Designing an L2 Genre-Based Writing Course

Chapter 3 in Second Language Writing outlines how to construct a writing course, from a teacher's broad objectives to the individual lesson components. Stressed throughout this chapter is the concept of keeping goals and objectives for students (both general and specific) in the forefront of planning. Activity goals and objectives should build to meet lesson goals and objectives, which should lead to meeting unit goals and objectives. Unit goals and objectives should then, of course, be constructed to help meet course goals and objectives.  In planning all of these goals and objectives, an instructor should take into consideration all aspects of the course: learner backgrounds, aptitudes, and needs; the learning situation (the "where and when" of learning, as well as standards and materials fixed by the governing institution); learner evaluation and assessment (which should take place at all stages of the course, from an individual lesson through the entire course); and instructor self-reflection/assessment.

This chapter addressed course planning for writing courses in general, touching on just about everything I'd been taught about course, unit, and lesson planning as an English Education undergraduate. One of the concepts relevant particularly to L2 writing classrooms is that instructors need to constantly assess learners' needs. Hyland states, "Needs analysis, then, is always dynamic and ongoing" (67). At all points of student learning, instructors must gauge student needs, as they are variable from student to student and objective to objective as well as within specific lessons, chapters, and units. One thing I would add to Hyland's emphasis on continuous needs analysis is that instructors should be prepared to deviate from the syllabus or -- if necessary -- augment the syllabus as the course progresses in order to meet objectives as fully as possible.

One concept new to me was developing a syllabus based on teaching genres. Hyland provides models of syllabuses from both process-driven writing courses and genre-driven writing courses. What I had been taught involved the process approach to writing, so I was particularly interested in how to orient a course around the teaching of genres. Chapter 4 of Hyland's genre text expands on what he discusses in SLW and focuses on L2 learners. Again, he discusses learner needs and course/unit objectives, but he focuses on genre-based course design for L2 students. I appreciate that he contends that specific course material depends on the students' target writing needs, but I wonder how a FYC instructor would accommodate what might be a large variation of L2 students' "targets." Writing in the liberal arts is not the same as writing in fields of technology. Another aspect of the genre-driven course design for L2 students is the speaking component that Hyland incorporates. This is the first time in this course I have considered the correlation between L2 speaking and writing, and I find myself wishing Hyland would have gone into this more than he did in this chapter.  This interrelation between speaking, reading, and writing, though, would further complicate the students' needs (some L2 learners may read fluently in their L2 but have more difficulty speaking in that language, for example). Two paragraphs on this interrelation, however, left me hoping he would revisit this later in the text.

Using Genre-Based SLW Instruction: Recipes vs. Cooking

Using Genre-Based SLW Instruction: Recipes vs. Cooking

As I’ve mentioned in this class before, I have not taken English 402, and so what I know about genre-based writing instruction is only what I’ve picked up listening to other graduate students and instructors talk about their experiences. This week’s reading filled in gaps and answered most of my questions about how genres are used to teach writing.

When I would hear these other graduate students and instructors talk about their experience with genres, I would instantly try to relate what was being said to something within my experience (this is how we learn, and this is also how genres are used, according to the reading assignments this week). With my high school seniors, I would go through the genres I knew they would need to be familiar with for college, such as the expository paper, research paper, the reading response, etc. I also made sure we covered genres for day-to-day life; my students learned how to write a letter to the editor, a letter of complaint to a company, a resume for a summer job, and so on.

Was genre-based writing instruction covered when I was in the English Education program as an undergraduate? No, not explicitly. I knew that I needed to teach how to compose these types of writing, but I wasn’t told how. Intuitively, I knew that we needed to look at examples and discuss as a class the qualities of an effective specimen of the genre, and then we would practice. Of course, I studied education in the early 90s, and so much of what L1 compositionists are concerned with in regards to genre (power and ideology) had not made its way into the English Ed programs yet.

