TEACHING IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Teaching in the Age of Social Media:
Attitudes Surrounding Facebook and Twitter in the First Year Composition Classroom
Zachary R. Knowlton
San Francisco State University
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Social Media is a broad term that we use when addressing most forms of online writing in
the field of Composition. It encompasses not only a large number of online platforms that
incorporate writing, but is also generously applied to programs (like Blogger) that popular
culture would not regularly deem Social Media. This study intends to address Social Media that
is used broadly by students outside of a classroom setting, as well as utilized by teachers in First
Year Composition classrooms. To be more specific, this study will be looking at Twitter and
Facebook being used in the writing classroom as a tool to develop student writing, and what
student and teacher attitudes are surrounding those platforms.
There are a lot of popular perceptions about the nature of Facebook and Twitter in the
classroom; generally, we assume that students have the upper hand with technology and social
media, and that teachers would prefer print to electronic work. A current term that is tempting to
use is “digital native,” implying that because college age students today have grown up in the era
of the internet, they must be familiar and comfortable with social media platforms. Of course,
“digital native” is problematic in many nuanced ways (when we think about class, agency, and
availability), which gives more cause for research to be done in regards to social media use in the
classroom. In my own experiences, students think that Facebook and Twitter are too informal to
be used for academic writing purposes. Unfortunately, there is little existing research that looks
at teacher and student attitudes surrounding Facebook and Twitter.
This topic merits research and exploration within the field of Composition. Twitter and
Facebook are likely not leaving the public’s popular sphere any time soon. And, even if they are
replaced by other social media, they each represent a type of online platform that could be
utilized in the classroom (social/professional profiles and microblogging). There is little existing
research that explores whether the incorporation of this technology is appreciated by students
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and teachers, or if its inclusion (which is not yet a widespread phenomenon) is felt as a trick to
attempt to force Composition studies into the present and popular culture. Because of the
constantly changing nature of digital technology, professionals in the field of composition should
see this research as both a tool to consider classroom pedagogy, and as a foundation to build
future research on.
This study examines the attitudes of First Year Composition teachers and students
towards the use of social media in the classroom. This study will focus specifically on Twitter
and Facebook, as they are social media outlets that are most likely to be used in both the
classroom and in the personal lives of study participants. It addresses Facebook and Twitter as
tools used in teaching writing and writing process to students of Composition classrooms.
Though the study will acknowledge the use of Facebook and Twitter to build community in the
classroom, its primary purpose is to observe student and teacher attitudes in regards to using
Facebook and Twitter as tools for writing instruction.
Research of social media usage in classrooms does exist, but is so specifically tailored to
examining how to teach with social media or ethical issues that may arise from the teaching of it,
that the field of Composition is in the dark regarding student and teacher attitudes. While these
are valid and valuable, they seek to answer a more concrete, pedagogical question about social
media. This study will instead be focused on how Facebook and Twitter are experienced in the
writing classroom. The aforementioned issues may be seen in this study, but will be presented as
potential factors for teacher and student attitudes, and are not directly the aim of my
observations. This study’s ultimate purpose is to examine any discrepancies in attitude and
experience between First Year Composition teachers and students concerning the use of
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Facebook and Twitter as tools for writing instruction and provide a look at the full scope of
student and teacher experience with Facebook and Twitter.
Looking at Existing Ideas
As social media is a relatively new phenomena, there is not an overwhelming amount of
research on the effectiveness and potential drawbacks of its implementation into the English
Composition classroom. This underwhelming amount of current research is complicated by the
focus on pedagogy by most researchers. Likely because teaching Composition with social media
still in its earlier stages, researchers present results that value pedagogical possibilities over user
experience. Existing literature on the subject of social media as a tool for writing instruction
tends to be preoccupied with how to successfully implement sites like Facebook and Twitter, or
how those sites pose ethical boundary issues. This presents a very noticeable gap in our existing
knowledge about teach and student attitudes regarding social media use in the classroom. The
following examination of current research highlights this by its neglect of the subject, but
provides a very useful frame for this study. This presented research can be used in conjunction
with the results of my study to build more complete meaning around the use of Facebook and
Twitter in the First Year Composition classroom.
