Futuristic and Linguistic Perspectives on Teaching Writing to Second Language Students (Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies) 1799865088, 9781799865087

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Book Series
Table of Contents
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1: Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology
Chapter 2: The Struggles of Bilingual Authors
Chapter 3: Reducing Second Language Writing Anxiety
Chapter 4: When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy
Chapter 5: Digital Storytelling
Chapter 6: Multilingual Writing in Digital World
Chapter 7: Writing in the Digital Age
Chapter 8: Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs
Chapter 9: Second-Language-Writing Skills
Chapter 10: Gender and Language
Chapter 11: Identity Formation in Second Language Writing
Chapter 12: The Future of Composition Studies
Chapter 13: Locating the Transrhetorical in Multilingual Writing
Chapter 14: Expressive Multilingual Writing
Chapter 15: Writing and Young English Language Learners
Chapter 16: A Transformative Second-Language-Literacy Program for Migrant Students
Chapter 17: Contextualizing Second Language Writing in Literature Courses
Compilation of References
About the Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Futuristic and Linguistic Perspectives on Teaching Writing to Second Language Students Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Nurdan Kavaklı Izmir Democracy University, Turkey

A volume in the Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies (ALCS) Book Series

Published in the United States of America by IGI Global Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA, USA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2021 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hancı-Azizoğlu, B. Eda, 1978- editor. | Kavaklı, Nurdan, 1988editor. Title: Futuristic and linguistic perspectives on teaching writing to second language students / B. Eda Hancı-Azizoğlu and Nurdan Kavaklı, editors. Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This edited book provides a foundation as to why writing as an independent discipline should be in progress, what sort of theoretical and practical implications should be in place for second language writers, and in what ways it can be possible to provide futuristic and linguistic perspectives on teaching writing to speakers of other languages”-Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020024131 (print) | LCCN 2020024132 (ebook) | ISBN 9781799865087 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781799865094 (paperback) | ISBN 9781799865100 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Composition (Language arts)--Study and teaching. | Rhetoric--Study and teaching. | Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC P53.27 .F88 2020 (print) | LCC P53.27 (ebook) | DDC 418.0071--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024131 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024132 This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies (ALCS) (ISSN: 2372-109X; eISSN: 2372-1111) British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. For electronic access to this publication, please contact: [email protected].

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The Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies (ALCS) Book Series (ISSN 2372-109X) is published by IGI Global, 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, PA 17033-1240, USA, www.igi-global.com. This series is composed of titles available for purchase individually; each title is edited to be contextually exclusive from any other title within the series. For pricing and ordering information please visit http:// www.igi-global.com/book-series/advances-linguistics-communication-studies/78950. Postmaster: Send all address changes to above address. Copyright © 2021 IGI Global. All rights, including translation in other languages reserved by the publisher. No part of this series may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphics, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information and retrieval systems – without written permission from the publisher, except for non commercial, educational use, including classroom teaching purposes. The views expressed in this series are those of the authors, but not necessarily of IGI Global.

Titles in this Series

For a list of additional titles in this series, please visit: http://www.igi-global.com/book-series/advances-linguistics-communication-studies/78950

Redefining the Role of Language in a Globalized World Ai-Ling Wang (Tamkang University, Taiwan) Information Science Reference • © 2021 • 300pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799828310) • US $195.00 Postmodernism and Narratives of Erasure in Culture, Literature, and Language Hassen Zriba (University of Gafsa, Tunisia) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 300pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799829799) • US $195.00 Internal and External Narrative Generation Based on Post-Narratology Emerging Research and Opportunities Takashi Ogata (Iwate Prefectural University, Japan) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 444pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522599432) • US $175.00 Enhancements and Limitations to ICT-Based Informal Language Learning Emerging Research and Opportunities Rashad Ahmed (Miami University, USA) Abdu Al-kadi (Ibb University, Yemen) and Trenton Hagar (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 201pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799821168) • US $175.00 Cases on Communication Disorders in Culturally Diverse Populations Diane M. Scott (North Carolina Central University, USA) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 365pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799822615) • US $185.00 International Approaches to Bridging the Language Gap Cristina-Aránzazu Huertas-Abril (University of Córdoba, Spain) and María Elena Gómez-Parra (University of Córdoba, Spain) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 317pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799812197) • US $195.00 Toward an Integrated Approach to Narrative Generation Emerging Research and Opportunities Takashi Ogata (Iwate Prefectural University, Japan) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 432pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522596936) • US $215.00 Code-Switching for Equitable STEM Pedagogy Emerging Research and Opportunities Miriam Chitiga (Fayetteville State University, USA) Information Science Reference • © 2020 • 135pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781799809654) • US $125.00

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Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xiv Acknowledgment................................................................................................................................ xxii Chapter 1 Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology............................................................................ 1 Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Nurdan Kavaklı, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey Chapter 2 The Struggles of Bilingual Authors: Developing Identity in the Additional Language........................ 16 Dan Tannacito, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Chapter 3 Reducing Second Language Writing Anxiety: Creating a Novel Process-and-CollaborationCentered Pedagogy................................................................................................................................ 28 Bashak Tarkan-Blanco, Keiser University, West Palm Beach, USA Chapter 4 When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy............ 48 Sharon M. Virgil, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA & Bermuda College, Bermuda Chapter 5 Digital Storytelling: A Futuristic Second-Language-Writing Method.................................................. 66 Nurdan Kavaklı, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Chapter 6 Multilingual Writing in Digital World: The Necessity for Reshaping Teaching................................... 84 Maha Alawdat, Kaye College of Education, Israel Chapter 7 Writing in the Digital Age: Teaching Writing to Digital Natives........................................................ 102 Burcu Şentürk, Bartın University, Turkey





Chapter 8 Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs: An Innovative and Multilingual Teaching Approach.............................................................................................................................................. 118 Işıl Günseli Kaçar, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Chapter 9 Second-Language-Writing Skills: A Novel Look at Identity............................................................... 141 Sarah DeCapua, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA Chapter 10 Gender and Language: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Second Language Writing.............................. 161 Didem Koban Koç, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey Chapter 11 Identity Formation in Second Language Writing: Models of Metadiscourse...................................... 178 Nayef Jomaa, Karabuk University, Turkey Chapter 12 The Future of Composition Studies: Reconstructing the Past............................................................. 200 Olubukola Salako, American University, USA Chapter 13 Locating the Transrhetorical in Multilingual Writing: A Closer Look at Autobiographical Narratives............................................................................................................................................. 216 Leonora Anyango-Kivuva, Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), USA Chapter 14 Expressive Multilingual Writing: A Transformational Healing Skill for a Pandemic Challenge........ 235 Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Maha Alawdat, Kaye College of Education, Israel Chapter 15 Writing and Young English Language Learners: Identity, Subjectivity, and Agency......................... 251 Hector Manuel Serna Dimas, Universidad EAN, Colombia Chapter 16 A Transformative Second-Language-Literacy Program for Migrant Students.................................... 271 A. Selcen Bingöl, Gazi University, Turkey Chapter 17 Contextualizing Second Language Writing in Literature Courses: Locality of Pedagogy for Innovative Practices............................................................................................................................. 287 Mir Abdullah Miri, Herat University, Afghanistan Bui Phu Hung, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam



Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 307 About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 346 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 350

Detailed Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xiv Acknowledgment................................................................................................................................ xxii Chapter 1 Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology............................................................................ 1 Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Nurdan Kavaklı, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey The failure to advance our understanding of intellectual rhetoric prevents opening up new avenues for rewriting the future through rhetorical technology. Rhetorical technology is the intellectual ability to use the power of empathy for human evolution through imagination and rhetorical data analysis. It draws attention to the fact that human beings can avoid repeating the same catastrophic events that their ancestors experienced with rhetorical data analysis. Within the context of this study, rhetorical technology has indeed a magical and intellectual power, and teaching empathy through writing and world languages can offer more sophisticated worldviews for humanity to evolve. For this purpose, it is quite futuristic and technological to treat writing as a resource for guiding the next generation to rewrite the future through empathy and technology. Chapter 2 The Struggles of Bilingual Authors: Developing Identity in the Additional Language........................ 16 Dan Tannacito, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA This chapter examines the struggles of bilingual authors to write in English as an additional language. Autobiographical works in English illustrate themes found to be central to the development of biliteracy. The theme of finding voice is a highly variable theme in the writing of many bilinguals. The theme of constructing identity takes multiple forms as bilingual authors renegotiate their identities in the additional language. The struggle for place is a theme that permeates the narratives of expatriation, exile, immigration, and repatriation. These three struggles offer new writers opportunities to learn to develop their own creativity. Teachers of English as an additional language can structure their curricula to reflect the language learning practice of reading and writing. Chapter 3 Reducing Second Language Writing Anxiety: Creating a Novel Process-and-CollaborationCentered Pedagogy................................................................................................................................ 28 Bashak Tarkan-Blanco, Keiser University, West Palm Beach, USA  



Academic writing is a difficult task for many post-secondary students in the U.S. However, it is particularly challenging for ESL students due to linguistic and cognitive factors. This challenge may lead to second language writing anxiety (SLWA), as a result of which some students may perform poorly on writing assignments and eventually fail the course. Although previous research studies offer instructional strategies to address SLWA, they are insufficient in their theoretical basis and practical application. Thus, this paper fills that gap by situating those pedagogical recommendations within their theoretical foundations and includes a sample writing assignment with a student self-regulation checklist. Chapter 4 When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy............ 48 Sharon M. Virgil, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA & Bermuda College, Bermuda The author recognizes the importance of Freshman Composition students being equipped with the skills necessary to write effectively for college and beyond. In this chapter, the author shares her story of how a renowned Composition professor forces her to take a self-critical look at what she was doing in her Composition classroom, which compels her to change. For new teachers of Composition or for teachers looking to change, the author shares her newly adopted student-centered-book-writing pedagogy, which puts the focus on the student and creating an environment in which they can write, and write a lot. The author, forced to be honest and change herself, adopted a pedagogy that allows her students a voice and a chance to be honest in their writing through their expression of voice, an asset she recognizes as necessary in this 21st century, especially in our increasingly diversified world of academia. The author shares her student-centered-book-writing-pedagogy. Chapter 5 Digital Storytelling: A Futuristic Second-Language-Writing Method.................................................. 66 Nurdan Kavaklı, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Storytelling has been widely used as a strategy to develop language-related skills. Storytelling and learning are interwoven since composing a story is an inseparable component of the meaning-making process. Serving as a link between the act of imagination and perceiving the world, storytelling has been applied to promote effective language learning outcomes. Storytelling offers a language-based approach in literature by means of its activity-based, student-centered, and process-oriented nature, and storytelling supports students’ negotiation of meaning by engaging and motivating them within the creative learning process. By this definition, the purpose of this research study is to initiate a scholarly discussion on innovative techniques in digital storytelling to support second language writing instruction along with significant strategies that employ 21st century learning skills. Chapter 6 Multilingual Writing in Digital World: The Necessity for Reshaping Teaching................................... 84 Maha Alawdat, Kaye College of Education, Israel This chapter examines teachers’ practices and strategies while using digital tools for writing. The chapter argues that when teachers use digital writing, they need to change their teaching strategies in order to ease their students’ writing tasks. It also highlights the purposes of integrating digital tools for the writing classes and the challenges they face while adapting digital writing. The data are collected from teachers who work at schools, colleges, and universities, through a survey generated by Google forms.



The findings show that integrating suitable digital tools requires mastering the use of technologies by supporting teachers’ digital literacy skills before integrating them into classes to overcome any emerging challenges. This is to reinforce students to improve their writing levels. The chapter suggests more extended studies to examine students’ attitudes and experiences with using digital tools and the impact of coronavirus pandemic on education. Chapter 7 Writing in the Digital Age: Teaching Writing to Digital Natives........................................................ 102 Burcu Şentürk, Bartın University, Turkey It is a fact that technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. The recommendations of the World Health Organization because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surrounding the whole world brings the obligation to continue the education and training activities with distance education systems. Once again, the significance of technology use in education has become abundant. Within the scope of this chapter, applied studies on digital writing, digital micro, and macro-level writing, Web 2.0 tools, digital and automatic feedback in digital writing will be envisaged in line with the 21st century technological educational requirements. In addition, the effective tips to teach basic digital writing through technology integration will be explored while the impact of the information age on the writing discipline will be discussed. Chapter 8 Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs: An Innovative and Multilingual Teaching Approach.............................................................................................................................................. 118 Işıl Günseli Kaçar, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland’s metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland’s metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers’ multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities. Chapter 9 Second-Language-Writing Skills: A Novel Look at Identity............................................................... 141 Sarah DeCapua, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA In this quantitative inquiry, instead of gathering data to answer a research question, the author developed a research question based on the data she gathered. As the author explored the answers the Chinese international students in her first-year writing seminar course provided on a second language background skills assessment, she became curious about what their answers revealed about their identities. Data collected consisted of 165 English skills assessments completed by her second language writing students over four semesters, from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. The skills assessed were speaking, listening, reading,



writing, and grammar. Partial results indicated that the students assessed their speaking, listening, reading, and grammar skills as average; they assessed their writing skills as poor. The author explored the possible reasons behind the students’ self-assessments and how the students’ identities were expressed through their answers. Chapter 10 Gender and Language: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Second Language Writing.............................. 161 Didem Koban Koç, Izmir Democracy University, Turkey The present study investigated gender differences in the use of linguistic features as well as the social meanings attached to those differences. Academic essays, written by 44 (22 male, 22 female) first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the English Language Teaching program at a government university were analyzed with respect to the use of linguistic features (adjectives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, linking adverbials) as well as the number of words and sentences used by the students. The results showed that, in comparison to males, females used more adjectives, intensifiers, and words. Males, on the other hand, used more empty adjectives and linking adverbials than females. Based on the results, pedagogical implications are discussed, and recommendations are provided in order to increase teachers’ awareness of gender differences and improve students’ writing skills. Chapter 11 Identity Formation in Second Language Writing: Models of Metadiscourse...................................... 178 Nayef Jomaa, Karabuk University, Turkey Part of the researcher’s duties towards his supervisees is to guide them in their postgraduate research journeys. Two important questions were raised by his supervisees. One of them is why the majority of studies follow Hyland’s framework in analysing identity. The other question is why we do not follow Hyland’s (framework in analysing the reporting verbs instead of Halliday’s transitivity system. Is it because the latter is so difficult to understand? Therefore, this chapter aims at focusing on identity in second language (L2) writing, comparing between Halliday’s modality, Vande Kopple’s taxonomy, Crismore et al.’s taxonomy, and Hyland’s model of metadiscourse. The findings showed a sort of similarity as well as variety, thus resulting in overlapping and lacking a solid model for analysing how writers reveal their identity. Therefore, a necessity arises to present a comprehensive model that can be used to identify all the categories and subcategories related to interpersonal meanings. Chapter 12 The Future of Composition Studies: Reconstructing the Past............................................................. 200 Olubukola Salako, American University, USA One of the hardest battles that composition practitioners encounter within the writing classroom is dealing with students’ poor writing skills. Traditional methods that only engage students to produce work that does not make use of the students’ faculties, only propel students to continue to create work that is unsatisfactory. Currently, as composition practitioners continue to look for teaching strategies that can help their students become better writers, they often believe that reading, speaking, and listening cannot facilitate the teaching of writing. Because of the historical views that have defined the composition field, the discipline does not allow any other paradigms to redefine or shape how writing is taught. What is needed to combat such problematic teaching pedagogy is the institution of other methods that incorporates the use of writing, listening, reading, and speaking to teach students how to become better writers.



Chapter 13 Locating the Transrhetorical in Multilingual Writing: A Closer Look at Autobiographical Narratives............................................................................................................................................. 216 Leonora Anyango-Kivuva, Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), USA Students’ lived lives and experiences are tools that they can use to learn and own their writing as they grow and become fluent writers. Theorists have described different ways that students draw from their first languages and culture to write in another language. This chapter showcases how two African students bring their culture of orality into the classroom and use it as a tool to understand, develop, and conquer their writing. The chapter gives examples of the students’ narratives as they navigate their writing. As they write, they constantly dig into their culture through tools of translation in order to perform, inform, and transform their writing in English, a language that is different both linguistically and culturally from their own. Chapter 14 Expressive Multilingual Writing: A Transformational Healing Skill for a Pandemic Challenge........ 235 Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Maha Alawdat, Kaye College of Education, Israel The purpose of this chapter reveals the healing power of writing at times of stress, turmoil, and crisis from multilingual perspectives. Writing relieves emotional chaos, stress, and even physical pain as evidenced by research. Multilingual writing is a process-based, complicated act that requires a series of intellectual stages to be developed as a skill. In parallel to this rationale, multilingual learners can generate creative spaces for their well-being and growth by using writing as a skill to express their emotions for easing feelings related to stress, turmoil, and crisis. This chapter encourages and models emotional or expressive writing as an innovative method to use in educational and health settings to allow creating novel experiences into language learning phases. Chapter 15 Writing and Young English Language Learners: Identity, Subjectivity, and Agency......................... 251 Hector Manuel Serna Dimas, Universidad EAN, Colombia Bilingual education has been based on theories and research stemming from fields of linguistics, psychology, first and second language acquisition while the study of second language acquisition requires a change of paradigm that involves the social and cultural views of language and literacy learning. Within the context of this analysis, the paradigm in question includes the conception of literacy processes based on the ideas of identity, subjectivity, and agency. This study used classroom observations, open interviews, and students’ documents to conceptualize the literacy processes of Spanish/English learners in a bilingual K-12 school in Colombia. The data of this study indicate that students have a sense of their identity as bilingual learners. It should be remarked that the variables of these concepts greatly depend on the school culture’s official first and second agenda for literacy education, which often overlooks the facts on how students understand their circumstances of being bilingual and biliterate.



Chapter 16 A Transformative Second-Language-Literacy Program for Migrant Students.................................... 271 A. Selcen Bingöl, Gazi University, Turkey Migration, as old as the history of mankind, brings together many challenges for both the migrants and the receiving country. Certainly, among the most affected ones are the children of migrants, who have to continue their educational lives in their new land. Language learning is the first challenge for these children as it is the key to integration; however, not all the countries that receive migration are experienced in handling the adaptation process of immigrants. What’s more, migrant children are expected to write in a linguistically and culturally different writing system to be considered literate in their new educational settings. Since monolingual curricula fall short in today’s global world, multilingual flexible curricula should be adopted and implemented to meet various needs of diverse migrant groups. This chapter will provide critical insights and suggestions for Syrian migrant children in the Turkish context by taking into account a successful educational second language literacy program called KOALA. Chapter 17 Contextualizing Second Language Writing in Literature Courses: Locality of Pedagogy for Innovative Practices............................................................................................................................. 287 Mir Abdullah Miri, Herat University, Afghanistan Bui Phu Hung, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam A vast body of research encourages the teaching of literature in language education to improve learners’ language competencies because literature is found rich in language features, contexts, and cultural instances. Even though previous research studies investigated second language writing (SLW) from different perspectives, they are inadequate in investigating ways of integrating writing into literature courses. For this purpose, this qualitative research involved five Afghan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers with experience in integrating writing into literature courses in colleges. In addition, the study aimed to explore Afghan EFL teachers’ reflections on integrating writing activities into literature courses. The results show that these teachers mainly suffered from workload, tight schedules, and shortage of relevant materials. While the challenges faced by the teachers reflected the local contexts, the advantages of reconciling writing with literature are perceived, and global pedagogical recommendations are made based on the findings of this study. Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 307 About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 346 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 350

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Preface

Each language is equally complex and precious. The present volume proposes a series of futuristic second language writing activities for pioneering teachers, who wish to show their students a path for unlimited creativity. The book’s futuristic theme suggests a rhetorical technological perspective that allows the audience to discover how today’s writers are indeed capable of writing the future for brighter days to come. The book is significantly appealing to those institutions, who plan to make a remarkable difference in their students’ writing aptitude according to the new age’s contextual, global, and digital requirements. From a global viewpoint, this book showcases numerous opportunities to open a window into second language authors’ minds to discover the richness of multilingual voice from culturally-rich and unique perspectives. A multilingual mind is a network of a supply stream for two or more entirely different worlds because each language mirrors another complete and complex thinking system. This thinking system grants multilinguals an escape from one world to the next without losing access to all this linguistic data simultaneously. This formulation can provide taudience unlimited and rich possibilities of intellectual experiences, if they choose to critically understand the complexity of the multilingual writing process. The elegance of culturally-shaped worldviews in multilingual writing is explored in this unique volume from diverse intellectual angles. There are a substantial number of books on the writing discipline; however, our world has transformed into a more technologically advanced planet that accessing to information without a globally emphatic and highly intellectual attitude is inadequate. Therefore, the absence of futuristic multilingual writing practices motivated the editors of this book to explore the nature of second language writing. This book investigated the future of second language writing, and how the discipline of writing can evolve with recent technological advancements that people obviously cannot escape from. This book is organized in three main themes, and it offers advanced teaching techniques and approaches to teach College Composition Classes that are designed to include multilingual speakers. The valuable theories and techniques discussed in the book can be applicable to all grade levels. The second theme of the book offers digital and futuristic language teaching methods. The third theme offers effective techniques to integrate the second language writing discipline into novel literacy programs by overcoming the obstacles of limited resources, immigration, and lack of access to technology.

 

Preface

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK Chapter 1 Professor Hancı-Azizoglu and Professor Kavaklı introduce the volume they edited with this introductory unit. The significance of the writing discipline is emphasized with the idea of writing the future through rhetorical technology as summarized below: The failure to advance our understanding of intellectual rhetoric prevents opening up new avenues for rewriting the future through rhetorical technology. Rhetorical technology is the intellectual ability to use the power of empathy for human evolution through imagination and rhetorical data analysis. It draws attention to the fact that human beings can avoid repeating the same catastrophic events that their ancestors experienced with rhetorical data analysis. Within the context of this study, rhetorical technology has indeed a magical and intellectual power, and teaching empathy through writing and world languages can offer more sophisticated worldviews for humanity to evolve. For this purpose, it is quite futuristic and technological to treat writing as a resource for guiding the next generation to rewrite the future through empathy and technology.

Chapter 2 Professor Tannacito reflects a deep analysis of bilinguals’ writing process. In this valuable study, he investigates the phases bilingual authors’ identities are constructed through autobiographical narratives. He refers to this unique voice acquisition process in writing as follows: This chapter examines the struggles of bilingual authors to write in English as an additional language. Autobiographical works in English illustrate themes found to be central to the development of biliteracy. The theme of finding voice is a highly variable theme in the writing of many bilinguals. The theme of constructing identity takes multiple forms as bilingual authors renegotiate their identities in the additional language. The struggle for place is a theme that permeates the narratives of expatriation, exile, immigration, and repatriation. These three struggles offer new writers opportunities to learn to develop their own creativity. Teachers of English as an additional language can structure their curricula to reflect the language learning practice of reading and writing.

Chapter 3 Professor Tarkan-Blanco situates the composition discipline within theoretical foundations to guide self-directed learners through a creative process-and-collaboration-centered pedagogy. She proposes an effective sample writing assignment with a student self-regulation checklist in order to reduce second language writing anxiety in language learning environments as follows: Academic writing is a difficult task for many post-secondary students in the U.S. However, it is particularly challenging for ESL students due to linguistic and cognitive factors. This challenge may lead to second language writing anxiety (SLWA), as a result of which some students may perform poorly on writing assignments and eventually fail the course. Although previous research studies offer instructional xv

Preface

strategies to address SLWA, they are insufficient in their theoretical basis and practical application. Thus, this paper fills that gap by situating those pedagogical recommendations within their theoretical foundations and includes a sample writing assignment with a student self-regulation checklist.

Chapter 4 Professor Virgil introduces her student-centered-book-writing pedagogy by sharing her story of how she has developed a self-critical look that forced her to change as a globally sensitive composition professor, who welcomes all cultures, languages and worldviews in her classroom to write the future as follows: The author recognizes the importance of Freshman Composition students being equipped with the skills necessary to write effectively for college and beyond. In this chapter the author shares her story of how a renowned Composition professor forces her to take a self-critical look at what she was doing in her Composition classroom, which compels her to change. For new teachers of Composition or for teachers looking to change, the author shares her newly adopted student-centered-book-writing pedagogy, which puts the focus on the student and creating an environment in which they can write, and write a lot. The author, forced to be honest and change herself, adopted a pedagogy that allows her students a voice and a chance to be honest in their writing through their expression of voice, an asset she recognizes as necessary in this 21st century, especially in our increasingly diversified world of academia. The author shares her student-centered-book-writing-pedagogy.

Chapter 5 Professor Kavaklı and Professor Hancı-Azizoglu illustrate innovative techniques in digital storytelling as a futuristic second language writing method, and recommend significant strategies in digital storytelling in order to employ 21st century learning skills as follows: Storytelling has been widely used as a strategy to develop language-related skills. Storytelling and learning are interwoven since composing a story is an inseparable component of the meaning-making process. Serving as a link between the act of imagination and perceiving the world, storytelling has been applied to promote effective language learning outcomes. Storytelling offers a language-based approach in literature by means of its activity-based, student-centered, and process-oriented nature, and storytelling supports students’ negotiation of meaning by engaging and motivating them within the creative learning process. By this definition, the purpose of this research study is to initiate a scholarly discussion on innovative techniques in digital storytelling to support second language writing instruction along with significant strategies that employ 21st century learning skills.

Chapter 6 Professor Alawdat explores multilingual digital writing by highlighting novel approaches to teaching second language writing through innovative strategies. This study raises awareness of integrating digital tools for effective writing instructions as follows:

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This chapter examines teachers’ practices and strategies while using digital tools for writing. The chapter argues that when teachers use digital writing, they need to change their teaching strategies in order to ease their students’ writing tasks. It also highlights the purposes of integrating digital tools for the writing classes and the challenges they face while adapting digital writing. The data are collected from teachers who work at schools, colleges, and universities, through a survey generated by Google forms. The findings show that integrating suitable digital tools requires mastering the use of technologies by supporting teachers’ digital literacy skills before integrating them into classes to overcome any emerging challenges. This is to reinforce students to improve their writing levels. The chapter suggests more extended studies to examine students’ attitudes and experiences with using digital tools.

Chapter 7 Professor Şentürk elaborates the art of teaching writing in the 21st century by delving into basic digital writing practices by introducing technology-oriented tips for digital learning exercises as follows: It is a fact that technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. The recommendations of the World Health Organization because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surrounding the whole world brings the obligation to continue the education and training activities with distance education systems. Once again, the significance of technology use in education has become abundant. Within the scope of this chapter, applied studies on digital writing, digital micro, and macro-level writing, Web 2.0 tools, digital and automatic feedback in digital writing will be envisaged in line with the 21st century technological educational requirements. In addition, the effective tips to teach basic digital writing through technology integration will be explored while the impact of the information age on the writing discipline will be discussed.

Chapter 8 Professor Kaçar scrutinizes the significance of using blogs as a key component in interactive language learning environments. She reflects a unique relationship between blogging and finding a voice in second writing as follows: Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland’s metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland’s metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers’ multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities.

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Chapter 9 Professor DeCapua explored the significance of identity construction in second language writing through novel experiences. She emphasizes how negotiation of meaning forms unique cultural identities as follows: In this quantitative inquiry, instead of gathering data to answer a research question, the author developed a research question based on the data she gathered. As the author explored the answers the Chinese international students in her First-Year Writing seminar course provided on a Second Language Background skills assessment, she became curious about what their answers revealed about their identities. Data collected consisted of 165 English skills assessments completed by her Second Language Writing students over four semesters, from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. The skills assessed were Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, and Grammar. Partial results indicated that the students assessed their Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Grammar skills as average; they assessed their Writing skills as poor. The author explored the possible reasons behind the students’ self-assessments and how the students’ identities were expressed through their answers.

Chapter 10 Professor Koban-Koç critically evaluates the impact of gender, and its conceptual influence in second language writing as a social characteristic as follows: The present study investigated gender differences in the use of linguistic features as well as the social meanings attached to those differences. Academic essays, written by 44 (22 male, 22 female) first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the English Language Teaching program at a government university were analyzed with respect to the use of linguistic features (adjectives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, linking adverbials) as well as the number of words and sentences used by the students. The results showed that, in comparison to males, females used more adjectives, intensifiers, and words. Males, on the other hand, used more empty adjectives and linking adverbials than females. Based on the results, pedagogical implications are discussed and recommendations are provided in order to increase teachers’ awareness of gender differences and improve students’ writing skills.

Chapter 11 Professor Jomaa explores how the diversity of cultural and social backgrounds of second language writers determine the students’ academic needs in this linguistic study. For this purpose, he pinpoints how identity is formed in second language academic writing by offering models of meta-discourse as explained follows: Part of the researcher’s duties towards his supervisees is to guide them in their postgraduate research journeys. Two important questions were raised by his supervisees. One of them is why the majority of studies follow Hyland’s framework in analysing identity? The other question is why we do not follow Hyland’s framework in analysing the reporting verbs instead of Halliday’s Transitivity System. Is it because the latter is so difficult to understand? Therefore, this chapter aims at focusing on identity in second language (L2) writing, comparing between Halliday’s Modality, Vande Kopple’s taxonomy, Crismore et xviii

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al.’s taxonomy, and Hyland’s model of metadiscourse. The findings showed a sort of similarity as well as variety, thus resulting in overlapping and lacking a solid model for analysing how writers reveal their identity. Therefore, a necessity arises to present a comprehensive model that can be used to identify all the categories and subcategories related to interpersonal meanings.

Chapter 12 Professor Salako evaluates the challenges traditional composition methods bring along as obstacles for students, and she imagines the future of composition studies by aiming to develop second language writers’ critical consciousness as follows: One of the hardest battles that composition practitioners encounter within the writing classroom is dealing with students’ poor writing skills. Traditional methods that only engage students to produce work that does not make use of the students’ faculties, only propel students to continue to create work that is unsatisfactory. Currently, as composition practitioners continue to look for teaching strategies that can help their students become better writers, they often believe that reading, speaking, and listening cannot facilitate the teaching of writing. Because of the historical views that have defined the composition field, the discipline does not allow any other paradigms to redefine or shape how writing is taught. What is needed to combat such problematic teaching pedagogy is the institution of other methods that incorporates the use of writing, listening, reading, and speaking to teach students how to become better writers. In order to proliferate this process, Quintilian’s methodology should be utilized to teach writing in the composition classroom for first (L1) and second language (L2) learners.

Chapter 13 Professor Anyango-Kivuva focuses on transrhetorical experiences that transform students’ writing through culturally originated autobiographical narratives. This study brings a deeper look into the concepts of culture and context within the writing discipline as follows: Students’ lived lives and experiences are tools that they can use to learn and own their writing as they grow and become fluent writers. Theorists have described different ways that students draw from their first languages and culture to write in another language. This chapter showcases how two African students bring their culture of orality into the classroom and use it as a tool to understand, develop, and conquer their writing. The chapter gives examples of the students’ narratives as they navigate their writing. As they write, they constantly dig into their culture through tools of translation in order to perform, inform, and transform their writing in English, a language that is different both linguistically and culturally from their own.

Chapter 14 Professor Hancı-Azizoğlu and Professor Alawdat examine the healing power of the writing discipline through processes of expressive multilingual writing. Authors provide a sample expressive multilingual writing lesson that can be adaptable to all grade levels. They offer a conceptual model for expressive multilingual writing to relieve emotional discomfort at times of crisis as follows: xix

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The purpose of this chapter reveals the healing power of writing at times of stress, turmoil and crisis from multilingual perspectives. Writing relieves emotional chaos, stress, and even physical pain as evidenced by research. Multilingual writing is a process-based, complicated act that require a series of intellectual stages to be developed as a skill. In parallel to this rationale, multilingual learners can generate creative spaces for their well-being and growth by using writing as a skill to express their emotions for easing feelings related to stress, turmoil and crisis. This chapter encourages and models emotional or expressive writing as an innovative method to use in educational and health settings to allow creating novel experiences into language learning phases.

Chapter 15 Professor Dimas addresses meaningful literacy practices for young bilingual students by defining identity, subjectivity, and agency through students’ vivid reflections. Professor Dimas endeavors to bring school and students’ literacy development goals together for proposing novel principals for effective language teaching strategies as follows: Bilingual education has been based on theories and research stemming from fields of linguistics, psychology, first and second language acquisition while the study of second language acquisition requires a change of paradigm that involves the social and cultural views of language and literacy learning. Within the context of this analysis, the paradigm in question includes the conception of literacy processes based on the ideas of identity, subjectivity, and agency. This study used classroom observations, open interviews, and students’ documents to conceptualize the literacy processes of Spanish/English learners in a bilingual public K-12 school in Colombia. The data of this study indicate that students have a sense of their identity as bilingual learners; they are aware of their subjective positions in their literacy practices, and they recognize instances of agency in their school lives. It should be remarked that the variables of these concepts greatly depend on the school culture’s official first and second agenda for literacy education, which often overlooks the facts on how students understand their circumstances of being bilingual and biliterate.

Chapter 16 Professor Bingöl introduces a novel multilingual literacy program that highlights the migration context. She discusses her critical insights on a successful second language literacy program used in Germany, and underlines the significance of meeting the varying demands of diverse migrant groups of language learners as follows: Migration, as old as the history of mankind, brings together many challenges for both the migrants and the receiving country. Certainly among the most affected ones are the children of migrants, who have to continue their educational lives in their new land. Language learning is the first challenge for these children as it is the key to integration; however, not all the countries that receive migration are experienced in handling the adaptation process of immigrants. What’s more, migrant children are expected to write in a linguistically and culturally different writing system to be considered literate in their new educational settings. Since monolingual curricula fall short in today’s global world, multilingual flexible curricula should be adopted and implemented to meet various needs of diverse migrant groups. This xx

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chapter will provide critical insights and suggestions for Syrian migrant children in the Turkish context by taking into account a successful educational second language literacy program called KOALA.

Chapter 17 Professor Miri and Professor Hung highlight the advantages of integrating writing into literature courses considering contextual variations. They situate novel language teaching techniques despite limited options and resources as follows: A vast body of research encourages the teaching of literature in language education to improve learners’ language competencies because literature is found rich in language features, contexts, and cultural instances. Even though previous research studies investigated second language writing (SLW) from different perspectives, they are inadequate in investigating ways of integrating writing into literature courses. For this purpose, this qualitative research involved five Afghan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers with experience in integrating writing into literature courses in colleges. In addition, the study aimed to explore Afghan EFL teachers’ reflections on integrating writing activities into literature courses. The results show that these teachers mainly suffered from workload, tight schedules, and shortage of relevant materials. While the challenges faced by the teachers reflected the local contexts, the advantages of reconciling writing with literature are perceived, and global pedagogical recommendations are made based on the findings of this study. The results provide novel and contextual implications for second language writing education as well as directions for the future of second language writing.

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There’s no such thing as a coincidence. Notice how every major event in your life somehow leads up to the next.. it’s all connected. The editors of this book are inspired to start this futuristic themed book project when one of the editors sent her new article to an academic journal. Somehow, she was provided with the wrong link to another journal, which almost had an identical title. When she was asked where her article was after a few months, all was resolved. Once the other editor, who was the section editor, clarified this title confusion, a great friendship has started. Both editors realized that they crossed each other’s path for a valuable reason, and they started this unique volume after numerous months of careful planning and designing. They are very grateful for this beautiful coincidence that brought two scholars who shared the same research excitement. As a result of this emerging collaboration, the editors designed this book project to provide innovative and practical implications for futuristic second language writing practices for professionals who are interested in multilingualism. The book would not have been feasible without the rich contributions of the authors, who are recruited from different parts of the world. We appreciate all the authors for their exciting and insightful contributions. Many thanks to the valuable peer reviewers, who take the time to submit thoughtful contributions by sharing their genuine expertise. Last but not least, special thanks to our wonderful Professor Dr. Dan Tannacito. He is a true legend of knowledge and wisdom. If google were a person, we would say it would certainly be Professor Dr. Tannacito. Many thanks for your inspiration, care and support Professor Tannacito. You left your footprints in our hearts, and thanks for your great contribution in this book. Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Nurdan Kavaklı Izmir Democracy University, Turkey

 

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Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Nurdan Kavaklı Izmir Democracy University, Turkey

ABSTRACT The failure to advance our understanding of intellectual rhetoric prevents opening up new avenues for rewriting the future through rhetorical technology. Rhetorical technology is the intellectual ability to use the power of empathy for human evolution through imagination and rhetorical data analysis. It draws attention to the fact that human beings can avoid repeating the same catastrophic events that their ancestors experienced with rhetorical data analysis. Within the context of this study, rhetorical technology has indeed a magical and intellectual power, and teaching empathy through writing and world languages can offer more sophisticated worldviews for humanity to evolve. For this purpose, it is quite futuristic and technological to treat writing as a resource for guiding the next generation to rewrite the future through empathy and technology.

REWRITING THE FUTURE The future is not guaranteed, and there is no guarantee on what the future might be or look like. Many scholars, notably Timothy Morton (as cited in Sundvall, 2019), have argued that we have already marked the end of the world—determined by the advent of soot and nuclear technology—to be inevitably delivered on a later date. We present a similar yet different diagnosis: the end of the future arrives not with the technologies that we produce that take no heed of the future, but rather, and more fundamentally, with an approach that takes no heed of the future in the first place. We need not only cease taking the future for granted; we must proactively (re)invent the future, appropriating and employing emergent technologies in the service of the future we desire to inhabit (Sundvall, 2019, pp. 18-19).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch001

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

 Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology

Examining the delicate nature of the writing discipline, or any other discipline, to reinvent it for its future advancement is an undeniably complex discussion that unsettles numerous facts to consider. Beyond question, what the future holds for humanity is unknown; yet people have a greater tendency to believe that the future will hold better advancements in disciplines with the aid of progressive technological devices. In the first place, this technological formulation seems to open up a whole world of possibilities for imagining and considering the future as advanced as science fiction movies, where anyone could travel to space at the speed of light, and people are finally disease-free and immortal with advanced brain functions (Smith, 2014). Logically speaking, it would be easier to imagine such an advanced technological scene if humanity did not lately travel back in time. Despite all smart technological devices, people surprisingly and unfortunately act less smart without the ability to communicate, judge, analyze and evaluate with frozen facial expressions when exposure to technology become uncontrollably ineffective and even addictive (Gerhart, 2017; Sert et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019). Instead of providing higher quality living standards for a perfect future, technological advancements in the wrong hands without critical thinking skills can be the absolute cause of devolution in humanity’s intellectual growth. When technology overpowers the real communication skills of human beings, people limit their imagination and creativity with technologically automated or generated responses, and their feelings of empathy fall short in a virtual world by missing real life. Without empathy, people cannot even relate to their ancestor’s failures when they have the chance to avoid the same pattern of catastrophic events. “From a biological perspective, there is no such thing as devolution” (Scientific American, para.1); however, human beings are intellectually devolving into the future by repeating the very same mistakes that the communities before them factually suffered from. Such criticism stems in part from people’s lack of understanding on how human beings repeat history without analyzing what specific dynamics, failures, and sequence of actions push them towards repeating the same catastrophic events. Einstein saw the future through his analytical thinking and defined this cycle of ignorance that is caused by lack of empathy and claimed that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” (Hamm, 2020, para. 1). Following this idea, the advancement of technology without conceptual, logical and consistent analysis and application is absolutely not facilitating to improve and enhance the attitudes of future generations. It is therefore important to be clear regarding how technology fails at reinventing the future in dreams due to lack of empathy, imagination, and rhetorical analysis.

THE MAGICAL POWER OF INTELLECTUAL RHETORIC The magical power of intellectual rhetoric is shadowed. One of the biggest problems humanity faces today that devalues technological advancements is the lack of empathy due to the absence of effective and functional styles of communication. Technology obviously makes mechanical tasks easier to accomplish. With the help of technology, it is easier to reach out to knowledge and information, but processing that information with critical thinking skills requires strong communication skills that excessive technology exposure clearly prevents from happening. Nowadays, it is common to observe people sitting across each other chatting with their mobile phones without looking at each other’s eyes or showing emotions, yet they text each other emoji faces to show their feelings through a technological device. Such lack of actual communication in a surreal world shows that people can also use technology to travel back in time through emojis just like their ancient ancestors drew emojis on cave walls as representations of their feelings. Human beings are social beings who already communicate through an advanced and

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instant interaction style that is called language. Quite the contrary, technology is nowadays often used in place of actual language. When technology use takes over the qualities of being a social and actual being, then the phenomenon of language fails to separate the human species from other primitive and less intellectual species. It is 2020, the world has indeed become global with fast technological advancements, but there is a lack of empathy for different cultures to tolerate each other’s differences, and the world and its people are still suffering from wars after it is scientifically proven how wars destroy the future wellbeing of the humanity (Pilzys, 2018). According to Mann (2018), people perceive that there is a decline in war and violence nowadays with the impact of globalization and technological advancements. In reality, there is no evidence that shows that wars have declined, there is only “substantial variation between periods and places” (Mann, 2018, p. 37). Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are unfortunately being only transformed. Therefore, using technology without critical thinking and a forward-looking attitude is rather just disruptive than efficient. Writing, which is a magical form of communication that can even time travel, is the framework through which people learn what “empathy” means for a better world. Writing is the only discipline that can precisely record both current and past events with limited resources. To put it simply, all that is needed is a pen and a piece of paper. With writing, people can record all their lives, hopes, success and failure moments, dreams and most importantly, people can record their limitless imagination through the power of writing. In this way, humanity will certainly have rhetorical data to comprehend, internalize and analyze past failures of other generations to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again, which is intellectually traveling back in time despite all the opportunities that technology could bring along. “While rhetoric and writing are nonetheless always already technological, not all things technological are, in and of themselves, rhetorical and meaningful” (Sundvall, 2019, p. 4). The discipline of writing allows human beings to analyze and evaluate all historic breakdowns. It allows access to the world’s most gifted brains through their writing without any time limitations as to whether they are alive or not. With writing, it is quite possible to record, analyze and evaluate human beings’ intellectual development, and use such an evaluation to shape the future along with the power of imagination. The power of imagination in reinventing the future through writing is undeniable. To illustrate, a futuristic cartoon named The Jetsons (Hanna & Barbera, 1962-1987) is created back in 1962 with an imaginative script, and showed how the power of imagination and creativity of the human mind can simply reinvent the future and turned these hard to believe cartoon scenes at the time into reality. With rapidly growing advanced technologies in a short time span, many of today’s adults grew up watching these futuristic predictions, and how these predictions came to life and became today’s reality. When this cartoon, which was about futuristic advancements in an ideal world, was created there was no such concepts as video calls, robotic vacuums, tablet computers, flying cars, holograms, smartwatches, flatscreen TVs, drones, 3D printed food, and now they are all parts of our lives (Walsh, 2019) with the power of scriptwriting and imagination. Consequently, rhetorical technology indeed has the ability to reinvent the future with the power of imagination. In order to shed light on how rhetorical analysis is quite technologically offering solutions for human advancement, it is indeed crucial to gain unique skills of empathy and imagination through advanced writing instruction. For this purpose, it is necessary to delve into the fact on how the act of writing is currently perceived in educational institutions for breaking the cycle of repetitive and catastrophic events that human beings are suffering from. The discipline of writing should be the mirror of gaining the skills of the 21st century skills, which are empathy and imagination through the power of rhetorical data analysis. 3

 Rewriting the Future Through Rhetorical Technology

The aptitude to write well is becoming increasingly one of the crucial elements that leads to college and career accomplishment for students in civilized societies. The significance of writing better requires students to be equipped with competent writing skills as the students are being accepted to colleges and jobs based on the quality of their writing tasks (MacArthur et al., 2019). This situation captures the complexity of the fact that writing represents higher intellectual skills when universities and jobs select candidates among many according to their writing performance, and selected candidates are the accomplished ones with better writing skills. While high quality writing practices are in greater demand for students to advance in their academic growth, a lack of sufficient preparation to meet this well-established demand is evident (Jeffery et al., 2012). On the other hand, learning how to compose thoughts in an intellectual fashion to be able to name it as “writing that flows” is neither a simple nor a straightforward task for second language writers within a global world. With this in mind, linguistically and culturally different rhetorical traditions that are experienced by second language students due to their home culture intensifies the pressure of becoming better writers, and second language writers face further challenges when compared to their native English speaker peers (Jwa, 2019). While the phenomenon of writing in the first language versus in the second language awaits further research to be defined more systematically and effectively, it is indeed vital to make a comparison on how speech develops versus writing within the second language acquisition theory. Chomsky (as cited in Kaplan, 2005, p.382) has advanced a theory of Universal Grammar (UG); it constitutes a mentalist claim that all human beings within the normative range have a biological endowment consisting of an “innate language faculty” permitting children to acquire the grammar of any particular language(s). This faculty is unrelated to other cognitive abilities; it contains an awareness of abstract principles that organize language and an awareness of the parameters through which those principles are instantiated in any given language. The trigger for the activity of this faculty arises from minimal exposure to a language, and from only positive evidence of the principles (thus eliminating any sort of error correction). This model has strongly influenced second language acquisition (SLA) research. However, although grammar may indeed be acquired through the “innate language faculty,” reading and writing must be taught anew in every generation (Kaplan, 2005, p. 382). Within the wider intellectual context of acquiring a second language, it seems clear that Chomsky’s view (as cited in Kaplan, 2005) on universality when acquiring a language comes into play for second language acquisition theories for both linguists and language teachers regardless of the language in question. In other words, any average human being without needing to have extra abilities can learn languages at ease, and special instruction is not needed for young children to learn speech with proper social exposure. This is a consequence of what Chomsky (as cited in Kaplan, 2005) regards as “universality.” To this end, learning how to read and write is not as natural and automatic as speech acquisition, but rather acquiring these skills require fundamental and systematic teaching. Not surprisingly, any average person can learn how to talk, most can read, but not all can write. Writing is a skill, not a gift. No one is born a great writer, let alone a great academic writer. No kindergarten teacher has ever remarked, “I liked your child’s essay, but if I’m honest, I liked her footnotes even better.” It takes humans an incredibly long time to learn to write (Silvia, 2018, para.7).

