Week 9 reflection – Ann M. Johns

“There is no one ‘process’ for writing, but many, as writers juggle the various responsibilities they have to genre, to the situation, to their roles, to the language, or to themselves as thinking, negotiating participants in the production and revision of texts” (p. 198). I started this reflection with this quote is because I believe that there are many ways of teaching writing and the process of learning a new language should be fun. However, when we introduce different writing genres in the class, it is important to provide guidelines for students to follow and also the purposes of writing in certain genres. When I was learning English in junior and senior high school, there was no such thing as writing a business letter, fiction or poems. Also, in public schools, they did not provide any class specifically for English writing. The only opportunity we had to write were exercises where we had to put sentences together (the sentences we imitated from textbooks) into paragraphs with correct grammar. This kind of formalist writing style is very suitable for exam-based educational systems (like Taiwan) because if we can produce paragraphs with accurate grammar, we are able to enter good schools.

I also like that Johns mentioned about peer editing and revising in The Sydney School system. If we open a space for ESL students to explore their own voices through different genre writing, they can have some fun playing with the language. Also, through peer editing, students can receive critiques from others and generate more ideas and contents. Writing should not only focus on the sentence level, but the richness of the content.

I wonder how genre writing can help students who need to pass English exams to go to high school and college. There is only a certain amount of time for students to finish their writing with a given topic. Also, since the English class is driven by the exam-based system, how do teachers incorporate genre writing into the class and show the transition between genre writing and exam writing?

Ch. 1 & Ch. 2 from The Politics of Second Language Writing

1. Writing Development and Biliteracy – Danling Fu and Marylou Matoush

Human naturally acquire language in compelling social contexts (p. 9).
Sequential biliteracy – abstract and decontextualized nature of academic language
Spontaneous biliteracy – prior contextualized social knowledge as a legitimate goal (p. 9)
(Becoming bilingual and bilterate) not only involves a transformation process that appears to require a greater degree of cognitive, social and linguistic flexibility than monolingualism, but also potentially affords a greater degree of cognitive, social and linguistic freedom of choice (p. 10).
ELLs’ writing development research – four transitional stages: 1. First Language Usage to 2. Code-Switching to 3. Trans-Language Usage to 4. Approaching Standard English (p. 12).
If we don’t value what and how ELLs write in the transitional stages, but only aim at teaching them to write correctly or learn Standard English, these students
won’t develop into writers with depth of thinking and logical thought (p. 24).

2. Reforming High School Writing: Opportunities and Constraints for Generation 1.5 Writers – Kerry Enright Villalva

Ecological framework is based on an understanding that literacy is social practice (p. 31).
Ecological framework – Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystems, and Macrosystem (p. 32)
Generation 1.5 writing research – How does systemic factors influence the writing
development of Generation 1.5 writers?

Questions
1. Fu and Matoush mentioned that if language learners are encouraged to choose between languages when they write, they can construct and develop ideas better. From your experience as a language learner, did your first language(s) help you with English learning? How?

2. What does “language errors” (p. 25) mean to you? How can you demonstrate the positive value of “language errors” as “the precursors of flexible dual language word choice and phraseology” (p. 25) to your bilingual/multilingual students? What kind of methods would you use to show them the transition from errors to Standard English?

3. What values did you find from Fu and Matoush’s chapter? Are the four transition stages applicable? If you see it as applicable, how do you use the stages in your ESL class? What kind of assignments can you see being used in your class?

4. From Villalva’s chapter, “peer-modeling” and “cross-age tutoring” (p. 46) seem to create space for Generation 1.5 to develop their languages and generate ideas and topics for their projects. Why can’t this kind of group work be done in a regular class with mainstream students? If we separate the Generation 1.5 students to a different cohort-based organization, aren’t we creating otherness in the class?

5. What benefits and flaws do you see in making a personal project as a new graduation requirement? Should there be double standards for English-speaking students and bilingual/Generation 1.5 students?