But this week’s readings explained further what genre-based writing instruction entails (beyond my “intuitive” knowledge) and dove into the theory behind teaching writing in this way (this intuitive knowledge vs. the concrete theory behind genre pedagogy is underscored in Hyland’s first chapter, page 20: “Genre pedagogy is based on the belief that learning is best accomplished through explicit awareness of language, rather than through experiment and exploration…”). As with so many facets of SLW, genres are dynamic. To teach how to communicate and socially participate through a genre – a letter to the editor, for example – an instructor can show many examples of such letters, discuss with the students what makes these letters effective, etc.; however, the instructor also needs to prepare the students for the instability of what they have just seen and learned. Students need to realize that, within the genre “letter to an editor,” there are distinctions and other questions that must be answered: Is this for a magazine or newspaper? What register does the message call for (who is the audience?)? What elemental genres are associated with the macrogenre, “letter to an editor”? According to Hyland, genres “blend and overlap” (29). Therefore, students need to understand that, to write a letter to an editor, they need to know how to assess context as social situation and how to determine integration of linguistic characteristics in order to effectively communicate within that genre. There is no definite recipe, but with a basic knowledge of cooking various dishes -- like knowing the basic structure of common genres -- one can put together an appropriate meal.

Interesting to me was the discussion of the three perspectives of genre in Hyland’s second chapter. While I was discouraged that there was no “right” answer on which was the best model to adopt, I saw value in all three and determined (before Hyland told me in the chapter summary), that which viewpoint to adopt probably depended upon several circumstances. Like Hyland, I find myself relating much more to the systemic functional linguistic viewpoint, as it appears more adaptable to L2 writing instruction. Viewing genres as theoretical frameworks that contain elemental genres as well discussing the relationship of texts and contexts would be the focus to teaching SLW (indeed, Hyland notes that “in functional linguistics, genre theory is a theory of how we use language to live” 26). To try to use the New Rhetoric view of genre with L2 pedagogy seems…well…too advanced.

Before someone accuses me of adhering to this ignorant notion that L2 writers cannot handle approaching genres as the powerful constructs that they are, I urge you to remember that Hyland explains that a NR approach means that one investigates a genre’s “social, cultural, and institutional contexts” (36). Many L2 writers may not have the firm grasp on genres that is necessary in order to approach them as the complex and dynamic social constructions that they are. I didn’t see this at first as I read Hyland, but I did realize this relation while reading my chosen article for this week, “Sidestepping our ‘scare words’”: Genre as a possible bridge between L1 and L2 compositionists.

In this article, Kimberly A Costino and Sunny Hyon attempt to reveal “the elephant in the room,” so to speak, between L1 and L2 compositionists. L1 compositionists (represented by Costino) tend to bristle at SLW terminology such as “practice” and “skills.” Through a perspective influenced by political theorists such as Therborn, Althusser, and Foucault, L1 compositionists are suspicious of an approach that would seem to indoctrinate writing students, that would perpetuate an “’autonomous model of literacy’” (Street qtd. in Costino and Hyon 27). On the other hand, L2 compositionists are attempting to show SLW students how to communicate in a second language, which often also involves learning how society behaves in a different culture. Words such as “ideology,” “power,” and “critical” tend to make L2 instructors worried that such a model may encourage students to resist what they’re trying to fit into.

This article is particularly relevant because Hyon (representing L2 compositionists) and Costino are sincerely attempting to put these uncomfortable loaded stigmas of these words to rest and come up with a common compositionists vocabulary. They recognize that the two areas (L1 composition and L2 composition) have many areas of commonality as well as many areas in which they could share resources beyond just terminology. The one word both areas agree upon, though, is “genre,” and so that is their starting point.

In their attempt to bridge this gap between the two disciplines, they are perhaps echoing what Hyland sets up as the distance between NR and SFL (as NR tends to see genres as potential power tools and SFL view genres as linguistic frameworks for living in particular cultural and language contexts).

It seems to me that all three of the perspectives Hyland illustrates have their place in SLW. Do I believe that SLW cannot learn to recognize, analyze, and construct genres in their L2 for the power tools they are? No. But I do believe that the basic linguistic structures need to be presented (not totally mastered, as I think these two approaches can work together). Ideally, these two approaches (SFL and NR) would collaborate just as Costino and Hyon do in this article to bridge the gap between L1 and L2 composition pedagogy.