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If the ability of writing is achieved only through instruction, what differs average writing from skillful writing; and how could we define effective writing instruction from ineffective ones at an information age in which technological advancements are readily available?

TEACHING WRITING: A TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN PEDAGOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY In an ideal world, where technology interconnects with effective applications, technology-rich world for education provides new avenues and opportunities for both the teaching and learning process by affirming the notion that schools are vanguards of the civilized societies. Writing, regarded as an inseparable element of an advanced school curriculum (Elola & Oskoz, 2017), leads to civilization as a reflection of critical thinking skills. With contemporary models of writing, teachers are going to face new challenges of technologically transforming educational settings. Paramount to understanding the foundations of the 21st century writing pedagogy, it is essential for new generation teachers to adopt new writing curriculums. In an interconnected educational landscape, it is a crystal-clear fact that technology has a significant effect on both foreign and second language classrooms. By the same token, technology and its affordances have paved the way towards a nascent pedagogy that equips language teachers with digital skills while empowering learners’ mindsets for the 21st century writing instruction. The 21st century writing pedagogy highlights inclusiveness for teachers by integrating new genres with diverse audiences in order to accomplish authentic purposes (Swenson et al., 2006). Within the context of this diverse and rich, technologically driven learning settings, the 21st century writing teachers offer a public discourse (Lenhart & Madden, 2005). In this sense, writers can engage in social networks and online platforms to present their products and elicit information from a real audience. In another sense, the 21st century writing is participatory by nature since writers have the independent roles of being a creator, composer, designer and/or publisher; and thus, online discussion threads are scrutinized in a collaborative learning environment for innovative writing instruction models (Jenkins, 2009). In particular, learner-writers’ needs are given more significance than before, which paves the way towards the customization of the learning process for writing teachers. Customization of the learning process entails an orientation of the learning process, which accounts for promoting individual preferences and styles for composing. Individual learning styles and preferences through different learner profiles provide solutions by creating learning environments that cautiously accommodate the effect of learners’ emotions and intentions within the process of the writing act. In this way, customized learning attempts to foster instruction, classroom content, and other learning aspects in lieu with learners’ unique interests, individual preferences, and previous learning experiences (Hattie, 2009). Basically, the “21st century skills…are not new, just newly important” (Silva, 2009, p. 630) in terms of digital writing instruction models. Writing is now multimodal by means of graphics, sounds, images, movements and colors; and in such a multimodal learning environment, it is not surprising that the 21st century writing is now much more flexible (Moore et al., 2016) because course designs for teaching writing are also shifted from a teacher-directed to a learner-directed one. As learners have their own control in the writing process, they engage into the process of learning, and lead their own voice according to their own interests throughout their learning process. In terms of writing preferences, writers now have the autonomy in choosing when, how, and why to compose any modes of genres with a variety of voices by using the advantages of creative and digital technologies.

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It is, therefore, no coincidence that learners will grasp a good deal of their own thinking, problemsolving, and reflection acts. As a result of the customization of the learning process, learner-writers will also discover their potentials by accommodating their interests along with their learning styles and objectives. Herein, technology plays a demanding role in providing the necessary skills to be the members of a knowledge society, where technology takes an integral part of the knowledge economy. Knowledge economy purports that knowledge is a vital economic resource that forms the basis of modern societies in which science and technology are regarded as intellectual properties. Locating at “the heart of the knowledge economy” (Brandt, 2005, p. 166), the writing landscape is, then, expanded by this multimodal learning environment in which visual texts, collaborative writing, blogging, and digital video compositions are utilized for second language writing instruction instead of school-based writing, which is used just for assigning learners with a grade (Applebee & Langer, 2011). Obviously, writing instruction has shifted in the 21st century as a response to these evolving digital technologies and new genres (Jensen, 2019). Then, how can writing teachers of the future set the foundations for the 21st century innovative L2 writing instruction for more advanced learning experiences? One way to answer this question is to foster dispositions, which are required to advocate the 21st century literacies (Lammers et al., 2017). The very first key feature of the 21st century writing is that it is digital (Mirra et al., 2018) since computers, tablets and smartphones are in use to lead writing practices, and even more, to publish them in either real or virtual-life environments. In addition, the 21st century skills have been at the core of recent research by providing an understanding of how to prepare learners for the 21st century, which has also been explanatory in the sense that not only learners but also educators are to be relinquished with the assets of the 21st century (Conley, 2007; Drew, 2012; Trilling & Fadel, 2012). Therefore, the 21st century writing teachers are expected to navigate learners by optimizing educational resources and opportunities in order to create a plea to go beyond their own learning. Futuristic writing teachers are expected to make learner-writers to be equipped with a more holistic way of learning, in which life-long learning skills like creativity, critical thinking, communication, digital literacy, and the like are given utmost significance in a globalized educational landscape (Teo, 2019). In such an educational landscape, it is a crystal clear fact that the use of technology in writing instruction has proliferated benefits for both teachers and learners. The use of technology, as a mediator in the teaching and learning of writing, is marked as motivating since it provokes learners’ engagement and active stance in instructional activities (e.g., Beam & Williams, 2015; Jocius, 2013; Mills & Exley, 2014). In doing this, technology-oriented writing instruction indeed creates opportunities for both teachers and learners since they become co-teachers and -learners within the process (Edwards-Groves, 2011). Supportive of reluctant writers, learners may also take the role of peer-coaches for those who are in need of technological support, which then bolsters self-esteem among learner writers. Moreover, the effective use of technology also encourages collaboration and interaction by creating a stress-free environment in which learners share their ideas since their literacy learning is supported by others, and therefore, learners who are struggling with self-confidence are also motivated (Batsila & Tsihouridis, 2016). There is evidence that collaborative work is stronger in quality than individual work (Yamaç & Ulusoy, 2016). Thus, technology-oriented writing instruction provides peer interaction, division of labor, learning opportunities for sharing, discussing and negotiating ideas, and composing joint processes with their peers’ efforts such as planning, drafting, and revising by fostering collaboration. Last but foremost, effective technology-oriented writing instruction contributes to learners’ growth as both learners and writers. In addition, it enhances learners’ analysis, problem-solving, generative thinking, and new literacies skills (Sessions et al., 2016). With its supportive infrastructure, it assists

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learners who are struggling with the process of writing by means of a process-oriented approach. This process-oriented approach introduces a wide range of multimedia and digital tools into writing instruction by providing both teachers and learners with new literacies through stimulating learners’ engagement with its multimodal nature. Given this richer understanding of the process orientation phase in writing, multimodality does not always replace print-based literacies; instead, it extends the process of writing for new literacies by means of technology (Edward-Groves, 2011). At all rates, developing competence as a writer necessitates paramount tenets of writing processes, and fundamental understandings of a great number of writing strategies and skills with the integration of technology. In this sense, it is inevitable that this new educational landscape has some challenges for teachers in nestling technology and related instructional activities as a part of technology-driven writing pedagogy of the 21st century.

NEW CHALLENGES IN EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPES The 21st century educational landscape magnifies the significance of real-world skills whereas more emphasis was given to basic literacy and numeracy skills prior to 2000 (Smith & Hu, 2013). These real-world skills include communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills, and they are deemed crucial for all people in order to interact without borders. This increased mobility with no borders through modern communication systems have made it vital to construct knowledge, and apply it relevantly into the 21st century educational landscapes through technology transfer, which has enormously changed learning processes and outcomes. Thus, it is now more tempting to provide learners with the knowledge of how to learn, albeit not what to learn, which has correspondingly shifted the focus in 21st century teaching from what to teach to how to teach for futuristic writing teachers. Corresponding to this changing educational landscape, language learning as a process of skills development, is regarded as a way of responding to learners’ communication needs (Wang, 2004), and therefore, should provide rich learning environments (Hsu, 2011). Promoting collaborative and active learning (Khan et al., 2012), technology-driven pedagogy is now reinforced since it motivates learners to take risks, feel confident, and be flexible (Kern & Warschauer, 2000). In particular, integrating technology has a significant effect on the development of writing as a language skill (Tsai & Jenks, 2009). The unsettling fact is that integration of technology into the classroom environment is arduous as an issue of concern for most writing teachers. It is necessary to look at how teachers are now engaged in an ongoing struggle while providing authenticity in 21st century writing within the classroom environment by means of a technology-driven pedagogy. To elaborate, writing teachers often have challenges in helping learner writers to negotiate their writers’ identities due to the backdrops of standardized curricula, testing and evaluation. What is even more crucial, school-based writing practices do not always reflect 21st century writing since new teaching contexts and genres should be enacted considering the discourse in question. In terms of the contextual discourse, “regulative discourses” are regarded as the set of narratives that reconcile actions performed by the teachers (Mills, 2015). In this sense, teachers’ own experiences at schools, their own ideologies in relation to disciplinary issues, institutional norms, standardized curriculum and policies could define and maintain teachers’ pedagogical decisions depending on varying contexts. For instance, teachers may be inclined to use new media writing; however, the nature of writing is guided by a teacherdirected way of learning as dominantly “refracted through the discourses they encountered” (Burnett, 2009, p. 127), or institutional norms may constrain teachers’ perception to implement 21st century writ-

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ing in practice. In other words, conflicting discourses shape the teaching context within a dynamic yet challenging tension. This dynamic tension triggers the construction of teacher identity which also forms the act of teaching and attitudes in the process of writing. Teacher identity is complex in nature, and reconstructed in time as a result of cultural, historical and social influences (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). Teachers, including writing teachers, position themselves accordingly, and orient their decisions contextually. For instance, they may identify themselves as both teacher and writer in a classroom context, and these conceptualizations of identity act as a catalyst in their decision-making processes in adopting technology into the classroom environment. On the other hand, teachers’ willingness to use technology in order to mediate writing instruction has a significant influence on their choice of classroom-based writing activities because writing teachers may assume that learners should master the processes of conventional writing before they learn how to use technology for writing (Peterson & McClay, 2012). It is, therefore, not surprising that teachers feel insufficient with the pressure of adopting technology in classes when applying innovative writing pedagogies required for 21st century writing. Unfortunately, some teachers’ limited or no access to use technology due to a lack of resources is another matter of concern in adopting technology into the classroom environment for 21st century writing practices. Teachers may repeatedly request for support although school staff might not cooperate to install required software applications on the computers which may impede learning through technology. It is surprising; however, some teachers may still find reasons not to use technology even when they are provided access (Aldunate & Nussbaum, 2013). With a need for professional support toward technologymediated writing instruction, teachers may develop a feeling of embarrassment or frustration over the lack of their voices in the decision-making process in terms of instructional content (Vrasidas, 2015). The notion behind this conflict in educational institutions is not always about pedagogical or professional but rather technological with a focus on hardware rather than the focus on instruction. Obviously, writing as a critical language skill, is perceived as more demanding than the other language domains, and creating a coherent piece of writing in the second language is rather challenging for language learners (Nunan, 1999). In this vein, rhetorical conventions such as style, structure and organization differ from one language to another, which makes it much harder for learners. Although the rapid developments in technology have dramatically influenced the ways of teaching and learning are practiced in the 21st century, traditional writing practices may not always the reflection of core meaningmaking resource in terms of practice. To illustrate, there may be little or no writing in some language teaching texts whereas writing seems more dominant in some others due to the particular design of images and word relations to shape the meaning in the second language. Since computer applications can be laced with such representational images, meaning can be reinforced through images. Thus, inexperienced teachers may face a dilemma in marshaling coherence in the second language, whether to use different designs of images, or written piece of materials to foster language learning, and language skill development depending on the level of the language learners. Although text-creation affordances of today’s technology may allow learners to transform the knowledge of literary materials, teachers may assume that these are efforts for nothing but creating a “full-blown multimedia presentation” (Peterson & McClay, 2012, p. 142), which is completely different from composing by hand. To frame the barriers to using technology in L2 writing instruction, it is apparent that teachers face a number of challenges in utilizing technology into the classroom environment. In sum, they can be listed as writing teachers’ own beliefs about the negative effect of technology on the teaching and learning process, teachers’ lack of technological knowledge and skills, teachers’ unwillingness to implement

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technology-oriented activities in the classroom, teachers’ lack of professional support, teachers’ beliefs to use conventional methods, teachers’ identity and previous experiences, and teachers’ limited or no access to technology. Thus, technology is one side of the puzzle to reinvent the discipline of writing for teaching empathy based writing practices and rhetorical analysis to second language writers.

SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING FOR A CHANGE “You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.” — Geoffrey Willans The discipline of writing has the power to understand and interpret the world around us through rhetorical analysis, empathy and imagination in diverse languages. When learning to express thoughts in a written format in one’s native language is evidently complicated and process-oriented, the level of challenge in expressing intellectual thoughts in another writing system other than the native language is evident (Hancı-Azizoğlu, 2018). It requires a high level of perception to understand how linguistically and culturally challenging it is to write in another language system when feeling empathy towards other cultures is still perceived as moving mountains. Within the context of technological advancements, the intellectual power of rhetorical analysis that would specifically promote empathy and critical thinking skills is crucially needed. Beyond question, real-world data for rhetorical analysis paints a pessimistic picture to achieve the goal of teaching empathy through writing in world languages: Sadly, the world is still fighting with famine, children are still dying out of hunger, there is still violence towards women and children, men are still the dominant gender that rules the world, and, wars are still part of people’s lives despite all fast growing technological advancements. Most institutions from innovation to education are still failing just because most systems fail to create safe and sound spaces to raise children with empathy in educational institutions, and advanced technologies without empathy is not facilitating to change this unfortunate cycle of wasted lives for humans (Arthus-Bertrand, 2015). Technology, with the possibility of reconsidering and questioning the past for reinventing the future of dreams, depends specifically on intellectual rhetoric. Intellectual rhetoric can be assumed to be the most required skill for the 21st century because it is indeed the most creative way to reimagine teaching a sense of empathy through writing stories. You don’t have to be an aspiring journalist or novelist to benefit from clear, concise and persuasive writing skills. For starters, many of your college courses, even in more analytical and numbers-oriented areas such as science and math, require a certain level of writing skills…Everyone from physicists and engineers to video game designers and marketing executives must be a good storyteller on some level in order to connect with co-workers, customers and a larger audience (Creel, 2018, para.2). Through technology, it is possible to tell global stories within writing classrooms to teach empathy. Technology can aid people to write an unlimited set of stories that can teach empathy to new generations; however, the use of technology is often abusive. Without further knowledge of advanced technological applications rather than everyday random internet surfing; technology, as the way most people practice it, failed drastically when the world has just faced a pandemic. For instance, so-called advanced communication technologies were unable to unite people under one roof when the world faced with a pandemic across countries due to lack of empathy. The rapid spread of corona virus proved how advanced tech-

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nologies failed once more because the use of technology could not prevent taking the same preventive measures when fighting with the same virus. Within the context of intellectual rhetoric, it is therefore important to teach empathy through writing classes to better understand why humans have a tendency to repeat the same catastrophic events without learning from the failures of past generations. It should be remarked that people were not discriminated against based on their privileges when the attacker was an invisible virus that was a threat for all. This study reimagined the act of teaching writing through empathy and technology by emphasizing the growing importance of tolerance for different rhetorical traditions to learn from other cultures. Within the context of this study, the next generation can better interpret the world around them with the help of empathy and imagination, which are discussed as the essential components of intellectual rhetoric. Thus, the conceptual aim of this introductory study reformulated the future of writing from the following perspectives: • • •

Intellectual rhetoric is an endless resource to teach empathy from a futuristic and technological style Technology is a double-edged sword: Technology can create miracles in a writing class if used creatively and effectively. It is a double-edged sword, if the technology is used addictively out of its purpose by impairing the most fundamental communication tool for people, which is language. The power of imagination has no rhetorical limits so it can be the source of inspiration for a positive change through the power of futuristic writing methods.

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Burnett, C. (2009). Personal digital literacies versus classroom literacies: Investigating pre- service teachers’ digital lives in and beyond the classroom. In V. Carrington & M. Robinson (Eds.), Digital literacies: Social learning and classroom practices (pp. 155–129). SAGE Publications. doi:10.4135/9781446288238.n8 Conley, D. T. (2007). Toward a more comprehensive conception of college readiness. Educational Policy Improvement Center. Creel, W. (2018, May 16). Why learning to write in college is important. Wes Creel Higher Ed Blog. https://wescreel.com/2018/05/16/learning-write-college-important/ Drew, S. V. (2012). Opening up the ceiling on the common core state standards: Preparing students for 21st century literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(4), 321–330. doi:10.1002/JAAL.00145 Edwards-Groves, C. J. (2011). The multimodal writing process: Changing practices in contemporary classrooms. Language and Education, 25(1), 49–64. doi:10.1080/09500782.2010.523468 Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2017). Writing with 21st century social tools in the L2 classroom: New literacies, genres, and writing practices. Journal of Second Language Writing, 36, 52–60. doi:10.1016/j. jslw.2017.04.002 Gerhart, N. (2017). Technology addiction: How social network sites impact our lives. Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, 20, 174-194. Retrieved from https://www. informingscience.org/Publications/3851 Hamm, T. (2020, April 8th). If you want different results, you have to try different approaches. The Simple Dollar. Retrieved from https://www.thesimpledollar.com/make-money/if-you-want-different-results-youhave-to-try-different-approaches/ Hancı-Azizoğlu, E. B. (2018). Creative writing as a second language: What is creativity for second language writers? TESOL Journal, 9(4), 1–13. doi:10.1002/tesj.424 Hanna, W., & Barbera, J. (Executive Producers). (1962-1987). Jetsons [Cartoon Series]. Hanna-Barbera Productions. Hattie, J. A. C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge. Hsu, S. (2011). Who assigns the most ICT activities? Examining the relationship between teacher and student usage. Computers & Education, 56(3), 847–855. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.10.026 Jeffery, J. V., Kieffer, M. J., & Matsuda, P. K. (2013). Examining conceptions of writing in TESOL and English Education journals: Toward a more integrated framework for research addressing multilingual classrooms. Learning and Individual Differences, 28, 181–192. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.11.001 Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/8435.001.0001 Jensen, A. (2019). Fostering preservice teacher agency in 21st century writing instruction. English Teaching, 18(3), 298–311. doi:10.1108/ETPC-12-2018-0129

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Jocius, R. (2013). Exploring adolescents’ multimodal responses to the Kite Runner: Understanding how students use digital media for academic purposes. The Journal of Media Literacy Education, 5(1), 310–325. Jwa, S. (2019). Transfer of knowledge as a mediating tool for learning: Benefits and challenges for ESL writing instruction. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 39, 109–118. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2019.04.003 Kaplan, R. (2005). Contrastive Rhetoric. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 375–391). Routledge. Kern, R., & Warschauer, M. (2000). Theory and practice of network-based language teaching. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching (pp. 1–19). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139524735.003 Khan, M., Hasan, M., & Clement, C. (2012). Barriers to the introduction of ICT into education in developing countries: The example of Bangladesh. International Journal of Instruction, 5(2), 61–80. Lammers, J., Magnifico, A., & Curwood, J. S. (2017). Literate identities in fan-based online affinity spaces. In K. Mills, A. Stornaiuolo, A. Smith, & J. Z. Pandya (Eds.), Handbook of writing, literacies and education in digital cultures (pp. 50–62). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315465258-18 Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2005). Teen content creators and consumers. Retrieved on May 15, 2020 from www.pewinternet.org/2005/11/02/teen-content-creators-and-consumers/ MacArthur, C. A., Jennings, A., & Philippakos, Z. A. (2019). Which linguistic features predict quality of argumentative writing for college basic writers, and how do those features change with instruction? Reading and Writing, 32(6), 1553–1574. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11145-018-9853-6. doi:10.100711145-018-9853-6 Mann, M. (2018). Have wars and violence declined? Theory and Society, 47(1), 37–60. doi:10.100711186018-9305-y Mills, K. A. (2015). Literacy theories for the digital age: Social, critical, multimodal, spatial, material and sensory lenses. Multilingual Matters. doi:10.21832/9781783094639 Mills, K. A., & Exley, B. (2014). Time, space, and text in the elementary school digital writing classroom. Written Communication, 31(4), 434–469. doi:10.1177/0741088314542757 Mirra, N., Morrell, E., & Filipiak, D. (2018). From digital consumption to digital invention: Toward a new critical theory and practice of multiliteracies. Theory into Practice, 57(1), 12–19. doi:10.1080/00 405841.2017.1390336 Moore, J. L., Rosinski, P., Peeples, T., Pigg, S., Rife, M. C., Brunk-Chavez, B., & Grabill, J. T. (2016). Revisualizing composition: How first-year writers use composing technologies. Computers and Composition, 39, 1–13. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2015.11.001 Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Heinle & Heinle. Peterson, S. S., & McClay, J. K. (2012). Assumptions and practices in using digital technologies to teach writing in middle-level classrooms across Canada. Literacy, 46(3), 140–146. doi:10.1111/j.17414369.2012.00665.x

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Pilzys, J. (2018). Local wars threatening world peace. International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education, 5(2), 76–87. doi:10.20431/2349-0381.0502009 Rodgers, C. R., & Scott, K. H. (2008). The development of the personal self and professional identity in learning to teach. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. J. McIntyre, & K. E. Demers (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education: Enduring questions in changing contexts (3rd ed., pp. 733–755). Routledge. Scientific American. (1998, July 20). Is the human race evolving or devolving? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-human-race-evolvin/ Sert, H., Yılmaz, F. T., Kumsar, A. Z., & Aygın, D. (2019). Effect of technology addiction on academic success and fatigue among Turkish university students. Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior, 7(1), 41–51. doi:10.1080/21641846.2019.1585598 Sessions, L., Kang, M. O., & Womack, S. (2016). The neglected R: Improving writing instruction through iPad apps. TechTrends, 60(3), 218–225. doi:10.100711528-016-0041-8 Silva, E. (2009). Measuring skills for 21st century learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 90(9), 630–634. doi:10.1177/003172170909000905 Silvia, P. J. (2018). How to write a lot: A practical guide to productive academic writing. American Psychological Association. Smith, A. (2014, April 17). U.S. views of technology and the future: Science in the next 50 years. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/04/17/us-views-of-technology-and-the-future/ Smith, J., & Hu, R. (2013). Rethinking teacher education: Synchronizing eastern and western views of teaching and learning to promote 21st century skills and global perspectives. Education Research and Perspectives, 40, 86–108. Sundvall, S. (Ed.). (2019). Rhetorical speculations: The future of rhetoric, writing, and technology. University Press of Colorado. doi:10.7330/9781607328315 Swenson, J., Young, C. A., McGrail, E., Rozema, R., & Whitin, P. (2006). Extending the conversation: New technologies, new literacies, and English education. English Education, 38(4), 351–369. Teo, P. (2019). Teaching for the 21st century: A case for dialogic pedagogy. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 21, 170–178. doi:10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.03.009 Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2012). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. Wiley & Sons Inc. Tsai, R., & Jenks, M. (2009). Teacher-guided interactive multimedia for teaching English in an EFL context. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 18(1), 91–111. Vrasidas, C. (2015). The rhetoric of reform and teachers’ use of ICT. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(2), 370–380. doi:10.1111/bjet.12149 Walsh, K. (2019, November 5). 12 Cool technologies “The Jetsons” predicted for 2062 that we have right now. EmergingEdTech. Retrieved from https://www.emergingedtech.com/2019/11/10-cool-technologiesthe-jetsons-predicted-for-2062-that-we-have-right-now/

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Wang, H. Y., Sigerson, L., & Cheng, C. (2019). Digital nativity and information technology addiction: Age cohort versus individual difference approaches. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 1–9. doi:10.1016/j. chb.2018.08.031 Wang, Y. (2004). English magazines, motivation, and improved EFL writing skill. English Teaching Forum, 42(1), 24-29. Yamaç, A., & Ulusoy, M. (2016). The effect of digital storytelling in improving the third graders’ writing skills. International Electronic Journal of Environmental Education, 9(1), 59–86.

ADDITIONAL READING Elliot, N., & Horning, A. S. (Eds.). (2020). Talking Back: Senior Scholars and Their Colleagues Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies. University Press of Colorado. doi:10.7330/9781607329763 Giuliano, T. A. (2019). The “Writing spiral”: A practical tool for teaching undergraduates to write publication-quality manuscripts. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 915. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00915 PMID:31068880 Goulet, M. J., & Pelletier, L. (2017). Contents and approaches to technology in digital writing instruction: Evidence from universities of two Canadian provinces. Computers and Composition, 43, 73–87. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2016.11.007 Graham, S. (2019). Changing how writing is taught. Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 277–303. doi:10.3102/0091732X18821125 Green, M. (2019). Smartphones, distraction narratives and flexible pedagogies: Students’ mobile technology practices in networked writing classrooms. Computers and Composition, 52, 91–106. doi:10.1016/j. compcom.2019.01.009 Hyland, K. (2019). Second language writing. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108635547 Krauth, N. (2016). Creative writing and the radical: Teaching and learning the fiction of the future. Multilingual Matters. doi:10.21832/9781783095933 Rodrigo, R., & Romberger, J. (2017). Managing digital technologies in writing programs: Writing program technologists & invisible service. Computers and Composition, 44, 67–82. doi:10.1016/j. compcom.2017.03.003 Sessions, L., Kang, M. O., & Womack, S. (2016). The neglected ‘R’: Improving writing instruction through iPad apps. TechTrends, 60(3), 218–225. doi:10.100711528-016-0041-8 Strobl, C., Ailhaud, E., Benetos, K., Devitt, A., Kurse, O., Proske, A., & Rapp, C. (2019). Digital support for academic writing: A review of technologies and pedagogies. Computers & Education, 131, 33–48. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2018.12.005 Sullivan, P. M., Lantz, J. L., & Sullivan, B. A. (2020). Handbook of research on integrating digital technology with literacy pedagogies. IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-0246-4

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Thomas, S. (2019). The WAC-driven writing center: The future of writing instruction in Australasia? Across the Disciplines, 16(3), 80-90. Warnock, S. (2009). Teaching writing online: How and why? Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Customization of the Learning Process: Modifying and arranging the steps of an education regarding individual talents and preferences for previously planned desired outcomes. Educational Landscape: A contextual and purposeful collection of teaching styles, attitudes, principals that reflect a specific time and environment. Emoji: An expression of an emotion or an idea through a small digital image, sign or symbol. Emphatic Education: A global and inclusive type education that aims for peace and tolerance for all positive ideas and cultures. Intellectual Devolution: Transferring to a state of mind that is less intelligent, logical, and knowledgeable despite the passing time and advancing technology. Intellectual Rhetoric: The empathic and futuristic power of logic in writing. Knowledge Economy: A futuristic approach to intellectual production that is central to logic knowledge and technology rather than the consumption of goods that is money dependent. Rhetorical Technology: The negotiation of meaning with logic and empathy for forming the future in dreams through the power of technology.

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Chapter 2

The Struggles of Bilingual Authors:

Developing Identity in the Additional Language Dan Tannacito Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT This chapter examines the struggles of bilingual authors to write in English as an additional language. Autobiographical works in English illustrate themes found to be central to the development of biliteracy. The theme of finding voice is a highly variable theme in the writing of many bilinguals. The theme of constructing identity takes multiple forms as bilingual authors renegotiate their identities in the additional language. The struggle for place is a theme that permeates the narratives of expatriation, exile, immigration, and repatriation. These three struggles offer new writers opportunities to learn to develop their own creativity. Teachers of English as an additional language can structure their curricula to reflect the language learning practice of reading and writing.

INTRODUCTION Many years ago Braj Kachru (1985), author of World Englishes, observed that there was a considerable lack of research on bilingual creativity. Since that time, a number of cross-cultural autobiographies and several pioneering scholarly studies by Peirce (1995), Kramsch and Lim (1999), Pavlenko (2001) and others have appeared. As a result, we can now begin to see the nature of the struggle bilingual authors experience, struggles that are internal or ideological as well as social and political. Closer attention to the struggles of bilingual authors writing in an additional language (English as well as other second languages) reveals the complexity of biliteracy and offers teachers and students opportunities for a pedagogy for bilingual writers.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch002

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

 The Struggles of Bilingual Authors

I define bilingualism loosely as the potential use of more than one language as part of an individual’s linguistic repertoire. Applied linguists regard multilingualism rather than monolingualism as the norm in language learning (Cook, 1992). As Ketaki Kushari Dyson (1994) points out “Being a bilingual writer is probably the most complex form of bilingualism” (p.170). This very complexity warrants its own theoretical framework, as Hornberger proposed in the 1980s, in which biliteracy is considered as “any and all instances in which communication occurs in two (or more) languages in or around writing” (2003, p. 323). Hornberger’s biliteracy framework includes 12 continua or dimensions that define biliteracy. Recently, Hornberger (2018, May) says of her theoretical framework that: the “continua of context, media, and development bring into focus all the dimensions to be taken into account in creating learning environments that recognize and build on students’ language and literacy”(slide 6). My thesis in this chapter is that themes of struggle are central to the dimension of biliterate development and, therefore, to a pedagogy of bilingual writing. Liu (2010), Huster (2011), and Baek Burke (2010) among others have previously discussed the development of bilteracy from the emic perspective. I will draw upon several genres much favored by bilingual writers: the cross-cultural autobiography, the language learning memoir, the ethnographic interview, and the testimonial. In these genres, bilingual authors struggle in three distinct ways: they struggle to find voice, to construct their identities, and to create place. I argue that it is precisely these three struggles which define the development of biliteracy and offer us opportunities to promote biliterate writing.

STRUGGLES TO FIND VOICE Classic expressivist composition theory (Elbow, Murray, etc.) view writing as fundamentally a matter of voice which Ramanathan and Atkinson (1999) identify as a reflection of the cultural value of a private, independent, original, and assertive self characteristic of the ideology of western individualism. However, some cultures find the notion of individualism in western writing to conflict with their first language (L1) cultural values, and consequently their cultural positionings and expectations differ or conflict with those valued and promoted in the United States (U.S.) Scollon and Scollon (1981) first observed this in the conflict experienced by indigenous Athabaskan students in Alaska, who refused to display their self as distinct from their community values in essays required for college composition classes. Other cultures, such as Japanese, as Matsuda (2001) shows, construct voice differently than in English. In the case of Japanese, voice is constructed through a number of language specific features (e.g., use of tense, honorifics, and the absence of pronouns), which minimize the narrator’s role as agent. According to Dyer and Friederich (2002), Japanese student writers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) grapple with the distinction between him/herself (autobiographical self) and his/her narrator (authorial self) in personal essays. The fact that one is born in Japan speaking Japanese does not mean automatically that one’s “native literacy” will be one’s first sequential oral language, as the case of Kyoko Mori, author of Polite lies: On being a woman caught between cultures (1997). While she was an émigré from Japan at the age of 20, she distances herself from her “native” language, revealed when she says:“Trying to speak Japanese in Japan, I’m still thinking in English . . . .my feelings are untranslatable and my voice is the voice of a foreigner” (p. 17). Her choice of English as her language for writing stems from her formal training as a writer in an American setting, of which she says “I could not think of myself as a Japanese writer

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because I don’t identify with the Japanese literary tradition and I don’t write in Japanese (p. 141). These writers show us that voice is a chosen variable and developmental. Conflicting values run deeply in the development of bilingual writers as they grapple with the construction of self and appropriate action in writing. Two Chinese-- now American scholars of composition—Min-zhan Lu and Fan Shen-- raised to adulthood in the People’s Republic of China, have reflected on their struggles to acquire voice in writing. Lu (1998) says in her article “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”: “We had been brought up in two conflicting worlds—the world of home, dominated by the ideology of Western humanistic tradition, and the world of society dominated by Mao Tse-tung’s Marxism (p. 71). From early childhood through her experiences as a graduate student in the United States, Lu (1998) was immersed in the oral and written discourses of two languages. A coordinate bilingual, Lu (1998) constantly switched back and forth in a “self-conscious . . . struggle” between these conflicting voices identities, and ideologies originating in the social contexts of home, school and workplaces. Fortunately, as she says, “that conflict ultimately helped me to grow as a reader and writer” (p. 72). These contradictory Discourses, as Gee (2011) would call them, became internal voices in Lu’s (1998) dialogic imagination (Bakhtin 1981). On the one hand, Lu (1998) wrote in the generic voice of the working-class student--“a formula for working-class writing in the [Chinese] composition classes” (p. 76). Yet at the same time, she wrote with middle class American values as illustrated by her story of how she drafted two distinctly different versions of an assigned book report on a text about a Chinese revolutionary family. The first version—expressed her home reading and voice about scenes that “moved her”—but was not submitted in class in China. Opposition between these discourses continues to be influential in Chinese education. Consider the following explanation by a Chinese English teacher, pseudonymously named Mr. Zhang, in Xiao-Mei Li’s ethnographic study of writing teachers in the People’s Republic of China (1996). He explains the difference quite clearly between the standard of “good writing” in America and those in post-Tian-AnMen (i.e., 1989) Chinese society. Mr. Zhang has this to say: We think that writings should have “personality,” should come from self and express the author’s unique understanding and genuine feelings, yet the “self” in the West is in our view a small “self,” and what we are talking about is a big self. . . . That is, through one’s personal observation, discovery, and understanding, the writer should produce works that will contribute to the life and future of the nation and its people, to the health and progress of the society. . . We want students to produce writing that can inspire others, and at the same time, enable themselves to think more positively about life, to love life, and have more confidence in life. (p. 34) Mainland Chinese students in American classrooms can be expected to struggle ideologically with the requirement to create a personal or individual voice in their written texts. Of course, life outside the classroom contributes to the development of the bilingual writer’s voice. As Natasha Lvovich (1997) says: My voice in English is only one of my voices. It is the product of growth, of struggle, and of being alive; of living an ordinary life in America, where my English is a way of communication, not anymore of hiding and resisting, where my American self can become just like me. . . .Finding courage—or even the

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nerve!—to write creatively in a foreign language . . . [T]his is the choice of those who want to be heard and read, and it is also a desire to be free. Learning and using languages is a way toward freedom. (p. xv) Finding a voice becomes central to the life and literacy of the bilingual author, a necessary first step in the reconstruction or relocation of the self in a new context.

SOCIAL, ETHNIC, AND GENDER STRUGGLES OF IDENTITY The struggle for voice for many biliterate authors quite often broadens into a struggle with other aspects of identity including identities of nation, ethnicity, gender, power, and class. When she made the transition to studying in the U.S., Fan Shen (1998) struggled to reconcile her Chinese identity with her English identity about which experience she says: . . . [L] earning the rules of English composition is, to a certain extent, learning the values of AngloAmerican society. In writing classes in the United States, I found that I had to reprogram my mind, to redefine some of the basic concepts and values that I had about myself, about society, about the universe, values that had been part of me all my life. (p. 124) Two literacy events, narrated by Fan Shen (1998) contrasting her life in China and in America, suggest the intermixture of social, political, and personal identity. In China, she was urged while working as an electrician at an aircraft factory to fight “Against Individualism” in a 1975 political campaign. In contrast, ten years later in her first composition classroom in the U.S., she was criticized by her teacher for failing to use the pronoun “I” and a personal perspective. Shen (1998) also notes her prolonged “mental struggle” within her habitus (Bourdieu, 1972, 1977). Her “logical identity,” as she calls her Chinese literacy practices came to be supplanted by her “ideological identity,” those values, as she says, “based on the principle of protecting and promoting individuality and private property” that she found in America in general but in her composition classroom in particular. This struggle centered on her self, on her identity, as she says: To be truly “myself,” which I knew was the key to my success in learning English composition, meant not to be my Chinese self at all. That is to say, When I write in English I have to wrestle with and abandon (at least temporarily the whole system of ideology which previously defined me in myself . . . . I had to put aside an ideology of collectivism and adopt the values of individualism. (p. 125) For other authors, such as Gloria Anzaldua (1987), there is no distinction between self and group, no conflict perceived between ethnicity and language: Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity--I am my language. Until I take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself. Until I accept as Chicano Texas Spanish, Tex-Mex, and all the other languages I speak, I cannot accept the legitimacy of myself Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate.

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I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue—my woman’ voice My sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence. (p. 259) Sometimes the struggle to find a voice is a political, rather than ideological, struggle. A person can choose a language in which to write but may find that the dominant power group which controls that language may not choose that person’s texts in the adopted language. Ketaki Kushari Dyson (1994) writes of her encounters with exclusion. Although her writing in Bengali and English had achieved considerable status Bengali in India, subsequently, her writing in English in England was met with suspicion in a number of ways and discrimination when she sought to publish in English, ultimately being restricted to publishing in specific genres. She sums up this problem of the bilingual writer, saying: The English do not really believe in bilingual writers. . . .What they do not practice themselves they neither appreciate nor respect. Not only do they not understand the fine skills that go into the making of a bilingual writer, but they are also suspicious of the quality of the work produced by such a writer. (p. 178) And she adds that: . . . It seems to me that to succeed as an Indian writer in London one needs to pursue a career dedicated exclusively to writing in English, in which it is difficult to escape from perpetuating neo-colonial images of India. (p. 183) Rather than do this the successful novelist, Anita Desai, who is half-Bengali and half-German, like the even more successful author Salman Rushdie writes in English only although both authors know and represent various spoken languages and language varieties in their fiction. Another explanation for this problem has been proposed by anthropologist Pauline Burton. Ardener et al. (2020) found mutedness as the main theme connecting ten diverse ethnographies about second language use by women in her collection of articles, Bilingual Women. This idea originally proposed by anthropologist Ardener (1972) is intended to explain why women rarely speak for themselves in ethnographic studies which seems to me to apply equally as well to cross-cultural autobiographies. Muting occurs both through deliberate exclusion and through acceptance of the taken-for-granted in everyday life. Many cross-cultural autobiographies, language learning memoirs, and testimonials considered in this chapter work against the silence imposed by exclusion and the taken-for-granted. A solution to muteness, as Peirce (1995) has shown, is reclaiming the “right to speak” or the “right to write” to acquire identity with agency and voice. In French Lessons, Alice Kaplan (1993) writes about her struggle for a social identity in a memoir about her career as an American woman who was becoming a professor and scholar of French. She says: When I was an adolescent, French was my storehouse language. I collected secrets in French; I spoke to myself in French. I know now that my passion for French helped me to put off what I needed to say, in English, to the people around me.” (p. 214) “Why have I chosen to live in not-quite-my-own-language, in exile from myself, for so many years—why have I gone through school with a gag on, do I like not really being able to express myself?” (p. 210)

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Why did I hide in French? If life got too messy, I could take off into my second world. Writing about it has made me air my suspicions, my anger, my longings, to people for whom it comes as a total surprise. . . . Learning French did me some harm by giving me a place to hide. (p. 216) Although she expresses doubt and conflict throughout her process of becoming a scholar of French literature, acquiring the social identity of another culture provides Kaplan (1993) moments which are “a chance for growth, for freedom, a liberation from the ugliness of our received ideas and mentalities” (p. 211). Natasha Lvovich (1997), a Jewish Russian émigré, whom I have quoted previously acquired distinctly different identities through her multiple emigration experiences. Of her French persona she says: The story of my fluency in French is the story of building a language identity. It was generated by my love of French culture . . . but most of all by my personal way of dealing with the political regime [in the Soviet Union] and the sociocultural bias it created. (p. 2) While her French identity was a reaction to her native Russian situation, her Italian letters (translated back into English) express her joy in interpersonal relations, her avidity in language learning with friends at work in Italy and in correspondence with Italians from America. Her third language learning experience with English “inspired me to find my voice and to write my stories about how languages have integrated my being, defined and formed my self” (p. xiii). Lvovich’s (1997) writing about each of her identities focuses on interpersonal dimensions through which she derives value. Another French writer-- Assia Djebar, (Djebar & Morell 1985), an Arab-Berber from Algeria, discusses the problem of writing about the past, her former identity, in the language of the “other.” She says: After 1982, having written [in French] for over two years Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, the first volume of a four-novel series that is a ‘quest for identity’ and admittedly semi-autobiographically, I ask myself: This language of the other, what does it represent to me? By what means did it enter so deeply within me? Am I at the point that I have become the “other” in my society, am I at the point that I might seize my portion of “otherness,” of the foreignness that is inevitably included in a group of origin? I, who barely twenty years old, entered into literature almost blindfolded, yet feeling as though drowned in light? (p. 22) Despite her extensive immersion of herself in the language of the other, she finds herself truly able to recreate her former identity in her fiction, a kind of repatriation: Yes, I heard Arabic and Berber (the wails, cries, ululations of my ancestors . . .); I could truly hear them and thereby resuscitate them, those barbarians, in the French language. So much so that to write becomes to inscribe, to write from the depths (“en creux”), to bring back to the text, to the paper, to the manuscript, to the hand, to bring back at the same time the funeral chants and the buried bodies; yes to bring back the other. (pp. 25-26) This realization of her complex identity includes her gender and religion as well. Two metaphors— hostess and migrant—are closely connected through a single French word:

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In Islam, the woman is the hostess, that is passagere; risking at each moment, unilateral repudiation, she cannot truly claim a permanent place. Thus, in a religion that begins with an almost sacred emigration, the woman becomes a constant emigrant. . . .[W]riting every day in the French language . . . I am in fact only one of the women in this multitude. Simply a migrant. (p. 27) Bilingualism, and in particular biliteracy, has the advantage over monolingualism that the writing subject has a choice. Bilingualism and biliteracy raise the question whether the individual or whether history chooses the language used to convey meaning in a text. History may prevent one from using one’s first literacy but choosing to write in a second literacy is usually an act of freedom. Many cross-cultural autobiographies testify to an array of language choices, whether those choices are oral or written, vernacular or standard and literary. I agree with Pavlenko (2001), one of the pioneers in cross-cultural autobiographical study, that “Language ownership is the key area where identities are renegotiated”(p.326), although we observe that this occurs in many different ways.

