Traditions of Writing Research

Traditions of Writing Research

Traditions of Writing Research reflects the different styles of work offered at the Writing Research Across Borders conference. Organized by Charles Bazerman, one of the pre-eminent scholars in writing studies, the conference brought together an unprecedented gathering of writing researchers. Representing the best of the works presented, this collection focuses solely on writing research, in its lifespan scope bringing together writing researchers interested in early childhood through adult writing practices. It brings together differing research traditions, and offers a broad international scope, with contributor-presenters including top international researchers in the field. The volume’s opening section presents writing research agendas from different regions and research groups. The next section addresses the national, political, and historical contexts that shape educational institutions and the writing initiatives developed there. The following sections represent a wide range of research approaches for investigating writing processes and practices in primary, secondary, and higher education. The volume ends with theoretical and methodological reflections. This exemplary collection, like the conference that it grew out of, will bring new perspectives to the rich dialogue of contemporary research on writing and advance understanding of this complex and important human activity.

Traditions of Writing Research

Edited by Charles Bazerman Robert Krut Karen Lunsford Susan McLeod Suzie Null Paul Rogers Amanda Stansell

First published 2010 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Traditions of writing research / edited by Charles Bazerman ... [et al.]. p. cm. Papers presented at the 2008 WRAB conference. 1. Rhetoric–Study and teaching–Congresses. 2. Rhetoric–Research– Congresses. 3. Composition (Language arts)–Study and teaching– Research–Congresses. 4. Written communication–Research–Congresses. I. Bazerman, Charles. P53.27T73 2009 2009015687 808–dc22 ISBN 0-203-89232-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-99337-7 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-99338-5 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-203-89232-1 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-99337-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-99338-8 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-89232-9 (ebk)

Contents

Preface

ix

Part I

Approaches in various regions

1

  1 Modern “writingology” in China

3

C h en Hui j un

  2 The French didactics approach to writing, from elementary school to university

17

I . D elcambre and Y . R euter

  3 What factors influence the improvement of academic writing practices? A study of reform of undergraduate writing in Norwegian higher education

31

O l g a D yst h e

  4 Mapping genre research in Brazil: an exploratory study

44

A ntonia D ilamar A ra ú j o

  5 The teaching and learning of writing in Portugal: the case of a research group

58

L u í sa Á l v ares P ereira , C oncei ç ã o A leixo , I n ê s C ardoso , and L uciana Gra ç a

  6 Spanish research on writing instruction for students with and without learning disabilities Jes ú s - N icasio Garc í a , A na - ­M ar í a de C aso - ­F uertes , R a q uel F idal g o - ­R edondo , O l g a A rias - ­Gund í n , and M ark T orrance

71

vi   Contents Part II

Writing education in political and historical contexts

83

  7 Writing, from Stalinism to democracy: literacy education and politics in Poland, 1945–1999

85

C e z ar M . O rnatowski

  8 A pilot investigation: a longitudinal study of student writing in a post-­totalitarian state

97

Gil Harootunian

  9 The continuum illiterate–literate and the contrast between different ethnicities

111

M aria S í l v ia C intra

10 Strategies, policies and research on reading and writing in Colombian universities

122

B lanca Y anet h Gon z ále z P in z ó n

Part III

Research on primary and secondary school practice

133

11 Young children revising their own texts in school settings

135

M irta C astedo and E milia F erreiro

12 Written representations of nominal morphology by Chinese and Moroccan children learning a Romance language

151

L iliana T olc h insky and N aym é S alas

13 Relationships between idea generation and transcription: how the act of writing shapes what children write

166

Jo h n R . Hayes and Vir g inia W . B ernin g er

14 Academic writing in Spanish compulsory education: improvements after didactic intervention on sixth graders’ expository texts

181

T eodoro Á l v are z A n g ulo and I sabel Garc í a P are j o

15 Caught in the middle: improving writing in the middle and upper primary years Val F aulkner , Judit h R i v alland , and Janet Hunter

198

Contents   vii 16 Teachers as mediators of instructional texts

212

S u z ie Y . N ull

17 Pushing the boundaries of writing: the consequentiality of visualizing voice in bilingual youth radio

224

D ebora h R omero and D ana W alker

18 Classroom teachers as authors of the professional article: National Writing Project influence on teachers who publish

237

A nne W h itney

PART IV

Research on higher education practice

249

19 The international WAC/WID mapping project: objectives, methods, and early results

251

C h ris T h aiss

20 Rhetorical features of student science writing in introductory university oceanography

265

Gre g ory J . K elly , C h arles B a z erman , A udra S kukauskaite , and W illiam P rot h ero

21 Reading and writing in the social sciences in Argentine universities

283

P aula C arlino

22 Preparing students to write: a case study of the role played by student questions in their quest to understand how to write an assignment in economics

297

B arbara W ake

23 Can archived TV interviews with social sciences scholars enhance the quality of students’ academic writing?

309

T erry I n g lese

24 Social academic writing: exploring academic literacies in text-­based computer conferencing W arren M . L iew and A rnet h a F . B all

325

viii   Contents 25 Between peer review and peer production: genre, wikis, and the politics of digital code in academe

339

D oreen S tarke - ­M eyerrin g

PART V

Theories and methodologies for understanding writing and writing processes

351

26 Writing in multiple contexts: Vygotskian CHAT meets the phenomenology of genre

353

D a v id R . R ussell

27 The contributions of North American longitudinal studies of writing in higher education to our understanding of writing development

365

P aul R o g ers

28 Statistical modeling of writing processes

378

D aniel P errin and M arc W ildi

29 Writers’ eye movements

394

M ark T orrance and Å sa W en g elin

30 Text analysis as theory-­laden methodology

406

N ancy N elson and S tep h anie Grote - ­Garcia

31 On textual silences, large and small

419

T h omas Huckin

Index

432

Preface

The work of writing researchers today crosses many geographic and disciplinary borders. Researchers who view writing as a complex human activity in Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, and North America are increasingly working together and drawing upon each other’s work in carrying out their own research programs. Writing researchers in anthropology, psychology, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, sociology, science studies, cultural studies, and education are extending the breadth and depth of their research. While, appropriately, a great deal of this research has focused on the learning and teaching of writing in both L1 and L2 school settings, research on writing continues to expand into many new and emerging areas of practice, including the acquisition of print literacy prior to schooling; writing across the curriculum, in the disciplines, and in the professions; and writing development across the lifespan. Additionally, new political exigencies, educational pressures, research methods, and technological tools have stimulated writing research and deepened our scientific understanding of how writers write and what writing does. For example, in the study of writing and cognition, the use of eye-­tracking software in combination with the monitoring of keyboard strokes and handwriting has yielded new insights into composing processes, which have complemented, refined, and built upon the early work on cognition and writing, which began in the 1970s. It would appear that writing research is growing out of its adolescent phase, and is gaining an equal footing with research on reading. Rather than a smattering of isolated studies we now see the emergence of global traditions of writing research. While the interest and activity in writing is global, the responses are local. The educational institutions around the world that potentially provide writing instruction are themselves varied in policies, structures, ideologies, and practices. Approaches also vary according to the level and type of educational setting. Even more, the traditions of research developed to comprehend these settings and practices are necessarily varied, as they reflect responses to specific educational challenges and the histories of different academic communities. The current great interest and energy directed toward developing writing pedagogy, practices, and programs as well as research include a

x   Preface mutual recognition of the value of exchanging knowledge and experience among those of different regions, educational traditions, and research communities. Networks of writing research, programs, and practice that have been gradually building in North America have also been developing in Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Moreover, across the globe, particularly vibrant writing research communities have been emerging in the last two decades. These communities have been generating an increasing number of opportunities and vehicles for sharing knowledge. Two international handbooks on writing research have appeared recently, and international conferences (such as the International Writing Across the Curriculum (IWAC), the International Symposium on Studies on Genre (SIGET), the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA), the European Asssociation of Learning and Instruction’s Writing Special Interest Group (EARLI SigWriting), the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW), Red de Lectura y Escritura en Educación Superior (REDLEES), the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCC), and the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing (CASDW)) have gained increasing global participation. The Writing Research conference series sponsored by the University of California, Santa Barbara has followed a similar trajectory. What began as a small regional conference in 2002 expanded to a national research conference with a smattering of international participation in 2005. In 2008, it expanded again to a global conference that aimed at being inclusive of all regions, all educational and writing developmental levels, and all research and theory traditions. Surpassing the organizers’ initial expectations, the 2008 meeting hosted over 650 participants from 33 countries from all continents. Attendees included writing researchers representing the full spectrum of writing development, from the communication of small children to the lifelong learning strategies of retirees. The 2008 Writing Research Across Borders (WRAB) conference brought together and provided opportunities for interchange among people from widely varying perspectives that reflected the multifaceted practices that comprise writing, as well as the multifaceted political realities that shape educational institutions. Participants defined their own research trajectories in diverse ways, with some focusing on national and regional histories of writing pedagogy and disciplinarity (as in Brazil, France, and China), and others focusing on methodological and theoretical approaches (such as cultural-­historical activity theory, computer parsing of linguistic databases, cognitive theories of writing, and ethnographic observations and interviews). In addition to characterizing different research traditions, the over 450 presentations often included concrete examples of classroom materials that represented different writing curricula and activities based on those traditions, as well as ways of reflecting on and evaluating the classroom. Thus, participants encountered three days’ worth of sharp contrasts, often learning about research and pedagogies they had no prior inkling of, and becoming aware of intellectual frameworks that challenged

Preface   xi previously held assumptions. Out of this intellectual ferment came deeper appreciations of the intertwined complexities of writing, writing research, and literacy pedagogy. Although no conference attendee could imbibe all the richness the three days offered, nor could any conference represent all writing research under way, we are all becoming aware that there is far more to the world of writing research and educational practice than any individual had been previously aware. Comprehensive montages of global research on writing are just being sketched out now, and their completion lies in the future. Likewise, we have just begun the archeological uncovering of what lies behind each of the traditions we are witnessing. Still, even though we have little certainty of how to synthesize the global range of knowledge and experience into a more comprehensive account of writing, it is time for us to look about with open minds and methodological flexibility to consider what each tradition is producing so that we can carry our common interests forward. This volume attempts to be a wide-­ranging sampler of the best writing research currently under way in the world, at least as it was represented at the 2008 WRAB conference. The editors hope that the volume has the same engaging and challenging effect on readers as the conference did on attendees. The volume’s contents reflect the different styles of work offered at the conference. The opening section presents six writing research agendas from different regions and research groups. In the next section, four chapters address the national, political, and historical contexts that shape educational institutions and the writing initiatives developed there. The two sections that follow represent a wide range of research approaches for investigating writing processes and practices in primary, secondary, and higher education. The volume ends with several theoretical and methodological reflections. The editors hope this volume, like the conference that it grew out of, will bring new perspectives to the rich dialogue of contemporary research on writing and advance our understanding of this complex and important human activity. Charles Bazerman, Robert Krut, Karen Lunsford, Susan McLeod, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, Amanda Stansell

Part I

Approaches in various regions

1 Modern “writingology” in China1 Chen Huijun D  epartment of Foreign Languages, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China

Introduction There are four popular English translations for the term “Xie3 Zuo4 Xue2”2 in China: “writingology,” “theories on writing,” “writing studies,” and “writing research.” “Writingology” is chosen here as it best matches the concept of its Chinese equivalent, which refers to a branch of social sciences that studies the laws lying behind the act, the art, the process, and the product of writing. According to the Xinhua Chinese Dictionary, writing is a human-­specific activity, the narrow sense of which refers to writing texts specifically—i.e., penning or forming letters or words to record, transmit ideas or to express emotions or feelings, including writing school compositions—and the broad sense also covers translating and compiling activities and creating artistic products, such as music, drawings, and movies. However, “writingology” only studies writing in its narrow sense, and the disciplinary architecture covers both (specific) studies and (abstract) theories on literary works, rhetoric, and school compositions. Two opinions exist concerning the division of the history of Chinese “writingology.” Some researchers support a two-­stage development, namely, “ancient writingology” and “modern writingology”; the “5.4 Movement” (1919) being the dividing line. Others support a three-­stage division, with the 5.4 Movement separating “ancient writingology” from “traditional writingology” and the founding of the China Writing Society in 1980 separating “traditional writingology” from “modern writingology.” This chapter follows the latter opinion. Chinese “ancient writingology” originated from literary writing. Despite the constant turbulence from shifts of political power and frequent wars in ancient China, literature flourished. There were many great literary and philosophical masters, including Confucians who produced the earliest theories on writing. Confucius’ (Confucius: 551–479 bc) remarks on writing poetry played an important role in guiding the development of Chinese “writingology.” However, later feudal governments chose officials or offered scholarships based on applicants’ performance at exams at which examinees were required to improvise “eight-­legged” (Baku) texts of a fixed format and a limited number of words in ancient Chinese rather

4   Chen Huijun than contemporary daily Chinese. As time went by, such texts became so archaic and difficult for later generations to understand that education was (and even now is still) necessary for interpretation, which greatly affected the spread of knowledge and information. To change this situation, some great writers (e.g., Hu Shi and Lu Xun) initiated the “Vernacular Movement” a few years prior to the 5.4 Movement in 1919, proposing to replace ancient Chinese with contemporary daily Chinese in writing. It was not only a reform in linguistic expression, but also a reform in the content and conventions of writing. The reformation received great resistance from those who argued that writing in ancient Chinese was real scholarly writing. Despite this, the reformers struggled and pushed forward the reformation during the 5.4 Movement. The 5.4 Movement was started by students in Peking on May 4, 1919 and later extended to other parts of the country. In the Movement, out of patriotism, students fought against the government, opposing the offering of land and territories to other countries. Many famous writers, including those reformers in the Vernacular Movement, were also actively involved in the 5.4 Movement and supported the Movement via writing articles to criticize the government. For propaganda purposes, they wrote in vernacular contemporary Chinese so as to be understood by common people, and thus they became very popular and influential. In this way, archaic ancient Chinese was mostly replaced by vernacular (contemporary daily) Chinese. As a result, theories on archaic ancient Chinese writing could no longer provide satisfactory explanations for phenomena in contemporary writing, and accordingly new theories were needed to guide the practice and teaching of writing. Having no ready theories, leaders of the Vernacular Movement introduced theories on grammar, stylistics, and rhetoric from Western countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, and Italy) and literary theories from the Soviet Union. Combining these theories with Chinese writing practice, Chinese writing scholars gradually built a new system of knowledge on writing. Therefore, the 5.4 Movement in 1919 is generally considered the dividing line of Chinese “ancient writingology” and Chinese “traditional writingology” (or the dividing line of “ancient writingology” and “modern writingology” to some researchers). In “traditional writingology,” literary studies still remained in the spotlight, and rhetoric studies began to draw increasing attention. Although both ancient writing scholars and traditional writing researchers have produced numerous theories on writing, few of them are aware of the disciplinary construction of “writingology.” In the late 1970s, modern Chinese writing scholars created the concept of “writingology” and proposed constructing “writingology” as an independent discipline. There­ after, they founded the first professional organization of writing in China—the China Society of Writing—in 1980 and issued the first professional journal, Writing, in 1981. Ever since, Chinese “writingology” has entered a new, organized era. Although traditional literary studies remain

Modern “writingology” in China   5 powerful, rhetoric studies have made great progress. Therefore, the founding of the China Society of Writing is widely considered an epoch-­making event that marked the beginning of “modern writingology.” A careful search among publications in English shows that no studies have touched upon the introduction of Chinese “modern writingology.” This chapter focuses on Chinese “modern writingology,” aiming to make known recent progress in Chinese theoretical writing studies and to show what contributions Chinese scholars have made to writing studies in the world.

Changes in comparison with “traditional writingology” Since the 1980s, great changes have taken place in Chinese “writingology” thanks to the practice of the open-­door policy and the freedom policy issued in late 1978, two years after the Cultural Revolution. Like everything else in China, writing studies drew to a halt during the disastrous ten-­year Cultural Revolution, which was started by Chairman Mao. The executives of his policy went to extremes and exercised severe control over the mass media in all cultural fields (broadcasts, movies, plays, books, articles, etc.). They did not allow people to express different opinions and sent opponents to jail or farms to receive “re-­education” (political brain-­ washing). The Cultural Revolution turned out to be a disaster for the whole nation. In the years that followed, the influence was still pervasive. The top governor of the nation Hua Guofeng, the immediate successor of Chairman Mao, insisted that all Chinese people should absolutely abide by whatever policies Chairman Mao had issued and should follow whatever Chairman Mao had said. This situation ended in December 1978, when the third plenary meeting of the eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCCP) demolished the extreme restrictions, issued the open-­ door policy, and put forward the proposal for freedom of academic debate. This has made researchers and scholars active and has brought profound changes in China in all fields, including Chinese writing studies. The founding of the first professional organization and the issue of the first professional journal Before 1980s, no organizations and journals were committed to professional communication or to research on writing in China; no conferences or forums were dedicated to writing or composition studies. The open-­ door policy and proposal for freedom of debate put forward at the eleventh CCCP were inspiring to writing scholars; they became active in research and grew comfortable challenging different opinions. In 1978–1980, the debate over the promise of writing arose because of the widespread negative views in some colleges and universities: “There is little science in writing,” “Writing research is not promising,” and “Writing instructors do not have a bright future.” These views had a great

6   Chen Huijun impact on people’s attitude toward writing studies and the teaching of writing in universities. Many researchers and instructors lost confidence in the future of their careers, and became less motivated in their work. To make matters worse, this attitude influenced many students, who had already become fed up with the difficulty of writing and were bored with those tedious practices irrelevant to their daily life. To prevent the further spread and influence of these negative thoughts, writing scholars who still had faith in writing organized seminars and forums for discussions. They argued for the existence of scientific laws in writing and also for the necessity of exploring the laws. They believed that the importance of writing in life made it certain that writing studies and the teaching of writing would have a great future. One of the rewarding results of the arguments was that some scholars eventually realized that the lack of confidence in writing might be due to insufficient communication and education about writing. Hence, they felt it necessary to set up a professional organization for disciplinary construction and communication about writing. After two years’ effort, they finally founded the China Writing Society in 1980 and officially released the journal Writing in 1981. Ever since then, writing studies in China have entered an organized era and have been developing fast. The shift in research and teaching about writing In the late 1970s, still under the influence of Soviet theories, textbooks in universities continued stressing theoretical knowledge, which did not help to improve students’ abilities to write compositions. Therefore, many people lost faith in writing classes in colleges and universities. Even Ye Shengtao, the most respected and prestigious educator and writer of the time, complained that writing courses in universities were similar to those in secondary schools; those courses on writing were just make-­up lessons that students missed during the Cultural Revolution; courses on writing should eventually be canceled. His fame and position made the view spread widely and quickly, and immediately it aroused a heated debate in 1984–1986.3 Many scholars criticized this view from different perspectives, arguing that the teaching of writing in universities ought to be completely different from the composition classes in high schools in regard to the theoretical level, the goal, the tasks, and the requirements, and therefore courses on writing should not be canceled in colleges and universities. Encouragingly, Writing (5/1984) published a preface with an inspiring note from the President of the National Political Consultative Conference Deng Yingchao, which said, “Recover the prosperity of the writing discipline to serve the Construction of Four Modernizations.” This settled the debate and saved writing classes in universities. Eventually, the writing world found that the over-­emphasis on theoretical knowledge was the direct cause of the confusion as it did little help in improving students’ writing skills. Therefore,

Modern “writingology” in China   7 many writing scholars supported the shift from stressing theoretical knowledge to stressing training abilities and skills. This shift can be clearly traced in textbooks edited by Lu (1983, 1984). The 1983 version followed the traditional “eight-­block” framework, which consists of “introduction,” “material,” “theme,” “structure,” “expression,” “language,” “style,” and “revision,” whereas the 1984 version shifts to “selecting material,” “deciding on a theme,” “structuring the layout,” “writing techniques,” “expressing ideas,” “making clauses,” and “revising,” which displays a combination of knowledge and training of skills. After Lu, more scholars proposed theoretical research on the abilities and skills of writing (e.g., Li, 1993) and some influential theories appeared concerning the training of writing abilities, such as “Writing Ability Theory” (Lin, 1985), “Systemic Theory” (Du, 1988a), and “Three-­level Training System” (Gao & Liu, 1989). Dynamic, writer-­oriented studies have replaced and then have been combined with static, text-­oriented research; multiple patterns have replaced the homogeneous static textual-­analysis pattern in research into writing Influenced by Soviet theories on knowledge of writing imported in the 1950s, research and teaching on writing in the 1970s followed the traditional, static text-­oriented “eight-­block” framework. In 1990–1997, a debate arose on whether research on writing should be writer-­oriented or text-­oriented. Many scholars believed that the basis of research about writing was the writing behavior of the “writer,” and therefore, theories on writing should cover the whole composing process, and writing studies should center on the “writer,” because the ultimate goal of composing was to express the thoughts of human beings. Thereafter, many researchers shifted to focusing on writer-­oriented dynamic writing processes and reconsidering the process and laws of writing from dynamic and writer-­oriented perspectives. Summary of Composition Methods (Li, 1982) first displayed this change by replacing the traditional “eight blocks” with more dynamic writer-­oriented content, namely “introduction, composing process, the theme, spreading the theme—choosing materials, arranging materials, writing paragraphs, writing phrases and sentences, and revising.” As research has progressed, some scholars have come to realize that both overdue attention to the “writer” and ignorance of writing conventions might lead to overemphasis on subjective research and ignorance of objective issues. Researchers have begun to pay more attention to scientific analysis of texts while focusing on the “writer.” They believe that only in this way can they find out the causes of success or failure of a text and shape related theories. Therefore, many scholars advocate combining dynamic writer-­oriented research with static textual analysis. Consequently, multiple patterns have replaced the homogeneous textual analysis that dominated writing studies for decades: the “process–

8   Chen Huijun elements” pattern, e.g., Summary of Composition Methods (Li, 1982); the “general–details” pattern, e.g., Basics of Writing Theory (Liu, 1985); the “intelligence–skills” pattern, e.g., Summary of Basic Writing Theories (Lin, 1985); the “text–writer–summary” pattern, e.g., Modern Theories of Writing (Zhu, 1986a); the “essence–process–techniques–styles” pattern, e.g., New Manuscript on Modern Writing (Pei, 1987); the “basic theories– stylistic theories” pattern, e.g., Advanced Course of Writing Theories (Zhou, 1989); and the “nature–process–behavior–teaching” pattern, e.g., Introduction to Advanced “Writingology” (Ma, 2002). Writing studies has shifted from stressing literary research to stressing practical studies and then to stressing parallel development of both Literary studies have a long history since ancient China. Research into practical writing used to be neglected. The routine for research into practical writing used to follow the “format+examples” pattern, and before the 1980s, practical research used to lag far behind literary studies. With the rapid development of society and the economy, practical writing is rising in popularity and thus is becoming a hot research topic. From 1994 to 2007, nine “International Seminars on Practical Writing” took place in China, and publication of practical studies increased sharply (e.g., Li, 1988; Shao & Ye, 1998; Wang, 1985; Ning, 1999; Yu, 1992; Kuang, 1986; Si, 1984). Apart from those on basic theories, countless publications appear on branch theories of practical writing, such as administrative literacy (e.g., Wang, 1985; Zhou, 1994; Miao, 1993), scientific literacy (e.g., Si, 1984; Jiang, 1986), legislative literacy (e.g., Ning, 1999), financial literacy (e.g., Yu, 1992; Li, 1987), and news literacy (e.g., Kuang, 1986; Hong, 1986). Essential theoretical issues, such as the aim, essence, tasks, functions, and means of practical writing have been made clear. Cooperation has started among scholars from the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan since the first international seminar on practical writing in 1994. Series of textbooks have been published. An influential one is Xian4 Dai4 Ying1 Yong4 Wen2 (Modern Applied Writing) (Yu, 1996). The book is co-­authored by scholars from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. This bilingual (Chinese and English) textbook focuses on subgenres of applied writing. Applied texts are divided into nine sub-­genres: “correspondence,” “administrative documents,” “ceremonial documents,” “documents for modern enterprises,” “international trading documents,” “contracts and agreements,” “advertisements,” “international legislative documents,” and “reports.” The book contains a detailed discussion on the characteristics, functions, production, forms, language, requirements of each sub-­genre and classification of emerging sub-­genres, such as e-­documents, emails, and e-­transmission of charts and texts. The discussion of each genre is followed by various exercises.

Modern “writingology” in China   9 Writing studies have shifted from focusing on traditional paper-­and-pen literacy to focusing on both traditional and modern digital literacy Since the 1990s, the practice of a market economy has had an enormous impact on writing studies. Many people began caring about making money from writing. Studies about practical writing that can directly serve economic and social needs have become extremely popular. Relevant businesses, for example advertisement companies, writing services, and writing training centers, have been making good money. In contrast, high-­level fundamental research can hardly make any profit. This led to a debate during 1994–2000 about the value of research on writing in a market-­ economy society. Serious discussions reached the common ground that current writing studies should be in alignment with modern social needs; researchers and writers should care about both the economic benefits and social functions of writing. In particular, scholars should further develop theories on practical and digital literacy to satisfy modern social needs. Many publications on digital literacy have appeared, including Dian4 Nao3 Xie3 Zuo4: Fang1 Fa3 Yu3 Ji4 Qiao3 (Writing via Computers: Methods and Techniques) (Jin, 1999). According to Jin, computer literacy is different from traditional (pen– paper) literacy in that computer writing is a writer-­characteristic activity that records, exchanges, and transfers information with a computer as a medium, with the keyboard a language-­input device, with the monitor as the interface, with the software or hard-­disk as the carrier. His framework of “computer writingology” consists of “thinking pattern,” “Chinese interface,” “input methods,” “searching material,” “expressing means,” “structure,” “linguistic features,” “stylistic features,” “aesthetics,” “drafting and revising,” “saving and printing,” “practical techniques,” and “common styles.” Additionally, Jin reveals three important characteristics of computer literacy. The first is nonlinearity, i.e., hyperlinks enable the writer to jump easily from one point to another, from one text to another, and even from one medium to another, and thus he breaks the old sacred laws of linear narrative. The second is networkability, referring to the forming process of an interactive network consisting of the writer, media, texts, and other factors while the writer goes back and forth among different media or texts, which greatly expands the free space of thinking. The third is auto­ nomy, which refers to the fact that high technology provides the writer with many choices of media or forms to express himself or herself (e.g., words, sounds, flashes, cartoons, videos, pictures, and movies), and the writer can exercise control over the production and reproduction capacity of these means while producing a piece of writing on computer.

10   Chen Huijun

Current status of Chinese “modern writingology” Open-­ended theoretical frameworks have been established at different levels With the development of “Chinese modern writingology,” researchers are no longer satisfied with just focusing on specific issues, such as “selecting materials,” “choosing the theme,” “structuring the text,” “beginning a composition,” “arranging materials,” and “ending a composition” (Zhang, 1952; Wu, 1954; He, 1958; Hu, 1960; Peking University, 1964). Instead, they have started constructing a framework for Chinese “modern writingology,”4 e.g., the disciplinary theoretical system (e.g., Liu, 1985; Pei, 1987; Zhu, 1986a; Zhou, 1989), the training system (e.g., Wu et al., 1985; Li, 1988; Wei, 1998; Pan, 2000; Ma, 1999), the teaching system (Li, 1994; Dong, 2000), and the assessment system (Zhu, 1986b). Writing studies are now developing toward the parallel development of studies on details and research on macro-­strategic issues (Du, 2004; Lin, 1991; Jin, 1996; Chen, 1995; Dong, 2000). Currently, an open-­ended general theoretical framework has been accomplished. Using Maxims as the philosophical ground, the framework consists of three levels: basic theories, branch theories, and theories on writing training. At the upper level, basic theories cover the definition, essence, scope, fundamental laws, and constitution of writing (e.g., processing theories, ability theories, and product theories); theories at this level orient the other two levels. Located at the middle level are branch theories (e.g., literary writing theories, applied writing theories, news writing theories, economics writing theories, and administrative writing theories), interdisciplinary writing theories (e.g., psychology of writing, thinking of writing, and esthetics of writing), and historical research (e.g., history of writing, history of writing research, history of teaching of writing); theories at this level show the direction of development. The lower level covers theories on training (e.g., theories on training of writing styles and assessment of training), which aims to provide solutions to ­specific problems in actual writing activities. This general framework is open to the integration of theories from other disciplines, for example philosophy, psychology, esthetics, sociology, and linguistics, which leads to the occurrence of branches of “writingology,” such as “literary writingology” (e.g., Sun, 1987), “applied writingology” (e.g., Yu, 1996), “scientific writingology” (e.g., Si, 1984), “news writingology” (e.g., Kuang, 1986), thinking of writing (e.g., Jin, 1989), esthetics of writing (e.g., Lin, 1991), “computer writingology” (Jin, 1999), and psychology of writing (e.g., Lin, 1985). Certainly, with the fast development of the sciences, writing scholars will continue integrating into their writing studies new knowledge from emerging disciplines, which will lead to more emerging branch theories of Chinese “writingology.” Apart from the general framework, specific frameworks have also formed. For example, at the level of basic theories, Jin (1996) proposes

Modern “writingology” in China   11 that the framework consists of a vertical system and a horizontal system. The vertical framework shows the interactive relationship among four links (object, apperceiving, conceiving, and text), and the horizontal framework shows the interactive relationship of four elements: object, writer, carrier (text), and recipient (audience). “Object” is the source and base of writing; “writer” is the dominator in writing; “carrier” is the result or product of writing; “recipient” is the recipient of the product. Therefore, this framework takes “writer” as the research center, aiming at characterizing both the links and the entire dynamic running process. Therefore, this framework stresses both dynamic research on the writing process and static textual analysis. Further, Lin (2002) proposes that, horizontally, the four basic elements of writing, namely, “writer,” “object,” “carrier” (the text) and “recipient” (audience), are transformed into the writer’s mind and turn into four forms of ideology: personal ideology, thematic ideology, ideology about audience, and ideology about product; the writer sums up these four forms of ideology via perception, digests them at the conceiving stage and unifies them at the expressing phase and finally produces a product. Vertically, there exists a ternary transformational law: the writer first internalizes the object (internalization), and then apperceives the internalized object (apperception), and finally externalizes the ideology (externalization). In a writing process, the writer operates and exercises control over four constituent links: collecting, apperceiving, expressing, and assessing. The approval for enrolling MA students marks the official acknowledgment of “writingology” as a discipline It is inspiring to Chinese writing scholars that in 2006 Wuhan University and Fudan University received approval to enroll MA students of writing as a secondary discipline under the primary discipline of Chinese language and literature. In 2007, these two universities began accepting students majoring in rhetoric in Wuhan University and creative (literary) writing in Fudan University. Wuhan University sets two directions: basic theories of “writingology” and “styles of writing.” The former focuses on historical studies about ancient, traditional, and modern theories on rhetoric; further exploration about the essence and laws of writing; and methodology of teaching and research on basic “writingology.” The latter studies the evolution of some common genres, the features of those genres that are urgently needed in society, and also methodology of teaching and research on each genre. Fudan University sets three directions: university “writing­ ology,” research and practice of fiction (novel) writing, and research and practice of prose writing. The approval for acceptance of MA students marks the official acknowledgment of “writingology” as a discipline.

12   Chen Huijun Schools of research have been formed 5 With the rapid development of “writingology,” several influential schools of research on writing have formed in China. The first consists of those who focus on textual analysis, especially on structural analysis of texts, aiming to discover attributes that lead to the success of an article; scholars following this tradition include Zhang Zhigong, Zhang Shoukang, Cheng Funing, Zeng Xiangqin, Zheng Shouyin, Chen Yali, Wu Bowei, Yang Yinhu, and Zhang Enpu. The second is those who focus on philosophy of writing; influential scholars include Tang Daixing, Zhang Weide, and Zhao Yu. The third is those who focus on the principles of writing (e.g., the dynamic process of writing), aiming to uncover the laws and characteristics of the whole process and the constituents of human writing activity that include the writer, the object, the carrier (text), the audience, the essence, perception, thinking, expressing, and revising; famous scholars include Pei Xiansheng, Zhu Boshi, Lin Kefu, Jin Changmin, Liu Xiqing, Yan Chunjun, She Zuochen, Zhang Deyi, and Li Jinglong. The fourth is those who study the training of writing, aiming to establish an effective training system to improve basic writing skills and abilities; scholars following this tradition include Lin Kefu, Wu Sijing, Gao Yuan, Li Baijian, and Du Benchen. The fifth is those who study psychology or cognition (particularly wisdom or intelligence), focusing on the constitutional and developmental laws of the writer’s intelligence or wisdom of writing; the most important scholars in this tradition include Ma Zhengping, Liu Xiaogang, Jin Daoxing, Qiu Anchang, Liu Yu, Wang Kejian, Zhou Decang, and Gao Nan. The sixth is researchers who focus on applied or practical writing; scholars in this tradition include Zhou Jichang, Hong Weilei, and Zhang Chuanzhen. The seventh is those who focus on historical studies; influential scholars are Wang Zhibin, Zhao Yu, and Pan Xinhe. The eighth is those who pay special attention to studies on how cultures affect writing activities; well-­known scholars include Ma Zhengpin, Ren Suihu, and Tao Jiawei.

Conclusion: direction of development Jin (1996) proposes three trends of Chinese “modern writingology.” The first is practicality. To be practical means to meet social needs. With the rapid development of a market economy, practicality becomes the primary concern in writing research and education. People are more concerned about performance in writing modern practical genres, for example résumés, legislative documents, cross-­cultural (business) letters (emails), agreements and contracts, public speeches, professional papers. Research and education about modern practical literacy becomes one of the major and urgent tasks for writing scholars. Also, since practical literacy on the mainland is different from that in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan in terms of categorization, format, linguistic features, and cultural

Modern “writingology” in China   13 connotation, it might be necessary to unify the form and usage of Chinese characters as well as the format and style of writing, so as to meet the needs of all Chinese people across the globe. The second tendency is that “modern writingology” should keep abreast of the development of the times. This information age keeps pushing forward the progress of computer literacy. The use of the computer in writing has brought about changes in traditional modes of thinking, means of writing, ways of expressing, features of language, and formal patterns of writing. Traditional theories and frameworks of research need renewing as they can no longer provide good explanations for and correct guidance to actual writing practice. In addition, the importance of computer literacy is stressed more than ever before, and the fast development of the times has completely changed the idea of illiteracy. Those who could not read, write, and calculate used to be considered functionally illiterate, whereas since the 1980s, those who cannot drive a car, read in English, and write via computers are considered functionally illiterate. Therefore, writing research and education should satisfy the desire of both schoolchildren and people from all walks of life for learning how to write well via computers so as to enable them to keep abreast of the progress of modern society. The third is the dialectic “separate–merge” tendency, which is considered the general direction of the discipline. In this modern age, theories in all fields develop fast. Researchers have tried borrowing theories across disciplines in scientific studies. Multidisciplinary studies have blurred the division of separate disciplines. Psychology and linguistics are separate disciplines, but have merged into each other and formed psycholinguistics; economics and math are also considered two separate disciplines, but at present math–-economics and economics–math have also been developed. Likewise, many modern new branches have been continuously appearing in “writingology,” such as info-­writingology, psycho-­writingology, literary writingology, esthetic writingology, and rhetoric writingology. The appearance of these subdisciplines shows the “separate–merge” direction of “writingology” which results from continuous interdisciplinary studies.

Notes 1 My thanks go to the Visiting Fulbright Scholar Program for providing me funding and offering me the fortunate chance to work with Professor Charles Bazerman at UCSB. I am grateful to Charles Bazerman and Karen Lunsford, who encouraged me to write about this topic and have spent a lot of time reading all the drafts, making detailed comments and offering insightful suggestions. They made my stay at UCSB an incredibly rewarding experience for my career. 2 This chapter uses Arabic numerals to indicate tones of Chinese characters: “1” indicates the first tone (the level tone), e.g., “zhi1”; “2” indicates the second tone (the rising tone), e.g., “shi2”; “3” indicates the third tone, e.g., “xie3”; “4” indicates the fourth tone (the falling tone), e.g., “zuo4”; romanized Chinese without an Arabic numeral represents the slight tone, e.g., “de.” 3 The journal Writing dedicated a special column in the fourth and the fifth issues of 1984 to discussions about this topic.

14   Chen Huijun 4 Transitional works include those by Shangxi Teachers’ College (1973) and Hebei University (1979). 5 Part of the information comes from Du (2004).

References Chen, G. A. (1995). Xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo3 xue2 yuan2 li3 (Principles of modern writingology). Changsha: Central South University Press. Dong, X. Y. (2000). Xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo3 xue2 jiao4 cheng2 (Course of modern writingology). Beijing: High Education Press. Du, B. Ch. (1988a). Zhong1 xue2 sheng1 zuo4 wen2 xun4 lian4 ti3 xi4 he2 fang1 fa3 (System and methods of composition training in secondary schools). Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press. Du, B. Ch. (1988b). Da4 xue2 xie3 zuo4 ji1 chu3 (Basic college writing). Changchun: Jilin Education Press. Du, F. L. (2004). Zhong1 guo2 xie3 zuo4 xue2 li3 lun4 yan2 jiu1 yu3 fa1 zhan3 (Research and development of writing theories in China). Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press. Hong, T. G. (1986). Xian4 dai4 xin1 wen2 xie3 zuo4 ji4 qiao3 (Techniques of modern news writing). Beijing: China News Press. Hu, W. Sh. (1960). Xie3 zuo4 ji1 chu3 zhi1 shi (Basic knowledge on writing). Shanghai: Fudan University Press. Gao, N. (1991). Xie3 zuo4 si1 wei2 san1 ti2 (Three issues on writing thinking). In Ma Zhengping (ed.), Current progress of writing research in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong New Century Press. Gao, Y., & Liu, F. F. (1989). Xie3 zuo4 xun4 lian4 ti3 xi4 san1 ji2 tiao4 (Three-­ jump training system of writing). Beijing: Guangmin Daily Press. Hebei University. (1979). Xie3 zuo4 ji1 chu3 zhi1 shi2 (Basic knowledge on writing). Shijiazhuang: Hebei Renmin Press. He, J. H. (1958). Xie3 zuo4 ji1 chu3 zhi1 shi2 jiang3 hua4 (Speech on basic knowledge on writing). Shanghai: New Knowledge Press. Jiang, R. S. (1986). Da4 xue2 ke1 ji4 xie3 zuo4 (Scientific writing in universities). Beijing: Guangming Press. Jin, Ch. M. (1996). Xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo4 xue2 ji1 ben3 yuan3 li3 (Basic principles of modern writingology). Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Press. Jin, Ch. M. (1989). Xie3 zuo4 yun4 si1 xue2 yin3 lun4 (Introduction to writing thinking theories). Xi’an: Shangxi Renmin Education Press. Jin, Ch. M., & Lin, K. F. (1991) Gao1 deng3 shi1 fan4 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (A course book of writing for advanced normal schools). Fuzhou: Fujian Education Press. Jin, Zh. B. (1999). Dian4 nao3 xie3 zuo4: fang1 fa3 yu3 ji4 qiao3 (Computer writing: Methods and techniques). Dalian: Liaoning Normal University Press. Kuang, Y. M. (1986). Xin1 wen2 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (Course on news writing). Guangzhou: Guangdong Education Press. Li, B. Ch. (1993). Chuang4 zuo4 ji4 qiao3 xue2 (Theories on techniques of writing). Huhhot: Inner Mongolia Education Press. Li, B. J. (1994). Kuai4 le4 zuo4 wen2: jiao4 yu3 xue2 (Happy writing: Teaching and learning). Beijing: Yu Wen Press. Li, J. L. (1982). Zuo4 wen2 fa3 gai4 yao4 (Summary of composition methods). Shengyang: Liaoning People’s Press.

