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Chapter 9. Students' Perceptions of the Transfer of Rhetorical Knowledge between Digital Self-Sponsored Writing and Academic Writing: The Importance of Authentic Contexts and Reflection
... A burgeoning scholarly interest in sponsoring transfer of learning across modes and media has surfaced in the field of rhetoric and composition, as suggested by increasing conversations at the intersection of transfer theories and multimodal composition. 1 The emerging body of research explores students' transfer of knowledge between print-based composition and multimodal composition (DePalma 2015;DePalma and Alexander 2015) and between digital self-sponsored writing and academic writing (Rosinski 2017;Shepherd 2018). Despite such advances, the research has not been fully extended to empirical studies comparing multiple digital media platforms and examining their affordances in facilitating writing transfer. ...
... As a form of public rhetoric and writing pedagogy (Alexander and Rhodes 2014;Jiang 2020;Jiang and Vetter 2020;Sheridan, Ridolfo, and Michel 2012), multimodal campaign projects-such as those that focus on sexual violence, animal protection, and political activism-encourage students to address real-world social problems and confront public rhetorical situations. Through exposing students to authentic audiences in public spheres (Ball, Bowen, and Fenn 2013;Davis 2017;Moore and Anson 2016;Rosinski 2017), these multimodal projects hold potential for facilitating the transfer of rhetorical knowledge and writing process. Moreover, since multimodal campaigns usually encompass a composite of various media such as video production (Dubisar and Palmeri 2010), website design (Gries 2019;Jiang 2021), and meme creation (Warren-Riley and Hurley 2017), these projects also make it feasible to examine diverse digital platforms and their distinct capacities for promoting writing and transfer. ...
... Alongside their studies of print-based and digital forms of composition, scholars turn to students' transfer of knowledge between digital self-sponsored writing and academic writing, with a strong focus on embracing authentic writing situations and writing for public audiences (Rosinski 2017;Shepherd 2018). Multimodal projects can further serve as an empowering platform for students to engage in public rhetorical situations and produce authentic texts. ...
... It is not related to subjects, courses, projects, or any assignments in school or college (Amicucci, 2013). Rosinski (2017) also proposes that the writers produce non-academic texts because they want to do. They are not assigned to do for their school or university requirements. ...
... Therefore, to help students to gain more fundamental knowledge of the nonacademic and academic language and differentiate the two styles of writing, the researcher incorporates non-academic texts written on social media into academic English writing exercises. This study applies the term non-academic texts in line with the definition proposed by Rosinski (2017). They are the texts produced based on the writers' personal needs, not an educational Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ...
... Non-academic texts refer to different forms of texts that are not relevant to any courses or projects at the writers' school or university (Amicucci, 2013). Rosinski (2017) also proposed that the writers produce non-academic texts because they want to do. They are not assigned to do for their school or university requirements. ...
In this digital era, students tend to write more for non-academic purposes on social media platforms by using informal language. Consequently, they become familiar with the informal writing style and use non-academic language in academic writing. This research, therefore, aims to discover 1) what are the results of using the social media text-based exercises developed by the researchers in promoting university students’ knowledge of non-academic and academic English language, and 2) what are the students’ attitudes toward the use of social media text-based exercises. The instruments included four sets of social media text-based exercises, a pre-test, a post-test, and an open-ended questionnaire. Participants were 96 third-year English major students enrolling in the Academic Writing course, sections 1, 2, and 3 in the 1st semester, the academic year 2021 of a university in Thailand. The findings showed that the social media text-based exercises were effective in promoting the students’ knowledge of the non-academic and academic language. Questionnaire respondents expressed great attitudes toward the exercises. They believed the materials enabled them to analyze and identify distinct features of the registers in non-academic and academic writing. Additionally, they mentioned that learning through the exercises was interesting, enjoyable, and understandable. The study also provided suggestions for improving the exercises.