STRUGGLE FOR PLACE The struggle for place presents a different challenge for bilingual writers. Professor Edward Said (1999), a famous literary critic, commented on his first scholarly book about Joseph Conrad that: I used Conrad as an example of someone whose life and work seemed to typify the fate of the wanderer who becomes an accomplished writer in an acquired language, but can never shake off his sense of alienation from his new—that is, acquired—and in Conrad’s rather special case, admired home. (p. 91) Conrad—an expatriate—suffered the loss of home and the unreachability of a new place. Born in Jerusalem, Palestinian Said became a refugee in Egypt where he was schooled in English, sharing Conrad’s loss of home and language in a new setting. Unlike Conrad who remained within a European world, Said found himself divided in the “warring relationship between English and Arabic.” He says of this formative experience: . . . [A]lthough taught to think like an English schoolboy, I was also trained to understand that I was alien, a Non-European Other, educated by my betters to know my station and not to aspire to being British. The line separating Us from Them was linguistic, cultural, racial, and ethnic. (p. 97) For both Conrad and Said (1999), history has chosen the conflict of language and culture. While Conrad chose the language and culture of the other, Said (1999) chose the culture of “ Us” and the language of “Them.” Ariel Dorfman (2002), another academic and author of multiple genres, describes his identity as a Latinoamericano. In the interpersonal terms of a social metaphor, he says he is “a fluid bigamist of language” married to two tongues. He describes his birth in Argentina, emigration to New York at the age of two, and his return to Latin American—specifically to Chile at 12, as a movement between his marriage to English and his renewed affair with Spanish, his lover. Dorfman (2002) recognizes that in-

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creased globalization results from the influx of migrants and the reduction of distance. While Dorfman (2002) alternates between two languages, he sees the future of bilingualism to lie in “deterritorializing language, unlinking it from the power of nation and the coercion of the state. . . .” (p. 93). This struggle of place suggests a third way forward for the bilingual to develop his or her writing. Among cross-cultural autobiographies, we can distinguish between what Mukherjee (1997) refers to as the “four narratives of Americanism”: expatriation, exile, immigration, and repatriation. Each of these narratives expresses a different pattern of socialization in finding their place. Dyson (1994), Conrad, and Said (1999) represent the expatriate narrative, self-removal from one’s original culture. Expatriates maintain an alien core in the homeland of the other. For Mukherjee, a fiction writer who sets her work almost entirely in the Indian immigrant community in the U.S. The immigrant community in the U.S. is a place which has changed dramatically from the first half of the twentieth century –now Little Indias, Saigons, Moscows, and Colombias. She says: I am an immigrant, and to achieve that honor, I gave up status that I’ll never be able to achieve in the New World. I became this thing new to the U.S. history, someone who never existed before me: An IndoAmerican (p. 82) The immigration narrative finds its strength in the immigrant community as a place, the new home. While the expatriate and the immigrant share transition, the exile is more conflicted in that his ideal place is tied to the unattainable mother country while the new place is never wholly acceptable. America domeciles many exiles writing in their home languages as well as in English—Solzhenitsyns in America like Rushdies in England. But not all displaced biliterates feel nostalgic. Charles Simic (Favreau, 2011), a native Yugoslavian poet emigrated to the U.S. at 16. Of his movement toward his new place, he says: . . . I realized that America gave me an opportunity to stop playing the assigned roles that I inevitably had to play around my fellow Serbs. All that deferring to tradition, clannishness, and machismo, with their accompanying vocabularies, I happily gave up. Nor did the role of professional exile, forever homesick, forever misunderstood, attract me. Adventure lay elsewhere. America and Americans were far more interesting to me and so was the anonymity that came with full-scale assimilation.” (p. 267) Many bilingual writers also seek to locate their place in their work, inhabit their texts. For example, T. Adorno in Minima moralia: Reflections from damaged life (1974) uses a building metaphor to reflect on how writing becomes the ultimate home of the migrant, expatriate, L2 user: In his text, the writer sets up house. . . For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live . . . [Yet] the demand that one harden oneself against self-pity implies the technical necessity to counter any slackening of intellectual tension with the utmost alertness, and to eliminate anything that has begin to encrust the work or to drift along idly, which may at an earlier stage have served, as gossip, to generate the warm atmosphere conducive to growth, but is now left behind, flat and stale. In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing. (p. 87) In conclusion, we have examined the way bilingual authors writing in English use cross-cultural autobiographical genres in their struggle to find voice, construct an identity, and create a place for themselves or their writing. By listening to these voices of struggle new bilingual writers, writers also

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in development, can learn more about their own struggle to write. Furthermore, teachers of writers in English as a second language may want to structure a course focused on the struggle themes we have traced in order to promote the development of biliteracy among their students.

REFERENCES Adorno, T. (1974). Minima moralia: Reflections from damaged life (E. F. N. Jephcott London, Trans.). New Left Books. Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/LaFrontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books. Ardener, E. W. (1975). Belief and the problem of women. In S. Ardener (Ed.), Perceiving women. London: Malaby/Dent. Ardener, S., Burton, P., & Dyson, K. K. (Eds.). (2020). Bilingual women: Anthropological approaches to second language use. Routledge. Bakhtin, M. M. (2010). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (Vol. 1). University of Texas Press. Bourdieu, P. (1972/1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burke, B. S. (2011). The construction of writer identity in the academic writing of ESL Korean students: A qualitative study of six Korean students in the U.S. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Cook, V. J. (1992). Evidence for multicompetence. Language Learning, 42(4), 557–591. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1992.tb01044.x Djebar, A., & Morell, I. J. (1985). L’Amour, la fantasia. Lattès. Dorfman, A. (2002). The nomads of language. The American Scholar, 71(1), 89–94. Dyer, B., & Friederich, L. (2002). The personal narrative as cultural artifact: Teaching autobiography in Japan. Written Communication, 19(2), 265–296. doi:10.1177/074108830201900202 Dyson, K. K. (1994). Forging a bilingual identity: A writer’s testimony. In P. Burton, K. K. Dyson, & S. Ardener (Eds.), Bilingual women: Anthropological approaches to second language use (pp. 170–185). Berg. Favreau, M. (Ed.). (2011). A people’s history of world war II: The world’s most destructive conflict, as told by the people who lived through it. The New Press. Gee, J. P. (2011, Jan 29). Discourse vs. discourse. James Paul Gee: Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies. Available from jamespaulgee.com/pdfs/Big D Discourse.pdf Hornberger, N. (2003). Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 315-339). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

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Hornberger, N. (2018, May). Researching and teaching (with) the continua of biliteracy: Multilingualism and education: Interdisciplinary and international perspectives [PowerPoint slides]. https://www. hf.uio.no/multiling/english/news-and-events/news/2018/nancy-hornberger---researching-and-teachingthe-cob-oslo-180507post-footnote.pdf Huster, K. (2011). Suspended between languages: Stories from the biliterate lives of Hmong generation 1.5 university women [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Kachru, B. (1985). The bilingual’s creativity. In R. Kaplan (Ed.), Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (pp. 20–33). Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, A. (1993). French lessons: A memoir. The University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226424231.001.0001 Kramsch, C., & Lam, W. (1999). Textual identities: The importance of being non-native. In G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native educators in English language teaching (pp. 57–72). Erlbaum. Li, X.-M. (1996). “Good writing” in cross-cultural context. State University of New York. Liu, P.-H. (2010). White prestige ideology, identity, and investment: ESL composition class as site of resistance and accommodation for Taiwanese students [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Lu, M. Z. (1998). From silence to words: Writing as struggle. In V. Zamel & R. Spack (Eds.), Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures (pp. 71–83). Lawrence Erlbaum. Lvovich, N. (1997). The multilingual self: An inquiry into language learning. Lawrence Erlbaum. Matsuda, P. K. (2001). Voice in Japanese written discourse: Implications for second language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1-2), 35–53. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(00)00036-9 Mori, K. (1997). Polite lies: On being a woman caught between cultures. Henry Holt. Pavlenko, A. (2001). “In the world of the tradition, I was unimagined”: Negotiation of identities in cross-cultural autobiographies. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(3), 317–344. doi:10.1177 /13670069010050030401 Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. doi:10.2307/3587803 Ramanathan, V., & Atkinson, D. (1999). Individualism, academic writing, and ESL writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(1), 45–75. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(99)80112-X Said, E. (1999). No reconciliation allowed. In A. Aciman (Ed.), Letters of transit: Reflections on exile, identity, language, and loss (pp. 91-114). The New Press. Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (1981). Narrative, literacy, and face in interethnic communication. Ablex.

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Shen, F. (1998). The classroom and the wider culture: Identity as a key to learning English composition. In V. Zamel & R. Spack (Eds.), Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures (pp. 123–133). Lawrence Erlbaum.

ADDITIONAL READING Aciman, A. (Ed.). (1999). Letters of transit: Reflections on exile, identity, language, and loss. The New Press. Belcher, D. D., & Connor, U. (Eds.). (2001). Reflections on multiliterate lives (Vol. 26). Clevedon, Eng: Multilingual Matters. Council of Europe. (2009). Autobiography of intercultural encounters. Language Policy Division. Dagnino, A. (2015, May 1st). Do bilingual writers write differently? [Symposium]. Bilingualism across the Lifespan, 11th Annual Symposium, Centre for Intercultural Language Studies (CILS), The University of British Columbia, Vancouver. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280947514_Do_bilingual_writers_writedifferently De Courtivron, I. (Ed.). (2003). Lives in translation: Bilingual writers on identity and creativity. Palgrave Macmillan. Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingual: Life and reality. Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674056459 Hoffman, E. (1989). Lost in translation. Penguin. Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075wll.5 Leveen, S. (2020). Other tongues: Writers who write in a language not their own: A storytelling podcast designed to inspire. America Bilingual. https://www.americathebilingual.com/other-tongue-writers-whowrite-in-a-language-not-their-own/ Norton, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. doi:10.2307/3587803 Rodriquez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriquez. NY: Penguin. Retrieved from https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7821185M/Hunger_of_Memory Wagner, D. A. (1991). Literacy as culture: Emic and etic perspectives. In E. M. Jennings & A. C. Purvis (Eds.), Literate systems and individual lives: Perspectives on literacy and schooling (pp. 11–19). State University of New York.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Authors: A creator of a piece of writing. Autobiography: A type of a biography, which tells the life story of an author from the author’s perspective. Bilingual: The skill to be able to use two languages. Creativity: Transforming imagination into reality. Cross-Cultural: The phenomenon that compares cultures to identify which specific qualities form cultural differences. Identity: The characteristics and qualities that is unique to a person that distinguish one person from the next. Narrative: A flowing story in a spoken or a written format. Struggles: Energetic engagement to get free in pursuit of a goal. Voice: The consistent yet distinctive traits that form a unique writing style for an author. Writers: A person who communicates in a written form to convey his or her ideas.

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Chapter 3

Reducing Second Language Writing Anxiety: Creating a Novel Process-andCollaboration-Centered Pedagogy Bashak Tarkan-Blanco Keiser University, West Palm Beach, USA

ABSTRACT Academic writing is a difficult task for many post-secondary students in the U.S. However, it is particularly challenging for ESL students due to linguistic and cognitive factors. This challenge may lead to second language writing anxiety (SLWA), as a result of which some students may perform poorly on writing assignments and eventually fail the course. Although previous research studies offer instructional strategies to address SLWA, they are insufficient in their theoretical basis and practical application. Thus, this paper fills that gap by situating those pedagogical recommendations within their theoretical foundations and includes a sample writing assignment with a student self-regulation checklist.

When I have to write an essay in English during class, it is the most difficult time for me. I feel that my mind is totally blank, and my fingers tremble when I write each word. For me to write English is like to force a fish to walk on the sand. -ESL student I can’t explain myself clearly. I have more weaknesses than strengths. I get frustrated when I know what I want to say, but the reader doesn’t understand me. -ESL student (as cited in Kasper and Petrello, 1998, p. 178)

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch003

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 Reducing Second Language Writing Anxiety

INTRODUCTION All students entering higher education in the U.S. need to demonstrate proficiency in written communication for scholastic achievement, as well as a successful transition into a workplace. Indeed, as noted by a group of researchers (Bustamante & Eom, 2017; Badrasawi et al., 2016), writing is a significant contributor to academic and professional success. Because of this, students are expected to exhibit their writing competence by being engaged in various assignments throughout their academic degree programs, as effective communication skills are beneficial to job performance. In fact, “it is difficult to find an employer that does not rate ‘good writing skills’ as essential to both existing employees and new hires” (Simkin et al., 2012, p. 81). Accordingly, U.S. college and university students are often required to complete a variety of discipline-specific writing assignments by being “asked to summarize a journal article in a biology class, write a persuasive proposal for a business class, do a literary analysis for an English class, or complete a research paper for a geology class—all in the same semester” (Reid & Kroll, 2006, p. 260). Faculty from various departments in post-secondary institutions in the U.S. would agree that completed versions of such assignments need to display characteristics of academic writing. Academic prose denotes “any writing that fulfills a purpose of education in a college or university in the United States” (Thaiss & Zawacki, 2006, p. 4) and which has a clearly articulated thesis, supports it with consistently relevant evidence from credible sources, follows a coherent organizational structure, uses Standard Edited American English, and showcases a clear sense of audience awareness. Indeed, as maintained by Reid and Kroll (2006), “academic (school) writing as prepared by U.S. college and university students . . . is evaluated. . . [by the professor, that is, teacher-audience] in ways that have consequences for the [student] writer’s [success in college and] life” (p. 260). As such, students need not only demonstrate their capability to compose papers that satisfy standards of academic prose but also produce competent writing that showcases their understanding of the assigned task by meeting the professor’s requirements. It follows, then, mastery of academic writing formalities establishes “the link between students’ entry into disciplinary communities and their acquisition of the formal conventions associated with . . . [academic discourse]” (Leibowitz et al., 1997, p. 5). The objective of this paper is to examine academic writing-induced-anxiety in second language contexts through a literature review and use previous research studies’ pedagogical recommendations as a basis for creating a course assignment that can reduce second language writing apprehension in a first-year composition class in the U.S.

BACKGROUND Admittedly, many post-secondary students in the U.S. struggle with writing (Bettinger & Long, 2009; Gruenbaum, 2012; Javadi-Safa, 2018) due to a variety of reasons, such as a lack of understanding of the assignment, difficulty in getting started, and struggling to organize and develop ideas (Richards, 2020). However, the ability to articulate ideas clearly and effectively in written forms at the tertiary level is especially problematic and daunting for English as a Second Language (here onwards, ESL) students (Al Fadda, 2012), as they need to attain “a confident level of writing conventions, linguistic knowledge, grammar, vocabulary, and thinking strategies” (Javadi-Safa, 2018, p. 15) in a foreign language to be able to communicate ideas competently. Indeed, “not only must . . . ESL students gain proficiency in 29

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grammar, mechanics, vocabulary, and other surface-level aspects of . . . [academic writing], they must master American . . . rhetorical styles and writing genres” (Al Fadda, 2012, p. 123). In the United States, rhetorical conventions customarily give importance to “strong sentence-tosentence connections, resulting in linear prose, and a deductive logical arrangement” (Land &Whitley, 2006, p. 325), standards that often differ from those to which ESL students are accustomed in their home countries. In sum, then, “writing involves not just grammatical competence” (Canagarajah, 2006, p. 215), but necessitates dexterity in a variety of rhetorical strategies, that is, organizational patterns (i.e., narration, description, definition, illustration, analysis, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and persuasion), which are dictated by the intended purpose of a writing task in a specific context. In this regard, writing “is more than just stringing sentences” (Pinetah, 2014, p. 17). Writing is a demanding process that not only involves strategies such as generating ideas, planning, gathering information, and drafting through a cohesive integration of that information with the writer’s own ideas but also requires competence in the English language. This view gains support from Yastibas and Yastibas (2015), who posited that writing is a “product-oriented . . . [activity] that requires a great deal out of [ESL] students with regard to their own thinking and ideas [as well as organizing and composing]” (p. 2). Understood in these ways, for many ESL students, composing papers that exhibit adherence to conventions of academic writing by fulfilling rhetorical, syntactic, and lexical criteria is very challenging and complicated (Al Fadda, 2012; Shehzadi & Krishnasamy, 2018). As such, many ESL students consider writing in English to be the most arduous language skill to master (Kurt & Atay, 2007; Latif, 2007). The difficulty involved in mastering various rhetorical modes, as well as displaying lexical, syntactic, and cognitive competence in written English, may lead to writing apprehension (here onwards, WA) or fear of writing for ESL students as evidenced by the two vignettes at the beginning of this article. As noted by McLeod (1987), WA is generally understood to refer to “negative, anxious feelings (about oneself as a writer, one’s writing situation, or one’s writing task) that disrupt some part of the writing process” (as cited in Macklin, 2016, p. 89). As stated by Daly (1979), WA denotes “a general avoidance of writing and of situations perceived by individuals to potentially require some amount of writing accompanied by . . . [fear of] evaluation of that writing” (p. 37). Discouragement induced by anticipated negative instructor assessment manifests itself in the following ESL student accounts:

Student One I was very frustrated when I took four hours writing, but I got back a red paper. I think I have good ideas, but I can’t express them well.

Student Two I felt very frustrated when my teacher didn’t accept my composition because I made too many mistakes

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Student Three I think I have a lot of mistakes in grammar. I have a lot of things in my head, but it’s difficult to explain all my ideas. I will never be a good writer, no matter how hard I try

Student Four When I began to write something, I am nervous. Sometimes I think I never write correctly. Seeing a lot of errors on my paper killed me and embarrassed me a lot (as cited in Kasper & Petrello, 1998, p. 180) As these samples illustrate, ESL students perceive preoccupation with grammatical correctness and negative teacher evaluation as inhibiting factors in their writing improvement. However, concern over mistakes and negative assessment are not the only causes of ESL writing anxiety (here onwards, ESLWA). As maintained by Macklin (2016), discomfort and agony associated with writing “may be caused by past failure or a perception of past failure in writing that often stems from students’ lifelong negative experiences with writing and writing courses” (p. 89). In this regard, ESLWA can also result from experiencing uneasiness during writing, as can be seen in the following student comment: Writing makes me uncomfortable, and I feel anxious . . . I think because I am not feeling comfortable, I cannot come with good ideas . . . it causes me lost. When you are upset or not comfortable then you are not able to write what you want to write next. It is a problem because if you are having anxiety and feeling not comfortable to write, then you cannot do it well; and if you cannot deal with it, it will affect negatively. (as cited in Badrasawi et al., 2016, p. 138-139) Research shows that ESLWA can also occur due to linguistic complexity of the target language, which makes written communication a difficult task for ESL students, along with the fact that writing is a complex skill to learn and develop (Bruning & Horn, 2000; Kara, 2013). Supporting evidence for this view comes from an ESL student’s remark as follows: “I have ideas to write, but I do not find the vocabulary or expressions to use. These make me anxious. When I am anxious, it is not easy to organize ideas and come out with nice ideas” (as cited in Badrasawi et al., 2016, p.139). Among other reasons for ESLWA, as explicated by Holladay (1981), are “neurolinguistic realities that underlie language processing, poor skill development, inadequate role models, lack of understanding of the composing process, an authoritative, teacher-centered, product-based mode of teaching, and a negative predisposition toward writing and one’s capabilities” (as cited in Hassan, 2001, p. 4). On the basis of these research studies, then, ESLWA can be attributed to linguistic, cognitive, and instructional factors, negative perceptions of writing, and lack of faith in one’s ability to succeed. To take a case in point, the passage from Wei (2017) below attests to her feeling discouraged, deficient, and apprehensive due to being cognitively unprepared to meet the demands of essay writing in U.S. higher education: As an ESL student in the United States, I struggled with learning English in my first year of university. I had lots of difficulties in essay writing. Sometimes I felt so depressed and inferior. Because of limited

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training in essay writing, I had no idea of material collection and preparation. The most challenging thing was that I had a serious problem with cognitive comprehension. I felt anxious when my ESL instructor had us write an essay. Writing essays was the most painful experience in my first-year university level writing class. (p. 1) Admittedly, ESLWA adversely affects second language learner performance on written assignments in that it diminishes the quality of students’ writing (Hassan, 2001; Kara, 2013 Tsiriotakis et al. 2017), resulting in unsatisfactory papers that are shorter, inadequately developed, and less fluent (Faigley et al., 1981). The detrimental effect of ESLWA on ESL writing performance and quality is supported in the literature. Researchers Choi (2013), Susoy and Tanyer (2013) concluded that there is a negative correlation between English writing apprehension and second language writing performance. Along the same lines, Genc and Yayli (2019) determined that ESLWA “negatively influences learners’ attitudes, achievement, and performance and hinders their writing and learning process” (p. 235), leading to ESL students’ suffering from “a distress associated with writing . . . [and developing] a profound distaste for the process” (Madigan et al., 1996, p. 295). Empirical evidence lends support to the conclusion that ESLWA is a problem because it can impede students’ learning and cause them to develop a negative attitude towards their abilities and the writing process (Hettich, 1994; Lauer, 1994). Previous scholarly publications (Al Asmari, 2013; Diaz-Rico, 2004; Mohseniasl, 2014; Smith, 1984; Tighe, 1987) have offered pedagogical strategies that have worked successfully in decreasing English language learners’ anxiety in a writing class. These methods include teaching writing in steps or stages instead of focusing on the finished product; incorporating journal writing; using prewriting strategies such as concept mapping and freewriting; giving explicit directions; providing clear grading criteria; and allowing students to work in groups to encourage peer critiquing. In tandem with these instructional approaches is the use of nonjudgmental teacher feedback and evaluation in initial stages of the writing process, a method proven to be effective by researchers Kasper and Petrello (1998) in mitigating ESLWA and boosting writer confidence. More specifically, Kasper and Petrello (1998) determined that a nonjudgmental response focuses less on error correction and form and more on fluency and expression of ideas, thereby emphasizing “negotiating meaning through reader-response questions that focus directly on specific revision tasks. Moreover, this feedback must be communicated in a way that minimizes students’ frustration and maximizes their confidence” (p. 181). One effective strategy for offering suggestions for improvement is by “asking task-oriented questions . . . [as follows]: Could you be more specific, provide more details, about this point? Could you open up the essay with a more general statement? How does this example relate to the main point of your essay?” (p. 181). Along the same lines, Kasper and Petrello (1998) maintained that instructor comments such as “you need to go deeper to analyze your feelings; describe one special occasion that illustrates the meaning or the importance of your relationship; [and] you have stated an opinion; you now need to give at least one reason for your opinion and then discuss it” (p. 181) help establish a rapport between the teacher and the student, leading to improved writing and increased self-confidence. In the researchers’ words, such instructor comments “determine a successful result for students . . . [and] encourage ESL students to take control over their composing” (p. 181). It follows that this method of helping students gain control of their writing through developing and revising their essays leads to students’ taking an active role in learning how to write, thereby gradually becoming less anxious and more self-sufficient, proficient writers.

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There is an increasing number of ESL students in North American post-secondary institutions, including technical colleges, two-year colleges, and four-year universities (Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2014; Friedrich, 2006; Matsuda et al., 2006). More specifically, “the number of international students in U.S. tertiary institutions has increased from 6,570 in 1940 to over half a million in 2007 and is steadily toward the million mark as record numbers of students enroll in U.S. colleges and universities” (Knoblock & Gorman, 2018, p. 276). This information attests to the fact that ESL students comprise a significant portion of student demographics in U.S. higher education. It follows, then, that given the exponential growth of culturally and linguistically diverse student population in U.S. colleges and universities, today’s freshman composition classrooms cannot be deemed ethnically homogeneous and monolingual (Friedrich, 2006; Matsuda, 2010; Wilson, 2010). As the diversity of student populations has increased, so have second language writers in first-year composition courses. Although instructors across disciplines encounter ESL students in a variety of settings from psychology to business classes, the growing presence of ethnolinguistically diverse students in U.S. tertiary institutions perhaps presents a particularly unique case for faculty teaching first-year writing courses. This is because freshman composition “persists as a gateway for the vast majority of students to higherlevel work in most academic disciplines. It also persists as a site where composition instructors learn their first lessons in how to teach writing [to students with different needs, learning styles, and language backgrounds]” (Matsuda et al., 2006, p. 3). Therefore, faculty who teach composition are in a distinct position to identify students with ESLWA at the beginning of a semester so that they can provide assistance in overcoming affective difficulties associated with writing in a foreign language. By creating a welcoming classroom environment that views students as resources and emphasizing writing as a process-centered-collaborative effort, composition specialists can help decrease ESL students’ writing apprehension so that students can achieve success. Moreover, if students receive support from the teacher and their peers and learn how to approach writing assignments with confidence, they can apply those coping strategies to dealing with anxiety-inducing-writing tasks in other courses.

PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS WITHIN PREVIOUS STUDIES Excerpts from published statements by ten ESL students, as presented in this paper, attest to those students’ WA stemming from difficulties with writing in a foreign language. Those testimonials also bring to light, or, can be conceived of being representative of, other ESL students’ experiences with WA in first-year composition classes but whose struggles are not documented in the literature. Surely, there are others who have confronted linguistic and affective problems when writing papers. In addition, lending credence to those student accounts are previously conducted empirical studies on ESLWA and its negative effect on writing experience (Atay & Kurt 2006; Badrasawi et al., 2016; Cantina, 2017; Choi, 2013; Hassan, 2001; Kurt & Atay, 2007; Rankin & Brown, 2006; Yastibas & Yastibas, 2015; Susoy & Tanyer, 2013), which are referenced in certain parts of this paper. Those researchers have made pedagogical recommendations for counteracting ESLWA and its adverse effect on the quality of student writing. They have recommended that instructors teach in unconventional ways by guiding students through stages of writing, student-teacher conferences during drafting stages, peer-feedback, collaboration, revising, and self-evaluation. They have also suggested that instructors encourage students to engage in positive self-talk for reinforcement.

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Although these instructional suggestions can certainly assist writing teachers in helping ESL students overcome WA, they are insufficient in their theoretical basis. They need to be conceptualized within their respective theoretical frameworks and, also, include a practical application in the form of an assignment or lesson unit. This is because educators need not only gain an understanding of theory as “an organized body of concepts and principles intended to explain a particular phenomenon” (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005, p. 4), that is, “how and why something functions the way it does” (Johnson & Christensen, 2007, p. 7), but also be cognizant of theory-in-use.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PAPER This paper differs from previous publications on ESLWA and its effect on writing performance. More specifically, in what follows, I shall provide a theoretical explanation of previously recommended instructional methods for decreasing ESLWA, a sample course assignment showcasing a practical implementation, and a checklist for student self-regulation. It is important to note that although this model is intended to reduce ESLWA in first-year composition classes, it can be adapted to other teaching contexts with different student populations. For instance, it can be utilized in decreasing WA among students for whom English is a first language and, also, used in other classes. In this regard, instructors can modify this model to fit their student body. It can also be used in tackling similar problems in courses with a writing component, such as psychology, business, and education. In an attempt to assist instructors in identifying students with WA at the start of a semester, a brief English writing apprehension survey will be provided as well. At the end of this paper will be a list of professional resources for addressing ESLWA in writing courses.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Previously mentioned instructional strategies for addressing ESLWA are grounded in two theoretical approaches to teaching writing: process pedagogy (Elbow, 1973; Murray, 1972; Tobin, 2001) and collaborative pedagogy (Bruffee, 1984; Howard, 2001), as well as self-directed learning (Knowles, 1975). Process pedagogy views writing as a sequence of activities involving generating ideas, planning, drafting, peer-response, revising, and editing. To that end, writing is conceived of as a multi-step, evolving course of action, whereby students “freewrite (write nonstop without worrying about correctness, form, logic, etc.); play with words and ideas; form writing groups; and rely at first less on doubting and more on believing, less on criticism, more on imagination” (Tobin, 2001, pp. 2-3). Through various stages of the writing process, students learn about identifying one idea that emerges within their first draft, organizing their paper around that idea, sharing their work-in-progress with other students to obtain their feedback, and improving their writing based on their peers’ suggestions. It follows, then, that composing papers, in Murray’s (1972) words, involves prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Understood in these ways, process pedagogy acknowledges and is built on student interests, needs, talents, and strengths through an emphasis of writing as “a form of discovery, growth, and personal expression . . . [leading to] lively, engaging, dynamic, and strongly voiced student essays” (Tobin, 2001, p. 4-5). In this regard, process pedagogy is more student-oriented than teacher-centered, as it is “a challenge to the authority structure of the classroom and the ‘transmission’ model symbolized by the 34

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podium placed before rows of immovable seats” (Newkirk, 1990, p. xvi). Instead, the teacher acts as a facilitator by guiding students with appropriate instruction such as modeling and scaffolding. Emphasis on student-involvement is intended to give students autonomy. Nontraditional in its approach to teaching writing, process pedagogy can be a useful instructional method for creating a positive classroom environment for ESL students and reducing their WA. Indeed, as noted by Rankin-Brown (2006), to reduce ESLWA, instructors should “teach writing as a process instead of focusing on the product. Students need to realize that they can work on the process [that is, a series of activities leading to a particular result] instead of having to achieve perfection in the first draft” (p. 4). Accordingly, when students are given opportunities for interacting with their peers and rewriting course papers for maximized learning, they may feel less apprehensive about writing in a foreign language. Over time, they can gain self-confidence. At the core of collaborative pedagogy is the notion that learning occurs through, or results from, a collective effort, mutual exchange of information, and social interaction. Collaboration, then, fosters active learning, that is, student participation in knowledge acquisition. In this regard, “students who work together learn more and retain more” (Howard, 2001, p. 54). Indeed, as noted by Bruffee (1984), “learning is a social and not an individual process . . . to learn is to work collaboratively to establish and maintain knowledge among a community of knowledgeable peers” (p. 646). In response to some educators’ concerns over students with limited knowledge and skills and their capability to participate in a group of informed and competent peers, Bruffee (1984) stated that [N]o student is wholly ignorant and inexperienced. Every student is already a member of several knowledge communities, from canoeing to computers, baseball to ballet. Membership in any one of these communities may not be a resource that will by itself help much directly in learning to organize an essay or explicate a poem. But pooling the resources that a group of peers brings with them to the task may make accessible the normal discourse of the new community they hope to enter. (p. 644) The term “normal discourse,” as explained by Bruffee (1984), denotes the type of academic and professional writing most educated people do in their everyday occupational settings, as in business, government, education, and the sciences. Guided by a set of conventions, it is “explanatory and argumentative” (p. 643). In this regard, Bruffee’s (1984) belief in every student’s ability to become a member of a community of professionals cognizant of normal discourse complements Canagarajah’s (2006) confidence in ESL students’ capability to become well-versed in academic English. As maintained by Canagarajah (2006), ESL students “do-and-can use their background as a stepping-stone to master academic discourses. Their values can function as a source of strength in their writing experience in English, enabling them to transfer many skills from their traditions of vernacular communication” (p. 218). Therefore, educators should view ESL students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds as an asset, which Canagarajah (2006) calls “difference-as-resource.” To that end, Canagarajah (2006) states that, as educators, “we should strive to understand . . . [ESL students’] values and interests and discover ways of engaging those in the writing process” (p. 218). Understood in these ways, every student has a potential or strength that needs to be brought out during peer-to-peer interactions in the classroom. Linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as familial relationships and work experiences, are resources that students can utilize when interpreting course readings, as well as responding to each other’s drafts. Indeed, as noted by Howard (2001), “common 35

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to composition classrooms is the practice of peer-response to writing: students each draft an assigned paper, and then classmates respond to and make suggestions for improving the draft. Less common yet valued . . . is the collaborative writing assignment, in which students work together from start to finish, producing a single paper from the group” (p. 54). Previous studies (Kurt & Atay, 2007; Yastibas & Yastibas, 2015) have found peer-review to be an effective teaching strategy in decreasing ESLWA. Pursuing Howard’s (2001) “less common and yet valued” method of teaching writing, Rankin-Brown (2006) posited that collaborative pedagogy can help alleviate ESLWA in that students “work collaboratively on writing so they feel they aren’t the only person being judged on what is turned in (they share the grade and burden)” (p. 6). Combining Howard’s (2001), Bruffee’s (1984), and Canagarajah’s (2006) perspectives, educators could design writing assignments that foster collaboration among students, thereby giving students with different skillsets, language, and cultural backgrounds opportunities for learning from each other to achieve a desirable outcome. For instance, students for whom English is a first language and who have a solid understanding of college-level writing in the U.S. can help their ESL classmates who might feel anxious about writing due to language problems and past failures. In this regard, successful students can assist their less successful counterparts in feeling at ease and achieving success in written communication. One inference that writing teachers should make from this line of reasoning is that through appropriate classroom instruction and collaboration with more capable peers, ESL students can overcome their writing-induced-anxiety, thereby becoming self-sufficient and autonomous. In this regard, one outcome of process-and-collaborative pedagogy is self-regulated learning, which refers to students’ understanding and assessment of their learning strengths and preferences. More specifically, self-regulated learning “describes a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes” (Knowles, 1975, p. 18). As stated by Ambrose et al. (2010), “to become self-directed learners, students must learn to assess the demands of the task, evaluate their own knowledge and skills, plan their approach, monitor their progress and adjust their strategies as needed” (p. 191). Understood in these ways, the capability of a student to become self-directed depends on the student’s ability to engage in metacognition, that is, thinking about and reflecting on one’s own cognitive and learning processes. Metacognition involves students’ identifying and analyzing their learning styles, study habits, and methods of starting and completing tasks with an intent to determine what strategies have been helpful and unhelpful for their learning and academic performance. In this regard, akin to collaboration, metacognition promotes active learning. Metacognition is not only a vital tool for learning about one’s own learning but also a useful strategy for building self-confidence in writing. Evidence for this perspective comes from Tsiriotakis et al. (2017) who noted that metacognition “enables learners to become self-regulated writers: not only able to accomplish a given task but also gain an enhanced faith in their capabilities as writers” (p. 4). From these researchers’ viewpoint, gaining self-assurance in one’s ability to produce competent writing is possible through learning metacognitive skills, such as planning for a task, choosing appropriate strategies to complete that task, creating a to-do-list for a successful outcome, using effective time management skills, and monitoring progress. Pursuing these scholars’ line of reasoning, then, employment of metacognitive strategies leads to inner strength and a positive self-image. By taking control of and monitoring their writing processes, students can learn how to achieve proficiency in written communication, thereby feeling more self-assured about 36

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their abilities. Because competent “writing involves organizing one’s ideas about a topic, elaborating goals to be achieved in the writing, thinking about the audience, and so on” (Tsiriotakis et al., 2017, p. 4), metacognitive skills give students the tools they need to produce successful writing. In this regard, through guiding students in acquisition of metacognitive skills, composition instructors can assist apprehensive writers in becoming self-confident, thereby increasing their chances of success. To help students become self-regulated learners, composition specialists could divide complex assignments into simple steps showing what students need to do, as well as a deadline for completing each step. Instructors could also create self-assessment checklists so that students can reflect on how well they have followed assignment guidelines. Similarly, educators could use rubrics to facilitate selfdirected learning and evaluation. One technique that helps students learn about their own learning and performance is an essay wrapper, a short reflection activity that students do shortly after receiving a graded essay. Students reflect on their writing process and performance on a graded essay assignment so that they can identify what learning methods worked for them, what did not, and what they need to do differently next time. A process-and-collaboration-centered approach to teaching composition, then, can be a viable solution to decreasing ESLWA, as it leads to a creation of a supportive learning environment in which apprehensive students can feel at ease, work through their drafts in stages, collaborate with their capable classmates, and acquire self-regulatory skills that will benefit them in their scholastic pursuits and the professional world. What follows is a sample writing assignment for a first-year composition class, which combines process-and-collaboration pedagogy with an intent to reduce ESLWA. This assignment is based on the pedagogical recommendations provided by previous studies that are referenced in this paper. The detailed breakdown of the components of the assignment is intended to guide students step-by-step towards successful completion. Subsequent to the assignment is a student self-regulation checklist. It is recommended that the teacher introduce the essay assignment in such a way that writing anxiety is minimized as some students may feel overwhelmed by the scope of the assignment. For instance, the instructor could present the first half of the assignment during one class period and the second half in another class session, encouraging students to ask questions for clarification. Alternatively, the teacher could give students comprehension questions to verify understanding. More specifically, upon receiving the assignment and reading its description, students could discuss the following questions with their peers: 1. 2. 3. 4.

What is the assignment? Describe it in a few of sentences. What is its purpose? What are its specific requirements (such as content, structure, style, etc.)? What questions do you have that cannot be answered by the assignment sheet?

The teacher could use these questions to elicit responses from each group to ensure that students have a solid understanding of the assignment.

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PROCESS-AND-COLLABORATION CENTERED COURSE ASSIGNMENT Literacy Narrative Essay Assignment Recommended Readings: • •

“One Voice” by Susan Madera “My Pen Writes in Blue and White” by Vincent Cremona (both will be sent to your school email)

Directions: For this assignment, you will write a three-page, thesis-driven, and chronologically organized literacy narrative essay focusing on one incident or event that describes a positive or negative experience you have had in a) learning to read and/or write, b) acquiring a second language, or c) being a member or outsider of a literacy event in a particular cultural setting and explain how that experience changed the way you think about yourself and the importance of literacy. As such, while you will use the elements of a story (plot, character, setting, conflict, vivid imagery, etcetera), your narrative must make a point. For additional information about literacy narratives, please consult pages 153-158 of The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing (6th edition).

Questions for Prompting Your Thinking and Generating Prewriting • • • •

What are your most vivid memories of reading and/or writing, either at home or at school? Why are they important? What problems with learning to read and/or write have you encountered in school? Which of those obstacles have you overcome? What issues have arisen from learning a second language (if applicable)? What teachers or mentors have helped or hindered your development as a reader and/or writer?

Your essay needs to be formatted in MLA style (double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and have 1-inch margins). You need not use outside sources in your paper; however, if you do, you must cite them both within your paper (with introductory phrases, quotation marks where necessary, and parenthetical citations) and at the end of your paper (through a works cited page) in MLA format. Paraphrases and summaries of researched materials require full documentation, too. Please rely on our previous lessons on MLA format, source integration, and avoiding plagiarism, as well as referencing relevant sections of The Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers. As you might recall from two of our class sessions, Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) is also a good resource for answering citation-related questions. •

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Objective: The aim is to express or share with an intent to inform your audience about the significance of your experience with literacy. In doing so, you will be helping readers understand why your involvement with reading and/or writing matters. You will also be building connections with audiences who may have had similar experiences with literacy, thereby inviting readers to engage in critical reflection.

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•

Structure/Organization: Your narrative essay needs to be organized chronologically, with appropriate transitional words that signal time or sequence (such as first, next, then, later, and finally).

Your completed and revised paper should not consist of a free flow of ideas without purpose. It must be structured as any other formal essay, with an introduction that ends with a thesis statement that forecasts the essay’s structure by explicitly stating what you learned from your involvement with literacy and how it changed you positively or negatively, body paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details, and a conclusion. In a well-organized essay, a reader could read just your thesis statement and topic sentences and have a clear understanding of your essay. As such, every element of your essay (topic sentences, examples, reasons, etcetera) must directly relate to your thesis statement, supporting and developing it with consistently relevant specifics (RENNS i.e., reasons, examples, names, numbers, and senses) and logical explanations. The introduction gains the reader’s interest in the issue the thesis articulates. Each body paragraph develops a single point that helps solidify the thesis; body paragraphs must begin with a topic sentence that states the paragraph’s main idea. The conclusion summarizes the essay’s main point (thesis), emphasizing its significance. •

• •

•

Word Choice/Diction and Tone: The words chosen must be clear and precise, appropriate for a college-level (i.e., educated) audience. There should not be any colloquial expressions (clichés, euphemisms, slang terms, contractions, etcetera.) unless they are used to make a point about your experience with literacy. Do not address your reader(s) directly, using the pronoun “you”. You must maintain a suitable tone without language choices that convey disrespect, sarcasm, etcetera. Style and Sentence Types: The paper must be written in a semi-formal style, with sentences that are skillfully constructed (i.e., coherent, unified, and effectively varied) and connected with appropriate transitions. Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling: Clarity and effectiveness of expression must be promoted by consistent use of standard grammar (without subject-verb agreement errors, sentence fragments, comma splices, run-on sentences, pronoun-antecedent agreement errors, dangling modifiers, mistakes with homonyms, apostrophe errors, mistakes with verb forms, etcetera), punctuation, and spelling. Grading Criteria: Compliance with assignment guidelines; content; unity (focus); thesis statement; topic sentences; coherence (organization); development of ideas with relevant specifics and logical explanations; transitional phrases; appropriate tone; precise and concise words; semi-formal style; sentence variety; grammar conventions; source integration and citations where necessary; and MLA format requirements (spacing, font type and size, margins, header, and identifying information)

Assignment Due Dates • • • • •

Thursday, September 17: Generating ideas: In-class freewriting (10 points) Tuesday, September 22: Planning: In-class informal outline (10 points) Tuesday, September 29: Drafting: Typed essay due for collaborative peer-review (15 points) Thursday, October 6: Revising: Revised draft due for my feedback (15 points) Tuesday, October 13: Editing: Final, polished essay due for my grading (30 points) 39

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Student Self-Regulation Checklist Pre-Writing Preparation 1. I have read my professor’s recommended literacy narratives. 2. I have read the description of the assignment carefully. If I needed clarification, I reached out to my professor and/or classmates. 3. I have created a timeline so that I know what is due and when. 4. I can complete this assignment satisfactorily if I dedicate my time and attention to it.

Assignment Compliance, Critical Thinking, Research, and Revision 1. 2. 3. 4.

My writing meets all the requirements of the assignment. My paper does not rely solely on narration; I have also included specifics with explanations. I have used research appropriately (if applicable), using quotations and/or paraphrases. I have cited my sources both in my essay and at the end of my paper according to assignment specifics. 5. I have considered my professor’s in-class discussion of the assignment. 6. I have considered my peers’ (and Writing Center tutors’) comments and suggestions. 7. To improve my paper, I have used revision methods, such as addition, deletion, substitution, and/ or rearrangement where applicable.

Organization, Sentence Construction, Academic Voice, Tone 1. 2. 3. 4.

My organization reveals an orderly, logical development of ideas from one to the next. I have used appropriate transitions effectively in order to create a smooth flow of ideas. I have identified awkward or wordy passages and rewritten them to be clearer and more concise. I have used a variety of sentences and vocabulary appropriate for a college-level audience, while making the best use of my own academic voice. 5. The tone of my paper is likely to appeal to my audience.

Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Word Choice 1. I have double-checked my paper for the type of punctuation errors I know I tend to make. 2. I have run spell-check and grammar-check programs, and I have reread my draft to catch the types of spelling errors that spell-check programs typically miss. 3. If I could not “fix” an awkward, potentially problematic sentence, I have rewritten it so that I am sure it is correct. 4. I have removed any inappropriate slang and all clichés unless when they are used in a dialogue withing my narrative essay. -Adapted from a revision checklist prepared by Miami Dade College Writing Center

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FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS As mentioned previously, ESL student writers comprise a significant portion of U.S. tertiary institutions. This means that the number of ESL students in first-year composition courses is on the rise. As such, more research is necessary to understand affective issues that interfere with second language writing performance, as ESLWA can be a negative factor in scholastic success. Instructors should not only be cognizant of linguistic and cognitive difficulties associated with writing in a foreign language but also emotional aspects. To that end, future research projects could explore the following topics.

Potential Future Research Questions 1. How do first-year composition instructors identify and address ESLWA in their classrooms? 2. What specific instructional strategies and academic support systems do first-year composition instructors utilize to reduce ESLWA? Which of those pedagogical and scholastic methods have been most successful? 3. What coping strategies do ESL students in a first-year composition class employ in diminishing their WA?

CONCLUSION The goal of this paper was to examine ESLWA in U.S. postsecondary institutions and design a course assignment that can assist composition specialists in alleviating ESLWA. Although the assignment is intended for a first-year writing class, it is adaptable to other teaching contexts. As such, instructors from other disciplines can use structural components of the assignment in creating their own so that they can aid their students with similar affective problems.

REFERENCES Al Asmari, A. (2013). Investigation of writing strategies, writing apprehension, and writing achievement among Saudi EFL-Major students. International Education Studies, 6(11), 130–143. doi:10.5539/ies. v6n11p130 Al Fadda, H. (2012). Difficulties in academic writing: From the perspective of King Saud university postgraduate students. English Language Teaching, 5(3), 123–130. doi:10.5539/elt.v5n3p123 Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. Jossey-Bass. Atay, D., & Kurt, G. (2006). Prospective teachers and L2 writing anxiety. Asian EFL Journal, 8(4), 100–118. Badrasawi, K. J. I., Zubairi, A., & Idrus, F. (2016). Exploring the relationship between writing apprehension and writing performance: A qualitative study. International Education Studies, 9(8), 134–143. doi:10.5539/ies.v9n8p134

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Bettinger, E., & Long, B. T. (2009). Addressing the needs of underprepared students in higher education: Does college remediation work? The Journal of Human Resources, 44(3), 736–771. doi:10.3368/ jhr.44.3.736 Bruffee, K. A. (1984). Collaborative learning and the conversation of mankind. College English, 46(7), 635–652. doi:10.2307/376924 Bruning, R., & Horn, C. (2000). Developing motivation to write. Educational Psychologist, 35(1), 25–37. doi:10.1207/S15326985EP3501_4 Bustamante, A., & Eom, M. (2017). Linguistically diverse students’ attitudes towards writing in English. Texas Journal of Literacy Education, 5(1), 44–56. Canagarajah, S. A. (2006). Understanding critical writing. In P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook (pp. 210–224). Bedford/St. Martin’s. Cantina, J. M. (2017). Linking anxiety in second language with students’ writing with students’ writing performance. Journal of Higher Education Research Discipline, 1(1), 21–32. Choi, S. (2013). Language anxiety in second language writing: Is it really a stumbling block? Second Language Studies, 31(2), 1–42. Conference on College Composition and Communication. (2014). CCCC statement on second language writing and writers. College Composition and Communication, 52(4), 669-674. Daly, J. A. (1979). Writing apprehension in the classroom: Teacher role expectancies of the apprehensive writer. Research in the Teaching of English, 13(1), 37–44. Diaz-Rico, L. T. (2004). Teaching English language learners: Strategies and methods. Pearson Education, Inc. Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without teachers. Oxford University Press. Faigley, L., Daly, J., & Witte, S. (1981). The role of writing apprehension in writing performance and competence. The Journal of Educational Research, 75(1), 16–21. doi:10.1080/00220671.1981.10885348 Friedrich, P. (2006). Assessing the needs of linguistically diverse first-year students: Bringing together and telling apart international ESL, resident ESL, and monolingual basic writers. WPA. Writing Program Administration, 30(1/2), 15–35. Genc, E., & Yayli, D. (2019). The second language writing anxiety: The perceived sources and consequences. PAU Journal of Education, 45, 231–251. Gruenbaum, E. A. (2012). Common literacy struggles with college students: Using the reciprocal teaching technique. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 42(2), 110–116. doi:10.1080/10790195.201 2.10850357 Hassan, B. A. (2001). The relationship of writing apprehension and self-esteem to the writing quality and quantity of EFL University students. Mansoura Faculty of Education Journal. Available at:https:// eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED459671.pdf

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Hettich, R. (1994). Writing apprehension: A critique [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. Howard, R. M. (2001). Collaborative pedagogy. In G. Tate, A. Rupiper, & K. Schick (Eds.), A guide to composition pedagogies (pp. 54–70). Oxford University Press. Javadi-Safa, A. (2018). A brief overview of key issues in second language writing teaching and research. International Journal of Education & Literature Studies, 6(2), 15–25. doi:10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.6n.2p.15 Johnson, R. B., & Christensen, L. B. (2007). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Approaches. Sage Publications. Kara, S. (2013). Writing anxiety: A case study on students’ reasons for anxiety in writing classes. Anadolu Journal of Educational Sciences International, 3(1), 103–111. Kasper, L. F., & Petrello, B. A. (1998). Responding to ESL student writing: The value of nonjudgmental approach. Communication Review, 16, 178–186. Knoblock, N., & Gorman, S. (2018). L2 writer in a first-year writing class: Activating the support network. Writing & Pedagogy, 10(1-2), 275–296. doi:10.1558/wap.27720 Knowles, M. (1975). Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. Association Press. Kurt, G., & Atay, D. (2007). The effects of peer feedback on the writing anxiety of prospective Turkish teachers of EFL. Journal of Theory and Practice, 3(1), 12–23. Land, R. E., & Whitley, C. (2006). Evaluating second language essays in regular composition classes: Toward a pluralistic U.S. rhetoric. In P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook (pp. 324–332). Bedford/ St. Martin’s. Latif, M. (2007). The factors accounting for the Egyptian EFL students’ negative writing affect. Essex Graduate Student Papers in Language & Linguistics, 9(7), 57–82. Lauer, J. M. (1994). Writing apprehension: A critique. DAL, 56(20), 494-A. Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical Research: Planning and Design. Pearson Educational International and Prentice Hall. Leibowitz, B., Goodman, K., Hannon, P., & Parkerson, A. (1997). The role of a writing center in increasing access to academic discourse in a multilingual university. Teaching in Higher Education, 2(1), 5–19. doi:10.1080/1356251970020101 Macklin, T. (2016). Compassionate writing response: Using dialogic feedback to encourage student voice in the first-year composition classroom. Journal of Response to Writing, 2(2), 88–105. Madigan, R., Linton, P., & Johnson, S. (1996). The paradox of writing apprehension. In L. Gregg & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing (pp. 295–307). Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Matsuda, P. (2010). The myth of linguistic homogeneity in U.S. college composition. In B. Horner, M. Z. Lu, & P. Matsuda (Eds.), Cross-language relations in composition (pp. 81–96). Southern Illinois University Press. Matsuda, P., Cox, M., Jordon, J., & Ortmeier-Hooper, C. (2006). Introduction. In P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook. Bedford/St.Martin’s. Mohseniasl, F. (2014). Examining the effect of strategy instruction on writing apprehension and writing achievement of EFL learners. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(4), 811–817. doi:10.4304/ tpls.4.4.811-817 Murray, D. (1972). Teach writing as a process not a product. The Leaflet, 71(3), 11–14. Newkirk, T. (1990). To compose: Teaching writing in high school and college. Heinemann. Pinetah, E. A. (2014). The academic writing challenges of undergraduate students: A South African case study. International Journal of Higher Education, 3(1), 12–22. Rankin-Brown, M. (2006). Addressing writing apprehension in adult English language learners. Proceedings of the CATESOL State Conference, 1-7. Reid, J., & Kroll, B. (2006). Designing and assessing effective classroom writing assignments for NES and ESL students. In P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook (pp. 260–281). Bedford/St. Martin’s. Richards, R. G. (2020, March 30th). Understanding why students avoid writing. All about learning disabilities and ADHD. http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/ writing/richards_avoidswrtg.html Shehzadi, K., & Krishnasamy, H. N. (2018). ESL writing anxiety, writer’s native language, ESL writing self-efficacy, and ESL writing performance: Insights into the literature. Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 6(2), 221–247. Simkin, M. G., Crews, J. M., & Groves, M. J. (2012). Student perceptions of their writing skills: Myth and reality. Journal of Business and Management, 18(1), 81–95. Smith, M. W. (1984). Reducing writing apprehension. NCTE. Susoy, Z., & Tanyer, S. (2013). A closer look at the foreign writing anxiety of Turkish EFL pre- service teachers. International Academic Conference on Education, Teaching and E-learning, 1-27. Thaiss, C., & Zawacki, T. M. (2006). Engaged writers and dynamic disciplines: Research on the academic writing life. Boynton/Cook Publishers. Tighe, M. A. (1987). Reducing writing apprehension in English classes. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English Spring Conference, Louisville, KY. Tobin, L. (2001). Process pedagogy. In G. Tate, A. Rupiper, & K. Schick (Eds.), A guide to composition pedagogies (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.

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Tsiriotakis, I. K., Vassilaki, E., Spantidakis, I., & Stavrou, N. A. M. (2017). The examination of the effects of writing strategy-based procedural facilitative environments on students’ English foreign language writing anxiety levels. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02074 PMID:28119658 Wei, M. (2017). Strategies for first-year university ESL students to improve essay writing skills (Publication No. S36) [Master’s Projects and Capstones, The University of San Francisco]. Gleeson Library. Wilson, J. (2010). Engaging second language writers in freshman composition: A critical approach. Composition Forum, 22, 1-11. Yastibas, G. C., & Yastibas, A. E. (2015). The effect of peer feedback on writing anxiety in Turkish EFL (English as a foreign language) students. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 199, 530–538. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.543

ADDITIONAL READING Bean, J. (2001). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. Josey-Bass. Belcher, D., & Braine, G. (Eds.). (1994). Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Ablex. Brand, A. G. (2009). The why of cognition: Emotion and the writing process. In S. Miller (Ed.), The Norton book of composition studies (pp. 706–713). Norton & Company. Ezzaher, L. (2004). Writing with an accent: A marginal multilingual voice seeking a place in academe. Journal of Teaching Writing, 21(1/2), 9–32. Golub, J. (Ed.). (1988). Focus on collaborative learning: Classroom practices in teaching English. National Council of Teachers of English. Kutz, E., Cornog, J., & Paster, D. (2004). Beyond grammar: Building language awareness in the writing classroom. Journal of Teaching Writing, 21(1/2), 65–82. Kutz, E., Groden, S. Q., & Zamel, V. (1993). The discovery of competence: Teaching and learning with diverse student writers. Boynton/Cook. Leki, I. (1989). Academic writing: Techniques and tasks. St. Martin’s Press. Leki, I. (1992). Understanding ESL writers: A guide for teachers. Boynton/Cook. Lu, M. Z. (2002). From silence to words: Writing as struggle. In G. DeLuca, L. Fox, M. A. Johnson, & M. Kogen (Eds.), Dialogue on writing: Rethinking ESL, basic writing and first-year composition (pp. 173–185). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. McLeod, S. M. (1997). Notes on the heart: Affective issues in the writing classroom. Southern Illinois UP. Murray, D. M. (1980). Writing as process: How writing finds its own meaning. In T. R. Donovan & B. W. McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches to teaching composition (pp. 3–20).

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Silva, T., & Matsuda, P. (Eds.). (2001). Landmark essays on ESL Writing. Lawrence Erlbaum. Spack, R. (2006). Teaching writing for ESL students. Prentice Hall.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Academic Writing: The type of writing that meets the requirements of a college or university, which is thesis-driven, well-supported with evidence, organized, clear, and edited. ESL Writing Apprehension: Anxiety or fear of writing caused by writing in English as a second language. Metacognition: The act of thinking about and reflecting on one’s own cognitive and learning processes. Non-Judgmental Teacher Feedback: Teacher response that focuses less on error correction and form and more on fluency and expression of ideas. Second Language Writing Performance: The act of producing writing in a language different from one’s native tongue. Self-Regulated Learning: The process of understanding and assessment of one’s learning strengths and preferences. Writing as Collaboration: Writing that involves group work and which fosters active learning. Writing as Process: Writing that involves various stages consisting of a sequence of activities such as generating ideas, drafting, revising, and editing.

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APPENDIX

English Essay Writing Survey NAME: ______________________________ DATE: _______________________________

Instructions The purpose of this survey is to identify your challenges with composing papers in English so that I can assist you in overcoming them. Please read the following statements and indicate your answer by circling A (for Agree) or D (for Disagree). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

I avoid writing in English. A D I like writing down my ideas in English. A D I feel anxious when I have to write an essay that I know will be evaluated. A D Taking an English composition class is a terrifying experience. A D My mind goes blank when I start to write an English essay. A D I feel confident in my ability to express my ideas clearly in written English. A D I have difficulty organizing my ideas, which makes me feel nervous. A D -Adapted from Hassan’s (2001) English Writing Apprehension Questionnaire

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Chapter 4

When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic BookWriting Pedagogy Sharon M. Virgil Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA & Bermuda College, Bermuda

ABSTRACT The author recognizes the importance of Freshman Composition students being equipped with the skills necessary to write effectively for college and beyond. In this chapter, the author shares her story of how a renowned Composition professor forces her to take a self-critical look at what she was doing in her Composition classroom, which compels her to change. For new teachers of Composition or for teachers looking to change, the author shares her newly adopted student-centered-book-writing pedagogy, which puts the focus on the student and creating an environment in which they can write, and write a lot. The author, forced to be honest and change herself, adopted a pedagogy that allows her students a voice and a chance to be honest in their writing through their expression of voice, an asset she recognizes as necessary in this 21st century, especially in our increasingly diversified world of academia. The author shares her student-centered-book-writing-pedagogy.

INTRODUCTION Much of what we do in our Composition classrooms is learned, or taught to us by others, usually longskilled persons who have been teaching for a very long time. What they teach us is usually something they themselves have learned from those who have gone before them, or things they have learned as a result of experimenting in their classrooms. For the Composition teacher, much of their knowledge is gained by what S. M. North (1987) calls “practitioner inquiry” (p. 15). Practitioner inquiry is knowledge that is largely gained through experience or experimentation to determine its usefulness. North (1987) calls this knowledge “lore” (p. 24). Lore is an accumulation of practices that have been tried and tested in the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch004

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

 When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy

classroom, and determined to work. As Composition teachers we hone what we learn, put our own twist on some of the wisdom we learn until we make it our own. A lot of what we learn is the fundamental, usually boring, but necessary knowledge. It is important that we learn and understand rhetorical elements such as a thesis statement, topic sentences, the five-paragraph essay and especially the various writing patterns or rhetorical modes. It is when we take this so-called boring, but necessary source and make it our own, making it more meaningful and engaging for our students, that we create something different. We become not just skilled at what we do, but we become creative. In addition, North (1987) confirms that teachers will take something that has proven to work and “make it over in a way that suits their needs in a particular time and place” (p. 25). The art of teaching writing in the 21st century is the ability to take novice forms of ideas that may seem tedious and mundane, but fundamental, and make it more meaningful, useful, engaging, and enlightening, and to do so with passion and with love. Indeed, with globalization it has become more important that we look for ways to make teaching writing more meaningful in our increasingly diversified classrooms. The impact of globalization and its subsequent diversification was highlighted for me when I returned to school at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in 2011 to pursue my doctoral studies. My cohort consisted of approximately four native English speakers, three from the United States, and me, from Bermuda. The other students were from many different countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Israel, Libya, Russia, and South Korea. The diversification of this cohort was indicative of the changing academic landscape. Therefore, those who teach writing in the 21st century need to do more to be culturally relevant to all students, which is a philosophy Hurlbert (2012) argues in his book National Healing: Race, State, And the Teaching of Composition. Composition teachers need to develop a more “internationalist perspective on the teaching of writing,” a perspective that demands that we learn how writing is taught around the world and how writing is researched around the world (Hurlbert, 2012, p. 51). Going to college is usually a choice; students are not required by law to be there, not like they are when in elementary or high school. When students choose to enter our classroom, especially students of different cultures and backgrounds, we owe it to them to make their time in our class as meaningful and relevant as possible. I have to admit my time at IUP was an interesting and enlightening multicultural experience, especially for me coming from a very small island of approximately 65,000 people where almost everyone speaks English. When I returned to Bermuda after my studies, I saw my students in a different light. I no longer saw them as just a group of students; I recognized all of their diversity. While Bermuda may not have a large number of second language (L2) students, we do have them. Most of them, however, are raised balanced bilingual, so it is easy to forget that English is not their first language. When I went to IUP to pursue my doctoral studies, I had been teaching for fifteen years, and I figured I was already an expert at what I did. My student evaluations spoke to my effectiveness. I figured that at IUP I was simply going to learn how to do what I already was doing, but better. However, my experience at IUP under the tutelage of renowned Composition Professor, Claude Hurlbert, radically changed me, and subsequently that experience changed what I do in my classroom.

THE PAST--WHAT I USED TO DO Students who complete Freshman Composition are expected to know how to organize their ideas in order to write effectively, especially for other college classes. At Bermuda College, Freshman Composition also includes an introduction to research skills, which means that our Freshman Composition students 49

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are also expected to know how to incorporate sources into their writing based on MLA guidelines. At the completion of the course, they need to know the fundamentals of writing and research, which hopefully, will assist them in writing for other classes throughout their college career, and beyond. Teaching writing as I used to teach it was effective. At least I would like to think it was effective. In retrospect, however, if I’m honest, it was perhaps a tad bit boring. In my Composition class, students learned how to organize their ideas using a particular ‘assigned’ rhetorical strategy, or rhetorical mode, such as exemplification, comparison/contrast, cause and effect. Students wrote essays on a topic of their own choosing because of my belief that students write best about what they know, about ideas of interest to them, or a memory out of their own experience. Subsequently, I allowed my students to choose their own topics. Most teachers provide their students with a list of topics from which they must choose. I figured by not supplying a list of topics I was allowing my students more freedom, and as such, more voice. The topics would vary based on the students’ interest. But quite often I would find myself having to guide them to choose a topic that loaned itself to development based on the particular rhetorical strategy/mode we were studying. In actuality, though, the focus was really on the rhetorical strategy/mode, since the essay had to fit the particular writing pattern we were studying. A student might have chosen to write a comparison and contrast essay about high school vs college or girl fights vs guy fights. Or perhaps it was a cause and effect essay about the causes of high school dropouts or the effects of teenage pregnancy. Or maybe it was an exemplification essay about the challenges of going back to school as a non-traditional student, or examples of the benefits of legalizing marijuana. These were some of the topics chosen by my students, but most of them were chosen after a discussion with me. Many students, when given the freedom to choose their own topic, often voiced the concern that they did not know what to write about. Hence, most student topics, although nominally student-chosen, still came from the teacher and remained, in effect, teacher-chosen. And herein was the problem. The topics I suggested were based on experience with previous students and the current rhetorical/writing strategy. While I allowed my students the freedom of choice, it was often a choice guided by me. My intentions in suggesting topics were good, but the topics I suggested were based on a different demographic, a different student. The topics were choices of students I had taught many years before; but students change. Students are ever-changing, and we would be deceiving ourselves, if we assumed that we know our students. Students change, and if we want to serve our students effectively, so should we.

A SELF-CRITICAL LOOK After years of teaching, I recognized that my teaching was missing an essential component; there seemed to be an entity lacking. I was not feeling the same passion that I used to feel. At the time, I had been teaching for about fifteen years and I still loved my job, but I couldn’t help but feel that a fragment was missing. I thought the joyful motivation that was missing was related with my students. It was not until I enrolled in Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s (IUP) Composition & TESOL doctoral program that I realized that the essential component that was missing had nothing to do with my students. Instead, it had more to do with me. At IUP, I ended up in the class of Professor Claude Hurlbert, “a gifted teacher: . . . who has won many numerous teaching awards and is ranked among the 300 best professors in the U.S. by Princeton Review” (ctd. in J. Boe, et al. 2017, p. 368). It was at IUP under Professor Hurlbert’s tutelage that my life, and my classroom, was changed for the better.

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Up until the time that I entered IUP, I was merely teaching a skill, or a learned behavior, at best. One of the books we had to read for Professor Hurlbert’s “Theories of Composition” class was Tobin’s (2004) Reading Student Writing: Confessions, Meditations, and Rants. I remember reading Tobin’s (2004) book and suddenly feeling like I had been stripped naked in the front of my classroom full of students. Tobin (2004), writing in somewhat of a confessional style, takes an honest, self-critical look at what he was doing in his classroom. Reading Tobin’s (2004) story proved to be an eye opener for me, a shocking eye opener. Tobin (2004) was questioning why he was doing what he was doing. He admits that he had become somewhat bored with his students’ writing. Ashamedly, I had to admit that I, too, had become bored with my students’ writing. I found myself on the same self-critical journey that Tobin (2004) was on. Ultimately, like Tobin (2004), I was forced to ask myself, “Why . . . was I holding on to teaching and assigning forms of writing that generated so little excitement for my students and me?” (Tobin, 2004, p. 115). I realized that Tobin (2004) and I had a lot in common. I was forced to admit, like Tobin (2004), that somehow “[a]t some point I had lost my way as a writing teacher and began reading primarily to assess whether my students understood what I told them or more simply to get through that damn pile of essays on my desk” (p. 118). Tobin’s (2004) book was terribly unsettling for me, largely because it exposed me. I was forced to take a critical look at myself and what I was doing in my classroom. I was forced to acknowledge that the problem in my classroom had to do with me, not my students. For fifteen years I had been teaching the same information and in the same way. The problem was that my students were not the same; my students had changed. Clearly, I needed to change. Tobin’s (2004) book, Reading Student Writing, made me realize that I needed to transform myself, and consequently, my teaching. That transformation was further assisted by another course that I took from Professor Hurlbert. In the course, “Teaching Writing,” Professor Hurlbert introduced me and my IUP 2011 Composition & TESOL cohort to the art of teaching, writing in the 21st century through his student-centered book writing pedagogy. I became fascinated with this pedagogy and decided that I would introduce it in my Bermuda College classroom upon the completion of my doctoral work. So I did.

THIS IS WHAT I DO NOW Hurlbert’s student-centered, book-writing pedagogy is the pedagogy I use in my classroom now. Actually, it is ‘my’ student-centered, book-writing pedagogy because I have tweaked what I learned from Professor Hurlbert to make it my own. I still teach the rhetorical strategies/modes, as dictated by my institution, but I do it quite differently now. I knew when I adopted this pedagogy that it probably was not going to go over very well in my English Department. I certainly expected some raised eyebrows. After all, I wanted my students to share their stories of what they were burning to tell the world. There are those who believe that narratives are taboo in most English Departments, and stories do not belong in a Composition classroom. On the other hand, there are also many writing professors who would argue that there are benefits to allowing students to write narratives. Park (2010) sees narrative writing as useful and relevant to students, especially to L2 students. Students must be able to write out of their experiences, out of their cultural experiences. Park (2010) asserts that we need to “have students engage in personal narrative writings that provide meaningful ways to connect their academic learning with their personal journeys” (p. 53). This connection between a student’s academic learning and their personal journey is especially true for the L2 student. Park (2011) also says, students who are allowed to write out of their experiences and to share their stories develop more confidence in their writing. “Having confidence in 51

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one’s abilities to write is one of the most important psychological components in improving one’s actual writing skills” (Park, 2011, p. 167). Gay (2010) also sees the value of stories or narrative writing. Gay (2010) posits that stories can be used to “entertain, educate, inform, evoke memories, showcase ethnic and cultural characteristics, and illuminate abstractions” (p. 3). Pagnucci (2004) says narrative writing is valuable as we think in terms of stories and we talk in terms of stories. Pagnucci (2004) asserts, contrary to what many writing teachers think “essayistic literacy is not the exclusive means by which one can create knowledge in the world, a view that is too often subscribed to within the ivory towers of academe” (p. 2). Hurlbert (2012), a strong proponent of storytelling or narrative writing says, “Telling the stories of who we are sheds light on who we are, and this, in turn, helps us to critique who we are” (p. 9). What this means, then, is that writing our stories can in some ways allow for a process of selfdiscovery, perhaps a process of growth. In order to use Hurlbert’s (2012) creative, student-centered, book-writing pedagogy in my Bermuda College classroom, I had to ensure that I still met the objectives for our Freshman Composition course. In our Freshman Composition (ENG 1111) classes, students are taught writing/rhetorical patterns and research skills. Essentially, this means that at the end of the semester, my students still need to be able to write a final exam in which they generate an essay, using one or more of the various rhetorical strategies, effectively incorporate sources into their writing, and generate a correctly formatted works cited page based on MLA guidelines. In order to be able to meet these objectives, I had to combine knowledge and a bit of creativity. In the context of my student-centered-book-writing pedagogy, I am able to meet these objectives, while at the same time providing students with an opportunity to share their stories and to use their voice. My course, therefore, is divided into two parts: the theoretical and the practicum/application.

THE THEORETICAL I spend the first part of the semester introducing students to the various rhetorical strategies, emphasizing that we all think in certain ways. We all think in terms of examples. We think about examples of experiences that irritate us, or examples of pet peeves. We think in terms of compare and contrast. For instance, upon graduation from high school, we think about whether we should go to community college or whether we should go abroad to university. This thought process typically involves some comparison/ contrast. We think in terms of cause and effect. We often question why we have seen an increase in the number of students who drop out of school. We think in terms of definition. For instance, we may contemplate what it means to be a good student, or we ponder how we define a good man/woman. I stress to students that we use these strategies all the time, albeit most of the time it is subconsciously. I encourage them to be aware of the ways they think, for it is those thought processes that will help them in the organization of their ideas when writing. The text I use in my Freshman Composition class is The Longman Reader. It has detailed discussions on how and when to use these various strategies, along with essays that are meant to be models of the particular strategies. However, I only use The Longman Reader for discussion of the strategies. This is the extent of the use of this text in my class. In other words, I introduce them to what I now refer to as the writing “tools” that they need to write their books, including the ones that we don’t normally teach in our composition classes—narration and description, which I now believe are just as useful, if not more valuable, as all of the others (Virgil, 2015, p. 51). No longer do I teach an individual essay that focuses 52

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on a specific strategy or mode, an approach which I now view as restrictive. Instead, “[e]mphasizing these strategies as tools that they may use to help organize their writing takes the focus off the strategies and instead shows them that they have a choice of which tools they will use. Unlike my previous pedagogy, they are not handcuffed to a strategy, but instead have at their disposal in their toolboxes of various organizational tools” (Virgil, 2015, p. 51). However, I also stress to my students that because this course, Freshman Composition, is the underpinning of all writing they will do in their college career and beyond, there are certain tools that are mandatory, especially when it comes to writing a paper, a report, or a critique for another class. So, during this theoretical part of the course, I also teach them about a thesis statement and topic sentences. In addition, I explain the importance of always employing the persuasive principle, the notion that all writing should be grounded in the need to persuade your reader that what you have to say is valid and worth consideration. The idea is to teach them the tools that they have at their disposal and then turn them loose and allow them to write. Of course, students write best when they write out of what they know, or out of their own experience. Elbow (1991) says, “We need to get students to write by choice because no one can learn to write well except by writing a great deal—far more than we can assign and read” (p. 136). Furthermore, students are more inclined to write when they have a choice in what they write. My student-centered book writing pedagogy gives them that choice, a choice to write about what they want. As such, it gives them a voice.

APPLYING THE THEORETICAL Once we have covered the theoretical information, once they are familiar with the various tools they have at their disposal, they write. I turn them loose with the assignment: write a book on what you are burning to tell the world. This assignment is adopted from my mentor, Professor Claude Hurlbert and is discussed in Blitz and Hurlbert’s (1998) book, Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent Age. This approach to teaching writing is very far from my previous method of teaching in which students wrote essays based on a particular rhetorical strategy. Now, I encourage them to share their stories, to share their worlds. What students choose to write about is entirely up to them, as long as it is their story. Yet, there will always be those who argue that storytelling does not belong in a college classroom. I beg to differ. Stories are how we share knowledge; stories are how we pass on information. In fact, the Bible contains many stories in the form of parables, stories told to teach a lesson. Many composition scholars including Frankie Condon (2012), Caroline E. Heller (1997), Gian Pagnucci (2004), Gloria Park (2010), David Schaafsma (1993), Joseph F. Trimmer (1997), and Victor Villaneuva (1993), to name just a few, stress the importance of narrative or storytelling. But, Blitz and Hurlbert’s (1998) book Letters for the Living truly epitomizes the value of students’ narratives. Everyone has a story and everyone’s story is important. Our stories are who we are. Hurlbert (2012) says telling our stories oftentimes helps us to come to an understanding of ourselves (p. 9). Encouraging students to write their stories encourages them to engage in self-analysis. It sometimes can allow for a process of self-discovery. In my class, I encourage students to share only what they feel comfortable sharing. My Freshman Composition class is not a creative writing class, but students are allowed to be creative. In some ways they are creating a work of art in the production of their book. Students are encouraged, where appropriate, to use dialog or to use description, whereby they paint a picture with words. It allows the reader to see, hear and sometimes to feel what the writer is writing about. Moreover, using dialog gives them 53

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practice in punctuating quoted material, a skill which is necessary for when they need to use MLA documentation. In some cases, a student may decide to include a poem because they feel the poem, written by them, captures the essence of their thoughts. Some students do find it easier to express themselves in poetry. In fact, Hanauer (2010) sees poetry as a valuable source for understanding personal experiences. The most important issue is that they are writing and that they find joy in writing. Hurlbert (2012) says that he uses the “book-writing project” in hopes that students will learn to love writing (as cited in Boe et al. 2017, p. 373). This is my hope as well. But there’s more that goes on in my classroom. This student-centered-book-writing pedagogy has the ability to address other important areas of the teaching of writing. Students in my class come to understand the importance of reading critically and the importance of audience.

Students Have Two Roles: The Writer and the Reader Because students do a lot of collaborative work, I randomly divide them into groups. Students in my Freshman Composition class have two roles, one of which is the role of writer. As a writer, they regularly submit written pages of their manuscript to their group members. The other role is that of a reader. Their role as reader requires that they respond to the pages received from each person in their group. Usually there are four groups with about five to seven people in each group. However, because collaboration, and cooperation, is crucial to the success of this pedagogy, it is imperative that students know up front what they are getting into in taking my class. On the first day of class, I let them know what the class is about, specifically, that they will write a book. Knowing this information up front allows students to make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to stay in my class. It is not uncommon for students to talk about teachers amongst themselves, especially when it comes to choosing classes. Many of the students who come into my class have already heard about what I do. In the seven years of teaching this book-writing-project, only two students made the decision to not take my class, simply by not showing up for the second class. From the very first day of class, I encourage them to begin thinking about and writing their book as soon as possible. I constantly remind them that they should be writing and working on producing their book. I’ve learned, however, that most students will not begin writing until that writing assignment is due. Because of this, early in the semester while we are still covering the theoretical information, I ask them to submit a page of their book. The purpose of this assignment, the submission of a page of their manuscript, is two-fold. For one, it gets them started on writing their manuscript. And two, it allows me to model what I want them to do in my class, particularly in their role as a reader/responder. In their role as a reader/responder, they must read the pages that are submitted by each person in their group, and they must provide written feedback directly on their peer’s page. When working in collaborative writing workshops, many students don’t typically like when someone, especially one of their peers, critiques their work, so I teach them how to respond to their peers’ writing. Rather than having students look for faults or try to make corrections in their peers’ writing, I guide them to ask questions as posited by Berthoff (1981). “One of the most useful things to learn about teaching writing and thereby teaching critical thinking, is to learn to ask questions about meaning,” says, Berthoff (p. 115). Recognizing that students are easily offended when their peers criticize their writing, Hurlbert (2012) agrees with Berthoff. He insists that students in his book-writing project use questions when responding to peers’ work (Hulbert 2012, p. 186). Asking questions “puts the responsibility on the writers to consider the issue without readers appearing to be too critical. The writer is then forced to answer questions about 54

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meaning as it pertains to their writing and through this process learns, hopefully, to see his/her writing from the readers’ perspectives” (Virgil, 2015, p. 92). In their role as a reader/responder of their peers’ writing, I provide them with guided questions to assist them in providing feedback (see Appendix 1). Students are not allowed to make corrections on their peers’ paper. Instead they provide a combination of a minimum of four comments and questions that put the onus on the writer in terms of responding to those comments and questions. As indicated on the handout in Appendix 1, “Guidelines for Providing Feedback to Your Peer’s Writing,” such questions and comments may include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How would it change your meaning if you added . . . How would it change your meaning if you delete . . . How would it change your meaning if you moved . . . I like . . . I would like to know more about . . .

The “how would it change your meaning if you” is abbreviated “HWICYMIY” when providing feedback. In addition to the questions and comments students are also required to provide a thoughtful, reflective “endnote,” in which they address the writer by name. It is important that the reader/responder addresses the writer by name as it shows that the reader/responder is speaking directly to that student writer. Subsequently, students are graded on the feedback they provide to their peers. Once they have made comments on their peer’s page, they must photocopy that page and write “copy” on the photocopied page. In other words, the texts that the students produce becomes the texts for the course. They read and response to these student-produced texts. All of the commenting and photocopying is done as homework prior to the class in which there is a scheduled workshop. At the end of a class in which they have had a workshop they will give the original pages with their feedback to each of their peers in their respective groups and the copy of their feedback will be turned in to me, so that I can assess/grade their feedback. A Response Folder is kept for each student, and I grade each round of workshops. At the end of a class workshop each student should turn in approximately four to seven pages (per workshop), depending on the number of students in the group. A class would normally have about five to six rounds of workshops during a semester. However, to receive a grade for a round of workshop, students must return the original pages with their feedback to their group members, and copies of those pages must be turned in to me for their Response Folder at the end of the class in which the workshop was held. The page that I ask students to submit to me early in the semester allows me to provide them with feedback in the way that they are expected to do with their peers. In other words, with that page assignment I model what I want them to do in providing feedback to their peers. Through this reader/responder activity students also come to see that someone other than the teacher is reading their writing. Ultimately, this activity helps them to recognize that there is an audience. The idea of audience is further reinforced during another part of this collaborative group process. As writers, students know how their paper should read, or at least they should. Therefore, each student writer has to read aloud the page that they have shared with their group members in these workshops. It is expected that each student has done their homework and has read and commented on their peer’s page. As discussed earlier, as a reader/responder, students must provide a minimum of four comments/ questions. During this ‘read aloud’ phase, each reader in the group orally provides two of their four written comments to the writer. Students are encouraged to always say something positive about their peer’s 55

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writing, so their first comment must be an “I like” comment and the other would be a “HWICYMIY” comment. Students also orally share their endnote with the writer, being sure to address the writer by name. In the interest of time, and since the writer will receive the written feedback from each of his/ her group members, students share only two comments and their endnote in response to each reading. Again, the reader/responder role is intended to teach students the importance of audience when writing and, hopefully, to encourage them to read critically. As I said earlier, I only use The Longman Reader to cover the discussion of the writing tools. Not only does the Longman Reader cover the writing tools, it is also a reader with a collection of essays meant to be models of the various tools/strategies. Hurlbert (2006) believes, “Composition textbooks are a distraction from the realities of the places in which we live . . .” (p. 353). His student-centered book writing pedagogy uses the books that the students write in class as the text for the course. For me, following Hurlbert’s model “proved to be much more effective than reading and responding to a composition reader” (Virgil, 2015, p. 56). Using the texts that students produce in class as the text for the course has many benefits. There is the benefit of “proximity” to the author/writer, which affords students the opportunity of interaction with the writers, something that they can not do with the writers in composition textbooks. Furthermore, “because they had to read and respond to their peers’ manuscripts, verbally and in writing, they learned to become more critical readers as they provided feedback for their peers. . . . As writers, when they received feedback from their peers, they came to recognize the importance of audience” (Virgil, 2015, pp. 56-57). As students work together in these groups, many times they form bonds. They come to realize that while they may have many different stories, oftentimes they come to see that there are some who share their stories; they are not alone. They develop empathy and they learn to support each other. They come to care.

TEACHING THE RESEARCH PAPER Perhaps the most interesting and creative benefit of using this student-centered book writing pedagogy is its usefulness in teaching the research paper. When I initially thought about introducing this pedagogy at Bermuda College, I was immediately concerned with how I would meet the research objectives for our Freshman Composition course. Then I remembered that when Professor Hurlbert introduced his pedagogy in his “Writing Teachers” course at IUP, there was a built-in solution to my problem. In that class, Hurlbert paired us up and required us to read each other’s books. We then had to write a Foreword for each other’s book. Immediately, I realized that this was the answer to my dilemma. I would pair my students and require them to write a Foreword for their partner’s book. While Hurlbert’s Foreword assignment did not require research, I added a research component to mine. Once I conceptualized this idea of using the book’s Foreword to teach research, it was easy to implement as an assignment. Half way through the semester I require students to turn in two copies of half of their manuscript, which is seven and half pages, single spaced. One of those copies is for me to read, provide feedback and grade; the other copy is for their writing partner. The paired students would read each other’s manuscript. After reading, they must choose a single topic from the manuscript with which they can relate. They would then generate an essay (Foreword) on that topic. This Foreword is not a summary of their partner’s book. Instead, it is an essay based on a topic discussed in their peer’s book. They are using a topic found in their partner’s manuscript with which they can relate to springboard into an essay, a five-paragraph essay. 56

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Of course, I know that there are many people who have issues with teaching the five-paragraph essay. However, for the purpose of this assignment this is exactly what I ask my students to do. I instruct them to generate a five-paragraph essay which includes an introductory paragraph, with a clear thesis statement and three supporting body paragraphs, with clear topic sentences for each paragraph. The fifth and last paragraph of this essay is what makes the Foreword. That final paragraph serves to introduce their partner’s book, thus requiring them to connect the manuscript written by their partner to the essay/ Foreword they have written. For instance, a student who after reading their partner’s manuscript about coming up without a father, determines that they can relate to that topic, as they, too, came up in a household with only a mother. The student may decide to write a cause/effect essay that focuses on the effects of coming up in a single parent household without a father. In this case, the student will explore some possible effects such as the financial struggle on his mother, the absence of a role model, and the fact that he had to grow up too fast because he had to care for younger siblings. After discussing these issues in the body of his essay/Foreword, the final paragraph will introduce his partner’s book. Such an introduction may read: “D’Angelo Tucker shares his story of being raised by his mother in a single-parent household. He explains how he often felt neglected or unloved because his dad never played a part in his life. D’Angelo shares how his mother acted as both mother and father to him and ensured that he never went without anything, even when she had to go without.” Since my intent is to teach the research component, this Foreword assignment requires that students include three outside sources and a corresponding Works Cited page. Prior to this assignment we would have several classes that focus on a discussion of plagiarism, the effective use of MLA documentation as well as the generation of a Works Cited page (see Appendix 2 for Foreword assignment). Completing this assignment requires that they bring together everything they have learned in the class over the course of the semester. They need to clearly understand the tools they have at their disposal. These tools include the writing tools or rhetorical strategies (i.e. exemplification, narration, comparison/contrast, cause and effect, definition etc.), a thesis statement, topic sentences, MLA documentation, and knowledge of works cited information. Because at the end of the semester, students are expected to demonstrate their ability to write a fiveparagraph essay with sources on their final exam, the skills needed for this Foreword assignment are further reinforced with the Afterword assignment, which is the final component of their book. Unlike the Foreword, in which the students generate an essay based on a topic from their partner’s book, the Afterword assignment is a little different. For the Afterword assignment I ask students to carefully look over their manuscript, which they have written over the course of the semester, and reflect on what they have written. Then generate an essay/Afterword that is intended to bring their book together, while considering which writing tools they used and why (i.e. narration, exemplification, cause and effect etc.), and consider their writing experience over the course of the semester. Each student must write an Afterword for their own book. I provide them with specific questions intended to make them look critically at their manuscript and generate a thoughtful reflection on what they have produced. The questions are worded in a way whereby the students are forced to reflect on the tools they have been introduced to in the class. The Afterword assignment, like the Foreword, requires three sources and a corresponding works cited page (see Appendix 3). This student-centered-book-writing pedagogy is challenging to say the least. It is also very time consuming for me as the teacher. However, it is far more rewarding for my students who through the process of producing this book come to recognize that they have a voice. The Afterwords that the students write are always a joy to read. By the time they get to the end of the semester 57

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when they are finishing up their book, they tend to feel a bit more at ease. It is in their Afterwords that students are their most honest and revealing. Most of them expressed trepidation and ambivalence at the beginning of the semester when they were initially faced with this book-writing-project. All of them at the end of the semester express a sense of pride and a sense of accomplishment in the fact that they completed their book, especially when they see the copy of their published book. With our classrooms becoming increasingly more diverse, teaching writing in the 21st century demands that we step outside the box. Our students are different; they come from different spaces, and we can not ignore those spaces, as those spaces are part of who they are. The changing demographic of our classroom with its increase in diversity demands a more inclusive pedagogy, a “culturally responsive” pedagogy (Gay, 2010). No matter how close or connected we are with our students, we simply do not share their worlds, which means that we do not share their perspectives. I, as teacher, am one, but my students are many. How can we even think that we can generate topics that are meaningful to all of our students in our composition classrooms? Postman and Weingartner (1969) claim, “Even the most sensitive teacher cannot always project himself into the perspective of his students, and he dare not assume that his perception of reality is necessarily shared by them” (p. 60). After being exposed to Dr. Hurlbert’s “Theories of Composition” class and his subsequent “Teaching Writing” class, I was forced to recognize that no matter how good a rapport I have with my students and no matter how good my student evaluations are, my perception of reality is not theirs.

