scientific
achievements of one’s dominant culture” (353). Rose notes that “One could argue that
though our students are literate by common definition, a significant percentage of them
might not be if we shift the cultural and belletristic definitions of literacy to a truly
functional-contextual definition…then it might be appropriate to talk of a kind of cultural
illiteracy among some percentage of the student body” (353). Defining what it means to
be literate in functional-contextual ways informs the practice of teaching to educate
literate citizens in the twenty first century.
I would be remiss to not include E. D. Hirsch, Jr. when discussing the concept of
cultural literacy. Hirsch’s 1983 article “Cultural Literacy” makes an argument for specific
curriculum content as a means of improving students’ literacy. He overtly challenges
what he describes as the “received and dominant view of educational specialists that the
specific materials of reading and writing instruction are interchangeable so long as they
are ‘appropriate,’ and of ‘high quality’” (159). Specifically, Hirsch advocates for a shared
group of material to be the core curriculum and generate a sort of shared knowledge
among all citizens. Hirsch insists that “the decline in our literacy and the decline in the
commonly shared knowledge that we acquire in school are causally related facts” (160).
Hirsch’s quest for a “reasonable compromise between lockstep, Napoleonic prescription
of texts on the one side, and extreme laissez-faire pluralism on the other” (166) and his
implicit understanding of education as filling up students who were previously empty
vessels is obviously at odds with a more Freirian notion of education. Hirsch’s focus on
culture-making seems dangerously close to call for homogenous cultural education,
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which is precisely why his proposal for canonical information is so controversial in
Composition Studies, despite his acknowledgment of “two equally American traditions of
unity and diversity” (161). “A certain extent of shared, canonical knowledge,” he asserts,
“is inherently necessary to a literate democracy” (165). This knowledge, he describes,
would be “translinguistic knowledge on which linguistic literacy depends” (165).
Composition scholar Dánelle Devoss and her co-authors offer such an expanded
functional-contextual definition of literacy as existing within a cultural ecology. They
contend that, “Literacies have life spans linked to cultural ecology of a specific time and
place” (Devoss et al. 168). Their perspective suggests a new aspect which must be taken
into consideration when educators discuss what it means to be literate. Such a nuanced
perspective requires us to operate within a more sophisticated conception of literacy as
literacies come to include all of the skills (intellectual, physical and social) necessary for
composing and communicating messages to particular audiences within specific contexts.
Devoss et al. claim that “English-composition teachers and programs must be willing to
address an increasingly broad range of literacies—emerging, competing, and fading—if
they want their instruction to remain relevant to students’ changing communication needs
and experiences within the contemporary cultural ecology” (169). The overt emphasis on
context as a highly influential factor in the “cultural ecology of literacy” creates a space
for further conversations about what educators mean by literacy (Devoss 168).
Similarly, Devoss and her co-authors articulate that, “we can understand literacy
as a set of practices and values only when we properly situate these within the context of
a particular historical period, a particular cultural milieu, and a specific cluster of material
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conditions” (Devoss et al., their emphasis 168). This emphasis on a specific historicalcultural-material context corresponds with Joseph Roach’s Cultural Studies concept of a
vortex of behavior, which he defines in Cities of the Dead as “a kind of spatially induced
carnival, a center of cultural self-invention through restoration of behavior” (28).
Although less tied to physical, spatial, or temporal location, writing is still a participatory
social act that is shaped by audience, purpose, and context. Amy Lee’s argument for
considering the writing classroom as a “text” which can and should be read, analyzed,
and revised can bring this idea to Composition. She offers a central argument that “viable
pedagogy cannot exist only in the abstract, but must be conceptualized in relation to the
real contexts, to the complex and dynamic sites in which our teaching takes place” (8).
Her argument situates the classroom, in both theoretical and practical ways, as a space for
student engagement, critical self-reflection (by students and instructors), as well as a
heightened level of consciousness about the social act of composing.
The overt emphasis on context as a highly influential factor in the “cultural
ecology of literacy” creates an intellectual space for further conversations about what
educators mean by literacy (Devoss 168). In order for new literacies to gain momentum
as authentic and meaningful sets of practices able to challenge the more traditional
notions of print-based literacy, they must become imbued with enough cultural capital to
become a component of educational curriculum. New conceptions of literacy/literacies
will aid in deconstructing the dichotomies that pervade curriculum and educational
standards—such as literate vs. illiterate, visual vs. verbal, and academic vs. public—and
pave the way for a new approach to education. Teachers should not be only cognizant of
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these multiple literacies, but also actively promote the teaching of new literacies by
asking students to engage in writing tasks that require students to authentically engage in
writing as a form of social action.