... Previous research has posited that the (at-times) sophisticated rhetorical and writing knowledge that is often cultivated by social media could potentially be productively leveraged by students to meet the demands of college writing (Anson, 2017;E.H. Buck, 2015;Fife, 2010;Head, 2016;Rosinski, 2017;Shepherd, 2015;2018;Vie, 2008). Indeed, the promise of instantaneous feedback from friends and followers (both known and unknown) may cause social media writers to exercise extra care with their use of language and rhetoric (both textual and visual) in that particular context. ...
... 86). Finally, through survey data, interviews, and writing samples collected from ten undergraduate students, Paula Rosinski (2017) found that in their digital self-sponsored writing, participants paid close attention to audience awareness, visual rhetoric, issues of medium, and sensitivity to language, all areas of writing that are well aligned with the pedagogical goals promoted by many college composition instructors and organizations. ...
This dissertation consists of four micro-case studies of intersectional feminist college students’ experiences with writing across digital extracurricular and academic domains. These micro-case studies were selected from a longitudinal study of eight students’ experiences. In response to ongoing questions about writing knowledge transfer generally and transfer between online and academic contexts more specifically, this study was designed to explore whether and how these writers made connections between digital extracurricular and academic contexts of writing. Data collection consisted of four interviews with eight participants over the course of two years and the ongoing collection of academic and online writing samples over the course of one academic year. Through the analysis of interview data, I present two main types of learning transfer across domains; the first type of learning transfer is also supported by analysis of students’ online writing. Through these micro-case studies, I shed light on two previously under-explored types of writing knowledge transfer across these domains, moving in both directions: the transfer (and transformation) of genre knowledge from academic contexts into digital extracurricular contexts, and the transfer of content knowledge forged through online reading into academic writing assignments. Participants in this study tended to confirm previous research suggesting that students generally compartmentalize their writing knowledge across these two domains. I illustrate this trend through a case study of a particularly salient example of such compartmentalization provided by the experiences of one participant, Nora. However, among the experiences of the four participants who served as focal cases for the analysis I present in this dissertation, there were two main exceptions to the compartmentalization trend. For example, in response to unprecedented online rhetorical situations, three participants in this study reported selecting and transforming prior academic genre knowledge by infusing it with multimodal elements to meet the demands of the new rhetorical situation. This cluster of findings suggests a previously unexplored relationship between antecedent genre uptake as articulated by Angela Rounsaville (2012), and what Kara Poe Alexander, Michael-John DePalma, and Jeffrey Ringer (2016) term “adaptive remediation,” thus putting in conversation two previously separate theories of writing knowledge transfer. Additionally, when faced with open-ended writing assignments in unfamiliar disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, all participants reported drawing on their expertise in intersectional feminism, forged in the digital extracurriculum, as a means of locating topics for academic writing assignments. Through two micro-case studies of writers enacting this strategy, I explore the relationship between reading, content knowledge, and writing knowledge transfer, an area that is as yet under-explored in the writing knowledge transfer literature. Together, these two sets of findings suggest that in some cases undergraduate writers may transfer writing knowledge across online and academic domains, and that they can demonstrate considerable resourcefulness when doing so: when faced with an unprecedented, unfamiliar, or ill-defined rhetorical situation in one domain, four participants in this study drew on resources from another domain (e.g., academic genre knowledge; extracurricular content knowledge) in order to support their performance. These participants’ experiences reinforce models of writing knowledge transfer that emphasize adaptation or transformation, and they also suggest that more sustained attention should be paid to the roles of digital extracurricular writing, multimodal composition, and reading in future transfer research.