Problematic issues with the term "post-process"

Problematic issues with the term "post-process"

*sigh*.... What I wouldn't give to go down to the basement and retrieve some of my NCTE English Journal issues from the 1990s. I'm certain I would find article/artifacts discussing how to implement the process theory of writing in the classroom. As Matsuda points out ("Process and post-process: A discursive history"), a lag time exists between theory and pedagogical practice. (Thankfully, I'm sure most of these issues are available on some online database, because I sent them to the recycling bin years ago).

I don't remember, as a university student being trained to teach English (L1, of course), there ever being a term for the theory behind teaching writing. I was told writing was a process. In my English 105 composition course, we were told to review each other's drafts (I recall confusion on what this "peer-reviewing" business actually entailed, so perhaps we can also say there is a gap between pedagogy and student comprehension of the implementation of pedagogical theory...currently, if I were to walk into a classroom and announce a peer-review session, the students are at least familiar with the activity...). And, the very teaching of pedagogy followed, in a way, the recursiveness of writing: not only did we learn what writing portfolios were, but we had teaching portfolios: examples of lesson plans, reviewed by our peers, revised, put into practice, and then reflected upon in journals. As a teacher of college-bound high school seniors in the 1990s, I definitely implemented a process-oriented approach. My lesson plans involved journaling, free-writing, brainstorming, drafts, reflection, peer-review, writing workshops, one-on-one meetings with me, self-assessment (I would ask the students to themselves grade their final drafts), and then, finally, my assessment, which would take into consideration completion of all of the steps of the process leading to that final draft.

This week's readings also made me reflect on how I was taught to write throughout  my years in Kindergarten through twelfth grade. Those years fell during the 1970s and 1980s, precisely the point in which, as Matsuda explains, the  writing-as-process theory finally began to hold its ground (having been introduced by various people much earlier, especially by Fred Newton Scott at the University of Michigan and Barrett Wendell at Harvard -- 68). I was taught to diagram sentences, to write five-paragraph essays, to have precisely one topic sentence and three supporting details for each. Mechanics was stressed over content, and I do not remember ever revising a draft. What one wrote was what one presented to the teacher. And the grade one "earned" was the final grade.

What struck me as the central thread throughout this week's reading was not only an attempt to loosely define "post-process theory", but also sense that no simple definition really exists. To attempt to define current writing instruction theory -- "post-process" -- as it is (or has been for the past ten years) is futile. Any definition one considers "firm" is essentially reductive; in other words, just like "contrastive rhetoric" and "intercultural rhetoric," the theory of writing instruction currently (as well as an attempt to definitively map out the history of writing instruction) is to inherently miss some nuance, some layer, that cannot be easily defined. Atkinson, in his article, reports that Trimbur -- who is credited with first attempting to define "post-process" -- lists four components of the term: social, post-cognitivist, literacy as an ideological arena, and composition as cultural activity (abstract, 4). Atkinson further explains that many viewed "process" writing as asocial (self-absorbed, concerned with only self-reflection and expression) while post-process focuses on genre, community, society, etc.  In other words, post-process writing viewed "composition as cultural activity" (6).

Broadly defined, though, Atkinson says that post-process theory includes any theoretical perspective "that follows, historically speaking, the period of L2 writing instruction and research that focused primarily on writing as a cognitive or internal, multi-staged process, and in which by far the major dynamic of learning was through doing, with the teacher taking ... a background role." Two problems arise from this definition, though (further underscoring the complexity of the concept): first, that the theory as defined is not what is actually employed in L2 classrooms, and second, that post-process theory does not necessarily totally replace process theory, that some aspects remain.

Likewise, as Casanave's book chapter ("Paths to Improvement") states, "post-process is a misnomer because it does not reject process pedagogies or theories. Rather, it rejects 'the dominance of process at the expense of other aspects of writing and writing instructions'" (Matsuda qtd. in Casanave 85). Casanave goes on to call the previous theories of writing -- the the composed definitions of them -- "created caricatures," essentially defined in order to have something concrete in which to oppose. Matsuda echoes this  idea when he cites Miller as stating that "'current-traditional' or 'product' theory appears to have been created at the same time that process theory was, to help explain process as a theory pitted against old practices" (Miller qtd. in Matsuda 70). In other words, the theoretical method of composition instruction in the early- to mid- twentieth century did not have a name or a definition until a reform was strongly in the making. And, reforms need something to reform against. Thus, the "old way" needed a name. And a definition to mark its boundaries.