Modern “writingology” in China   15 Li, K. Y. (1988). Gao1 deng3 ying1 yong4 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (Advanced course of applied writing). Beijing: Yuwen Press. Li, X. Y. (1987). Ying1 yong4 xie3 zuo4 xun4 lian4 jiao4 cheng2 (Course on training of applied writing). Dalian: Northeast Financial University Press. Li, Zh. L. (1988). Pu3 tong1 xie3 zuo4 xue2 jiao4 cheng2 (Course on writing for general purposes). Lanzhou: Lanzhou University Press. Lin, K. F. (1985). Ji1 chu3 xie3 zuo4 li3 lun4 (Basic theories of writing). Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Press. Lin, K. F. (1991). Gao1 deng3 shi1 fan4 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (Advanced course on writing for teachers training programs). Fuzhou: Fujian Education Press. Lin, K. F. (2002). Xian1 dai4 xie3 zuo4 xue2: kai1 tuo4 yu3 geng1 yun2 (Modern writingology: Deploitation and tillage). Nanjing: Normal University Press. Liu, X. Q. (1985). Ji1 chu3 xie3 zuo4 xue3 (Basic writingology). Beijing: Central Broadcasting TV University Press. Ma, X. D. (1999). Xie3 zuo4 xun4 lian4 lun4 (Theories on writing training). Mudanjiang: Heilongjiang Karean Press. Ma, Zh. P. (1995). Xie3 zuo4 zhi4 hui4 lun4 (Wisdom of writing). Chongqing: Southwest Normal University Press. Ma, Zh. P. (2002). Gao1 deng3 xie3 zuo4 xue2 yin3 lun4 (An introduction to advanced writingology). Beijing: Renmin University Press. Miao, F. L. (1993). Zhong1 guo2 dang1 dai4 gong1 wen2 xie3 zuo4 (China contemporary administrative writing). Weihai: Shangdong University Press. Ning, Zh. Y. (1999). Si1 fa3 wen2 shu1 xue2 (Legislative writing theories). Beijing: China University of Politics and Law Press. Pan, X. H. (2000). Gao1 deng3 shi1 fan4 xie3 zuo4 san1 neng2 jiao4 cheng2 (Advanced course for teachers’ training programs on three basic writing abilities). Beijing: Renmin Education Press. Pei, X. Sh. (1986). Xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo4 xue2 liu4 ren2 tan2 (Six people’s talks on modern writing research). Chinese Guide, 4(1986). Pei, X. Sh. (1987). Xie3 zuo4 xue2 xin1 gao3 (New manuscripts on research of writing). Nanjing: Jiangsu Education Press. Peking University, Chinese Section. (1964). Xie3 zuo4 zhi1 shi2 (Knowledge on writing). Beijing: Peking University Press. Qiu, Sh. H. (1986). Si1 fa3 wen2 shu1 tong1 lun4 (General theories on legislative writing). Beijing: Qunzhong Press. Shanxi Teachers’ College. (1973). Xie3 zuo4 zhi1 shi2 (Knowledge on writing). Taiyuan: Shanxi Teachers’ College Press. Shao, B. J., & Ye, X. P. (1998). Ying1 yong4 xie3 zuo4 zue2 (Applied writingology). Lanzhou: Gansu Education Press. Si, Y. H. (1984). Ke1 ji4 xie3 zuo4 jian3 ming2 jiao4 cheng2 (Course on scientific writing). Hefei: Anhui Education Press. Sun, Sh. Zh. (1987). Wen2 xue2 chuang4 zuo4 lun4 (Literary writing). Shenyang: Chunfeng Literary Press. Tao, J. W. (1998). Xie3 zuo4 yu3 wen2 hua4 (Writing and culture). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Languages Education Press. Wang, J. Sh. (1985). Shi2 yong4 gong1 wen2 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (Course on practical administrative writing). Beijing: Beijing University Press. Wang, Zh. B. (2002). Er4 shi2 shi4 ji4 zhong1 guo2 xie3 zuo4 li3 lun4 shi3 (History of Chinese writing theories in the twentieth century). Nanjing: Nanjing University Press.

16   Chen Huijun Wei, T. J. (1998). Tan4 xun2 xie3 zuo4 de ao4 mi4 (Exploring secrets in writing). Nanjing: Nanjing Normal University. Wu, B. X. (1954). Xie3 zuo4 he2 yue4 du2 de ji1 ben3 wen4 ti2 (Basic issues in reading and writing). Shanghai: Oriental Book Publishing House. Wu, B. W., et al. (1985). Ji1 chu3 xie3 zuo4 jiao4 cheng2 (Course of basic writing). Taiyuan: Shanxi Renmin Press. Yang, Y. H. (1983). Wen2 zhang1 xie3 zuo4 er4 shi2 wu3 jiang3 (Twenty-­five lectures on writing). Changchun: Jilin Renmin Press. Yin, J. Sh. (1984). Zhi4 li4 fa1 zhan3 yu3 xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo4 xue2 ke1 (Development of intelligence vs. modern writing discipline). Writing, 4. Yu, Ch. K. (1996). Xian4 dai4 ying1 yong4 wen2 (Modern applied writing). Shanghai: Fudan University Press. Yu, G. R. (1992). Jing1 ji4 xie3 zuo4 xue2 (Economics writingology). Beijing: China Economics Press. Zhang, Zh. G. (1952). Xie3 zuo4 fang1 fa3: cong2 kai1 tou2 dao4 jie2 wei3 (Writing methods: From beginning to the end). Shanghai: Kaiming Book Publishing House. Zhou, D. C. (1998) Xie3 zuo4 xun4 lian4 jiao4 cheng2 (Writing training course). Shanghai: Oriental Press Center. Zhou, J. Ch. (1989) Xie3 zuo4 xue2 gao1 ji2 jiao4 cheng2 (Advanced course of writing theories). Wuhan: Wuhan University Press. Zhou, S. J. (1994). Zhong1 guo2 xian4 dai4 gong1 wen2 xie3 zuog. Beijing: Knowledge Press. Zhu, B. Sh. (1986a). Xian4 dai4 xie3 zuo4 xue2 (Modern theories of writing). Beijing: People’s Daily Press. Zhu, B. Sh. (1986b). Xie3 zuo4 yu3 lun4 wen2 ping2 gai3 (Writing and composition assessment). Beijing: High Education Press.

2 The French didactics approach to writing, from elementary school to university I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter Université Charles-de-Gaulle-Lille3

“Didactics” in France refers to research disciplines that analyze content (knowledge and know-­how) as the object of teaching and learning, related to school disciplines (Reuter, 2007a). But, when we use the term didactics, we are not referring to teaching/training disciplines. For example, the didactics of French is concerned with neither the same objects nor the same practices as “French” as a subject taught by teachers and learnt by learners, or which trainee teachers attempt to acquire at teacher-­training colleges. In contrast to what Lee S. Shulman (1986) called “pedagogical content knowledge,” which is a particular type of professional knowledge linking certain aspects of content knowledge with questions of the teachability of that knowledge, didactics pursues a theory of this pedagogical content knowledge by empirical analysis of data collected in the classroom, construction of a body of specific concepts, and reflections on methodological problems (Lahanier-­Reuter & Roditi, 2007; Perrin-­Glorian & Reuter, 2006). The target of this research is thus descriptive or epistemological, rather than pedagogical or oriented toward teacher education, even though praxeological questions are both the point of departure and the horizon of expectations of didactics. In this chapter, we will present research being developed on French didactics in the specific domain of writing. The presentation will be based in the research that Yves Reuter has carried out for the past 30 years on teaching and learning writing, as well as the current research agenda directed by Isabelle Delcambre concerning university-­level writing.1 The didactic approach to writing developed in France from the 1980s onward, essentially in relation to the discipline “French,” as it is explicitly responsible for the teaching of writing in primary and secondary schools. It was dominated in this period by cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, and genetic psychology (Barré-de Miniac, 1995), but it progressively built itself as a specific research field. Today it focuses on interrogating the theoretical paradigms at its center, and begins to carry out a theoretical dialogue with those forms of sociology that focus on the description of variations in human behavior rather than on establishing their universal features (Lahire, 2007). The second part of this chapter will present an example of articulations between the didactics of writing and relevant psychological and sociological paradigms.

18   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter Research about university writing developed much later, near the end of the 1990s, by French didacticians, following the broad movement of sociological research about universities. This research, beginning early in the 1990s, studied the “massification” and the transformation of the college-­going public, their daily life and material conditions, their different relationships with the rhythm and timing of college studies, their study habits, and the mechanisms by which universities select students and reproduce inequalities (Rey, 2005). There is thus nothing in common between French didactics research on university writing, quite recent, and the much more established movement of composition theory, linked to the institutionalization of teaching writing in higher education in the United States (Donahue, 2008), a phenomenon that did not exist in France.

From the didactics of French to university literacies The coherence of the didactics of writing, as a subdiscipline of the didactics of French, comes from the analysis and description of teaching and learning writing at primary and secondary school, where “French” as a discipline contains, along with grammar, spelling, reading, literature, and so on, a learning object which is called “writing.” Universities are not the “natural territories” of the didactics of French: it is difficult to designate French as a discipline at university, given that French university professors are more likely to speak of Literature or Letters, Linguistics, Language Study, or Communications. The concepts and methods that have been developed in the didactics of French, however, are of interest in the study of university writing. Moreover, as many studies in didactics at school have shown, the teaching and learning of writing is not limited to French classes. Didacticians of French describe and analyze, often in collaboration with other didacticians, writing in disciplines other than French—for example, in science or mathematics.2 It should also be noted that didacticians from other disciplines appropriate the tools and methods elaborated in the didactics of French or in the field of language study in order to describe and analyze language practices (written or oral) in the classroom (science, mathematics, and so on). These relations between didacticians of different disciplines, when they investigate the role of language practices in learning and teaching, are nearly the same that can be found in secondary schools between teachers of different disciplines when they think about how to improve the students’ writing abilities (Reuter, in press). For all of the above reasons, the absence of French and French writing as a university discipline, the relative transversal nature of language practices (which must be, however, questioned), the contribution of French didactics to research on university writing, we propose to use the term university literacies to designate the field of research which analyzes written language practices at university.

The French didactics approach to writing   19

Research in the field of the didactics of writing The development of the didactics of French experienced a veritable explosion from 1985 with the theorization of educational activities and educational writing practices. The didactics of writing was mainly developed in the context of research on the teaching of French at primary school and the initial years of secondary school, and, to a lesser degree, in the final years of secondary school. These didactic studies were not only influenced by research in cognitive psychology on the processes involved in writing, but also by research in social psychology on representations associated with writing and writing tasks, which eventually led to the conception of the notion of how a student writer relates to writing, which was developed, for example, by Christine Barré-de Miniac (2000). Other studies on the history of the teaching of French and writing in genetic psychology or genetic criticism also played an important role in influencing the orientation of initial didactic studies. Rather than reviewing the history of this field, however, we present a didactic definition of writing, which is the foundation for the work THEODILE has been doing and is the outcome of theoretical and empirical research carried out by Y. Reuter in the past 30 years. We will try to show, first, how, in order to create a model for writing (as for reading; Reuter, 2003), didactics must include two antagonistic concepts, the first unifying writing at an abstract level, the second highlighting its contextualization and variations. We will then try to clarify the notion of contextualization in this framework, as well as its consequences for the specific difficulties that learners encounter in singular practical situations. Finally, we will develop the value of the notion of tension in order to clarify the ways in which writing practices work and the problems their use encounters, a notion which is important in theorizing texts and writing. Creating writing models in a didactic perspective It is possible to position the numerous writing models developed in different fields (Reuter, 1996) on a continuum between two extremes. The first tends toward association with the field of philosophy or certain strands of anthropology or psychology, and presents writing as singular, based on three principles: its unique nature, its autonomization (from other activities), and its abstraction-­decontextualization (from the subject-­writer’s history, from situations, from institutions). This conception, which we are of course oversimplifying to an extreme, is largely focused on seeking out invariants, and on assimilating writing into what is supposed to be most specific (e.g., encoding, with help from linguistic units; constitution of lasting traces; or the possible autonomization of the conditions for the situation of the utterance). This consequently renders secondary the other dimensions of writing and its possible variations in modes such as marginalization, superficiality, or “window dressing.”

20   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter The other end of the continuum of conceptions about writing, which we are oversimplifying as much as the first, is based more on sociology, ethnology, or history. It is less concerned with writing (singular) than with practices (plural), writing practices or practices including writing. In this framework, writing is not reduced to the moment of transcribing (the writing itself) but structurally integrates a before and an after that determine the conditions of possibility, the functions, the uses, the meanings, and the values. Writing can only be understood as inscribed in the history of the subject and articulated with the writer’s overall practices. In addition, writing is defined by its modes of actualization, of which different components carry meaning within social spaces (whether of the writer him/herself, the situation, the procedures used, the categories of writing . . .). The concepts associated with this end of the continuum are thus grounded in principles like diversity, contextualization, and the interaction between activities within practices and actualization. These conceptions thus seek out the relevant axes of variation and hold that whatever is designated by the term “writing” cannot be reduced to that which is specific to it. In other words, the variations restructure, in a key way, the set of components. In a didactic framework, researchers need both ends of the spectrum because each one illuminates and can help the field to develop modes of teachability and learnability. The first conception is that writing (in the singular) tends to function congruent to the representations of teaching and learning according to which competence is built independently of the actual use or doing of an activity: writers learn before doing, prerequisites are necessary, activities can be broken down into component parts that can each be taught and practiced specifically. The issue of “usefulness” or function is left to a future time and attention stays focused on the analysis of forms. In the same way, writing—when articulated based on a neutralized vision of language (understood as shared capital)—is taken on in successive stages that should go from the most simple to the most complex elements, all of these elements themselves categorized in abstract, decontextualized, neutral ways (as, for example, in text types). This conception seems, to us, to align in perfect harmony with the demands of the school form, in the historico-­ sociological sense of the term (Vincent, 1994), enabling the establishment of a progressive, common curriculum. The second conception constructs competence as depending on the activity actually occurring: we learn by doing and in order to do, constructing, in this doing, the necessary dimensions of the activity, which is structured by its uses. In this framework, practices and their meanings have a central role, and formal reflections are subordinate to them. Writing—as articulated in a social vision of language practices (as a space of conflict and negotiation)—is taken on from the start in diversified and complex forms of realization, characterized more by their relationship to contexts, to institutions, to social activities which frame the genres and discourses. This second conception, less anchored in

The French didactics approach to writing   21 school than the first, can only be maintained as a pedagogical approach insofar as it responds to important school preoccupations, such as by offering a palette of exercise forms and teaching and learning practices, based on subject areas, or modes of pedagogical work, or difficulties encountered. Analyzing contextualization in a didactic framework The second consequent thesis clarifies how didacticians should think about contextualization in a didactic framework. It seems to us that, in such a perspective, contextualization can be described through three interconnected systems: the school system (in the sense that Vincent, 1994 presents the school form), the pedagogical system, and the disciplinary system. Writing practices are thus rendered functional, either as tools or as objects, essentially in relation to teaching, learning, and evaluation, and are shaped in a way that makes them as easily managed as possible in school spaces (determining temporality, spatiality, tools, media, length, genres, and so on). These writing practices are, in a complementary way, structured by a kind of pedagogy, what Marcel Lesne (1977/1994) calls a pedagogical work mode, which will weigh heavily on their frequency, their form, their modes of connection, and their modes of evaluation. In addition, these writing practices are inscribed in/with disciplines (and at particular points in a disciplinary curriculum), which makes them more or less central disciplinary objects, or disciplinary tools in relation to different practices (analyzing, commenting, observing, experiencing) and with different genres specific to those disciplines. This contextualization confers, in any case, specificity to different school practices, differentiating them from extra-­ scholastic practices that are shaped by other systems in relation to the socio-­institutional spheres in which they are used (Reuter, 1996). The importance we are assigning to contextualization, as well as this way of constructing it, has significant consequences in terms of both apprehending students’ difficulties and intervening in them. In fact, in this perspective, difficulties cannot be considered writing difficulties “in general,” but problems in carrying out specific practices, in order to do something with a particular context. This is how Michel Brossard (1998/2002) was able to show that many difficulties are born of a lack of cognitive clarity or, in another shape, difficulty overcoming the opacity of the context of formal learning situations for many students. In the same way, Bernard Lahire (1993) or Bernard Charlot, Elisabeth Bautier, and Jean-­Yves Rochex (1992) have shown that a good number of students’ problems, in particular students from lower-­class backgrounds, can be attributed to their different relationships to language or to learning, in contrast with those that are more established by classic pedagogico-­didactic functioning (decomposition, attention paid to form rather than meaning, analytic distance, progressivity, and so on). Thus Jean-­Paul Bernié and his Bordeaux colleagues (Bernié, 2002) were able to develop the hypothesis that certain

22   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter difficulties are caused by students’ difficulty moving from everyday, current spaces into disciplinary modes of thinking, acting, and discourse. In a way particularly interesting for a didactic perspective, considering these problems as strongly related to a context and to specific practices allows didacticians, we believe, to safeguard against fatalism by affording real power to educational intervention in terms of seeing these difficulties coming or in remediating them, because it is within a teacher’s power to transform, meaningfully, contexts and practices and to introduce learners to them. The value of the notion of tension in a didactic perspective The third and final thesis we propose here—based on many of our research projects about texts, reading, and writing, from kindergarten to university—seeks to clarify the value of the notion of tension. This is thus one more step, in a didactic perspective, toward formalizing the notion of practices (in this case, writing practices) and toward specifying the difficulties that come with teaching them and learning them. By tension we mean that language activities and practices, textual objects, relationships to these objects, and the means available for teaching (understood here in the broad sense of situations, exercises, prescriptions) that seek to establish them are all structured by antagonistic (opposite) ends of the spectrum. Writing, its teaching and learning, can thus be conceived of as the management of tensions in variant forms according to situations and genres of writing. This necessitates key theoretico-­methodological shifts in order to describe activities and objects and formalize the principle tensions that structure them. For example, in writing there are the tensions between phonographemes and logographemes in written codes, and tensions between transcription of pre-­existing thought and construction of thought in the rendering of meaning into text. In writing summaries, there is a tension between fidelity to the original text and autonomy of the new text. In representation of writing, there are tensions between protecting one’s intimate self and showing that self (Dabène, 1987).3 Reuter has thus been able to show how many difficulties in descriptive writing (Reuter, 1998) or narrative writing (Reuter, 2007b) in school settings were due to tensions between the manner of imagining these language behaviors in different disciplines or even in the same discipline at different points: description in mathematics, for example, seeks economy of expression as compared to description in French, and the “story,” in French elementary school, can be satisfactorily constructed in a simple chronological way but must, later in schooling, be complementarily structured by other types of logical relationship. He has also been able to show (Reuter, 2004) how many problems in writing university-­level texts (MA-­level theses or PhD dissertations), what he calls research writing in evolution, were due to a structural tension in the writer’s enunciative positions, between researcher (who must, in this role, produce new knowledge for his or her

The French didactics approach to writing   23 community) and person-­in-formation (who must, in this role, show that he or she has adopted the norms and knowledge of his or her community as well as demonstrating his or her status as learner, ready to be evaluated as such). In this perspective, difficulty can come from a source other than a “lack” (in the learner) or different relationships with school practices. The difficulties are—at least partially—programmed by the very structure of the activities and objects in question, as deviations, hyperaccentuations, or imbalances. Using this approach, didacticians can analyze problems in teaching, when teachers, for example, hesitate to construct multiple dimensions of writing at the same time or redistribute them throughout a school trajectory. They can also identify difficulties in learning arising from an unwanted transfer of competences from one discipline to another (describing in mathematics like in French) or an obscuring of acquired competence when a student goes from one discipline to another. To summarize, we have offered two models of writing (singular activity or plural practices), the three spaces of contextualization for writing (school as institution, pedagogy, and disciplines), and the concept of tension. In the later section of this chapter, we will make a wide presentation of French studies about writing at university as examples of the methodological and theoretical problems didactics has to face.

French research in the area of university literacies The stakes of the new field of research that we propose to call university literacies are to explore what the sociological studies mentioned in the introduction generally leave aside, that is writing practices, and the link between these practices and disciplinary or epistemological frames in which these practices are exercised. When sociologists focus on study practices, they focus largely on reading practices (Fraisse, 1993; Lahire, 1998), but little on the writing practices. And the sociologists have not focused on the disciplines (Alava & Romainville, 2001). Thus, the aim of didactic studies in the field of university literacies is to designate the disciplines as a framework for analyzing student practices and representations and to tackle writing practices, that is to say the practices involved in discursive production which punctuate the program and which can be seen as steps in the comprehension of the implicit codes and modes of disciplinary reflection. With regard to French universities, the aim would be to better fill the program contained within the use of the plural form of “university literacies,” which, as Mary Lea (2008) points out regarding academic literacies, encompasses both reading and writing, seen as both social and cultural practices, situated in specific contexts and not as individual cognitive activities. However, the field of French research on academic literacies is still heterogeneous and reflects a number of contrasts which can be linked to either university pedagogical practices or to trends in research in the

24   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter didactics of writing. There is, in fact, quite a large difference between two ways of approaching writing at university. On the one hand, we have approaches based on “production techniques,” conceptions which dominated in the 1970s, that envisage a transversal view of the teaching of writing, without referring to individual disciplines—teaching writing transversally is seen as a prerequisite to academic study or as a means of bringing the student up to the required level, based on mastery of language and communication skills (the linguistic deficiency model). These techniques are mainly viewed in terms of compensating or remedying. They are mainly aimed at students in the first year. This model is always present when there is a desire to find solutions to tackle drop-­out in the first year of university (as in the case of the recent Réussir en Licence (“success as an undergraduate”) plan). On the other hand, since the end of the 1990s, researchers in the field of French didactics have been working on analyzing and describing difficulties students face when they write, be these difficulties related to academic, professional, or research writing. For example, Marie-­Christine Pollet and Françoise Boch (2002) introduce a collection of papers presented at the first conference on “Writing in Higher Education” in Brussels by underlining that interest in the written production of students is currently taking over from the numerous studies carried out on reading. They further argue that it is necessary to open the field to all forms of higher education and not only university education (which gives rise to numerous papers on writing in professional training). Isabelle Laborde-­Milaa, Françoise Boch, and Yves Reuter (2004) emphasize the emergence of a separate focus on research writing, a form of theoretical or theorizing writing with which advanced students are confronted. This form of writing is both the pinnacle of the students’ studies and “structures the identity of the institutions and its actors” (p. 5). It is thus the object of “anxiety-­inducing or misleading representations,” which should be taken into account when dealing with training students for research and understanding the heuristic functions of writing. These theoretical discourse-­focused analyses examine the articulation between a subject who is the writer (how this person relates to writing, how he/she interprets the writing context) and the characteristics of the disciplinary genre. Epistemological analysis of the relationship between writing and disciplines plays a central role in this approach (Daunay, 2008). In order to present a panorama of research in this area, we can mainly refer to these two publications, without excluding reference to other works. Discourse genres Most of the studies focus on textual analysis of the writing genres produced in higher education (including teacher training): academic genres

The French didactics approach to writing   25 required by the institution (dissertations, text commentaries, theoretical texts, reports written after internships, case studies, abstracts, back-­cover texts), or genres linked to research (proposing an oral presentation). Sometimes they describe different parts of the text (introductions, annexes, research questions), or personal writing practices linked to work (taking notes, rewriting). Most of the time, these descriptions are linked to specific questions: for example, problems related to referencing and referring to sources (Boch & Grossmann, 2001) or reformulating the discourse of someone else (Delcambre, 2001); the traces of the position of the writer, in other words the image that the writer constructs of him/herself as an enunciator, which in turn shows a variability in the degree of mastery of the implicit norms (Delcambre & Laborde-­Milla, 2002; Laborde-­Milla, 2004). These analyses of university genres are grounded in broad linguistics research questions about discursive heterogeneity but insist on linking the formal aspects of text to questions of writerly identity constructed in the writing. Certain research projects use the notion of writerly images (Delcambre & Reuter, 2002a), which allows scholars to construct, in the form of a system, the dimensions of the subject-­writer, those of the text as an object of analysis, and those of the interpretative activity of the reader-­ receptor. This approach opens interesting perspectives in analyzing writing during training, in that it allows the articulation of an analysis of tasks and written production, the interpretation of difficulties faced by the writer, and the interpretation of the support given by the lecturers. The attention devoted to the description of texts students have to write is strongly linked to the construction of specific knowledge on research writings which researchers in Grenoble are undertaking as part of a separate ANR program which is running in parallel to our program.4 Different components of a research article, mainly in the field of language study, have thus already been described: the theoretical framework (Boch, Rinck, & Grossmann, in press), the modes used to refer to others (Grossmann, 2002), the enunciative position adopted (Rinck, Boch, & Grossmann, 2007), and the construction of an “author figure” (Rinck, 2006). This precise description of the writing genre being researched, along with its variations, allows researchers, during the analysis of the students’ productions, to avoid falling into the trap of analyzing according to their own representations, and to question the manner in which the students’ writing constitutes a type of research writing. It also allows researchers to investigate how students’ writing can contribute to an evolution in research writing. Relationships to writing Other studies explore the manner in which students relate to writing in different contexts (exams, dissertations, dossiers). These have been described using different methodologies—solicitation of memories related to writing (Daunay & Reuter, 2002), semi-­structured interviews (Delcambre &

26   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter Reuter, 2002b), questionnaires (Reuter, Ruellan, Genes, & Picard, 2000), or even analysis of written production (Laborde-­Milaa, 2002). The concept of “relationship to” has been constructed by education researchers and draws on sociological and psychoanalytic perspectives about learning (Charlot, Bautier, & Rochex, 1992). It allows researchers to bring together a whole series of components of the act of learning, bringing them together with the question of the subject: relationships to content, to the activity, to the situation, to others, to knowledge in general, to language, to oneself, and to one’s image of oneself as a learner. This concept, in didactics, indicates the relation (cognitive but also socio-­psycho-affective) in which the learner engages with the content and which conditions in part their learning: a relationship to content that does not correspond with the one school envisions can increase the difficulty of a student’s access to the subject being taught. (Reuter, 2007a, p. 191) Barré-de Miniac (2000) describes the relationship to writing as simultaneously the subject’s investment in the writing (the affective interest in writing), the opinions and attitudes about this (that result in social representations of writing, its functions, its difficulties), and the conceptions of writing and learning to write (most notably in the opposition between writing as transcription of a pre-­elaborated content and writing as the construction of thought). In terms of research about university writing, the aim of a significant number of studies is to specify what students understand about academic or research writing and the problems that it poses for students during their studies (Reuter, 1998; Reuter, 2004): the obstacle posed by the assumed transparency of what is written, the desire to avoid stylistic writing, the objectivity that research writing supposes, one’s self-­image. These issues highlight a fundamental tension between the researcher and the person being trained (cf. above). Thus, the researcher-­in-training must find the right balance between an overly low or overly high position, for example in the presentation of theories or of theorists in one’s field: how can a student avoid giving the impression that he or she is evaluating expert researchers when presenting the value or limits of their work for the project in which he or she is involved? How can the student show understanding of the experts without offering oversimplified explanations that imply the reader does not know anything? How can the student find the right balance between too many references (which can make the text almost unreadable or uninteresting) and an insufficient number of references (which gives the impression that the student has not done enough reading or has done it haphazardly)? And so on (Reuter, 2004, pp. 22–26). The notion of tension is essential in order to account for several obstacles that the student must overcome in learning to write at university.

The French didactics approach to writing   27 In the same vein, Anne-­Marie Jovenet (2004) has analyzed, from a psychoanalytical perspective, these tensions based on questions related to the relationship between the subject-­writer and the research object in question and the conflicts between the desire to write something about oneself and the unconscious barrier raised by the need to respect university norms. Links between writing and disciplines The last collection of studies on university writing I will present attempts to establish links between difficulties faced by the students and the specificities of individual disciplines. Until now, these links have mainly been studied in terms of language practices or semiotic practices, related to description in the first case and to tables in the second case. In a collective publication, Reuter (1998) explores the different forms and the different functions that descriptions can take, according to the discipline in question (linguistics, medicine, psychology, sociology). Reuter specifies, based on a descriptive model, variations in the forms and the functions of description, according to the type of writing and the disciplines (at school or at university). In her particular contribution to this study, Delcambre (1998) shows how the discipline to which the trainee teachers belong (arts, biology, or mathematics) orients their descriptive writing in their professional dissertations: we thus see descriptions that attempt to objectify in scientific dissertations (using quantitative, statistical tools), compared with realistic descriptions in the dissertations of arts students (creating portraits). For her part, Dominique Lahanier-­Reuter (2003a, 2003b, 2003c) has examined writing in the teaching of statistics, particularly by comparing writing tables, graphs, and “linear writing” in two different educational contexts: teaching in traditional degree courses in science or mathematics and teaching in the field of education sciences. She shows the important variations between these two contexts in terms of writing norms and writing and reading practices. Carrying forward the work of these studies, our ANR research program aims to explore, with relation to five disciplines of the social sciences and humanities, the disciplinary aspects of university writing. Reflecting upon the epistemological dimensions of university disciplines, their reference frames, and theoretical models of writing is one way in which we hope to contribute to an understanding of the difficulties students face and the different manners in which we can accompany them in their writing at the university. Between sociologists’ attention to university reading practices and didacticians’ attention to writing in primary and secondary school, there is thus an opportunity for this study to build upon the initial didactical studies, by examining the relative diversity or homogeneity of university writing practices (which depend on the course of study) and the relative importance of the discipline with regard to writing practices used in the construction of knowledge.

28   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter

Notes 1 A three-­year project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) called “University Writing: Inventory, Practices, Models” (ANR-­06-APPR-­019). 2 The French team THEODILE has undertaken many studies about these relations between writing and school disciplines. 3 The concept of “representation” in France comes from the field of social psychology. It is used in didactics for designating modes of knowing that are different from scientific concepts: knowledge drawn from individuals’ experiences. In teaching situations, this knowledge often surfaces as preconceived ideas that actually obstruct learning. Representations can concern objects, processes, or activities, and thus researchers can use the term “representations” of writing to name the ideas that people construct about writing processes, writing’s functions, its objectives, and so on. 4 SCIENTEXT “Un corpus et des outils pour étudier le positionnement et le raisonnement de l’auteur dans les écrits scientifiques.”

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30   I. Delcambre and Y. Reuter Reuter, Y. (1996). Enseigner et apprendre à écrire. Construire une didactique de l’écriture. Paris: ESF. Reuter, Y. (1998). De quelques obstacles à l’écriture de recherche. Lidil, 17, Pratiques de l’écrit et des modes d’accès au savoir dans l’enseignement supérieur, 11–23. Reuter, Y. (Ed.). (1998). La description. Théories, recherches, formation, enseignement. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion. Reuter, Y. (2003). La construction de la lecture en didactique. In E. Eggert (Ed.), Mobiles et mouvements pédagogiques. Un choix d’itinéraires offerts à Jacques Weiss. Neuchâtel: IRDP, 37–43. Reuter, Y. (2004). Analyser les problèmes de l’écriture de recherche en formation. Pratiques, 121–122, Les écrits universitaires, 9–27. Reuter, Y. (Ed.). (2007a). Dictionnaire des concepts fondamentaux des didactiques. Brussels: De Boeck. Reuter, Y. (Ed.). (2007b). Pratiques, 133–134, Récits et disciplines scolaires. Reuter, Y. (in press). Interroger l’appareillage conceptuel de la didactique du français. La Lettre de l’AIRDF. Reuter, Y., Ruellan, F., Genes, S. & Picard, C. (2002). A propos de la fonction cognitive de l’écriture en formation. In D. G. Brassard (Ed.), Pratiques de l’écrit et modes d’accès au savoir dans l’enseignement supérieur. Villeneuve d’Ascq: CEGES, Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille 3, 45–52. Rey, O. (2005). L’enseignement supérieur sous le regard des chercheurs. Retrieved August 20, 2008, from www.inrp.fr/vst/Dossiers/Ens_Sup/sommaire.htm. Rinck, F. (2006). Ecrire au nom de la science et de sa discipline: La figure de l’auteur dans l’article en sciences humaines. Sciences de la Société, 67, 95–112. Rinck, F., Boch, F., & Grossmann, F. (2007). Quelques lieux de variation du positionnement énonciatif dans l’article de recherche. In P. Lambert, A. Millet, M. Rispail, & C. Trimaille (Eds.), Variations au cœur et aux marges de la sociolinguistique. Mélanges offerts à Jacqueline Billiez. Paris: L’Harmattan. Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15, 4–14. Vincent, G. (Ed.). (1994). L’éducation prisonnière de la forme scolaire? Scolarisation et socialisation dans les sociétés industrielles, Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon.

3 What factors influence the improvement of academic writing practices? A study of reform of undergraduate writing in Norwegian higher education Olga Dysthe University of Bergen, Norway

Introduction This chapter offers a glimpse into the practices of writing in higher education in a European country and describes the influence of macro-­level educational policies on writing in undergraduate studies. The context is a major educational reform in Norway called the Quality Reform implemented in the higher education sector from 2002. The Quality Reform affected the structure, financing, and leadership of higher education as well as the pedagogy. The reform is closely connected with the “Bologna process,” the most important effort ever made to align higher education systems in all European countries.1 Periods of reform offer a particularly interesting time setting for research because cultural traditions and established practices are then being challenged, lines of division among faculty become visible, and underlying views of teaching and learning come to the fore, even in academic cultures where this is not usually on the agenda. Norwegian universities, like most continental European universities, previously required very little undergraduate student writing and mainly assessed students on traditional sit-­down exams. The Quality Reform did not explicitly deal with this situation, but nevertheless one of the pedagogical consequences of the reform was that virtually all courses now include compulsory student writing assignments and teacher feedback. The empirical basis for this chapter consists of two nationwide survey studies of higher education in Norway in which I have been involved and two case studies, one in history and one in law. The most comprehensive of the surveys is the research evaluation study of the Quality Reform while the second is a study of portfolio practices after the reform. The following overarching questions are discussed, drawing on sociocultural theory perspectives: (1) To what extent has the Quality Reform resulted in change in writing and feedback practices? (2) How can these changes be explained in

32   O. Dysthe relation to other aspects in the reform like changes in assessment (i.e., portfolios)? (3) What other factors have contributed to the change? In order to provide a context for the readers I will focus primarily on the reform as this is essential to understand the significance of the findings and the discussion.

The context Norway is a country with only 4.5 million inhabitants. It has six state universities, five scientific colleges, 25 state colleges and 26 private colleges. The majority of students are in the state system. The Quality Reform resulted in considerable financial and structural changes. The new study structure represented a radical break with Norwegian higher education traditions. The common structure proposed for all European countries, three-­ year Bachelor’s + two-­year Master’s + three-­year PhD, was implemented in Norway. This meant a reduction in study time from four to three years for Bachelor’s students, a dramatic loss of time given that the reform ambition was to improve the overall study quality. A new European credit point system (ECTS)2 was introduced and our grading system changed from a very detailed numerical scale to a letter scale (ABCDEF).3 All courses were modularized, for most courses this means one-­third or half a semester (10 or 15 ECTS). Because a major purpose of the Quality Reform was to make studies more effective in the sense that students finished within the standard time frame, three pedagogical issues were particularly highlighted in the reform documents: (1) more use of student active teaching methods, (2) closer follow-­up of each student and regular feedback, (3) closer connection between teaching and assessment, and more variation in assessment (portfolio assessment was mentioned in the reform documents as an example). While most top-­down educational reforms have very little impact on classroom pedagogy (Cuban, 1990, 1993, 2002), this reform resulted in substantial pedagogical changes (Dysthe, Raaheim, & Lima, 2006a). In particular, the three clearly formulated pedagogical expectations from the Ministry of Education combined with the changes in the study structure altered some very basic conditions for academic writing in Norway.

Theoretical perspectives From a sociocultural theory perspective, writing, feedback, and learning practices are deeply embedded in academic, institutional, and disciplinary traditions. Changes in educational practices, including writing practices, can only be understood by studying the tacit and explicit macro-­level expectations and decisions and analyze the complexity of structural and cultural characteristics of our higher education at different levels. This is the underlying perspective of this chapter, but since the relationships are very complex, I just offer some tentative answers. By “macro level” I first

What factors improve academic writing?   33 of all mean the political policy level. This is particularly important in Norway because higher education has always been under more rigid national regulation than in the United States. “Meso level” is the domain where bottom-­up meets top-­down; in our case, the local educational institution with its departments and programs. The macro level of academic communities of practice included strong academic traditions, some of which are international and some more local. As in most of Europe, universities were traditionally rather elitist and students came well trained in writing from secondary school. Thus, explicit teaching of writing was not deemed necessary. As universities were opened to a broader range of students, many lacked the necessary writing competence. At the same time, the Quality Reform in Norway has increased the demands on students’ writing and the logical follow-­up would be to introduce explicit teaching of writing, but the traditional mindset is still so strong that positions for writing teachers are very difficult to fund.

Materials and method The present study makes use of three data sources. The most important is a major evaluation study of the Quality Reform, which consisted of a national survey, eight institutional case studies, and a series of student surveys. The purpose of the national survey was to get quantitative measures of the consequences of the Quality Reform as experienced by the teachers. The survey consisted of 62 questions and was sent out to a sample of professors, associate professors, and lecturers in all higher education institutions in Norway. The number of respondents were 2,060 and the response rate 60.3 percent. As a member of the research team, I interviewed leaders, teachers, and students in the eight institutions, four universities, three university colleges and one scientific college.4 The second data source is a nationwide survey study of portfolio practices in higher education based on a randomized selection from all public universities (5) and university colleges (22). The respondents were professors responsible for portfolio-­assessed courses. An earlier version was conducted in one major university and three university colleges, and was published in Assessing Writing (Dysthe, Engelsen, & Lima, 2007). The results from these two surveys are very similar and this reinforces the validity of the findings. The portfolio survey data are very relevant to my topic for three reasons. First of all, the portfolios in all disciplines consisted of written texts. Second, the portfolio texts were assessed and thus taken seriously by students. Third, portfolios were introduced in the reform documents and got a lot of attention from students as well as teachers as something new. The third data source is two case studies from the University of Bergen, one in the Humanities Faculty and one in the Law Faculty. These give more specific insight into two university sites after the Quality Reform. All these studies have either been published or are forthcoming separate

34   O. Dysthe a­ rticles, but the present study is the first effort to draw together this comprehensive research data.

Findings The Quality Reform resulted in more and compulsory undergraduate student writing The evaluation study of the Quality Reform clearly documented three major pedagogical changes: (1) more diversified assessment practices, (2) more compulsory student writing, and (3) more feedback and closer follow-­up of students (Dysthe et al., 2006a; Michelsen & Åmodt, 2006). These three areas of change are clearly interrelated, as will be discussed below. Interestingly, increasing the amount of student writing had not been stated as a specific goal in the reform documents, but this turned out to be one of the clearest findings. We do not have data to document the exact increase in student writing after the Quality Reform, but the survey data combined with the interviews give a fairly clear picture of increased compulsory student writing. Of all the respondents in the survey, 71 percent report great or consider­ able changes in assessment. There is no significant difference between universities and university colleges in this respect. A greater number of smaller written assignments are reported by 32 percent of these. Portfolio assessment is reported by 37 percent as the biggest change (Table 3.1). This means that of the 71 percent who have changed assessment practices (i.e., small assignment combined with tests or portfolios, or projects combined with or instead of final exams), a total of 81 percent have instigated changes involving more compulsory student writing. The data from our case studies show that there has been a quite substantial change in all the departments included in our study in the direction of compulsory student papers, and that there are no significant differences between universities and university colleges. There is a close connection between changes in assessment and increase in writing. From Table 3.1 we see that 36 percent of those who changed assessment introduced portfolios, and 13 percent projects, both of which involved writing during the course and not just for the final exam. Altogether 32 percent have introduced continuous assessment in the form of a series of smaller assignments that were graded separately and added up to a final mark, but this figure includes short tests, not just written assignments. Many of the interviewed teachers saw the increase in student writing as a way of achieving more “student active learning,” one of the key pedagogical concepts and goals of the Quality Reform. Compulsory writing assignments meant, according to the teachers who were responsible for the courses that all students engaged actively in the content of the subject instead of just listening to teachers and fellow students. Thus writing could

What factors improve academic writing?   35 Table 3.1  Use of portfolios and projects after the reform To those who answered great or medium changes University University Total in assessment: Which of the following has colleges changed most? (%) More smaller types of assignments/tests during the course of study

24

36

32

Portfolio assessment combined with a big final exam

28

16

21

Portfolio assessment instead of a big final exam

19

13

15

Projects assessment combined with a big final exam

9

10

9

Projects assessment instead of a big final exam

4

4

4

Fewer big tests

5

9

7

Other

10

12

12

Total

100

100

100

Source: Dysthe et al., 2007.

be said to contribute to “student activity” and the two became more or less synonymous. Regular writing also contributed to another goal explicitly stated in the reform documents, namely that students needed to spread their workload more evenly during the semester instead of concentrating their hard work before the final exams, as several studies of student study behavior had confirmed. It thus seems obvious that the political documents of the Quality Reform about teaching and assessment (portfolios) were a very important factor in the change toward more writing. More feedback to students One of stated aims in the Quality Reform was closer follow-­up of students, and a clear finding in the evaluation study was a considerable increase in feedback. We lack comparative data before the reform, but the self-­report data in Table 3.2 is nevertheless informative. Table 3.2 shows that of those in the national evaluation survey who reported changes in their teaching, approximately 70 percent gave more feedback to the students than before the Quality Reform, and 60 percent provide more supervision. The student surveys show the same tendency, and Table 3.3 shows students’ answers to the question of what kind of feedback they got.5 Table 3.3 shows that written feedback on individual assignments was most common, but almost half of the students also got oral feedback and/ or feedback on group assignments. In another of the reform evaluation studies we found more detailed quantitative evidence of the frequency of

36   O. Dysthe Table 3.2  Changes in the time spent on teaching activities To those (69%) who answered great or medium changes in their teaching activities: Changes in time spent on different teaching activites (percentages) University colleges

University

Total

Clearly About Clearly Clearly About Clearly Clearly more the same less more the same less more Written feedback 77 to students

21

2

68

31

2

71

Supervision

79

19

3

60

19

3

66

Exam-related work

53

39

8

64

32

4

61

Seminars

24

68

9

47

50

4

40

Lectures

10

55

35

16

73

12

14

Source: Dysthe et al., 2006b.