... We conclude by describing Lifewide WAC practices that can support student writers in lifewide learning, such as eliciting students' prior writing experiences, using lifewide writing as a bridge for entry into disciplinary communities, assigning meaningful and diverse genres of writing, and being transparent about the complexities inherent in classroom-based writing and in writing spheres beyond the university. Researchers in writing studies have already begun looking beyond the curriculum to explore writing outside of traditional classroom contexts, such as internship (Baird & Dilger, 2017), self-sponsored writing (Rosinski, 2016), co-curricular contexts (Bastian, 2020), and other meaningful sites and purposes for writing (Eodice et al., 2017). Moreover, the field continues to expand how we study writers and writing outside of a college course-bound definition of student writers; this line of research includes important studies of alumni writing (Alexander et al., 2020;Bleakney, Lindenmann et al., 2022), lifespan writing (Dippre & Phillips, 2020), and writing beyond the university . ...
A lifewide approach to writing and writing across the curriculum (WAC) recognizes education as a holistic endeavor that values the range of environments in which learning occurs (Commission of the European Communities, 2000; Skolverket, 2000). Drawing on student data (surveys, interviews, and maps) collected from students at six institutions across three continents, we document and describe the rich writing lives students experience within their course-based, self-motivated, civic, internship, co-curricular, work-based, and other “spheres” of writing (see O’Sullivan et al., 2022; Yancey et al., 2022). Students’ writing lives are located across a diverse set of spheres, often providing for authentic writerly roles, and are characterized by
six features: (1) writing regularly/sustained engagement; (2) valuing writing; (3) engaging in personal expression and having an opportunity to be heard; (4) using writing for entry into and continuation of community membership; (5) perceiving writing as providing rich connections; and (6) being aware of and accepting challenges inherent to writing. WAC programs, we believe, would benefit from re-envisioning WAC through a lifewide lens and working to better understand students’ lifewide writing lives. Lifewide WAC practices draw from and support student writers in lifewide learning by eliciting students’ prior writing experiences, using lifewide writing as a bridge for entry into disciplinary communities, assigning meaningful and diverse genres of writing, and being transparent about the complexities inherent in classroom-based writing and in writing spheres beyond the university. More than inviting students as stakeholders in program design or partnering with various programs on campus, Lifewide WAC provides an opportunity to increase students’ agency as they continue to develop lifewide writerly identities.
... We encourage instructors to explicitly draw students' attention to the recursivities at play in their academic writing and their writing-beyond-the-classroom (Rosinski 2016) to help them recognize how their practices in one sphere influence and inform their choices in the other spheres. As with Chris, who recognized the relationship between his academic and self-motivated writing was a "two-way street," other writers may begin to understand how such borrowings can be assets in multiple spheres. ...
Asking students who have completed first-year writing about the contexts in which they write (including classrooms, workplaces, cocurriculars, and internships) and their understandings of relationships between and across these contexts, the research team examines the complex relationships between and among these different contexts, what the authors call “recursivities.”
Discussion Questions:
1. What might you learn about your students’ complex writing lives by asking them about the various contexts in which they write and inviting them to explore the connections between those various contexts?
2. What kind of course assignments would invite time for students to reflect on these recursivities among their different writing contexts and experiences?
3. How might your assignments change based on what you learn about the relationships students perceive among their various writing contexts?
Cite (MLA) as:
Yancey, Kathleen Blake, D. Alexis Hart, Ashley J. Holmes, Anna V. Knutson, Íde O’Sullivan, and Yogesh Sinha. ‘There Is a Lot of Overlap’: Tracing Writing Development across Spheres of Writing. Writing Beyond the University: Preparing Lifelong Learners for Lifewide Writing, edited by Julia Bleakney, Jessie L. Moore, and Paula Rosinski, Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series. Elon University Center for Engaged Learning, 2022, doi:/10.36284/celelon.oa5.
... They function within that context or environment. When these writers pass into a new system, they discover what is similar and different from what they have left behind (Rosinski 2016). Tutors, for example, may remind students that acronyms or abbreviations used in emails would be inappropriate in a research paper for British Studies so that writers recognize how they change when they pass between systems. ...