Matsuda concludes his article by explaining, once again that the term "post-process" should not necessarily be discarded, but that teachers of L2 writing understand that it is "the rejection of the dominance of process at the expense of other aspects of writing and writing instruction," or "a set of pedagogical practices that can be adapted to any pedagogical approaches" (78). Casanave's book chapter reiterates this idea of a "set" of practices, saying that it has to be a toolbox of sorts, in which an L2 teacher can extract the helpful, applicable methodology, depending on what that student needs. This approach necessarily needs to be socially-centered, taking into consideration social and cultural background experiences. She states that "any movement in writing research and pedagogy that views writing as a complex social and political practice necessarily links improvement in students' writing to how students understand, and are able to locate themselves within, the social and political contexts of their writing" (86).

Taking a more practical approach, as opposed to the mostly theoretical one Matsuda uses in his article, Casanave discusses the teacher's response to student writing and how that response shapes (or does not shape) writing improvement. She discusses two sides to the question of error-correction. On the one hand, Truscott -- who does not see value in error correction -- believes that not only is there no evidence to support that L2 student writing is improved by teachers correcting grammatical and mechanical errors, but that it may actually harm students' writing. L2 learners improve their grammatical and mechanical accuracy, he believes, when students engage in "interlanguage development" (88). Truscott is not against any teacher response to writing, it seems; however, automatic responses to grammatical issues will not improve student writing, he claims.

In the opposite camp is Ferris, who believes that "error treatment is 'necessary for L2 writers'" (Ferris qtd. in Casanave 89). Casanave explains that Ferris believes that teacher correction helps student writing improve in the short term (within the process of writing one essay, for example); she also contends that students like teacher responses to their writing and that, for success in the "real world," students need teachers to model error correction so that the students themselves can learn how to edit their own writing (89).

How "improvement" is to be defined, however, is another issue entirely, and Casanave finally determines that -- even with all the variables in assessment -- the term improvement for this particular purpose should mean "the development of fluency and expression of their own ideas [L2 writers], increased willingness to take risks without fear of making mistakes, and the ability to write and revise one or more pieces of writing for a class 'book' of their own work" (93).

At the end of this week's reading, however, I am left with a few questions/observations (other than the ones Casanave herself asks at the end of her book chapter).

• Matsuda mentions on page 68 of his article tracing the murky history of writing instruction that Mills at Purdue "proposed the notion of 'writing as process' as a solution to overcrowded composition classrooms." I'm left wondering how this was a solution, but I also know that to address that issue further would require Matsuda to offer possibly irrelevant information. A footnote seems appropriate here, but, of course, I can always go to the primary source.
• I loved the idea of the history of writing being "a rhetorical narrative" (Matsuda 71). I also loved Matsuda's phrase -- which I think highlights his problem with the term "post-process," "...the inevitable oversimplification that language always performs one experience" (71).
• I skimmed the optional article ("Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship..."), Casanave's further assertion that language is a sociopolitical structure/tool, and I found this statement a nice summary of the article in general: "...how we use and teach writing cannot be separated from the social, political, and ideological purposes that language serves" (97).

Contrastive Rhetoric: Historically Situated, Currently Unstatic

"What are you reading about, Mom?" my ten-year old asks.

"Contrastive rhetoric," I respond.

"What is that?"

"Well,...." And there I sit, after nearing the end of the required readings for this week, feeling as if I have a firm grasp of what contrastive rhetoric was but only a shaky understanding as to what it is.

The two articles (Kubota and Connor) and the chapter in Casanave's volume all give a historically situated account of how contrastive rhetoric "came to be" as terminology or an area of study, as well as an explanation of what it is now (in theory), what it is in practice (current pedagogy), and where it perhaps should go in the future.