Exploring New Avenues For Writing Instruction
The proliferation of the internet promotes communication with people who students
would not ordinarily have contact with. It also changes the way that students and teachers read.
In her article “Weaving the Literacy Web,” Wendy Sutherland-Smith (2002) notes that reading
on the internet results in students looking at texts nonlinearly, non-sequentially, and nonhierarchically. She goes on to point out that the web “enables a blurring of the relationship
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between reader and writer.” This blurring occurs because of a student’s ability to navigate
websites at will, as well as add their own content in many cases. The internet and internet-based
platforms allow for the possibility of instant feedback, correction, and communication regarding
a student’s writing. These traits of internet literacy ask students to be multi-talented, as opposed
to a traditional English classroom, where students are assigned a print book and can only
communicate with peers within the confines of the classroom. Sutherland-Smith’s work
highlights the potential for web-based writing as a way to integrate reading and writing, but does
not capture student ability to be successful in navigating writing on the internet.
The increasing accessibility of technology and social media has led to an increase in
writing outside of the classroom setting, though that writing is not always conceived of as
academic or ‘useful’ writing. Jeff Grabill, of Michigan State University, led a study in 2010 that
explored freshman college students’ writing. His study spanned seven campuses and addressed
what type of writing first year college students typically perform, as well as their inclination
towards that writing. Not surprisingly, status updates and writing for social media was found in
students’ top ten (of thirty) most commonly performed writing acts. Digital platforms as a group
accounted for nearly as much writing as traditional schoolwork and formal writing occasions.
What perhaps is surprising, is that the students that Grabill surveyed valued writing on social
media platforms as 21 out of 30. Writing genres that were seen as more valuable shared the
quality that they receive use in relation to the classroom (word processors, email, etc.). Writing
done socially or for personal fulfillment was not viewed as valuable outside of its specific realm
of personal gratification. Grabill’s study gets at student perception regarding social media and
digital texts, but handles them in such a way that they seem separate from the classroom. Grabill
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examines social media as its own entity, and though his research implies potential attitudes
regarding social media and the classroom, they in no way explicitly address the subject.
Public Writing by Default
Social media, by its very nature, is a step into the public light. This is largely the appeal
of its use in the writing classroom; writing can address a multitude of audiences and receive
responses almost instantly. Collette Daiute’s article “Educational Uses of the Digital World for
Human Development” (2013) goes into depth about how interactions in online environments
“advance[e] students’ creative and critical interactions with diverse others and themselves.”
Daiute points out that using online platforms allows students to enter conversations with people
that occupy completely different types of discourse communities. In this way, students can build
meaning and develop critical communication skills that are becoming more necessary in our
increasingly interdependent world. By interfacing with “diverse others,” students are developing
critical reading and writing skills that will benefit them and promote future global participation.
Interactions through social media platforms not only enter students into conversations
with diverse others, but also offer the opportunity for students to read and write in different
mediums and forms. Daiute looks at student exposure to multi-modalities, and notes that students
who learn through the use of social media and online resources acquire the ability to adapt to
varied settings, as well as create “hyper-imaginaries.” These hyper-imaginaries are hypothetical
situations wherein students can place themselves into the mindset of an “other.” This ability is
gained through the vast amount of knowledge that the internet has to offer, as well as experience
and exposure to diverse others through social media platforms. Using the concept of hyperimaginaries, students are able to perform rhetorical moves for different audiences, and critically
examine situations outside of themselves and in relation to themselves. These potential benefits
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hinge on implementation, which in turn depends on teacher and student willingness to embrace
social media platforms as acceptable writing spaces. Daiute’s research tells us that the positive
results have, in fact happened, but does not discuss the nature of social media implementation.