Table 3.3  “Did you last semester get. . . .?” All Male students Female students (%) (%) (%) Oral feedback on individual assignments

48

48

48

Written feedback on individual assignments

63

66

61

Oral feedback on group assignments

48

48

47

Written feedback on group assignments

45

49

43

Source: Ugreninov & Vaage, 2006.

feedback (Aamodt, Hovdhaugen, & Opheim, 2006). We find for instance that 52 percent of the students take feedback into account “to a high degree” and 39 percent “to some degree,” while only 4 percent disregard feedback. In the portfolio study we found that about one-­quarter of the teachers involved their students in peer feedback, most commonly in teacher education and least in natural sciences. The conclusion of this brief review of findings in the Quality Reform evaluation combined with our portfolio survey is that the writing and feedback culture in Norwegian higher education has changed quite dramatically in just a few years. There were, however, unintended consequences that became visible through the interview studies.

What factors improve academic writing?   37 Unintended consequences The main problem for students as well as teachers was that more writing assignments and more feedback meant more work, especially because it very often came in addition to and not as a replacement for other activities in the courses. When the writing assignments were graded, students acted strategically and prioritized writing instead of going to lectures or seminars or attending groups, with negative consequences for the learning environment. On the other hand, if the writing was just a requirement to take the final exam, which was the case in many courses, students reported doing “just enough.” Students also complained that a too-­high workload of writing resulted in mediocre quality because they lacked time to revise before the next assignment. Teachers complained that students read less than before, and concentrated their reading around the assignments. The unintended negative consequences were used by critics of the strong element of writing. Particular attention was given to the “time dilemma” for the teachers who now spent more time giving feedback to students’ texts. Some departments went for teaching assistants, but in many cases the professors who taught the courses also handled the paper load. The greatest threat to the new writing, feedback, and portfolio culture is still the conflict experienced by the teachers between increased expectations of research and international publishing on the one hand and the extra time spent on writing intensive courses. The introduction of an incentive-­based funding system, where some of the money to each department is dependent on the amount of publishing points, clearly aggravated this conflict. This is just one example of how macro-­level university policies impact on teaching and learning. It is not likely that the changes involving a substantial increase in student writing will be reversed, but every department now has to be very aware of the time constraints on their faculty as they try to balance the demands of teaching and research. This is, of course, particularly the case in the universities, while in many of the university colleges teaching is still seen as most important. A brief account of what happened in two departments will bring us closer to the realities of the decisions that were possible to take at the meso level as regards students’ writing. Two case studies of university disciplines where writing has high priority I have chosen two very traditional university disciplines, history and law. Neither of them is typical of what happened after the Quality Reform; instead they could be said to represent “best practice” examples for those who think writing is indispensable for student learning in higher education.

38   O. Dysthe The history department at the University of Bergen This department is an example of how the Quality Reform legitimized changes in writing and assessment practices that had already begun and also supported further development, in this case of electronic writing portfolios. History is a traditional academic discipline and not intuitively the place to look for new pedagogy, but this department has a tradition of great concern for the teaching and learning of students. It was the first department to introduce ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as a pedagogical tool on a large scale and an in-­house electronic Learning Management System, called Kark, was developed from 1992 to 1995. Assessment systems are notoriously resistant to change (Gipps, 1994; Shepard, 2001) but already in 1999 portfolios had been introduced in this department, administered through Kark. The purpose was to support more and better student writing. The students had to share their drafts as well as their comments with fellow students and post them in Kark, in order to get teacher feedback. Because writing is regarded as an indispensable tool for learning history, Kark was designed to fit the needs of teachers giving feedback to student papers as well as facilitating students’ access to each other’s drafts. Kark had two main functions, an administrative and organizing function that made it possible to handle the great number of texts in one course, and it facilitated peer and teacher feedback on student essays and to make the comments accessible for all students in the course. When portfolio assessment was announced as an alternative assessment form in the Quality Reform, several of the freshman and sophomore history courses were assessed through portfolios, consisting of a selection of three out of five essays, peer feedback texts, and entries in asynchronous discussions. Highly qualified teacher assistants who had their Master’s degree in history were hired to give feedback to students.6 The number of texts in the portfolio was, however, radically reduced because modularization (courses of 10–15 ECTS) meant that students had less time to write, as the writing-­intensive course competed with a course assessed through a traditional end-­of-semester exam. History kept the system of full online transparency regarding student drafts and teacher and peer comments. Internal course evaluation has shown that a high percentage of students say that they learn almost as much from reading fellow students’ texts as from teacher comments, a finding that corresponds to studies in other countries. The weak point in the system is the lack of time to write multiple drafts and thus hone the argumentation which is one of the stated purposes of writing in this history department. At the outset the writing-­ intensive, technology-­supported courses were advocated by a handful of enthusiasts, but the Quality Reform legitimized this approach and now it has full support: “Learning history without extensive writing is impos­ sible” (Oldervoll, 2003).

What factors improve academic writing?   39 The faculty of law This case illustrates a total change of system from a lecture-­based and individual-­study model to an integrated model inspired by problem-­based learning where writing is central. Before the Quality Reform, organized student activities were restricted to lectures and seminars, individual study was the norm, writing was voluntary and assessment was postponed until the end of the third year where a major sit-­down exam had a very high failure rate. Student dissatisfaction and bad results were strong incentives for radical changes. In the new model, writing and discussion of writing assignments became compulsory and totally integrated into the teaching and learning environment. The study activities of law students in the undergraduate courses are structured in weekly cycles of lectures, individual writing of drafts, group discussions of drafts published in the electronic Learning Management System (LMS) as well as feedback from peers and teaching assistants (Vines & Dysthe, forthcoming). Groups of ten students are led by a paid teacher assistant (TA) who is an advanced student (year 4–5). When the writing assignments are posted in the LMS, students prepare individually for group meetings where the assignment is discussed and possible outlines are negotiated. Each group is divided into three “commentator teams” to ensure student feedback on all assignments. Because the teams alternate, a student gets feedback from different peers. The mandatory process is strictly regulated. The group assignments are case-­ based, i.e., authentic legal problems constructed by experienced law teachers. Student papers are not graded. The exam consists of a take-­home group exam which is a prerequisite for the individual, traditional sit-­down exam, where students write essays similar to the kind they have been practicing (Vines & Dysthe, forthcoming). Weekly compulsory writing assignments, compulsory group attendance, feedback system, and frequent assessment have paid off in terms of a dramatic reduction of students who fail. In this respect there is no doubt that the strict writing and feedback regime has been effective. The fact that comments to student texts in one group amounted to approximately 15,000 words testifies to its importance.7 Student evaluations ascribe the good exam results to the structured writing and feedback processes, and also that expectations and criteria are no longer a guessing game for the students (Sadler, 1998). There are, however, some unintended effects, although different from the ones mentioned earlier as common complaints after the Quality Reform. In law, loss of motivation because of the repetitive nature of the highly structured teaching–learning sequences and too many writing assignments (one per week) have caused some student dissatisfaction. Overall student evaluations show that students appreciate the opportunity to train in both written communication and the specific legal language and genres.

40   O. Dysthe

Discussion In light of international research on educational reforms it may seem surprising that the Quality Reform has led to such substantial changes in writing and feedback practices. Larry Cuban (1990, 1993, 2002), who has studied 100 years’ worth of reforms in American educational institutions, claims that top-­down reforms do not result in substantial changes in what happens in classrooms. Teachers hold on to their former practices regardless of political reform expectations. There are, however, exceptions from this: reforms may contribute to changes if they build on teachers’ expertise and take account of the specific character of this type of work: Intended curricular policy changes do influence classroom practices when policy makers develop coherent and integrated strategies that build upon teacher expertise, acknowledge the realities of the school as a workplace, and accept the wisdom of those teacher adaptations that improve the intended policy. (Cuban, 2002, p. 1) In Norwegian higher education I claim that the substantial and rapid changes in writing and feedback practices did not happen because the higher education sector is unusually loyal to top-­down expectations, although there is an element of this. The main reason appears to be that the reform documents met perceived needs in the institutions and that they were in accordance with teacher expertise. Another important reason was students’ positive attitude toward more writing and feedback. In other words, the soil was ready. In the reform documents an overarching goal was that “students were to succeed,” with the double meaning: (1) learn better, (2) finish in a shorter time. Many teachers agreed that structuring students’ work through regular writing and providing constructive feedback were two important factors to achieve this. This explains why there was little resistance to this part of the reform, even though there was not much enthusiasm for a centrally initiated process of change. Other factors have also contributed to changes in writing practices. Cuban (2002) emphasised that a top-­down reform is only effective if “the soil is ready” for it. Considerable development work in the area of academic writing had also taken place, and a number of books and articles on process-­oriented academic writing were published in Norway (i.e., Dysthe, Hertzberg, & Hoel, 2000; Hoel, 1990, 2000; Lie, 1995). The international focus on academic competences had also just begun to filter through to the average higher education teacher. The evaluation survey and interviews revealed that there were large variations among institutions and also among departments in the same institution. This shows that even though the macro level has great influence, the meso level in a knowledge organization can ignore, minimize, or implement and develop the ideas and policies from the top. My two case studies

What factors improve academic writing?   41 illustrate that where the reform led to deep pedagogical changes, the foundations for this had in effect been laid before the reform. In the Law Faculty this meant that weaknesses had been identified and alternative solutions discussed. In the History Department the writing, assessment, and feedback model had already been tried out, and the LMS had been introduced. Thus a certain readiness for change facilitated consensus among the faculty, or at least it neutralized opposition. There is no doubt that the reform served to legitimize the pedagogical leaders who fronted the changes in writing, feedback, and assessment. But the situation in my two case studies was rather rare. A more common pattern was that the faculty and departments were confronted with the reform demands and went straight into the implementation phase, with very little discussion. Time limits were short and students had to be taught while all the courses were revised. A pertinent example is the implementation of disciplinary writing portfolios. Often the knowledge of what a portfolio was or how it could be used was thin, and the result was that in some disciplines portfolio just meant that traditional, graded writing assignments were collected in a folder and there were no innovations whatsoever, except the name. Regular writing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improvement in writing, and there seem to be a growing awareness in all European countries that explicit teaching of writing in higher education may be necessary. The European Qualification Framework and the growing interest in generic academic competences have resulted in a new focus on writing as a tool for learning and on how to improve students’ academic writing. The European tradition is writing in the disciplines. The strategy therefore has to focus on training some teachers in the various disciplines to teach writing. A newly funded project at the University of Bergen is called “Writing development and feedback from bachelor to PhD” where a writing consultant will work with the Biology Department and the Humanities Faculty to develop a realistic and systematic plan for students’ academic writing from their first year to the doctorate. This may strengthen awareness and competence at the meso level, but the biggest hindrance may be that teachers feel that they have to prioritize their own research instead of students’ needs. Paradoxically this is a result of conflicting macro-­level policies, where the Quality Reform pushed quality in teaching and now quality in research is highlighted.

Notes 1 In 1999 European education ministers met in Bologna to discuss a common European education policy for the future. This meeting gave the name to a process which is gradually changing higher education in Europe. 2 The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is the EU system for transfer of study credits and grades between countries. The system is meant to supplement, not replace national systems, and plays an important role in creating mobilization between European institutions and creates a European education area: www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/ects_en.html.

42   O. Dysthe 3 A problem for Norwegian students seeking further studies at US universities is that the distribution of grades in Norway differs from the United States. In Norway it is supposed to follow the normal distribution scale, which means that a C is an average grade at all levels, while A and B are just for exceptional performance. 4 The eight institutions are: the universites of Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger, the Norwegian University for Life Sciences and the University Colleges of Sogn and Fjordane (HSF), Bodø (HSB) and Lillehammer, and the Norwegian Business College (BI). 5 The question is ambiguous as to who gives feedback, teacher or peers or both. 6 More about this case can be read in Dysthe and Tolo (2007), where the focus is on the portfolio and writing and in Wake, Dysthe, and Mjelstad (2007), where the focus is on technology. 7 Student essays in the same group counted in total 17,000 words.

References Aamodt, P. O., Hovdhaugen, E., & Opheim, V. (2006). Den nye studiehverdagen. Evaluering av Kvalitetsreformen. Delrapport 6. (The new study situation. Evaluation of the Quality Reform). Cuban, L. (1990). Reforming again, again and again. Educational Researcher, 19(1), 3–13. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught. Constancy and change in American classrooms 1880–1990. New York: Teachers College Press. Cuban, L. (2002). What have researchers and policy makers learned about converting curricular and instructional policies into classroom practices? Unpublished manuscript. Dysthe, O., Engelsen, K. S., & Lima, I. (2007). Variations in portfolio assessment in higher education. Discussion of quality issues based on a Norwegian survey across institutions and disciplines. Assessing Writing, 12(2). Dysthe, O., Hertzberg, F., & Hoel, T. L. (2000). Skrive for å lære (Writing to learn: Writing in higher education). Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag. Dysthe, O., Raaheim, A., & Lima, I. (2006a). Pedagogiske endringer som følge av Kvalitetsreformen (Pedagogical consequences of the Quality Reform). In S. Michelsen & P. Åmodt (Eds.), Kvalitetsreformen møter virkeligheten. Delrapport 1. Oslo: Norwegian Research Council. Dysthe, O., Raaheim, A., Lima, I., & Bygstad, A. (2006b). Undervisnings- og vurderingsformer. Pedagogiske konsekvenser av Kvalitetsreformen. Evaluering av Kvalitetsreformen. Delrapport 7 (Teaching and assessment. Pedagogical consequences of the Quality Reform. Report no 7). Oslo: NIFU STEP—Norsk institutt for studier av forskning og utdanning/Senter for innovasjonsforskning/ Universitetet i Bergen. Dysthe, O., & Tolo, A. (2007). Digital portfolios and feedback practices in a traditional university course. In M. Kaankanranta & P. Linnakylä (Eds.), Perspectives on ePortfolios. Jyväskylä, Fi: Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä Press. Gipps, G. (1994). Beyond testing. Towards a theory of educational assessment. London: Falmer Press. Hoel, T. L. (1990). Skrivepedagogikk på norsk: prosessorientert skriving i teori og praksis (Writing pedagogy in Norway: Process writing in theory and practice). Oslo: Landslaget for norskundervisning (LNU)/Cappelen. Hoel, T. L. (2000). Skrive og samtale: responsgrupper som læringsfellesskap

What factors improve academic writing?   43 (Writing and talking: Response groups as learning communities). Oslo: Gyldendal akademisk. Lie, S. (1995). Fri som foten: om å skrive fagtekster (About writing of disciplinary texts). Oslo: Ad notam Gyldendal. Michelsen, S., & Åmodt, P. (2006). Kvalitetsreformen møter virkeligheten. Delrapport 1 (The Quality Reform meets reality). Oslo: Norsk forskningsråd. Oldervoll, J. (2003). Mappevurdering i eit skrivebasert studium. Erfaringar frå Historie grunnfag (Portfolios in a writing-­based history curriculum). In O. Dysthe & K. S. Engelsen (Eds.), Mapper som pedagogisk redskap. Perspektiver og erfaringer (pp. 295–310). Oslo: Abstrakt forlag. Sadler, D. R. (1998). Formative assesment: Revising the territory. Assessment in Education, 5(1), 77–84. Shepard, L. A. (2001). The role of classroom assessment in teaching and learning. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching, 4th edition (pp. 1066–1101). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Ugreninov, E., & Vaage, O. F. (2006). Studenters levekår 2005 (Students’ life situations). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. Vines, A., & Dysthe, O. (forthcoming). Productive learning in the study of law: The role of technology in the learning ecology of a law faculty. In L. Dirckinck-­ Holmfeld, C. Jones, & B. Lindstrøm (Eds.), Analyzing networked learning practices in higher education and continuing professional development. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Wake, J. D., Dysthe, O., & Mjelstad, S. (2007). New and changing teacher roles in a digital age. Educational Technology & Society, 10(1).

4 Mapping genre research in Brazil An exploratory study Antonia Dilamar Araújo State University of Ceará, Brazil

Genre analyses of academic or professional writing describe the differences of texts and examine the correlated uses of language. Several studies have also generated theoretical models for analyzing genres that serve as a basis for their description (Bakhtin, 1992/1986; Bhatia, 1993; Bazerman, 1988; Bronckart, 1999; Swales, 1990; Halliday & Hasan, 1989, among others). An increasing interest in the study of genres in Brazil both in Portuguese and foreign languages—mainly English—has contributed to the production of a significant number of dissertations and theses in graduate programs in the field of language studies, and the publication of research papers and books on genre and discourse. In addition, since 2001 a conference entitled SIGET (International Symposium of Studies on Genres) has been held every two years as a forum for researchers and teachers to discuss and publicize their research in the area. However, even with the growing interest in genre studies in Brazil, scholars do not have a precise idea of their extent and nature. This chapter aims to report preliminary outcomes of a research project on genre studies conducted in Brazil from 1980 to 2007. In this exploratory research, I set out (a) the identification of studied genres; (b) the focus of each study; (c) their underlying theoretical framework; and (d) the type of methodology adopted for analysis. For this overview, the information was collected mainly from dissertations and theses written for graduate programs in the fields of linguistics, applied linguistics, and language studies, as well as from scholarly journal articles and books in the area. It is worth mentioning that this is the first attempt to systematize studies related to text and genre in Brazil, and it is hoped the results can illuminate the agenda for future investigations into the topic.

Brief historical contextualization Brazil does not have a long tradition of developing research in writing, and scholars only started to pay attention to this skill in the very recent past, within the last 25 years, when graduate programs in linguistics, applied linguistics, and education spread all over the country with new lines of inquiry implemented by young PhDs who qualified at American and

Mapping genre research in Brazil   45 ­ uropean universities. Until the 1970s, most studies were conducted in colE leges and at universities, and Brazilian scholars teaching Portuguese or foreign languages were mostly focused on analyses and descriptions of grammatical aspects following a structuralist and positivist research paradigm. To understand the scholars’ interest in genres and text analysis, we need to learn about the context of writing-­instruction practices in Brazil. Before 1980, teachers in schools did not worry about writing. The teaching at any level (elementary, secondary, and higher education) was concerned with reading and grammatical structures due to the great percentage of illiterate people outside schools. With the spread of graduate programs in linguistics and education that began across the country after 1980, many professors sought qualifications in writing development and instruction at American and European universities. The consequence was a number of scholars with a new view of how language should be studied as well as an increasing number of studies on genres adopting different perspectives on writing at different levels of teaching. Another important fact that contributed to the interest in text studies was the college entrance exam that started including a composition as a compulsory and eliminating stage in which students must demonstrate that they have writing abilities and have mastered academic genres. More recently, Brazilian education laws and statements have oriented educational curricula (Brazil LDB, 1996; Brazil PCNs, 1999)1 to focus on the teaching of reading and writing from a socio-­interactionism perspective (Bakhtin, 1992/1986), which has been stimulating teachers to see texts as the product of social relations, as real and concrete units of verbal communication characterized by relatively stable types of oral or written utterances influenced by the purpose, theme, and relations among interactants. However, as scholars have earned degrees under different theoretical perspectives on text and genre analysis, the studies carried out in Brazil have reflected the application of these perspectives.

Epistemological characterization of genre studies The view that text genres are forms of communication associated with people’s sociocultural life and that they are seen as ways of social action, acknowledged and used in any communicative situation, has been cultivated among Brazilian scholars in their inquiries and teaching experiences. For the purpose of this chapter, theories that have strongly influenced Brazilian scholars are grouped into four main perspectives or traditions: social interactionism (Bakhtin, 1992/1986; Bronckart, 1999; Maingueneau, 2002), social rhetoric (Miller, 1984; Swales, 1990; Bazerman, 1988), social semiotics (Halliday & Hasan, 1989; Martin, 1992), and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992; Kress, 1985; van Dijk, 1990). A summary of these theories on text genre analysis is presented; then a report on the data collection and findings is given.

46   A. D. Araújo One of the most influential theories on text/discursive genres in the world has been Bakhtin’s dialogic view of language. By claiming that language has a functional, dynamic, and interactive nature, Bakhtin sets out that verbal communication is only possible by means of some discursive genre. Although his object of analysis was literary texts, he regards genres as social discursive actions used by people to act on the world and to signify the world, representing it in some way. In his Speech Genres and Other Later Essays, Bakhtin highlights that texts are concrete and empirical realizations of genres produced in the spheres of interaction in a specific social circumstance and at a specific time with their particular ideological function. As unique social events, genres are characterized by constitutive elements such as thematic content, verbal style, and compositional structure. These ideas have influenced Brazilian scholars (Brait, 2000; Rodrigues, 2001) that have developed analytical studies on genre and also applied the Bakhtinian perspective to teaching writing (Rojo, 2001) at elementary, secondary, and tertiary schools. Based on Bakhtinian dialogism and Vygotsky’s activity theory, Bronckart (1999) and Dolz and Schneuwly (1998), who represent European (Geneva) scholars, postulated a trend known as “social discursive interactionism” that accounts for genres as products of social activities of language, and as tools that allow people to realize language actions and participate in different social activities; such actions and activities may contribute to change the genre. These authors propose a nonlinear model for textual analysis that accounts for language mechanisms functioning as the basis of orientation for language action and influencing on the shape and content of texts. Their model consists of examining: (a) the content with which, the place where, and time when the participants engage in interaction; (b) the participants in their physical space; (c) the social place in which the interaction takes place; (d) the participants’ social roles; and (e) the writing effects. Genre studies in Brazil, both in Portuguese and in English, based on these ideas focus on: (a) text genre characteristics to be used as teaching tools (Dionísio, Machado, & Bezerra, 2002; Machado, 1988; Rojo, 2000); (b) learners’ development in different language practices; (c) teachers’ qualifications; (d) the interaction between teacher, tool, and learner in the classroom; and (e) evaluation of instructional materials (Barbosa, 2001; Cristovão, 2002; Machado, 1988, 2000). The second perspective of genre studies—named “socio-­rhetoric” and represented by Miller (1984), Bazerman (1988), and Swales (1990)—has also strongly influenced many Brazilian scholars in their investigations into text studies. The notion of genre seen as a typified social action postulated by Miller (1984) is seminal for those interested in studying text in classroom and for whom genres are responses to the needs and expectations of participants of the discursive community. As genres are responses, they emerge from and are integrated in the cultures in which they are inserted, also locating and reformulating such cultures. Miller’s view generated new trends for genre studies. One interesting view—different from conventional

Mapping genre research in Brazil   47 notions of genre as static categories of text—is that cultivated by North American scholars from the New Rhetoric (Bazerman, 1988, 1994, 2005; Russell, 1997), for whom genre is conceived as “operationalized social action” (Russell, 1997, p.  512); in order to comprehend it, one needs to examine the rhetorical situation to look at not only the features of the context but also the motivation and intended purposes of the participants. Aligned with Miller and Vygotsky’s activity theory, Bazerman (1988, 1994, 2005) states that genre sets within genre systems are part of systems of human activities and can be investigated from interactions in sociocultural situations without being restricted to individual forms. Bazerman’s theory of genre systems is productive and applicable to any object of investigation, especially analysis of writing produced in school and other social practices. Advocating a social interactive view of genre, Bazerman (2005) acknowledges that people are engaged in society through genres and that when they are comprehended within systems and situations, readers and writers may best understand the aims, expectations, values, and shape of the texts that circulate within systems of genres; they also know how and when texts may be renewed by exclusion, addition, or reformulation. Influenced by studies on rhetoric, discourse, teaching of language skills, ethnography, Geertz’s anthropological ideas, and Miller’s view of genre, Swales (1990) offers a model for genre analysis in academic contexts. He argues that genre knowledge is an essential tool for those who deal with texts in professional situations. He defines genre as a class of communicative events, whose participants share a communicative purpose by means of language. A communicative event is constituted by the discourse, the participants, and the environment where the discourse circulates and is produced. Swales’ theory of genre analysis brings to discussion important concepts: discursive community, communicative purpose, and prototypicity. As to communicative purpose, it is a less visible feature than form; thus if someone wants to identify it, two procedures can be adopted: (a) textual or linguistic, in which the purpose is examined by analyzing the genre structure, content, and style; and (b) contextual or ethnographic, in which the purpose is revealed in the study of text in its context of use by revising the genre through its values, expectations, repertoire, and features. Swales’ model of analysis called CARS (Create a Research Space)— based on the analysis of introductions to research articles in different fields of knowledge—generated three rhetorical moves and several steps that emerged from the occurrence of information in texts. Such a model was applied to many studies about text genres like Bhatia (1993), Dudley-­ Evans (1986, 1994), and Wood (1982). In Brazil, the model was adapted to characterize different genres such as abstracts of research articles (Santos, 1995), dissertation abstracts (Biasi-­Rodrigues, 1998), book reviews (Araújo, 1996; Bezerra, 2001; Carvalho, 2002; Motta-­Roth, 1995), introductions to research articles (Aranha, 1996), newspaper articles (Bonini, 2002), sections of literature review (Hendges, 2001), among others.

48   A. D. Araújo The third perspective of text study is the “social semiotic” approach to language based on Halliday’s (1985) systemic-­functional grammar, Halliday and Hasan (1989), and Martin (1992). The concept of genre for this perspective means generic structure potential (known as GSP) that is associated to Halliday’s notions of relevant meanings (semantics), ways of realization of meanings (lexico-­grammar), and contexts that activate the meanings (context of situation). This concept is important to help learners to understand different types of texts and relate them to their contexts of situation and culture. The integration of text and context helps to identify compulsory and optional elements of textual structure departing from the analysis of contextual configuration or context of situation based on three variables: field (social practice), tenor (relations between participants), and mode (the role the language plays). The three variables are realized by three language functions: ideational (the content of texts), interpersonal (social interactions people participate in), and textual (the structure and shape of texts). These variables together compose the contextual configuration and allow the reader to make predictions of any kind of text that fits into a given context. Analysis of texts based on a social-­semiotic perspective starts with the description of the context of situation, which leads to the unveiling of the meaningful attributes of linguistic events and the obligatory, optional, and recurrent features of texts. In Brazil, the works of Heberle (2000) and Ramos (1997) are illustrations of the application of systemic-­functional theory to language analysis. Critical discourse analysis as theory and method of discourse analysis has also influenced genre studies, although Fairclough’s (2002) work does not focus specifically on text genres, but on the role of language in the production, maintenance, and change of social power relations. As one of the representatives of this perspective, he proposes that the study of the function of language in ideological processes is accomplished through three dimensions that establish, from an ethnographic perspective, how power relations work within networks of structures as well as discursive and social practices. Fairclough’s (1992) work was grounded on Halliday’s systemic-­functional theory, which considers language as multifunctional, meaning that texts simultaneously represent reality, organize social relations, and establish identities. Fairclough’s contributions lie in the three dimensions of his model consisting of: “textual” (analysis of lexico-­ grammatical features as well as the organization and articulation of texts), “discursive practice” (analysis of the processes involving production, distribution, and consumption, and textual aspects such as coherence and intertextuality), and “social practice” (analyses of relations of power and ideology). In Brazil, the application of Fairclough’s theory to genre studies can be found in the works of Heberle (1997), Figueiredo (1995), and Magalhães (2001).

Mapping genre research in Brazil   49

Data collection The data for this ongoing study were collected from abstracts of online dissertations and theses completed in 26 linguistics and applied linguistics graduate programs, printed research articles from nine Brazilian scholarly journals, and 19 books on discourse analysis and text genres. The qualitative and quantitative analyses were based on the following aspects: identification of the studied genres, focus of investigation, theoretical perspective of the studies, and type of research method. Even though this research has been under development since 2006, the results represent only a small sample of the analyzed data that will cover a 26-year span: 1980–2007.

Findings Distribution of studies on genres by source By analyzing periodicals, theses, and dissertations, and books on genre and text-­analysis studies, we can see the emergence of poststructuralist theories of language that emphasize text instead of isolated sentences that led to a growing number of investigations on text genres, especially since the beginning of the 1990s. Table 4.1 shows the quantitative distribution of published genre studies by source. By looking at Table 4.1, it is worth commenting that the production of researches on genres in graduate programs is significant. From 452 dissertations and theses analyzed in 26 graduate programs at Brazilian universities, the greatest number of studies was conducted at institutions in southern and southwestern Brazil, especially in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Florianópolis, and Belo Horizonte, where there is a consolidated line of inquiry and a group of qualified scholars working in the field of genre studies. Regarding the remaining institutions in the country, the number of studies focused on text or genre is still small due to the recent interest in text studies. It is worth mentioning that we could not find information of dissertations and theses in seven of the researched graduate program home pages. Table 4.1  Distribution of published research article by source Source of publication

Period

No. of studies

Percentage

Periodicals (09)

1977–2003

117

17.0

Books (19)

1999–2007

119

17.2

Theses and dissertations    (26 graduate programs)

1973–2007

452

65.6

Total

–

688

99.8

Note Nine Brazilian periodicals, 19 books and 26 graduate programs were analyzed.

50   A. D. Araújo When we examine which genres were already studied in Brazil, the results reveal that there is a great variety that may be grouped into different “discursive domains or spheres” (Bakhtin, 1992/1986), with the preferred ones being—seemingly—the school and the media. Thus, the most preferred and studied school or academic genres are: oral and written narratives, reviews, abstracts, research articles, research reports, interviews, reports, lessons, learning diaries, research projects, dissertations, theses, book introductions, prefaces, autobiographies, course plans, meeting reports, summaries, expository articles for school board, and ceremonial speech. The most preferred genres from the media are: magazine advertisements, newspaper articles, editorials (magazines and newspapers), charges, tourism prospectuses, news, telemarketing, women’s lifestyles magazines, news headlines, newspaper sports articles, cartoons, opinion articles, and magazine or newspaper editor letters. In addition, genres from other discursive domains were also investigated. Genres from daily routine (conversation, job interviews, personal letters, complaining letters, apology letters, business letters, songs, jokes, self-­counseling books, recipes, life-­story reports); legal genres (administrative acts, international deals, bank agreements, petitions, police news-­ sections, legal orientations, sentences, court judgments, public audiences, accused reports); religious (television sermons, masses, prayers, litanies, Bible psalms, religious festivals); political genres (debates, candidate speeches, political chronicles, election guides); digital genres (emails, chats, blogs, homepages, online interviews, discussion forums, IMs, electronic journal articles, electronic reviews, electronic personal advertisements); and literary (novels, short stories, fables, poems). Focus of genre investigation The data shows that the focus of investigation for the most frequent genres is still the description of generic structures (71.3 percent), motivated by the need to comprehend discursive practices and social relations associated with the use of different genres (Meurer, 2000, p. 149), as well as by the fact that many genres that circulate and are used in different contexts of human activities were not analyzed and described yet (see Table 4.2). Accordingly, the tendency in examining genres in the fields of linguistics and applied linguistics continues to be the description of genre features, both at the macro and the micro levels, as a way to respond to the scholars’ willingness to know how language uses manifest in different interactive situations among participants of a particular community. But genre studies have also been an object of concern for professors who are interested in applying knowledge stemming from theories of text genres to the classroom in both Portuguese and foreign languages (English and Spanish). Recent studies with a pedagogical focus (19.7 percent) have examined instructional genres—especially those related to the textbook—and the efficacy of genre approaches to language teaching.

Mapping genre research in Brazil   51 Table 4.2  Distribution of researches by focus of genre investigation Focus of investigation

Frequency

Percentage

Theoretical articles

  61

  8.8

Description of generic characteristics

501

71.3

Pedagogical applications

126

19.7

Total

688

99.8

These outcomes confirm Bhatia’s (2004) three phases in how the analysis of written discourse has been developed in the last few decades. They are: “textualization of lexico-­grammar” (focus on surface-­level features of language influenced by frameworks in formal linguistics), “organization of discourse” (focus on patterns of organization of larger stretches of discourse), and “contextualization of discourse” (broader look at disciplinary and institutional contexts of genre construction). The first and second phases are represented by 71.3 percent of the studies, and the third phase covers practical applications of genre to language classroom through ­ethnographic studies represented by 19.7 percent. Theoretical perspectives underlying genre studies Among the several existing theoretical approaches to genre studies, it is worth highlighting that social interactionism (Bakhtin, 1992/1986; Bronckart, 1999; Dolz & Schneuwly, 1998; Maingueneau, 2002) is the most preferred approach to analyze genres. However, this most frequent approach is accompanied by a combination of perspectives, given that a great number of studies describe not only rhetorical and schematic structures, but also lexico-­grammatical aspects that characterize genres (see Table 4.3). Common combinations in these studies are: Bakhtin and Swales, or Bakhtin and Vygotsky, Swales and Halliday, and Hasan or Swales and Bazerman, among others. In addition to these perspectives, textual analysis based on social rhetoric (Bazerman, 1988; Miller, 1984; Swales, 1990), critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992; Kress, 1985; van Dijk, 1990) and the systemic-­functional approach to language (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Hasan, 1989) are also very popular. Less frequent but also adopted are authors from French discourse analysis (Ducrot, 1980; Charadeau, 1983; Greimas, 1966; Pêcheux, 1969) and authors from still other perspectives like Labov (1972, oral narratives), Austin (1962), and Searle (1969, speech acts). Out of all studies, 5.8 percent did not indicate the theoretical perspective underlying the investigation in the abstracts analyzed. Methodological approaches to genre studies Although different theoretical-­methodological perspectives for genre ana­ lysis are familiar to Brazilian analysts (sociointeractionism, sociorhetoric,

52   A. D. Araújo Table 4.3  Distribution of research by theoretical perspectives Theoretical perspectives

Frequency

Percentage

Social interactionism

166

24.1

Social rhetoric

113

16.4

47

6.8

Social semiotic perspective Critical discourse analysis

55

7.9

186

27.0

Other perspectives

81

11.7

No indication

40

5.8

688

99.7

Combination of perspectives

Total

Table 4.4  Types of research methods for empirical works Research method

Frequency

Percentage

Descriptive (text analysis)

501

79.9

Ethnography

  62

  9.8

Action-research

  38

  6.0

Case study

  26

  4.1

Total

627

99.8

Note Theoretical articles are not included in the statistics.

systemic-­functional grammar, critical discourse analysis, and others), we found that the majority of the analyzed empirical works adopts—as the preferred research method for studying genres—a textual and descriptive analysis of artifacts based on theoretical epistemology with a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches (see Table 4.4). Table 4.4 shows the methodological orientation for the analysis of genres in the study. The majority of studies (79.9 percent) categorized the adopted research methods as descriptive, that is, they are in fact text analysis or, to be more specific, genre analysis. A body of texts representative of a certain genre is selected and discursive practices or mechanisms of text organization are described. Usually quantitative content analysis serves as ground for interpreting qualitative data. Qualitative studies are starting to be adopted by researchers in Brazil, though with less frequency. An ethnographic approach is adopted in 9.8 percent of the studies to examine discursive processes and practices in professional and academic contexts. Such studies start with the examination of the context, values, intentions, expectations, the material conditions of

Mapping genre research in Brazil   53 the community, repertoire and change of genres, and finish with the characterization of genres that circulate in the focused community (Askhave & Swales, 2001). Data collection includes the observations of contexts through audio or videotape, formal and informal interviews, and relevant documents analysis. Action research in educational settings accounts for 6 percent of the corpus. These studies examine classroom interventions with the aim of increasing their comprehension of the teaching–learning process, finding ways of solving problems, or promoting social changes (Thiollent, 2002; Wallace, 1998). A qualitative case study approach represented by 4.1 percent of studies has the focus on a particular classroom to understand the nature of students’ learning of genres in school settings over time (Dörnyei, 2007). A typical case study research focuses on reports on teachers’ practices and beliefs about genres, observations, interviews, questionnaires, and written texts collected over a period of one year. Methodological chapters of the dissertations and theses sometimes reveal mixed research method designs. This issue will be examined in a future study.

Conclusion This chapter, although limited in quantity of analyzed data, attempted to provide an overview of the beginning of genre studies conducted by Brazilian scholars from 1980 until 2007. The findings show that genre studies are growing all over the country, and the number and variety of genres examined are evidence of teachers’ awareness that the study of text genres fosters understanding of “how lived textuality plays a role in the lived experience of a group” (Devitt, Bawarshi, & Reiff, 2003, p.  542), given that text genres offer insights into the complex interrelationship between language and community. It also seems evident from the mapping that the analytical model for texts continues to be the description and interpretation of discursive practices of genres. This can be explained by the need to understand genres as a site of social and ideological action and to use generic characteristics and rhetorical purpose as tools to help professors teach genres in both native and foreign languages. The reflections about theoretical-­methodological constructs on genre indicate that, despite the fact that Brazilian researchers acknowledge different methodological orientations concerning genre analysis, they seem to describe genres in an intuitive way. So the establishment of methodological procedures for genre analysis should be the concern of scholars for the purpose of devising new frameworks for investigation that are coherent with adopted theoretical trends and helping researchers to analyze new genres in an adequate and satisfactory way. Finally, it is worth emphasizing that most studies analyzed are grounded on works by foreign authors, and they do not refer to previous Brazilian studies of the same theme and design. Maybe this is due to a lack of systematization of genre studies

54   A. D. Araújo developed so far; such systematization may guide scholars as for their future studies. This study intends to fill this gap.

Acknowledgments My special thanks to Keith Short, Pedro Henrique Praxedes Filho, and the editors of this volume for their thorough revision and challenging comments on the manuscript.

Note 1 Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (National Law and Bases for Brazilian Education, 1996) and Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (National Curricular Parameters, 1999). Both documents rule and orient elementary and secondary education in Brazil.