CONCLUSION: TRY IT, YOU MIGHT LIKE IT My student-centered-book writing-pedagogy allows for more voice, more student voice. It allows students to share their stories, and in so doing, to share their worlds. It allows us as teachers to grow as we come to learn our ever-changing students. Such a project is more purposeful for the students and for teachers. I would suggest that such a project can be more meaningful than a collection of essays based on a topic or a theme that the teacher has come up with, some topic that the teacher thinks that the student should find interesting or important. How can we ever know, with certainty, what our students think and feel? The truth of the matter is that with our classrooms becoming increasingly diverse and increasingly multicultural we can not ever know what is going on in our students lives, in their worlds. We have to respect their spaces and their worlds as part of who they are. At the most we can ask them to share their worlds. Why not allow students to speak, to say what they are ‘burning to tell the world?’ HancıAzizoglu (2018) says, “. . . everyone who has learned an additional language has a story to tell . . . “ (p. 2). I want to hear it, their story. This student-centered-book-writing-pedagogy can be both empowering and liberating for students. The student-writer as the teller of her/his own story becomes the authority on the subject. Pagnucci (2004) says, “What I’ve found . . . is that giving students the chance to write narratives allows them to find personal meaning in their work” (Schaafsma et al., 2007, p. 298). Doing what students do in my class, writing a book, allows them to not only “find meaning in their writing, but it also empowers them” because they are the authority in their story (Virgil, 2015, 64-65). Such a pedagogy recognizes that everyone has a story, everyone comes from and occupies different spaces and it is in the sharing of our spaces that we share knowledge, and consequently, we grow. As Composition teachers we need to recognize and respect the spaces our students occupy, something which composition texts do not do, largely because they are exclusionary. Hurlbert (2012), who has very little regard for composition text books, says, “ . . . a cursory glance at textbooks of the last 58

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fifty years demonstrates that nothing changes in them even as our students continue to change” (p. 169). Hurlbert (2012) is right; the textbook doesn’t change. We have to change the text by making the students’ texts, the ones they produce in our Composition classroom, the text. Making the students’ texts that they are producing the text for the class is what Elbelazi (2015) calls the “no-textbooks design.” Such a design allows Composition teachers “the freedom to mingle among disciplines without being restricted by textbooks” (p. 7). We must recognize, respect and validate those spaces that our students occupy when we allow them a voice in their own writing, when we allow them to write their worlds, whereby sharing their world. Using the students’ books as the texts for the class allows me to listen to them. As importantly, though, using the students’ books as the texts for the class allows them to listen to each other. I can then use what they are telling me to inform my teaching. “We as teachers need to better understand our students’ lived experiences. Such understanding is crucial . . . to the way we view [and teach] writing” (Virgil 2015, p. 157). With our ever-changing student demographic, encouraging students to write a book about what they are burning to tell the world, to share their stories, to share their worlds, is the art of teaching writing in the 21st century. Such a pedagogy invites students to participate in the conversation about teaching writing and about life. Such a pedagogy encourages students to write for social justice, and to write for hope. Sometimes, we need to help our students to see that in “writing their past and their present, they can ‘right’ their future” (Virgil, 2015, p. 158). This is what I do. This is my passion. This is what I love.

REFERENCES Berthoff, A. E. (1981). The making of meaning: Metaphors, models, and maxims for writing teachers. Boynton/Cook. Blitz, M., & Hurlbert, C. M. (1998). Letters for the living: Teaching writing in a violent age. National Council of Teachers of English. Boe, J., Masiel, D., Schroeder, E., & Sperber, L. (Eds.). (2017). Teachers on the edge. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315267852 Condon, F. (2012). I hope I join the band: Narrative, affiliation, and antiracist rhetoric. Utah State UP. doi:10.2307/j.ctt4cgk2v Elbelazi, S. (2015). Creative expressivism: A new vision for teaching writing. Humanizing Language Teaching Journal, 17(2). Retrieved from: http://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr15/sart05.htm Elbow, P. (1991). Reflections on academic discourse: How it relates to Freshman and colleagues. College English, 53(2), 135–155. doi:10.2307/378193 Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). Teachers College. Hanauer, D. I. (2010). Poetry as research: Exploring second language poetry writing. John Benjamin. doi:10.1075/lal.9 Hanci-Azizoglu, E. B. (2018). Creative writing as a second language: What is creativity for second language writers? TESOL Journal, 9(4), 1–13.

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Heller, C. E. (1997). Until we are strong together: Women writers in the tenderloin. Teachers College. Hurlbert, C. (2006). A place in which to stand. In P. Vanderberg, S. Hum, & J. Clary-Lemon (Eds.), Relations locations positions: Composition theory for writing teachers (pp. 353–357). National Council of Teachers of English. Hurlbert, C. (2012). National healing: Race, state, and the teaching of composition. Utah State University Press. North, S. M. (1987). The making of knowledge in composition: Portrait of an emerging field. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Pagnucci, G. S. (2004). Living the narrative life. Boynton/Cook. Park, G. (2010). Meaningful writing opportunities in the community college: The cultural and linguistic autobiography writing project. In S. Kasten (Ed.), Classroom practice writing (pp. 51–56). TESOL. Park, G. (2011). Adult English language learners constructing and sharing their stories and experiences: The cultural and linguistic autobiography (CLA) writing project. TESOL Journal, 2(2), 156–172. doi:10.5054/tj.2011.250378 Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York: Dell. Schaafsma, D. (1993). Eating on the street: Teaching literacy in a multicultural society. University of Pittsburgh. Schaafsma, D., Pagnucci, G. S., Wallace, R. M., & Lambert Stock, P. (2007). Composing storied ground: Four generations of narrative inquiry. English Education, 39(4), 282–305. Tobin, L. (2004). Reading student writing: Confessions, meditations, and rants. Boynton/Cook. Trimmer, J. F. (1997). Narration as knowledge: Tales of the teaching life. Boynton/Cook. Villaneuva, V. (1993). Bootstraps: From an American academic of color. National Council of Teachers of English. Virgil, S. M. (2015). Sky juice: Students writing hope (Published PhD dissertation). Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1678895963?accountid=6724

ADDITIONAL READING Alawdat, M. (2014). Israeli English teachers’ perception of using eportfolios. Lambert Academic Publishing. Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage. García, R. (2017, March 13). On the cusp of invisibility: Opportunities and possibilities of literacy narratives. Pearson. https://www.pearsoned.com/pedagogy-practice/cusp-i

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Geertz, C. (1973). Deep play notes on the Balinese cockfight. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The interpretation of culture (pp. 412–453). Basic. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Johnston, B., & Webber, S. (2003). Information literacy in higher education: A review and a case study. Studies in Higher Education, 28(3), 335–352. doi:10.1080/03075070309295 Kain, D. J. (2003). Teacher-centered vs student-centered: Balancing constraint and theory in the composition classroom. Pedagogy, 3(1), 104–108. doi:10.1215/15314200-3-1-104 Lilgendahl, J. P., & McAdams, D. P. (2011). Constructing stories of self-growth: How individual differences in patterns of autobiographical reasoning relate to well-being in midlife. Journal of Personality, 79(2), 391–428. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00688.x PMID:21395593 Mao, L. (2006). Reading Chinese fortune cookies. NP: Utah State University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt4cgqqt Warner, J. (2018). Why they can’t write: Killing the five paragraph essay and other necessities. John Hopkins University Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Afterword: A research-teaching assignment written at the end of the book intended to encourage the student to engage in reflective thought. Bermuda: A small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; not in the Caribbean. It has a population of approximately 65,000 and is known for Tourism and being one of the world’s leaders in International Business. Bermuda College: A Community College located on the island of Bermuda. It is the only tertiary institution on the island. Book-Writing Pedagogy: A method used to teach students writing/Composition in the context of producing a book. Foreword: A research-teaching assignment intended to introduce a student’s book. Parables: Stories found in the Bible that are told to prove a point or to teach a lesson. Reader’s Role: A student-role in which the student reads each page of manuscript produced by those members in her/his group and provides written and verbal feedback for each submitted page. Writer’s Role: A student-role in which the student regularly produces pages of their manuscript and submits to her/his group members for writing/reading workshops. Writing Tools: The writing/organizational patterns that students use to generate and organize their book (i.e., exemplification, narration, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, definition, etc.). Other tools may include thesis statement and topic sentences.

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APPENDIX 1 Guidelines for Responding to Your Peer’s Manuscript--Writing Workshop Responding to your peers’ writing is a very important part of the class. I keep a response folder for each student and you will be graded on your responses. Hence, if you want to do well, you must be sure to follow the guidelines listed below. The response activities are intended to assist you in becoming a more critical reader, and hopefully as a consequence, a more critical writer. Reading the writings of others can make you more aware of your own writing. • • • • • • • • • • •

You must have “at least” FOUR comments on each one-page manuscript that is submitted for workshop. If two pages are submitted, then you must have FOUR comments on each page. Use the abbreviation “HWICYMIY” (how would it change your meaning if you) when commenting on your peers’ manuscripts. In addition to the HWICYMIY comments, you must include at least ONE “I like” comment. This means you must state something that you like about the page you are reading. Your four comments must consist of at least two HWICYMIY comments, at least one “I like . . .” comment, and at least one other comment. This other comment can be another “I like” comment, another HWICYMIY comment or an “I would like to know more about . . .” comment. Additionally, you MUST include a positive, encouraging endnote that reflects thought and addresses the writer by name at the bottom of the page. Do NOT make corrections (i.e. spelling, punctuation, grammar etc.) on your peer’s manuscript You must be sure to write your name, identifying yourself as the reader, on your peer’s document (i.e. Reader: Robert) underneath the writer’s name in the top left corner. Be sure that the writer has indicated the date of the workshop and the round of the writing workshop (1st round, 2nd round etc.) in the top right corner. You must record your responses directly on your peer’s manuscript, alongside the sentence/passage you are responding to. After you have recorded your comments on each of your peers’ pages, you MUST make a copy of the document with your responses and write on it “COPY”. You must give your peer the original immediately after he/she has work-shopped his/her page. You must give the copy to me at the end of class on the day that the paper is work-shopped in order to receive a grade for your response. Responses not turned into me on the day of the workshop may not be accepted, or if accepted, may be penalized for being late.

Sample Responses 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

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I like___________________________________________________________ HWICYMIY “added more description here”? HWICYMIY “provided more detail here”? HWICYMIY “changed __________ to _________”? HWICYMIY “deleted this sentence/passage? HWICYMIY “added dialog here?”

When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy

7. HWICYMIY “moved this sentence/paragraph to . . .?” 8. I would like to know more about_____________________________________ 9. Write a reflective, positive endnote for every paper you read in workshop (i.e. Robert, I like your use of description and dialog. It helps to capture your reader’s attention. I look forward to reading more of your writing).

APPENDIX 2 Important Foreword Information Essentially your Foreword is an essay that springboards off a topic covered in your peer’s book. This essay should be written out of the knowledge you hold, meaning it should be something you know about, something that you can speak about. • • • • • • • • • • • •

•

Foreword must be a minimum of one typed page--single spaced Must use Times New Roman 12 You MUST generate an outline for your Foreword; see MOODLE for a possible outline template Your Foreword must be printed on one-side of the paper (do not print front to back) Heading for this page must be centered (TNR-12)—‘Foreword’ on the first line, ‘for’ on the second line, ‘name of the person’ for whom you are writing the foreword on the third line Your name will appear at the end of the Foreword, flush left (i.e. by Kwensi Cann). See the example on MOODLE You must have THREE sources in your Foreword and three corresponding works cited entries on a separate works cited page While your Foreword must be single spaced, your corresponding Works Cited page must be double spaced, with hanging indents according to MLA guidelines. Unless your Foreword is Bermuda-specific (i.e. violence in Bermuda), all of your sources must come from Ebscohost Sources other than Ebscohost MUST be approved by me. E-book sources are not allowed Items to be turned in with this assignment include: (1) your outline, (2) your Foreword, (3) a correctly formatted corresponding works cited page, (4) complete printouts of your Ebscohost (or other) sources, (5) printouts of the corresponding Ebscohost works cited entries used in your foreword, and (6) your peer’s manuscript You must highlight the quoted material on the copies of your sources

Further Information for the Foreword 1. Keep in mind that this should be an essay that springboards off a topic discussed in your peer’s book. 2. Your foreword is essentially a 5-paragraph essay. The first 3-4 paragraphs must be written out of the knowledge you hold about a topic covered in your peer’s book.

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3. Your first paragraph will be an introductory paragraph, with a thesis as the last sentence in that introductory paragraph. 4. Your next 3 paragraphs will be supporting paragraphs and should have clear topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph. 5. Your last paragraph will clearly make the connection to, and introduce, your peer’s book. Be sure to name your peer. (i. e. In his book, Kwensi Cann discusses the challenges he faced as a young single father). Provide a brief summary of these challenges. 6. Do not open/begin your essay or any paragraph, with a quote. Doing so, allows the source to write your essay or your paragraph. When you begin your essay/paragraph with a source, you give up control of your writing to your source. It also suggests that perhaps you really don’t know anything about the topic. 7. Be sure to develop a clear thesis for your essay/foreword and develop clear topic sentences for each of your paragraphs. 8. When incorporating a source into your essay, you do not need to include the title of the article or the title of the book in your lead in, since that information will be found on your works cited page. You only need the complete name/s (as it is written) and the credentials, if they are included in the article/book. 9. You MUST engage in dialog with your sources. If you use a source in your writing, then you should be able to speak to that source. Don’t merely stick a source/quote in your writing. Speak to the source so that it is clear why you are using the source. 10. Incorporate and document your sources correctly and effectively. What you have in your parenthetical citation/documentation will be determined by what you have in the sentence—whether you have a lead in. If you have a lead in using the source’s name, then you only need the page number in your documentation/citation. 11. You should not merely have a source’s name and page number at the end of a paragraph or a sentence. Keep in mind that the reader needs to know where your source’s ideas begin and where they end. 12. There is an example of a Foreword on MOODLE to give you an idea. Keep in mind that the Foreword on MOODLE is only an example; it is not a perfect example.

APPENDIX 3 ENG 1111--Information for Your Afterword Assignment: You are to write an Afterword for your book—a minimum of one page, single-spaced (Times New Roman-12). This Afterword requires that you draw on many of the tools/strategies that you were introduced to in this class. Your afterword, using the prism of hope, will reflect on your writing and consider where you go from here. Please look at your manuscript carefully and write a thoughtful, reflective Afterword in which you address the following issues:

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1. How do you feel about what you have written and why do you feel as you do? 2. Which tools did you use in writing your manuscript? Why? 3. How does what you have written in the early stages of your manuscript compare/contrast with what you have written in the later stages of your manuscript? 4. What is your definition of “hope?” 5. Is there evidence of hope in your writing? If yes, provide clear, specific and developed examples from your manuscript. 6. If there is no evidence of hope, or rather, if there is evidence of hopelessness, provide clear, specific and developed examples from your manuscript. 7. To what do you attribute this presence, or absence, of hope? 8. Is there anything/s that you would change in this manuscript? If so, how and why? 9. Sharon Virgil, Freshman Composition teacher, believes that “as long as you WRITE, you have the opportunity to RIGHT your life” (94). Moreover, Virgil adds, “as long as you’re writing your life/ your world, you can write any ending you choose” (143). How do you feel about these two statements and why do you feel as you do? 10. Finally, explain where you hope to go from here (in your journey through life). Your Afterword should be written out of the knowledge you hold and after careful, thoughtful consideration of your manuscript. You must: • • • • • • • • •

Generate an outline for your Afterword Format your Afterword correctly. This means that the title, Afterword, should be centered at the top of your page Your name should appear at the end of your Afterword (flush left). You must have THREE outside sources (Ebscohost—full text articles, only) You must have a separate, properly formatted works cited page for those sources used in your Afterword. While your Afterword will be single spaced, consistent with the text of your book, your works cited page must adhere to MLA guidelines. This means that your works cited page should be double-spaced throughout, with hanging indents. You must include complete printouts of your Ebscohost sources, including a print out of the works cited page from Ebscohost, so that I can verify the entries on your works cited page. You must highlight the quoted material on the copies of your sources Sources other than Ebscohost MUST be approved by me and you are NOT allowed to use ebooks or the Bible. Please know that you will lose points if you do not follow these guidelines. Works Cited for the quotes above:

Virgil, Sharon M. Sky Juice: Students Writing Hope. 2015. Indiana U of Pennsylvania, PhD dissertation. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, KnowledgeRepository @IUP, https://knowledge.library.iup. edu/etd/758/

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Chapter 5

Digital Storytelling:

A Futuristic Second-LanguageWriting Method Nurdan Kavaklı Izmir Democracy University, Turkey Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT Storytelling has been widely used as a strategy to develop language-related skills. Storytelling and learning are interwoven since composing a story is an inseparable component of the meaning-making process. Serving as a link between the act of imagination and perceiving the world, storytelling has been applied to promote effective language learning outcomes. Storytelling offers a language-based approach in literature by means of its activity-based, student-centered, and process-oriented nature, and storytelling supports students’ negotiation of meaning by engaging and motivating them within the creative learning process. By this definition, the purpose of this research study is to initiate a scholarly discussion on innovative techniques in digital storytelling to support second language writing instruction along with significant strategies that employ 21st century learning skills.

INTRODUCTION Storytelling is such a well-established paradigm that even considering the possibility of doing something other than telling a story with technology seems incomprehensible. (Riggs, 2019, p. 32-33) Stories are the framework through which people understand and interpret the world since it is the power of stories that makes us human. The power of stories has a magical empathic impact on people’s judgment capability as stories provide people the formulation to open up a world of possibilities for rethinking, considering and reevaluating life experiences through literacy. Human beings are constant storytellers to make sense of the world we live in and to view the events through the characters that live DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch005

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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in stories. No matter who you are and no matter what you do, you have heard a multitude of stories in your lifetime: at bedtime from your loved-ones, at a dinner table with your family, through the media on radio, television or internet and with your colleagues at lunch. Storytelling has long been used as a powerful tool for communication. “Perhaps not surprisingly, stories are also the oldest form of education” (Reinders, 2011, p. 1); and it is crucial to include storytelling as a critical part of the second language writing curriculum in order to teach empathy as one of the most required skills in the 21st century. Empathy, whether through paper and pen or through super advanced digital tools, is the most powerful skill to be acquired in the 21st century for a brighter future. The biggest deficit that we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit. We are in great need of people being able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. (Obama, Goodreads, n.d.) Empathy is a quality of wisdom. Empathy is what human beings require to become kinder to Earth and to every living being on Earth. Empathy is far beyond living for your selfish self. Empathy is the will to be part of a harmonious planet by accepting the fact that your endless freedom should be restricted once it interferes with the freedom of another living being. Empathy equals to respect. Recent educational systems embrace creativity, collaboration and communication as critical skills to be acquired. It is indeed empathy that is missing from educational settings, which is absolutely required to motivate global citizens, who would live in harmony around the world. Global awareness does not necessarily mean the capacity to reach out to technologically derived sources from all over the world, but it rather refers to actions of using these tools to understand the self as well as the others (Morra, 2014). Therefore, teaching empathy through digital storytelling to second language learners is one of the new and innovative forms of language education. Digital storytelling is indeed a great source for teaching empathy to second language learners in creative methods. With digital storytelling, language learners have the opportunity to be more interactive, flexible and synchronic for the creation of knowledge both individually and collaboratively in a technology-mediated learning environment. This novel process draws the attention to the fact that language learners take multifarious roles for being the creator of the digital context, a recorder, a word processor, a critical reflector, a visual designer or a digital story presenter. For this purpose, teaching second language writing through digital stories leads to a futuristic teaching style for using the writing discipline to teach empathy in inventive ways to second language learners and writers. Taking such creative and critical roles to develop language learners’ knowledge and skills through the digital storytelling pedagogy is a quite productive language teaching method. Thus, the futuristic approach of this chapter targets to guide creative writing practices through digital storytelling as a process for teachers, writing specialists, educators, instructors and professionals, who wish to facilitate effective and novel writing strategies for second language learners and writers.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STORYTELLING IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION Perhaps language teaching should be more like story writing than it is like grammatical analysis. This isn’t to say that we should neglect the traditional concepts of structural analysis, but that perhaps we

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should enrich them by attending more deliberately to the pragmatic factors affecting the meaningfulness and comprehensibility of discourse (Oller, 1983, p. 49). Storytelling is a complicated act, which involves imagination and creativity. Second language learning motivation is marked as synonymous with the sense of belonging and involvement in second language acquisition (Sivasubramaniam, 2006), and language is obviously not constituted solely of grammar and vocabulary (Lemke, 1990). Quite the contrary, language learners are inspired to develop an understanding of the second language as a process by achieving realistic goals, which can be accomplished by creative writing practices. Perhaps most obviously, it is storytelling that helps to create an experiential learning environment in which language skills are integrated within an interactive language learning environment as opposed to rote teaching and learning practices. The existing body of research recognizes the probable benefits of using storytelling as an effective instructional method in second language learning settings. Despite the growing importance of technological advancements, language teaching is often misunderstood, and rote learning is still dominant in many language teaching classrooms. There are a number of studies that reimagined the act of language teaching through creative practices that are opposed to rote language learning practices (Chamcharatsri, 2012; Hanauer, 2010; Hancı-Azizoglu, 2018). Within the context of stimulating creativity in second language learning settings, storytelling is regarded as useful in the sense that it provides an authentic way to enhance second or foreign language aptitude besides developing linguistic and narrative skills even in the native language (Linse, 2007). Furthermore, storytelling is suitable for everyone regardless of the language in question or the age group. The critical role played by storytelling for improving a second language for very young language learners is acknowledged (Tsou et al., 2006), which refers to the fact that storytelling can be suitable for language learners of all age groups. Accordingly, second language students’ speaking skills are developed through individual and interactive stories through web-based multimedia tools (Christiansen & Koelzer, 2016; Gregori-Signes, 2008; Hwang et al., 2016). By this definition, it is necessary to look at how storytelling not only improves literacy skills (Niemi et al., 2014; Rahimi & Yadollahi, 2017), but also problem solving skills (Yang & Wu, 2012), critical thinking skills (Abdel-Hack & Helwa, 2014) and academic writing skills (Pollock & Bono, 2013). From this critical perspective, effective language teaching stimulates imagination and creativity, and the storytelling technique as a language teaching method, obviously advances the overall linguistic skills of language learners. In one sense, the significance of storytelling in second language education is well documented because storytelling considerably triggers students’ engagement, motivation and collaboration to develop their language proficiency levels (Huang et al., 2017; LoBello; 2015; Sadik, 2008; Xu et al., 2011). While facilitating the growth of a new language as a process by fostering second language writers’ narrative skills (Alkaaf, 2017; Elola & Oskoz, 2010), storytelling provides a learning environment of shared experiences. What’s more, students’ positive attitudes towards the target language would be enriched once they begin to enjoy listening to different stories more than once as a shared group experience. Reinforcement of language materials through creative activities assist students to internalize target linguistic structures at ease, which connects in-class learning practices to the school curriculum (Loukia, 2006). To illustrate, storytelling contributes to language recycling in a naturally entertaining and motivating trend by relying on the narrator’s experiences and self-directedness (Brewster et al., 2002; Slattery & Willis, 2001) together with increasing their motivation towards the English language (Elkılıç & Akça, 2008).

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No doubt, and quite importantly, storytelling promotes the introduction of a new language task through additional and creative steps to facilitate the language learning process named ‘instructional scaffolding’ (Applebee & Langer, 1983). Until the students have their products to present, they have the options to use: a) computers with multimedia and large storage capacity; b) image capture devices including camcorders, digital cameras and scanners; c) audio capture devices with high-quality voice recorders and microphones; d) digital media software to create and edit digital images; e) video and audio files. During the continuum of the storytelling process, language learners are closely engaged with the 21st century skills that encourage students to use multiple literacies for effective learning (Robin, 2008). Thus, storytelling is a powerful tool for teaching second language writing if exercised with ideal principles.

THE PRINCIPLES OF STORYTELLING There is not an easy recipe to follow when creating stories. Even though there is not a straightforward and definitive recipe that could provide the same learning outcome for storytelling exercises for all language learning settings, Oller (1983) clarified storytelling principles for second language learners. According to Oller (1983), there are eleven principles for effective story writing principles. The foremost principle is (a) respect logic and causality. Based on this principle, the flow of the occurrences in a story should be logically ordered to make sense through real life experiences. The second principle is (b) be aware of plans and goals. This second principle is surrounded by a guided plan, which is both for students and the storytelling exercise itself. The real plan stands for a guiding plan that clearly explains learning objectives, outcomes and assessment techniques, which would make the lesson more meaningful. The third principle is (c) use surprise-value to motivate learners. For this principle, there should be a factor of conflict created in the course of the story that would result in reflective thinking. On the other hand, the dosage of the conflict created for second language learners should not be “earth-shaking” (Oller, p.50), and the process of the storytelling should be a good match for the students’ linguistic skills. The fourth principle is (d) to operate with facts or believable fiction. The script or the course of modeling for the story should closely be linked to experiential facts. In other words, the material should be either factual or believable fiction for meaningful learning outcomes. The fifth principle is (e) do not ask students to comprehend nonsense. As the principle itself refers, this principle strictly advices educators to avoid rote-learning exercises that involve repetitive and ridiculous variations of language use that would not be appealing for creating stories regarding real life occurrences. The sixth principle is (f) to find interesting characters. This principle suggests creating personalities through vivid characters. If the goals and plans of the character are well established and created throughout the story, the audience can attach to the personalities of the characters, and thereby the audience would find the story interesting to follow. The seventh principle is (g) look for meaningful conflicts. Based on this principle, there is a fine line between the characters created and the conflicts arise throughout the story. In one sense, a conflict is an interference in the plot that results in curiosity for the readers. In another sense, the conflict created should be a good match with the characters’ personality to make the story logical and meaningful. Creating the conflict can be considered as one of the most critical components of creating a story as it “unlocks human intelligence” (Oller, p. 51). The audience will ask: “How will the character handle

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the problem?” (Oller, p. 51). At this point, the audience will have their own unique self-interpretation as a result of empathy. The eighth principle is (h) find material with action. This principle makes a distinction between simply telling what is happening in a dull reporting way with no emotions or using creative and appealing story elements for making the story alive. The ability to show the moment without simply describing is the key. Making a story alive means writing in a fashion that stimulates the audience’s imagination so that the audience can live that moment with the writer. The ninth principle is (i) ask questions. Asking questions about the story elements can function as a reminder for language learners to create stories that will flow better. If these questions can be provided for students in advance, they can make a better plan on how to start and process the storytelling activity. The questions can refer to the setting, plot, characters, conflict and the outcome or the moral of the story. The tenth principle is (j) cut the elephant (i.e., episode) into small bites. Creating questions for story elements as a technique can simplify the material for language learners. This principle suggests scaffolding the material in smaller chunks of information for language learners to understand. Once the language learners understand the story components and story writing process steps better, they can create better stories. The eleventh principle is (k) make multiple meals out of the elephant (i.e., make multiple passes through the story). This principle is vital for language learners. If the task being asked is above the proficiency level of the students, the outcome would not be successful. All language learners regardless of their proficiency level should be familiar with story elements to be able to create a new one. Prior knowledge and background preparation before starting the storytelling activity is critical for language learners’ success. Oller’s (1983) storytelling principles are still appealing as the basics for creating a story remained the same when time passed by. On the other hand, second language writers could carry out two or more culturally and linguistically determined repertoires that can be enriched through the interactive use of digital arts in the 21st century language learning classes.

THE CONCEPT OF DIGITAL STORYTELLING Stories are rich in context adhering to linguistic, sociological, cultural, psychological and cognitive learning objectives, and storytelling has been used as a term to label multiple modes of narratives by definition. In much the same way, the concept of digital storytelling is a contemporary approach to teaching and learning, in which human creativity in storytelling can be accompanied by technologically-enhanced interactive environments (Smeda et al., 2010). Basically, stories can be used as a sole teaching purpose with the integration of web-based technologies that shaped the way courses are designed; strategies are selected and materials are developed. Through information and communication technologies of Web 2.0 tools, and mobile applications (Gürer, 2020), the changing technology has provided new paths to communicate through stories. Within the context of innovative technologies including digital storytelling, immersive storytelling, interactive storytelling, virtual reality (VR) storytelling, the new way of storytelling is designed as novel language teaching methods in the 21st century. The 21st century education entails language learners who are considered as digitized or wired. This new age generation is named as digital natives who are born into and raised in a society immersed with technology, and they surely speak the language of technology (Prenksy, 2001). Perhaps most obviously,

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the 21st century has flourished with the arrival of a new period of digital writers in which these digital natives do not merely come through formal or direct instruction. Quite the contrary, this new age second language writers can be motivated through extracurricular writing practices and web-based collaboration (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2002), which can be achieved through teaching digital storytelling techniques to language learners. It is therefore important that the concept of storytelling is now adapted to the 21st century skills by encompassing both oral and narrative forms with the changing technology in various economic, educational, political and social contexts with its modern definition (Parfitt, 2019). Digital storytelling, as a relatively new writing pedagogy, is pursued in three stages as a process: preparation, production and presentation. With this continuum, identity construction (Skinner & Hagood, 2008) along with high student motivation (Yoon, 2013) is expected. In the preparation stage, a topic is selected for designing a new story; the audience is determined; the script is written, and edited. In the following production stage, appropriate non-verbal elements are selected accompanied by the written script together with the properly designated multimedia tools. In the last phase of the presentation stage, the end product is displayed to the audience. Within these processes, students are expected to use their analytical and higher-order thinking skills (Maina, 2004). Depending on these analytical steps in the storytelling process, it is a crystal-clear fact that storytelling has significance in expanding students’ repertoire and multi-literacy skills in a web-based environment. Therefore, it is proposed that writing instruction should be transformed by focusing on storytelling as the core element of the writing curriculum (Takayoshi & Selfe, 2007; Yancey, 2006). Aside from the inevitability that suggests storytelling to be one of the core subjects in a writing curriculum in order to stimulate the creativity aptitude of language learners, writing is evidently more than just a mechanical process. Quite the contrary, writing in the 21st century is now multi-literacies-oriented to be able to disclose an unlimited set of intended messages through the use of numerous technological tools to make meaning for language learners’ intended messages (Hicks et al., 2013; Shin & Cimasko, 2008). During the meaning-making process in digital storytelling, students continuously create a text to communicate in terms of a dialogic composition process by using multimodal resources. This is the beginning of the digital story design process for language learners, which is then pursued by sharing experiences and assigning meaning to the resources through digital stories. Through imagination, students’ narratives are incorporated into the process of multimodal design activity along with a deeper understanding of story elements. While constructing digital stories, language learners have the opportunity to employ multimodal resources as a reflection of their abilities and aspirations (Lier, 2004), which combine crucial phases in order to compose digital stories in a target language.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING PROCESS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE WRITERS In today’s complex, high-technology world, the importance of writing as a fundamental organizing objective of education is no less valid or practical. Writing, properly understood, is thought on paper. Increasingly, in the information age, it is also thought on screen, a richly elaborated, logically connected amalgam of ideas, words, themes, images, and multimedia designs. Whether on paper or on screen, writing is an overlooked key to transforming learning…(Neglected R, 2003, p.13) Beyond question, the technological advancements in microchip have altered the fashion people learn to write and it has sparked a renewal of interest in writing through the use of technological devices. The

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invention of the microchip has been revolutionary within recent fifty years, and innovative technologies altered the writing discipline. The change humanity experienced not only affected how people perceive the writing discipline conceptually, but it also gave clues on what sort of novel approaches could be used to teach writing to second language speakers (Hafner, 2013). In a similar vein, conventional storytelling is now replaced with its counterparts in which technology and learning are combined in innovative educational contexts through digital storytelling. Digital storytelling indeed exploits different types of multimedia elements including images, narrated voice and music for the creation of authentic stories (Center for Digital Storytelling, 2020). As a continuum, digital storytelling starts with the process of writing a story, and then multi-media elements such as visuals, sounds or music are embedded into the story in order to generate a visual story as an outcome (Jakes & Brennan, 2005). Henceforth, students are enabled to participate in a fun and lively process actively, and they are encouraged to learn by hands-on activities. During the story creation process, it is also evident that concept maps and story grammars are effective components to enhance student-centered storytelling tools (Liu et al., 2011). Integrating students’ abilities to generate a text with digital fluency, digital storytelling skillfully embraces students’ digital literacy skills (Nixon, 2008). In other words, students learn to design and create digital stories with their technical abilities to present their products in the end (Duncan-Howell, 2012). Since students are actively engaged to tell their stories in a digital format by means of using story elements of emotional content, the power of the soundtrack, a dramatic question, a point of view, the gift of voice and pacing as the basic tenets (Robin, 2008), the learning process occurs in a digital and creative format. Below are the phases that can assist language learners and teachers in the process of creating digital stories in a second language. Figure 1. The Process Chart of Digital Storytelling for Second Language Writers

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Phase 1: Imagine New Ideas! In the first phase, the language teacher determines realistic goals to achieve depending on the linguistic proficiency levels of the language learners. The theme of the story can be determined in advance or it could be flexible regarding the objective of the lesson. Simplifying the objective with clear and precise language would encourage students to imagine and generate new ideas. Preferably, a brief brainstorming conversational lesson can function as a preliminary and creative initial phase to determine the objectives and the audience for the stories to be created. A creative story map can be provided for students to generate their ideas. In this phase, students should have selected a theme to work on.

Phase 2: Research and Make a Plan! In the second phase, the language teacher could hand out a guiding rubric for students to know what is expected from them at the end of the project by using a precise and informative style in the rubric. With this guiding rubric, students can start exploring and researching information for inspiration and creativity. In this phase, students can make a detailed plan on what sort of materials they would use while creating their digital stories. The source and materials could be updated or changed depending on the advancement pace of recent technologies.

Phase 3: Write Your Story Script! In this phase, language learners are encouraged to write their stories in the script. The length of the project except for digital materials could determine a standard for a group of learners, who share the same educational objectives. It is crucial for teachers to guide students by answering their questions at this phase to avoid miscommunication due to language barriers. In order to reduce the affective filter, there could be implementations for students to ask their questions anonymously. They can post their questions for the language teacher on a bulletin board without their names to understand the process better. Once they are familiar with the process, the themes and subjects can be endless for them to show their creativity and skills.

Phase 4: Create a Storyboard With Digital Tools In the fourth phase, the students must make a transition from paper and pen to a storyboard. A storyboard is a written or graphical representation of the all of the elements that will be included in a digital story. The storyboard is usually created before actual work on creating the digital story begins and a written description and graphical depiction of the elements of the story, such as images, text, narration, music, transitions, etc. are added to the storyboard. The elements of the story are arranged in the storyboard in the chronological order in which they will appear in the story and this allows the developer to organize and re-arrange the content for maximum effect. (Robin, 2020, para.1) The storyboard functions as a guide to planning on how to use digital tools. Many students have tendency to skip or overlook the storyboard creating phase within the digital storytelling process. Quite the contrary, it is a crucial step that allows the writer to combine text with visual tools for best organi-

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zational alternatives. Since second language learners will need better organizational skills in the target language to create a story, this phase will guide language learners to acknowledge the story as a whole to determine which components need to be revised or improved. What’s more important, the layout of a storyboard will allow second language writers to divide the scripts into meaningful parts along with visual resources. A variety of software programs can be used to develop digital stories depending on the advancement pace of technologies; however, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint are among the basic ones that can be used to develop storyboards for digital storytelling (Robin, 2020).

Phase 5: Create Your Story In this phase, the story is expected to be created by using the storyboard as a guide. The flow of the story requires careful planning and organizing with images, video and audio. At this stage, language learners should already have a thorough understanding on how to use digital tools when creating their stories. Ethical use of copywriting and citation with proper referencing should guide the students throughout this process for using the materials fairly regarding copyright laws. During this phase, language learners record their voice while they read their scripts. This is a great opportunity that they could advance their linguistic skills by having their language teacher as a guide. Grammatical mistakes and fragments of language learners can be addressed at this phase. Even though aiming for perfection is never recommended for language learners, consultation with their language teacher for improvement at this phase would not only reduce their affective filter, but they can also be more confident for the final stage when they create their digital stories.

Phase 6: Revise Your Digital Story and Make It Flow The revising stage can significantly improve language learners’ digital stories as it will allow them an extra step to make their own evaluation before the presentation phase. Language teachers can create a checklist for students to do their own evaluation, and this would lead to increasing metacognitive awareness for language learners. In this way, language learners take their own responsibility in their self-development, which is a required skill for independent learners. The checklist should include components for proper writing skills so that the students would have the chance to check if their story flows in a logical and meaningful way in advance. Another way to achieve this step could be by showing good examples of digital stories in the first class for inspirational models without blocking the options to endless creative opportunities for language learners.

Phase 7: Present Digital Stories and Get Feedback It takes courage for language learners to make any sort of presentation in a target language. The best way is to create a friendly, non-critical learning environment for language learners, which will never allow bullying or unkind peer behavior. During the presentation phase, students should be encouraged to give each other constructive and positive feedback. All presentations should be celebrated, and hopefully this learning experience would be a nice memory for language learners to continue their scholarly development.

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DIGITAL COLLABORATION FOR SECOND LANGUAGE STORYTELLING In response to today’s digital learning environment, computer-mediated learning is created, and computersupported collaborative learning comes into the picture. The notion of literacy has been transformed into a new one, which is now labeled as digital literacy for the purpose of producing and consuming interactive types of visual, audio and textual information simultaneously. Digital storytelling is now nourished with a learning design process by creating a collaborative web-based learning environment, in which students can create their own digital stories that flourish “attention to modes other than writing” (Prior, 2009; p. 17) within the phases of pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. Collaborative writing, as a literary process, was once articulated by three distinct tenets: substantive interaction during the writing process; shared responsibility and decision-making on the text production phase; and a single written product as an outcome (Ede & Lunsford, 1990). On the other hand, digital storytelling is now effectively elucidated as true collaborative writing activities including interaction during the writing process, contributing to the writing stage, generating creative ideas, revising, and editing. In this way, collaborative writing leads to a text production phase that is co-owned and produced jointly, which promotes interactive learning (Storch, 2013) for second language writers. With digital literacy, students aim to draw on multiple modes of digital technologies in order to communicate and construct meaning (Lotherington & Jenson, 2011). Moreover, computermediated collaborative writing is the form which is conducted online; therefore, students negotiate meaning and co-construct texts through shared responsibility and joint organizational efforts in terms of technological tools, which yields positive student perceptions by pooling resources and enriching writing perspectives (Kost, 2011). Adopted as a new form of digital literacy practice, digital storytelling is used as an innovative method to enhance students’ language, literacy and technical skills by utilizing multimedia literacy skills of the digital era in the meaning-making process. From the time when students are using language in the meaning-making process in order to express their intended meaning with a collaborative dialogue, students are engaged in a problem-solving activity through ‘languaging’ (Swain, 2006; 2010). Digital literacy puts forward relatively nascent practices, such as electronic magazines (e-zines), wikis, online discussion boards, blogging, instant messaging, WhatsApp dialoging and so forth. But, more significantly, digital storytelling offers a more nuanced model of collaboration through ‘collaborative dialogue’ (Swain, 2000). What is more, interactive digital storytelling is employed for the negotiation of meaning during the phases of storytelling creation. Since the story creating process is interactive in the sense that it is composed of sub-elements through which students have the chance to select freely, language learners gain confidence due to the collaborative nature in storytelling. Collaborative digital storytelling also guides language learners to compose their digital stories together, and language learners can collaborate in groups of two or more, and even a whole class can be a part of a joint writing activity. In accordance with this, the emphasis is put on enhancing language learning settings by means of collaboration through technology. With the advents in technology, recent research has reported the probable benefits of collaborative writing because it increases the writing qualities of the finished products. By linking connections between the writing process and the outcomes (Li & Zhu, 2017), collaborative writing develops individual writing performances (Bikowski & Vithanage, 2016). Therefore, digital storytelling develops language learners’ communication skills (Wang, 2015) with higher motivation (Lee, 2014) due to self-perceived challenges in time management and the emergence of different opinions (Bikowski & Vithanage, 2016).

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What is more interesting, collaboration in digital storytelling prepare language learners for real life as they will cope with situations of unequal participation (Ducate et al., 2011), and difficulty in reaching co-ownership (Arnold et al., 2012). During collaborative writing, students can interact with each other, mediate meaning and make intermutual decisions in order to produce a single text with co-ownership and shared responsibility (Storch, 2013). This collaborative and joint activity creates valuable opportunities for students to gather language resources cumulatively, and co-construct knowledge via scaffolded interactions (Donato, 1994), which verifies collaborative writing as an effective instructional activity for digital storytelling. In the years to come; digital storytelling, as a collaborative writing practice to develop second language writing skills, will continue to be a significant research direction since new technologies have transformational roles in the digital era.

CONCLUSION People make meaning of the world through their senses. Through their meaning making process, people are programmed to give and receive messages as part of their daily communication. With the integration of digital components into our lives, known-world stimulations are being recreated by symbolic representations, which blur the line between digital assets and the real world. Since today’s technology has the potential to substitute our sensory input thoroughly, the integration of the real versus the digital world has changed the way how classrooms are shaped through new instructional strategies and techniques. Beyond question, it is crucial to create a learning environment that adopts technology driven techniques to write and organize information, which is different from standards-driven classrooms of rote learning that disregards critical thinking skills and reflection. Equally important, language learners are expected to process multiple perspectives to formulate solutions to real-world problems. Specifically, it is now more complex and challenging for teachers, educators and practitioners to prepare technology-oriented writing practices that integrate language teaching together with the 21st century skills of digital-age reflections (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2002). Within the context of digital storytelling, language learners can practice being a free agent of their own work in the digital story design process. This type of rich creativity leads to a path towards an offspring, who can ‘design’ (Kress, 2003). Promoting students’ positive and active participation in digital storytelling regarding the notion of creative design can lead to learning practices for redesigning writing as an ultimately new product. Interestingly, language educators need to place more emphasis on the “social incentives for participation” (Jacobs & Polson, 2006, p.4) while designing learning experiences based on multimodal resources. That is to say, there has been a power shift from educators, teachers and administrators to learners with the advent of web-based innovative technologies (Heppell, 2006). Ultimately, the emphasis is beyond the hype around web-based innovations to adjust language learning opportunities according to the unique needs of the language learners within the 21st century. Perhaps more importantly, language learners need to reconstruct their knowledge in a more effective way through the use of countless digital tools. Thus, schools and teachers should seek for innovative ways of teaching and learning in alternative and modified contexts to be well prepared for the future (Griffin et al., 2012). To be part of a solution to this problem, this research study reimagined how digital

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storytelling can prepare future language learners for a competitive digital world through the magical power of empathy. Storytelling is inevitably one of the oldest, yet the most creative and influential way to be prepared for the future’s digital world.

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ADDITIONAL READING Bizzaro, P. (2013). The Future of Graduate Studies in Creative Writing: Institutionalizing Literary Writing. In D. Donnelly & G. Harper (Eds.), Key Issues in Creative Writing (pp. 169–178). Multilingual Matters. Bloch, J. (2018). Digital Storytelling in the Multilingual Academic Writing Classroom: Expanding the Possibilities. Dialogues: An Interdisciplinary Journal of English Language Teaching and Research, 2(1), 96–110. doi:10.30617/dialogues.2.1.6 Çapan, S. A. (2020). Using Digital Storytelling to Handle Second Language Writing Anxiety and Attitudes: A Longitudinal Experiment. In M. Kruk & M. Peterson (Eds.), New Technological Applications for Foreign and Second Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 157–178). IGI Global., doi:10.4018/9781-7998-2591-3.ch008 Gonzales, L. (2018). Sites of translation: What multilinguals can teach us about digital writing and rhetoric. University of Michigan Press. Gregori-Signes, C. (2008). Integrating the old and the new: Digital storytelling in the EFL language classroom. GRETA, 16(1&2), 43–48. Moradi, H., & Chen, H. (2019). Digital Storytelling in Language Education. Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 9(12), 1–9. doi:10.3390/bs9120147 PMID:31835354 Robin, B. R., & McNeil, S. G. (2012). What Educators Should Know about Teaching Digital Storytelling. Digital Education Review, 22, 37-51. Retrieved May 6, 2020 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/114033/ Rodríguez-Illera, J. L., & Molas Castells, N. (2014). Educational uses of transmedia storytelling. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 23(4), 335-357. Waynesville, NC USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 6, 2020 from https://www. learntechlib.org/primary/p/41258/

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS 21st Century Learning Skills: The set of innovative, technology-driven, and empathy-based learning skills that are needed to become responsible global citizens in the 21st century. Digital Collaboration for Second Language Storytelling: The negotiation of meaning among language learners during the phases of storytelling creation. Digital Storytelling: The new act of a storytelling process by using a variety of digital tools to narrate a story within the context of web designs. Digital Storytelling for Second Language Writers: The use digital storytelling as an effective language teaching method for those who can speak an additional language.

