Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Rewriting The Graduate Experience: A Study Of The Writing Experiences Of University Of Texas At El Paso Graduate Students Across Disciplines, Jennifer L. Wilhite

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Graduate writing can manifest as a barrier to successful and timely degree completion as writing is the primary modality in which graduate programs use to evaluate depth of learning and quality of knowledge created. Native language status, inexperience with advanced academic genres, time away from the academy, and socialization struggles are factors that can aggravate writing challenges. The purpose of this qualitative study is to better understand the graduate writing experiences of twelve women returning to the academy. The study asks if writing manifests as a barrier to completing their graduate programs, ascertains what kinds of graduate-level writing supports they …

Critical Language Awareness In The Multilingual Writing Classroom: A Self-Study Of Teacher Feedback Practices, Emma R. Britton

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite the increasing amount of ethnolinguistic diversity in US schools and universities, traditional approaches to university writing instruction continue to advance the teaching of standard written American English (SWAE) from uncritical ideological standpoints (Bommarito & Cooney, 2016). To disrupt the naturalization of monolingual and standard language ideologies, existing scholarship shows the potential of critical language awareness (CLA), as a pedagogical approach which aims to develop students’ awareness of the relationships between languages, language varieties, language ideologies, power, and social inequities, alongside the teaching of SWAE (Fairclough, 1992). Because the production of student texts is central to a CLA pedagogy (Gilyard, …

A Comparison Analysis Of Five Instructors’ Commenting Patterns Of Audio And Written Feedback On Students’ Writing Assignments, Andrew J. Cavanaugh, Liyan Song

Journal of Response to Writing

Instructors often use text-based methods when giving feedback to students on their papers. With the development of audio recording technologies, audio feedback has become an increasingly popular alternative to written feedback. This study analyzed five instructors’ commenting patterns of both written and audio feedback. The five instructors, who taught sections of the same undergraduate composition class, provided written feedback to students on one writing assignment and audio feedback on another writing assignment. A mixed-methods research methodology was employed for the study. Data were collected through surveys, students’ writing assignments, digital audio files (for audio feedback), and interviews. The findings indicated …

Beyond Authorization: Toward Abolitionist Transliteracies Ecologies And An Anti-Racist Translingual Pedagogy, Lindsey Albracht

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the recent paradigm shift within Writing Studies toward a translingual pedagogical approach, situating many of the critiques of this approach as limitations produced by dominant liberal models of Writing Studies pedagogy.

Taking up Vershawn Ashanti Young and Frankie Condon’s call to move toward a more anti-racist translingual approach, I argue for why dominant anti-racist Writing Studies pedagogies, which commonly revolve around reforming individual behaviors, attitudes, dispositions, or practices, will inadequately address institutionally-produced structures of racialized linguistic marginalization.

Drawing inspiration from a variety of Lefist abolitionist movements—particularly the movement toward Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) abolition, the movement toward …

Seeing In Writing: A Case Study Of A Multilingual Graduate Writing Instructor’S Socialization Through Multimodality, Cristina Sánchez-Martín

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

With growing numbers of multilinguals becoming writing instructors and scholars in the U.S. composition context, it is urgent to understand how multilingual graduate instructors of writing socialization processes are mediated by multimodal elements rather than just textual forms of language. This article reports on an ethnographically-oriented case study to respond to the following questions: (1) Does multimodality contribute to a multilingual graduate instructor’s socialization into writing and the teaching of writing? If yes, in what ways does multimodality interact with the writer’s language repertoire? (2) How does the multilingual graduate instructor’s multimodal writing and teaching of writing impact other academic …

Final Master's Portfolio, Elaina Halverstadt

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Practical matters of teaching college writing are the primary focus of this portfolio. Specific topics include an exploration of best practices in preparation for teaching an online college writing course, a rationale for introducing technical writing into an institution as a co-taught interdisciplinary course, a four-week teaching unit for teaching grammar concepts through creative writing, and a resource guide for teaching an introductory technical writing course at the college level.

Building Bridges In First-Year Composition: Investigating The Support Of Threshold Concepts In Writing-Related Transfer Across The Curriculum, Elise Antoinette Green

English Theses & Dissertations

Drawing on a multiple-case, embedded design (Yin, 2018), I highlight the in-depth differences and similarities that exist across students’ experiences in first-year composition (FYC), looking specifically at whether learners used genre and rhetorical situation as threshold concepts to transfer writing-related knowledge and skills across the curriculum. I designed and conducted this research by drawing on theories of learning transfer (Perkins & Salomon, 1988; 1989; 1992; Salomon & Perkins, 1989), writing-related transfer (Moore, 2017; Nowacek, 2011; Yancey, Robertson, & Taczak, 2014; Yancey et al., 2019), and threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2006). Across this study, I collected data as I facilitated …

Studenting And Teaching With Chronic Pain: Accessibility At The Intersection Of Contingency And Disability, Beth Greene

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

While much attention is given to undergraduate students with disabilities, far less is devoted to graduate students, particularly those who also act as faculty: Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). This article discusses issues of accessibility encountered by these contingent faculty members, specifically GTAs who have invisible disabilities, and how approaching discussions of contingency and disability with an ethos of transparent vulnerability—a level of transparency that necessarily leads to vulnerability—can help combat the stigma that continues to surround contingency and disability in higher education.

The Writing For Healing And Transformation Project, Heather Elizabeth Osborn

Education Doctorate Dissertations

As a qualitative action research study, the purpose of The Writing for Healing and Transformation Project was to facilitate more inclusive writing strategies and to promote individual and collective healing on issues of social suffering and oppression (Kleinman, Das, & Lock, 1997; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016) for diverse students at a community college located in the northeastern United States. The 18 participants in the study included students in my English II literature and composition course. The theoretical framework encompassed Pennebaker’s (2016) “writing for healing” paradigm, advocating the use of expressivist writing and “social suffering theory,” examining how power structures affect …