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Mapping genre research in Brazil   55 Biasi-­Rodrigues, B. (1998). Estratégias de condução de informação em resumos de dissertações. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Florianópolis, SC, Brazil. Bonini, A. (2002). Gêneros textuais e cognição: Um estudo sobre a organização cognitiva da identidade do texto. Florianópolis: Insular. Brait, B. (2000). PCNs, gêneros e ensino de língua: faces discursivas da textualidade. In R. Rojo (Ed.), A prática da linguagem em sala de aula: Praticando os PCNs (pp. 13–26). São Paulo: EDUC, Campinas: Mercado das Letras. Brazil, Ministério da Educação. (1996). Lei de Diretrizes e Base da Educação Brasileira. Brasília: MEC. Brazil, Ministério da Educação, Secretaria da Educação Média e Tecnológica. (1999). Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais, Linguagens, códigos e suas tecnologias. Brasília: MEC. Bronckart, J. (1999). Atividades de linguagem, textos e discursos: Por um interacionismo sóciodiscursivo. São Paulo: EDUC. Carvalho, Gisele de. (2002). Resenhas/reviews: Da ação entre amigos ao apontador de defeitos? (Um estudo contrastivo de resenhas acadêmicas escritas em inglês e português). Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brazil. Charadeau, P. (1983). Language et Discours. Paris: Hachette. Cristovão, V. L. L. (2002). Gêneros e ensino de leitura em LE: Os modelos didáticos na construção e avaliação de material didático. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. Devitt, A. J., Bawarshi, A., & Reiff, M. J. (2003). Materiality and genre in the study of discourse communities. College English, 65, 541–558. Dionísio, A. P., Machado, A. R., & Bezerra, M. A. (Eds.). (2002). Gêneros textuais & ensino. Rio de Janeiro: Lucerna. Dolz, J., & Schneuwly, B. (1998). L’oral comme text: Construire um object enseignable. In Pour un enseignement de l’oral. Initiation aux genres formels à lécole (pp. 49–73). Paris: ESFediteur. Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ducrot, O. (1980). Les mots du discours. Paris: Minuit. Dudley-­Evans, T. (1986). Genre analysis: An investigation of the introduction and discussion sections of MSc dissertations. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Talking about text (pp. 128–145). Discourse Analysis Monographs, no. 13. Birmingham, UK: English Language Research, University of Birmingham. Dudley-­Evans, T. (1994). Genre analysis: An approach to text analysis for ESP. In Malcolm Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 219–228). London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (2002). Critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific research. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis: Introducing qualitative methods (pp. 121–138). London: Sage Publications. Figueiredo, D. C. (1995). The use and abuse of your sexual power: Cosmopolitan/ Nova and the creation and maintenance of a conservative view of female sexuality. Unpublished master’s thesis. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil. Greimas, A. J. (1966). Sémantique structurale. Paris: Larousse.

56   A. D. Araújo Halliday, M. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1989). Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heberle, V. (1997). An investigation of textual and contextual parameters in editor­ials in women’s magazines. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil. Heberle, V. (2000). Análise crítica do discurso e estudos de gênero: subsídios para a leitura e interpretação de textos. In M. Fortkamp & L. Tomitch (Eds.), Aspectos de lingüística aplicada (pp. 289–316). Florianópolis: Insular. Hendges, G. R. (2001). Novos contextos, novos gêneros: A revisão da seção de literatura em artigos acadêmicos eletrônicos. Unpublished master’s thesis. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Kress, G. (1985). Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Machado, A. R. (1988). O diário de leituras: A introdução de um novo instrumento na escola. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. Machado, A. R. (2000). Uma experiência de assessorial docente e de elaboração de material didático para o ensino de produção de textos na universidade. D.E.L. T.A., 16(1), 1–25. Magalhães, C. (Ed.). (2001). Reflexões sobre análise crítica do discurso. Belo Horizonte: FALE: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Maingueneau, D. (2002). Análise de textos da comunicação (Trans. C. P. de Souza­e-Silva & D. Rocha). São Paulo: Cortez. Martin, J. R. (1992). English text: System and structure. John Benjamins: Amsterdam. Miller, C. R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151–167. Motta-­Roth, Désirée. (1995). Rhetorical features and disciplinary cultures: A genre-­based study of academic book reviews in linguistics, chemistry and economics. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. Pêcheux, M. (1969). Analyze automatique du discours. Paris: Dunod. Ramos, R. C. G. (1997). Projeção de imagens através de escolhas lingüísticas: Um estudo no contexto empresarial. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. Rodrigues, R. H. (2001). A constituição e o funcionamento do gênero jornalístico artigo: Cronotropo e dialogismo. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. Rojo, R. H. R. (Ed.). (2000). A prática de linguagem em sala de aula: Praticando os PCNs. São Paulo: EDUC; Campinas: Mercado de Letras. Rojo, R. H. R. (2001). A teoria dos gêneros em Bakhtin: Construindo uma perspectiva enunciativa para o ensino de compreensão e produção de textos na escola. In B. Brait (Ed.), Estudos enunciativos no Brasil: História e perspectivas (pp. 163–185). Campinas: Pontes. Russell, David R. (1997). Rethinking genre in school and society: An activity theory analysis. Written Communication, 14(4), 504–554. Santos, M. B. dos. (1995). Academic abstracts: a genre analysis. Unpublished master’s thesis. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil.

Mapping genre research in Brazil   57 Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thiollent, M. (2002). Metodologia da pesquisa-­ação. São Paulo: Cortez Editora. Van Dijk, T. A. (1990). La noticia como discurso: Compreensión, estructura y producción de la información. Barcelona: Paidós. Wallace, M. J. (1998). Action research for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, A. S. (1982). An examination of the rhetorical structures of authentic chemistry texts. Applied Linguistics, 3, 121–43.

5 The teaching and learning of writing in Portugal The case of a research group Luísa Álvares Pereira, Conceição Aleixo, Inês Cardoso, and Luciana Graça Didactics and Learning Technology Department, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Introduction In Portugal, political attention has focused on the poor levels of literacy and knowledge of the Portuguese language of both students and the general population, as revealed by national exams and international studies (M. E., 2004; PISA, M. E., & GAVE, 2001); to solve the problem, politicians, researchers, trainees, and teachers are focusing on the work that is done at schools. Within this national context we have conducted research on the learning of writing and the underlying teaching practices, taking into account two main areas: •

•

writing as an activity, moving from a focus on the product-­text to a focus on the process of writing and the intervening factors, defined and systematized in the socio-­discursive interactionism framework (Bronckart, 2006; Pereira & Graça, 2007; Vygotsky, 1987/1934); the analysis of writing as a subjective and sociocultural practice, either in school or in personal, professional, institutional, or social contexts (Barré-de Miniac, 2000; Chapman, 2006; Charlot, 1997; Lahire, 1993; Penloup, 1999).

This research has focused on the three cycles of Basic Education in Portugal (covering nine school years): primary school (ages six to ten); the second cycle (ages ten to 12); and the third cycle (ages 12 to 15). Throughout these cycles, current teaching of writing is “simplistic and reductive” (Pereira, 2000). Additionally, there is a clear distance between classroom practices, research principles, and ministerial directives. Given these circumstances, it is our aim here, first, to analyze policy directives, as well as the research on writing across these cycles. Second, we present data resulting from the research on classroom practices, which we have carried out, in an attempt to articulate research and teaching methodologies, and to gain a clearer understanding of the factors that contribute to the improvement of teaching strategies and learning. In order to accomplish our research objectives, we worked within classroom contexts and

Teaching and learning writing in Portugal   59 implemented varied pedagogical devices: didactic sequence (DS), writing notebooks (WN), and writing workshops (WW).

The “new” pedagogy of writing in Portuguese official documents: priorities In the past two decades, recognition of writing as an object of research has been accompanied by a renewed understanding of writing’s essential role both in school success and in individuals’ lives. This new perspective resulted in changes to the Portuguese Language programs within Basic Compulsory Education, in 1991. By 2001, these changes were corroborated and made explicit in the Essential Competences for Basic Education, which trace the profile of what students should know (how to do) by the end of their compulsory cycle of education (M. E., 2001a). Indeed, these official instructions confer a definite status to writing by considering it a specific teaching object that requires systematic work. The focus is now on processes of textual production, namely the production of authentic texts for authentic receivers. One of the outcomes of this education shift has been extending writing assignments beyond literary texts, and encouraging the production of different texts. Writing workshop practices have also become common both at the level of basic schooling and high school. Official recognition of the value of writing as a teachable competence does not necessarily translate into effective teaching practices. The recent introduction of national exams (at the end of the First Cycle of Basic Education (1st CBE) in 2000; at the end of the 2nd CBE, in 2001; and at the end of the 3rd CBE, in 2002) that include writing assessments highlights this fact by unveiling students’ lacks in regards to the production of specific genres. The published reports of these assessments (M. E., 2004, 2001b, 2000; M. E. & GAVE, 2007) provided a description of the results of the students’ performance, and made some recommendations with regard to writing: diversifying texts according to purpose; monitoring of the writing process by teachers and among students (peer-­to-peer learning), and assessing not only written products but also the writing process. It is within this context that the Didactics of Writing emerged as an innovative framework for understanding the conceptions and praxis of teaching and learning, and for providing grounded orientations for good teaching and learning practices.

Theoretical perspectives and methodologies: didactic research/intervention devices The Didactics of Writing approach to the teaching of writing is informed by research from the perspective of a variety of disciplines, especially cognitive psychology and textual-, socio- and psycholinguistics, and is concerned therefore not only with writing processes and written products, but also with the sociocultural environment and its impact on student engagement and

60   L. Á. Pereira et al. ­ erformance. More specifically, the development of pragmatic and textual p linguistic studies and the focus on the dimensions of language that go beyond the sentence have increased the attention on the function of texts and their discursive properties, which have made undeniable contributions in our understanding of writing across content areas and genres. Furthermore, knowledge generated by cognitive psychology regarding the different processes of “expert” and “novice” writers has been transferred to the field of Writing. This knowledge has helped to develop and test teaching models that take into account the different stages of the writing process, the development of the subject’s metalinguistic consciousness of language (Barbeiro, 1999), as well as the identification of working methodologies that facilitate textual production (Carvalho, 1998). Proposals from textual linguistics (Adam, 1999) have drawn greater attention to genres, here understood as organizing macro-­categories, as tools of social action, which organize an incredible array of human activities (Bronckart, 1996). Through contact with texts that circulate in their own world, children are able to intuitively construct knowledge regarding text genres (Chapman, 2006; Pereira, 2008). However, in order to develop a greater command of textual production, there is a need for a systematic learning of a wide range of textual genres. Additionally, the development of a textual repertoire includes increased processes of self-­regulation and the reduction of task complexity, since the previous knowledge of a specific schematic structure decreases the cognitive effort of writing. Besides analyzing students’ textual production from the point of view of linguistics and psychology, research on writing in Portugal has also valued the conceptual framework and didactic choices made by teachers (Pereira, 2000). Through interviews carried out with 18 teachers from the 3rd CBE and from high schools, together with questionnaires handed out to 127 teachers within the same teaching contexts, Pereira (2000) was able to identify the existence of three types of teachers: (1) teachers who privilege writing as a archetype of written verbal production and who rarely write at a personal level; (2) teachers who value creative text production, and who reveal a tendency to write at a personal level, namely texts of a more poetic or intimate nature; and (3) teachers who associate writing with reading so as to promote students’ knowledge of different genres and who are used to writing texts for academic purposes. From the analysis of teachers’ discourses concerning their practices in the teaching of writing, we were able to conclude that the representations of (teaching) writing evinced by each of these profiles underlie the didactic options made in classroom. Therefore, didactics should continue to focus on teachers’ conceptions at this level, given that they determine choices of action. Without this previous knowledge and reflection upon such representations, didactics will be unable to intervene in didactic practices. As well as having identified the conceptual framework and options behind teachers’ pedagogical approaches to writing, through discourse analysis, we analyzed effective teaching practices with the aim of identify-

Teaching and learning writing in Portugal   61 ing teachers’ typical professional habits and analyzing the teaching devices they use and the way in which teaching objects are (re)configured, in the classroom, and transformed into objects which are in fact teachable (Schneuwly & Thévenaz-Christen, 2006). Given that the teaching activity does not, after all, always coincide with the teaching materials’ aims, more research is being conducted on the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices and student learning outcomes (Graça & Pereira, 2006, 2005; Pereira & Graça, 2005). In addition, more recent studies have revealed the importance of taking into account individual students’ relationship with writing (Barré-de Miniac, 2000; Charlot, 1997; Lahire, 1993) and the way they act in different writing situations. This perspective considers: (1) the role of the subject and the meaning found in writing tasks as essential to the development of writing competence, hence sustaining the notion that writing at school can be a factor of democratization or of exclusion, depending on the ability to establish a bridge between the language acquired in each subject’s social environment—or mother tongue—and the language used at school (Cardoso & Pereira, 2007a, 2007b; Pereira & Cardoso, in press); (2) the analysis of the writing produced by students outside the school context as well as on the type of relationship established with school (con)texts (Cardoso & Pereira, in press, 2007c, 2005; Penloup, 1999). All these research areas focus on the Portuguese Language “classroom,” with the aim of understanding how students develop academic literacy, as well as analyzing teachers’ contributions to that development. It seems essential to study the type of activities that intervene in changing writing habits. As various empirical observations have demonstrated, academic practices of teaching writing are not attaining the desired learning outcomes for the development of this macro-­competence (Pereira, 2008). This is illustrated by the expectation that students are able to write a certain type of text exclusively because they have been exposed to and/or read examples of that genre, believing that the reading–writing transposition is immediate. These concerns have motivated the development of didactic materials for classroom intervention, framed by the essential research questions of our work: What are the effects of different didactic devices, which include rewriting projects with the mediation of another person (teacher, colleagues) and socialization, in the sense that texts have a social role ascribed by the dynamics of their circulation inside and outside school contexts and among individuals, in the evolution of students’ writing practices? 1 How do didactic devices implemented in teacher education/training enhance teaching performance and influence the object taught? 2 In what way can the relationship with writing influence students’ school writing trajectory? 3 How can the knowledge acquired on the Subject Writer contribute toward a reconceptualization of more inclusive and resourceful didactic practices?

62   L. Á. Pereira et al. The above questions provide a consistent framework for a variety of studies. For this chapter, we have selected three examples which include the implementation of a didactic sequence, the use of writing notebooks, and the organization of a workshop on/about writing.

The case of a research group: researching in the classroom International, national, and classroom-­based assessments have frequently led to negative perceptions regarding the quality of students’ writing. These perceptions contribute toward our research interest in understanding in what ways and to what degree writing “quality” can be improved through different teaching practices, as well as the nature of the changes that take place at the level of teachers’ practices in loco by the use of different teaching devices, in particular WW, DS, and WN. Didactic sequence One of these devices is the use of a DS, where the main goal is to lead students to discover their own writing processes when writing particular genres, which is illustrated in Figure 5.1 (Schneuwly, Dolz, Rodrigues Rojo, & Cordeiro, 2004): The DS is central to our concern because it focuses on the writing process, i.e., it implies and foresees stages of planning, writing, reviewing, and rewriting that impact students’ writing and teachers’ work (discourses and practices). The use of the DS led to considerable improvements in the students’ texts, for example, to a higher level of development in the organization of ideas, a significant increase in the use of specific terms related to the text worked on, better organization, a greater diversity of transitional elements between paragraphs, as well as a tendency to produce longer texts (Pereira & Graça, 2005; Pereira, 2007). In the case of opinion texts, for example, our research focused specifically on the impact of the DS on two main dimensions: the teacher’s choices of action when teaching the opinion text and the differences in the way this genre is presented in the classroom. So, in order to examine changes in both of these areas (teacher’s choices of action and genre features), a set of several sixth-­grade classes were taught by six teachers, who were filmed, in two stages. In the first stage, each teacher taught the

Context of communication

Initial production

Textual genre

Figure 5.1  Didactic sequence.

Module 1

Module 2

Module n

Final production

Teaching and learning writing in Portugal   63 opinion text according to their lesson plan. In the second stage, they taught the same content using the didactic tool provided by us—the DS. Interviews were carried out before and after each of these stages; the latter included observation, by the teacher, of some extracts of the videos (see Table 5.1). The analysis resulting from the observation of these two stages provided interesting findings related to the usefulness of the DS to learning and to the learning of writing in particular (Cordeiro, Azevedo, & Mattos, 2004; Graça & Pereira, in press, 2008a, 2008b, 2005). Current data analysis clearly shows different logics both at the level of conceptualizing the didactic object and of transmitting it in a didactic manner. For the purpose of better illustrating our findings, we can highlight that the introduction of the DS resulted in the study of certain characteristics of opinion texts— textual deconstruction in order to understand the structure of the text, arguments, etc.—unlike what had happened in the first stage, in which the emphasis was placed on the motivation for writing and focused on the content of the text to be produced. Writing notebooks The second pedagogical intervention involves the use of WN which approach and perceive writing as an act of personal free will. In this case, it is relevant to note that the official program for the 1st CBE (M. E., 2001a, 1991) establishes that each student should have “a notebook in which they may experience writing as they know it, about what they want, when they want.” This guideline allowed us to expand a previous study (Aleixo, 2005) based on interest around meanings and practices that are perceptible in the use of individual WN by students and teachers. Our research was designed in this case to analyze the use of WN from multiple perspectives: (1) the textual diversity observed in the individual WN, in order to identify the types of texts produced and the emerging genres; (2) the variety of contexts of production generated by the students, Table 5.1  Description of empirical research First stage

Interview with each teacher

Audiovisual recording of a “common” teaching-learning sequence

Interview with each teacher

Audiovisual recording of a teaching-learning sequence using a DS

Interview with each teacher (+ excerpts of the films)

Delivery of a DS to each teacher Second stage

Interview with each teacher

64   L. Á. Pereira et al. so as to register personal writing initiatives; (3) the characterization of the students’ writing options, in order to understand the development of their relationship with writing; (4) the appropriateness of the teachers’ methodological options, in order to consider differences among pedagogical devices in relation to the heterogeneity of interests and competences demonstrated by the students. In the three classes that participated in this study, the use of individual WN included individual and pair writing. During the two school years in which the research was conducted, the use of the WN throughout the classes shared many common features (Figure 5.2), despite the differences identified concerning time, organization, and monitoring. Our analysis focused on four areas: (1) the use of the WN (through direct observation and registers made available); (2) the dynamics created in each class (through observation/selection of episodes, teachers, and students’ reports); (3) students’ relationship with and conceptions of writing (through questionnaires and informal conversations); and (4) teachers’ opinions about their own didactic options (through semi-­structured interviews). Furthermore, the time dedicated to classroom observations allowed us to identify similarities and differences in the pedagogical choices made by each teacher in the use of the WN. In Class A, the WN were always present as part of students’ daily school material and were used every day because each student was asked to read and react to at least one text. After every student had read, the class commented on the texts they had heard all at once, i.e., some of the texts or some of the students may receive a global comment. In Class B, the WN were part of each student’s daily activities. The teacher repeatedly suggested that students use the notebooks to write during independent study hours and at the end of each school day; additionally, half-­an-hour a day was reserved for five students to read their writing from their notebooks aloud to the rest of the class. The class then orally responded to each student’s writing, text by text, i.e., each student received responses to each one of his/her texts. In Class C, the WN were kept in the classroom and students used them during independent study hours. In this class, half-­an-

Individual production

Presentation to the class Revision (possibility)

Individual Presentation (...) production to the class Revision (possibility)

Figure 5.2  Stages of the use of the writing notebooks.

Teaching and learning writing in Portugal   65 hour was reserved for the oral sharing of student writing. At the end of each presentation, the class and the teacher commented on the work presented author by author, i.e, each student received a global comment about all the texts s/he presented. Our current analysis (Aleixo & Pereira, 2007; Aleixo, 2005) suggests that WN are associated with a significant production of texts, both in terms of the quantity of writing that students generated, as well as the range of genres that students have appropriated into their textual repertoire. Moreover, the effectiveness of the WN seems to have been affected by the teachers’ pedagogical and didactic choices. For example, concerning the quantity of texts produced, we confirmed that the three options for commenting on the texts—all at once, text by text, and author by author—led to an increase in the number of texts produced by the students. However, the differences regarding the diversity of texts indicate an advantage in commenting on each text, per se, as we observed in Class B. Workshops on/about writing Our third intervention focuses on the important relationship between the student writer and their conceptions of writing and the writing process. The designing of effective writing pedagogy among heterogeneous and diverse school populations requires knowledge of individual students’ writing practices (Cardoso & Pereira, 2007a). For this reason, our research attends to individual students’ responses to the following questions: What do they think about the writing they practice at school? What questions do they have about writing? What difficulties do they encounter when they write? Do they feel motivated to write when they are not required to do so? Is school alone motivating their writing or do they write for extracurricular purposes? In order to answer these questions, we planned and carried out a teaching experiment entitled “Workshop on/about Writing,” that was framed by our conceptual model, in which we schematized the dynamics of the classroom, the sustaining arguments,1 and the teaching objectives, and strategies used in the WW (Figure 5.3). This WW functions as a tool that embraces research concerns while simultaneously testing pedagogical and didactic motivations, focusing on three major objectives which integrate and mutually complement each other, by going from research to practice, with the intent that the latter will allow us to: • • • •

gain deeper knowledge of the relationship students have with writing; observe the dynamics of the classroom environments and their impact on students’ relationship with writing; investigate the impact of extracurricular writing on students’ acquisition of academic literacy; improve instructional practices.

66   L. Á. Pereira et al.

Reflecting about writing Writing

Speaking Writing Representations Personal uses Socialization of the students’ texts

Me Academic writing Non-academic writing Relationship

The others social uses Taking action through writing

Instruments

Getting to know young people’s writing

Getting to know young people through writing

• • • •

Questionnaire “Your writing” Testimonies on writing Functional genres—authentic texts Languages and discourses of the researcher and other, more or less, experienced writers • Subjects’ and researcher’s diaries • Questionnaire assessing the project

Figure 5.3  Conceptual model of the “Workshop on/about Writing.”

The organization and implementation of the WW aimed at answering the questions as presented in Table 5.2. This WW included individual and group activities including a variety of writing activities and debates. Our research essentially emphasized obstacle-­representations, which we identified through individual interviews with students who participated in the activities. These interviews took place after school during the months that the WW were in effect. The information collated from the WW and from the interviews—which is being processed with the assistance of the QSR N-­Vivo 7 software (Cardoso & Pereira, 2007b)—shows positive changes in students’ relationship with writing. In particular, we observed that a critical attitude might be contributing to the reconstruction of a relationship with writing, as the activities carried out led students to reflect upon the process and functions of writing. Students’ discussion of these activities allowed us to conclude that there was a deeper understanding of writing processes and of what

Teaching and learning writing in Portugal   67 Table 5.2 Organization and operationalization of the “workshop on/about writing” Title Promoter Schedule

Periodicity

Public Period

Me, Writing and Others The researcher 15 hours, during Portuguese Language classes, at school—or on Wednesdays from 10:15 to 11:45 a.m., or on Fridays from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. (90-minute sessions)—total number of sessions: ten According to the teacher’s availability and to the school calendar: sessions organized with two day intervals during four weeks maximum 16 students, with ages between 11 and 15, from a seventh-grade form, from a predominantly urban area of the district of Aveiro1 February to June 2006

Note 1 According to the designation which resulted from a collaborative study carried out between the National Statistical Insitute and the Directorate-General for Land-use Planning and Urban Development.

they are able to do personally, professionally, and socially with writing, outgrowing the school perception of writing.

Final considerations As noted earlier, this last decade in Portugal has seen an increased emphasis on teaching, learning, and researching writing. However, this “writing era” coexists in an apparently paradoxical manner with a “writing crisis” among both students and teachers. Indeed, our current educational and research contexts have pointed out the need to emphasize problems posed uniquely by the teaching of different kinds of texts and the importance of understanding individual students’ relationships with writing as a global subject. Our research suggests that these pedagogical approaches—(1) the learning of texts as a process— didactic sequence; (2) the production of texts by students through personal motivation—writing notebooks; (3) the understanding of the activity/ student/subject’s motivation underlying text production—Workshop on/ about Writing) contribute toward the improvement of school programs which in turn can help each student use writing as a citizen with full rights. Nevertheless, in our opinion, there is still the need to establish a “web of interactions” which reinforces the desirable link between research didactics and professional didactics, with the intent of creating conditions for innovation based on the transforming potentials of a concrete line of action—reasons which have led us to present, although in a summarized manner, a research perspective directed toward the study of specific cases, from which conclusions that are consistent with the education praxis might be (re)drawn. Gradually, another line of intervention and research may emerge as a result of the communicative circuits established through the so-­called “web of interactions” between research and practice. If the results obtained come

68   L. Á. Pereira et al. to be adequately reformulated as courses of action, guiding an application of more systematic and general approaches to the teaching and learning of writing, we may then consider their impact on the professional development of teachers and on those who are enrolled in teacher-­training programs. More than assessing the effects of the pedagogical approaches in isolated cases, it is our intention to accompany and analyze the integration of these teaching methods in different professional development models, in order to contribute to urgently needed research-­based approaches to the design and selection of school activities that promote the development of writing in students at all educational levels.

Note 1 Students’ relationship with school and extracurricular writing, students’ conceptions of social uses of writing, potentialities and limitations of writing workshops to reconstruct the relationship with writing, namely by broadening the perception of its social, academic, and personal functions.

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70   L. Á. Pereira et al. Penloup, M.-C. (1999). L’écriture extrascolaire des collégiens: Des constats aux perspectives didactiques. Paris: ESF. Pereira, L. A. (2000). Escrever em português. Didácticas e práticas. Porto: Edições Asa. Pereira, L. A. (2008). Escrever com as crianças. Como fazer bons leitores e escritores. Para crianças dos 0 aos 12 anos. Porto: Porto Editora. Pereira, L. A., & Cardoso, I. (in press). Jovens, alunos e relação com a escrita. In M. Matos (Ed.), Jovens e alunos do Ensino Secundário. Porto: Afrontamento. Pereira, L. A., & Graça, L. (2005). Interacção e mediação didáctica de géneros discursivos no ensino da escrita. In Actas do III Colóquio Nacional de Filosofia da Linguagem e Interacção. Porto Alegre: Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Pereira, L. A., & Graça, L. (2007). Da conceptualização do contexto de produção e da sua produtividade na Didáctica da Escrita. In A. M. Guimarães, M. A. Coutinho, & A. R. Machado (Eds.), O interacionismo sociodiscursivo: Questões epistemológicas e metodológicas. Campinas: Mercado de Letras. Pereira, S. C. F. (2007). Efeitos da sequência didáctica em textos escritos no 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico: O Relato. Dissertação Mestrado em Línguas no 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico. Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro. PISA, M. E., & GAVE. (2001). Resultados do Estudo Internacional PISA 2000. Primeiro Relatório Nacional. Lisbon: Ministério da Educação, Gabinete de Avaliação Educacional. Retrieved DATE, from www.gave.min-­edu.pt/np3conten t/?newsId=33&fileName=primeiro_relatorio_nacional.pdf. Schneuwly, B., Dolz, J., Rodrigues Rojo, R. H., & Cordeiro, G. (2004). Gêneros orais e escritos na escola (R. Rojo & G. Cordeiro, Trans.). Campinas: Editora Mercado de Letras. Schneuwly, B., & Thévenaz-Christen, T. (Eds.). (2006). Analyses des objets enseignés. Le cas du français. Brussels: De Boeck & Larcier. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987/1934). Pensamento e Linguagem. São Paulo: Livraria Martins Fontes Editora.

6 Spanish research on writing instruction for students with and without learning disabilities Jesús-Nicasio García*, Ana-­María de Caso-­Fuertes*, Raquel Fidalgo-­Redondo*, Olga Arias-­Gundín, and Mark Torrance† *Department of Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy, University of León, Spain † Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Introduction Traditionally, across a broad range of national and educational contexts, writing instruction has focused on features of the completed text: spelling, word choice, syntax, and genre. Some students manage to develop good writing skills through exposure to this kind of teaching. However, many students, and certainly those with more general literacy or learning difficulties, need broader and more sophisticated training. There is evidence that instructional programs that (1) focus not just on written products but also on the processes by which these are produced and (2) aim to develop students’ motivation and self-­efficacy alongside their writing skills, tend to result in substantially greater gains in the quality than interventions that are wholly product-­focused (Graham, 2006; Graham & Perin, 2007). The success or otherwise of instructional programs depends in part on the educational context in which the instruction takes place. This provides the main motivation for this chapter. The bulk of the studies cited in, for example, Graham’s (2007) meta-­analysis of writing instruction evaluations were conducted in North American schools. Research has, of course, been conducted elsewhere but, partly because of publication in non-­English journals, receives less attention. In this chapter we present a very brief overview of a number of studies conducted over the last eight years by García and co-­workers from the University of Leon in northern Spain. Our work, all conducted with native Spanish school-­age students, comprises both intervention evaluations and more general exploration of writing performance within the Spanish education system. Aside from the Spanish context, three broad themes mark out our research. First, and in common with other researchers, we aim to understand what helps students develop into independent competent writers rather than how to achieve short-­term goals on specific tasks. Central to this is the concept of self-­regulation: alongside understanding of written products and writing processes students need metaknowledge, self-­awareness, and

72   J.-N. García et al. motivation to apply this knowledge flexibly across a broad range of writing contexts. Gains in self-­regulation require specific teaching methods and are both harder to achieve and harder to assess than short-­term gains in text quality. Second, we explore writing in both typically developing and struggling students (low-­achieving students or students with learning disabilities, which we will refer to collectively as LD students). For practical reasons a focus on LD students is important. In primary1 teaching it is very easy for low-­performing students to slip increasingly far behind in their writing development, particularly in contexts where instruction is product-­ centered. The fewer words a student gets down on the page the less there is to comment on, and so the less they are able to benefit from teacher feedback. As we discuss below, one of the ways round this is to provide feedback directly on process. Finally, and consistent with recognition of the importance of educational context, we aim to explore performance and evaluate interventions within the context of normal literacy classes and delivered by students’ normal classroom teacher. This introduces a certain amount of additional complexity in ensuring evaluations are properly controlled. However, we believe that this is outweighed by gains in generalizability. Also, and importantly, writing instructors, as end users of our research, are more likely to adopt novel interventions if we can demonstrate that they have already been implemented effectively by teachers like themselves in an everyday school context. In the remainder of this chapter we will first briefly describe the Spanish educational context in which we conduct our research. We will then summarize findings from research aimed at establishing the particular strengths and weaknesses of writers who are learning within this system. Finally, we will provide an overview of evaluations of interventions that we have developed to meet these writers’ needs.

The Spanish context Curricula in Spanish primary and secondary schools are dictated to some extent by central government, most recently by a wide-­ranging Organic Law of Education, passed in 2006, which in turn reflects frameworks developed by the European Union. National law is interpreted at regional level—specifically the Castilla y León for most of the schools participating in our research. Literacy development is seen as a central focus of primary education and as less central in secondary schools, and reading is given greater emphasis than writing: of the 17 general aims for primary education promoted by the Castilla y León, only two relate to written production and these only tangentially. There is a required daily time for reading, which aims at developing good reading habits in students, but none for writing. Writing is discussed in more detail in specific notes on teaching Castillian language and literature. Here there is an emphasis on writing correctly at letter (handwriting), word (spelling), and text (order and

Spanish research on writing instruction   73 coherence) levels. Interestingly, guidelines also mention the need for some basic metalanguage to describe and conceptualize text and syntactic structure. The research described in this chapter dates back over the last eight or so years. During this period there has been little general change in approaches to writing instruction. In most schools writing has been a specific focus in the curriculum, but emphasis has tended to be on writing texts in specified genres with teachers tending to provide feedback exclusively on the appropriateness of text structure and correctness of syntax and spelling. Teachers typically do not make reference to or evaluate the strategies that students adopt in producing this text. The 2006 education law also introduced, for the first time in Spanish legislation, specific recognition of the need for provision for students with learning disabilities (LD), with diagnostic assessments in second years of both primary and secondary education. Prior to this there had been little or no specific focus on the needs of LD students. García et al. (2006) asked 131 Spanish kindergarten and primary school teachers about how they taught writing and found that nearly all used similar methods regardless of student ability.

Writing in the normal curriculum The research described in this section aimed to explore relationships among process, motivational, and text variables in students, both typically developing and learning delayed, within the normal curriculum. García and Fidalgo (2004a, 2004b) tested 1,688 typically developing students ranging in age from eight to 16 years. Students produced descriptive and narrative texts which were evaluated holistically, by counting particular coherence markers, and in terms of productivity (total amount of text produced). Students also completed a measure of writing metaknowledge comprising a number of open-­ended questions about students’ writing experiences and self-­perception of their writing ability (based on a questionnaire developed by Graham, Schwartz, & MacArthur, 1993). They found, as might be predicted, that as students get older, mechanical and other low-­level aspects of the writing process feature less in how they talk about writing (and, by inference, in their metacognitive representation of writing processes). Older students were, therefore, more likely to talk about substantive features of their writing processes, including text structure and strategic activities like outlining and revision. Focus on mechanical and low-­level aspects of text production was negatively associated both with students’ productivity and with the coherence of their text. Focus on substantive aspects of the writing process was, by contrast, a positive predictor of these variables. Older students were also more likely to express negative motivation in relation to their writing (e.g., “I find it difficult to work hard at my writing”), were more likely to engage in self-­evaluation and, specifically, showed lower writing self-­efficacy (e.g., “I do not think I can write very well”). As might be expected, motivation and self-­efficacy both predicted writing performance.

74   J.-N. García et al. School-­based studies have tended not to examine students’ writing processes, and methods that explore process (think-­aloud, keystroke logging, guided retrospection) are not easily implemented within a classroom setting. We have been using a concurrent self-­report method. Students are given a blank “writing log” comprising lists of, typically, seven different writing activities, represented by icons. While completing a writing task the class hears a short electronic tone played at random intervals of between 60 and 120 seconds. At the sound of the tone each student ticks the icon that best represents their current activity. This allows for an estimate not just of the total amount of time spent in each activity but also how different activities (and particularly, planning, drafting, and revising) are distributed through the course of completing the task. Using this method García and Fidalgo (2008) compared writing processes in 81 sixth-­grade LD students with those of 80 typically achieving peers. They also explored students’ metaknowledge, writing motivation, and self-­efficacy, and the quality and structure of their completed texts. As might be expected, LD students wrote texts that were both less well-­ organized and less coherent. They also displayed less well-­developed writing metaknowledge, showing similar patterns to the younger writers described above. Less predictably, but consistent with findings from research conducted with students in the United States (e.g., Graham et al., 1993), LD students tended to have higher writing self-­efficacy. Process measures indicated that total time-­on-task tended to be greater for LD students, but this was due to more non-­writing activity (e.g., staring out of the window). LD students spent less time drafting their text, and less time reading and changing what they had written. This is analogous to a developmental trend in the extent to which students revise: García and Arias-­ Gundín (submitted) assessed revision ability in the last two years of primary and first two years of secondary education (N = 958). As might be expected, older students tended to both make more revisions and generate a more coherent final product. As we discuss below, we have found some evidence that as students get older the extent to which they revise becomes an increasingly important predictor of text quality (Fidalgo, Torrance, & García, in press). There was, however, no difference between LD and non-­LD groups in time spent formally planning their texts. Formal planning tends to be absent in all Spanish sixth-­grade writers unless they have received specific, strategy-­focused instruction (Torrance, Fidalgo, & García, 2007). Findings from research reported in this section suggest, therefore, two principles that can be carried forward into consideration of how best to teach writing. First, metacognitive, motivational, process, and final product variables are strongly interrelated. Second, the kinds of writing processes that are typically associated with mature, self-­regulated writing tend not to be well-­developed in either LD or non-­LD students in the final years of primary school.

Spanish research on writing instruction   75

Interventions In this section we describe studies evaluating interventions targeted at developing students’ writing competence. With one or two exceptions our research has tended to focus on writing in the fifth and sixth grades—ages ten to 13 in the Spanish system. Sixth grade is the final year of primary education in Spanish schools. In evaluating interventions we make extensive use of a set of instruments that we call the Evaluación de los Procesos de Planificación y otros Factores Psicológicos de la Escritura (Assessment of the Planning Processes and other Writing-­related Psychological Factors—EPPyFPE; García & de Caso, 2006b; García, Marbán, & de Caso, 2001).This comprises four sets of measures: a writing attitudes scale, a writing self-­efficacy scale, a series of open-­ended questions designed to assess students’ metaknowledge, and three writing tasks—a narrative, an expository essay, and a description. Interventions for LD students Our work with this group of students is based on two beliefs. First, LD students can, in most cases, learn strategies for producing high-­quality texts. Second, development of these strategies requires interventions that motivate students to an extent that goes beyond that typically achieved within the normal curriculum. The studies we describe explore the validity of these convictions. Broadly, we have evaluated interventions which combined one or both of (1) teaching of specific cognitive strategies for regulating writing processes—specifically formal methods for planning and/or revising—and (2) specific strategies for developing students’ writing-­related motivation. Interventions typically ran for around 25 sessions, and involved teaching with small groups of students during school hours but taken out of normal lessons. Sample sizes varied but were never fewer than 28 in the intervention condition and normally substantially greater. Our initial studies explored just the effects of training in planning strategies. García and Marbán (2003) found that teaching the kinds of planning strategy that would normally only be introduced much later in students’ education (e.g., Sorenson, 1997) resulted in significant gains in productivity and, to a lesser extent, in the coherence of students’ texts. It is possible that the relatively slight effects on text quality were due to a lack of reflexivity in students’ approach to their writing. In a second study (García & de Caso-­Fuertes, 2002), we combined the same planning instruction with a method that required students to periodically stop (we used a colored sign) and apply a pre-­learned schema to reflect on the current state of their text. Students again produced better text but on a transfer task we found no evidence of increased reflexivity. García and de Caso (2004) repeated the same intervention with a larger sample of students and added in specific tactics for developing student motivation. These were based in (1) rooting tasks in a practical, “real world” context,

76   J.-N. García et al. (2) maximizing the extent to which students interacted during sessions, and (3) both informal and formal methods for rewarding successful writing. This combined planning-­and-motivation intervention resulted in improvements to the coherence of students’ texts, though not this time in their productivity. After training, students in the normal-­curriculum control expressed a less positive attitude toward writing than they had at baseline, but attitude improved slightly within the intervention group. We did not, however, find effects on motivation or self-­efficacy. One possible reason for this is simply that 25 sessions is inadequate to rewind a long history of failure relative to more able peers. The lack of self-­efficacy improvement may also, or alternatively, be due to expectations keeping pace with ability: as students become more able writers they also become more aware of how much better their writing could become. García and de Caso (2006b) brought together all three interventions discussed so far—planning only, planning plus reflexivity training, and planning plus motivational training—in a single evaluation. In addition to teaching planning strategies, all of the interventions also included some instruction in text structuring (e.g., use of paragraphing) and in strategies for revising completed drafts. All three interventions showed benefits for text coherence and structure and for productivity compared to normal-­ curriculum controls. Productivity increased most in the planning-­only condition, and least in the planning-­plus-motivational training condition. There were no differential effects on either coherence or structure. Effects on motivation and attitude were more mixed. However, there was again no evidence of an effect for motivational training. Taken together, these studies suggest strong evidence for the value for LD students of training in cognitive self-­regulatory strategies. Failure to affect students’ motivation, and particularly their belief in their own ability, was, however, disappointing. We therefore developed a program, described in García and de Caso (2006a), that specifically targeted the four elements that Bandura (1997) argues are necessary for the development of self-­efficacy. Instruction comprised ten sessions, delivered this time by the researchers, in which students were provided with a pleasant working environment (to induce a positive affective state), were taught to verbally self-­reward for personal effort, were given manageable tasks and were reinforced for good performance, and had their attention drawn to successful peers. Alongside these tactics for developing students’ self-­efficacy, they were taught the same planning strategies as in previous studies (but not the “stop and think” reflexivity training). Students in the intervention condition showed very substantial gains in the coherence and structure of their texts, with substantially greater effect sizes than those found in previous studies. Process information from writing logs indicated that intervention students spent proportionally less time reading supporting materials and more time writing text than students studying under the normal curriculum. These effects remained two months after the end of the intervention. Again, however, self-­efficacy seemed resistant to intervention.