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Empathy as a 21st Century Learning Skill: Empathy is what human beings require to become kinder to Earth and to every living being on Earth, and this is the skill that human beings need to become civil individuals in the 21st century. Process for Digital Storytelling in a Second Language: The phases that explain the steps of writing a digital story in a second language. Second Language Writer: An author who is skillful to write in a language that is different than the native language.

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Chapter 6

Multilingual Writing in Digital World:

The Necessity for Reshaping Teaching Maha Alawdat Kaye College of Education, Israel

ABSTRACT This chapter examines teachers’ practices and strategies while using digital tools for writing. The chapter argues that when teachers use digital writing, they need to change their teaching strategies in order to ease their students’ writing tasks. It also highlights the purposes of integrating digital tools for the writing classes and the challenges they face while adapting digital writing. The data are collected from teachers who work at schools, colleges, and universities, through a survey generated by Google forms. The findings show that integrating suitable digital tools requires mastering the use of technologies by supporting teachers’ digital literacy skills before integrating them into classes to overcome any emerging challenges. This is to reinforce students to improve their writing levels. The chapter suggests more extended studies to examine students’ attitudes and experiences with using digital tools and the impact of coronavirus pandemic on education.

INTRODUCTION Throughout history, humans evolved from using their drawing skills in cave paintings to invent writing, and countless inventions are originated from using low-tech tools to big fancy screens to teach younger generations. The aim was to educate generations about previous cultures and their lifestyles so that they could obtain the needed tools and skills to survive and overcome obstacles in life. This idea about lowtech tools has transformed into digital tools since the 21st century. For this purpose, stakeholders encouraged institutions to expose students to the digital world to improve the students’ language proficiency. Teachers varied their teaching strategies in such classes to suit the abilities of their digital native students who were born in the digital era. Digital natives are very comfortable with using technologies, but not for educational purposes (Bakla, 2019; Prensky, 2001). “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch006

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 Multilingual Writing in Digital World

the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1). This fact has given the digital immigrant teachers, who were not raised in the digital environment, additional teaching issues to deal with. The use of digital tools for teaching English language skills, mainly writing, has spread rapidly in all levels of education; starting from kindergarten into elementary school until higher education. This emerging phenomenon has influenced how educators use digital tools for a variety of learning skills for teaching multilingual learners who embraced multiple languages, knowledge of other languages, and strategies for multilingual writing (Alazemi, Sa’ad, & Al-Jamal, 2019; French, 2019). Teachers, henceforth, accentuate the importance of thoroughly looking at new types of genres in the digital contexts because “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1). In this regard, there has been an immense use of diverse digital tools inside and outside the classroom. Thinking about the connection between the digital world and writing skills, learners during the COVID-19: coronavirus lockdown have access to different technology tools. “With the spread of COVID-19 through non-pharmaceutical interventions and preventive measures such as social distancing and selfisolation have promoted the widespread closure of primary, secondary, and tertiary schooling in over 100 countries” (Mustafa, 2020, p. 1). Due to this sudden closure, billions of learners have been affected. Tools, such as emails, text messaging, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, instant messaging, WhatsApp, digital gaming, social networking, and a variety of applications and software enable learners to communicate with their teachers and classmates. Through different digital tools, learners could access other participants’ spaces and they are exposed to a variety of writing options that help them build a writing community where they interact and write more carefully. Many digital spaces also enable learners to connect to previous experiences and knowledge while constructing their digital writing. According to De Fina and Perrino (2019), through experiences in the process of writing their stories “that new light can be thrown on the types of new storytelling genres [orally and/or written] that are emerging” (p. 2). The situation of the lockdown and COVID-19: coronavirus crisis during 2020 forced educational systems all over the globe to turn to digital tools and distance/remote learning. Teachers and students found themselves in a new era in which teachers need to use digital tools like zoom to keep up with their students’ education. Snelling and Fingal (2020, March 16) indicate that “As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread, schools around the globe are shifting to online learning in an effort to slow the spread of the disease” (para. 1). Turning to distance/remote learning required students and teachers to use different digital tools that spread rapidly in all levels of education. Even during the corona crisis, questions of digital teaching methods were largely raised, and questions about the digital tools were still considered important. There was a huge change in the educational system to suit the sudden situation when the coronavirus emerged. Through this crisis, this study emerged to examine how teachers cope with this sudden shift and what strategies they used, and the challenges they faced.

PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Using digital tools for writing classes has become a phenomenon in the education system all over the world. Many teachers start using digital writing to promote an ongoing process rather than a one-time essay. In response to COVID-19: Coronavirus lockdown, institutions of the educational system have turned to distance learning, which makes educators aware of the necessity of integrating digital tools 85

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for teaching. This chapter, therefore, is intended to examine the use of digital tools for multilingual writing as a way to keep students connected with their schools during the Corona era. The focus of this study is not on the effect of COVID-19: coronavirus lockdown on education, but rather intends to gain insight into the importance of using digital tools to enhance English language learning and to explore the strategies used to implement digital tools for teaching writing and the challenges they faced while integrating technologies in their classes. To explore these issues, the current study seeks to answer the following questions: • • •

How do teachers use digital tools for teaching writing? How does using digital tools change teachers’ strategies of teaching? What challenges do teachers face?

This study offers the field of multilingual writing answers for the research questions which may empower the users of digital tools. In this way, students are cultivated an awareness of the challenges, strategies, and purposes of integrating digital tools for multilingual writing in their classes. This research also provides an explanation of how writing teachers use digital tools for teaching writing and assessing students’ work in order to make the transition to advanced digital writing techniques much easier.

LITERATURE REVIEW As pointed out previously, this section of the chapter does not focus on the crisis during the COVID-19: coronavirus, but it is precisely about what has been experienced and indicated about using digital writing and digital tools for educational purposes. There have been several studies on the use of digital tools, but very few, if any, have been done on the experience of teachers with digital teaching and digital writing during the coronavirus crisis. Thus, this study on the use of digital tools for teaching writing is designed to partially fill this gap in literature. In order to explore the context of this study and the purpose of conducting it, this section begins with presenting relevant literature on research findings related to the use of digital tools for teaching writing. The discussion of this section explores the experiences of teachers with implementing digital tools in their classes for teaching writing in order to understand the strategies they used and the challenges that emerged. Strobl et al. (2019) conduct a study about the support that digital tools provide for academic writing. In their study, they review literature on technologies that support writing instruction in secondary and higher education. The significance of this study for my current research is its focus on digital tools, and it is connected to multilingual writers. Both these issues are the core of the current study which focuses on multilingual writing in the digital world. In their study, Strobl et al. (2019) point out that there is “an imbalance of available tools with regard to supported languages, genres, and pedagogical focus” (p. 33). They also cover some tools that support “the development of writing strategies and encourage self-monitoring to improve macro-level text quality” (p. 33). Finally, the researchers recommend that there is a need to examine the effectiveness of using the tools over a period of time and also during the writing process to examine how technologies support writing in a more effective way. Similarly, in her study about the use of digital tools from students’ perspectives, Dahlström (2018) has another side of digital writing. She highlights the relation between students’ digital access and the 86

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affordances of digital tools. She also explains that students share their digital writing with their families while accessing their writings from homes and at schools too. She explains that this affordance is due to the fact that students use smartphones as tools for writing. Dahlström (2018) further mentions that “smartphones were excluded from her study” (p. 1572), leaving them for another study and a different purpose. The connection of her study to the current chapter is that smartphones, tablets, and computers are essential tools that help students to connect with their teachers through Zoom or Unicko and other platforms that allow students to trace their progress. The relativeness of her study to this research is that she has also pointed out some potential difficulties that hinder the use of digital tools in the writing class. In this chapter, teachers, for example, mention in the survey that lack of experience and lack of internet connection at homes are raised as difficulties that face the users of digital tools because not all students have computers at home and their smartphones are not enough. In his book, Writing for Digital Media, Brian Carroll (2010) teaches educators how to write effectively for an online environment. Each chapter in his book highlights a certain issue related to digital writing. It covers, for example, the fundamentals of writing, online writing techniques, editing, designing, and publishing on the media. Writing for Digital Media addresses how learning is achieved through a balance and a careful blend of several elements that originate writing for digital platforms is investigated. The book also teaches educators how to think critically and how to be a good writer while using graphic designs for digital writing. The writer explains that his book “guides students through the landscape of new media convergence, pointing them toward the best practices and techniques of writing and editing for an online audience, and helping them to take full advantage of the new opportunities offered by digital media.” (p. vii). This book is a good guide for teachers of writing because it gradually describes the writing process for digital writing and is a good addition to my current study. Choo and Li Li’s (2017) study, which describes writing instructions within the digital writing in the English language. In addition, the study provides rich information about the use of digital writing to improve students’ learning, motivates them to write, and shares their ideas with others. The researchers have conducted their study at an education department where eight student-teachers have participated in their case study. They suggest “the use of digital writing as an approach to teaching writing as there is a shift to digital approach in view of the widespread use of technology” (p. 1). They also explain that digital tools for writing could include digital environments such as blogs, wikis, web sites, emails, e-books, social media and emails, and any other software that supports digital writing. They eventually reached the conclusion that students produce better essays while using digital tools because “they could insert their own selected images and designed their own digital essays in different layouts” (p. 14). Their study is relevant to this current chapter because it touches several issues that are discussed in this chapter. Such issues include digital literacy that teachers and students should be aware of, the instruction and process of digital writing, and the digital tools that could support writing online. Johnsen (2012), in his study about the visibility of writing and using the right technology, examines the experience of using digital tools and ePortfolios at LaGuardia University. The researcher examines the use of a learning-centered approach to analyze students’ writing while using the appropriate platform. In his study, he shows that teachers focused not only on the content and the materials used for writing but also on making the assigned materials clearer and relevant to students’ interest. Similarly, Strudler and Wetzel (2005) conducted a study in an education department where they established an environment for the use of digital tools for teaching writing. The most essential issue is highlighting the purpose of using digital tools for writing and the strategies that were employed for teaching digital writing.

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Although Abdul Rabu’s (2019) study was not conducted on teaching writing in particular, it is still relevant to my current study because it has demonstrated how a tracking system is used to track and record student’s attendance. The study proposes a system called Quick Response (QR) which is used to track students’ attendance through Google sheets, Google Forms, and Notepads. The aim of the study is to monitor students’ attendance through digital tools. The researcher indicates that class attendance is promoted through students’ participation in digital writing because when teachers have checked students’ work, they have indicated that they are in attendance in their classes. Abdul Rabu (2019) further explains that “This affordable QR code-based attendance system enables lecturers to speed up the process of taking attendance, especially in a large classroom and would save them valuable teaching time” (p. 160). The method is used in Abdul Rabu’s study could inspire teachers to learn how to guarantee that their students are still functioning in their classes, especially in the COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic which forces everyone to turn to digital tools. Consistent with the research questions, the review of literature in this section has shown several issues related to the use of digital tools and digital writing. The studies mentioned in this section have also shown that the suggested digital tools and teaching strategies for digital writing could be possible tools for writing teachers to think about when they decide to integrate digital tools in their classes. Yet, the literature review has lacked the notion that more studies are needed to explore the use of digital tools and digital writing in the time of crisis like the current COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic lockdown during the first half of the plagued year of 2020.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To answer the research questions and achieve the goal of this study, the target population of the current study is Jewish and Arab teachers from different levels of education in Israel including junior high, high school, college, and university levels. Some of the teachers work in two levels including high school and college or work in junior high and high school. There are fifty-seven teachers; from whom there are twenty-five females and thirty-two males. The participants, who are voluntarily participated in this study, have turned to digital tools for their teaching during the COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic. The data gathered for this study are through a survey which seeks to explore teachers’ perspectives on the use of the digital tool for writing in the classroom. The survey items are developed through Google forms and the link was sent out through Facebook, emails, and WhatsApp groups. The questions addressed to teachers revolve around the use of digital tools inside and outside the classroom. The questions contain open-ended ones which allowed teachers to freely express their ideas and experiences about their use of digital tools for teaching writing. The survey method is used to collect information about what tools the teachers have used, the purpose of using them, and the changes in teaching strategies while turning to digital writing. The data collected are analyzed using a coding system and Google forms software for data analysis. The results demonstrate the effective use of digital tools for teaching writing during COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic during 2020.

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DIGITAL WRITING AND TEACHING OF WRITING FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS According to the literature on using digital tools for digital writing in the classroom, writing is one of the challenging skills and a well-known difficulty among multilingual learners (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; Tandiana, Abdullah, & Komara, 2017; Widodo & Rozak, 2016). Writing in English for students of other languages has also been a crucial matter for students who find it difficult to master writing in a second language. When writing becomes an intimidating task, students need some writing skills such as generating ideas and organizing a writing structure. The impact of their first language (L1) causes lots of writing problems for multilingual students who have to think in their L1 most of the time, by neglecting the structure of the English language. Pfeiffer and Walt (2016) explained that “in the case of multilingual students, the L1 and the world of the L1 is also available to develop ideas” (pp. 60-61). It is essential to mention that the target populations for this study are Hebrew and Arabic speakers, and the structures of these languages are totally different from the English language. Being both of Semitic origin, Hebrew and Arabic share lots of similar conjugation patterns, triliteral roots, and sentence structures. This similarity makes it difficult for speakers of these languages to cope well with the sentence structure of the English language which causes problems for students while writing. This causes other types of linguistic problems for students who have to turn their whole language system to a different structure and format in English. For this, students always have their L1 impact in the back of their heads when they write in English. Because of that, they find it difficult to master this language skill; writing. In light of this idea, if writing in the class needs lots of consideration to master it, digital writing requires students to be exposed to a new type of digital literacy. In his book, Digital Literacy, Gilster (1997) defines digital literacy as the “ability to understand the user information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers” (p. 1). It is clear then that being exposed to digital literacy expands traditional methods of teaching writing to include the use of different software and information technologies which enables students to use new technologies that allow writing multimodal texts to include images and words or images and sounds (Kist, 2005; Yuan, Wang, & Eagle, 2019). Digital writing needs more attention because it is exposed to a wider audience by using digital tools. In the digital world, especially within the COVID-19: coronavirus crisis, a teacher’s responsibility becomes greater because most students are exposed to digital tools and digital writing more than ever. While traditionally, language learning has been deeply rooted in acquiring language skills, teachers, many of who are digital immigrants and have not grown up in the widespread of digital technology, are also exposed to different digital tools which needed efficient skills that required learners to incorporate language skills within the digital world. For this, traditional writing in the classroom differs from writing online, and eventually, it requires different strategies of teaching writing. “Technology changes the way an artifact is used, read, scored, searched, altered, and controlled” (Carroll, 2010, p. 7). This notion of using technologies for writing requires different types of writing that enable students to add other sorts of media. Digital writing enables students to be creative by making their ideas clearer through the use of animation, videos, or any other type of tools available on the internet. Turning to digital writing is another method to let them realize that writing is a process of several repeated steps including brainstorming, writing, editing, revising, and evaluating (Carroll, 2010; Dahlström, 2018). As such, Carroll (2010) wrote that “writing for the Web and the credibility of information on the Web are compared with writing for the credibility in traditional print media” (p. 23). Fundamentally, digital writing encourages online interaction because learners can

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follow their writing process and “move back and forth in the text, and do not, as before, follow a linear writing process (Dahlström, 2018, p. 1566). Writing teachers, therefore, reported that there is an impact on their teaching practices, including teaching within technological literacy. Tandiana, Abdullah, and Komara (2017) imply that digital writing is expected to “boost teaching writing and bridge the disparity of writing skills” (p. 5). Alawdat (2015) also highlights the fact that teaching writing by using digital tools “requires the development of a new type of online writing” (p. 104), and explains that learners write differently because their writing could reach a wider audience than just the teacher. This fact encourages learners to practice writing, present, and acquire writing insights and skills. Using digital tools “motivated students and helped them develop self-confidence toward writing” (Alawdat, 2015, p. 54). For this, writing, editing, and rewriting help learners to master their writing skills when digital tools become part of their writing requirements. Following a writing process enables authorship over digital writing which similarly enables feedback and reflective assessment for the purpose of improving their writing skills. Choo and Li Li (2017) state that digital writing “requires planning, research, problem-solving, drafting, feedback, and revision before the final product” (p. 4). Without a doubt, there is a need for finding appropriate strategies to suit writing via digital tools and to adjust the teaching of writing for the new era. To better relate to how teachers of writing implement digital tools for teaching writing, it is required to find suitable assessment strategies and tools to alter writing according to the available digital tools. Writing, like any other skill, needs assessment throughout the learning process, and this includes both formative and summative assessment. Assessment, in general, is based on the collection of evidence about learners’ performance for the purpose of improving the learning process and narrative development. Combining formative assessment within the writing process while using digital tools improves writing through a customary ongoing assessment. The benefits of formative assessment are plenty in terms of teaching writing because learners have the opportunity to write several drafts in order to master their writing skills. This mastery of writing is sensed through summative assessment as well. Summative assessment allows a comprehensive evaluation of artifacts at the end of the learning process. Learners’ final products and writing outcomes are assessed through digital tools that enable constructed learning within digital social contexts (Bardes & Denton, 2001; Barrett, 2010; Yancey, 2009).

DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION The data collected from teachers have answered the research questions about (1) the purpose of using digital writing and the strategies teachers used, (2) how traditional teaching has changed due to using digital tools for writing, and (3) the challenges that teachers faced while integrating digital tools in their curriculum. In this section of the chapter, there is an analysis of the data collected from the survey in relation to the literature in the field and the understanding of the availability of digital writing and teaching of writing during the COVID-19: coronavirus crisis of 2020.

THE PURPOSE OF USING DIGITAL WRITING In terms of investigating writing activities through digital tools, the survey highlighted several unstable purposes. The first is that teachers have used digital tools for writing because they need to track their 90

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students’ progress outside the classroom and, at the same time, to make sure that students are present in the digital environment through submitting their digital writing. According to Abdul Rabu (2019), a digital tool “provides a faster and simpler way to take attendance, which could be easily adopted by lecturers to facilitate the process of taking, managing and keeping the record of students’ attendance” (p. 160). One teacher mentioned in the survey that “I usually use D2L to track grades and attendance.” Abdul Rabu (2019) adds that “among the common ways of taking attendance are through roll calling students names and a sign-in sheet. However, these methods are time-consuming and ineffective in preventing students from signing up attendance on behalf of their absent friends” (p.154). This problem is eventually solved through digital tools that depend on who submitted their writing task and who have not. Such information, compared to traditional sign-in sheets, become easier to keep for future record of tracking students’ progress during the coronavirus crisis. Writing teachers can also assess the use of digital tools in writing classes by tracking their students’ improvement over time, and this happens through tracking students’ attendance on digital tools for writing. Zaldivar, Summers, and Watson (2013) have stated that “faculty are able to collect the data they need for assessment and accreditation purposes, and students are able to see the ways in which their learning and development as professionals have grown throughout their academic career” (p. 227). Here, turning to digital tools has always been a choice for teachers to track students’ writing progress and, eventually, through their digital attendance. Students’ attendance is measured only after finishing and submitting their drafts and by sharing their assignments with their teacher and students. Thus, “class attendance has been proven not only to ensure regular participation in classes but also may boost students’ performance and increase their chances of getting higher test grades” (Abdul Rabu, 2019, p. 154). Despite these positive issues, many students cannot be part of the sudden online learning. In the survey, a teacher highlighted the issue of using digital tools for attendance as an unfair process because many students have no internet access and, ultimately, they cannot participate in submitting assignments or attending Zoom classes. She added, “Not everyone is equipped for this sudden shift to digital tools.” This fact was also expressed by another teacher who said, “If my school is poorly prepared to move to digital tools overnight, how can I succeed to guide students and teach them if they have not practiced using technology in the class?” This inquiry has put us, as educators, in a position to think if we have ever been prepared for such situations. What will be next beyond the coronavirus pandemic? Is this the awakening strike? Many questions could be asked with no answers in the meantime because no one is sure of the future, but one thing is obvious that our education system lacks essential equipment and skills that need to be taken care of if we are forced to teach remotely. The second purpose for using digital tools is that teachers find it useful to give extra learning materials. Sharing new materials or applying what has already been taught in the classroom is the purpose for many teachers who use collaborative tools in order to share materials with their students. In the survey, teachers need “to provide students with additional materials and for assignments” and “to continue the materials with our students” for outside-of-the-classroom digital writing. In her blog, Baroutsis (2018) indicates that “The teacher was able to balance whole class activities with individual tasks, and studentcentered and teacher-centred pedagogic experiences thereby incorporate digital literacies and technologies that engaged children in broader literacy learning outcomes” (para. 21). However, one of the teachers mentioned that “I have cut back on the quantity of new materials. I need to change the whole way I teach.” This approach of using digital tools as an alternative to face-to-face interactions has forced her to give half of the materials because she did not want to overload students with lots of tasks, especially because students are not used to using digital tools for their education. A similar idea was expressed by 91

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another teacher who said, “I use YouTube, or send YouTube for homework via Moodle and then ask the students to complete an assignment. They have to read on a specific website and respond.” Directing students to visual aids is an extra materials that could not be accomplished within the in-class activities if the class has no connection to the internet. Teachers in this study further expressed that using digital tools for multilingual writing is to “make sure that students review the materials and that they keep in track with the learning process.” Other teachers shared that using digital tools for writing permitted them to have platforms for “preparing presentations and teaching videos then sending them with tasks.” Freedman, et al. (2016) explained “digital tools allow users to compose, produce, edit, and share original and remixed content with audiences throughout the world” (p. 1414). After finding communicative platforms with students, many teachers design teachinglearning tasks to promote writing among students who can edit and rewrite until they reach their final piece of writing. Teachers mentioned that they turned to flipped classes which help them to prepare the materials for students. Through the software Microsoft Teams, they work with their students and give instant feedback and assessment. Choo and Li Li (2017) state that “Digital writing is advantageous because it reinforces traditional writing skills, improves digital writing skills, and prepares students for the future writing” (p. 4). In the survey, teachers needed their students to be more responsible for their learning, especially because they have the opportunity to follow up on their progress while using digital tools for digital writing. They write and revise their writing tasks and work in groups collaboratively through digital tools and zoom grouping rooms. One teacher explained that “It’s important to keep students in the learning environment and to train them to be responsible for their learning.” Having said this, Collins (2004) stated that when students took responsibility and ownership of their writing, they were encouraged to “become producers of knowledge” (p. 215). Similar to Collins (2004), Barrows (2004) added that students took responsibility for their work inside and outside of the classroom. This is not a new thing because students are used to working in groups and many of them take their education seriously, but the circumstances have changed and a new reality emerges during the crisis of 2020. A third purpose that the data showed is to vary teaching and learning strategies. The integration of technology with the teaching of writing requires the development of a new type of online writing because users write differently when they are online (Strudler & Wetzel, 2011). In the survey, teachers thought that using digital tools for writing among students make them add new strategies. One teacher mentioned that using digital tools “expose them to new ways of learning besides face-to-face sessions.” Thinking of students in this way, one of the teachers in this study reinforces the idea that “students like to change the learning ways” which encourage students to participate and improve their own writing level. This is due to the fact that students are digital-born and they live with technology all the time to connect and communicate with other people around the globe as well as playing video games on the internet. Another teacher explained that he used digital tools “For online discussions, lectures, sharing of handouts, peer reviews, assignment submissions, and the use of other videos and more.” For him, his students used digital tools for different purposes towards their writing. To take advantage of this situation, it becomes significant to turn to writing as a game too. To answer their question about how to incorporate students into digital writing, Mantiri, Hibbert and Jacobs (2019) state that “One answer to this question is to gamify learning. Students respond well to this because it is fun; they can earn points while proceeding at their own pace and competing against themselves” (p. 1302). This gamify learning reinforces using different sites to create activities for students such as Quizlet for teaching vocabulary or Quizziz, LiveWorksheet, and Kahoot. High-school teachers agreed on the idea that using digital tools is to “assign work, share videos, explain materials, assessment, comfort students, communicate 92

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with parents, students, and school administration.” Thus, when teachers turned to digital writing, they altered new writing strategies, besides the blackboard in the classroom and pen and paper for writing. They realized that living in the digital world inspired them to turn to digital tools even if they are digital immigrants who struggle while using tools including services on their smartphones. They precisely need to learn and master using digital tools that they are required to use for their writing classes by their institutions. Even though many institutions are not ready, educational systems all over the globe run to prepare materials for online teaching and learning.

CHANGING TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR DIGITAL WRITING Being thrown into a sudden ocean of digital tools over the Web, teachers are required to start distance teaching to keep the educational system running during the COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic. Many schools and teachers were not ready and still are not. But they have to cope with the situation and keep teaching. In this section of the research, the main issue is how teachers change their strategies from traditional ways of teaching to integrating digital tools after collecting the teachers’ responses to items related to the purpose of using digital tools and the ways teachers use tools. For Baroutsis (2018), “Children chose to become writers in their own ways, constituting the classroom in new ways through combined digital and mechanical text production technologies and collaborative writing, moving beyond the confines of the dated physical space and classroom design” (p. 21). As such, teaching strategies change when a new space is used to replace the traditional classroom setting. In the survey, a teacher pointed out that “We have changed from the method of indoctrination to a more advanced way through the Internet.” This remarkably rapid use of digital tools forced teachers to professionalize their use of tools in order to keep up with digital writing and teaching. The evidence obviously shows that entering the digital world forced teachers into a new world to accordingly change and adjust their methods and strategies of teaching. This enforcement is to adjust their teaching strategies to students’ levels and needs. One teacher positively indicated that “while planning I am more motivated about various resources” while other teachers mentioned that “It makes me think about creative teaching and learning using creative sites that I never used” and “still I find them useful if we learn how to use them properly.” In her article about reshaping education in Quartz news, Anderson (2020, March 29) quoted a teacher about her experience with online teaching, pointing out that, Being forced online has allowed her to moved to a more “flipped classroom” in which students do more learning about basic skills and knowledge at home, via videos or platforms, and then come to school online to do work together. “That way, when they come into the classroom, we can work on the higherlevel skills such as analysis and evaluation,” she says. It’s not a new idea at all, but circumstances are forcing adoption (para. 24). Traditionally, learners used boards in classrooms, printed materials, and textbooks to learn how to write with a pencil in their hands. In the digital era, however, the availability of digital tools becomes alluring for students who were born and still live in a digital setting where they face more differentiated, succinct, and multicolored learning environments. For this, teachers are forced to change their strategies and methods of teaching to suit the way their students are more familiar with. Barrows (2004) points out that because “writing is both personal and social,” her role as a teacher changed to that of a facilitator, 93

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as she put students in the center of the learning process. In the survey, a teacher stated that “The way I plan my face-to-face classes has changed! Once I am using a digital tool to teach, I make sure that I am focusing on the most important parts because I think nowadays students don’t show that passion to learn, unfortunately! I also design different online activities to give learners insight into what they learn!” This response presents a shred of evidence that when teachers turn to digital tools, their teaching should be changed, too, to align with the digital-native phenomenon among students. According to Gu, Zhu and Guo (2013), “the perception of task-technology fit may be taken for teachers’ self-efficiency and competence of ICT in classroom integration” (p. 398). Aligned with the changes that teachers have made while using digital tools, there was a necessity of highlighting the emerging differences between online and in-class teaching. The difference is how teachers design their lessons and the type of tasks that students need to do. In the survey, a teacher raised the issue that “It differs greatly, especially in terms of fielding questions. I am also used to having some direct instruction in my classes, so providing that content is more difficult with distance learning.” Baroutsis (2018, September 17) explains that this example “demonstrates some of the practices associated with literacies, particularly text production and learning to write using digital technologies” (para. 18). This shows that pedagogy changes when teachers turned to use digital tools for writing. Another teacher shared a similar notion and said that there were “Huge differences between both! In distance learning, you can’t guarantee that learners are doing what they are required to do! Unlike distance learning, in-class learning allows you to watch out everything in the class so that you can vary your teaching strategies based on the students’ reactions! A teacher might also get an immediate reflective practice by assessing the students’ performance during the class so that you can see if learners comprehend the topics!” For this, digital tools could be of great help in the writing process from receiving the task up until its delivery.

EMERGING CHALLENGES WHILE USING DIGITAL TOOLS FOR WRITING Technology challenges and constraints are normal problems anyone can face while using digital tools for teaching purposes. As shown previously, teachers have to change their teaching strategies and use different tools to reach out to their students during the coronavirus crisis of 2020. Although many teachers in this research have shown satisfaction with the use of digital tools for multilingual writing, they also experience negative issues. One teacher wrote, “I’ve found it hinders my ability to field questions in a timely manner. The timeframe of questions to be answered can sometimes be hours depending on when a message is sent and when I am sitting at my desktop.” Other teachers pointed out that using a digital tool “demands more efforts and time to prepare for class” and “demands more preparation of PPTs and visual aids.” It is obvious that these teachers find using digital tools time consuming and this causes them and their students many problems that vary between the slower learning process and the time and efforts that are put into preparing the materials. Wetzel and Strudler (2006) identify this disadvantage in their study as a serious issue especially when learners lack technological skills which could allow them to work easily with digital tools. Recently, Kang (2020, April 15) clarifies this difficulty by affirming that “Both schools and students, however, are already experiencing confusion and difficulties, with many pointing out that the country’s education authorities failed to come up with a concrete plan and measures to carry out online classes effectively.” It is obvious that the sudden move to digital tools creates problems for users. Kang (2020, April 15) explained that “One major issue is that some areas, schools, and students are not equipped with the necessary tools to participate in such classes.” For teachers, especially digital 94

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immigrants, their challenge is that they are more used to regular classes when they can manage their time properly and with less effort. Yet, following the time frame of a lesson in the traditional face-to-face class is different from that on the digital tools when it comes to teaching writing. This fact makes teachers struggle when they have to reshape their teaching process by rethinking their strategies and redesigning their lesson structures and time management for their online teaching. As such, lack of digital literacy, for teachers and students, becomes a constraint while turning to digital writing. Literacy in the digital world is not, anymore, the ability to read and write (Karchmer et al. 2005), but it reinforces new meanings which highlight the issues of mastering the use of digital writing in the classrooms by reading differently and writing differently, too. In a normal situation, teachers should have trained their students to use the assigned digital tool for their class, to reflect on others, revise their own writing, and share it for a wider audience in their classroom. This normality is absent for many schools that are not ready to use digital tools, and not equipped with digital tools. Lyngsnes (2012) argued that it “is essential to identifying, analyzing, and solving the complex problems and challenges teachers face in their profession” (p. 7). For this, digital literacy is crucial for writing teachers who are forced to integrate the appropriate tools in their classes. Meyer et al. (2010) added that there are “challenges of creating and sustaining effective student-centred learning environments, the difficulties in integrating technology in classrooms, and the obstacles to switching pedagogy from emphasizing what content is to be learned to emphasizing how content is to be learned” (p. 91). Other challenges that have emerged from this study are related to technical issues and internet connection that caused the failure of implementing digital tools for students’ writing. One teacher explained that one problem he faced with his students, compared to his in-class teaching, was that “it requires a strong WiFi connection which not everyone has.” Similarly, “some pupils complain they don’t have access to online teaching and sometimes they are lost and need a face-to-face explanation,” another teacher shared her experience. These challenges hinder integrating digital tools for the teaching of writing. They also hinder students’ engagement in the virtual classes and eventually lower their motivation to continue with their digital writing. To succeed, teachers quietly need to know “When students willingly communicate in the English language at every given opportunity outside of the classroom environment” (Mantiri et al., 2019, p. 1305). With this knowledge in mind, teachers could choose suitable writing tasks and suitable APPs to simplify their use of the available tools for the success of their classes. Overcoming such technical problems could highly help students to keep going with their writing assignments, so they never lose their enthusiasm. Yet, the emergence of problems in the classroom gives a sign that using digital tools might not work properly for both inside and outside the classroom. To relate to this fact, a teacher explained that “In class, we don’t have internet or a computer, so we can’t, for example, show them a video, or use digital tools.” The earlier exposure of students to digital tools for their education, regardless of their digital-born proficiency in using different Apps for a variety of purposes, will make them more independent learners. Communicating with students and encouraging them to be more engaged in their learning progress become essential when students face challenges that eventually affect their writing level and progress. In the survey, one teacher explained that her students “feel stressed and that there’s too much work.” Turning to digital writing and distance learning create pressure on students and teachers, who continuously prepare new materials to suit the needs of their students and their level as well as the equipment they have because in most cases, teacher send the materials through WhatsApp to the parents to pass to their kids. Despite these challenges and constraints that might hinder the use of digital tools for writing, many studies in the field provided potential solutions as well (Lyngsnes, 2012; Smith & Tillema, 2003). The 95

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researchers suggested providing clear guidelines and task objectives while explaining digital writing and digital tools that are meant to be used. They also suggest that when teachers decide to use digital tools for teaching writing, they should draw their students’ attention, as well as theirs, to the software that they tend to use and how to use it, and for what and when to use it. In the Israeli educational system, many training sessions and workshops are offered for teachers to be able to use the tools available in the pandemic of 2020. Many guiding videos on how to use digital tools are also offered for teachers who have gotten free accounts for different software and platforms in order to help them design their lessons and communicate with their students. Such steps ease the sudden pressure on teachers who have found themselves in a situation where they must use digital tools in the COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION This chapter examines the use of digital tools for multilingual writing among English teachers from different levels of education; from junior high through university levels in the Israeli educational system. The study adds an in-depth description of teachers’ purposes of using digital tools for writing classes, the strategies used by teachers, and the challenges they have faced. The data, which were collected through a survey generated by Google forms, have raised interesting issues related to the purpose of using digital tools, digital writing, and teaching. Precisely, the study has highlighted the following findings: •

•

•

•

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Based on the discussion of this chapter, it is clear that writing in the digital world is an important issue that needs more attention from educators who are either professional users or digital immigrants. Through the responses in the survey, teachers’ abilities to use digital tools in their classrooms have varied because not everyone is skilled enough to take such a decision to use digital tools in their classes. The study raises awareness of integrating digital tools for writing. The data collected from the survey and the support from the published literature highlight the importance of being more aware of digital writing. In other words, teachers who used technologies in their classes and teachers who plan to start using them in their classes should improve their digital literacy skills about the use of tools for digital writing and for teaching writing. Such knowledge is needed about both digital literacy and the pedagogy of digital writing in order to gain more effective and successful experience with using technologies for writing. The discussion shows that teachers are exposed to new teaching tools that their students are using for different purposes, except for their education and learning progress. This fact makes teachers change their teaching strategies to include a variety of activities such as gamification learning, as an example. Some teachers find it hard to adjust their teaching methods to the new environment online. At the same time, several challenges and problems have emerged and hindered the teachinglearning process. Such problems include time management, types of tasks, technical problems, and lack of devices. The study has pointed out an important issue about how equipped and ready educational institutions are for distance learning and digital usage during COVID-19 pandemic. This shows a gap in the educational system that needs to be taken care of after the coronavirus crisis is over.

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•

Because traditional writing and handwriting were part of writing instruction, digital writing instruction was turned to in order to improve students’ writing skills and motivate students to write. Yet, there is no proof for this finding and more studies are needed to highlight the benefits of digital writing compared to traditional handwriting.

In this regard, the findings of this study offer the opportunity for future research in order to examine the following issues: • • • •

The impact of COVID-19: Coronavirus pandemic on reshaping education for long-term teaching. The students’ perspective on the use of digital tools for their writing classes instead of traditional paper and pen writing, and the necessity of a comparison between paper-based writing and digital writing. The impact of the first language (L1) on writing narratives and storytelling in the digital world. The readiness and affordance of equipment in the educational institutions to implement digital tools for emergency remote learning and teaching.

This chapter has necessitated the prominence of using digital tools for teaching multilingual students in the digital world. The discussion and analysis of data brought up several issues related to integrating digital tools by numerous teachers for a variety of purposes. This study is promising in addressing the move to digital tools and distance learning in the time of the coronavirus pandemic when institutions all over the globe turned to digital tools as a solution for social distancing and home-schooling. This significant study strengthens the importance of having digital literacy and knowledge about using and designing materials for the digital world. To this extent, there has been also a need for the involvement of educational institutions to learn from this situation and take action to provide institutions with proper equipment for future use after the COVID-19: coronavirus pandemic is over.

REFERENCES Abdul Rabu, S. N. (2019). The Design and Implementation of Student Attendance Tracking System Using QR Code Card [Paper presentation]. The 14th International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education, Bucharest, Romania. Alawdat, M. (2015). A qualitative case study exploring the implementation of ePortfolios by writing teachers in PASSHE schools [Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation]. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Alazemi, A. F., Sa’di, I. T., & Al-Jamal, D. (2019). Effects of digital citizenship on EFL students’ success in writing. International Journal of Learning. Teaching and Educational Research, 18(4), 120–140. doi:10.26803/ijlter.18.4.7 Anderson, J. (2020, March 29). The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping education. Quartz: Brave New World. https://qz.com/1826369/how-coronavirus-is-changing-education/ Bakla, A. (2019). A Study of Digital Nativeness and Digital Productivity: Data from EFL and ESL Contexts. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology, 7(1), 15–33. doi:10.17220/mojet.2019.01.002

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Bardes, B., & Denton, J. (2001). Using the Grading Process for Departmental and Program Assessment [Paper presentation]. American Association for Higher Education Conference; Denver, CO. Baroutsis, A. (2018). Sociomaterial assemblages, entanglements and text production: Mapping pedagogic practices using time-lapse photography. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 0(0), 1–23. doi:10.1177/1468798418784128 Baroutsis, A. (2018, September 17). How digital technologies can change teaching practice in a good way. EduReasearch Matters: A Voice for Australian Educational Researchers. https://www.aare.edu. au/blog/?p=3173 Barrett, H. (2010). Balancing the two faces of ePortfolios. Educação. Formação & Tecnologias, 3(1), 6–14. Barrows, M. (2004). Teaching portfolio. In P. Seldin (Ed.), The teaching portfolio: A practical guide to improved performance and promotion/tenure decisions (pp. 204–212). Anker Publishing Company. Carroll, B. (2010). Writing for Digital Media. Taylor & Francis Group. doi:10.4324/9780203894316 Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2017). Translanguaging as a pedagogical tool in multilingual education. In J. Cenoz, D. Gorter, & S. May (Eds.), Language Awareness and multilingualism (pp. 309–321). Springer. Choo, B. Y., & Li Li, K. (2017). Digital Writing in English Language Writing Instruction. An International Research Journal of Language and Literature, 28, 1-16. https://sujo.usindh.edu.pk/index.php/ARIEL Collins, J. (2004). Teaching portfolio. In P. Seldin (Ed.), The teaching portfolio: A practical guide to improved performance and promotion/tenure decisions (pp. 213–223). Anker Publishing Company. Dahlström, H. (2018). Digital writing tools from the student perspective. Education and Information Technologies, 24(2019), 1563–1581. doi:10.100710639-018-9844-x De Fina, A., Didem, I., & Sabina, P. (2019). Storytelling in the digital world. John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/bct.104 Freedman, S., Hull, G., Higgs, J., & Booten, K. (2016). Teaching Writing in a Digital and Global Age: Toward Access, Learning, and Development for All. In D. H. Gitomet & C. A. Bell (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 1389–1449). American Educational Research Association. doi:10.3102/9780-935302-48-6_23 French, M. (2019). Multilingual pedagogies in practice. TESOL in Context, 28(1), 21–44. doi:10.21153/ tesol2019vol28no1art869 Gilster, P. (1997). Digital Literacy. Wiley and Computer Publishing. Gu, X., Zhu, Y., & Guo, X. (2013). Meeting the “Digital Natives”: Understanding the acceptance of technology in classrooms. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 16, 392–402. Johnsen, H. L. (2012). Making learning visible with ePortfolios: Coupling the right pedagogy with the right technology. International Journal of ePortfolio, 2(2), 139-148.

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Kang, T. (2020, April 15). South Korea’s coronavirus era online learning hits snag: The roll-out of distance learning is off to a rocky start. The Diplomat Media. https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/southkoreas-coronavirus-era-online-learning-hits-snag/ Karchmer, R. A., Mallette, M. H., Kara-Soteriou, J., & Leu, D. (2005). Innovative approaches to literacy education: Using the Internet to support new literacies. International Reading Association. Kist, W. (2005). New literacies in action: Teaching and learning in multiple media. Teachers College Press. Lyngsnes, K. M. (2012). Embarking on teaching journey: Pre-service teachers reflecting upon themselves as future teachers. World Journal of Education, 2(2), 2–9. doi:10.5430/wje.v2n2p2 Mantiri, O., Hibbert, G., & Jacobs, J. (2019). Digital Literacy in ESL Classroom. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 7(5), 1301–1305. doi:10.13189/ujer.2019.070515 Meyer, E. J., Abrami, P. C., Wade, A., Aslan, O., & Deault, L. (2010). Improving literacy and metacognition with electronic portfolios: Teaching and Learning with ePEARL. Computers & Education, 55(1), 84–91. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.12.005 Mustafa, N. (2020). Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on education. International Journal of Health Preferences Research, 1-12. DOI: doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.27946.98245 Pfeiffer, V., & Walt, C. V. D. (2016). Improving academic writing through expressive writing. Tydskrif vir Taalonderrig, 50(2), 57–77. doi:10.4314/jlt.v50i2.3 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. doi:10.1108/10748120110424816 Smith, K., & Tillema, H. H. (2003). Clarifying different types of portfolio use. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(6), 625–648. doi:10.1080/0260293032000130252 Snelling, J., & Fingal, D. (2020, March 16). 10 strategies for online learning during a coronavirus outbreak. ISTE Blog. https://www.iste.org/explore/10-strategies-online-learning-during-coronavirus-outbreak Strobl, C., Ailhaud, E., Benetos, K., Devitt, A., Kruse, O., Proske, A., & Rapp, C. (2019). Digital support for academic writing: A review of technologies and pedagogies. Computers & Education, 131, 33–48. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2018.12.005 Strudler, N., & Wetzel, K. (2005). The diffusion of electronic portfolios in teacher education: Issues of initiation and implementation. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 37(4), 411–432. doi:1 0.1080/15391523.2005.10782446 Strudler, N., & Wetzel, K. (2011). Electronic portfolios in teacher education: Forging a middle ground. Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education, 44(2), 161-173. https://tl.unlv.edu/~strudler/StrudlerWetzel11.pdf Tandiana, S., Abdullah, F., & Komara, U. (2017). Digital writing tools: Teaching argumentative essays beyond the traditional frontiers [Paper presentation]. Tenth International Conference on Applied Linguistics and First International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture. Bandung, Indonesia. 10.5220/0007167003360343

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Wetzel, K., & Strudler, N. (2006). Costs and benefits of electronic portfolios in teacher education: Student voices. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 22(3), 69–78. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ EJ876907.pdf Widodo, H. P., & Rozak, R. R. (2016). Engaging students teachers in collaborative and reflective online video-assisted extensive listening in an Indonesian initial teacher education (ITE) context. Electronic Journal of Foreign Teaching, 13(2), 229-244. https://eflt.nus.edu.sg/v13n22016/widodo.pdf Yancey, K. B. (2009). Portfolios, circulation, ecology, and the development of literacy. In D. N. DeVoss, H. A. McKee, & R. D. Selfe (Eds.), Technological ecology and sustainability (pp. 110–125). Computers and Composition Digital Press. Yuan, C., Wang, L., & Eagle, J. (2019). Empowering English language learners through digital literacies: Research, complexities, and implications. Media and Communication, 7(2), 128–136. doi:10.17645/ mac.v7i2.1912 Zaldivar, M., Summers, T., & Watson, C. E. (2013). Balancing learning and assessment: a study of Virginia tech’s use of ePortfolios. In K. V. Wills & R. Rice (Eds.), ePortfolio performance support systems: Constructing, presenting, and assessing portfolios (pp. 221–239). The WAC Clearinghouse.