Yancey contends that “In much of this new composing, we are writing to share,
yes; to encourage dialogue, perhaps; but mostly, I think, to participate” (my emphasis,
“Writing” 5). As Yancey suggests, twenty-first century writing relies on a unique sense
of social interaction as a means of building authority. Historically, even as the notion of
literacy transformed to into a vital component of maintaining an “informed citizenry” as
Gustafson articulates, the teaching of writing failed to garner the cultural capital of other
disciplines (145). While historicizing perceptions of writing and writing instruction in
twentieth century America, Yancey notes that, “Writing has never been accorded the
cultural respect of the support that Reading has enjoyed, in part because through reading,
society could control its citizens, whereas through writing, citizens might exercise their
own control” (“Writing” 2). Although this statement may seem in tension with
Gustafson’s expanded definition of literacy that invokes the idea of civic responsibility,
both scholars are working from the same theoretical perspective that writing is a form of
social action.
Yancey also rearticulates writing with deep consideration of “the labor of
composing” as one means of re-conceptualizing what we value about literacy (“Writing”
2). For example, she explores the idea of the labor involved by recounting the tools and
technology needed to compose:
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We forget how difficult the labor of writing has been historically… how
pencils weren’t widely available until the early part of the twentieth
century, which was forty years before the invention of the ballpoint pen;
how messy and sloppy it was to try to compose in ink that dripped all over
the page—and then smudged. (“Writing” 2)
Although most twenty first century students worry less about smudged ink and
penpersonship, the act of writing and the process of becoming literate remain indelibly
shaped by the technologies that allow them to compose and communicate. Yancey’s
reminder about the labor of writing can lead us to reexamine collaboration as a necessity
of the writing process. To collaborate, according to the OED, is a formation of the prefix
col-to designation “together” and the root word lab, meaning “to work”.
As a point for further analysis, Yancey includes an interesting example of the
types of collaborative and social writing acts contemporary students engage in outside the
classroom. During spring 2008, two high school students created a plan to execute a
large-scale prank as they took their Advanced Placement exams. They recruited as many
students to participate in the prank by writing the line THIS IS SPARTA! from the 2007
movie 300 somewhere in the written portion of their exam and then cross it out with a
single line (Yancey “Writing” 5). According to Kevin Xu, one of the organizers, “The
goal of the prank was to freak out AP graders and teachers, relieve stress before and
during the AP exam and have a really great laugh” (Kaplan et al. para. 4). Tens of
thousands of students joined the Facebook group and pledged to write the phrase in their
exam books. Although reactions to the prank were varied, what Yancey highlights is how
111
this event is interesting to Compositionists. She notes how this was a collaborative, selfsponsored activity that harnessed the power of social networking in which students went
beyond just Facebook by circulating information about the prank virally online. These
two factors lead Yancey to conclude that “students understood the new audiences of the
twenty-first century composing…and knew how to play” them by refusing “to write to a
teacher-as-examiner exclusively” (“Writing” 6). What this example demonstrates is, as
Yancey claims, how students “become composers not through direct and formal
instruction alone (if at all), but rather through what we might call an extracurricular social
co-apprenticeship” (“Writing” 6). The students’ self-sponsored activity demonstrated
heightened audience- and contextual-awareness that were used to situate a social
movement (albeit a small one) for a specific cause (albeit not a highly meaningful one).
As Yancey suggests, “imagine the ways we might channel this energy for a cause more
serious, for a purpose more worthy” (“Writing” 6). Perhaps these literacy skills and
practices that are used in online spaces to enact social action will come to alter our
notions of citizenship and civic engagement. This particular example demonstrates
writers’ awareness of the social aspect of writing and a willingness to collaborate to
achieve a specific purpose. Yancey’s term “social co-apprenticeship” is very applicable
to writing groups in a social context (“Writing” 5). For example, when students in
English 109X read and respond to one another’s drafts, they are assuming a type of
authority, but it may not be necessary the traditional reader-responder dichotomy.
Yancey’s coining of co-apprenticeship similarly diverts from Bruffee’s explanation of
the issues of authority that arise in writing groups.
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Literacy is a complex, high-stakes term that defies any neat and tidy definition.