Spanish research on writing instruction   77 Finally in this section, García and Fidalgo (García & Fidalgo, in press, 2006) report a comparison between the Self Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model that has been demonstrated as effective in teaching LD students in a North American educational context (e.g., Graham, Harris, & Macarthur, 1993) and an intervention based on Schunk and Zimmerman’s social-­cognitive model of sequential skills acquisition (SCM; Schunk & Zimmerman, 1997). Both approaches to instruction share a focus on teacher modeling, social feedback, and scaffolding, and both have as a central theme the need for students to develop explicit strategies to support the writing process. They differ in that the SCM-­based program involves a greater focus on modeling with extensive use of think-­aloud by the teacher, by students working in pairs, and by the student working alone. Comparison of the two approaches was motivated by the fact that, unlike SRSD, the SCM program had not been previously evaluated with an LD population. We found that both interventions resulted in marked improvements in the structure, coherence, and overall quality of students’ texts. Process measures indicated that both interventions resulted in increases in time spent writing and revising, but only SRSD resulted in increases in time spent planning. Both groups showed slight gains in self-­efficacy, but these were only statistically significant in the SCM condition. Findings from our research with students with LD and low-­achieving students therefore provide clear support for our first conviction: LD students can show marked improvements in the quality of the texts they produce if they learn to strategically regulate their writing processes. We have not found such strong support for our second conviction, intuitive though it seems, that writing-­skill development in LD students is contingent on developing their motivation. Interventions appear to have been successful despite not directly targeting motivation, and also show gains in text quality independently of students increasing in self-­efficacy. Interventions for typically developing students While research with students with learning difficulties has been the major focus of our work over the last few years, we have also conducted several studies exploring the effects of specific kinds of intervention with typically developing students (Fidalgo & García, in press; Fidalgo et al., in press; García & Arias-­Gundin, 2004; García & Arias-­Gundín, submitted; García & Rodriguez, 2007; Torrance et al., 2007). We will focus on two of these. As in our research with LD students, interventions were delivered by students’ normal literacy teachers and comparison was made with normal-­ curriculum controls. Fidalgo and Torrance (Fidalgo et al., in press; Torrance et al., 2007) evaluated a strategy-­focused, ten-­week writing instruction program for sixth-­grade students, which they called Cognitive Self Regulation Instruction (CSRI). This involved a combination of product-­focused teaching and teaching of metacognitive strategies for managing production, focusing

78   J.-N. García et al. principally on planning and revising. Like the SCM program, modeling was a central component in the way instruction was delivered with extensive use of think-­aloud. We found large positive effects of the intervention on holistic measures of text quality, structure, and coherence, and in students’ use of several coherence markers typically associated with mature, reader-­focused text. These effects were sustained in a follow-­up test at six weeks and decreased, but were still large, two years after students had completed the intervention and returned to instruction within the normal curriculum. Process measures taken from writing logs indicated that students also substantially increased their tendency to plan their text. One obvious conclusion from these findings would be that during the program students learned to plan, and that as a result of planning the quality of their text improved. This was not, however, borne out by analyses exploring the relationship between product and process: we found only a weak relationship between the amount of time students spent planning and the quality of their text, both immediately after the intervention and at six weeks. Two years after the intervention the factor best predicting text quality was the extent to which students spent time reading through the text that they had written, a factor that was not affected by the intervention, and the relationship between planning and text quality was not statistically significant. Therefore, although strategy-­focused teaching appears effective in developing typically developing Spanish students’ writing ability, the mechanisms by which this is achieved remain unclear. Following Fidalgo and Torrance’s failure to see an effect of the CSRI intervention on students’ tendency to revise their texts, García, Arias-­ Gundín, and Torrance (submitted) developed and evaluated instruction focused specifically on revision skills. This involved giving students existing texts to revise and providing—and then gradually removing—prompts for specific kinds of revision activity. We evaluated three different versions of the intervention focusing on surface-­level revision, deep (message) level revision, and a combination of both. The program was implemented with students in their second year of secondary education (aged 13 to 15 years) and was evaluated in terms of students’ performance on a task that involved rewriting an existing text. In all three intervention conditions rewritten texts were both longer and substantially more coherent relative to those produced by students in a normal-­curriculum control group performing the same task. This then suggests that, in older Spanish students at least, revision is teachable and can give substantial gains in text quality.

Conclusions Specific findings aside, this brief overview of our research points to two more general conclusions. The first concerns methods. The final goal of writing instruction is developing in students the ability to produce good-­ quality text and to do so independently of external prompts. A range of instructional approaches appears to help students to do this, some of

Spanish research on writing instruction   79 which are reviewed in this chapter, and many more in Graham and Perin’s recent meta-­analysis (2007). We know much less about the mechanisms by which these interventions succeed. An understanding of these mechanisms is in itself a worthwhile aim. A more thorough understanding of why interventions work is also necessary if teachers working with diverse students and in diverse educational contexts are to make informed choices about instructional tools. One of the strengths of our research, we believe, is that we have tended to evaluate the effects of interventions across several different dimensions. Our studies have assessed not only writing quality but also process (using the writing-­log method), motivation and self-­efficacy, and writing-­related metaknowledge. Although for reasons of brevity we have tended to omit some of the detail of our findings, it is clear that our research suggests a rather complex pattern of effects of different interventions across these dimensions. We believe that all four of product, process, metaknowledge, and motivation need to be considered if we are to move beyond “what works” to an understanding of “why.” Our second conclusion concerns findings. As has been found in a number of studies conducted elsewhere (Graham, 2006) and as we have now demonstrated in the Spanish context, strategy-­focused writing instruction is effective in developing students’ writing ability. This is true for typically developing students, for students who have, for whatever reason, failed to develop their writing skills under the normal product-­focused curriculum, and for students with wider learning difficulties. Our knowledge may at present be lacking as regards the mechanisms by which they work. However, findings reported in this chapter demonstrate that the success of strategy-­focused programs extend to at least one other educational context. Our research underlines existing findings: successful writing instruction requires a focus not only on written products but also on the processes by which these are produced.

Acknowledgment The research reported in this chapter was supported by funds from Dirección General de Investigación del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia de España General Research Board of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science) competitive project MEC SEJ 2007-66989 (2007–2010) and with FEDER funds from the European Union both awarded to the principal researcher (J.-N. García). Correspondence should be directed to JesúsNicasio García, Department of Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy. Developmental and Educational Psychology Area. Email: jn.garcia@ unileon.es; Campus de Vegazana s/n, 24071, León, Spain.

Note 1 Here and throughout we use “primary” to refer to teaching of children between, in the Spanish context, ages six and 12.

80   J.-N. García et al.

References Bandura, A. (1997). Self-­efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Fidalgo, R., & García, J. N. (in press). Metacognitive intervention in writing composition. Revista de Psicologia General y Aplicada. Fidalgo, R., Torrance, M., & García, J. N. (in press). The long-­term effects of strategy-­focussed writing instruction for grade six students. Contemporary Educational Psychology. García, J. N., & Arias-­Gundín, O. (2004). Intervention in writing composition strategies. Psicothema, 16(2), 194–202. García, J. N., & Arias-­Gundín, O. (submitted). How do students from the 5th grade of Spanish primary education through to the 2nd grade of Spanish secondary obligatory education revise? García, J. N., Arias-­Gundín, O., & Torrance, M. (submitted). Efficacy of an instructional program in the textual revision process by means of dynamic assessment. García, J. N., & de Caso, A. M. (2002). Is it possible to improve writing composition in learning disabilities (LD) and/or low achievement (LA) students without changes in reflexivity toward writing? Psicothema, 14(2), 456–462. García, J. N., & de Caso, A. M. (2004). Effects of a motivational intervention for improving the writing of children with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 27(3), 141–159. García, J. N., & de Caso, A. (2006a). Changes in writing self-­efficacy and writing products and processes through specific training in the self-­efficacy beliefs of students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 4(2), 1–27. García, J. N., & de Caso, A. (2006b). Comparison of the effects on writing attitudes and writing self-­efficacy of three different training programs in students with learning disabilities. International Journal of Educational Research, 43(4– 5), 272–289. García, J. N., & Fidalgo, R. (2004a). Diferencias en la conciencia de los procesos psicológicos de la escritura: mecánicos frente a sustantivos y otros. (Differences in awareness of writing cognitive processes: substantive vs. mechanical and other, in 8- to 16-year-­old students.) Psicothema, 15(1), 41–48. García, J. N., & Fidalgo, R. (2004b). El papel del autoconocimiento de los procesos psicológicos de la escritura en la calidad de las composiciones escritas. (The role of self-­knowledge of writing cognitive processes in the quality of written products.) Revista de Psicología General y Aplicada, 57(3), 281–298. García, J. N., & Fidalgo, R. (2006). Effects of two types of self-­regulatory instruction programs on students with learning disabilities in writing products, pro­ cesses, and self-­efficacy. Learning Disability Quarterly, 29(3), 181–211. García, J. N., & Fidalgo, R. (2008). The orchestration of writing processes and writing products: A comparison of learning disabled and non-­disabled 6th grade students. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 6(2), 77–98. García, J. N., & Fidalgo, R. (in press). Writing self-­efficacy changes after a cognitive strategy intervention in students with learning disabilities: The mediational role of gender in calibration. Spanish Journal of Psychology. García, J. N., & Marbán, J. M. (2003). El Proceso de composición escrita en alumnos con DA y/o BR: Estudio instruccional con énfasis en la planificación. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 26(1), 97–113.

Spanish research on writing instruction   81 García, J. N., Marban, J. M., & de Caso, A. M. (2001). Evaluacion colectiva de los procesos de planificacion y factores psicologicos en la escritura (Collective assessment of the planning processes and other psychological factors in writing). In J. N. García (Ed.), Dificultades de aprendizaje e intervencion psicopedagogica (Learning disabilities and psychopedagogical interventions). Barcelona: Ariel. García, J. N., Pachecho, D. I., Díez, C., Robledo, P., Martínez-Cocó, B., Rodríguez, C., et al. (2006, 26–28 October). The role of the teacher’s practice in teaching writing in relation to writing products and processes in students with and without LD. Paper presented at the 15th Congress on Learning Disabilities Worldwide, Boston. García, J. N., & Rodriguez, C. (2007). Influence of the recording interval and a graphic organizer on the writing process/product and on other psychological vari­ables. Psicothema, 19(2), 198–205. Graham, S. (2006). Strategy instruction and teaching of writing: A meta-­analysis. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerlad (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 187–207). New York: Guilford Publications. Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Macarthur, C. A. (1993). Improving the writing of students with learning-­problems: Self-­regulated strategy-­development. School Psychology Review, 22(4), 656–670. Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). A meta-­analysis of writing instruction for adolescent students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 445–476. Graham, S., Schwartz, S. S., & MacArthur, C. A. (1993). Knowledge of writing and the composing process, attitude toward writing, and self-­efficacy for students with and without learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 26(4), 237–249. Schunk, D., & Zimmerman, B. (1997). Social origins of self-­regulatory experience. Educational Psychologist, 32, 195–208. Sorenson, S. (1997). Student writing handbook: The only complete guide to writing across the curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Torrance, M., Fidalgo, R., & García, J. N. (2007). The teachability and effectiveness of cognitive self-­regulation in sixth grade writers. Learning and Instruction, 17(3), 265–285.

Part II

Writing education in political and historical contexts

7 Writing, from Stalinism to democracy Literacy education and politics in Poland, 1945–1999 Cezar M. Ornatowski San Diego State University

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationships between literacy education and its historical and sociopolitical context in Poland from the onset of Stalinism to the transformational education reforms of 1999. As I will suggest in this chapter, inquiry into literacy education in totalitarian and transformational contexts such as Poland may not only be useful to educators consulting or teaching in such contexts or to teachers in the United States and elsewhere whose students come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds; it also has the potential to extend the current paradigms for cross-­boundary research in writing studies and complicate some assumptions that have underpinned such research as well as discussions of democratic literacy education in the United States. The idea that rhetoric and rhetorical education have a reciprocal relationship to their political context has been central to rhetorical studies. In the Politics, Aristotle argues that what “most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government”; hence, the young should be “trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution, if the laws are democratical, democratically, of oligarchically, if the laws are oligarchical” (V, 9, 1310a 10–20, p.  237). Modern rhetorical theory recognizes that political regimes imply also rhetorical regimens, insofar as they imply specific ways of speaking, arguing, and thinking that foreclose, limit, or proscribe other ways of speaking, arguing, or thinking (Farrell, 1993). As Thomas Farrell (1993) has argued, “no culture or public life project can survive for long without some form of rhetorical practice, some coherent, symbolic manner of securing collaborative public action” (p. 9). In turn, as James Berlin has argued, “no classroom pedagogy can long survive without in some way responding to its historical conditions” (1990, p. 185). In American writing studies, research into the relationship of literacy education (including the teaching of writing) to its sociopolitical contexts has moved, in the last decade, from a primarily Anglo-­American orientation (Berlin, 1990; Murphy, 1990; Shannon, 2001) toward a more internationalist one, following Mark Schaub’s call for research into “local models

86   C. M. Ornatowski [of writing instruction] in non-­US contexts” (2003, p. 91). Not all of this research has focused on the relationship between writing pedagogy and politics per se; it was largely the influence of postcolonial studies that has led rhetoric and composition scholars to consider specifically the “connections between the project of education and the structures of power, between formal schooling and the cultivation of compliant subjectivity” (Bahri, 2004, p. 69). Under this influence, scholars have sought “to understand the ways in which students (and student writings) are variously constructed, subjugated, and turned into obedient subjects, both within and outside the academy, and to find ways of enabling resistance to such forces” (Lunsford & Ouzgane, 2004, p. 1). The “postcolonial,” however, has generally been identified (perhaps because of the location of the leading scholars) with US and Western (British and French) domination and with the “colonizing” effects of “English” (both as dominant language and academic endeavor) on student readers and writers, especially in terms of issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, language, or sexual orientation. Few voices have come from territories dominated by other sorts of “colonial” centers and other sorts of “colonization,” although bell hooks and Deepika Bahri have notably called for the inclusion of other areas and kinds of colonization (for instance, the Islamic colonization of North Africa). I suggest that czarist Russia and the former Soviet Union, with their extensive empire of absorbed, dominated, or “satellitized” peoples, represent one such center. In fact, some Polish scholars have recently begun to refer to Poland as “postcolonial” (Janion, 2007) in a dual sense: as having been dominated for long stretches of its history by a foreign political “center” (from 1772 to 1918 by Russia, Germany, and the Austro-­Hungarian Empire; later by the Soviet Union) and as located on, and shaped by, the historically fluid boundary between, successively, Rome and Byzantium, Christianity and Orthodoxy (and to an extent also Islam), “East” and “West,” and representing, in a historical as well as cultural and political sense, a “younger” (and implicitly—in terms of self-­perception and global image—“secondary” and “backward”) Europe (Kloczowski, 1998). Poland thus represents a site that extends studies of writing instruction beyond the borders of the traditionally conceived “West” and into other histories and sorts of “colonization,” as well as other histories of resistance, including resistance against ideological colonization that, from 1949 until 1989, “constructed, subjugated, and turned” entire peoples into “obedient subjects.” The issues such studies raise are different than those raised under the banner of “transnationality,” defined recently by Wendy Hesford and Eileen Schell as referring to “the movements of people, goods, and ideas across national borders and . . . used to highlight forms of cultural hybridity and intertextuality” (2008, p. 463). In places such as Poland, such concerns are still secondary to issues of national and personal identity, and to what Patrick Shannon has referred to as the “dialectic of state and freedom”—issues that lay also at the foundation of the American

Writing, from Stalinism to democracy   87 Republic and that had shaped early American literacy education (Shannon, 2001).

Literacy education in Poland: historical context In Poland, literacy education has, for the last 200 years, been intimately connected to “freedom” and nation-­building. Prior to 1918, when the Polish state was brought back into political existence by the Treaty of Versailles after a 124-year absence from the map of Europe, Poland did not have a national education system. Throughout Poland’s turbulent history, literacy education has served as a vehicle for a variety of historical and ideological projects: denationalization under foreign occupation; preservation of collective memory and struggle for political freedom and national liberation (in the Polish context, the two were usually conflated); political and cultural reconstruction (most recently in 1919, 1945, and after 1989); and ideological transformation (after 1949, with the advent of Stalinism, and after 1989, following the democratic transition) (Axer, 2007). During periods of foreign occupation, school literacy education typically served the interests of foreign empires, while during the real-­socialist period it was the vehicle of ideological indoctrination; in both cases, school literacy contrasted with the national tradition preserved, also largely through literacy, in the home (as well as in samizdat publications and clandestine teaching) (Axer, 2007). In this sense also, Poland’s situation, at least as far as literacy education is concerned, may be regarded as “post-­colonial.” For historical reasons, the subject “Polish” has, over the last century, been central to the elementary and secondary education curriculum (unlike in the United States, there has never been systematic instruction in reading and writing in higher education) in terms of the total number of instructional hours, the volume of applicable official directives and guidelines, and the number of textbook editions. This curriculum has traditionally consisted of three major components: reading and literature, the study of language, and speech and writing. Pedagogically, the system was characterized by integration, gradation, and continuity, with the overarching aim to develop facility, fluency, appropriateness, and correctness in the native language (Kijas, 1968). While the general framework of this curriculum changed little between the 1930s and the 1990s, after 1949 all of its components received a strong ideological inflection as literacy education became the primary vehicle for the transformation of consciousness in the service of the Marxist–Leninist state.

Literacy education under real socialism The consolidation of Stalinism in 1948 marked the beginning of a major “ideological-­educational offensive” aimed at forging a new “socialist consciousness” that consisted of specific beliefs, values, and attitudes toward reality (Radziwill, 1981). Literacy education was considered especially

88   C. M. Ornatowski serviceable in this historic project. Education authorities quoted Joseph Stalin’s dictum that “language as a tool of communication is at the same time a tool of struggle and social development” (Stalin, quoted in Kulpa, 1955, p. 5). Although Stalinism as such ended in 1956, official decrees in the early 1960s explicitly confirmed the role of “Polish” as providing the “ideological foundation” for “life in socialist Poland,” while the sciences and other “hard” subjects constituted “technical” preparation for productive participation in the economy (Ministerstwo, 1963). For the duration of the real-­ socialist period, this “ideological foundation” consisted of two major components: a “scientific” (that is, dialectical and historical materialist) viewpoint and “socialist morality,” which included “socialist internationalism” (primarily allegiance toward the Soviet Union and other countries of the Soviet bloc, as well as “solidarity” with “anti-­imperialist” and “liberation” movements around the world); “class consciousness”; a “socialist attitude” toward property, work, and people; collectivist orientation in thought and behavior; concern with “social justice”; a conviction of the superiority of the socialist system over capitalism; and active participation in “socialist construction” (Wojdon, 2001). The manner in which literacy education was mobilized in service of these precepts, and then transformed in the course of political transition, provides interesting insights into the relationship between literacy education and its political context. Most elementary textbooks for the subject “Polish” over the period of real socialism fell into the category of what in the United States are referred to as “rhetorics”: a combination of readings, questions for analysis, suggestions for activities and/or writing, and information and exercises on various aspects of language (spelling, grammar, style, and so on, depending on grade level). The textbooks were typically organized around a set of relatively standard themes, which, not surprisingly, were strongly ideologically slanted. The following sections, for instance, comprised a 1970 sixth-­grade “Polish language” textbook: struggle for “social liberation,” World War II, Polish–Soviet friendship, work, vacations, personal character, patriotism, technology, the arts (press, music, radio, TV, books), travel and exploration (discoveries, mostly of Soviet explorers and “pioneers”), space (Soviet triumphs in space, with no mention of the United States), and sports (the triumphs of athletes from Soviet-­bloc countries) (Dembowska, Saloni, & Wierzbicki, 1970). The theme of “travel” focused on Africa, colonialism, racial discrimination (the only text about the United States was about the terror of the Ku Klux Klan), and Soviet “conquest” of nature. No Western author was represented; in another 1970 textbook, this one for seventh grade, the only selection by a Western author was a fragment about Lenin from John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World (Wieczorkiewicz, Jaworski, & Rurawski, 1970). The activities that accompanied the readings placed little emphasis on the self or on individual opinion, except as a function of an ideologized, public, and correct “attitude,” which was to be discerned in the texts read or assumed and expressed in relation to events or phenomena, including

Writing, from Stalinism to democracy   89 one’s personal life.1 Consider the following “questions for analysis” from a 1970 seventh-­grade textbook: “What do you learn from [the reading] about the life of female workers in the second half of the 19th century?”; “Based on the stories ‘Poverty’ and ‘Johnny the Musician’ talk about the fate of poor children in Poland in the second half of the 19th century”; “Tell about how we celebrate the May Day holiday today” (the last following a reading describing the bloody May Day clashes of demonstrators and police under the czarist regime) (Wieczorkiewicz et al., 1970). Even seemingly autobiographical tasks, such as recalling an “important moment” in one’s life, de facto called for an articulation of the desired “attitude” (for instance, the moment one realized the superiority of collective over individual effort). The collectivist orientation was reflected in the titles of elementary school textbooks: With Collective Energy (1949), In Our Collective (1966), In Our Fatherland (1971), Together, Young Friends (1975), We Grow Up Together (1979), Let’s Grow Up Together (1982). By contrast, compare post-­1989 textbook titles: Landscape with a Smile (1993); Tomorrow I’ll Go into the World (1998); I Understand the World (2001); I Like That (2001). Writing assignments and activities also involved strongly ideologized topics and called for articulation of desired attitudes. A 1969 advice book on teaching writing (one of very few texts explicitly devoted to writing as such) quoted Soviet educator Vladimir Nikolski to the effect that “[a] topic presents the task of knowing [an aspect] of reality” (Pojawska, 1969, p. 101). Writing topics were seen in terms of a dual thrust: epistemic and ideological. A good topic had to be univocal, with its epistemic and ideological aspects pointing in the same direction. For instance, a topic such as “Two Worlds in Janko Muzykant” (“Johnny the Musician,” a nineteenth-­ century novella about a poor village boy whose musical talent was wasted due to conditions of serf life) was not acceptable because it left the student a choice of direction, but “Tell about the life and revolutionary deeds of Karol Swierczewski” (a communist war hero) was good because it pointed in a definite direction and its epistemic and ideological aspects coincided (Pojawska, 1969). Every composition, regardless of the topic or genre, was expected to have a clear “leading line.” This “line” began with the title and proceeded through to the conclusion, which was expected to connect the “line” to the writer’s own “attitude.” The line gave coherence to the composition as well as subordinated all information and detail to a central “idea” that ran through the text and constituted its, ultimately political, “message.” As one expert explained in the mid-­1950s: Grasping the directional line while analyzing the topic “spring in the fields of the Collective Farm in Lubartow” involves noting the representation of nature: warmth, birds, greenery; human powers: collective, conscious effort—and the power of the machinery, it is thus at the

90   C. M. Ornatowski same time a conscious aiming to show the beauty of nature’s blossoming in relationship to the usefulness of human and machine labor, which are directed by the will of the collective. (Kulpa, 1955, p. 26) The example shows a specific ideological appropriation of both the principle of textual “coherence” and of the “rhetorical mode” of description. Compare the above conception of description with, for instance, George Hillocks’ strategy of teaching description by giving students seashells in a basket, having students pick one seashell out, and then having them describe their specific seashell in such a way that other children would be able to pick it out of a basket of other shells (Teaching). Hillocks offers this activity as an example of a pedagogy he calls “inquiry,” which, in his meta-­analytic study of writing pedagogies, he found to be most “effective” at increasing the quality of student writing (Research; “synthesis”). Hillocks’ pedagogy, with its focus on individuality, specificity, and unique detail would most likely be considered “ineffective” in a Stalinist school. The example reveals both the ideological character of “quality” in writing and the existence of implicit ideological dimensions of texts and pedagogies. Another common assignment, the “life story” (Pol. zyciorys) provides an example of a political appropriation of genre. A “life story” was a personal narrative, but one oriented toward ideological and political (self-) revelation. Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 film The Last Emperor shows Emperor Puyi arrested by the Chinese communists and put in a re-­ education camp, where he is immediately given pen and paper and asked to write his “life story,” the successive drafts of which are torn up as inadequate until he comes up with a version more to the authorities’ liking and one that amounts to an ideological “confession”—a visible sign of compliance. Denizens of real-­socialist Poland had to submit their “life stories” to the appropriate authorities on various occasions (such as applying for permission to travel abroad) as a way of both demonstrating the right “attitude” and submitting themselves to official scrutiny. The genre of the life story was practiced in every school grade, beginning in the early grades as a simple narrative of dates and events and becoming more “ideologized,” and politically controlling, in higher grades. Life stories always had to be signed. Many literacy activities were directed at fostering the involvements and behaviors that the authorities wanted to elicit and promote: participation in state ceremonies (such as the May Day parade), commemoration of official occasions (by, for instance, writing and publicly delivering an appropriate speech), or reading or watching official pronouncements in the media (for instance, Stalinist-­era “grammatical” exercises asked students to read a party leader’s speech in a newspaper and underline or copy specific grammatical or stylistic features) (Klemensiewicz & Zlabowa, 1949). “Participation” was fostered, elicited, and certified through such activities

Writing, from Stalinism to democracy   91 and genres as reports, protocols, descriptions, speeches, articles for class wall bulletins, performances, or summaries of press and media coverage. In this way, literacy education, as official directives had it, “connected” school learning with the “life of the nation” and made education “practical” (as opposed to “bourgeois” education, which was supposed to be abstract, solipsistic, and divorced from the “life of the people”). While such activities may appear similar to current US trends (such as community service learning or environmental education) the political/ regime context made their meaning different. Polish students and teachers acted primarily in response to exigencies created by the authorities. Unlike American students and teachers, they could not initiate actions on their own (for instance, undertake to measure pollution in a local river or clean up a city park—such activities had “political” implications), nor could they respond in unexpected ways or refuse to respond altogether. “Participation” was mandatory and limited to official organizations, institutions, and organized channels, and took only officially sanctioned forms. In these ways, literacy activities and pedagogies received their character and specific meanings through their location in and functional connection with a specific ideological and political/regime context. Literacy activities promulgated and elicited subscription to the dominant ideology and utilized and reinforced the formal organization of society (as opposed to, for instance, non-­formalized and spontaneous structures of “civil society”). In fact, one of the major elements of the “socialist value system” whose development was the avowed goal of education was the subordination of the individual to society, which de facto meant to the state (Wojdon, 2001).

Toward the political transition The economic and political collapse of the late 1970s and early 1980s demonstrated, among other things, the failure of the education project described above. In spite of official calls for the “activization” of students, “socialist” pedagogy ended up promoting passivity, conformism, disengagement, cynicism, and knee-­jerk responses to predictable stimuli. In the face of the mounting economic problems, the authorities attempted to introduce changes to stimulate individual initiative, genuine engagement, and creative thinking. By the mid-­1980s, ministerial directives, while still emphasizing the task of “shaping socially valuable attitudes,” also stressed the need to train students in “argumentation” and “defending their own point of view,” and left teachers significant leeway in the classroom (Instytut, 1985). A particularly dramatic sign of change was a 1985 eighth-­grade textbook devoted specifically to speech and writing. The book focused on the development of “individual style” in speaking and writing, including avoidance of “sloganeering,” “ready-­made language,” “empty generalizations,” and “meaningless abstractions” (Nagajowa). It is difficult not to see irony in such exercises as “show that the following slogans contain

92   C. M. Ornatowski falsehoods. Convert them into statements that reflect actual reality: ‘All students in our class try hard to get good grades.’ ‘We will earnestly attempt to improve the learning outcomes in our class’ ” (Nagajowa, p. 8). The statements the students are asked to critique here resemble official rhetoric of the day. Even more provocative were such examples of “slogans” as “Everything for workers” or “Out-­of-control youths destroy collective property” (the political context for this was an intensive official media campaign against the “solidarity” movement, which accused workers of, among other things, “hooliganism” and destruction of property). The book characterizes these slogans as, respectively, exaggeration and an “outright lie.” Even though the book never mentions “rhetoric” as such, the examples attempt to promote critical rhetorical analysis under the guise of “personal style.”

Literacy education after 1989 The political transition of 1989 shifted the focus of literacy education, on the one hand, toward the individual, personal, and unique, and, on the other hand, toward sociality conceived of in terms of civic relationships between autonomous moral agents, not as a function of the experience of “class” or a unified “nation” or “people.” New guidelines for elementary education, in the section entitled “Creating a System of Values,” emphasized the need for exploration of a wide variety of “religious and philosophical attitudes,” of “the relationship of a human person to the world and to one’s own existence,” and of “the problems of moral choices and the responsibility of a person to other people and to society” (Ministerstwo, 1990). The textbook title that perhaps most emphatically captured the spirit of transition was Imagination Liberated: The Reality of the Person and the Unreality of Doctrine, a 1992 high school textbook produced by a publisher with an equally symbolic name: The New Era (Chodzko, 1992). More comprehensive changes came with the broad educational reforms of 1997–2001 (especially the reform of 1999), aimed at bringing Poland into “Europe” and into the twenty-­first century (Ksiazek, 2001). The goals of literacy education were defined as, on the one hand, helping students find their own answers to who they are and how to live, to give them “roots and wings” (Ksiazek, 2001, p. 7), and, on the other hand, developing “facility in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in diverse communicative situations, private and public, especially ones important for life in a democratic and civic society” (Podstawa Programowa Ksztalcenia Ogolnego dla Szescioletniej szkoly Podstawowej i Gimnazjum, 1999, p. 1; quoted in Tabisz, 2006, p. 10). The reform assigned a prominent place to “rhetoric,” without, however, defining the term. It also decentralized the approval and publication of textbooks, which resulted in a rapid commercialization of the textbook market and a flood of new products of varying quality. In spite of these changes, however, many elements of the literacy curriculum remain the same, although they have lost their “meanings.” Text-

Writing, from Stalinism to democracy   93 books continue to insist on a clear “line” through the text and an explicit final “judgment” or statement of “personal attitude,” except that now there is not one “correct” attitude; thus, what used to be a key element of ideological indoctrination is simply a formal requirement. “Characterization” remains a popular school genre, although it has lost the ideological character it had under real-­socialism. Even the “life story” is still taught, although it has lost its ideological utility (ironically, in the competitive context of the new capitalism, the resumé is not usually taught). The topics for writing have changed, however; today, they tend to be open (not presupposing one “correct” answer) and involve choice as well as argument and reasoning (consider these topics from a state high school graduation exam: “European Union: Opportunity or Threat to Poland,” “Are People Today Tolerant?”) (Poznanski, 2003).

Conclusion In their introduction to an important collection of essays on writing from the perspective of “activity theory,” Charles Bazerman and David Russell suggest that it is the context of human activities that gives meaning to texts and discourse and argue that “writing research needs to move beyond texts as ends in themselves” to consider how writing is “embedded in . . . uses and interpretations of texts and the creation of meaning and consequence in carrying out the work of the world” (2003, p. 4). In this chapter, I extended Bazerman and Russell’s suggestion to examine the embedding of literacy education (including texts and writing) in the specificity of the ideological and political/regime context of real-­socialist Poland and the Polish transition. In this context, the meanings of texts and writing (as well as of reading and writing activities) were connected to their “uses and interpretations” within the historical and ideological project of “building socialism” and, after 1989, building liberal democracy. The Polish case shows that the meanings of educational practices derive from their “uses and interpretations” within the ideological and political/ regime context. In a different context, practices may assume different meanings or become merely formal requirements. In the early and mid-­ 1990s, literacy reformers and textbooks in Poland borrowed wholesale from Western models.2 A decade later, it is becoming clear that the task of educational reform is even more difficult: to work out a model of democratic literacy education in realistic response to local histories, concerns, and meanings. Postcolonial and “transnational” scholarship often sees national orientation as oppressive and limiting. However, it is important to remember that it is in the name of “national liberation,” including national sovereignty and national identity, that many anti-­colonial and anti-­totalitarian struggles have been conducted. While some liberal pedagogies in the United States oppose “Western individualism,” one must remember that most major contemporary totalitarian projects (Fascism, Soviet-­style

94   C. M. Ornatowski “real-­socialism,” religious fundamentalism) have marched under the banner of such grand abstractions as “the people,” the “community,” or “social justice,” which have no less potential than colonialism to turn people, and students, into “obedient subjects.” The political, economic, and ultimately human failures of such projects, and of their educational foundations, should serve as a warning against totalizing idealisms. Neglecting “national,” local, and “comparative” perspectives in research ignores or distorts the actual situations of many places worldwide, as does sole focus on, or selective application of, “postcolonial.” After I presented a version of this chapter at an international conference on writing, colleagues from the Middle East and Africa came up to say that what I said about literacy education in Poland resonated with their own situations. The tasks and shape of democratic literacy education are not necessarily self-­evident; they remain to be worked out in each particular case in view of the local experiences, challenges, and histories (including ideological and political/regime histories). Comparative, boundary-­crossing research into literacy education in a variety of historical, ideological, and political/ regime contexts may reveal more about the potential meanings, uses, and consequences of educational practices and values, and provide “distant mirrors” for continuing reflection on the nature of democratic literacy education in a globalizing world.

Notes 1 One must bear in mind that actual classroom practices often varied from official precepts, although the relative range of teacherly freedom was limited. During my own education in Poland in the 1960s and early 1970s, I had many outstanding teachers who taught me in spite of, and often against, the confines of textbooks and official programs. 2 The present author was one of the many Western “experts” who conducted workshops organized by the Polish Ministry of Education’s Center for Teacher Training as part of the 1999 reform.

References Aristotle (1943). Politics. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. New York: The Modern Library. Axer, Jerzy, with the assistance of Katarzyna Tomaszuk (2007). Central-­Eastern Europe. In Craig W. Kallendorf (Ed.), A companion to the classical tradition (pp. 132–155). London: Blackwell. Bahri, Deepika (2004). Terms of engagement: Postcolonialism, transnationalism, and composition studies. In Andrea A. Lunsford & Lahoucine Ouzgane (Eds.), Composition and postcolonial studies (pp. 67–83). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Bazerman, Charles, & Russell, David (Eds.). (2003). Writing selves/writing societies: Research from activity perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse, http://wac.colostate.edu/books/sselves_societies.

Writing, from Stalinism to democracy   95 Berlin, James A. (1990). Writing instruction in school and college English, 1890– 1985. In James J. Murphy (Ed.), A short history of writing instruction: From Ancient Greece to twentieth-­century America (pp. 193–222). Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press. Chodzko, Ryszard (1992). Wyobraznia Wyzwolona: Rzeczywistosc Osoby i Nierzeczywistosc Doktryny. Bialystok: Nowa Era. Dembowska, Janina, Saloni, Zygmunt, & Wierzbicki, Piotr. (1970). Swiat i My. Podrecznik do Nauki Jezyka Polskiego dla Klasy VI. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Farrell, Thomas B. (1993). Norms of rhetorical culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hesford, Wendy S., & Schell, Eileen E. (2008). Configurations of transnationality: Locating feminist rhetorics. College English, 70, 461–470. Hillocks, George, Jr. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. New York: National Conference on Research in English; Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills, National Institute of Education. Hillocks, George, Jr. (1987). Synthesis of research on teaching writing. Educational Leadership, 44, 71–82. Hillocks, George, Jr. (1995). Teaching writing as reflective practice. New York: Teachers College Press. hooks, bell (1995). Third World diva girls: Politics of feminist solidarity. In Lorraine Edwards & Midge Stocker (Eds.), The woman-­centered economy: Ideals, reality, and the space in between (pp. 265–280). Chicago, IL: Third Side. Instytut Programow Szkolnych Ministerstwa Oswiaty i Wychowania. (1985). Programy Szkoly Podstawowej, Czesc I. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. Janion, Maria (2007). Niesamowita Slowianszczyzna: Fantazmaty Literatury. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Kijas, Juliusz (1968). Cwiczenia w Mowieniu i Pisaniu. In Wladyslaw Szyszkowski & Zdzislaw Libera (Eds.), Metodyka Nauczania Jezyka Polskiego w Szkole Sredniej (pp. 183–203). Warszawa: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Klemensiewicz, Z., & Zlabowa, J. (1949). Nasz Jezyk: Podrecznik Gramatyki Jezyka Polskiego z Cwiczeniami dla Klas VI I VII Szkoly Podstawowej. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Kloczowski, Jerzy (1998). Mlodsza Europa. Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Ksiazek, Wojciech (2001). Rzecz o Reformie Edukacji, 1997–2001. Warsaw: Adam Marszalek. Kulpa, Jan (1954). Jak Znajomosc Socjalistycznej Teorii Pedagogicznej Wplynela na Organizowane Przeze Mnie Powtarzanie Materialu Jezyka Polskiego. Nowa Szkola, 3. Kulpa, Jan (1955). Z Doswiadczen nad Organizacja Cwiczen Stylistycznych (Metoda Pisania Wypracowan). Centralny Osrodek Doskonalenia Kadr Oswiatowych, Biblioteka Metodyczna Nr. 16. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Lunsford, Andrea A., & Ouzgane, Lahoucine (2004). Composition and postcolonial studies: An introduction. In Andrea A. Lunsford & Lahoucine Ouzgane (Eds.), Composition and postcolonial studies (pp. 1–8). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

96   C. M. Ornatowski Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej (1990). Program Szkoly Podstawowej: Jezyk Polski, Klasy IV–VIII. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. Ministerstwo Oswiaty (1963). Program Nauczania Osmioklasowej Szkoly Podstawowej (Tymczasowy). Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Murphy, James, (Ed.) (1990). A short history of writing instruction: From Ancient Greece to twentieth-­century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press. Phelps, Louise Whetherbee (2008). Interpreting Transformational teaching practices in Armenian classes: Methodological considerations in a cross-­cultural observation. Paper presented at the Writing Research across Borders conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, February 22, 2008. Pojawska, Karolina (1969). Cwiczenia w Mowieniu i Pisaniu w Klasach V–VIII. Instytut Pedagogiki, Biblioteka Metodyczna Nauczyciela Jezyka Polskiego. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Poznanski, Jacek (2003). Wzory Wypracowan z Jezyka Polskigo dla Wszystkich Klas Gimnazjum. Warsaw: Skrypt. Radziwill, Anna (1981). Ideologia Wychowawcza w Polsce w Latach 1948–1956 [Proba Modelu]. Warsaw: Zeszyty Towarzystwa Kursow Naukowych. Rytlowa, J., Piorunowa, A., & Lewandowski, Z. (1949). Wspolnymi Silami. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Shannon, Patrick (2001). Turn, turn, turn: Language education, politics, and freedom at the turn of three centuries. In Patrick Shannon (Ed.), Becoming political, too: New readings and writing on the politics of literacy education (pp. 10–30). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Schaub, Mark (2003). Beyond these shores: An argument for internationalizing composition. Pedagogy, 3, 85–98. Stalin, Joseph. (1950). W Sprawie Marksizmu w Jezykoznawstwie. Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza. Tabisz, Anna (2006). Kompetencja Tekstotworcza Uczniow na Przykladzie Rozprawki. Opole: Uniwersytet Opolski. Wawrzykowska-­Wierciochowa, D. (1954). Materialy do Metodyki Nauczania Jezyka Polskiego w kl. V–VIII: Zajecia Pozalekcyjne Zwiazane z Nauczaniem Jezyka Polskiego. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Wieczorkiewicz, Bronislaw, Jaworski, Michal, & Rurawski, Jozef (1970). Wczoraj i Dzis: Podrecznik do Nauki Jezyka Polskiego dla Klasy VII Szkol dla Pracujacych. Warsaw: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnictw Szkolnych. Wojdon, Joanna (2001). Propaganda Polityczna w Podrecznikach dla Szkol Podstawowych Polski Ludowej (1944–1989). Warsaw: Adam Marszalek.

