Conclusion: "Further Research Is Necessary"

Conclusion: “Further Research Is Necessary”

I think this statement – “Further research is necessary” – about sums up this week’s readings (Ferris 60). Ferris’ 2004 article is probably one of the more plainly-written scholarly articles I’ve read in a while. And, it’s important that it is clear, because Ferris’ audience includes writing teachers as well as researchers, and his topic is one he feels is terribly important.

To connect myself with this week’s readings I have again recalled how I as a writing teacher behaved. This week, I remembered grading sixty high school senior research papers over my spring breaks. My method was one I composed to serve my own purposes. First, I would read through the research paper and mark punctuation and grammatical errors. These are the things that are quite distracting to me, and if I marked them the first time through, then during subsequent readings I could ignore the mistakes a bit better (knowing I’d already done my duty by marking them) and focus on content and larger aspects of form. I used a rubric that I had shared with the students ahead of time, and I would make a ton of in-text comments.

As this research paper was often the end-piece of the year for these Seniors, I was always disheartened in a way that their writing wasn’t “perfect.” They still made mechanics errors. They still failed to use enough transitions to keep the writing coherent. I’d finish reading a paper and wonder, “What is the argument?” These are all issues I had “marked” on papers throughout the year. And I had marked them on rough drafts of this very assignment. More often than not, the writing did not improve substantially.

But, there were a few things that stuck. And I think this is where I agree with Ferris that the issue of whether (and how) or not to mark L2 student papers is one that is in its infancy. I loved Ferris as a researcher in this article. Unlike other researchers who do everything they can to make an argument (disregarding research, or highlighting bad research, or making faulty arguments), Ferris refuses to come to a definitive answer on the question of the serially-published debate. However, he clearly defines the type of research and that needs to be done to determine how exactly L2 student writing is affected by teachers marking grammatical errors. As he posits, “Unless they [researchers] are already sure that error feedback does not help students and may in fact harm them, it feels unethical to withhold it from their students simply for research purposes” (2004, pg. 60).

Instead, Ferris states that in the meantime (while the researchers are conducting more and better research), L2 writing teachers need to continue responding to student writing and “rely on research evidence that does exist, our own experience and intuitions, and the desires of our students to inform and guide us, but at the same time remain humble and avoid rigidity, knowing that, as a research and teaching community, we are still shaping the knowledge and discourse of our discipline” (2004, pg. 59). In the article he wrote for Writing Myths, Ferris admits that – as a teacher – he himself was frustrated spending so much time marking errors in student writing just to have the students make the same errors again (and become stressed) (93).  However, he also acknowledges that some research suggests the potential of positive outcome from teachers marking students’ writing mistakes. One of the “’real-world’ truths” that he discusses is that L2 writers’ texts have a different style and sound from those of native English speakers, even if they are virtually no major errors to mark. This made me consider the NNES student with whom I’m working this semester. His spoken English is good, and his written English is not poor, either. But, there is some awkwardness; English is definitely not his native language. As Ferris states, “…even L2 texts that are ‘error free’ may appear less sophisticated or less idiomatic when compared with native English writers and may be easily identified by readers as being non-native” (93).  Ferris provides several good ideas I can share with my student, such as take time to write, learn self-editing strategies, and search out another pair of eyes.

Hyland’s chapter expands on this idea of marking errors in student papers to a general response to student writing. He includes examples of all types of responses (written, verbal, peer). Hyland cites some of the same concerns Ferris does, but he also provides many practical strategies for L2 writing instruction. One concept that is new to me in theory (although I recognize that I have considered it intuitively) is that of appropriation. Hyland explains that often teachers make so many suggestions to students about their texts that the text then becomes the teacher’s instead of the student’s. Hyland brings in cultural considerations to this chapter as well, and acknowledges that certain cultures view teachers as authority figures who are not to be argued with. Thus, these students and others may incorporate teachers’ suggestions without considering maintenance of the voice of the student. As a writing teacher it is easy to make suggestions for rewording, or inclusion of different content, etc. and forget that the writing is not the teacher’s –it is the student’s.

While I loved some of Hyland’s examples (the Peer Review Introduction Sheet on page 202 was potentially helpful), I found other examples problematic, in that they appear to be continued teacher control veiled as peer review. For example, Hyland suggests that, in order to raise students’ self-awareness, students can watch videos and examine transcripts of other peer reviews.  A question I have with this is, in showing examples of peer reviews, is the teacher controlling the peer review process to the point that it is inauthentic?