It seems to me a if Kaplan -- who began the primary discussion of contrastive rhetoric in the mid-1960s -- had good intentions but also a limited scope of what he felt contrastive rhetoric involved. The criticism that ensues over the next forty years is quite strong, accusing Kaplan's model of reinforcing binaries, disregarding political/power issues, and assuming an invalid transference of L1 writing to L2 writing. Casanave, for example, begins with a summary of Kaplan's original contrastive rhetoric views (from his 1966 article) and immediately begins her own analysis of it. Kaplan, Casanave asserts, includes strings of long quotes "without his commentary"; promises research that is never presented; fails to analyze or even provide proof of the hundreds of essays he mentions, resorting instead to text samples from the Bible; concludes the article with "textbook-like exercises"as opposed to bringing together his ideas to project a unified thought for going forward in the field (31)

Casanave also addresses a string of other critics of Kaplan's early theories. Casanave reports that Hinds claims that contrastive rhetoric is more about reader expectations and that Kaplan did not allow for cultural differences that would account for different readings of a text. McCagg challenged Hinds, claiming that Hinds' Japanese case-study texts (the newspaper articles) were not as circular as what Hinds posited. Kubota (as referenced in Casanave) argues against both Hinds and McCagg, as (being an L1 speaker of Japanese herself) the Japanese newspaper articles were poor case studies for Japanese rhetorical form in the first place. She also went on to add to the discussion the argument against "culturally unique patterns" or transference of any patterns to Japanese students' writing in English. Further, Kubota introduces complexity into the controversy of contrastive rhetoric; she claims that factors such as L1 writing skills, L2 language proficiency, students' personal beliefs about their own writing, their beliefs about Japanese culture, and their experience with L2 composition all contribute to the complexity of the topic of contrastive rhetoric (36).

More criticism of Kaplan's contrastive rhetoric model follow in Casanave's text. Mohan and Lo insist that critics not devalue the influence of topic knowledge, language proficiency, and basic writing skills on L2 writers' composing (37). Kowal, as Casanave summarizes, addresses Kaplan's "simplistic interpretations" of Whorf's linguistic theories (37). In Kowal's opinion, Kaplan's theories do not take into account the complexity that exists in contrastive rhetoric, that Kaplan attempts to "oversimplify" factors influencing second language writing.

Casanave concludes her chapter by citing some areas of which second language writing teachers need to be aware. Pedagogical objectives, according to Casanave, include, "making composition teachers aware that different conventions for writing exist in different cultures, that discourse-level and coherence features of text production may differ across languages, and that readers and writers may take on different responsibilities in different cultures" (44).  Casanave posits that we cannot believe that the area of contrastive rhetoric is simple and uncomplicated; rather, she says that cannot assume that Kaplan's 1966 theories have provided us with the answer, a "clear-cut unambiguous difference between English and any other given language" (Kaplan quoted in Casanave 45).

In applying a poststructuralist view of contrastive rhetoric, Kubota delves more specifically into the complexities of contrastive rhetoric than Casanave was able to in her chapter. Insisting that the concept of culture in applied linguistics is "a concept that needs to be complicated" (Kubota 23). Throughout the article, she does just that, demonstrating that contrastive rhetoric is not an area easy to define, as culture is itself a difficult-to-define term. These ideas -- along with issues of power, agency, colonialism, hybridity, and politics, to name just a few -- are themselves sticky and constantly in flux, as well as defined differently depending on culture (itself a complicated term when applied to linguistics).

Connor's article provides a brief historical overview of the history of contrastive rhetoric but it  addresses primary textual analysis: essay writing, form, and pedagogy, specifically, are addressed. She, too, acknowledges the "changing definitions of culture," contending that the concept of contrastive rhetoric needs to be one that is broad and has no clear-cut borders to exclude factors that may often need to be considered (233). Cultural groups are not static, and Connor suggests that "future contrastive rhetoric research needs to develop greater sensitivity to the view that sees writers not as parts of separate, identifiable cultural groups [as I now know Kaplan theorized] but as individuals in social groups that are undergoing continuous change" (234).

No wonder I had such difficulty defining "contrastive rhetoric"for my ten-year old. The term is a terribly complex one, and a short-and-sweet definition -- which might work for a child -- will not suffice for issues of second language writing and pedagogy. Contrastive rhetoric might be historically situated, but it is definitely not static.