8 A pilot investigation A longitudinal study of student writing in a post-­totalitarian state Gil Harootunian McDaniel College, Westminster, MD

Overview A three-­year educational exchange project between Syracuse University, New York (SU) and Yerevan State Linguistic University (YSLU), Armenia, funded by the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), afforded a rare long-­term, on-­site opportunity to study the reception of Western-­style methods into a post-­totalitarian culture. To my knowledge, I administered the first longitudinal study of student writing in a post-­Sovietnation university. A total of 194 students in this project chose to sign Letters of Informed Consent, generating 454 samples during the two-­year assessment.1 The two main findings are (1) that it takes three semesters of sequenced and sustained instruction for students to understand and adapt the Western-­style methods to their own situation, and (2) a startlingly consistent trajectory, with clearly identifiable stages of mirroring, testing, and mediated mastery, became evident over the course of those three semesters. Mirroring is used to describe the student’s entrance into the classroom community, denoting both the social and physical aspects of learning: the imitative learning in zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) and the “mirror system” that fires up in the human brain during social stimulation (Knoblich, 2006; Jaffe, 2007, p. 22). Testing denotes that stage when students begin to try out our methods and techniques (Phelps, 1988, pp. 218–241). Mediated mastery denotes that the Armenian students now understand and can modify the methods to serve their own ends (Vygotsky, 1978; Rogoff, 1995; Wertsch, 1991). I would clarify that Armenia is best termed a post-­totalitarian state (not a postcolonial one). YSLU was founded during the Soviet era (in 1935) as a two-­year teacher training institute whose main mission was to instruct Armenian teachers to teach in Russian throughout Armenia. During Armenia’s first decade of independence (1991–2001), English and other Western languages were a source of opposition to the Soviet Union and its imperative Russian. By the time I arrived as a Fulbright Scholar (2001), English had become one of ten languages being taught at Yerevan State Linguistic University.2 Therefore, after I returned from the Fulbright experience, I drafted a project not for the teaching of English at YSLU but for helping to

98   G. Harootunian reform the totalitarian pedagogy lingering there. The ECA awarded $275,000 for a three-­year project (fall 2003–spring 2006) to pilot in select YSLU classrooms Western-­style democratic and writing-­intensive methods, for example, written course guides and student evaluations and videotaped teaching observations for the purposes of constructive critique. A handy lens is needed to give international educators context for this study conducted in a former eastern republic of the Soviet Union. In The Rhetoric of Reason (1996), James Crosswhite describes the transformative potential of Western-­style writing, contending that argument essentially means a “giving up of the ideas that one has a metaphysically fixed identity, or that one’s ideas do, in favor of a recognition of the self-­ transformation and learning that occur in reasoning” (p. 24). Crosswhite considers argument to be a process of inquiry that can “cultivate an intelligent citizenry” and enable “productive, nonviolent” resolution of social conflicts (pp. 17, 256, 294). The progress of Armenian students toward Crosswhitean “self-­transformation” will be seen as explicit because they were starting from a radical point: the epideictic rhetoric of the Soviet Union. Ong described the ways in which the totalitarian rhetoric of the Soviet Union was magical: if one proclaims that the people love Stalin, they will. It was crammed with epithetic formulas: “the Glorious Revolution of October 26” (1982, pp.  38–39). Crosswhite explains that the purpose of such epideictic rhetoric is “keeping one’s intent hidden from one’s enemy” so those in power can strengthen preferred values without making explicit claims about those values so the audience could then engage in open argument about the values (pp. 108–109). The Armenian students were being asked no less than to move from the epideictic rhetoric of the Soviet Union to the productive, open conflict of Crosswhitean argument (p. 281). The material conditions under which this project was conducted will help to clarify its administration and the results. Research in the post-­ Soviet bloc, especially former republics vs. former satellite countries, remains introductory for many reasons, including poverty, corruption, and ethnic conflicts. These conditions have virtually pre-­empted longitudinal studies by US scholars. Harrington (2005) used technology to begin the long-­term distance-­learning “Global Classroom Project.” The small but growing body of short-­term on-­site research includes Rodman (1996), Stevens (2000), and Hagen (1998), who visited the post-­Soviet republics on Fulbright programs. They detailed the ways in which the Soviet oral culture facilitated political, economic, and educational corruption. In the former satellite countries, either located on the EU boundary or now members of the European Union, increased scholarship is becoming available to English-­speaking educators. Romania’s Minister of National Education, Andrei Marga, described ongoing comprehensive efforts to overhaul Romanian higher education to eliminate its “communist heritage,” from centralization to endemic corruption (2002, p. 123). The goal for Romania was similar to that of Armenia: “to stimulate the development of a civic culture, a culture of opinions, the need for which has been

A longitudinal study of student writing   99 intensely felt” (p. 125). Other recent studies confront and analyze the lingering oral (vs. writing) culture in higher education in Eastern Europe: Gilder (1995), Verdery and Kligman (1992), and Marin (2005) in Romania; McKinley (1995) in post-­communist Hungary; Ornatowski (1995, 2008) in Poland. Clearly the former Soviet bloc offers an educational zone different from that of the West. Given the tough conditions in Armenia, this study was a truly pilot investigation conducted to help fill the gaps in knowledge about rhetoric and rhetorical education in post-­ totalitarian states.

The pilot investigation Of the students who participated in the project long term, 58 percent showed a consistent trajectory leading to mastery of Western-­style, democratic methods: the students progressed from mirroring Western-­style pedagogy in the first semester to testing the methods in the second and finally to mediated mastery in the third semester. This trajectory was clearly marked by the Armenian students actively mediating the Western-­style writing methods:3 they were filtering the instruction to acquire those concepts and tools that enabled them to further understanding of their new nation Armenia. Finally, these 58 percent began as the weakest or generally undistinguished writers; they had either the least history (or most resistance) to the Soviet-­style instruction.4 The student outcomes assessment was conducted during the last three semesters of the project (Spring 2005, Fall 2005, Spring 2006), after the arduous work to set up and stabilize the pilot course offerings. Students were asked to participate in the longitudinal study by signing a Letter of Informed Consent, then drafting two writing samples per semester, one at the start and one at the end. The Letter of Informed Consent guaranteed students that only the US Project Director, plus the individual teachers in their classrooms, would have access to their writing, and that only pseudonyms would be used in any publication. During 2004–2006, a total of 17 students generated 70 samples over all three semesters.5 The samples were asked for and collected at the beginning and end of each course. Some students who had refused to participate at the beginning of a semester later gave one final sample at the end after they had come to understand and accept the study. The number of samples per student per semester breaks down in the manner shown in Table 8.1. This exchange grant brought all four Armenian teachers in the project’s pilot classrooms to SU for the Spring 2004 semester. They observed classes and talked with colleagues, and we worked to generate course materials appropriate for YSLU classrooms. The course and assignment topics and lessons discussed below are in the main SU approaches and materials adapted for Armenian classrooms. When the teachers began piloting the project’s courses at YSLU, they had SU graduate students to co-­teach with them.6 These Armenian teachers and the US co-­teachers delivered the

100   G. Harootunian Table 8.1  Distribution of student samples per semester Pseudonym [alphabetical]

Spring 2005 Fall 2005 Spring 2006 Total

Linara Balakian Ara Bedrosian Victoria Davtyan Kristine Galstyan Eva Gasparyan Diana Gatyan Rose Goshgarian Silva Haroyan Lilit Karchyan Alina Kosyan Karina Martirosyan Gregory Mikoyan Marianna Parzyan Anna Sahagian Laura Simonyan Meri Tashjian Anna Vardanyan (enrolled in two courses in fall 2005) Total

2 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2

2 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 4

1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

5 3 3 4 4 6 3 4 4 5 4 3 4 3 4 4 7

22

29

19

70

Table 8.2  Courses referenced in narrative, with teachers and semester identified Semester

Student (alphabetical)

Teacher (alphabetical)

Writing-intensive course

Spring 2005

Gasparyan, Eva Parzyan, Marianna Mikoyan, Gregory Vardanyan, Anna Bedrosian, Ara

Khoyetsyan,    Arthur Sargsyan, Nelly

Argument

Sarsgyan, Nelly

Public Relations

Political Science

Fall 2005

Simonyan, Laura

Kananyan, Sophia International    Journalism: Newswriting Mikoyan, Gregory Sargsyan, Nelly International Vardanyan, Anna    Relations Gasparyan, Eva Parzyan, Marianna Soghikyan, Intercultural Vardanyan, Anna    Christine    Communication

Spring 2006

Simonyan, Laura Kananyan, Sophia Newswriting Mikoyan, Gregory Sargsyan, Nelly International    Relations II Vardanyan, Anna Soghikyan, Intercultural    Christine    Communication II

A longitudinal study of student writing   101 courses and collected the writing samples. I observed on-­site the implementation of these materials in YSLU classes, and depending on scheduling of SU and YSLU semesters, I would either be present during the collection of samples or would collect the samples directly from the teachers. I observed all pilot classes to meet the students and clarify any questions, in person, about the exchange project.

Stage one: mirroring and the Armenian community (Spring 2005) N.B.: Samples of student work are presented and summarized, then analyzed. Sample student work In her first sample this semester on “Nationalism: How Many Faces Does It Have?” Anna Vardanyan commenced: “In the crossroads of the world there is some great diversities.”7 In her second sample, Anna opened the essay with a quote from a famous Armenian writer: “No one could win the strongest king but the woman and wine.” She used this as a springboard for discussion of women’s rights in Armenia, and at one point anchored her argument in real-­life examples (e.g., female deputies in the Ministry of Culture and National Assembly). Gregory Mikoyan opened his essay on “Nationalism: How Many Faces Does It Have?” in a manner that would remind US readers of a worn ethnic joke: “Nationalism. What is it? An American, an indian, a jew, an armenian. . . .” The essay consisted of one large handwritten paragraph, in which he used two examples: the primary one of the World War I extermination of the Armenians and the secondary one of the World War II Fascist Germany (and implied extermination of the Jews). He qualified that nationalism can have a “sustaining importance,” meaning that if it weren’t for the Armenian diaspora, he wouldn’t be writing this essay in an exchange project (a reference to the Armenian-­Americans who support these projects). On the topic, “What Are the Top Three Things You Consider You Need To Do in Your Life,” Eva Gasparyan stated that she found it “very difficult to answer directly” this question. When she arrived at the answer, Eva stated that she wanted to have a good profession; to have a stable family (which helps the Armenian nation to be stable); and to live according to the Bible. In his first essay on “What Is the Professionalism of a Writer Measured By,” Ara Bedrosian declared that a public relations professional should “read lots of books.” Throughout, Ara gave no examples and one figure of speech: “the professional should know his audience and his demands like his own five fingers.”

102   G. Harootunian Analysis The students’ writing typifies the mirroring stage: the students first attempt to give back to the teacher the expressed ideas and instructions from the teacher’s class materials and lectures: one can almost hear (as I often did in the classrooms) the YSLU teachers lecturing the students on the “great diversities” in the world or that public relations experts should “read lots of books.” Moreover, caveats like Eva’s that it is “very difficult” to answer the topic were repeated verbatim in the papers of many students in the same class. The writing might seem plainly empty of substance in this mirroring stage, and even seem like parroting, particularly as the students possess limited ESL skills. Yet, mirroring was critical to these students because it provided them with the space and time needed to absorb change and acquire understanding. For example, the subject of Ara’s course (public relations) was non-­existent in the Soviet Union and still weakly understood in Armenia. It is understandable that Ara would begin in the main by mirroring his teacher’s declarations about public relations. I use “mirror” to denote kindred social and physical processes. “Mirroring” begins the transformation process because the students’ imitation is an act of imagination that allows them to enter and grow into the intellectual life around them (Vygotsky, 1978). The term simultaneously refers to the mirror system in the human brain that fires up during social action, exposing the empathetic nature of the human brain (Knoblich, 2006; Jaffe, 2007). In this case, the social action occurred in Armenian classrooms: in what ways might the mirroring be distinctly Armenian? The project’s external evaluator, Cezar Ornatowski (San Diego State University), singled out for comment the “vast resources of good will” evident in the classrooms. Armenian students had formed a genuine, positively charged network with each other and the teachers, one that facilitated the learning process despite the harsh conditions. Anna’s first sample might read like a podium speech, and her second like a public oration, but that is because her “we” referred not to an unknown reader but to her surrounding, homogeneous Armenian population (e.g., “Besides, we have very active women working abroad”). Ara’s image of holding up one’s hand also recalls the traditional Armenian oral culture, reinforced by the Soviet epideictic oral culture, more than the new writing culture of the pilot classrooms (especially as I saw such hand and finger gestures accompany daily speech in Armenia). But importantly, this is an initial sign of mediation: gestures (visual signs) forerun writing (textual signs) (Vygotsky, 1978; pp.  107–108), and so Ara’s gesture assigned Armenian meaning to his writing, for his immediate, homogeneous audience. Gregory’s audience is also the Armenian community that would understand his references (to the Armenian diaspora, 1915 genocide, etc.). Eva’s writing showed a rare “I” that is critical of the Armenian “we,” yet her “I” is in opposition to that Armenian “we” and so boxed within that context.

A longitudinal study of student writing   103 This “we” that operates in ancient and homogeneous cultures such as Armenia’s is like a double mirror, an all-­encompassing one that facilitated both the strong, mediated network in the Armenian classroom but also ironically the student’s inward perspective. The issue was salient for me as the US Project Director, for this perspective is antipodal to a Western-­style writer’s low context, outward perspective (Hall, 1976).

Stage two: testing social and linguistic bridges (Fall 2005) Sample student work Anna Vardanyan wrote on Armenia and international relations: “But still no powerful country can ‘afford’ itself to develop and resolve both inner and external conflict without the ties with outside world.” In an intercultural communication class taken simultaneously, Anna wrote: “I guess ­everyone has at least once asked the same question: ‘What is the meaning of his being?’ ” She concluded with a comment on nationalism: only Armenians are geniuses, etc. These are the words that I’ve heard hundred of times. And if you dare to mention, “What about Chopin, or Mozart, etc.,” one would have an answer, “O.k. O.k.; this is the only name in the whole nation.” Laura Simonyan, in a news-­writing course, wrote: First I want to say what I understand by saying censorship. To my mind, everybody must act with the framework of the human code, ethical code, to be unbiased whether he belongs to the government staff or he is simply a journalist. Laura opened her essay by quoting the First Amendment, then proceeded to illustrate the extent of its realization in both nations, but particularly Armenia, noting that an “expensive dinner at a restaurant, a certain amount of money, a promise to help his child to enter the University is enough to overcome any resistance” to corruption in an Armenian journalist. She then argued a series of remedies that should generate “better results.” Eva Gasparyan in intercultural communication wrote: It is of common knowledge that society is very powerful. I am very anxious about this problem because I see what is going on with my own eyes. . . . I knew a boy who played the violin. Every time he took his violin and went to school, the other boys who were hanging around in the streets, started shouting, whistling, and making fun of him. He couldn’t bear this suffocating situation more than two years. He gave it up and became mentally ill. Now he is in the lunatic asylum.

104   G. Harootunian In her second sample, on “Are Armenians Ethnocentric?,” Eva stated there are “different types” of ethnocentric Armenians, ranging from extreme to moderate, then included herself among the latter. She developed her theme of “within-­group” differences in Armenia by discussing how boys are more ethnocentric than girls in Armenia, for the girls change their dress, music, and a lot more: “Most of the girls are more flexible than the boys. Girls undergo different global changes more easily and quickly than the boys.” Marianna Parzyan, on the topic “My Expectations from this Course,” listed basic personal goals, for example, to graduate from YSLU. She then discussed the discouraging challenges she faced when she entered YSLU, before describing her successful adjustment. When Marianna elaborated on the challenges, she presented them in Homer-­esque terms: “I thought I was in a tossing sea and that I was going to die there.” In her second sample on “Are Armenians Ethnocentric?” Marianna began with a retrospective analysis: If one wants to answer this question, he must know what is ethnocentrism. If anyone asked me the same question last year, I was not able to give a proper answer to it, as I really had no idea of ethnocentrism. She explains that it took her “much time” to generate an answer, then proceeded to discuss the ethnocentric reactions of her fellow students to the Arab, Indian, and Persian students in Armenian universities, concluding with a discussion of her friendship with an Indian student. Gregory Mikoyan moved into a regional discussion of the issue of nationalism and conflicts in his International Relations course. Gregory first noted the formation of modern nation states, then the international system of political blocs in the second half of the twentieth century. He concluded with an analysis of a specific conflict and its resolution between Armenia and neighboring Georgia in the 1990s. Analysis The student samples showed slight to moderate increases in English fluency, but a more significant journey from mirroring to testing. The students began making the critical shift from interpersonal (social) learning in the classroom to intrapersonal (individual) transformation (Vygotsky, 1978), and this was accompanied by an increasingly outward perspective. Marianna’s writing contained the phrases that first suggested to me (on the linguistic level) that testing operated as a bridging technique. Her “tossing seas” might be Homer-­esque clichés in Western writing, but they are also the first “bridges” for the Armenian students influenced by the Soviet Union’s epideictic rhetoric (e.g., “the Glorious Revolution of October 26”), and Armenian culture’s long history of oral drama (opera, poetry, song, theater, toasting). Such phrasing suggested the students’ active medi-

A longitudinal study of student writing   105 ation of Western-­style education: they first assimilated with more ease those techniques closest to Armenian styles and techniques. Closer analysis of writing styles and techniques made apparent that testing operated as bridge-­building in the social aspect, too. Marianna’s writing simultaneously showed an increasing awareness of international relations as she moved from an old, interpersonal “we” (ethnocentric Armenian peers) to a new, intrapersonal “we” (she, plus others who wish to move beyond the larger peer group’s ethnocentrism). Parallel movement surfaced in the writing of the other students. Anna began to test English punctuation marks in her first sample: she deployed continually quotation marks or underlining to call attention to words or points whose meaning she was exploring, and she tried out conventions like rhetorical questions, quotations, and more advanced English punctuation such as the semi-­colon. As she subdued and mastered English punctuation in her second sample, Anna also opened the essay with an announcement of her “research” into the subject to be investigated, then launched into a direct line of argument on the subject. This testing of punctuation and argument suggested that Anna was now trying to author a Western-­style written conversation, and that means acquiring an expanded mental model beyond the Armenian one. Likewise, Laura made her first attempt to map her individual understanding for readers, one freed from the homogenized Armenian “we.” Laura was genuinely taking up the prompt, for herself, trying out her own definition of the assigned topic. She launched the essay on “Roles and Responsibilities of the Journalist in Armenia” with a detailed and balanced assessment of the state of journalism in Armenia vs. the United States (“we” vs. “they”). This suggested that Laura used Western-­style methods, once grasped, for her own ends: her new and strengthened identity as a writer is used to interrogate the Armenian “we” and make recommendations for change. Laura has begun building bridges for the future. Eva’s writing showed parallel development. In the first essay of the semester on “The Influence of Society on an Individual,” she turned to a theme that will resurface (the fate of individuals who “differ” from the dominant types in her society), offering a more enthusiastically detailed response that shows new strength in her “I” that is oppositional to the dominant Armenian “we.” Finally, Gregory moved from last semester’s “mirror” perspective on international relations (e.g., the Nazi Germany extermination of the Jews in World War II mirrored the Ottoman Turks’ extermination of the Armenians in World War I) to this semester’s new perspective of “interdependence,” for example, the interdependence of Georgia on Armenia for energy allowed successful resolution of an incipient conflict in the 1990s. Western­style writing education, then, is one prompt to help Gregory build a new bridge: he shifts from an inward-­looking Armenian identity to one that interacts with and sees—or tests out—possible inclusion in the global village (Phinney, 2002, pp. 129, 202).

106   G. Harootunian

Stage three: mediated mastery (Spring 2006) Sample student work In Intercultural Communication II, Anna Vardanyan wrote. “There are different factors that have a great role in intercultural communication (culture, language, etc.) and factors that hinder intercultural communication, such as prejudice, ethnocentrism, discrimination, stereotyping, etc.” She explored these factors (e.g., “It is considered that 93% of communication is non-­verbal and only 7% is verbal”), then asked readers, “so what should we do? One may think that it would be useful to learn all kinds of gestures and its corresponding meanings.” She concludes, “The only thing one can do is to be ready to learn . . . other cultures, languages, modals of life[,] preserving his/her own.” On “What Is the Meaning of Free Speech and Responsible Journalism in a Democratic Society?” Laure Simonyan began with multiple and integrated textual references and devices, ranging from quoting the First Amendment to posing a rhetorical question on free speech in democracies. She concluded by deploying a US idiom for Armenian society: “Corruption is the axis of all evils.” In International Relations, Gregory Mikoyan began by defining the topic neither through the mirror of “we” the Armenians, nor through regional interdependence, but through a defining international moment: 9/11. “I think that leader or representatives of religious world should be involved in the anti­terrorism campaign and the attention must be shifted from military sphere to ideological one.” He clarified, “Most often common people support terrorists who are convinced they are doing it for the sake of their nation.” Analysis The students had achieved mediated mastery, meaning that they had experienced a culture-­bound, clear secondary socialization into the Western-­style methods and approaches. Anna had internalized the learning to the extent that she now had the ability to negotiate with Western audiences, theses, and forms, for her own purposes. She opened her sample by setting common ground for inquiry not with her homogeneous Armenian peers but with a community of unseen readers. She no longer presented the topic as a word, around which she placed over-­emphatic quotation marks, but instead defined that concept and its factors for readers: As she proceeded, Anna no longer announced that she had done research, but presented it. In short, Anna contextualized her discussion for Western-­style readers with definitions of concepts, increased use of subtle and varied punctuation marks, and so on. Critically, however, she cycled back to Armenia: one preserves one’s own culture. Or, as Gregory shifted from inward to outward looking, he actively signaled that he was interrogating concepts by placing quotation marks

A longitudinal study of student writing   107 around its words (albeit awkwardly), then referenced the attempts of other nations to deal with terrorism, before offering his own recommendation. His final words cycle back to Armenia as he returns to the concept of “the nation.” In other ways is mediated mastery marked as a culture-­bound secondary socialization. The writing conventions that surface and resurface in Anna’s essays—quotes, proverbs, rhetorical questions, a lively and engaging “written” conversation—are all markers of the Armenian oral culture (and its rich tradition of poetry, speech, toasting, hymns, storytelling, and so on) (Hagen, 2005; Harootunian, 2005; Rodman, 1996; Stevens, 2001). Coupled with the absence of other writing conventions (e.g., technical analogies that are not markers of the Armenian oral culture), this reinforces the suggestion that Armenian students first mediated Western-­style materials and methods through the “bridge” techniques and styles. Consider that Laura wrote that governments that operate by means of terror should be called “terror-­ian” (the Armenian linguistic equivalent of “terror-­ist”). Her linguistic play—changing English words to Armenian “forms” or making the challenge of post-­Soviet corruption the axis in an Armenian classroom (Harootunian, 2007; MacWilliams, 2001; Ornatowski, 1995; Rodman, 1996)—continued to indicate that students are mediating Western methods to give themselves a wider window of understanding on Armenia: they adapted methods to modify and develop their identity as Armenian writers.

Conclusion Given the enormity of the task for the Armenian students’ grasping a new cultural framework, such “bridging” elements would be critical to assimilating Western-­style methods. Once the first mediations have occurred, students like Anna immediately began to apply the new elements to explore with increased depth Armenian questions. The Armenian students made the learning in the project’s classrooms transformative precisely because they created an intellectual loop between the immediate pilot classrooms and the external Armenian culture (Vygotsky, 1978). And so my final recommendation would be that we direct our efforts toward sustained, long-­term projects, not sporadic and short-­term ones, and the focus of such exchanges should be human resources. How can we create classrooms that are zones of proximal development so that foreign participants can mediate our offerings, in ways targeted to produce the most valued change in their own cultures? That Western-­style methods helped Armenian students acquire an expanded mental model they subsequently used to make recommendations for the benefit of Armenian society clarifies what we sometimes take for granted about our methods: they are essentially democratic and therefore laden with counter-­cultural power. The power is realized not by our passing these methods and tools onto foreign participants; it is realized when foreign participants take up and master these methods for their own purposes.

108   G. Harootunian

Notes 1 Every one of the 454 samples was read and cataloged. 2 YSLU offers English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, Persian, Korean, and Chinese. 3 Research into the neurobiology of cognition could offer further insights into the process of mediated mastery, particularly how culture and learning sculpt and resculpt brain structure over time (Park, 2007; Weinberger, 2004; Schlaug, 2003; Sloboda, 2003; Shellenberg, 2003; Gaser & Schlaug, 2003; Pascual-­Leone, 2003; Juslin and Sloboda; 2001; Tramo, 2001; Jourdain, 1997; Besson, Faita, & Requin, 1994; Sergent, Zuck, Terriah et al., 1992; Bever & Chiarello, 1974). 4 Most of the other 42 percent had excellent ESL skills and had at some point been educated in literary-­style essays, by Armenian teachers who often reminded me with pride that the Armenian translation of Shakespeare was considered the best in the Soviet Union. This literary admiration often trumped a democratic approach to writing instruction when I was at YSLU. Mastery of a literary style and ESL competence was, simply, more valued. For example, one student stated that she already knew how “to write” essays because she had studied British and US literature during her schooling. 5 The main challenge was this limited number of samples due to student resistance. Many students completed the essay for the teachers but declined to sign the Letter of Informed Consent, and the writing competence of such students ranged from poor to excellent, indicating that writing skills per se were not the reason that students declined to sign. Comments made by the students suggested to me that the causes of student resistance to signing were their lack of experience with and belief in democratic authority and their unfamiliarity with advanced writing methods and pedagogy, particularly Western-­style. 6 The US graduate students/co-­teachers were Maxwell Garcia and Micah Rubin (Journalism) and Susan Runkle (Anthropology) in 2004–2005 and Michael Apicelli and Thomas Bezigian (International Relations/International Law) in 2005–2006. 7 Student writing is reproduced exactly.

References Casimir, Fred L. (Ed.). (1995). Communication in Eastern Europe: The role of history, culture, and media in contemporary conflict. Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Crosswhite, James (1996). The rhetoric of reason: Writing and the attractions of argument. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Gilder, Eric (1995). Turning personal experience into social reality: Communication as a “third-­culture building” tool in the Romanian classroom. In Fred L. Casimir (Ed.), Communication in Eastern Europe: The role of history, culture, and media in contemporary conflict (pp. 197–221). Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hagen, P. (1998). Teaching American business writing in Russia: Cross-­cultures/ cross-­purposes. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 12, 109–126. Hall, Edward T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Anchor Books. Harootunian, Gil (2005). Re-­designing our technical and individual screens: The new “windows” opened by teaching in a former Soviet republic. In C. Lipson & M. Day (Eds.), Technical communication and the world wide web (pp. 193–208). Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

A longitudinal study of student writing   109 Harootunian, Gil (2007, January). Dancing the Kochari: Challenging the U.S. perspective on communication in newly-­democratic cultures. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 21, 91–105. Harrington, Ty (2005). Linking Russia and the United States in web forums: The global classroom project. In C. Lipson & M. Day (Eds.), Technical communication and the world wide web (pp. 167–192). Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Jaffe, Eric (2007, May). Mirror neurons: How we reflect on behavior. Observer, 20(5), 20–25. Knoblich, G., & Sebanz, N. (2006). The social nature of perception and action. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 99–104. Lipson, Carol, & Day, Michael (Eds.) (2005). Technical communication and the world wide web. Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. MacWilliams, B. (2001, December 14). Corruption, conflict and budget cuts afflict academe in former Soviet republics. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A43+. Marga, Andrei (2002). Reform of education in Romania in the 1990s: A retrospective. Higher Education in Europe, 27(1–2), 123–135. Marin, Noemi (2005). Communication adaptation and competence in global times: Intercultural challenges for Eastern European foreign graduate students in American academia. Journalism & Communicare, 4(13), 52–61. McKinley, Mary M. (1995). Hungarian culture in communication. In Fred L. Casimir (Ed.), Communication in Eastern Europe: The role of history, culture, and media in contemporary conflict (pp. 115–131). Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ong, Walter (1982). Orality and literacy: Technologizing the word. New York: Methuen Press. Ornatowski, Cezar (1995). Democracy and discourse: A rhetorical perspective on political change and the emergence of democracy in Poland. In J. Kutnik & C. Ornatowski (Eds.), Re-­visioning democracy, Central Europe, and America: Critical perspectives (pp. 57–65). Lublin, Poland: Maria Curie-­Sklodowska University Press. Ornatowski, Cezar. (2008, February). Literacy education and the state: Native language pedagogy and politics in Poland, 1945–1999. Paper presented at Writing Research across Borders, University of California, Santa Barbara. Park, Denise C. (2007, May 25). Eastern brain/Western brain: Neuroimaging cultural differences in cognition. Paper presented at the 19th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, DC. Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. (1988). Composition as a human science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phinney, J. S., & Devich-­Navarro, M. (2002). Variations in ethnic identity. In Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (Ed.), Adolescence and emerging adulthood (pp. 120–131). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Rodman, L. (1996). Finding new communication paradigms for a new nation: Latvia. In D. C. Andrews (Ed.), International dimensions of technical communication (pp. 111–121). Arlington, VA: Society for Technical Communication. Rogoff, Barbara, & Chavajay, Pablo (1995, October). What’s become of research on the cultural basis of cognitive development? American Psychologist, 50, 859–877. Rohde, Carl C., & Pellicaan, Carsten R. C. (1995). Advertising and the legitimacy crisis of Eastern Europe. In Fred L. Casimir (Ed.), Communication in Eastern

110   G. Harootunian Europe: The role of history, culture, and media in contemporary conflict (pp. 133–162). Mawhah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Stevens, B. (2000). Russian teaching contracts: An examination of cultural influence and genre. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 14, 38–57. Verdery, Katherine, & Kligman, Gail. (1992). Romania after Ceausescu: Post-­ communist communism? In Ivo Banac (Ed.), Eastern Europe in revolution (pp. 117–147). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Vygotsky, Lev. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

9 The continuum illiterate–literate and the contrast between different ethnicities Maria Sílvia Cintra1 Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil

Introduction I present the results of a two-­year postdoctorate research project developed at the Institute of Studies on Language (IEL/Unicamp, Brazil) and also of action research I have been organizing since 2006 when I started to work as a professor at the Federal University of São Carlos, also in Brazil.2 Relying on recent developments in new literacy studies, I explore the concept of the continuum illiterate–literate and argue that it implies elements of transformation, as well as conservation. I also argue that three intersecting continua must be considered together: the continua oral–­ written, rural–urban, and restricted–full literacy. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, I show how elements of restricted literacy are still present on the threshold of the twenty-­first century; how they entertain relation with rural to urban migration and with a marked contrast between different ethnicities; and in what sense this fact may be visible in the everyday use of language. My initial project was entitled “From Speech Acts to Literate Practices” and I intended to understand the interface between the written and the oral on the basis of the conceptions developed by Voloshinov (1973) and by Bakhtin (1981, 1986) concerning speech acts and discourse genres. Two years ago, I was not yet aware of the fact that oral and written languages consist of overlapping realities, which are impossible to understand as separate unities. In this sense, I still defended the idea of a continuum of discourse genres which would range from oral to written language or from informal to formal registers in a somewhat separate fashion. That is the way I imagined a transition from speech acts to literate practices when I first started to visit a community on the outskirts of São Carlos, a city of about 220,000 inhabitants in the southeast of Brazil, 95 percent of whom reside in the city and only 5 percent in the rural area. As I began to collect field data, I continued to study, together with the group of students I supervised, Bakhtin and Voloshinov’s theory, and to improve my understanding of the sociohistorical approach from Fairclough’s tridimensional proposal (1992, 1995, 2003). Some important

112   M. S. Cintra insights were given by Certeau (1980), and by Bortoni-­Ricardo (1985) and Goffman (1959), as I gradually enlarged my understanding of language in general and started to envisage it more and more as a part of culture and ethics.

Method The methodology used for the action research was adopted since I not only intended to collect data regarding literacy, but I was also interested in education and in transformation (cf. Freire, 1972; Cameron et al., 1992; Thiollent, 1986). In his “Pedagogy of the oppressed,” Freire (1972) proposes a method of research which is intimately related with education, inasmuch as the limit between the research itself and education is very subtle and most often we have an overlap between both processes. In principle, it is argued that the educator should first visit the community where they intend to develop an educational practice in order to raise awareness of the “generating themes” they will work with. However, as the process of research is supposed to be carried out in a dialogical fashion, and as the researcher is expected to be attentive to the community’s problems and tensions, there is not only the movement of grasping the questions present in such a reality, but problem-­ solving is also very intensively present, regarding the necessity the researcher feels to discuss the questions that emerge in order to find the best solutions together with the subjects of the research. As a result, there is a rich blend of research and education. Cameron et al. (1992), on the other hand, defends empowering research as a form of academic research that endeavors to respect the subjects’ agenda, i.e., the emphasis is not centered on the researcher’s priorities, but rather on the problems and tensions present in a certain community and on the ethical compromise the researcher feels concerning questions of marginality, hegemony, contra-­hegemonic forces, and empowerment. Thiollent (1986) defines action research as a kind of social research of empirical basis which is conceived and carried out in close relation with an action and with the solution of a collective problem. In this case, the researchers and the subjects of research are involved in a cooperative and participative fashion. In the case I will discuss, there was a constant movement from theory to practice, which is also a characteristic of action research. As a consequence, the results I will present will reveal this constant relation. I will show theoretical data together with certain vivid examples that illuminate these data and make it possible to think about theory in a more in-­depth and detailed fashion. Taking this into account, I strongly believe in the importance of doing ethnographic research as a way of constantly checking the theory we deal with and building new conceptualizations. The initial research project I mentioned was based on the assumption that we still lack better knowledge of the heterogeneous reality of language

Continuum illiterate–literate and ethnicity   113 as it is practiced by individuals who are in the initial phase of written ­language. I have chosen a group of adults considered illiterate or semi-­ literate; I expected, however, that the results of my research would contribute to a reflection about literacy in general, and to the understanding of the continuum illiterate–literate in particular. I also believed that some aspects of the use of adult language could bring a better understanding of children’s and teenagers’ use of language and of their difficulties with school literate practices. It is worth mentioning here that according to a recent government survey from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), 7.4 million young Brazilians aged between 18 and 29 (from a total of 34 million urban youngsters, or 21.7 percent) have had only one to seven years of school study—which means abandoning school before completing the basic level of nine years. Moreover, 813,200—almost one million young people—are considered illiterate. Alagoas, a state in the northeast of Brazil, leads the ranking with 46 percent of youngsters in either case. On the other hand, São Paulo state, which is located in the southeast region and is the richest and most developed Brazilian state, has 15 percent of youngsters who are subject to what we may call “restricted literacy.” I coordinated biweekly meetings at a cooperative of manual workers on the outskirts of São Carlos, an average-­sized city in the southeast of Brazil, with the double objective of teaching language and collecting research data. At the same time, I gave a course at the university and some of my students participated in the Saturday meetings with me. There were ten students who alternated in attending meetings with me, so that two or three academic researchers were always present. In the community, there were about three or six people. We attempted to convince more adults to participate in the meetings, but over time we understood that, although limited in number, the group could in a way serve as literacy agents in their everyday contact with the rest of the community. The cooperative consisted of about 260 manual workers, most of whom came from a recent process of urbanization. We used different strategies for collecting data, including semi-­ structured interviews, filming, tape-­recording, and note-­taking. Preference was given to semi-­structured interviews which were considered more appropriate to action research in the sense that they imply more freedom and flexibility. Every meeting was filmed and the group of researchers alternated in taking notes and engaging in dialogues with the subjects. Another group of researchers transcribed the recordings.

Results The partial results I will present here involve, on one hand, discussion of the theory I explored while developing action research; on the other hand, they involve data collected in fieldwork.

114   M. S. Cintra

From speech acts to literate practices In “The Problem of Speech Genres,” Bakhtin (1986) proposes the difference existing between primary and secondary or complex genres. According to him, secondary genres of discourse appear historically in a circumstance of more complex and relatively more advanced cultural communication. It is worth paying attention to the observation by the Russian philosopher that secondary genres absorb and transform the primary genres previously constituted. Spontaneous verbal communication and informal letters are given as examples of texts pertaining to primary genres, whereas romance, theater, and scientific discourse would represent secondary genres. The former are defined on the basis of their spontaneous constitution and of a direct relation with immediate reality, and it is said that the latter are mainly written and entertain rapport with a world represented by language, rather than with the surrounding world. It is also worth remembering that, as a philosopher, Bakhtin was mostly interested in a phylogenetic approach and not so much in an ontogenetic one. It is certainly possible to think of language as ranging smoothly from informal to formal registers. However, when we assume Bakhtin’s theory as pertaining to a sociohistorical approach (together with Vygotsky’s, 1985) it is necessary to consider that the transition from one to another phase implies rupture as well as conservation. Furthermore, it also implies envisaging language as an inherent part of social relations and culture. Taking this into account, I gradually began to understand that it would be misleading to think of Bakhtin’s discourse genres without taking into consideration, simultaneously, Voloshinov’s theorization on social psychology and on ideology. I also understood that, in a certain sense, primary genres pertain to everyday life ideology, whereas secondary genres are part of the ideology of super-­structures, but this assumption may also be misleading when lacking a dialectic view. Inspired by Freire’s previous work with adult learners, we called our biweekly meetings “cultural sessions.” At each session, I took a different text, always pertaining to a secondary genre: a short film, a poem, a map, an interview. Some students suggested that we should take three films together with a short explanation about each one in order to encourage the community participants to choose which they would prefer to see and therefore involve them more. They suggested the films Modern Times, Thank You for Smoking, and a short Brazilian film entitled Island of Flowers (Ilha das Flores) about nature preservation. The students understood that it was important to take films which involved some sort of social criticism; I pointed out that it was not only the content that was at stake, but the structure of each genre, in the sense that the inhabitants of that community were not used to the kind of irony and simulation which certain films explore. Nevertheless, we took the three films and, after a short talk, the participants chose the film Thank You for Smoking. At a certain point of the session, I noticed that the community participants

Continuum illiterate–literate and ethnicity   115 seemed somewhat bored and indifferent, so I decided to start making some intermediary comments in order to provoke their involvement. As a matter of fact, it was necessary to make some metalinguistic interference and some purposeful joining between the oral language of everyday life and the film so that such a text could be fully understood by those adult learners. It was plainly visible that a film, as a text pertaining to secondary genres, involves elements of dialogue typical of primary genres. From an ontogenetic point of view, however, we did not feel that this explanation was reasonable to make us understand why there still remains some difficulty for adults considered semi-­literate to read and understand such texts. At first sight, it seemed to us that exactly because of the multimodality present in them, they would be easier to understand for the kind of students we dealt with. Practice, however, denied our assumptions and brought to light the fact that even humor was not as accessible as we imagined beforehand—at least a certain kind of intellectual or ironic humor. In the course of the process involving several “cultural sessions,” I gradually developed the understanding of two fundamental questions. First, the evidence illustrated that primary genres persist in secondary genres only in a simulated form—and not in a more direct or quite accessible fashion. In other words: following the dialogue in films similar to the one we had presented apparently requires a kind of experience different from the most simple one people deal with in everyday, face-­to-face communication. A certain kind of dialogue explored in films as well as in advertisements, in cartoons or in comic strips is not as straightforward as it may seem to people who have benefited from the availability and the access to most complex literacy practices. Second, the evidence indicated that the simulation present in language must be accompanied by simulating new roles in social interrelation. If it was true—as I believed—that the continuum illiterate–literate should be seen together with the continuum restricted–full literacy, I was more and more convinced that language certainly has to be seen as part of social interplay, but not in a harmonious way, and rather in the sense of conflicting social struggle for hegemony and for full citizen participation. Taking this into account, restricted literacy as seen inside an ideological model must mean a restricted form of participation and of access to different opportunities in society in general. Language, thus, is not generally accessible unless it accompanies the playing and the simulation implicit in the roles we engage in as we take part in literacy practices inherent to determined social groups. In this sense, it may seem available without being plainly accessible (Kalman, 2004)—and accessibility has to do with real pertaining to social groups and sharing power.

Some considerations on restricted literacy Goody (1968) referred to West Africa and India as cases of restricted literacy. On the other hand, Gumperz (1986) referred to minority groups situated in the urban outskirts or in rural areas in the United States, and

116   M. S. Cintra pointed out the apparent difficulty for learning in these communities. I argue that in any of these cases, it is the same reality that may be envisaged by means of the continuum restricted–full literacy. In Brazil, as I understand it, we have a case of restricted literacy similar, up to a certain degree, to the Indian one. There are characteristics proper to restricted literacy (cf. Goody, 1986), such as: appeal to magic/religious conceptions; resource to formulaic style; tendency to secrecy; persistence of oral modes of instruction; emphasis on rote learning (even at university); oral residues in a literate culture; tendency toward preciosity. At first sight, however, there seems not to be, in this case, a strong association between writing and religion. It is possible, anyway, to recognize the intersection of three continua: the continuum oral–written, the continuum rural–urban and the continuum restricted–full literacy, which we can say intersect. Restricted–full literacy deals with questions related to power, to secrecy, to cipher, and to initiation. Without defending the autonomous consequences of literacy but, rather, understanding literacy from a sociological approach (Gee, 1990; Street, 1993; Barton & Hamilton, 1998), I started to consider some data related to the socioeconomic structure of Brazilian society that might explain why, in a twenty-­first-century global society, in an emergent country, there are still traits characteristic of restricted literacy, even when the widespread code is alphabetical. Concerning the appeal to magic-­religious conceptions, an incident that called my attention (and similar incidents occur with a certain frequency in adult classes) was when Iraci (a pseudonym) declared “I pray that Jesus may open my head so that I can read.” At first sight, it seemed only an emotional expression, but as I met other people from a rural background who made similar statements, I started to suspect that they represented a broader reality. Many of the women have their first contact with literate events when attending church. They cannot read, but they are literate in the sense that they take part in events centered on literacy (cf. Heath, 1983). As suggested by Kalman (2004), we can say that they have contact with literacy, but not real access to it. Other characteristics of restricted literacy—resource to formulaic style; tendency to secrecy; tendency toward preciosity—appear strictly related to the same question when we observe the behavior of the illiterate, for whom literacy seems to be inaccessible; on the other hand, I was shocked when Jessica (another pseudonym), a postgraduate student who belonged to our research group, said: “Here at the university, most teachers seem to hide their knowledge.” Again, it could be seen just as a common complaint of students, but as I had been aware of these questions related to restricted literacy and secrecy, I began to conceive the idea of a continuum ranging from restricted to full literacy, which is more visible in the case of illiterate people who get in contact with literacy, but which would also exist in other situations and even at a university level. The two other characteristics which Goody pointed out—persistence of oral modes of instruction

Continuum illiterate–literate and ethnicity   117 and emphasis on rote learning—are certainly present at lower levels—primary and high schools—but we can say they still persist at university when we consider that an oral mode of instruction does not only imply the behavior of teachers and students in the classroom, but also the way written culture is still frequently regarded inside an untouchable bell jar, particularly in what concerns western European or American literate culture. As I understand it, this fact is partly a consequence of our belonging to a Third World country whose academic culture is mainly imported from First World nations and often arrives in our country not as a result of autonomous field research, but rather as ideology in the sense constructed by Foucault (2002).