Addressing Possible Causes For Negative Attitudes
Using social media within the context of the writing classroom presents a great tool for
students, but a pragmatic problem for Composition instructors. In this way social media as a
platform for writing is at odds with its own potential. Social media usage in the classroom can
blur the lines between formal and informal writing for students. As far back as 2004, Kathleen
Blake Yancey presents an article titled “Made Not Only In Words,” which noted that “never
before have the technologies of writing contributed so quickly to the creation of new genres.”
Yancey notes a “tectonic change” in literacy, which has only been shifting more in the eleven
years since Yancey’s publication. The multitude of new writing genres through a social media
platform can cause teachers to resist their use; after all, traditional writing classrooms have
agreed upon genres that develop student writing. Students may also be resistant as they often see
social media outlets as useful in a far different scope than writing instruction. Yancey points out
that blogging goals of students and teachers were often at odds with one another. Teachers saw a
writing platform while students saw a social platform. Whether or not this is still the case is
unexplored; Yancey’s credibility has led for this to remain a staple essay on the subject of social
media as a classroom writing genre. That essay is now eleven years old, which, by today’s
modern technology standards, is far outdated in regards to its subject matter. Likely the genres
imagined by Yancey have warped even further, and may have yielded a shift in teacher and
student attitudes.
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Pragmatic problems aside, the use of social media platforms in a classroom setting can
create an ethical implication for Composition instructors. Teresa Foulger (2013), an instructor at
Arizona State University, gives attention to the ethical risks of teaching with social media in her
article “License to Drive, License to Learn.” In her article, Foulger outlines cases where social
media has been used by teachers to take advantage of students. That these cases have happened
outline a credible risk to blurring personal and professional boundaries through the use of social
media. Implied by Foulger’s work is the possibility of students’ perception that they will be
exploited through social media work, thus resulting in a hesitancy to engage fully with that work.
But, like other work mentioned, Foulger does not explicitly address attitudes surrounding these
phenomena, but merely notes that they have happened.
Shifting From Pedagogy to Perception
The research presented is a fair representation of the literature on this subject as a whole.
It demonstrates a large gap in what we know, namely that we hardly know how teachers and
students feel about Facebook and Twitter in the classroom. As time goes on, our thinking needs
to shift from the possibilities of utilizing social media to the realities of its use in Composition
classrooms. We also need to shift from the term “social media” as a whole, and begin examining
specific sites that are used to further student writing. This study seeks to address this reality, and
provide a look into Bay Area colleges, and how students and teachers respond to the use of
Facebook and Twitter in Composition classes.
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Social Media Across Institutions
This study will be conducted in six First Year Composition classrooms,1 which will all be
located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Two classrooms will be at a community college, two at a
public university, and two at a private university. This will keep the study centralized
geographically, but account for any differences in expectations regarding writing at different
college types. Courses chosen to participate in the study will be those taught by professors that
already have either Facebook, Twitter, or both as an established presence in their classroom.
First Year Composition classrooms and their equivalent were chosen for this study because they
include students who are learning to more clearly articulate their opinions, and are more likely to
be more frequent users or observers of Facebook and/or Twitter. Teachers of First Year
Composition are specifically sought because the role of an FYC class necessitates more active
engagement between teachers and more recent pedagogy. Teachers who employ the use of
Facebook and Twitter in a First Year Composition course do so for a specific pedagogical
purpose, which will provide a way to frame teacher interviews on their attitudes surrounding
Facebook and Twitter in the classroom.
The participants in my study will be made up of all students enrolled in the chosen First
Year Composition courses, as well as the instructors who head the class. Participation will be
voluntary but highly encouraged. Likely, most students participating will be in their first year of
study, with a small amount of outliers beyond first year status. Students will not be informed
completely of the nature of the study, but be told that I will ask questions surrounding Facebook
and Twitter. I do not want students’ interviews to be colored by an awareness that I will be
1
For institutions that may not have a specific “First Year Composition” model, an equivalent freshman/sophomore
level Composition course will be studied.