ADDITIONAL READING Basilaia, G., & Kvavadze, D. (2020). Transition to Online Education in Schools during a SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic in Georgia. Pedagogical Research, 5(4), 1–9. doi:10.29333/pr/7937 Dahlström, H., & Boström, L. (2017). Pros and cons: Handwriting versus digital writing. Nordic Journal of digital literacy, 12(4), 143-161. https://miun.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1167420/FULLTEXT01.pdf Davis, B. M., Markel, H., Navarro, A., Wells, E., Monto, A. S., & Aiello, A. E. (2005). The effect of reactive school closure on community influenza-like illness counts in the state of Michigan during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Clinical Infectious Disease: an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 60(12), 90-97. DOI: doi:10.1093/cid/civ182 Nadeem, S. (2020). Coronavirus covid-19: Available free literature provided by various companies, journals and organizations around the world. Journal of Ongoing Chemical Research, 5, 7–13. doi:10.5281/ zenodo.3722904 Sadeghi, M. (2019). A shift from classroom to distance learning: Advantages and limitations. International Journal of Research in English Education, 4(1), 80–88. http://ijreeonline.com/article-1-132-en. pdf. doi:10.29252/ijree.4.1.80 Sheeba, S. A. (2018). Academic writing challenges at universities in Saudi Arabia and solutions. International Journal of English Language. Literature and Humanities, IV(X), 291–298. Walsh, E. (2009, July 20). Closing schools won’t stop pandemic: Study. Reuters: Health News. https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-flu-schools/closing-schools-wont-stop-pandemics-study-idUSTRE56J4OO20090720

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Zhang, H., Lin, L., Zhan, Y., & Ren, Y. (2016). The Impact of Teaching Presence on Online Engagement Behaviors. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 54(7), 887–900. doi:10.1177/0735633116648171 Zur, O., & Zur, A. (2011). On Digital immigrants and digital natives: How the digital divide affects families, educational institutions, and the workplace. Zur Institute-Online Publication. 1-13.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic: A widely spread global health crisis that caused social distancing, remote learning, economic collapse, and political crises in 2020. Digital Immigrant: A person who grew up before the existence of internet, computers, and technologies, who needs to learn using technologies to cope with the current era. Digital Literacy: The ability to master the use of technologies for successful in-class and distance learning and teaching while communicating with students inside and outside the classroom. Digital Native: A person who grew up in the era of technology and consider computers and internet an essential part of his/her life. Digital Tools: Teaching and learning platforms and software with embedded audios, videos, images, and texts that are used via computers or smartphones. Digital Writing: A digital multimedia way of writing that enables the integrating of digital technologies while writing a document through internet and computers. Distance Learning: A way of learning remotely without being in the classroom and interacting face-to-face with a teacher or classmates.

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Chapter 7

Writing in the Digital Age:

Teaching Writing to Digital Natives Burcu Şentürk Bartın University, Turkey

ABSTRACT It is a fact that technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. The recommendations of the World Health Organization because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surrounding the whole world brings the obligation to continue the education and training activities with distance education systems. Once again, the significance of technology use in education has become abundant. Within the scope of this chapter, applied studies on digital writing, digital micro, and macro-level writing, Web 2.0 tools, digital and automatic feedback in digital writing will be envisaged in line with the 21st century technological educational requirements. In addition, the effective tips to teach basic digital writing through technology integration will be explored while the impact of the information age on the writing discipline will be discussed.

INTRODUCTION Like you, I’m a teacher of writing. We rely on decades of experience from practitioners and researchers who have formulated, implemented, written about, changed, and tried again their ideas about teaching writing in a workshop format. And all of us continue to learn every day what it means to be a teacher of writing as we listen to our students, shape our responses and lessons around their needs, and assess the work that they have completed (Hicks, 2009, p.1). It is evident that writing habits around the world have changed profoundly due to recent technological developments. Individual writers coexist “everywhere” by means of bulletin boards, chat rooms, e-mails, text messages thanks to the Web 2.0 tools and similar digital tools. People constantly respond to news reports on blogs, and they often share posts on social media. This type of digital writing is called “selfsponsored writing” by Brandt (2017), and she describes it as follows: DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch007

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A writing that belongs to the writer, not to an institution, with the result that people-students, senior citizens, employees, volunteers, family members, sensible and non-sensible people alike- want to compose and do-on the page and on the screen and on the network- to each other. (p. 2) Self-sponsored writing provides endless opportunities to write on the internet by using tools such as Myspace, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Googledocs, multiple blogs, and national media sites. Selfsponsored writing also occurs by uploading photos, videos, and sending posts with descriptions, where writers are not only the creators but also the recipients of the news. While the act of writing has significantly changed in the digital world, it is not always possible to transfer this change into the classroom. Most often, teaching writing is exercised through a conventional pen and paper rather than situating writing as a real-world outcome. Since most of the students are digital natives in today’s digital era, presenting opportunities of novice experiences to these students seems necessary. “It is this type of writing that will define today’s writers and determine their success as communicators once they leave the classroom” (Beaufort, 2007, p. 46). In parallel with the requirements of self-sponsored writing in the digital era, schools are the places to support students to become the writers of the new age. In order to accomplish these essentials in writing instruction, teachers need to set a balance between conventional teaching methods and modern technological approaches that are brought to classrooms. Furthermore, it is now more crucial to use digital writing tools to be able to pursue teaching and learning since the world is currently going through extraordinary tough days within the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Quite many teachers around the world are now teaching languages from home while aiming to teach all language domains of listening, speaking, reading and writing online at this difficult time. During this challenging time, digitalizing teaching and learning has gained considerable emphasis. In much the same way, internalizing the terms of digital literacy, digital divide and digital equity while referring to educational contexts has become more crucial and challenging for professionals. What is even more challenging for language teachers is the fact that “most of the students in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts find writing skills challenging, and they struggle with writing … after being accepted in universities” (Mahmoodi & Buğra 2020, p.151). From another perspective, the students are not just the typical students of the past; but in contrast, they are the digital natives, who know and use the latest technology in their daily lives extensively by self sponsored writing. By this definition, it is vital for the 21st century teachers to know more about these digital natives and the ways they can use technology in their writing classes to improve the efficiency level of their classes (Laborda & Royo, 2007; Yüce, 2020). Therefore, this study is devoted to the 21st century readers and writers by discussing the educational values peculiar to the 21st century writing instruction by answering the following research questions: • • • •

Is digital writing in English better than traditional writing? How is writing affected by digitalization in the 21st century across the globe? How are digital immigrants affected by digitalization in the 21st century? Is there a solution for the aforementioned issues?

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DIGITAL WRITING Digital Writing (DW) refers to online writing without pen and paper while traditional writing is described with a type of writing that is done with pen and paper. DW refers to any text created with a computer, a smartphone, or a similar digital device. Texting, instant messaging, emailing, blogging, tweeting, and posting comments on social media sites are even formats of DW. DW delivers opportunities for students to engage in civic and professional discussions to compose in collaborative, and interactive environments for publishing their writing. Kochhar-Bryant and Heishman (2010) stated that literacy has traditionally been defined as “the ability to read and write” (p. 188). Digital literacy (DL), therefore, is the knowledge of using technologies for research, reading and writing. With the further knowledge of technology now, the act of writing includes composing in multiple modalities, including hypertexts, images, audio and video. DW also provides greater attention to rhetorical principles for design and layout. The new genres of writing can be composed in digital settings including internet-based teaching environments. The internet-based teaching of writing increases in popularity through weblogs and social media regarding teaching writing. It is not surprising that internet-based writing is believed to be the remedy for teaching writing to overcome problems of time limitation, inadequate media support, and lack of motivation. Accordingly, today’s teachers support the learning of reading and writing skills in digital environments as qualified 21st century readers and writers, who guide their students’ future academic careers. Moreover, today’s teachers use educational applications, and they follow current developments to transfer these recent technological developments into classroom applications through digital media. Students can also compose in digital media formats by using effective and innovative software that supports digital writing. Since DW is quicker and easier in today’s virtual world, young people often prefer to use DW instead of traditional writing styles. The generation difference between authors created writers as digital natives (DN) and digital immigrants (DI) as the technology both impacts the pace and the style of writing. Technology made a big change for the new generations. It became a very popular topic for psychologists and sociologists. That resulted in the use of labels such as ‘digital native’, ‘the net generation’, ‘google generation,’ or ‘the millennials’. These highlights are defining the lives of young people at the age of new technologies. (Cut, 2017, para.1) A digital native (DN) is described as a person, who was born into the digital era; while a digital immigrant (DI) is the one, who adopts the technology skills later in life. Even if DIs adapt the same technology as DNs, they cannot act as skillfully as the DNs because today’s students receive and process information in technologically advanced ways. DNs are more eager to be able to understand the digital world through technology than DIs. Although today’s teenagers seem to be DIs, they are in fact DNs as opposed to the much younger generation. If DIs and DNs have the chance to get connected in digital platforms, the teachers should consider the technological inequity among them in terms of digital skills as DNs can fully use the digital literacy skills to pursue their education or add to their personal skills (Cut, 2017). There is another type of inequity, which is technological. Samuelsson (2014) describes technological equity as “having access to digital technology as well as the opportunity to learn the skills needed to use technology in a way that meets an individual intention” (p. 23). Schools should take the necessary precautions to be able to give all students the chance to study in equal opportunities for using digital tools. However, it is also a fact that not all students have the same 104

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opportunity to reach the internet or have a personal computer, or a laptop or a tablet. In this case, it creates inequality among the students. Therefore, teachers should propose options to the students to be able to compensate for this inequality. For instance, a student can fully write the task online if that student has full access to a computer, but if another student has only mobile access, then s/he can just write on a piece of paper and can upload it to the system later. Perhaps most obviously, teachers can avoid inequality by creating a set of flexible options to accommodate the diverse needs of today’s digital natives. Once technological equity is provided for students, the internet-based writing instruction indeed stimulates collaboration and thinking skills for digital writing. Collaborative internet-based activities enable students to form ideas, exchange thoughts, and write together in a meaningful and autonomous way (Blackstone et al., 2007; Eady & Lockyer, 2013). For example, peer reviews and peer comments including activities during online discussion forums for internet-based collaborative writing enable students to have an editor for their writing as well as being an editor (Blackstone et al., 2007). The kind of activities that involve peers to give feedback or comments obviously require students’ deep critical thinking. In writing their thoughts, students are trained to critically write and choose important and relevant information due to the availability of various beneficial sources from the internet (Deore, 2012; Mohamed & Ayeche, 2011). Hence, both teachers and students benefit from internet-based digital writing as long as it is possible to integrate technology in writing.

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN DIGITAL WRITING Technology integration is the use of technological innovations of computers, tablets, phones, digital cameras, the internet, social media platforms in education and training environments. The studies on technology integration in education confirm that technology contributes to education (Aliweh, 2011; Blackstone et al., 2007; Eady & Lockyer, 2013). While technology makes writing and communication easier, it also requires the user to make meaning with critical thinking skills. Students have become more productive as critical thinkers rather than consumers thanks to the opportunities brought by technology. An answer to the question of why educational technologies are expected from teachers and students is: Educational technologies are survival skills of our age to communicate effectively. Teachers who adopt a behavioral approach in the 20th century aimed to evolve towards a constructivist approach with the help of computer technologies. However, this process was not easy. The principle underlying the constructivist approach can be a guide for current educational models, and the type of education that represents a student-based approach can be determined through computer technologies. For this reason, teachers are expected to benefit from computers and other technologies at the maximum level in the classroom. Otherwise, they will remain as teachers of conventional times by following the behavioral approach of the 20th century. Technology integration should ensure that the education process continues successfully with comprehensible implementation techniques. On the other hand, technology may bring more harm than good to the educational environment, if the required technology is not always accessible. Another point is that curriculum should support the learning objectives and the students’ learning process through the use of technology; however, it should be kept in mind that the application of technology must be flexible enough to be accessible at any required time. In addition, the world has been going through extraordinary days due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) now. Therefore, it is currently

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more essential to use digital writing tools to be able to pursue teaching and learning within contextual technological devices while information and communication technology (ICT) gained further significance. ICT is the framework that refers to the emergence of the internet-based teaching of writing. A report entitled “the impact of digital tools on student writing and how writing is taught in schools” showed that the majority of teachers view the internet and digital technologies for having positive impact on student writing (Purcell et al., 2013). The use of ICT in the teaching of writing also encourages communication among students and offers more opportunities for interaction and writing together in more meaningful and less intimidating environments~ especially for shy students (Purcell et al., 2013; Yang & Cornelius, 2003). Writing online also encourages students to feel responsibility towards their own learning process which creates and maintains environments that motivate learners to continue learning even after the class (Aljumah, 2012) if beneficial teaching approaches are provided. Despite the various preferred approaches in teaching second language (L2) writing that includes the product-based approach and the process-based approach, the focus in language teaching methodology has shifted to information and communication technology skills that centers on digital literacy. “Information and communication technology (ICT) is used in teaching writing for its promising and prominent impact on students’ writing” (Deore, 2012, p. 45). In a study by Yunus et al. (2013a; 2013b), the advantages of using ICT in writing were emphasized that ICT could attract students’ attention and facilitate their learning process by improving students’ vocabulary knowledge in promoting meaningful learning activities. In addition, Cahyono and Mutiaraningrum (2015) advocated that with the advancement of ICT, there is hope that students’ writing knowledge could be further improved. Hence, ICT is used in teaching writing for its promising and prominent impact on students’ writing (Deore, 2012; Mohamed & Ayeche, 2011; Warnock, 2009).

21ST CENTURY SKILLS IN EDUCATION The society has undergone an accelerating pace of change in economy and technology during the latter decades of the 20th century through the 21st century. All of a sudden, there has been an international movement that focused on transformative technology-oriented skills that are required for students to master for the ultimate success in a rapidly changing, digital society. This substantial change in the workforce affected the demands that shape the educational systems and how these educational institutions prepare students for the workforce. Many of these skillful demands are also associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills including analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork. Basically, the 21st century skills comprise technology oriented abilities along with specific learning dispositions that are required for success in the 21st century society and workplace by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. The skills and competencies that are generally considered as “21st Century Skills” share particular common themes. Integrating technology into educational contexts in an effective way will both enrich the learning process and learning environments in the light of these common themes. By this definition, integrating technology into education to become competent in educational technology requires more than a simple computer skill so it is necessary to be able to use the existing web tools effectively. Educational technologies support profoundly the following 4 common skills: active participation, teamwork, interpersonal interaction and feedback, real-life adaptation. These shared skills are based on a pedagogy that effective learning, or deeper learning proposes as a set of educational outcomes, which include 106

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acquisition of robust core academic content, higher-order thinking skills, and learning dispositions for students to acquire. This described technology-oriented pedagogy involves creating, analyzing, presenting, and sharing both the learning experience and the learned knowledge of wisdom with peers and teachers. In this way, writing teachers can give more enjoyable tasks to students, which may include creative visuals. Stimulating learning environments motivate learners to use their creativity, and they can be more engaged in the task. This style of digital learning contrasts with more traditional learning methodologies that involve learning by rote and regurgitating information that recycles back to the teacher just for a grade. In contrast, the skills that are geared towards the specific needs of students foster engagement through facilitating meaningful connections for knowledge accumulation. Through seeking and forging ideas with peers, instructors, and the wider audience, it is possible to create and produce technologically oriented writing and publishing skills. The list below refers to the unified skills in 21st century for better and ideal educational outcomes: • • • • • • • •

Encouraging individual and social responsibility Planning critical thinking and critical questioning skills that stimulate creativity Modeling strong inter-individual communication skills Understanding and adapting to different cultures Making quick but effective and practical decisions Working collaboratively and productively Knowing when and how to use technology Choosing the appropriate technology for any given task for the best outcome

Despite the ideal outcomes, the results of the educational outcomes for technology-oriented writing instruction can be disappointing due to several obstacles. First of all, high-quality writing instruction can also be expensive and time consuming, which can be a burden for schools to provide supportive and high impact resources. Teachers and learners are able to follow the courses and do the writing tasks online only if the required devices are accessible. For instance, teachers often used google zoom to give synchronous classes and assign writing assignments by using Office365 while all teachers and students stayed at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, there are negative aspects of technology integration as well as its merits. Accessing technology may be a problem for countries that are economically handicapped and thereby cannot afford to provide effective educational technologies (Özcan, 2020). Educational institutions can adapt to distance education with widely used software by doing the writing courses online to overcome this obstacle. Another challenge that awaits a resolution is how to design effective writing tasks that can enrich the lives of both teachers and students. By changing the roles in technology education, technology transformed students from a consumer individual model to a producer and a more responsible individual model. At the same time, technology required teachers to transform their existing pedagogy into a technologyenriched guiding teaching model. In other words, the ideal way of teaching writing becomes associated with a conceptual technological understanding for motivated students and teachers. In such an educational model, the educational outcomes represent appealing educational environments and constructive feedback with innovative and self explanatory guiding rubrics. Lack of effective methods of teaching is another writing related problem despite technology-oriented teaching methods. Removing students from existing technologies is equivalent to taking them from a 107

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world where they live and putting them on a deserted island. For this reason, instead of removing them from technology, teachers must learn to use existing technologies effectively and efficiently. Effective writing teachers can encourage the students to write with coherence and flow by using digital tools from a creative perspective. Both the teachers and students find it motivating when students self-correct and learn from their own mistakes. When students write on word, they can learn to see their errors, which are underlined by the word itself (grammar, spelling, etc), and they can easily find the right form and correct their mistakes by just a click. However, it may not be the proof of the mastery of their language accuracy because of the fact that they may be using web programs or sites to check their language use. Therefore, moving from the traditional pen and paper style to digital writing is engaging and fruitful for the learners if there is not a digital divide among the learners. While preferring pen and paper falls short in providing the same opportunities for distance education in pandemic times, the required core skills for writing including a coherent flow and meaning-making remains abiding.

TEACHING WRITING THROUGH A PANDEMIC Nowadays, the world has been going through extraordinary days due to coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In this context, it is now more important to use digital writing tools to be able to pursue teaching and learning. Numerous teachers around the world are teaching from home these days, and they are trying to teach effective educational skills online at this difficult time. During this crisis time, digitalizing the teaching and learning gained substantial significance. For this purpose, this chapter proposes the following effective and functional tips that can be useful for DW when challenges of digital equity and digital divide are resolved:

Top 10 Tips for Freestyle Basic DW You simply can’t use the same rules and techniques you use when writing for print. The act of writing often happens in digital formats like Office 365, social media, blogs; and it is crucial to be aware as to whether a formal or an informal writing task is required. Here are the ten tips to be prepared for effective DW styles (Arledge, 2020): 1. Make it easy You should keep it in mind that the digital content is not the same as the pen and paper type of writing. It is not easy to read and write on the screen with a keyboard. Therefore, you should divide and plan your writing within small chunks and use subheadings where it fits. Preferably, mind-maps, graphic organizers, or charts can be used for effective planning. It is advised for teachers to give precise instructions that clearly state the writing task step-by-step. 2. Make it simple Try to use the language economically. Long ungrammatical sentences and complicated incoherent texts are difficult to read and understand, so make your flow easy to understand. Since the reader will read from the screen of a mobile phone or a tablet or a computer; prefer to write in big and appealing fonts. 108

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3. Write in big letters People generally do not prefer to read on the screen as it is 25% slower than print. Then, make it easier for the reader unless there is a specific assignment for you to follow specific instructions. Do not just make it all bold or italicized or capital as long as you don’t have to use a template as a guide to follow. Furthermore, do not underline your writing randomly to make it noticeable as it can confuse your reader. Instead, try to make it vivid and explicit. 4. Spelling and grammar Incorrect grammar structures and poor spelling make it difficult to understand the theme of your work. Check your grammar and spelling after you finish writing. Make sure this is a priority in all your written communication after you write a coherent piece that makes sense for the audience. 5. Get to the point! Is your message clear? Is it as précised as it could be but still impactful? Giving yourself time and coming back to your theme with supporting sentences can often help you to master the skill of basic DW. 6. Write to be found Keep “searchability” feature in mind while writing. People generally google the words you use, so avoid overusing the same vocabulary. Rather, choose content words that will help you to make meaning in terms of delivering your intended message while enabling more people to find your core message when they search your content online. 7. Keep accessibility in mind Do not use excessive number of imagery, try to use captions to describe your visuals and pictures in detail. Remember that people who receive your messages are accessing them through all kinds of digital devices, which ensures that your message will have the chance to reach out to a larger audience. If you upload pictures or imagery with low resolution, it might also impact your accessibility. 8. Let your personality shine While writing for digital media, do not forget about your personality. Always keep in mind that you are one and only in the world, so always keep the “brand voice” in mind. Be yourself and use your own words explaining you. 9. Remember no one pays attention to spam It is very common in the digital world that if you use high-frequency words of a brand, your message will be more likely to go to spam. Try not to use common words like “free” or “win” to ensure your DW

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not to be caught by a spam filter when sending via an e-mail attachment. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and think: would you open an e-mail with your title? 10. Keep an organized style When you organize your work, write the most important information first. It will arouse the curiosity and invite your reader to go on reading your work (Brower, n.d., para. 4-14).

Teaching Tips for Digital Writing Effective technology integration methods for teaching digital writing requires more than accessing technological devices in the classroom randomly. According to the results of Dahlström’s (2018) study, the concept of student agency is observable once the students are provided with the opportunities of regular and effective digital access. In this way, student agency can contribute to a power shift in writing activities, which can guide teachers to design student-centered, effective and digital writing tasks (Leijon & Lindstrand, 2012). Therefore, the 21st century writing teachers need to be experts on applications for using them in context with the appropriate tools. Below are the tips for effective digital writing instruction (Arledge, 2020): 1. How to integrate smart board or projection technology into your classroom? If you only have a smart board, or a projection in your classrooms, this means that you have the possibility of sparse technology integration. Of course, this is not enough for a high-end technology integration, but there are still some activities to be done: • • • •

You can integrate technology with videos or images using the smart board. You can color your lessons with fun presentations by using interactive tools such as Powerpoint, Prezi, and Powtoon. You can browse the smart board activities on the scholastic.com site. You can take advantage of the virtual manipulative tools.

2. How to integrate technology with a single computer in the classroom? The technological sources vary from one educational setting to the next. Some classrooms may only have a smart board or a projection. In this case, how is it possible to integrate technology with the writing instruction despite this shortcoming? • • •

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You can reinforce learning by creating a class blog. You can create a common blog page for free by using websites such as blogger, google sites, and WordPress. You can organize the materials you use in the classroom using the Livebinder tool. You can help your students create common stories and presentations by using tools such as google docs, and Penzu.

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3. How to integrate technology with a few computers in the classroom? Although there are sometimes not one computer per person in your classroom, there may be situations where there are several computers, or you can use the school library if available. In this case, how is it possible to integrate technology to teach writing with several computers? In addition to the aforementioned activities: • • • • • • • • • •

You can allow your students to create blog pages in groups. Blogger and Kidblog are suitable for this, but Kidblog is free to a certain extent. You can create digital stories with the Voicethread tool. The Storyboardthat tool will also help your students to create digital content together. You can have students make presentations by using Prezi, Powtoon, and Google docs. You can create virtual classes by using applications such as Classdojo, or Edmodo, and you can manage your materials, assignments, and feedback from there. You can allow your students to create cartoons with the Toondoo tool. You can help them create fun videos and animations. The best practices for this are Emaze, Powtoon, and Moovly. You can have a character voiceover using the Voki tool. You can create a website with your students. Weebly and Wix are the best tools in this regard. You can measure and evaluate students by using the Socrative and Polleverywhere application. You can get students to practice brain training using Padlet and Linoit.

4. How to integrate technology in a classroom with several mobile devices? Most schools discovered that they need to be adaptive with fast and practical teaching strategies in order to ensure that learning continues in a healthy way during a pandemic. If there is not a computer lab available, using mobile devices that can be carried anywhere can be suitable if students are allowed to use mobile devices in the classroom. In a classroom with only a few mobile devices (tablet, smartphone): • • • • •

You can allow them to create videos with Animoto. You can have group discussions and podcasts using voice recorder tools. You can enable them to do research on the internet with suitable safety and security control mechanisms in place You can share tasks and share materials from the created virtual classes as a group work You can compete with Kahoot by setting up groups in the classroom.

Technology integration in education can be achieved by using a variety of tools at different levels. However, it should not be forgotten that technology integration does not mean to explain and conduct the whole course with technological devices, but rather these devices should be extra supportive materials for writing teachers. While the content of the course is being scaffolded with effective teaching strategies, the most desired situation is to use technology where necessary. In this way, a near-perfect technology integration can be provided (Arledge, 2020).

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Table 1 provides some strategies that are commonly used in online and blended learning, as presented in the alphabetical order. Table 1. Commonly used digital tools

Note: Reprinted from “Egiteknoloji” by Arledge, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.egiteknoloji.com/teknoloji-entegrasyonu-nasilyapilir.html

Table 1 displays numerous digital tools used in blended and online teaching. For effective DW strategies, collaborative writing, story-making, e-portfolios, intelligent tutoring, mapping, plagiarism check, zoom, loom, or office365 can be used. The important crucial issue in this process is to be able to decide on which platforms to integrate according to the genre.

CONCLUSION In this digital era, students practice information-rich DW extensively when writing teachers aim to catch up with a rapidly growing technology-oriented world. The students are not just the typical students of the past, but they are digital natives, who use the latest technology in their daily lives. The young generation becomes digital writers by posting on social media, and they are tweeting, blogging, or sharing comments on Facebook. The freedom of opportunities in composing digital writing styles is obviously increasing in numbers on daily social media platforms. The act of writing is no longer a “one-way journey, beginning with the writer and eventually ending with the reader” (Beufort, 2007, p.6). Instead, today’s writing has become “an on-going, purposeful conversation that is not bound by time or distance” (Beufort, 2007, p. 6).

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With the technological advancements in the 21st century, the students are now becoming digital natives, and therefore it is inevitable to escape from technology in the classrooms. Teaching writing is used to be practiced with hardcopies of essays. In contrast, digital essay writing offers a creative platform for the students to draft their essays as a practical alternative approach. While traditional way of writing requires just a pen and paper, educators must be aware of the power shift change that the technology has had on writing instruction. It is eminent to take this power shift into consideration when teachers design their tasks (Leijon & Lindstrand, 2012). Given the conditions of digital access and opportunities for practice, the affordances of digital writing can increase student agency. In turn, this suggests that a writing education focusing on student agency can contribute to equity in writing activities. Allowing student agency can mean a shift in power in education. (Dahlström, 2018, p. 59) The power shift in writing discipline’s dynamics is critical for the 21st century teacher to explore more about the nature of digital learning, and the effective methods to support digital natives’ literacy development process. Today’s students must be provided with opportunities to experience technology-oriented types of writing that they can use outside the classroom (Beaufort, 2007). It is also the case for digital immigrants because they have to keep up with the changes the digital century brings to the classrooms. In this respect, schools should support students in becoming today’s skillful writers by balancing the experiences with new technologies while honoring the traditional pen and paper type of effective writing experiences. It has been proven that form and function are beneficial to improve students’ writing (Hultin & Westman, 2014; Myrberg, 2007). Within the context of digital writing, the students’ text flow and language accuracy are improved (Dahlström & Boström, 2017). “If digital writing tools can be used as an extended opportunity to participate on more equal terms, regardless of the difficulties in spelling or letter formation, the learning environment can be seen to be designed to accommodate the students” (Dahlström & Boström, 2017, p. 58). Furthermore, defining a set of effective educational values (Please see Appendix) that can be adapted and applied at schools for ideal DW practices can provide a united route for better writing practices. For this purpose, technological tools can support the education and training process for students to be enriched with basic digital writing practices. When basic digital writing is integrated with technology integration, it also • • • • • •

provides access to current internet-based innovative sources. helps to gather new information for storing it as a more convenient and quickly accessible data source. supports interacting with all students, teachers and specialists in terms of virtual collaborative work. provides better opportunities to understand and express new content through different interactive multimedia tools of images, videos and sound. provides students with an authentic and up-to-date learning and assessment environment provides the opportunity to easily present and publish new information

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REFERENCES Aliweh, A. M. (2011). The effect of electronic portfolios on promoting Egyptian EFL college students’ writing competence and autonomy. Asian EFL Journal, 13(3), 90–132. Aljumah, F. H. (2012). Saudi learner perceptions and attitudes towards the use of blogs in teaching English writing course for EFL majors at Qassim University. English Language Teaching, 5(1), 100–116. doi:10.5539/elt.v5n1p100 Arledge, J. (2020, 14 April). Integrating Technology in Education. https://www.egiteknoloji.com Beaufort, A. (2007). College Writing and Beyond. Utah State UP. Blackstone, B., Spiri, J., & Naganuma, N. (2007). Blogs in English language teaching and learning: Pedagogical uses and student responses. Reflections on English Language Teaching, 6(2), 1–20. Brandt, D. (2017). Literacy in American Lives. Oxford UP. Brower, A. (n.d.). Top 10 Tips for Digital Writing. https://info.heynowmedia.com/top-10-tips-for-digitalwriting Cahyono, B. Y., & Mutiaraningrum, I. (2015). Indonesian EFL teachers’ familiarity with and opinion on the Internet-based teaching of writing. English Language Teaching, 9(1), 199–215. doi:10.5539/elt. v9n1p199 Cut, M. (2017, November 15). Digital natives and digital immigrants- how are they different. https://medium. com/digital-reflections/digital-natives-and-digital-immigrants-how-are-they-different-e849b0a8a1d3 Dahlström, H. (2018). Digital writing tools from the student perspective: Access, affordances, and agency. Education and Information Technologies, 24(2), 1563–1581. doi:10.100710639-018-9844-x Dahlström, H., & Boström, L. (2017). Pros and Cons: Handwriting versus digital writing. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 12(4), 143–161. doi:10.18261/issn.1891-943x-2017-04-04 Deore, K. V. (2012). The educational advantages of using internet. International Education Journal, 1(2), 111–112. Eady, M. J., & Lockyer, L. (2013). Tools for learning: Technology and teaching strategies. English Language Teaching, 9, 71–92. Hicks, T. (2009). The digital writing workshop. Heinemann. Hultin, E., & Westman, M. (2014). Att skriva sig till läsning: Erfarenheter och analyser av det digitaliserade klassrummet. Gleerups. Kochhar-Bryant, C. A., & Heishman, A. (Eds.). (2010). Effective collaboration for educating the whole child. Corwin Press. doi:10.4135/9781452219295 Laborda, J. G., & Royo, T. M. (2007). Bookreview: How to teach English with technology (A book by G.Dudeney & N. Hockly). Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 10(3), 320–324.

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Leijon, M., & Lindstrand, F. (2012). Socialsemiotik och design för lärande: Två multimodala teorier om lärande, representation och teckenskapande. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige; 3–4, 17. Mahmoodi, F., & Buğra, C. (2020). The Effects of Using Rubrics and Face to Face Feedback in Teaching Writing Skill in Higher Education. International Online Journal of Education & Teaching, 7(1), 150–158. Mohamed, K., & Ayeche, Z. (2011). The impact of the internet on the development of students’ writing. Revue des Sciences Humaines, 21, 51–63. Myrberg, E. (2007). The effect of formal teacher education on reading achievement of 3rd‐grade students in public and independent schools in Sweden. Educational Studies, 33(2), 145–162. doi:10.1080/03055690601068311 Özcan, S. (2020, 14 April). E-portfolio. https://www.egiteknoloji.com/ Purcell, K., Buchanan, J., & Friedrich, L. (2013). The impact of digital tools on student writing and how writing is taught in schools. Pew Research Center. Samuelsson, U. (2014). Digital (o) jämlikhet? IKT-användning i skolan och elevers tekniska kapital [Doctoral dissertation]. School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University. Warnock, S. (2009). Teaching writing online: How and why. National Council of Teachers of English. Yang, Y., & Cornelius, L. F. (2004). Students’ perception towards the quality of online education: A qualitative approach. Association for Educational Communication and Technology, 27, 861–877. Yüce, E. (2020). Keeping online diary as an integrated activity for developing writing skill in EFL classes through Penzu. Bartın University Journal of Faculty of Education, 9(1), 132–140. Yunus, M. M., Nordin, N., Salehi, H., Embi, M. A., & Salehi, Z. (2013a). The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching ESL writing skills. English Language Teaching, 6(7), 1–8. doi:10.5539/elt.v6n7p1 Yunus, M. M., Nordin, N., Salehi, H., Sun, C. H., & Embi, M. A. (2013b). Pros and cons of using ICT in teaching ESL reading and writing. International Education Studies, 6(7), 119. doi:10.5539/ies.v6n7p119

ADDITIONAL READING Agélii Genlott, A., & Grönlund, Å. (2013). Improving literacy skills through learning by writing: The iWTR method presented and tested. Computers & Education, 67, 98–104. . compedu.2013.03.007. doi:10.1016/j Åkerfeldt, A. (2014). Re-shaping of writing in the digital age – A study of pupils’ writing with different resources. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 9(3), 172–193. Clarke, B., & Svanaes, S. (2012). One-to-one tablets in secondary schools. An evaluation study. [London: Family, Kids & Youth.]. Stage, 1, 2011–2012.

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Daharnis, D., Ardi, Z., & Ifdil, I. (2018). The Improved of Counselor Competencies through Scientific Article Writing Training Using Digital Citation Application. Jurnal Konseling Dan Pendidikan, 6(1), 8. doi:10.29210/119500 De Pew, K. E., & Miller, S. K. (2005). Studying L2 writers’ digital writing: An argument for post-critical methods. Computers and Composition, 22(3), 259–278. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2005.05.001 Evering, L. C., & Moorman, G. (2012). Rethinking plagiarism in the digital age. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(1), 35–44. doi:10.1002/JAAL.00100 Fortunati, L., & Vincent, J. (2014). Sociological insights on the comparison of writing/reading on paper with writing/reading digitally. Telematics and Informatics, 31(1), 39–51. . tele.2013.02.005. doi:10.1016/j Ghandoura, W. A. (2012). A qualitative study of ESL college students’ attitudes about computer-assisted writing classes. English Language Teaching, 5(4), 57–64. doi:10.5539/elt.v5n4p57 Håkansson Lindqvist, M. (2015). Gaining and sustaining TEL in a 1:1 laptop initiative: Possibilities and challenges for teachers and students. Computers in the Schools, 32(1), 35–62. doi:10.1080/07380 569.2015.1004274 Kiss, T., & Mizusawa, K. (2018). Revisiting the pedagogy of multiliteracies: Writing instruction in a multicultural context. Changing English, 25(1), 59–68. doi:10.1080/1358684X.2017.1403283 Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. Routledge. Merchant, G. (2007). Writing the future in the digital age. Literacy, 41(3), 118–128. doi:10.1111/j.14679345.2007.00469.x

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Digital Access: To be able to access technologies like internet and computers. Digital Age: Time period in which technology is introduced and used. Digital Immigrant: A person born before the digital era. Digital Literacy: Being able to use digital technologies. Digital Native: A person born in the digital era. Digital Writing: Using digital tools in writing. E-Portfolio: An electronic portfolio in which people keep their documents. Web 2.0: The internet tools.

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APPENDIX Web 2.0 Tools List for the 21st Century Teachers There is a list of Web 2.0 tools that can be used in 21st century classes: • • • • • • • • • • •

Storyboardthat: Storyboardthat is a tool that allows you to prepare digital stories on the internet. Tagul: With the Tagul Web 2.0 tool, you can design beautiful word clouds and standards and save them on your computer and hang them in your classes. Thinglink: You can make interactive visuals with the Thinglink Web 2.0 tool. For example, you can add a note, video or a website to a certain point in a picture. Toondoo: You can prepare cartoons with Toondoo. A very fun application, Toondoo is an online cartoon preparation tool. Penzu: Penzu is a simple to use Web 2.0 tool where you can create magazines online. You can fill the contents of the journal with your students to make a magazine. Woxopop: Woxopop is a Web 2.0 tool that you can record your conversations on the internet and listen to other people. Voxopop helps create audio discussion environments between students and teachers. Wordart: Wordart is a Web 2.0 tool that allows you to create a word cloud with fun. With Wordart, which was formerly called Tagul, you can create colorful, interactive and word clouds in the pattern you want. Forvo: Forvo is a Web 2.0 tool that shows how an English word is pronounced in different accents and includes translations in different languages. Although it seems to appeal more to English teachers, it is an ideal application for anyone who loves to learn English. Popplet: Popplet is a very enjoyable, colorful Web 2.0 tool for creating concept maps. By linking content that is related to each other, you can keep the concepts better in mind. Scratch: Scratch is a tool that allows users to make android applications with jigsaw-based coding. You can easily design android applications with a scratch Web tool. Socrative: Socrative is a tool that enables Socrative teachers to prepare exams online and apply them to students in the classroom. With Socrative, students can solve instant tests with their mobile devices and learn their answers (Arledge, 2020).

Note: Reprinted from “Egiteknoloji” by Arledge, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.egiteknoloji. com/teknoloji-entegrasyonu-nasil-yapilir.html

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Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs: An Innovative and Multilingual Teaching Approach Işıl Günseli Kaçar Middle East Technical University, Turkey

ABSTRACT Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland’s metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers’ writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland’s metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers’ multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities.

INTRODUCTION Blogs have radically altered our relationship with information technology, from information consumers to information creators and contributors (Du & Wagner, 2007). They are identified with their authors through a sense of ownership unlike some other Web 2.0 tools that are mostly collaborative and topic-based. They promote idea generation, information exchange, reflection and meaning negotiation (Godwin-Jones, 2003; Oravec, 2003).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch008

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 Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs

In the first place, it seems clear that the effective use of blogging fosters interconnectivity among learners in contexts beyond the classroom through knowledge sharing and individual accountability in learning through facilitating the individual and critical voice development (Du & Wagner, 2007). The benefits of integrating blogs into foreign language classrooms have been highlighted in various studies regarding writing skills development (Bloch, 2007; Lee, 2010; Sun, 2009), critical and synthesizing skills development (Lee, 2010), and the promotion of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing motivation (Özdemir & Aydın, 2017). In addition to the aforementioned benefits, blogs facilitate self-expression, self-presentation, a sense of ownership, self-reflection, information exchange, social networking, collaborative learning, and the co-construction of meaning (Lee, 2010). The integration of blogs into EFL classes enhances students’ focus on meaning and fluency (Sun, 2009). Peer feedback on blogs can progressively prompt additional interaction and discussion of ideas, (Lee, 2010). From another perspective, being blog writers can help students develop their own voices in a community of writers (Bloch, 2007; Quintero, 2008; Rezaee & Oladi, 2008). The blog discourse is intertwined with students’ likes, dislikes, preferences, aspirations, passions, ideologies, opinions, and personality characteristics (Quintero, 2008). Blog posts constitute a channel for students to convey personal meaning and knowledge by reflecting their identities as individuals beyond language learners (Quintero, 2008). Through reading students’ blog posts, it is possible to see their worlds from their unique perspectives by drawing inferences from their lexical choices along with their image, music and video preferences (Blood, 2002). Bloggers develop an emotional attachment to their posts as they reveal their identities through them (Quintero, 2008). As blogs promote sharing and exchanging ideas with others, student blog writers form a community of practice that extends classroom walls. With their interactive and collaborative features, blogs enable EFL students in higher education contexts to develop their academic writing knowledge through shaping and negotiating their identities as EFL writers (Sun & Chang, 2012). Academic writing is viewed as an interactive process between readers and writers, where the latter are engaged in different forms of identity displays (Hyland, 2005a). In academic writing, writers strive to “negotiate interactional meanings in a text… to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community” (Hyland, 2005a, p.37). Although blogs are now acknowledged to be an integral part of EFL writing classes, the discourse of writers as part of an EFL academic writer identity development on blogs remains to be underexplored via a corpus-based analysis of metadiscourse markers. In fact, ESL/EFL writers are likely to benefit from raising their awareness towards the interactive and interactional dimensions of metadiscourse (Hyland, 2010) while displaying different aspects of their identities in the text: autobiographical self, discoursal self, and authorial self. In fact, writers need to consider not only their organization of discourse concerning their readers’ understanding and interpretation of the text (the interactive dimension) but also their presence in the text as writers and their engagement with content and readers (the interactional dimension while displaying their identities in the text (Hyland, 2005a). In EFL higher education contexts, writing is a critical and crucial skill to be considered as a respectable member of the academic discourse community for graduate students (Sun & Chang, 2012). Academic writing is regarded as a vital skill for the academic success of undergraduate students as well. In order to be actively involved in academic writing practices, apart from a sound knowledge of academic writing conventions, non-native English speaking students need to develop strong writer identities empowered by linguistic and rhetorical competence (Hyland, 2002a). Irrespective of the educational context and the academic major, academic assessments that determine university students’ academic 119

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success are predominantly conducted in the written medium, in the form of essays, reflection/project reports, research papers or theses (Jones, 2011). In EFL academic learning environments, novice writers tend to find it challenging to write in a foreign language that they are not fully proficient in (Fareed et al., 2016). They are continuously engaged in a process of negotiation, creation, and recreation of their writer identities so that they can be admitted to the established academic discourse community (Ivanič, 1998). This process of identity construction plays a pivotal role in students’ transformation into English as a Second Language (ESL)/EFL writers (Park, 2013). However, college academic writing classes mainly focus on teaching the structural features of ESL/EFL written expression rather than developing students’ writer identities (Cimasko & Reichelt, 2011). Raising awareness towards their own identities in academic learning environments is likely to promote novice writers’ professional development (Park, 2013). With their interactive and collaborative features, which allow the development of self-expression, self-reflection, self-(re)presentation, blogs are likely to provide an interactive and collaborative learning environment conducive to the development of academic writing skills and EFL academic writer identities. Although writer identities have been investigated in different contexts previously (Crawford et al., 2016), the impact of blogs on the EFL writers’ identity development has not received attention to date. Considering the need to explore the impact of blogs on EFL writers’ identity development and on their academic writing skills development in higher education contexts, this qualitative study in the Turkish higher education context aimed to investigate the role blogs play in the development of EFL preservice teachers’ multifaceted academic writer identities and their different self displays, in a blended learning environment on blogs via a corpus-based textual analysis of metadiscourse markers.

