Notes from the Proceedings of the Student Writing in Transition Symposium 2011, Nottingham Trent University

Student writing and the transitions from school to University

Sally Baker, OU

• Multiple transitions – shifting discourses, commonalities. Here’s a case study.
• PhD project – final yr
• Framed by economic uncertainty and increase in fees

Medium of assessment is usually written (Lea 1999). Implications of ‘high stakes’ writing are far reaching. Transition viewed as pivotal in writing.

Framed by Ac Lits that sees literacy as a social practice

It is ethographically styled. 2 yrs in the field with participants recruited from 3 diff types of institution. Interviewed students 5x each (6 overall and communication via Facebook)

Discourses in Writing

Ivanic (2004) ‘Discourses of writing and learning to write’ Language & Education 18 (3) p.225

She identified 6 discourses. All represent a view about language:

1) Skills discourse (language as transferable, neutral, mobile)

2) Creativity discourse (views writing as a product of writers creativity)

3) Process discourse (composition, process, intro, conclusion, editing)

4) Genre discourse (Communities of practice, concerned with audience, purpose driven)

5) Social Practice

6) Socio-political discourse

Is there a 7^th one? An assessment discourse?

Case Study – Kate (made up name!)

- traditional path into uni

- a concord student (2 a’ levels at school, one from FE)

- Gained ABB

- Degree in English at a post 1992 uni

SB asked students to supply examples of successful and unsuccessful work/pieces of writing, plus a literacy log, plus copies of FB statements. Students bring pieces of work to interview and explain why it is/isn’t successful.

Materiality of writing is of note. It’s normal to handwrite at school and normal to WP at uni. Are there implications to this?

Kate’s literacy log shows that she includes FB entries, emails, etc. She was confident in her writing and found it ‘quite instinctive’. Also, proud of her writing and talks about English writing being easier than psychology writing. At uni her confidence became much lower and finds writing ‘really, really different’. Mentions difficulties with word count.

Findings

Commonalities in practice. Dominant framing = PEEing = Kate’s ideologies

PEEing = what we’ve been taught. Point, Evidence, Explanation. Kate’s methodology, followed rigidly. Also PEEing found in reflective writing. Finds it useful or a familiar shadow.

A place to promote her feminism. Kate described herself as a feminist. Takes feminist stance in writing…negotiating and holding onto an identity in writing.

Distinctions in practice

Diff writing/assessment schedules

Kate’s worries:

- Managing ‘bunched’ workload

- Increased complexity in content

- Meeting word counts

- Referencing/plagiarism

- Turnitin software

- Inconsistency and conflict in the assessment demands of ind. Lecturers, particularly the materiality of writing

Feedback practices:

- summative marks, no reference to PEEing

- No possiblility for improvement

- In HE, more feedback, notes and rubrics. More info about how they deal with it.

Discourses of writing and learning to write

Successful writing at FE falls into ‘process discourse’.

HE – what’s success? – grammar, style, audience, standards meet criteria. So a blend of skills, genre and assessment discourses.

But where’s the creativity discourse? Heuristically – use teachers feedback to disentangle discourses in writing.

FE = assessment discourse; i.e. marks, no dissection of writing

HE = Draws on skills, genre and assessment

Next Steps:

- Compare this data against others in the sample

- Look for other egs of PEEing

- Further explore the assessment discourse of writing and learning to write

- Could PEEing be a result of school and sixth form education? A dominant framing?

- How much do the discourses of lecturers effect and influence writing?

- Range of disciplines (science, humanities, law).