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looking at their attitudes regarding Facebook and Twitter in the classroom. Similarly, teachers
will be only partially informed of the content of the study. The minimal expectation for content
by the participants should lead to more authentic inquiry.
Collecting and Using Data from Students and Teachers
Data in this study will be collected primarily through the use of interviews, with
accenting work done through surveys. Interviews and surveys will be given three times during
the semester, at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. Participants will be informed
about the basic nature of interviews (that they will focus on Twitter and Facebook), but will not
be told that the study is centered on attitudes and perceptions. Each of the three interviews will
follow the same basic topics and outline, while surveys will all share the same structure, but pose
different scenarios for students2. The reasoning for this is that I expect, and want, interviews to
yield a lot of individualized experiences and attitudes. These will be more nuanced and less
comparable. Although comparing experiences is not the primary focus of this study, I believe
there is value in being able to chart trends alongside qualitative data. The chart surveys present a
hypothetical social media writing prompt and a series of 5 point scale evaluations. Once students
have responded to each evaluation, I can take this data and overlay the information from all
research participants. This allows me to see trends between institutions, teachers and students,
and even choose to look at correlations surrounding race, age, and class (if there are large
disparities in those categories).
Interviews between myself and my participants will be videotaped. Not only will this
allow me to revisit interviews, but selections from the video footage will be presented alongside
2
See Appendix for examples.
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my research. This practice will lend my findings credibility through a “reader validity check.”
This will also hold me to the highest standard in my interviews. Videotaping interviews with the
knowledge that others will be viewing puts me in an interestingly similar place to research
participants.
Supplementary data will also include assignment sheets and syllabi that address
Facebook and Twitter explicitly. Language surrounding Facebook and Twitter within the syllabi
and assignment sheets may or may not shed light on prevailing student and teacher experience of
social media inclusion in class. Formal lesson plans may be included by those teachers who have
them, but will not be a direct requirement of the study. Frequency of Twitter and Facebook
inclusion in the class will be taken into account, but ultimately the goal of the study is to focus
on student and teacher experience and attitude.
Positioning Twitter and Facebook
An issue that plagues research grounded in technology is the ever-changing nature of that
technology. Because Facebook and Twitter are social media platforms that will inevitably
evolve, specific working definitions of each will be presented at the beginning of the study. In
the event that there is a notable alteration to either platform, the time and nature of that change
will be noted so that the research stays grounded in time and factual consistency.
Regarding Reliability and Ethical Concerns For Students and Teachers
A major concern for research surrounding social media is for the privacy of all research
participants. Collecting data from post history may be public, but participants may have made
those posts for a specific audience and context. This study will not seek out any posts from
Facebook or Twitter as research, nor will participants be specifically asked about post history. If
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a student or teacher brings up a post, or series of posts, that are relevant to the study, I will ask
for informed consent from all involved parties before including that post in my findings. Overall,
this study asks for interviewees to give their thoughts and opinions surrounding social media in
the classroom as a whole.
Another concern deals with representation among the participants in my study. Because
the study will be voluntary and administered three times during the semester, there is a
possibility that students may discontinue participation as time goes on. Although there is credible
concern that the study may yield imbalanced results in and between institutions, I have taken the
precaution of using two classrooms per institution to account for participant drop-out.
Furthermore, this study will address major differences in gender, race, age, and class, but will be
working under the assumption that participants in the study are relatively similar.
As with any interview involving the use of video and audio recording, there is a chance
that having a video camera present will alter the behavior of the participants. This may
potentially plague both teachers and students, though my primary worry is for student response.
The interviews will be conducted in a comfortable, quiet area in order to keep my participants at
ease. There will not be a table between myself and the interviewee, so that the interview space is
both calm and natural.