The idea of assimilation: ideology and hegemony When taking into account the concepts of ideology and hegemony (Fairclough, 1992, 1995, 2003), I could envisage discourse genres in a more complex way. I gradually understood that genres assimilate characteristics previously existing (in the sense of the assimilation of primary genres existing in secondary genres) and that they reveal these characteristics because they are crossed by vectors of ideology and hegemony which, in principle, belong to the social dimension. It is interesting to point out that for Voloshinov (1973), ideology and power are constantly crossing social relations, which is different from the orthodox Marxist standpoint concerning infrastructure and superstructure relations. Considering this, if it is true that secondary genres assimilate and absorb all primary genres previously constituted (cf. Bakhtin, 1986), this is only possible because certain elements proper of power and ideology persist in social relations in general. Amanda (a fictitious name) was a very active member of the cooperative of cleaners in Jardim Gonzaga—the neighborhood on the outskirts of São Carlos where I developed my field research. She lived alone with her two children and showed much interest when coming to our meetings. She used to say that she did not like to engage in much conversation with her neighbors, that she had her private life and was not fond of much contact with others. With time, however, we understood that, paradoxically, she was a supportive woman: her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned her plans concerning either her family (brothers she had left far away in the northeast of Brazil and that she wanted to help) or the neighborhood (one of her dreams was to set up a kindergarten for children to stay in while their parents studied). One Saturday afternoon, Amanda stated: “I don’t like to talk, because my speech is full of mistakes. People listen and notice that I say several words wrongly. I am ashamed, so I prefer to be silent.” I listened to her and could hear no mistakes. I commented to her that her speech was absolutely right, but she said she still wanted to learn the “right” way, only then she would be satisfied. What she understood as the “right” way involves the accent proper to southeastern speakers and, sure

118   M. S. Cintra enough, a certain way she recognizes in the speech of Brazilians who entertain a more sophisticated literate condition. Or, in other words, the form of speech proper to citizens who are most involved in complex genres of discourse.

Ethos and ethics Brazil is still considerably shaped by traits belonging to rural communities and culture.3 Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a permanent movement characterized by rural exodus and by the continuous insertion of illiterate people into the literate universe of different cities. This fact has meant complex consequences for communication as different ethnicities are involved implying different ethé which are often ignored when education is centered on certain matters considered of universal reach, and also when developing ethnographic and action research. There are some different traits pertaining to each ethnicity—rural illiterate ethnicity and urban literate ethnicity—which point to a link between ethics, on one hand, and ethnicity, on the other. I think such an approach can contribute to a better understanding of literacy and of the continuum illiterate– literate and that this understanding is fundamental for education as a whole, and not only for beginning literacy instruction. Moreover, it can provide a better understanding of the communication between academic researchers and the subjects of their research, as in the case of an experiment developed by another group of professors and academic researchers of a Brazilian university who wanted to contribute to building cheap and comfortable houses for rural inhabitants, as well as developing popular cooperativism, but have had difficulties implementing their proposal.4 I had been reading about the concepts of ethos and ethics when I started visiting the community under discussion. In principle, I understood ethos as a part of language itself, inasmuch as language and identity are intimately linked. As I observed conversation between a professor and the president of a popular cleaning cooperative, I began to see that ethos is related to questions of ideology and hegemony as well, in the sense that once it represents a habitus, it is concerned with the culture and the ethics present in a certain community. The professor addressed the popular worker in what we can call a professoral ethos: he asked certain questions for which there was an expected answer, as if he were in fact in a classroom environment. In this case, it is interesting to think of what Fairclough (1992) calls hybridism. It is worth mentioning the fact that not only genres undergo hybridization: there are social spheres that intersect. It is as if the professor had forgotten that he was engaged in the genre of an informal conversation (pertaining to primary genres) and started behaving in tune with a classroom ethos, i.e., in accord with secondary genres. As I will discuss below, this fact also has to do with the continuum restricted–full literacy, in the sense that, partially, we can say that the professor assumed a literate ethos whereas the cooperative worker played an oral role; on the

Continuum illiterate–literate and ethnicity   119 other hand, it is possible to see, in this behavior, a difficulty of communication proper to a place where literacy is still restricted to a few. In fact, there seems to be an abyss between our literate ethics and logical thinking and the way some illiterate people think and behave. Furthermore, this transcends logic in the sense Luria (1979) brought to light: it has to do with logic, but it also has to do with ethics. In this case, I concluded that the difference between oral and scriptural ethé might be at stake. Oral ethos implies reference to family and community bonds whereas the acknowledgment of rules present in broader social coexistence is typical of scriptural ethos. In either case, however, we have strict rules which are learnt implicitly or explicitly belonging to particular social groups. It is, therefore, impossible to think about different discourse genres belonging to different social practices and behaviors as smoothly ranging from one to another pattern. The transit from restricted to full literacy implies changing one’s participation in a certain ethic in order to start one’s familiarity with another one. Social roles, however, are not so smoothly or harmoniously interchangeable.

Discussion: when rural illiterate meets literate culture— confrontation and assimilation My previous discussion concerns the fact that it is not just genres that incorporate elements present in pre-­existing realities; it is social reality that involves the coexistence of old and new elements, of archaic and modern social relations and ethé. Taking this into account, when illiterate rural adults start to have contact with urban literacy, it is not only the written language they have to master: there are different ethnicities in confrontation or, making use of the Bakhtinian conception, there is an arena of social struggle and conflict. There is a fight for hegemony, which does not only imply a struggle for participation in literate alterity and ethos, but it also implies a confrontation and an attempt toward maintaining old structures with which one is most concerned. Again, we have the intersection of three continua: illiterate– literate, rural–urban and restricted–full literacy, which, in a certain sense, consist of the same continuum, as far as we take into consideration social reality as a whole and all the elements it is formed of. Postmodernity emphasizes diversity and, at this point of my conclusion, it is pertinent to raise the question: in what sense is it possible to coexist with diversity or to provide that different ethnicities coexist when we know that confrontation and a struggle for hegemony is involved? Or in other words: in what sense should different ethnicities coexist when they involve questions related to ideology and to power? Many years ago, when I taught at a secondary school in a very poor neighborhood located on the seashore of a southeastern Brazilian town, I was explaining to my 14-year-­old students sociolinguistic concepts related to variation and diversity. I said that there was a verb form in Brazilian

120   M. S. Cintra Portuguese that had more prestige (eu pus) and another that was also correct, but suffered stigmatization (eu ponhei). I explained that their use depended on social context, so that each of them could be adequate for a different situation, but neither could be considered incorrect. In a peculiar form, I was defending postmodern relativism and diversity. I said that “eu ponhei” could be used at home or in the neighborhood, together with friends or with their family; and that “eu pus” should be preferred in more formal contexts.5 A tall Afro-­Brazilian student raised his hand and said: “I do not agree with this concept. Before, I used to say ‘Eu ponhei,’ but as soon as I knew this was a wrong verbal form, I did not want to pronounce it any longer.” The prejudice against the popular variety of Brazilian Portuguese is very deep-­rooted, characterizing restricted literacy. Ideology and the struggle for hegemony are definitely present in everyday relations and conversation, in the arena Bakhtin refers to, of dialectic and dialogical social confrontation and struggle. In this context, it becomes very difficult to defend the pacific coexistence of diverse registers, because one is not able to convince citizens on the basis of argumentation, when the very struggle for recognition in society depends on the domination of the language of the other and of his proper ethos and alterity. The continuum restricted–full literacy as far as it also involves rural to urban migration points to the fact that history is at stake and that linguistic studies are part of a broader reality that calls for a sociohistorical and anthropological approach. The defense of a pacific coexistence of the diverse may be possible in countries where a certain social equality is present. In the case of Brazilian Third World reality, however, we are still in the middle of a historical transition from rural to urban life which involves the difficult conquest of a place of citizenship and of more thorough social participation. This reality implies, on one hand, the recognition and acknowledgment of diversity and alterity; on the other hand, however, it requires the very struggle for hegemony, which means the struggle to ensure a prominent place reserved for protagonist roles and not just for supporting or subservient ones.

Notes 1 Department of Modern Languages—UFSCAR, São Carlos, State of São Paulo, Brazil, CEP 13.564-060. Email: [email protected]. 2 I acknowledge Fapesp (04/15539-3) for supporting the initial two years of fieldwork. 3 In the city of São Carlos where my research was developed, and which is part of the richest region of our country, only 5 percent of the population resides in the rural area, contrasting, for instance, with Cabeceiras, a town of about 8,300 inhabitants in the northeast of Brazil, where more than 85 percent of the population still live in a rural area. 4 I take part in an interdisciplinary research team which includes professors, undergraduates, and postgraduate students from different subject areas: engineering, architecture, health, and social sciences. The experience implying the

Continuum illiterate–literate and ethnicity   121 c­ onstruction of houses was developed in a sector related to mine. It was not part of the literacy project, but my group of students and I were able to follow the development of their action and take notes related to our interests. 5 The contrast between “he isn’t” and “he ain’t” may be given as an equivalent for this variation in Brazilian Portuguese. It should be mentioned that this is not a direct translation of “eu pus”/“eu ponhei.”

References Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogical imagination. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In Speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community. London and New York: Routledge. Bortoni-­Ricardo, S. M. (1985). The urbanization of rural dialect speakers: A sociolinguistic study in Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, D., Frazer, E., Harvey, P., Rampton, M. B. H., & Richardson, K. (1992). Researching language: Issues of power and method. London and New York: Routledge. Certeau, M. (1980). L’invention du quotidien: Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard. Cook-­Gumperz, J. (2006). The social construction of literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. London: Longman. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing discourse: Text analysis for social research. London: Routledge. Foucault, M. (2002). The archaeology of knowledge. London: Routledge. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin. Gee, J. P. (1990). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London: Falmer Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday Anchor. Goody, J. (1968). Literacy in traditional societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalman, J. (2004). Saber lo que es la letra: una experiencia de lectoescritura con mujeres de Mixquic. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno. Luria, A. R. (1979). The making of mind. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Martins, M. S. Cintra (2007). Ethos, gêneros e questões identitárias. Revista Delta, 23, (1). São Paulo: EDUC. Street, B. (1993). Cross-­cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thiollent, M. (1986). Metodologia da pesquisa-­ação. São Paulo: Cortez. Voloshinov, V. I. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. New York: Seminar Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1985). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

10 Strategies, policies, and research on reading and writing in Colombian universities Blanca Yaneth González Pinzón Universidad Sergio Arboleda, Colombia

The university does not know how to fulfill its own requirements! If it knew how, students would be able to read and write as she demands them to. Gloria Alvarado

How and why did Colombia redefine the teaching and learning processes of reading and writing? In Colombia, a new network has been established to advance reading and writing in higher education. Previously, as in other Central and South American countries, teaching reading and writing has for years been associated with linguistic and philological erudition in the mother tongue. This has left the responsibility to work on these skills to a single subject in the curriculum: Spanish or Castilian, as the subject has been defined since the days of conquest and colonization. In this subject, reading and writing exist alongside phonetics, semantics, morphology, syntax, orthography, etc. Nor has the rise of literary studies alongside language studies helped reading and writing gain in significance in primary or secondary schooling. Later, we shall see how this same way of conceiving reading and writing within the realm of language is brought into the university, largely as a remedial subject. However, reading and writing did not always appear to be matters associated with the process of acquisition and development of the language. In many cases, we find them linked with different daily and cultural activities of the peoples (let us remember the role of scribes and the role of reading and writing for the commercial activities) (Viñao, 2002). Educational practices with origins in medieval Europe and imported into Spanish colonies in the Americas such as cartillas (a type of grammar drill) continue to be fundamental classroom tools. Spelling was also imposed, in search of good diction. Reading aimed to bring excellence in reciting (at the end of the nineteenth century, reciting was still very common in schools). Viñao says that in 1893, there were eight types of textbooks for reading: the spelling books or cartillas, short stories, libros

Reading and writing in Colombian universities   123 de cosas (the “books of things,” which are books with information or lessons on diverse topics), biographies, miscellaneous books, books in verse, manuscripts, and treatises related to one or more school subjects— today’s textbooks. Moralizing and religious topics were interspersed in the lessons that were developed in such reading. Writing, for its part, was intended to perfect handwriting and improve the orthography. Literacy education in general, was subjected to a process of normalization, concentrating on good speech, vocalization, intonation, and orthography. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with increased class sizes (to this day, 50 or 60 children per class is typical), silent reading became preferred to facilitate classroom order and study practices. Tests which valued comprehension and speed took a central role in defining educational goals. Reading practices were influenced by physiological and social hygiene, emphasizing such concerns as posture and good manners in using notebooks. As reading took priority over writing, writing activities were limited. In primary and secondary schools, the most common acts of writing were dictations and compositions, along with taking notes of the lecture and written exams, which replaced oral examination, again due to the increase in class sizes. This inheritance has influenced social attitudes toward literacy instruction, has limited the educational opportunities for literacy instruction to a single subject, and has defined a primarily grammatical approach to writing education. Various linguistic approaches have been used to achieve grammatical goals, including structural grammars, generative-­ transformational grammars, and functional grammars. In the 1990s, a communicative semantic focus expanded linguistic approaches beyond grammar, and gradually other disciplines such as philosophy and logic were seen as relevant to reading and writing. Psychopedagogy also turned our attention to the practices of teaching and learning reading and writing, the evolutionary processes of the acquisition of the code and the cognitive modifications involved (Ferreiro, 1999). Currently, discourse analysis of several varieties has given us new tools to examine pedagogical and learning processes. While these developments have changed the thinking of many educators, they have also generated some resistance among those who seem reluctant to change. Whatever position teachers may hold, these controversies have brought attention and discussion to reading and writing and their pedagogic implications. Political guidelines and regulations, even while being implemented have also generated energetic inquiry suggesting that they have been adopted without much reflection (Bustamante, 2002), and in some cases are simply translations of foreign laws, such as the LOGSE from Spain, accommodated to the national context. In particular Law 115 (1994) redefined many of the paths through which the country’s education was being directed, including improving reading and writing at each educational level. The law introduced into the professional educational discussion terms such as PEI (Proyecto Educativo Institucional—Institutional Educational Project),

124   B. Y. González Pinzón a­ cademic calendar, interdisciplinarity, remedial courses, promotion, process, achievement, achievement indicator, performance, skills, guidelines, competency, and standard. Initially the Law generated all sorts of reactions among primary and secondary educators. Those in higher education at first ignored it because they believed that the Law did not invade their professional space. However, symposiums, conferences, discussions, and orientation workshops for teachers gradually permeated higher education, and the consequences became evident of the strong work that was promoted at other levels of education. When our secondary school students entered university, they were faced with a system of evaluation and promotion considerably different from what they had known in high school. In universities, terms like remedial courses and evaluation of achievement were not used. This forced higher education to participate more in the conversation and accommodate so that, 14 years later, the differences are not so drastic. The Colombian Institute for Promotion of Higher Education (Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educación Superior, ICFES), in charge of designing and administering the state exam for university admission, emphasized reading and writing in the examination and analysis of results in the national exams and also in the international exams such as the TIMS and the PISA. Different researchers, the majority from public universities, contributed to this turnaround with the publication of materials (Jurado & Bustamante, 1995) and the preparation of the educators for the new challenges that faced them in the development of these abilities. The Evaluation of Basic Competences in Language, Mathematics, and Sciences (Evaluación de Competencias Básica en Lenguaje, Matemática y Ciencias) was introduced (from 1988 to 1999), and a document (Bogoya, 2000) that analyzed the published data on the pilot exams was circulated in each Colombian high school in order for each institution to organize their plans of restructuring. Formerly, the Pruebas Saber (Knowledge Exam) was used at different levels, with the official slogan of “Evaluate to Improve.” During these years, the Colombian Network for Transformation of Educators’ Formation in Language (Red Colombiana para la Transformación de la Páctica Docente en Lenguaje) was also created. All of these processes of change, with their strengths and shortcomings, also mobilized reflections in universities and pedagogic institutions where the teachers are trained. These approaches had to be redefined and, although a decade is short for generating definitive changes, a different focus for thinking about these processes does exist in Colombia due to this.

The context of higher education in Colombia Almost five million Colombians are between 18 and 23 years old, which is the age of professional development (10.9 percent of the total population). There are 276 institutions of higher education; the private institutions account for 195 of them, while the public institutions account for only 81.

Reading and writing in Colombian universities   125 There are 51 professional-­technical institutions, 60 technological institutions, 91 university institutions, and 74 universities as such. Universities account for the highest number of students and the technical institutions come after them. Between 1996 and 2005, registration in higher education jumped from 15.3 percent to 24.6 percent. Of the 433 accredited programs (the majority of which are engineering, architecture, urbanism, and other related fields), 204 are private universities and 229 are public. Only 11 universities have the accreditation of high quality for the moment. Others are in the process of obtaining it. One out of every two students does not complete their studies, although the annual drop-­out level decreased from 16.5 percent in 2003 to 13.4 percent in 2005. In the first semester in 2005, the ten academic undergraduate programs with the highest number of students were: Law (69.87 percent), Business Administration (60.23 percent), Public Accounting (52.30 percent), Industrial Engineering (34.81 percent), System Engineering (32.96 percent), Medicine (28.56 percent), Psychology (26 percent), Electronic Engineering (21.49 percent), Civil Engineering (18.24 percent), and Nursing (16.36).1 In terms of postgraduate education, the most recent data published by the SNIES (Sistema Nacional de Información de la Educación Superior—National System of Information about Higher Education) indicate that there are 3,937 active postgraduate programs in Colombia; 3,412 are diploma programs, 443 are Master’s, and 82 are doctorate programs. In higher education, before the General Law of Education (la Ley General de Educación; Law 115 of 1994), other laws and decrees had already been published, such as Law 30 of 1992 (still in force today), that organized the public service of higher education, establishing the principles and guidelines by which universities would govern themselves. For its part, the National Council of Higher Education (Consejo Nacional de Educación Superior, CESU) collaborated with the State in its function of promoting and orienting scientific and technological development, in agreement with what was established by Law 29 of 1990. A relatively recent decree, Law 2566 of September 2003, established the minimal condition of quality and other requirements for the offering and development of academic programs of higher education. Article 6, in particular, makes a reference to the development of research skills: The institution must explicitly present how to develop the research culture and critical, autonomous thinking, which allow students and professors to develop new knowledge, taking into account the methods of the development of such skills. For this purpose, this program should incorporate measures to develop research and to gain access to the advances of the knowledge. This law is seen as calling for the promotion of scientific thinking. The CRES (Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior—Regional Conference of Higher Education), recently held in Colombia, makes very specific

126   B. Y. González Pinzón demands on Latin American and Caribbean countries with regard to “politics that reinforce the social commitment to Higher Education, its quality and pertinence, and the autonomy of the institutions,” and in the same way, make an urgent and emphatic call for the members of the educational community, particularly to those who are in the position of political and strategic decision making . . . to consider the approaches and the lines of action that have been derived from the sustained debate about the priorities that Higher Education must assume, on the base of clear awareness about the possibilities and contributions that it makes to the development of the region.2 All of this was strongly associated with the demand to watch over the development of science and research. What is curious about all these discussions is that reading and writing is never put in a direct relation to scientific advancement and the production of knowledge. The project described below is an attempt to reunite reading and writing with science.

Reading and writing in higher education: a return journey to the essence of university Reading and writing have always been associated with academia. Nonetheless, despite being so integral to its existence, reading and writing have come to be taken for granted in academia as automatic, silent devices, which do not deserve much attention. What is being said now with a marked emphasis about reading and writing in higher education clearly suggests two ideas: on one hand, the effects of the inattention to reading and writing are now uncontrollable, and on the other hand, it is necessary to recognize the importance of reading and writing in higher education. In Colombia, to address this problem with will and determination we have already taken up a community-­building team approach. Almost 40 projects, completed or in progress, are seeking concrete classroom solutions from the classrooms that fit the local context of each university. These projects have been sharing their experiences and have been reporting results as part of national accountability. This initiative has recognized the role of institutions in teaching reading and writing to contribute to an academic culture in the country, and has recognized that each discipline is a discursive space with its own practices of reading and writing, not comparable to the practices that are carried out at other levels of education (Carlino, 2005). While research is new and limited, with much still in progress, a number of studies have been published. Some studies describe the students’ level of performance in comprehending and producing texts (Rincón et al., 2005). Other studies have attempted to diagnose difficulties so as to design correctives (Cisneros, 1995). A third group of studies examines students’ use

Reading and writing in Colombian universities   127 of reading and writing in new technologies and the ways new technologies enhance learning; other studies develop instructional models to advance abilities; and, finally, a few case studies examine reading and writing in some disciplines (Narváez & Cadena, 2008). It is apparent that, unlike in other countries,3 the focal point has not been analyzed profoundly: the problems with the type of frequent practices of reading and writing in university, the presence or absence of such practices in some disciplines, their quality when they are present and what they promote in their dissimilarity, and something very important—the type of readers they create. Many research projects and actions still start from erroneous assumptions such as the belief that there is a deficit in the cognitive processes of the students, when in reality, students are finding it difficult to identify the multiple literacy paths they must take in the university. There is a sort of “schizophrenia” that torments the students, who must engage different practices of reading and writing in each academic space, with no clear sense of what knowledge or practices can travel from one context to another. From these studies, it is easy to identify the importance of the culture of reading and writing that slowly and without warning has been installed in the institutions. From my point of view, two problems emerge strongly in these studies. The first coincides with Foucault’s explanation of a developing discipline’s problematization of the knowledge of prior knowledge in the domain, and of the emergence of its own specialized language of that domain, which can only be accessed with guidance from specialists. There is not yet much awareness about this situation in our institutions. The other is strongly related to what is called comprehension. We all know about the recurring complaint from educators about the problems of comprehension that students bring (“bring” refers to what students learned in the secondary schools) and about the complaints that students cannot write. The concern for comprehension has dominated thinking about reading (Argudín, 2001). “Reading comprehension exercises” and “workshops on reading comprehension” have dominated curriculum. But comprehension is only an aspect of a process, not the ultimate goal. Thus, it is necessary that the universities clarify the objectives of reading. After comprehension, a student must know what to do with the information he now understands. Reading serves many purposes: reading for research, reading for organizing information, reading for resolving a problem, reading for conceptual learning, reading for comparing theories or points of view, reading for refuting, and reading for making a comment. The sole focus on comprehension has led to a university culture where required information dominates student thinking about activities. Seldom do we hear students say “this material, which is written to compare these two approaches, is due on this day,” or “the document that we are going to read to comment on is due on this other day”; most of the time, as Professor Alvarado (2007) says, this topic is reduced to the photocopy. Generally, students associate the reading with the physical material, “the

128   B. Y. González Pinzón photocopies are for the coming week.” Universities must reconsider their situation in relation to the preoccupation with comprehension that secondary schools have shown for a long time. Over time, we will find young individuals arriving at university with good academic levels. Is the university prepared to work with high levels of “comprehension”? If the student already comprehends well, what will these spaces in the university be dedicated to? There is a deeper question that lies below the situation I have described. The development of science and the production of knowledge are the essence of the university. The university should develop the processes of thinking that allow individual students to reason, analyze, and argue, as well as to recognize the ideological forces that are mobilized in different types of discourse. To achieve this, students must engage in concrete practices that question the essence of things and the role of language in formulating knowledge, says Alvarado. However, in universities currently, reading and writing are considered isolated skills, in large part to prepare the students with skills to carry out tasks in the working and professional worlds. Of course, we know that the Latin American context does not offer major alternatives to its inhabitants in this respect, as reflected in the common saying: “work and acquire the essentials to survive, or disappear.” Yet this imperative for our students and society to reach toward the highest level of knowledge and thought has to struggle against two tendencies in the Latin American context. Some who see a great divide between work and academic life pressure the university to provide narrow vocational training. Equally troubling is that despite bright spots of excellence, the university in Latin America does not always provide models of the highest academic discourse that ought to exist in a modern university. Juan Ramón de la Fuente (2008) goes as far as to assert that “Latin America exists in the slum of the Age of Knowledge.”

The network of reading and writing in higher education (la red de lectura y escritura en educación superior, REDLEES): work of the institutional policies4 Between 2004 and 2007, in this country, many spaces for discussion were opened through academic conferences, in order to share concerns about the difficulties presented by the students in the processes of development of reading and writing: the First Conference on Reading and Writing in University Education (Primer encuentro sobre lectura y escritura en la educación universitaria), organized by the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente in the city of Cali (May, 2006); the Regional Conferences on Teaching of Reading and Writing in University (Encuentros regionales de la enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura en la universidad), that was held for three consecutive years in Antioquia, organized by the Universidad de Medellín (2004), EAFIT (2005) and the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana

Reading and writing in Colombian universities   129 (2006); the work with the UNESCO Lectures that the Escuela de Ciencias del Lenguaje de Univalle put forward and the work of the Network for the Transformation of the Educators’ Practices in Languages. National Conference on Institutional Policies for the Development of Reading and Writing in Higher Education (Encuentro Nacional sobre Políticas Institucionales para el Desarrollo de la Lectura y la Escritura en Educación Superior), held at the Universidad Sergio Arboleda on April 26–27, 2007, under the auspices of the Colombian Association of Universities (Asociación Colombiana de Universidades, ASCUN), gave rise to the structure of REDLEES (Red de Lectura y Escritura en Educación ­Superior—the Network of Reading and Writing in Higher Education)5 that currently brings together 67 IES (Instituciones de Educación Superior— Institutions of Higher Education) in the country. The April 2007 conference allowed us to make a very close inventory of what has been done in this respect so far. In the event, 190 representatives from 73 universities participated. Among the discussion topics put forward by the conference was that of Institutional Policies and Experiences of Development of Reading and Writing in Higher Education. At that time, proposals on institutional policies were being advanced at eight universities. The Conference produced a manifesto stating that the discussion on this topic should be continued with the universities that participated in the Conference as well as others in the country. Why did REDLEES make the institutional policies its theme or flagship for work? First, it is because we recognize that the enormous and well-­ intentioned efforts, which are isolated from the educators in the institutions, would not propel a culture of university reading and writing if it did not take into account the intervention and investment on the part of the university directors. And second, it is because there are a considerable number of people who are involved in a particular local situation who deserve a planned intervention on the part of those who influence their destiny in a certain way, as the experts in policies such as Kingdon’s (1995) explain. The creation of policies in each institution to work on reading and writing is urgent because reading and writing are associated with very sensitive aspects of university life such as the dropout rate, low academic ­performance, research enhancement, production of knowledge, and development of professional competitiveness. Even more, difficulties in reading and writing exclude large numbers of students from entering a public university. Given the importance of these policy issues, we have grappled with whether Colombia is in a position to create institutional policies that will respond to the need. Kingdon suggests that the success of a policy proposal depends first on the political climate, which has a bearing on the receptivity that a proposal can achieve. A single institution looking for solutions cannot create enough of a climate for change. Second, it depends on the interests organized around those policies, such as the unions, groups, associations, and/or academic groups. Third, it depends on the communities of

130   B. Y. González Pinzón experts or specialists (educators, researchers, academics, consultants, and analysts). Fourth, it depends on the continuity of ideas and their renovation. According to Kingdon, it also depends on “softening up” on the part of the directors of the institution, and in our case, of the state and private entities associated with the topic. Similarly, it depends on the capacity to cope with the restrictions and obstacles that are involved in these processes (budget, regulations, procedures, necessities, etc.). And finally, it depends on the ability to view the problem as something structural rather than temporary, which requires policies that are adopted long term. To this I would add that it is necessary to rely on previous attempts that have demonstrated an interest in reflecting upon a problem. We are committed to addressing these challenges. The discussion of policies at the April 2007 Conference raised numerous further questions:6 how should we understand an institutional policy aimed at developing reading and writing in higher education today in our country? Who should participate in its development and execution, and how? What would be the objectives that the said policy would have to aim for? Toward whom will it be oriented and to what necessities will it respond? What components would it have? How should we work on the development of reading and writing in terms of the curriculum? Questions extended from immediate policies to knowledge about underlying needs for reading and writing: what is the place for reading and writing in the professions and disciplines, and how must we arrange the practices for its development? What place does it hold in society? Are we aware of the interdisciplinary treatment required in those processes in which we must create a relation between concepts and practices of a language professor and those of a professional or an expert on the knowledge specific to each specialization? Other questions we are addressing include: what is reading in the university and what are its objectives? How should we follow up with the processes of the development of reading and writing? What do professors and students do with what they read and write? Are reading and writing mere active tools for the evaluation? How do students work on assigned homework on reading and writing? What are the formative interests of the educators? Are educators trained to follow up with the practices of reading and writing in each discipline and evaluate them? Does the specialist clarify for the students how to comprehend, associate, and incorporate the codes of the discourse in their disciplines and professions? That the questions exceed the answers is symptomatic of the recognition of just how much more we must research and how large a field we are entering.

Notes 1 Ministry of National Education. Bulletin no. 6, January–March 2006. 2 Declaration of the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Latin America

Reading and writing in Colombian universities   131 and the Caribbean held in Cartagena de Indias on June 4–6, 2008. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from www.udual.org/Anuncios/DeclaracionCRES2008.pdf. 3 To learn more about the state of research in other countries, see Carlino (2007) ¿Qué nos dicen hoy las investigaciones internacionales sobre la escritura en la universidad? Available at www.ascun.org.co. 4 The definition of institutional politics is as follows: a way to comprehend and conduct the development of the skills in reading and writing that includes two types of approaches as a minimum: (i) explicit approaches on the relations between the university institution and the society, and within them, on the role that reading and writing practices should have in the professional performance and in the graduates’ actions as individuals in our societies, (ii) general approaches on how this development should be advanced in the study plans of the institution (in other words, the appropriate types of pedagogy, the forms of support for the independent research, the profile and the training of the required educators, the recognition and the treatment of the formative differences that exist among students, how a curriculum should be organized to carry out the training on projected reading and writing,—whether or not it deals with a transversal development that goes beyond what is done in the traditional course of reading and writing, etc.). 5 REDLEES is a Colombian network of institutions of higher education that promotes dialogue on reading and writing at university. The network acts as a community of orientation and cooperation in the actions implemented by the institutions and the educators to strengthen these processes of superior development. 6 As a result of the first conference on the topic of Institutional Politics for the Development of Reading and Writing, the first document produced by the REDLEES, elaborated by Alejandro Gordillo from the Universidad Central, was circulated. The document synthesized the principle questions on the topic.

Works cited Alvarado, G. (2007). Los lugares de la Lectura y la Escritura en la Formación Universitaria: Didácticas y Pedagogías de la Enseñanza v.s. Pedagogías de la Acción. Presentation in the National Conference on Institutional Policies for Development of Reading and Writing in Higher Education, Bogotá, Colombia. Available at www.ascun.org.co. Álvarez, M. (1998). La interdisciplinariedad en la enseñanza aprendizaje de las ciencias en el nivel medio Básico. La Habana: Instituto Superior Pedagógico. Argudín, Y. et al. (1995). Aprender a pensar leyendo bien. Habilidades de lectura a nivel superior. México: Plaza y Valdés editores. Argudín, Y. et al. (2001). Desarrollo del pensamiento crítico. Libro del profesor. México: Plaza y Valdés editores. Bode, J. (2001). Helping students to improve their writing skills. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from www.jcu.edu.au/school/sphtm/documents/gctt01/article5.htm. Bogoya, D. (Ed.). (2000). Resultados de la evaluación de competencias básica en lenguaje, matemáticas y ciencias. Bogotá: District Secretary of Education. Bustamante, G. (2002). Estándares curriculares: ¿inofensivos? Revista Educación y Cultura, 63. Fecode, pp. 7–12. Carlino, P. (2005). Escribir, leer y aprender en la universidad. Una introducción a la alfabetización académica. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

132   B. Y. González Pinzón Carlino, P. (2005). Representaciones sobre la escritura y formas de enseñarla en universidades de América del Norte. In Revista de educación N. 336. Madrid. Carlino, P. (2004). Enseñas a escribir en la universidad. Cómo lo hacen en Estados Unidos y por qué. In Revista Iberoamericana de Educación. Carlino, P. (2004). Escribir y leer en la Universidad: responsabilidad compartida entre alumnos, docentes e instituciones. In Textos en contexto, 6. Carlino, P. (2004). Escribir a través del currículo. Tres modelos para hacerlo En la Universidad. In lectura y vida. Year 25. Carlino, P. (2002). Leer, escribir y aprender en la Universidad. Cómo lo hacen en Australia y por qué. In Investigaciones en Psicología. Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Psicología UBA. Year 7 No. 2. Carlino, P. (2002). Alfabetización académica: Un cambio necesario, algunas alternativas posibles. Third Conference “La universidad como investigación,” Dept. of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Cisneros, M. (2005). Lectura y escritura en la universidad. Una investigación diagnóstica. Pereira: Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira. Ferreiro, E., with José Antonio Castorina, Daniel Goldin & Rosa María Torres. (1999). Cultura escrita y educación: Conversaciones de Emilia Ferreiro. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. González, B. (2006). Experiencia de alfabetización académica en la Universidad Sergio Arboleda de Colombia. Presentation in the First National Congress “Reading, Writing and Speaking Today,” Tandil, Argentina, September 28–October 1, 2006. González, B. (2008). Dispositivos para pensar una política institucional para el desarrollo de la lectura y la escritura en la Educación superior. Conference held at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México. México D.F. February 20, 2008. González, B. (2008). La lectura y la escritura como saberes interdisciplinarios. Opening conference held by the Faculty of Education of the Universidad Minuto de Dios, March 3, 2008. Jurado, V. (2005) Los procesos de lectura y escritura. Bogotá: Editorial Magisterio, National Ministry of Education, Bulletin no. 6. January–March, 2006. Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives and public policies. New York: ­HarperCollins. Marruco, M. Enseñar a leer y escribir en el aula universitaria una experiencia en la facultad de psicología de la Universidad de Bueno Aires. Minutes from the National Conference on Institutional Policies for Development of Reading and Writing in Higher Education, Bogotá, Colombia, 2007. Available at www.ascun.org.co. Narváez, E., & Cadena S. (Eds.). (2008). Los desafíos de la lectura y la escritura en la educación superior: Caminos posibles. Cali: Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. Rincón, G. et al. (2005). Enseñar a comprender textos en la Universidad. Cali: Universidad del Valle. Van Dijk, T. (1998). Estructuras y funciones del discurso. Mexico: Siglo XXI editores. Viñao, A. (2002). La enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura: análisis socio-­histórico. Presentation at the First National Congress on Written Language, organized by the Center of Professors and Recursos Murcia II, June 3–6, 1999.

Part III

Research on primary and secondary school practice

11 Young children revising their own texts in school settings Mirta Castedo and Emilia Ferreiro Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional

Introduction Revising is a frequent and essential cultural practice. Through revision, it is possible to adjust linguistic register to the communicative situations, change expressions to suit purpose and target readers, solve problems due to transfer from speech to written language, avoid unwanted ambiguities and repetitions, alter the illocutionary force of a statement, and so on. Revision “involves detecting mismatches between intended and instantiated text, deciding what could or should be changed in the text, knowing how to make desired changes, and operating, that is, making the desired changes” (Fitzgerald, 1987, quoted by Allal & Chanquoy, 2004, p.  1). In order to make such modifications, it is necessary to reread, compare the preliminary text with already published texts, consult or ask others to read your writing, and/or turn to support texts (for example, dictionaries or grammar books). Many authors have criticized traditional school practices (Petitjean, 1998; Allal, 2004), but they also claim that when the practices of writing at the school diversify and are carried out with a specific purpose and in real communicative situations, children may be encouraged to go over their own texts and to help their classmates, also revising others’ writings. This practice generates spaces for reflection on the language and is part of the writers’ current responsibilities. Since the pioneering research of Hayes and Flower (1980) and of Bereiter and Scardamaglia (1987), a progressive consensus has been reached on the need to develop teaching sequences where the different moments of the writing process take a specific teaching time and a specific design of situations (Allal & Chanquoy, 2004; Camps, 1989, 1996, 2003; Dolz & Schneuwly, 1998; Garcia-­Debanc, 1983; Ribas, 2001; Schneuwly & Bain, 1998; Teberosky, 1992; Tolchinsky, 1993). In children, revision is not spontaneous: “the revision process seems difficult and it is rarely carried out by beginner writers. It implies a high level of developed writing and reading operations” (Negro & Chanquoy, 2005, p. 108). Is revision impossible before children develop such operations? No doubt it is a difficult task, but perhaps we must consider it from a developmental perspective. We will report here that, under certain conditions,

136   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro young schoolchildren can revise their texts and learn about written language through the revision process. Considering that revision varies according to genre, we chose a specific type of text to be produced, revised, and then edited: captions for an album of family photographs. Captions are short informative texts, related to an image. They are present in different social contexts and can be found not only in textbooks, encyclopedias, magazines, and newspapers, but also in photographs, paintings, and museum exhibitions. In general, these texts need to reach a wide audience. They inform, present, or explain characteristics of the objects or events related to the picture, illustration, or image they are referring to. The caption does not need to inform what the image is showing; it must expand, contextualize, explain, or specify. In turn, the image provides elements that words could hardly express.1 While the photograph represents a piece of reality, the caption limits the possibilities of interpretation. When an event is identified, a date is specified or a proper name is given to an individual or place, some of the numerous interpretations are no longer possible. In this sense, illustrations based on what is written and captions play opposite roles. The illustration sets the meaning of the writing, whereas the caption sets the meaning of the image.

The research2 We designed a sequence of teaching activities to observe the revision process of short texts, produced by seven- and nine-­year-old children. The final product of the sequence of activities was the collective production of a family photo album, where each photograph had its corresponding caption. The sequence consisted of 11 situations developed by the teachers during eight weeks, with four groups of students from two different public schools (two groups of second year and two groups of fourth year) in the city of La Plata, Argentina. Each child brought four family photographs for the album: a current picture of the family with the student; a current picture of the family (without the student); an old picture of the family before the student was born; a picture in which the author was a baby. The teaching sequence included the following situations: (a) agreement of the group on the purpose of the task, the audience, and the product to be obtained; (b) analysis and reading of newspaper and magazine captions; (c) individual production of captions for the four photographs (specific for each child); (d) collective revision of some captions produced for the first photograph; (e) revision of those same captions in small groups; (f) similar situations of revision for each of the remaining photographs; (g) finally, the album make up. Such a complex teaching approach was previously studied by one of us with several genres (Castedo, 1989, 1995; Castedo & Bello, 1999; Castedo & Waingort, 2003).