... However, in a time of shrinking budgets and administrations, using numbers that are produced in the process of student evaluations of teaching can seem attractive to many, especially to chairs, deans, retention, promotion and tenure committees, and academic provosts. We have much to learn from how students perceive the learning they have done in the college classroom because it is often those perceptions that help them transfer learning to new situations (Grijalva 2016;Rosinski 2016). But there are many factors that affect teaching and learning in each class that students take, which is why grades are not necessarily linked to what students have learned but have been linked to positive teaching evaluation scores (Basow et al. 2013;Johnson and Crews 2013;Centra 2003). ...
Universities today are well-aware of the rapidly shifting demographics of their future student populations. According to American Council on Education researchers (Espinosa et al., Race, class, and college access: Achieving diversity in a shifting legal landscape. American Council on Education, 2015), many institutions are creating initiatives to develop greater understanding of diversity, attract diverse students, or respond to contemporary societal problems that relate to diverse populations. Faculty women of color who have experienced cultural or ethnic oppression are well-positioned to inform or collaborate with decision-makers on the innovative directions they are considering. Armed with our collective counter-stories, or testimonios, and the resultant solidarity they create, we can help stakeholders see that such interest in diversity calls for a new diversity paradigm to emerge in all its complexity. Institutions must systemically change to genuinely embrace diversity or serve more diverse student populations by codifying standards that are inclusive of the different ontologies and epistemologies that marginalized people represent. Counter-stories and testimonies can help academic women of color collectively work to bring needed change. Furthermore, testimonios add to the rich gardens of stories of struggle and strength that our academic mothers have left for us to tend that provide us with the starting place for that much-needed shift in higher education toward a new paradigm of diversity.
This essay takes as its focus the everyday writing that people compose: the self-sponsored, nonobligatory texts that people write mainly outside of work and school. Through analysis of 713 survey responses and 27 interviews with accompanying writing samples, this study provides a panoramic view of the functions of self-sponsored writing and rhetorical activity for U.S. adults, ages 18 to 65+ years, from a range of geographic, cultural, and professional backgrounds. The Taxonomy of Life Writing presented in this essay demonstrates the range of ways that writing functions in people’s daily lives. It includes 19 key functions of life writing, organized into six metafunctions: Creativity and Expression, Identity and Relationships, Organization and Coordination, Preservation and Memory, Reflection and Emotion, and Teaching and Learning. Based on our findings, we affirm the important and diverse functions that life writing serves and propose expanding the threshold concepts of writing to include greater focus on nonobligatory, self-sponsored writing activity.
Drawing on the Teaching for Transfer (TFT) writing curriculum, this study documents how students in writing courses at four different institutions transferred writing knowledge and practice concurrently into other sites of writing, including other courses, co-curriculars, and workplaces. This research demonstrates that when students, supported by the TFT curriculum, understood that appropriate transfer of writing knowledge and practice is both possible and desirable, (1) they engaged in writing transfer during the TFT course into other sites of writing; (2) they transferred from in-school contexts into out-of-school contexts with facility; and (3) in both cases, they engaged in a just-in-time transfer.
This article draws on examples of student interviews incorporating multiple modalities to explore the writing lives of students as part of a larger project focusing on participants’ experiences of writing within and beyond the university. We explain this innovative, iterative research method combining multiple texts and maps, characterizing it as a kind of triangulation operating inside the frame of the interview. Through students’ triangulated multiple representations, the interviewer learns about, and from, students’ tacit knowledge of their experiences as it is made explicit through multiple modalities: visual as well as linguistic (oral and written). Our study suggests that engaging students in multiple modalities allows researchers to get a more comprehensive understanding of participants’ experiences. Moreover, as we demonstrate from our findings, students found that the mapping activity helped them understand their own writing and the relationships among their spheres of writing more fully. We argue for the value of engaging research participants in multiple modalities as a way of eliciting tacit knowledge through triangulating the data in the discourse-based interview.
https://compositionforum.com/issue/49/multiple-forms.php
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