Concluding Thoughts
This research will be among the first that expressly seeks to observe teacher and student
attitudes surrounding Facebook and Twitter use in a writing classroom, while leaving the
pedagogical implications on the backburner of the study. Those implications are, of course,
something to be looked at as we continue to grow our pedagogy surrounding the use of social
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media in Composition, but we have too few studies that deal directly with user experience. The
research we do have tends to generalize all online writing platforms as “social media,” when in
fact Facebook and Twitter are significantly different than Bloggr and Wordpress. This study
seeks to remedy that vagueness present in our current research. Teachers and researchers alike in
the field of Composition, especially those of us only beginning our careers, need to have more
research available. As I’ve stated in this prospectus, social media sites are not a fad that will pass
away overnight – they are a way to write that we need to recognize and study now. If this study
is performed it can operate as a historical lens to view what is now a relatively new phenomenon
in the field of Composition, and can be looked at in conjunction with pedagogical research to
determine our movements forward with the use of Facebook, Twitter, and other sites in the
future.
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References
Daiute, Colette. (2013). Educational Uses of the Digital World for Human Development.
LEARNing Landscapes, 6(2), 63-84. Web.
Foulger, Teresa S, Ann Ewbank, Heather Carter, Pamela Reicks, and Sunshine Darby. (2013).
License to Drive, License to Learn. Promoting Policy for Safe and Innovative Social
Networking Use Schools. LEARNing Landscapes, 6(2), 97-108. Web.
Garcia, Antero, Robyn Seglem, and Jeff Share. Transforming Teaching and Learning Through
Critical Media Pedagogy. (2013). LEARNing Landscapes, 6(2), 109-124. Web.
Grabill, Jeff. et al. (2010). The Writing Lives of College Students: Revisualizing Composition.
WIDE Survey and Whitepaper. Web.
Seglem, Robyn and Shelbie Witte. (2009). You Gotta See It To Believe It: Teaching Visual
Literacy in the English Classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 216226. Web.
Sutherland-Smith, Wendy. (2002). Weaving the Literacy Web: Changes in Reading from Page to
Screen. The Reading Teacher, 55(7), 662-669. Web.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. (2004). Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key. College
Composition and Communication, 56(2), 297-328. Web.
TEACHING IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
References
WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition (3.0). (2014). Council of Writing
Program Administrators. Web.
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Appendix
Interview Guide
Interviews will be open-ended and freeform, but will loosely address the following questions:
•
Do you use Facebook or Twitter at home or in your social life?
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Does using Facebook and Twitter in school feel different than at home?
•
Do you think using Facebook and Twitter to write has helped you with class concepts?
•
Do you wish that Facebook and Twitter would be used more or less in the classroom?
At each point during the semester (beginning, middle, and end), questions will be reframed to
reflect any instances of Twitter and Facebook use during the semester. Slight adjustments will
also be made to reflect teacher vs student interviews, although the substance of the questions will
remain the same.
For example, I may reframe a question as “Now that you have been using Facebook for
classwork, do you use it more or less in your personal life?”
Survey Template
For the survey, participants will be given a hypothetical writing prompt that has to do with
Facebook and Twitter, and will be asked to circle one number in each column in regards to how
they view that prompt. Surveys will include 3 prompt/table sets to complete. No justification of
choices is necessary; these are simply meant to accent interview responses.
TEACHING IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Public vs
Private
Public
-1-2-3-4-5Private
Amount of
Interaction
A Lot
-1-2-3-4-5Hardly Any
Topic
Sensitivity
Very Sensitive
-1-2-3-4-5Not Sensitive
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Subject
Vulnerability
Very Vulnerable
-1-2-3-4-5Not Vulnerable
Helpfulness For
Writing
Very Helpful
-1-2-3-4-5Not Helpful
Hypothetical prompts will be changed each time the survey is administered. Here is an example
of what one may look like:
“Examine a Twitter feed surrounding an international incident and then retweet the five posts
that stand out to you most, followed by a tweet with your stance on the issue.”