Young children revising their own texts   137 Throughout the collective revisions, emphasis was placed on the following restriction: the album would be passed around the different families and, therefore, the references to the people in the photographs should avoid the grammatical first person (an external reader would not know which was the reference for “my father” or for “I” if all the students used such expressions). Therefore, it is a peculiar situation in which the children must talk about themselves in the third person. Some children reformulated the teacher’s instruction using the following terms: “you have to write about yourself as if you were someone else” (“tenés que escribir de vos como si sos otro”). We chose captions for family pictures, because the caption is a short text that can be revised in depth even by very young children. These captions allow each student to write about events she/he has experienced, people whom she/he is related to, places she/he has been to, and what’s more important, about him/herself. The content to be communicated is familiar and of great proximity to the student. But even so, the selection of the linguistic means to express that content demands a great effort to decentralize, because each child would have to write “for others” about him/herself. That writing was targeted at a reader who was neither involved in the picture nor had a relationship with the photographed people. By sharing the album among the children’s families, the readers would not only be the students who participated in the writing process, but also their relatives who were unaware of the comments and conversations that took place during the process. This situation determined and justified a big part of the decisions taken when writing. We obtained 552 written productions (276 first versions and an identical number of revised versions; 262 produced by the seven-­year-olds and 290 by the nine-­year-olds). Besides, 40 observations of revision classes were carried out. To facilitate comparisons, all the examples correspond to the first photograph (i.e., a recent photograph of the child with some family members). However, the quantitative results presented in the figures include the data from the four photographs. We are only considering “deferred revision, which takes place once a relatively complete draft . . . has been written” (Allal & Chanquoy, 2004, p. 2).

Results The results will be presented, taking into account four questions: 1 Did the children refer to themselves and to the family members using the third person? (Results show a decisive influence of the revision process.) 2 Can we find certain caption frames according to age and to the photographs? (Results show a typology that was not influenced by the revision process.)

138   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro 3 What remarks were most frequently made by children to their classmates during the revision process in small groups? 4 What is the impact of revising upon punctuation marks? 1  The use of the first or third person During a face-­to-face discursive interaction, the reference to “I” does not bring about problems, because “I” is the one who speaks. In written texts, the signature provides a reference to that “I,” but in the context of these captions the decision to ask the children to write in the third person is justified by the fact that the readers, who cannot identify the individuals in the photographs, have to be taken into account. The enunciator must stand back from the character he is; in a way, he must split into two. For these reasons, teachers first worked with the children to explicitly define the position that the enunciator would take according to the communication circumstance. In spite of this, many captions—especially the first versions of the seven-­year-olds—were written using the first person, as shown in Figure 11.1. To categorize the texts according to the grammatical person used, we considered the personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, and verbal inflections as well as the use of the author’s proper name. In Spanish the use of personal pronouns is not obligatory, as the verb includes specific markers for each of the grammatical persons. It is evident that both the students’ age and the practice of text revision are strongly associated with the possibility of solving the problem presented. Figure 11.1 shows that almost all the initial versions of the seven-­ 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

88

85

53

Initial Revised

52 44

24

23 5

First person

Oscillations

7 Third person

7-year-old (N � 262)

6 First person

4

9

Oscillations

Third person

9-year-old (N � 290)

Figure 11.1 Use of the first or third grammatical person in initial and revised versions. Note Values correspond to percentages calculated on the total of initial and revised versions for each age group and considering the four photographs (552 texts).

Young children revising their own texts   139 year-old children are in the first person (88 percent). At age nine, less than half of the children (44 percent) produced versions in the first person at the beginning. Even if the initial percentage at age nine is reduced by half in comparison with the other age group, it is still sufficiently high to indicate that the task is not easy for the nine-­year-olds either. The revision process favors the type of reflection necessary to comply with the task requirements. In both age groups, the number of texts in the third person increases as they are revised: at the age of seven, half of the texts (53 percent) are written in the third person; at age nine, this percentage rises considerably (85 percent). In other words, the seven-­year-old ­children manage, through revision, to reach the percentage that the nine-­ year-olds achieve before the revision. Let us see some examples. In all the cases, we will use Vi and Vr to indicate initial version and revised version respectively:3 Example of a text in the third person: El papá de Matias es el que tiene la remera verde que se llama Oscar, al lado del papá está Matias, la que está al lado de Matias es la mamá, que se llama Marta, están en Brasil. [Matias’ dad is the one wearing a green t-­shirt who is called Oscar, next to the dad is Matias, the one who is next to Matias is the mom, who is called Marta, (they) are in Brazil.] (Matías, seven, Vr) Example of a text in first person: Mi familia ellos son mi papá mi mamá y mis dos hermanos [My family they are my dad my mom and my two brothers] (Nicolás, seven, Vi) Some texts present oscillations between the first and third person. The same child, Nicolás, succeeds in transforming his initial version into the third person. However, during the same revision process he decided to add information (name of the place and activities people are performing). The text added to the caption is in the first person plural (same verbal desinence in the three verbs). La familia ellos son el papá la mamá y los dos hermanos de Nico. Estamos en el zoológico de Buenos Aires. Vimos a los lobos marinos, a los patos y jugamos en unos juegos. [The family they are the dad and the mom and the two brothers of Nico. We are at Buenos Aires zoo. We saw the sea dogs, the ducks and we played on the swings.] (Nicolás, seven, Vr)

140   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro Texts with oscillations grow through revision in seven-­year-old children, showing how difficult is for them to keep the task’s requirement.4 2  The captions frames used by children Starting with the photographed scene, all students had to face the problem of solving which elements to choose and how to set them in order of priority. Children made their own selection and arranged the information, creating descriptions of the photographed scene following some basic standards: who are the people in the picture, what type of gathering event is it, where are they and, if possible, some time indication. All these details represent the relevant information. The way of organizing this information in a coherent text constitutes the main problem. The caption frames are listed below (2.1 and 2.2). 2.1  Integrated relevant information These texts inform about the most important features of the photographed scene in a single syntactic structure. In the most elaborate cases, they provide information about what has happened, when, and where. In comparative terms, these are the briefest texts of the corpus. The most elaborate texts compress a lot of information in a few words; the least elaborate provide limited information. Examples of both extremes are the following: Gerardo y su familia están en Argentina festejando el cumple de Gerardo el día 19 de marzo de 1998. [Gerardo and his family are in Argentina celebrating Gerardo’s birthday on March 19, 1998.] (Gerardo, nine, Vi) Estoy en la puerta de mi abuela [I am at my grandmother’s door] (Manuel, seven, Vi) 2.2  Lists of people Basically, these are lists of constructions that name the people in the photograph. They are the most frequent type of list used in our corpus. The lists show a tendency to repetitions of identical or similar constructions that are juxtaposed, linked by conjunctions, or separated by means of punctuation. We distinguish two types of lists of people: simple and complex. In the simple lists, people who were photographed are identified with their name and relationship. An example of minimum list, in the first person:

Young children revising their own texts   141 Estoy con mi hermana y mi papá y mi mamá [I’m with my sister and my dad and my mom] (Mario, seven, Vi) In many cases, these lists have either initial anchorages or closures, typical constructions of the texts that describe the event, place, and time, or they present collective nouns that help to identify the named individuals. When these constructions appear at the beginning of the list, they name the scene, acting as a title does, i.e., guiding the reader’s interpretation. (An example is Nicolás, already cited, whose Vi starts with “My family,” transformed into “The family” in his Vr.) Complex lists of people go beyond the identification of name and/or relationship. The variations attested in our corpus are: biographical lists, lists of location, and combined lists. 2. 2 . 1   B iographical L ists

These are texts that present biographical information of the identified people. Each of the individuals can be associated with his/her name, occupation, place of residence, date or place of birth, or with his/her age. Since they are lists of people, these biographical lists can also present initial anchorages or closures. In some biographical lists, a list of people is displayed, including some special features about them. Then this same list is reopened and some other features are included, until there is no information left. In others, first there is a description of an individual, giving all possible personal information and then another individual is described, as in Lucia’s example: Mi abuela se llama Ernestina no trabaja vive en Luján y nació en La Plata. Yo me llamo Lucía estoy en la Anexa vivo en City Bell y nací en Neuquén. Mi papá se llama Eduardo se está por recibir de profesor de computadora vive en City Bell y nació en La Plata. Mi abuelo se llama Valentín hace tapices vive en Morón y nació. Mi otra abuela se llama Marta es veterinaria vive en Morón y nació. [My grandmother is called Ernestina she doesn’t work she lives in Luján and was born in La Plata. I am called Lucía I’m in Anexa school I live in City Bell and I was born in Neuquén. My dad is called Eduardo he will soon graduate as a computer teacher he lives in City Bell and was born in La Plata. My grandfather is called Valentín he makes tapestry he lives in Morón and was born. My other grandmother is called Marta she is a veterinarian she lives in Morón and was born.] (Lucía, seven, Vi)

142   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro When Lucía does not know the place of birth of someone in her family, she just writes “was born” with a change of line after that verb, as if Lucía was aware that some information is missing and left the space to complete it at the appropriate time. 2. 2 . 2   L ists of location

These are texts organized in such a way that the reader can identify who is who in the picture; therefore, the text becomes very dependent on the image. They can also present initial anchorages or closures. Ana’s text is an example of this last case, with a closure that identifies the event: “They are at Ana’s baptism.” La que está a la derecha es Beatriz. El que tiene camisa a cuadritos es Franco. La que tiene vestido a cuadritos es Inés. El que está con corbata es el padrino de Ana. El que tiene pantalón celeste. Tania la prima de Ana está al medio de Inés, la de rulitos. La bebé es Ana. El que tiene camisa blanca es el hermano de Ana. La mamá de Ana tiene a upa a Ana. Están en el bautismo de Ana. [The one on the right is Beatriz. The one with a checked shirt is Franco. The one with a checked dress is Inés. The one with tie is Ana’s godfather. The one who is wearing light blue trousers. Tania, Ana’s cousin, is next to Inés, the one with curly hair. The baby is Ana. The one with a white shirt is Ana’s brother. Ana’s mom is holding Ana in her arms. They are at Ana’s baptism.] (Ana, seven, Vr) 2. 2 . 3   Combined lists

These texts constitute combinations of the types of lists described so far. The next example is Micaela’s caption. She opens a biographical list, making reference to the birth and relationship with her brother. Then, she mentions the place where the event was photographed (“they are at their grandmother’s”). She reopens a location list and, finally, she starts again with a biographical list, focused on the age of three of the people. Nicolás nació el 28 de junio Nicolás es el hermano de Micaela están en lo de su abuela Nicolás es el que tiene una remera rayada con rayas azules y amarillas

Young children revising their own texts   143 el papá tiene gorra la mamá es la que tiene a upa a Micaela y ella está a upa de su madre el hermano tiene 8 años la mamá 36 y el papá 36 [Nicolás was born on June 28 Nicolás is Micaela’s brother they are at their grandmother’s Nicolás is the one with a blue and yellow striped t-­shirt the dad is wearing a cap the mom is the one holding Micaela in her arms and she is in her mother’s arms the brother is 8 the mom 36 and the dad 36] (Micaela, seven, Vr) 2.3  Distribution of caption frames between Vi and Vr Figure 11.2 shows that the revision process has no effect on the caption frames. Once a frame has been chosen, it remains stable, even if information is added or modified. The analysis of each case shows that only in a few of them does the revision affect the initial frame. Figure 11.2 shows that seven-­year-old children’s preferences are distributed among the two main frames: integrated information and lists, while the nine-­year-olds show a preference for the first frame. Only 4 percent of the texts produced by the younger children cannot be classified into any of these two main frames. The category “others” was no longer necessary with the older children.

80 70

66

60 50

49

43

47

Initial Revised

70

53

40

34

30

30

20 10 0

4 4 Integrated information

Lists

Others

7-year-old (N � 262)

0 0 Integrated information

Lists

Others

9-year-old (N � 290)

Figure 11.2 Distribution of caption’s frames in initial and revised versions. Note Values correspond to percentages calculated on the total of initial and revised versions for each age group and considering the four photographs (552 texts).

144   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro 3  Children’s interventions during the revision process in small groups The analysis of children’s interactions in small groups shows that children pay attention to the systematic use of the third person, which was consistent with the teacher’s interventions. They also pay attention to punctuation marks. However, the children also paid attention to other aspects that were not the focus of the teacher’s interventions, avoiding, for example, lexical repetitions. In the following example we will explore these three aspects in detail. Natalia is seven. In her first version, she writes in the first person. During revision she manages to change everything into the third person, without modifying substantially the caption frame. The first version is a list of people with initial anchorage on the event. The revised caption is also a list of people, but with two anchorages, for opening and closure. Aquí estoy en mi cumpleaños con mi mamá Amelia y mi papá Gustavo y mi hermana Graciela (Vi) [Here I am on my birthday with my mom Amelia and my dad Gustavo and my sister Graciela] (Vi) Aquí está Natalia en su cumpleaños de 7 años con la mamá Amelia, papá Gustavo y Graciela La familia de Natalia. (Vr) [Here is Natalia on her seventh birthday with the mom Amelia, dad Gustavo and Graciela Natalia’s family.] (Vr) How did she go from one version to the other? Let’s analyze some snatches of the interactions held in the group where Natalia and her classmates, Ignacio and Julieta, participate. Natalia rereads her text and comments: Natalia:  Well,

I think it is wrong to write “my, my” it is wrong “my, my.” Miss, can I write “here”? Teacher:  Yes. It is possible, but it depends. We have to check how it sounds. Natalia:  I can say . . . “Here on my birthday” Ignacio:  No! No, because it is not on “my birthday,” that is not my birthday. Natalia:  “Here is Natalia on her/celebrating her birthday”

Young children revising their own texts   145 The first observation of Natalia refers to the repetition of the three possessive adjectives “my.” This observation remains unsolved, because Natalia herself immediately focuses her attention on the first word of the text and turns to the teacher making an explicit question about the deictic “here.” Ignacio strongly objects to the use of the first person possessive adjective, arguing that it refers to the person who is making the statement (“this is not my birthday,” that is to say it is not Ignacio’s birthday). Natalia quickly understands the objection and restates. Natalia starts writing: Teacher:  Are

you going to write everything again, Natalia? Aren’t you going to erase and correct it there? Natalia:  No, I have not erased it yet. [She refers to her Vi, which she leaves without modifications.] [While Natalia writes, Ignacio and Julieta talk about TV programs.] Teacher:  It sounds like a lot of fun, but Natalia is working alone . . . Ignacio:  She didn’t ask for help Natalia:  You should know I need help Julieta:  [Continues singing a TV song] Natalia:  OK, I’ll work on my own and that’s it! [She writes and then reads aloud “Aquí está Natalia en su cumpleaños de 7 años”] Julieta:  Done, have you finished? Julieta, who is not willing to get involved in the writing of her classmate, considers the task finished. Indeed, the caption could end that way, with a closure that identifies the event. However, Ignacio takes part and, probably based on the previous caption (Vi that remains visible), suggests adding the names of the people in the picture. Ignacio:  Your

dad is called Gustavo, and your mom? [Pause] And my sister Graciela, and I Natalia. [Pause] I don’t know what to write to introduce my mom “who is called Amelia,” my sister, “who is called Graciela” [with a special tone stating the written text and emphasizing “who is called”] Ignacio:  That is a rhyme . . . what you said. Julieta:  It doesn’t matter, don’t put it, some didn’t include it [referring to some of her classmates]. Teacher:  Natalia said she didn’t know how to introduce her dad who is called like this, her mom who is called like that, how can she do it? Julieta:  Then, she can put “I am with my dad who is called like this, I am there, my mom is there and my sister is there” Natalia:  Can I write “Natalia is with her dad, with her mom, with her dad who is called Gustavo, with her mom who is called Amelia, with her sister who is called Graciela”? Ignacio:  I see! She is thinking what to write. [Pause] Natalia:  Amelia.

146   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro Once again, Natalia faces the problem of repetitions. She doesn’t want to repeat three times the construction “who is called.” Julieta keeps affirming that the caption is ready and that it is not necessary to add anything else, but the teacher goes back to Natalia’s concern and tries to get the group involved. So Julieta makes the first complete suggestion, but in the first person. Natalia keeps suggesting a text orally, including the names but making the same repetitions she was trying to avoid. She starts writing and completes the caption. Natalia:  Done! Teacher:  Let’s see.

[She reads aloud] “Aquí está Natalia en su cumpleaños de 7 años con la mamá Amelia, papá Gustavo y Graciela La familia de Natalia” [Pause] Ignacio:  “The mom Amelia/the dad Gustavo” and comma, “Gustavo, comma, comma” Natalia:  Where? Ignacio:  “Gustavo” Natalia:  Ugh, I don’t understand anything! Julieta:  Have you finished? Ignacio:  Did you write “mamá” with accent? “Mamá” goes with an accent.5 Natalia:  Oh, you are right! Julieta:  I think you have finished. Natalia:  I have to write a full stop at the end. When writing the text, Natalia found a solution in order to avoid the repetitions that were so annoying. This solution wasn’t previously verbalized. Ignacio helps with observations regarding punctuation and graphic stresses, while Julieta is focused only on trying to end the revision process as soon as possible. In this brief snatch, we can observe how these three recurrent topics appear in the interaction among a small group: using the third person (initial observation of Ignacio, accepted by Natalia, and ignored by Julieta); avoiding repetitions (initial concern of Natalia, who solves the problem with no help from her classmates); taking care of punctuation (introduced by Ignacio, and accepted by Natalia, who decides to add a final full stop without discussing it). 4  About punctuation marks During the revision process, children pay attention to punctuation marks. Despite the briefness of the text, the comma used in lists is mostly included in the texts based on that frame, and when a lot of information is introduced, the concern about the necessity of indicating limits between such information arises. We know that in narrative texts, punctuation tends to progress from the

Young children revising their own texts   147 external limits of the text inwards (Ferreiro, 1991, 1996; Ferreiro & Pontecorvo, 1999; Vieira-­Rocha, 1995). That is the reason why we have classified the texts into the three categories shown in Figure 11.3. Figure 11.3 shows that both age and the practice of revision are strongly related to the use of punctuation marks. The texts with no punctuation marks are more frequent in seven-­year-old children (in the Vi and Vr) than in nine-­year-olds, while texts with internal punctuation are more frequent in nine-­year-olds (both Vi and Vr). Besides, texts with no punctuation decrease between the Vi and the Vr, both at seven and at nine, i.e., revision increases the use of punctuation in both age groups, regardless of the caption’s frame. Nevertheless, it is important to consider that a caption organized as a list usually requires internal punctuation, while a brief caption, organized as integrated relevant information, can be solved without internal punctuation. The comma is the punctuation mark that shows the highest occurrences; based on a frequency order, the full stops come next. This is similar to what has been reported as use of punctuation in narratives (Ferreiro, 1996). However, it is interesting to observe that in captions we can find punctuation marks not very frequently used in a narrative: parenthesis and quotation marks, particularly in the nine-­year-olds’ texts. Parentheses were used to specify places of the event, position of a character within the picture, ages, relationships, and times. For example: Acá estoy en Puerto Madero (Buenos Aires) Con mi mamá Susana, mi hermana Noemí y yo. [Here I’m in Puerto Madero (Buenos Aires) With my mom Susana, my sister Noemí and me.] (Marcela, nine, Vi) 80 70

76 67

60

Initial Revised

56

53

50 40

35

30

21

20

12 12

10 0

No punctuation

Only final full stop

23

21 14

10 Internal No punctuation punctuation

7-year-old (N � 262)

Only final full stop

Internal punctuation

9-year-old (N � 290)

Figure 11.3 Use of punctuation marks in the texts. Note Values correspond to percentages calculated on the total of initial and revised versions for each age group and considering the four photographs (552 texts).

148   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro Acá está la madrina de Micaela que está al lado de la señora (madre de Micaela) . . . [Here is Micaela’s godmother next to the lady (Micaela’s mom) . . .6 (Micaela, nine, Vr) Quotation marks were used with names of places or people, as in these examples: Acá están en el “Restaurante Don Quijote.” Está mi papá, mi mamá y mi abuelo. Están leyendo la carta [Here they are at “Don Quijote Restaurant.” My dad, my mom and my grandfather. They are reading the menú] (Julieta, nine, Vi) Aquí esta la familia de Matías en la comunión de su hija menor: “Jimena.” [Here is Matías’ family in the holy communion of their younger daughter: “Jimena.”] (Matias, nine, Vr)

Concluding remarks The data we analyzed here shows that, under specific teaching conditions, young children are able to adopt a “revising position” toward their own texts as well as their classmates’. We believe that it is important to promote the need to revise every draft produced from the beginning of elementary school. This is not an imposition but the result of two preconditions. First, the strong belief that written language in school settings should be modeled by social practices. When the teacher is the only person in the classroom with the power to revise (and to make normative corrections), children are prevented from becoming autonomous writers. In addition, they are kept away from the metalinguistic activity that consists of “rephrasing” in order to adjust the intended meaning to specific requirements of the communicative situation. Second, to revise a draft is to promote individual responsibility toward a wide audience, as these written productions are usually embodied in long-­term projects whose final product usually (not always) aims at people outside the school. The type of text chosen for this research is a peculiar descriptive one. But the main results are not limited by the text’s type: 1 Children as young as seven can be engaged in revision tasks. We must look at revision in developmental terms.

Young children revising their own texts   149 2 The teaching requirements—in this case, writing about themselves in the third person—are kept alive during the revision process in small groups, even if not all the children are able to succeed in the task. 3 Children introduce their own requirements (i.e., to avoid repetitions) that were not the focus of the teacher’s interventions. 4 Punctuation marks are typically introduced during revision, a fact that is along the lines of the history of punctuation in the Western tradition (Parkes, 1992). 5 The initial frame of the text resists children’s revision, at least in cases where teacher’s interventions do not promote a specific model to be followed. 6 The departure point of the two contrasting age groups is clearly different (see Figures 11.1 to 11.3), showing that a developmental factor interacts with the revision process and the teacher’s interventions.

Notes 1 The photographs can be used as “triggers” for various types of texts. For a recent revision, see Van Horn (2008) who, in fact, is more concerned about “creative writing” and does not deal with captions. 2 The data reported belongs to Mirta Castedo’s doctoral thesis, carried out in the DIE-­CINVESTAV, Mexico, under the tutoring of Emilia Ferreiro. 3 The names of the family members and places were modified to preserve children’s identity. The children’s texts are presented with conventional spelling to facilitate translation. However, we kept the original punctuation marks and syntactic inflections. We did not add words, even in cases of evident omissions. The original graphical line was preserved only in cases where it seemed to be used as a tool to organize information. We refer to Ferreiro (2008) for a discussion about transcription norms. 4 Béguelin (2000, p. 269) reports similar changes of grammatical person in texts of French teenagers. So, it is an important problem that deserves attention. 5 Mamá is the Spanish word for Mom and is spelled with a graphic accent on the second a. 6 It follows a list of people.

References Allal, L. (2004). Integrated writing instruction and the development of revision skills. In L. Allal, L. Chanquoy, & P. Largy (Eds.), Studies in writing: Vol. 13, Revision. Cognitive and instructional processes (pp. 139–155). Boston, MA and Dordrecht: Kluwer. Allal, L., & Chanquoy, L. (2004). Revision revisited [Introduction]. In L. Allal, L. Chanquoy, & P. Largy (Eds.), Studies in writing: Vol. 13, Revision. Cognitive and instructional processes (pp. 1–7). Boston, MA and Dordrecht: Kluwer. Béguelin, M.-J. (2000). De la phrase aux énoncés: Grammaire scolaire et descriptions linguistiques. Brussels: De Boeck Duculot. Bereiter, C., & Scardamaglia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Camps, A. (1989). Modelos del proceso de redacción: Algunas implicancias para la enseñanza. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 49, 3–19.

150   M. Castedo and E. Ferreiro Camps, A. (1996). Proyectos de lengua entre la teoría y la práctica. Cultura y Educación, 2, 43–57. Camps, A. (2003). Miradas diversas a la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de la composición escrita. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. Lectura y Vida, 24(4), 14–23. Castedo, M. (1989). Construcción de un texto dramático. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. Lectura y Vida, 10(1), 14–23. Castedo, M. (1995).Construcción de lectores y escritores. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. Lectura y Vida, 16(3), 5–24. Castedo, M., & Bello, A. (1999). Escribir cosas que corresponden a la verdad o se asemejan a la verdad. Cuadernos de Investigación Educativa, 1(4), 7–31. Castedo, M., & Waingort, C. (2003). Escribir, revisar y reescribir cuentos repetitivos. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. Lectura y Vida, 24(1), 31–35. Dolz, J., & Schneuwly, B. (1998). Pour un enseignement de l’oral. Paris: ESF. Ferreiro, E. (1991). L’uso della punteggiatura nella scrittura di storie di bambini di seconda e terza elementare. In M. Orsolini & C. Pontecorvo (Eds.), La costruzione del testo scritto nei bambini (pp. 233–257). Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice. Ferreiro, E. (1996). Los límites del discurso: puntuación y organización textual. In E. Ferreiro, C. Pontecorvo, N. Ribeiro-­Moreira, & I. García-Hidalgo (Eds.), Caperucita Roja aprende a escribir. Estudios psicolingüísticos comparativos en tres lenguas (pp. 129–161). Barcelona: Gedisa. Ferreiro, E. (2008). Criterios para la transcripción de los textos [Anexo]. In E. Ferreiro & A. Siro (Eds.), Narrar por escrito desde un personaje (pp. 233–241). Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Ferreiro, E., & Pontecorvo, C. (1999). Managing the written text: The beginning of punctuation in children’s writing. Learning and Instruction, 9, 543–564. Garcia-­Debanc, C. (1986). Intérêts des modèles du processus rédactionnel pour une pédagogie de l’écriture. Pratiques, 49, 23–49. Hayes, J., & Flower, L. (1980). Identifying the organization of writing processes. In C. M. Levy & R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing: An interdisciplinary approach (pp. 3–30). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Negro, I., & Chanquoy, L. (2005). The effect of psycholinguistic research on the teaching of writing. Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 5(2), 105–111. Parkes, M. B. (1992). Pause and effect. An introduction to the history of punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Petitjean, A. (1998). Enseignement/apprentissage de l’ecriture et transposition didactique. Pratiques, 97–98, 105–132. Ribas, T. (2001). La regulación del proceso de composición escrita en grupo: Análisis de la utilización de pautas de revisión. In A. Camps (Ed.), El aula como espacio de investigación y reflexión (pp. 51–68). Barcelona: Grao. Schneuwly, B., & Bain, D. (1998). Mecanismos de regulación de las actividades textuales. Estrategias de intervención en las secuencias didácticas. Textos. Didáctica de la lengua y la literatura, 16, 25–48. Teberosky, A. (1992). Aprendiendo a escribir. Barcelona: ICE-­Universidad de Barcelona. Tolchinsky, L. (1993). Aprendizaje del lenguaje escrito. Barcelona: Anthropos. Van Horn, L. (2008) Reading photographs to write with meaning and purpose. Grades 4–12. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Vieira-­Rocha, I. (1995). Adquisición de la puntuación: usos y saberes de los niños en la escritura de narraciones. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. Lectura y Vida, 16(4), 41–46.

12 Written representations of nominal morphology by Chinese and Moroccan children learning a Romance language Liliana Tolchinsky and Naymé Salas University of Barcelona, Spain

Second-­language learners in a literate community are exposed to the spoken and written varieties of the language(s) of the environment and they must necessarily cope with the two modalities simultaneously. Studies on first language (L1) acquisition and on the acquisition of first-­learned writing systems (WS1s) have shown that children are attentive to domain-­specific information relevant to language (Karmiloff Smith, 1992), they are sensitive to the formal and functional features of the WS1, and they build different assumptions as to the way in which the WS1 represents the L1 (Ferreiro, 2002; Tolchinsky, 2003). The way in which young second-­language (L2) learners make sense/use of the spoken and written modalities of the L2 have been far less explored. Moreover, and but for a few exceptions (e.g., Durgunoglu, Mir, & Ariño-Marti, 2002), research on learning processes in L2/ WS2 has been mostly conducted on adult EFL learners. The present study focuses on young (5–8 years old) L2 learners’ sensitivity to Catalan morphology; that is, to the internal structure of words in Catalan. Specifically, we assess L2 learners’ sensitivity to number inflection—the way in which the alternation singular/plural is expressed in the language they are learning. We were particularly interested in studying this process within constructions—Nominal Groups (NGs)—formed with a noun and an indefinite article. In English, for example, the difference between a car (indefinite, singular NG) and cars (indefinite, plural NG) is expressed by the addition of -s after the noun, and the deletion of the indefinite article a. In Catalan this contrast is expressed by a change both in the noun and in the indefinite article; thus, un cotxe “a car” (indefinite, singular NG) turns into uns cotxes “a-­pl cars” (indefinite, plural NG). It is clear, then, that English and Catalan mark number inflection (singular vs. plural NGs) in different ways. Moreover, we also assess L2 learners’ sensitivity to locative-­derivatives formation. This is another kind of morphological process, which affects the way words are formed out of other words in a language. Specifically, we were interested in the formation of nouns that refer to the place where something can be bought—locative derivatives—out of nouns that refer to a single object—base nouns. In English, for example, we form the locative-­

152   L. Tolchinsky and N. Salas derivative noun shoe store out of the base noun shoe; that is, we add the word store to signal the place where shoes can be bought. In Catalan the same contrast is expressed by adding suffix -eria to the base noun; thus, the base noun sabata “shoe” turns into the locative derivative sabateria “shoe-­store.” Catalan and English, therefore, have different ways of forming locative derivatives. Both processes are explored in the spoken and written representations produced by Moroccan and Chinese children who have recently settled in Catalonia. Central to our research interests was the typological distance between the languages involved in the study, as well as the inclusion of different writing systems, since we aimed at exploring possible L1 and WS1 influences in the process of acquiring and becoming literate in Catalan as an L2. The nature of the study requires taking into account both Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories and children’s developing assumptions on the relationship between writing systems and oral language. Explanations of the role of the L1 in SLA range from those arguing that it has no substantial effects on the initial phases of an L2 learning process (e.g., Perdue, 1993), to those claiming that the mistakes and difficulties found in learners’ interlanguage will differ as a function of their L1 (Liceras, 1997; Tsimpli & Roussou, 1991; Smith & Tsimpli, 1995). Additionally, it has been suggested that experience with a richly inflected language enhances learners’ sensitivity to L2 morphology (Dressler, 2007). On the other hand, children’s early assumptions on the links between spoken and written language as forged in a diglossic context may affect the learning process of a WS2 that represents the L2. In the following we describe some of the features of the languages involved in the study—Chinese, Moroccan Arabic, and Catalan. The descriptions are restricted to those features directly related to the study: number inflection and definiteness, and locative derivation. Number inflection and locative derivation in Chinese, Moroccan Arabic, and Catalan Participants’ L1s strongly differ in their degree of morphological richness— the most important typological property of a language (Dressler, 2004). The level of morphological richness refers to the number of functions that are expressed through morphological means. For example, languages that mark the contrast singular/plural through word-­internal elements (affixes) are morphologically richer than those that express such a contrast through other means. The Chinese participants were speakers of Qing Tian Hua which, as any other Chinese language, has a very poor morphology—almost every word consists of a single morpheme. Number distinctions are expressed through different particles—such as cardinals, quantifiers, and a group of classifiers—while definiteness is mainly discursively established.

Written representations of nominal morphology   153 The Moroccan participants were speakers of Darija which, like Catalan, has a much richer morphology. Number changes are expressed solely in the noun, using inflectional affixes that are added to the singular form of the noun. Determiners are not inflected for number, so there is no number agreement in the nominal system. Indefiniteness, on the other hand, is achieved through the use of an indefinite article. Catalan, the target language, is a Romance language that reflects number changes through inflectional morphology. In Catalan, number assumes singular and plural values, and number changes are marked by means of suffix /-s/ and its allophonic variants, affecting both the noun and the determiner; number agreement is thus compulsory. Indefiniteness is achieved through the use of the indefinite determiner un (“a”), which inflects for number and gender. As regards locative-­derivatives formation, in Qing Tian Hua they are N+N compounds, whereas in Darija they are currently formed through paraphrases of the base form (e.g., muta’a d’sabato: “place for shoe”). Although there remains some locative Ns inherited from Classical Arabic— which followed typical Semitic processes of derivatives formation, they are no longer productive in Darija. As mentioned earlier, in Catalan locative nouns are obtained by adding suffix /-ə′riə/ to the base form of the noun. Chinese and Moroccan children’s earlier experience with spoken and written language differs to a large extent from the one they undergo learning Catalan. In their home countries, oral language is not written and, conversely, written language is not normally spoken. Becoming literate in China or in Morocco implies, therefore, gaining command of a different language: Mandarin in China; Standard Modern Arabic (SMA) in Morocco. In Catalonia there is not such diglossia: becoming literate means having access to the written modality of the spoken language. We aim at determining the extent to which subjects’ L1 influences their sensitivity to number marking—within indefinite-­article NGs—and to locative-­derivatives formation in Catalan. Moreover, we intend to establish children’s degree of awareness of the fact that in the target language changes in speech—such as a change from the singular to the plural or a change from a base N to its corresponding locative—should be reflected in writing. Provided that our younger participants—five to six years old—had not had any previous literacy instruction in their home countries, developmental factors are also contemplated. Assuming that L1 characteristics largely shape the process of acquiring an L2, we would expect our Moroccan participants to outperform Chinese children in their accuracy to mark number changes, since Darija and Catalan are both highly inflected languages. Moreover, in spite of the lack of information on the acquisition of L2 derivational morphology, we predict that both language groups will preferably reflect changes from a base N to a locative (and vice versa) through means other than the addition of a suffix. In addition, such means might differ as a function of subjects’ L1. Finally, we anticipate that both Chinese and Moroccan children

154   L. Tolchinsky and N. Salas will frequently fail to show in their written productions changes made to speech utterances.

Method Participants Eighty-­four children participate in the study: 28 Chinese children, mostly from Zhejiang—a province south to Shanghai, speakers of Qing Tian Hua; 26 Moroccan children mostly from North Morocco, speakers of Darija— i.e., Moroccan Arabic; and 30 controls—native speakers of Catalan. All three language groups were divided into two age groups: 5–6-year-­olds and 7–8-year-­olds. The final number of children within each subgroup and mean ages are shown in Table 12.1. Control subjects have been raised in Barcelona or neighboring suburban areas, which are bilingual (Spanish/Catalan). While all controls were born in Catalonia, none of the children in the experimental groups were. Newcomers have been attending Catalan public schools in the above-­mentioned areas for 18 months, approximately. Tasks and materials There were four semi-­structured tasks: two production tasks that required the child to produce spoken utterances and written representations and two comprehension tasks. The first two tasks relate to inflectional morphology, the two other to derivational morphology. The methodology of each of these tasks is described below with examples and some scoring criteria. Number-­inflection task Children were presented with an initial picture with one object (singular condition) or many identical objects (plural condition), with a caption below (e.g., “a car”). They were required to say what was in the picture, without any indication on the part of the interviewer. Afterwards, regardless of the kind of description produced by the child, the interviewer said to him/her what was written on the caption (e.g., un cotxe: “a car”). Children were then presented with a target picture with

Table 12.1  Participants’ distribution and mean ages

Chinese Moroccan Catalan

5–6 years old

7–8 years old

Total N

n = 10 (5;6) n = 12 (5;3) n = 13 (5;3)

n = 18 (7;7) n = 14 (7;6) n = 17 (7;4)

28 26 30

Written representations of nominal morphology   155 the same object, but differing in number (plurality of objects, if the initial picture had been a singular presentation, or one object, if the initial picture had been a plural presentation). The target picture had an empty label below the depicted object. Children were then asked to name the target picture and, afterwards, to write a caption for it on the empty label. The initial picture with the written caption remained all the time in front of the child, so that he/she could use it at his/her convenience. The pictures shown to the children were clear photographic images that were chosen after making sure that they were easily identifiable. A total of eight nominal groups—four for each condition—were used: un cotxe (“a car”), una casa (“a house”), un quadre (“a picture”), una poma (“an apple”), un llibre (“a book”), una taula (“a table”), un arbre (“a tree”), una porta (“a door”), and their plural counterparts. They were concrete, countable nouns with a rather simple disyllabic structure—consonant clusters of a maximum of two elements—stressed in the penultimate syllable (the commonest stress pattern for Catalan), and they correspond to levels 1–2 of difficulty in basic Catalan vocabularies (e.g., Rafel i Fontanals, 1998). Derivation task This task had an identical structure to the inflection task: children were presented with an initial picture with an object, such as sabata (“shoe”) (base-­noun condition) or the store where the object can be bought, i.e., sabateria (“shoe-­locative”; “shoe-­store”) (derivative condition) with a written caption below. Again, a total of eight words—four per condition— were used: llibre (“book”), pastís (“cake”), sabata (“shoe”), gelat (“ice cream”), fusta (“wood”), paper (“paper”), barret (“hat”), fruita (“fruit”). The locative derivatives of all these Ns are formed adding suffix /-ә′ria/. Just as with the number-­inflection Ns, they all are concrete, disyllabic (only one trisyllabic N), with simple syllabic structure, and correspond to the lowest levels of difficulty in basic Catalan vocabularies (e.g., Rafel i Fontanals, 1998). Comprehension tasks After each one of the production tasks—i.e., inflection and derivation—a comprehension task was conducted. Children were presented with all the pictures used in the corresponding production task—i.e., all singular and plural presentations of the objects, in the inflection task; all base-­noun and locative-­derivative presentations, in the derivational task. The interviewer asked the child to identify the particular picture that corresponded to his/ her description (e.g., Aquí hi ha moltes fotos. Jo et diré el nom d’una cosa i tu me la dònes. “Here there are many pictures. I’ll say the name of one of them and you must hand it to me”). To prevent order effect, there were two orders of presentation of items within each task. For the number-­inflection task, NGs that were initially

156   L. Tolchinsky and N. Salas presented in the singular in order A appeared initially presented in plural form in order B. Similarly, for the derivational task, Ns that were initially presented in a base form in order A appeared initially presented in derivative form in order B. Analysis For each task we first counted the number of target-­like responses and, thereafter, we performed a qualitative analysis of deviant responses— except for the comprehension tasks in which only correct identification were considered. Target-­like utterances/written productions in the number-­ inflection task were those that attended to number inflection, indefiniteness, and agreement, maintaining the indefinite article—i.e., un cotxe (“a car”) for a picture displaying a singular object or uns cotxes (“a-­pl cars”), for a picture displaying a plurality of objects. For the derivation task only utterances/written productions of the base noun, plus suffix /–ә′ria/ for locative derivation—or without the suffix for the base-­form condition—were counted as target-­like responses (e.g., llibreria—“book store”—for the picture displaying a book store and, conversely, llibre—“book”—for the picture displaying the object). Finally, in the comprehension tasks, correct identifications of the NG uttered by the interviewer—i.e., handing in the card with a picture that matched both the item in the exact form in which it was uttered—were classified as correct answers.

Results In order to provide a general picture of children’s performance, we compared the mean scores of target-­like responses they had obtained in the different tasks, by language group (Figure 12.1). The two tasks that assess children’s comprehension of the verbal expressions used for describing the pictures used for the number-­inflection and the derivation tasks were the easiest ones. Both Chinese and Moroccan children were able to identify correctly more than half of the pictures, while Catalan controls were at ceiling. Second in order of difficulty were the two tasks requiring the children to verbally express changes in number inflection and in derivation of locatives. The most difficult tasks were those requiring a written representation. The two morphological domains and the three languages involved in the study showed the same pattern of difficulty. Spoken representation of number inflection Table 12.2 shows the mean score of target-­like utterances for each condition of the number-­inflection task, according to language and age group. Since each child was presented with four items per condition, the range is 0–4.

Written representations of nominal morphology   157 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Chinese

Moroccan Inflection Sp Inflection Wr Inflection Com

Catalan Derivation Sp Derivation Wr Derivation Com

Figure 12.1 Comparison of performance in each task, by language group (range 0–8).

Almost half of the utterances produced by Chinese and Moroccan children reflected the change from plural to singular in the determiner and the noun, respecting number agreement within the NG. This behavior tended to increase with age. Utterances that did not reflect this change were more popular among the Chinese than among the Moroccan children, suggesting that the task itself was more difficult, in general, for the former. A completely different picture is obtained for the production of plural, indefinite-­article NGs. Not a single utterance produced by the youngest Chinese children and very few of those produced by the Moroccans reflected the change from singular to plural in both determiner and noun, showing internal NG agreement. Most interestingly, for the Catalan controls also the plural condition was much more difficult than the singular one. Non-­parametric tests for related samples revealed that there was a significant condition effect—Wilcoxon Signed-­Rank, p