Week 7 - Matsuda's Chapter 3

I have been thinking about the purpose of college writing. Is it the class for students to develop their sense of identity, voice, audience and writer/reader responsibility in order to be a better writer? Or is it to prepare students to accomplish their academic writing? I was observing a college writing class last semester and was amazed by the way the professor taught the class. Students were asked to write paranormal stories and peer response was also incorporated into the writing process. I am not sure how much the students can transfer what they learned from the class to real academic writing; however, I believe that this kind of writing encourages students to develop their imagination and the peer response can stimulate their critical thinking. Also, there’s another college writing class for ESL students in which students are asked to write poems. Without the pressure of forming perfect grammar and sentence structure, students may gain their confidence in writing in a different language. I really like the idea of implementing creative writing in the class in order to raise students’ awareness of every element in writing. However, how much can those elements be transferred to students’ academic writing? I think that teachers’ and students’ expectations are different. It is important to clarify the purpose of the way we teach writing and be open-minded toward communications with students.

If the writing class is designed to incorporate creative writing skills, I wonder if plagiarism is taken into consideration. We cannot assume that students have fully learned what plagiarism is and are able to apply it to their writing before coming to college. On page 65, Leki mentioned that a professor does not care if students reproduce her lecture words. I was really surprised to see this. If there’s no standard for plagiarism from professors for students to follow, what should students do? How do we cite from a lecture?

Writing is not an easy task. It takes time for a person to write well. I wish that there was an academic writing class for me to attend when I first came here because I was panicking about writing for the class. I would love to learn how to do creative writing as well because I have never learned writing in that kind of style.

I was thinking that a lot of articles we’ve been reading are always putting the blame on teachers and schools systems for not being prepared for ESL students and place ESL students as victims of the educational system. I wonder if any articles acknowledge ESL students’ responsibilities and attitudes towards studying in a different country. Some of them might not be efficient with their writing, but if they are to attend American universities, they can’t just see university as a way to learn English, but also professional knowledge. Of course schools should provide them with real assistance in writing and speaking (it’d be better if it is throughout the 4 academic years, but is it possible?); however, I think ESL students should hold some responsibility as well.

Week 6 - Braine

In this reflection, I would like to separate my thought into two different directions. The first thing I want to talk about is qualitative and quantitative research. I like qualitative research because it helps to explore clear and detailed insights of participants’ experiences and backgrounds which are unreachable and invisible through quantitative research. Also, through qualitative research, I may be able to find connections with my participants (with the same linguistic and cultural background) and feel relieved that I am not the only one who see things that way. For example, I was working on a topic about second language humor for a research paper and my participants were from Taiwan. During the data collecting process, the participants were asked to read comics and watch cartoons in order to interpret the American humor from their perspectives. Their linguistic and cultural backgrounds and life experiences in the U.S. were included to explain their reactions toward American humor. I found some connections with my participants because we all thought swear words are funny in the cartoons (the facial and physical expressions in the cartoon were funny with the swear words). Without interviewing my participants, I would not have been able to catch what they thought about swear words. However, which research method is more reliable? Would you trust a study without any numbers? What’s the purpose of integrating numbers? To make the research look more scientific? Or would you rather read some research with narratives? Should we incorporate both research methods in our study? I guess that it all depends on the research project.

The second thing I want to talk about is the academic literacy that non-English speaking graduate students need to have. A lot of internal and external factors can influence how a person writes. It is mentioned in the article that teachers think finding appropriate vocabulary is a problem for non-native speakers. I still have trouble putting the right words or right sentence structures in my paper. Sometimes I think the words or sentences look fine, but actually they do not. They look awkward for Americans. However, I think my writing is getting better than when I first came here (my writings in the first year here were really scary when I go back and look at them). Through reading articles, talking to my classmates and professors and asking people to review my writing help me construct what writing process should be like. Social interaction and negotiation create a space for me to grow my academic literacy.