Much Composition scholarship positions literacy as a concept we should investigate with
our students, such as Bizzell’s definition of literacy “as a social practice,” that “makes
differences in an individual’s thinking that are conditioned by and, apparently, tied to the
particular situations in which he or she uses literacy” (127). By that definition, literacy
becomes valuable for many reasons beyond just learning to write to succeed in academic
contexts. As Bizzell argues, “literacy should not be treated monolithically” because
“there are multiple literacies, with which different, but equally ‘advanced’ cognitive
abilities are associated” (13). But in order for new literacies to gain momentum as
authentic and meaningful social practices worthy of critical inquiry and rigorous study,
they must become imbued with enough cultural capital to become a component of
curriculum.
There is something significant at stake for the university as well in terms of
resituating and re-defining literacy —whether a writing program embraces a multifaceted
definition of literacy or not—because academic standards for language use will always
require some kind of acculturation, pulling students into academic discourse as a
monolithic colonizing force. In “Writing on the Margins” David Bartholomae reminds us
that “the most perverse thing we do is allow some (including ourselves) to believe that
the language of the university is genuine” and that the act of teaching academic discourse
is natural (72). Similarly, in her article, “What Happens When Basic Writers Come to
College?” Patricia Bizzell acknowledges the hegemonic power of academic discourse by
claiming that, “the academic world view cannot coexist peacefully with another world
113
view” (20). According to Bizzell, “the academic seeks out to subsume other world views
to which the students may retain allegiance” (“What Happens” 20). Many prominent past
and current Composition scholars, including Bartholomae and Bizzell, conclude that no
happy median exists—no safe place in the middle for students to occupy—because
students must get inducted into the culture of academic discourse to successfully navigate
the requirements of the academy. But one way to acknowledge this process of
acculturation and to transform that potential tension into an opportunity for critical
inquiry is for educators to approach literacy in new and innovative ways that honor
multiple literacies and allow pedagogical practices to move outside or beyond old literacy
development paradigms.
114
APPENDIX A
CSUS GWAR Flowchart
115
APPENDIX B
Initial Survey
109X Student Survey
1. What is your major? ___________________________
2. What Writing Intensive course are you currently enrolled in? ______________
3. Please circle one of the following statements about the Writing Intensive
requirement of your major:
a. My major requires me to take a Writing Intensive class within my major.
b. My major requires me to take a Writing Intensive class outside of my major.
c. My major does not specify what type of Writing Intensive to take as long as
the course is designated as Writing Intensive in the course catalogue.
4. Does your major require you to take one specific Writing Intensive course (i.e.
Criminal Justice Major must take CRJ 194)?
Yes or No (circle one)
5. What other classes that emphasize writing skills have you taken at CSU,
Sacramento?
6. What other classes that emphasize writing skills have you taken at other
institutions?
7. Have you taken any other group tutorial courses like 109X before? If so, please
describe the course.
116
8. Do you have any past experiences with writing tutors at CSU, Sacramento or any
other intuition? If yes, please give a brief description of the tutoring.
9. What are your goals for your Writing Intensive course?
10. What are your goals for English 109X?
11. Do you read, write, or speak any language other than English at home? If so,
where did you learn this language (i.e. from your family, from a class at school, or
from travel experiences, etc.)?
12. Would you be interested in being interviewed by the research about your past
writing experiences and your experience in this class?
Yes or No (circle one)
If yes, please read and sign the Consent to be Interviewed form that is available
from the researcher.
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APPENDIX C
Anonymous Quantitative Evaluation
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APPENDIX D
Anonymous Qualitative Evaluation
Directions: Please answer the following questions honestly and completely so we will
have a better sense of what worked well in this class and see what we could consider
changing for next semester.
1. What worked well for you in this class?
2. What did not work well for you in this class?
3. How do you feel about the readings for this class? What suggestions do you have for
improving the reading? (please answer N/A if you did not have any assigned readings
for this class)
4. What types of workshop activities did you do in this class?
5. How do you feel about the workshops? What suggestions do you have for improving
the workshops?
6. Do you feel that class time is used wisely? If not, what would you suggest we do
more/less of in class?
7. How do you feel about the major writing assignments for this class (the two reflective
essays)?
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8. How do you feel about the other minor writing assignments?
9. How do you feel about the online (Sac CT) component of the class?
10. What did you learn from this class?
11. What would you have liked to learn that wasn’t covered or emphasized in this class?
Additional Comments:
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