BACKGROUND Writing is viewed as a social practice where writers and members of the academic community are engaged interactively (Rahimivand & Kuhi, 2014). In fact, what distinguishes academic writing from other writing genres that are more oriented towards readers’ preferences is this social dimension (Hyland, 2002a). Although the tendency to categorize the rhetorical writing patterns based on cultural differences has prevailed in academic settings in the past decades, the culture-bound view of writer identities has shifted towards the unique view of writer identities, promoting the individuality of writers in different cultures (Juliaty, 2019). Generally speaking, undergraduate students are not likely to have gained any familiarity with the academic cultures of their academic disciplines before their college admissions (Hutchings, 2013; Scanlon et al., 2007). As they are not properly introduced to the academic writing culture of their specific academic discipline prior to their engagement in academic studies in higher education contexts, they tend to have numerous difficulties related to academic discourse. Students across disciplines are reported to experience similar difficulties in getting adjusted to the written academic discourse (AngelilCarter, 2000). Emphasizing the shift from the culture-bound view towards the individual view of the notion of writer identity, Hyland (2002a) argued that “academic writing, like all forms of communication, is an act of identity: it not only conveys disciplinary ‘content’ but also carries a presentation of the writer” (p. 1092). The notion of writer identity refers to the way authors choose to manifest their authentic voice in writing (Hyland, 2001). Authors are likely to adopt multiple identities in line with discourse situations (Cherry,1988; Juliaty, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2011). The related literature pointed out various ways authors display their selves in written discourse (Cherry, 1988; Clark & Ivanič, 1997; Hyland, 2002a;

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Ivanič, 1998). It is through the linguistic and rhetorical devices that authors portray their images as writers to their readers in the academic community (Ivanič & Camps, 2001; Hyland, 2004a, 2005a, 2010). Apart from the cultural and individual bases of the writers’ identities, authors’ preferences to position themselves explicitly in academic texts are shaped by the academic communities they are affiliated with (Liming, 2012). In order to be recognized as a member of a particular academic discourse community, writers need to be aligned with the shared views of the community (Hyland, 2002a). When writers become members of a particular community, they adopt not only the practices and discourses operating in this community but also the community’s perspectives and interpretations, leading to the development of their identities (Clark & Ivanič, 1997). The investigation of writer identity is multi-layered. Ivanič (1998) proposed that writers construct their identities in any act of writing via autobiographical self, discoursal self and authorial self. The autobiographical self is the authentic voice of the writer in the text (Burgess & Ivanič, 2010). It is concerned with personal life experiences, beliefs, opinions, and values of a writer (Burgess & Ivanič, 2010; Clark & Ivanič, 1997). Writers manifest their autobiographical selves through their personal stance in the text (Bird, 2013). On the other hand, the discoursal self can be defined as the identity that the writer manifests for readers and the one readers deduce from the text (Burgess & Ivanič, 2010). Via the discoursal self, writers “claim membership to a group with whom they share practices and discourses” (Rodriguez et al., 2011, p. 95). It is manifested through the “writing repertoires used by writers in the text, e.g., the use of diction, mechanics and text organization” (Juliaty, 2019, p.325). Writer identities are often investigated via the written discourse of the writers (Juliaty, 2019). Discourse in a specific text is created via linguistic and rhetorical devices called metadiscourse, which involves interactive and interactional markers (Hyland, 2010). Interactive markers are employed to organize the textual information flow while interactional markers are employed to assist writers with their self-representation and their engagement with their readers (Hyland, 2010). In the study, Hyland’s (2010) metadiscourse model was adopted as the framework in the investigation of writer identities. Unlike the discoursal self, the authorial self is referred to how authors manifest their presence in the text (Juliaty, 2019). It denotes how firmly writers display their stance in written discourse in relation to their readers (Burgess & Ivanič, 2010). Writers may construct their authorial selves through the implication of power and claims for authority for their written work (Starfield, 2002). The authorial self “validates writers’ ownership towards their thinking process and self-confidence to shape and contribute ideas to their academic community” (Juliaty, 2019, p.326). Writer identities in academic writing have been explored in various contexts (Crawford et al., 2016). While some studies focus on writer identities related to the cultural framework (Steinman, 2003), others are concerned with the theoretical aspects of academic writing and how these aspects influence the construction of writer identities (McKinley, 2015). Academic writer identities of ESL/EFL writers have been also explored in various settings such as study abroad contexts (Lee & Maguire, 2011; Park, 2013), graduate study contexts (Ivanič & Camps, 2001; Liming, 2012) and academic communities (Crawford et al., 2016). Writer identities have also been addressed in some other studies focusing on the discourse of dissertations (Hyland, 2004b), discipline-specific research articles in English (Hyland, 2002a; 2002b) undergraduate student reports (Hyland, 2002a), and undergraduate essays (Çandarlı et al., 2015; Tang & John, 1999). However, there is a paucity of research on the manifestation of EFL novice writers’ academic identities in blended learning environments such as blogs and the role blogs play in the EFL novice writers’ academic identity development. Hence, this study focused on the exploration of the impact of blogs on the development of academic writer identities of first-year EFL preservice teachers, using the Hyland’s (2010) interpersonal metadiscourse model. It is likely to reveal valuable insights into 121

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the futuristic directions of novice writers’ online foreign language digital literacy practices through the integration of a blended learning environment via blogs.

THE STUDY In the light of the affordances of technology in ESL/EFL writing practices and the emergent futuristic trends in ESL/EFL pedagogies towards digital literacy practices, this study was an in-depth investigation of the impact of blogging on the development of EFL preservice teachers’ academic identities via a naturalistic and interpretive approach. The researcher aimed to gain detailed insights into the preservice teachers’ academic writing experiences and practices as well as their academic writer identity displays on blogs (Lee & Maguire, 2011; Liming, 2012; Park, 2013). The study adopted a qualitative case study design. The case study design enables “in-depth, multifaceted explorations of complex issues in their real-life settings.” In the study multiple data sources (i.e., the semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and reflective essays) were triangulated and multiple perspectives were alignded to develop a comprehensive understanding of the writer’s identity (Patton, 1999). Triangulation is employed in qualitative research as a method to test validity through the convergence of information obtained from various data sources (Patton, 1999). In the study, Hyland’s (2010) interpersonal metadiscourse model was adopted as the framework to analyze writers’ stance displays in the reflective essays. The metadiscourse model maintains that writing is concerned not only with the text production and the explanation of reality (the interactional dimension) but also the construction and negotiation of social relations with readers (the interactive dimension) (Hyland, 2010). The interactional dimension, which involves transitions, frame markers, endophoric markers, and evidential markers, is concerned with the discourse organization for readers’ understanding and interpretation of the text. The interactive dimension refers to the writers’ presence and their engagement with content and readers (Çandarlı et al., 2015). This dimension involves hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers, and self-mentions.

Participants The participants were ten first-year EFL preservice teachers, within an age range between 18 and 21, in the undergraduate program in English language teaching at an English-medium state university in Turkey. They were all enrolled in the Contextual Grammar course in the spring semester of the 2016-2017 academic year and had an advanced level of proficiency in English. Regarding the participants’ levels of digital literacy, there were a range of levels varying from low to medium. The participants indicated during the semi-structured interviews that they had no blogging experience prior to their involvement in the study. They were chosen via purposeful sampling based on their successful completion of the fall semester academic writing course called Advanced Reading and Writing and their advanced proficiency level in the English language. They all had a score of 85 and above (out of 100) on the institutional English language proficiency test that is regarded as equivalent to 106 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test (TOEFL IBT) at the university where the research study was conducted. Prior to their involvement in the study, they gained familiarity with various academic genres such as expository, persuasive, and argumentative writing during this 14-week course. In addition, an examination of the participants’ written assignments in this course indicated that their level of proficiency in

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English allowed them to make a variety of discoursal choices in different genres of EFL writing. They all received training on how to create a blog, and how to upload pictures, videos and written work to blogs and how to add followers. They also received instruction regarding how to give feedback on their peers’ blog entries for three hours prior to their involvement in the study. In the study, the terms ‘EFL pre-service teachers’ and ‘novice writers’ were used interchangeably.

The Study Context The study was integrated into a 14-week first-year course Contextual Grammar II for EFL pre-service teachers at the Department of English Language Teaching at an English-medium state university in Turkey. It commenced in the fourth week of the course and lasted ten weeks in the spring semester of the academic year 2016 and 2017. The aim of the course was to promote EFL pre-service teachers to develop a critical perspective into the advanced level structures (e.g. word classes, elements of the sentence, types of sentence, sentence fragments, etc.) of different types of texts on a contextual level. It also helped prospective teachers develop a critical stance toward the use of these structures in various contexts. As a feature complementary to the face-to-face sessions in the course, a blended-learning component in the form of blogs was integrated into the course. The preservice teachers were asked to create their own blogs, following the three-hour blog training period in the computer laboratory at the department. Preservice teachers in the study were required to write two reflective essays on the academic articles they read by uploading their reflective essays on their own blogs. In the next phase, they provided online feedback on their peers’ essays on blogs regarding the following features of academic writing: the authorial stance displays, the lexical, discursive and organizational aspects of the essays. The reflective essays focused on authors’ perspectives and ideas with the incorporation of supporting evidence that revealed details about the authors’ identity.

Data Collection The data in this ten-week study were collected via two reflective journals, semi-structured interviews with participants about their reflective essays. Prior to the data collection process, they were asked to sign the consent forms. They were informed that the data collected in the study would only be used for research purposes. The reflective journals were concerned with preservice teachers’ experiences in academic writing prior to and during the study. They were collected at the beginning and at the end of the study. Each journal was within a range of 350 and 450 words. The first journal was concerned with participants’ prior academic writing experiences while the second journal was related to their ideas and feelings about their academic writing journey, and their writer identity development processes. The semi-structured interviews with the preservice teachers, which were held in Turkish, took place in the researcher’s office at the end of the study. They aimed to gain in-depth insights into their academic writer identity development processes. Each interview lasted approximately 70-80 minutes and was audio-recorded with the permission of the participants. They involved an inquiry into participants’ academic writing experiences in the study, their representation of self in their reflective essays, and their challenges while developing their academic writer identities. Preservice teachers’ reflective essays of 500 to 700 words were based on the argumentative and persuasive articles of their own choice out of an academic article corpus compiled from various academic

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articles of varying length. The corpus consisted of 20 articles written in expository, argumentative and persuasive genres, each of which ranged from approximately 900 to 1500 words. The total number of reflective essays chosen for inclusion in the study was 20 (two reflective essays per preservice teacher – based on a persuasive and an argumentative article in the article corpus). Only the essays based on persuasive and argumentative articles were included for data collection as these genres were particularly concerned with how authors display their stance or position themselves in particular ways in academic writing. These discourse types receive a great deal of attention in many academic disciplines, particularly in social sciences and arts majors (Schneer, 2013). As students were required to express their perspectives academically and show their authorial stance, the reflective essays could be considered appropriate data collection instruments in the study (Hyland, 2009; Jones, 2011).

DATA ANALYSIS The three data sources in the study were analyzed via triangulation. The data triangulation was used to develop a comprehensive understanding of EFL preservice teachers’ academic writer identities (Patton, 1999). In the study, the data from the semi-structured interviews and the reflective journals were triangulated. To start with, the semi-structured interviews were transcribed and read in an iterative manner along with the reflective journals to have a thorough understanding of their previous academic writing practices and experiences. The data from the interviews and the journals were coded in line with the recurring major themes by Ivanič ’s (1998) conceptualization of writer identities, which are later categorized into autobiographical self, discoursal self, and authorial self. Secondly, the preservice teachers’ reflective essays were read and color-coded based on the metadiscourse model by Hyland (2010). Afterwards, the results were tallied in a table and the frequencies of metadiscourse markers in the essays were calculated. The frequency table (Table 1) can be seen in Appendix 1. Next, the essays were reread with a focus on the written discourse and coded based on the recurring major themes in line with Ivanič ’s (1998) concept of writer identities. The results were organized in a table in terms of autobiographical self, discoursal self, and authorial self (Table 2 in Appendix 2). Finally, the analysis results regarding the journal and interview data were interpreted to display a portrait of the preservice teachers’ academic identities in the study. To ensure the trustworthiness of the study, two coders were involved in the coding process. During the data analysis stage, the primary researcher and a departmental colleague experienced in qualitative analysis, worked together. The inter-relater reliability was calculated to be 95%. Through negotiations, both researchers reached a full consensus on the codes in the study. In addition to inter-rater reliability, member checking was also adopted to ensure trustworthiness in the study. Prior to the data analysis, the transcriptions of the semi-structured interviews were sent to the preservice teachers via mail and they were asked to check and confirm the data. In cases of incongruence between the transcriptions and the participants’ selfreports, the modifications (i.e., the additions or the removals of participants’ remarks) were made in the interview transcripts to ensure the verification of the data in line with the participants’ feedback. The main and sub-themes in the study can be seen in Table 2 in Appendix 2.

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Findings indicated that novice EFL writers displayed multifaceted and contradictory identities in their reflective essays on their blogs. To illustrate, they adopted several role identities such as an expert member of the academic community of the EFL teachers, an inexperienced member of the academic community of the EFL teachers, a reporter, and a biased decision-maker in their written discourse, which are in line with the previous research (See Juliaty, 2019). They seemed to reflect these identities via their autobiographical self, discoursal self, and authorial self as EFL novice writers in varying degrees. The frequencies related to main and sub-themes related to the Ivanič’s (1998) writer identities can be seen in Table 2 in Appendix 2.

1. Autobiographical Self The data from reflective journals indicated that EFL preservice teachers came from diverse educational backgrounds with different attitudes towards EFL writing. Some who received intensive English instruction in their educational background manifested an autobiographical self as ‘a curious explorer’ seeing EFL writing as an uncharted territory. They were enjoying their power as writers displaying their authority in the text. On the other hand, there were some who came from educational backgrounds with little instruction in English and had difficulties with self-expression or communication in English. They manifested an autobiographical self as ‘a bored soul in a straight jacket’. They reported that they were not accustomed to using English as a means of communication in their educational background. They were mostly interested in obtaining a passing grade in English. The autobiographical self was revealed in the preservice teachers’ article choices for their reflective essays (Bird, 2013). They tended to choose their articles for reflection in alignment with their own topic familiarity, the topics based on their lifestyles such as the impact of social networking websites on people’s daily lives, the effects of cyberbullying on teenagers, friendships between males and females, and the power of words. Their topic choices were also found to be related to what they discussed in academic settings (i.e., gender differences in language use). The following excerpt from Participant 1 (P.1) seems representative in this respect: Some people would have nothing to do if they did not have the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter. What made me choose this topic is the obsessive thoughts of people. Although those sites are important for me too, they are not a big part of my life. I cannot understand the idea of giving social networking sites the power to control our lives. As a person studying foreign languages, I care about the use of correct grammar on these websites. In the excerpt above, P1 showed the immediate relevance of the topic to her own life. She indicated her stance that disfavors individuals’ obsession with social networking sites. She attempted to demonstrate her perspective professionally by claiming membership to the academic discourse community of English teachers that she aspires to join (“as a person studying foreign languages”). She displayed her writer identity as an EFL preservice teacher by criticizing the widespread ungrammatical use of English on these sites. In her comment on her topic choice for her reflective journal, P1 expressed her preference to reflect on the articles dealing with topics she could relate to her personal life. She indicated that she saw writing as a means to share her own worldview and perspectives on issues.

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The preservice teachers’ autobiographical selves were also displayed in their styles of writing. In their reflective journals, some preservice teachers reported their intrinsic motivation to be engaged in academic writing. They pointed out their interest in informing their readers of different or new perspectives on topics related to daily life or EFL learning/teaching. They believed as prospective teachers they had a mission to enhance their readers’ personal and professional development. Thus, they preferred to adopt an academic style of writing in their reflective essays in line with this mission. They tended to justify their perspectives as writers in the essays. They were also inclined to persuade their readers to consider questioning their existing stances and show willingness to align their perspectives with those of the writers (Juliaty, 2019). On the other hand, certain preservice teachers demonstrated their extrinsic motivation for academic writing in the semi-structured interviews. They admitted that due to their low academic writing motivation, they could barely fulfill the required word limit, 500-700 words. During the interviews, they reported feeling the urge to finish their essays to get a good grade and indicated no interest in developing their academic writing skills. The preservice teachers’ low writing motivation is consistent with the previous research that shows some students seemed to be interested in becoming a member of the academic writing community to the extent that their membership could help them obtain good grades (Ivanič, 1994). Such lack of intrinsic motivation appeared to be related to the preservice teachers’ relative unfamiliarity with certain genre-specific writing practices in English for academic purposes (Angelil-Carter, 2000; Hutchings, 2013; and Scanlon et al., 2007). They pointed out in the interviews that although they were introduced to the expository, descriptive, and narrative writing in the academic reading and writing course they took prior to their study involvement. They were recently introduced to the argumentative and persuasive genres and were not provided with sufficient practice opportunities to write in these genres, which led them to have a sense of inefficacy as writers (Erkan & Saban, 2011). The journals and interviews pointed out the differences between preservice teachers’ writing practices at high school and university. They reported their lack of engagement in academic writing activities at high school. They indicated that only a brief period of time was allocated to writing activities in EFL classes and these classes were mostly composed of summaries along with narrative and descriptive writing activities at the sentence or paragraph level. They also indicated their lack of awareness regarding the academic writing genres and stance-taking strategies. They reported encountering numerous challenges to express their perspectives in academic writing due to numerous rule-bound restrictions (Liming, 2012). These preservice teachers revealed that their lack of engagement with academic writing activities (particularly with essay writing and citation practices) and their lack of genre-awareness prior to their study involvement lowered their writing self-efficacy by leading them to develop a negative attitude towards writing (Erkan & Saban, 2011). Regarding their academic writing styles, the preservice teachers with intrinsic motivation for academic writing tended to produce well-organized written discourse, providing evidence for their arguments as well as justifying their claims in a unified, coherent and cohesive manner. On the other hand, the ones who were extrinsically motivated for academic writing were inclined to compose incoherent written discourse with a lack of unity characterized by a failure to provide evidence for justification. The preservice teachers’ types of style differences in academic writing in the study appeared to be related to the types of writing motivation they possessed. In the light of the findings regarding the autobiographical selves of the writers, it can be concluded that the autobiographical selves of EFL novice writers were expressed in their reflective essays via the topic selection, the length of their essays, and their style of writing (Juliaty, 2019). Moreover, the autobiographical selves of EFL novice writers were found to be 126

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influenced by their educational backgrounds, personal interests, and the previous EFL academic writing activity engagement (Bird, 2013; Ivanič, 1998; McKinley, 2015).

2. Discoursal Self The analysis of the EFL preservice teachers’ written discourse in their reflective essays displayed their contradictory identities. It appeared that these novice writers strove to appear as experts with a considerable amount of knowledge on the themes of their reflective essays and with a persuasive power to convince their readers to look at these themes from a different perspective. However, they manifested writer identities who were newly-admitted to the academic discourse community in the study (See Ivanič, 1994).

Expert Writer Identity In their reflective essays, EFL preservice teachers wished to appear as experienced and knowledgeable people concerning the essay themes. By incorporating evidential markers, such as definitions, factual information or direct quotations into their essays, they tried to intentionally create the image of an expert persona (Hyland, 2005b). Utilizing sources of information from different sources enabled the preservice teachers to elaborate on their essay themes and to justify their arguments in the text (Rahimivand & Kuhi, 2014). The following examples are representative in this respect: The term of culture shock was first introduced by Oberg (1960) to describe the anxiety resulting from not knowing what to do in a new culture. (P10) (In-text citation) Cyberbullying is defined as “an aggressive, intentional act or behavior carried out by a group or an individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time, against a recipient who is unable to defend himself/herself” (Smith et al., p.376). (P10) (Direct quotation) The interviews also indicated that the novice writers attempted to manifest their knowledge and expertise regarding the subject matter in their reflective essays by using engagement markers, particularly directives (Hyland, 2005b). The preservice teachers tended to draw the readers’ attention to the importance of particular issues or call for action by using imperatives (e.g., consider, note); by modals of obligation (such as must, should, and ought to); and by predicative adjectives expressing the writer’s judgement of importance (e.g., It is important to understand ...). The following examples from P2’s argumentative essay on teenage bullying are representative in the study: It is important to take into consideration the teenagers’ misconception that being a bully makes them invincible and popular. (P2). Counsellors at schools should carry out research studies concerning the motives underlying bullying among teenagers. (P2). The preservice teachers also preferred to use boosters, such as obviously, clearly, to present their work with assurance and promote the persuasion power of their written discourse (Çandarlı et al., 2015). They also used these expressions to mark involvement with the essay topic and establish solidarity with their

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audience (Hyland, 2005b). They remarked in the interviews that by positioning themselves in relation to the arguments in their essays, they wanted to appear as experts who tried to inform less knowledgeable readers about the subject matter. Additionally, they used overgeneralizations and exaggerations to draw readers’ attention to the arguments in the essay (Hyland, 2005a). The following example from P7’s essay on the effects of globalization constitutes a representative sample in this respect: It is obvious that globalization has diminished national borders and accelerated international collaboration in addition to developing transportation systems. (P7). An analysis of the reflective essays revealed that preservice teachers tried to convince their readers to agree with them in different ways. They seemed to utilize reader-oriented engagement markers we, our, us, and ours for the promotion of reader involvement and group solidarity. They used these devices to show inclusive membership through the involvement of the writer and the reader as participants in the text with similar understandings (Hyland, 2005b). Using these devices, they integrated the readers’ potential point of view into the discourse, thereby predicting their disagreements, voicing their concerns, and ideas. Thus, preservice teachers guided readers through an argument and towards a preferred interpretation. Some EFL preservice teachers also had a tendency to use you, a reader-oriented engagement marker, to promote learner involvement and to show their authority as writers (Hyland, 2005b). They used you to acknowledge their readers’ presence and seek to engage with them, involving them into a world of shared experiences. They also used attitude markers, particularly attitude verbs such as agree or prefer to signal an assumption of shared attitudes, values, and reactions to material, to express their stance, and engage readers in an agreement with them (Hyland, 2005a). The novice writers’ urge to be acknowledged as expert personae may be attributed to their strong wish to be recognized as legitimate members of the academic community of English teachers (Hyland, 2005a). The novice writers in the study may have tried to project a favorable attitude towards their readers by indicating alignment with their values and expectations. This is consistent with Burgess and Ivanič (2010), emphasizing novice writers’ attempt to impart a positive impression to the readers by showing their alignment with the readers’ views.

New Members of the Academic Community Apart from the expert writer identity, the examination of the written discourse in the preservice teachers’ reflective essays revealed another writer identity in the study. A new member of the academic writing community. The prospective teachers displayed this new identity in various ways: The organization of the written discourse, the use of rhetorical questions, and the source documentation were the channels they utilized to manifest their emergent academic writer identities. The preservice teachers seemed to experience hardships regarding the organization of their ideas, particularly in the introduction section. In the semi-structured interviews, they reported having difficulty in narrowing down the topic to formulate their thesis statements. Some found it hard to smoothly proceed from the general background information to the specific thesis statement. Due to their lack of familiarity with the academic writing conventions, they were hesitant about how much background information they should provide in relation to the topic. The broad statement use and the indirect idea flow in novice writers’ essays were consistent with the previous research studies (Qin, 2017). It is important to adopt a linear writing style with accurate and precise language use in ESL/EFL academic settings. ESL/EFL

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writers are supposed to maintain the readers’ focus on the essay topic starting from the introductory paragraph. Their failure to do so might be attributed to their indirect pattern of idea elaboration in their first language writing repertoire (Javdan, 2014). The identity of an inexperienced new member of the academic writing community was also revealed through the incoherent written discourse in the reflective essays. Some preservice teachers in the study suffered from organizational problems, lack of coherence and unity. Even though they managed to state their main and supporting agreements in the text, they failed to organize these arguments to an extent to support their stance on the topic (Juliaty, 2019; Wingate, 2012). Some essays lacked the proper use of frame markers and endophoric markers. The former are concerned with the stages of idea development in the text such as firstly, secondly, finally, in addition, therefore, and in conclusion, while the latter refer to the location of specific parts of information in the text such as aforementioned, previously (Hyland, 2010). Some novice writers’ essays exhibited either the improper use of these markers or a lack of them. This resulted in a lack of textual coherence and a lack of elaboration on the arguments in the text, creating a loosely connected idea flow in the written discourse (Hyland, 2010). Some essays incorporated irrelevant sentences that broke the unity in the text. This might be attributed to the novice writers’ lack of familiarity with genre-specific textual organization patterns in academic writing and with the ways of improving clarity and coherence (Hyland, 2005a). The inexperienced academic writer identity in the study was further revealed through the EFL preservice teachers’ improper source documentation (Kafes, 2017). In some essays, preservice teachers did not appear to use in-text citations properly. The preservice teachers frequently reported encountering challenges while using the APA Style Manual, which is regarded as a common formatting style for academic work in the social sciences. They reported that even though they were provided with APA citation instruction in their previous Advanced Reading and Writing course prior to their involvement in the study, they admitted being supplied with some brief theoretical explanation on different citation types without getting engaged in any extensive hands-on citation practices in writing. Last but not least, the novice writer identity profile, as a new member of the academic writing community, was reflected in the way novice teachers employed rhetorical questions in their reflective essays. Although rhetorical questions are regarded as an interactional device to enhance the reader engagement (Hyland, 2002b), their employment tends to be discouraged in the academic writing culture as they are not regarded as genuine (Hinkel, 1997). In the interviews, preservice teachers reported using them as hooks to promote reader engagement in the topic and draw readers’ attention to the topic. They indicated in the semi-structured interviews that they did not intend to launch a genuine and critical inquiry for the readers in the rest of the essay via rhetorical questions (Morley-Warner, 2009). An examination of the reflective essays revealed that the preservice teachers tended to ask the rhetorical questions in the introductory section and reply to them in the body parts of their essays (Morley-Warner, 2009). To illustrate, one participant (P.4) asked the rhetorical question ‘What is cyberbullying?’ in the introductory paragraph of her argumentative essay on cyberbullying and she provided a definition of the concept for the readers in the following body paragraph. Preservice teachers’ use of rhetorical questions for a purpose other than launching a critical inquiry on the part of the readers might be attributed to their unfamiliarity with the academic writing conventions (Wingate, 2012).

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3. Authorial Self The novice writers in the study mainly used the first-person pronoun ‘I’ to indicate their identity and presence in their written discourse (Ivanič & Camps, 2001). They also chose to display their authorial selves via the ‘reporter’ and ‘biased judge’ identities (Juliaty, 2019). They preferred to display their writerly voice in their essays through their own voice, and others’ voice (Juliaty, 2019).

Reporter The novice writers preferred to take stance in line with the general public opinion or popular beliefs. They displayed their positions in different places of their essays via topic sentences, thesis statements, or supporting statements, which can be seen in the following example: There is a need for global education which will prepare new generations to live cooperatively in the world and we obviously need a common language for this global education. (P3). One common trend observed in some preservice teachers’ reflective essays was the tendency to incorporate popular opinions without providing any evidence-based support (Juliaty, 2019). This might be attributed to their unwillingness to challenge, disagree or criticize well-established ideas in society. (Lee & Maguire, 2011). Alternatively, as inexperienced members of the academic writing community, they may have considered it easy and practical to utilize the popular ideas in society to justify their arguments or to build their line of arguments based on popular opinions to feel safe. In their reflective journals and the interviews, they attributed their unwillingness to challenge others’ ideas in academic writing due to their cultural backgrounds, which is in line with previous research (Hyland, 2005b). Novice writers in the study reported in the semi-structured interviews that they tended to prefer using we than I for reader involvement as the plural pronoun use sounds more indirect than the singular one (Hyland, 2005b). They reported not receiving any instruction regarding how to manifest their stance or their voice in written discourse prior to their enrollment in the academic writing course in the higher education context. In the interviews, they also indicated their previous writing instruction led to a preconceived notion about the distant and impersonal nature of academic writing and discouraged their use of the pronoun I as an academic stance display (Çandarlı et al., 2015; Tang & John, 1999). It can be concluded that both cultural and educational backgrounds had an impact on EFL preservice teachers’ authorial self displays in academic writing. The preservice teachers’ interview responses revealed that their employment of the first person singular pronoun I was influenced by “a culturally-conditioned power relationship in which they are ‘just students’ (Çandarlı et al., 2015, p.23). The interviews stated that the contextual factors of previous writing instruction, the teacher expectations, and the academic discourse community impacted the authorial presence of preservice teachers (Çandarlı et al., 2015, p. 23). In the semi-structured interviews, reporters expressed their unwillingness to elaborate on or critically analyze their views or arguments, or to formulate counterarguments. Some admitted consulting online resources and collecting information on the topic to find evidence for justifying their views due to time constraints. In the interviews, the preservice teachers mentioned all these aforementioned motives underlying their stance-taking strategies in line with the popular opinions in their essays. This practice prevented them from fully displaying their own voice as writers. It encouraged them to display others’ voices instead of refining their own thought processes that Pecorari (2003) and McKinley (2015) referred

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to as patchwork writing. Hence, it is of great importance for EFL writing teachers to raise novice writers’ autonomy in academic writing by informing them of various ways to manifest their authorial presence in written discourse. The preservice teachers who display others’ voices via summaries or the repetition of factual information may seem like what Juliaty (2019, p.331) refers to as “reporters”, instead of writers who are capable of making their presence felt in written discourse (McKinley, 2015; Starfield, 2012).

Biased Judge In ESL/EFL academic writing, it is important to provide multiple perspectives on issues to welcome and acknowledge readers’ perspectives (Wingate, 2012). However, the novice teachers’ essays indicated that some could not develop their ideas from diverse angles, failing to provide an atmosphere for a fruitful discussion in the text. Therefore, they might be likened to a “biased judge” in Juliaty’s (2019, p.331) terms, who enjoy relatively low credibility in readers’ eyes. To illustrate, in the following extract on the characteristics of a global language, P4 dealt with the topic from certain perspectives (power and dominance), to the exclusion of other perspectives on the issue (e.g., the spread of use), without providing any justification. She also displayed a biased tone in her essay on global languages, using a booster “many” as well as using particular dictions or structures that urged the readers to learn from them (‘the structures “must” “have to”, and “will”, as well as intensifiers such as “very”) (Hyland, 2005b): Every language has a potential to become a global language, but only some languages can become global languages. Some languages like English, Spanish, and French have many speakers from several countries. However, to become a global language, the owners of a language have to have some properties. They must be very powerful and wealthy. They must dominate other nations and countries. Shortly, if you are strong, people will speak your language. In academic writing, it is essential for writers to provide an accurate and clear representation of the information to readers (Wingate, 2012). However, novice writers seemed to prefer to employ boosters and attitude markers mostly to display their authorial selves in their reflective essays in the study. Their essays did not seem to incorporate many occurrences of hedges. This may be attributed to the rhetorical culture of Turkish students, which attaches a high value to certainty (Hinkel, 2003) and favors assertions and overstatements (Uysal, 2012). The preference of preservice teachers towards the frequent use of attitude markers (expressions indicating surprise, agreement, importance or frustration) in their essays tended to create a biased and subjective tone in written discourse (Çandarlı et al., 2015). Such discourse may be effective on readers from an affective perspective but it does not lead to a critical and thought-provoking discussion of the content (Rahimivand & Kuhi, 2014). Considering the critical balance between emotions and cognitions in ESL/EFL academic writing, it is of great importance to teach novice writers to avoid biased or opaque discourse (Rahimivand & Kuhi, 2014).

The Impact of Blogs on the Development of Novice Writer Identities During the semi-structured interviews, preservice teachers in the study revealed that using blogs as an online medium to display their academic work contributed to the development of their writer identities favorably, (Bloch, 2007; Rezae & Oladi, 2008). They indicated that posting their reflective essays on

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blogs helped them reinforce their emergent identities as writers, beyond their well-established identities as language learners (Quintero, 2008). They indicated that reading their classmates’ essays on the blogs gave them an opportunity to see the academic writing world from different perspectives (Blood, 2002). They added that the examination of other preservice teachers’ lexical, discoursal, and organizational choices, as well as self displays in reflective essays served as a peer support mechanism for them as inexperienced new members of the academic writing community. They emphasized that receiving online peer feedback on blogs in terms of the effectiveness of stance displays, essay coherence, cohesion, and unity, content organization, and source documentation empowered them as novice writers. They remarked that reflective and critical engagement in peer feedback, the interactive and lively exchange of ideas, and the collaborative dialogue with other novice writers regarding their academic essay writing process in the blended learning environment of blogs promoted them to negotiate their own academic identities and construction of authorship (Sun & Chang, 2012). Being members of a blog community helped them develop various strategies to cope with their difficulties regarding academic writing and strengthen their fragile emergent authorial selves in their academic writing journey (Sun & Chang, 2012).

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Several implications can be drawn from the findings of the study regarding the EFL academic writing instruction in preservice teacher education contexts. EFL instructors in preservice teacher education might consider prioritizing the EFL writer identity development in academic writing courses that mostly tend to emphasize academic skills development. Issues on writer identity and novice writers’ identity development processes should be taken into consideration in the design of academic writing courses in the higher education contexts. Students should be engaged in awareness-raising activities to gain familiarity with various linguistic, discoursal, and stylistic choices to display their stances in academic writing. It is also important to inform students of the interactional dimension of academic writing (writing as a form of social interaction) as opposed to the conceptualization of academic writing as an objective and impersonal endeavor. EFL academic writing course instructors are recommended to investigate students’ beliefs about their writing abilities and their attitudes towards academic writing as they may have an impact on students’ preferences for authorial self displays. Furthermore, to develop their academic writer identities, EFL novice writers might be involved in peer review /peer feedback activities and one-to-one conferences with their instructors, where they discuss their discoursal choices in their academic written work. It is also advisable for instructors to listen to novice writers’ concerns about the academic writing process and provide continuous support and guidance for them in this challenging process. EFL novice writers might gain more familiarity with the academic culture of their own academic discipline by interacting with the members of their own academic discourse community through peer review and writing conferences, or academic discussions to develop their academic identities. Additionally, EFL novice writers might be engaged in some reflective and critical awareness-raising activities geared towards the development of rhetorically effective strategies and choices, which may empower them to create more effective and critical arguments. In this way, EFL novice writers display their authorial selves more assertively by becoming more autonomous academic writers in higher education contexts (Çandarlı et al., 2015). In general, the findings call for the integration of explicit and systematic instruction on interactional metadiscourse markers in EFL academic writing classes. EFL writing teachers in the tertiary level may find it useful to integrate corpus-driven genre analysis, a futuristic trend for

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EFL digital literacy practices, into academic writing courses to raise novice writers’ genre awareness. EFL instructors might also consider integrating corpus-based classroom activities based on a corpus of student and expert writers so that students might be provided with an opportunity to discuss various authentic samples of authorial self displays in academic texts (Çandarlı et al., 2015).

CONCLUSION This study investigated the process of forming academic identities of EFL preservice teachers as novice writers in the academic writing community. The findings indicated that the EFL preservice teachers in the study displayed multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities, i.e., an expert persona, an inexperienced writer, a reporter, and a biased judge, in a blended learning environment via blogs in the tertiary context. Although some findings in the study are quite in line with previous research studies (Angelil-Carter, 2000; Bird, 2013; Hutchings, 2013; Juliaty, 2019; Scanlon et al., 2007), indicating novice writers’ difficulties due to their unfamiliarity with the academic written discourse, academic writing culture, and their limited practice in ESL/EFL academic writing, the current study contributed to the related literature by highlighting the multifaceted nature of academic writer identities in the EFL context. The preservice teachers in the study emphasized the favorable impact of blogs on their writer identity displays in several ways. They also underlined blogs’ empowering impact on novice writers’ identity development as they provide safe spaces for their self-expression and self-(re)presentation. They found an opportunity to develop their authentic voice in a non-face-threatening, collaborative, and blended learning environment through their membership of an online community of practice. However, considering several constraints regarding the study in terms of the participant size and the duration of the study, the findings may not be representative of the whole EFL novice writer community. Although the study highlighted the novice writer identity development in a particular blended Turkish preservice EFL teacher education context, the findings may be regarded as relevant and applicable to other similar EFL preservice teacher education contexts. Future researchers might be interested in conducting longitudinal qualitative studies on the development of writer identities across different ESL/EFL academic contexts and with diverse learner profiles. They may also consider carrying out comparative studies exploring the impact of technology-enhanced blended versus face-to-face academic learning environments on the development of novice writer identities. Researchers might also investigate the impact of integrating logical and critical thinking activities into academic writing classes on the development of authorial self in academic writing. The ways intrinsically and extrinsically motivated ESL/EFL learners display their writer identities in academic writing could be another venue for further research. The researchers might consider exploring the influence of the genreawareness activities on the development of writers’ discoursal selves in ESL/EFL academic settings. A further area of research that is likely to bring a futuristic perspective to digital literacies in the ESL/EFL context would be investigating the impact of written peer/teacher feedback in blended learning or fully online learning environments on the development of writer identities in academic writing classes. Last but not least, future researchers might investigate the impact of the integration of corpus-driven genre analysis on the development of ESL/EFL writer identity development.

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Hinkel, E. (2003). Adverbial markers and tone in L1 and L2 students’ writing. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(7), 1049–1068. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00133-9 Hutchings, C. (2013). Referencing and identity, voice and agency: Adult learners’ transformations within literacy practices. Higher Education Research & Development, 33(2), 312–324. doi:10.1080/0729436 0.2013.832159 Hyland, K. (2001). Humble servants of the discipline?: Self mention in research articles. English for Specific Purposes, 20(3), 207–226. doi:10.1016/S0889-4906(00)00012-0 Hyland, K. (2002a). Authority and invisibility: Authorial identity in academic writing. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(8), 1091–1112. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00035-8 Hyland, K. (2002b). Options of identity in academic writing. ELT Journal, 56(4), 351–358. doi:10.1093/ elt/56.4.351 Hyland, K. (2004a). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. The University of Michigan. Hyland, K. (2004b). Disciplinary interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 postgraduate writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(2), 133–151. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2004.02.001 Hyland, K. (2005a). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum. Hyland, K. (2005b). Representing readers in writing: Student and expert practices. Linguistics and Education, 16(4), 363–377. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006.05.002 Hyland, K. (2009). Academic discourse: English in a global context. Continuum. Hyland, K. (2010). Metadiscourse: Mapping interactions in academic writing. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 9(2), 125–143. doi:10.35360/njes.220 Ivanič, R. (1994). I is for interpersonal: Discoursal construction of writer identities and the teaching of writing. Linguistics and Education, 6(1), 3–15. doi:10.1016/0898-5898(94)90018-3 Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing & identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075wll.5 Ivanič, R., & Camps, D. (2001). I am how I sound: Voice as self-representation in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1-2), 3–33. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(01)00034-0 Javdan, S. (2014). Identity manifestation in second language writing through notion of voice: A review of literature. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(3), 631–635. doi:10.4304/tpls.4.3.631-635 Jones, J. F. (2011). Using metadiscourse to improve coherence in academic writing. Language Education in Asia, 2(1), 1–14. doi:10.5746/LEiA/11/V2/I1/A01/JFJones Juliaty, H. (2019). Exploring academic identities of EFL novice writers. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 324–334. doi:10.17509/ijal.v9i2.20230 Kafes, H. (2017). Citation practices among novice and expert academic writers. Education in Science, 42, 441–462. doi:10.15390/EB.2017.6317

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Lee, L. (2010). Fostering reflective writing and interactive exchange through blogging in an advanced language course. ReCALL, 22(2), 212–227. doi:10.1017/S095834401000008X Liming, D. (2012). Academic identity construction in writing the discussion and conclusion section of L2 theses: Case studies of Chinese social science doctoral students. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics Quarterly, 35(3), 301–323. McKinley, J. (2015). Critical argument and writer identity: Social constructivism as a theoretical framework for EFL academic writing. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 12(3), 184–207. doi:10.1080/1 5427587.2015.1060558 Morley-Warner, T. (2009). Academic writing is…: A guide to writing in a university context. Association for Academic Language and Learning. Oravec, J. A. (2003). Blending by blogging: Weblogs in blended learning initiatives. Journal of Educational Media, 28(2-3), 225–233. doi:10.1080/1358165032000165671 Özdemir, E., & Aydın, S. (2017). Blogging effect on English as a Foreign Language writing motivation: Blogging and writing motivation. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 7(2), 40–57. doi:10.4018/IJCALLT.2017040103 Park, G. (2013). Writing is a way of knowing: Writing and identity. ELT Journal, 67(3), 336–345. doi:10.1093/elt/cct012 Patton, M. Q. (1999). Enhancing the quality and credibility of qualitative analysis. HSR: Health Services Research, 34(5), 1189–1208. Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(4), 317–345. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2003.08.004 Qin, C. L. (2017). The impact of cultural thought patterns upon English writing. Cross-Cultural Communication, 13(10), 10–13. Quintero, L. M. (2008). Blogging: A way to foster EFL writing. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 10, 7–49. Rahimivand, M., & Kuhi, D. (2014). An exploration of discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 98, 1492–1501. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.570 Rezaee, A. A., & Oladi, S. (2008). The effect of blogging on language learners’ improvement in social interactions and writing proficiency. Iranian Journal of Language Studies, 2(1), 73–88. Rodriguez, R. R., Vazquez, A. M., & Trejo Guzman, N. P. (2011). Exploring writer identity in Mexican EFL students’ academic writing. Íkala, 16(2), 93-115. Scanlon, L., Rowling, L., & Weber, Z. (2007). ‘You don’t have like an identity… you are just lost in a crowd’: Forming a student identity in the first-year transition to university. Journal of Youth Studies, 10(2), 223–241. doi:10.1080/13676260600983684 Schneer, D. (2013). Rethinking the argumentative essay. TESOL Journal, 5(4), 619–653. doi:10.1002/ tesj.123

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Starfield, S. (2002). “I’m a second-language English speaker”: Negotiating writer identity and authority in sociology one. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 1(2), 121–140. doi:10.1207/ S15327701JLIE0102_02 Steinman, L. (2003). Cultural collisions in L2 academic writing. TESL Canada Journal, 20(2), 80–91. doi:10.18806/tesl.v20i2.950 Sun, Y.C., & Chang, Y.J. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 43–61. Sun, Y. C. (2009). Voice blog: An exploratory study of language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 13(2), 88–103. Tang, R., & John, S. (1999). The ‘I’ in identity: Exploring writer identity in student academic writing through the first person pronoun. English for Specific Purposes, 18, 23–39. doi:10.1016/S08894906(99)00009-5 Uysal, H. H. (2012). Argumentation across L1 and L2 writing: Exploring cultural influences and transfer issues. Vial. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9, 133–156. Wingate, U. (2012). “Argument!”: Helping students understand what essay writing is about. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 11(2), 145–154. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2011.11.001

ADDITIONAL READING Ağçam, R. (2015). Author stance in academic writing: A corpus-based study on epistemic verbs. The Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, 3(1), 9–20. doi:10.22190/JTESAP1501009A Chavez Muñoz, M. (2013). The “I” in interaction: Authorial presence in academIc writing. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 8(0), 49–58. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2013.1162 Chen, H. I. (2013). Identity practices of multilingual writers in social networking spaces. Language Learning & Technology, 17(2), 143–170. Jamali, M., & Najafpour Sani, H. (2015). Representation and construction of self in writing discourses. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 46, 77–98. doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ ILSHS.46.77 Kuhi, D., Azar, S. A., Shomoossi, A., & Shomoossi, N. (2012). Interaction markers in the written output of learners of English: The case of gender. Journal of Education, 1(2), 79–90. Matsuda, P. K., & Jeffery, J. V. (2012). Voice in student essays. In K. Hyland & S. G. Carmen (Eds.), Stance and voice in written academic genres (pp. 151–166). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137030825_10 McKinley, J. (2017). Identity construction in learning English academic writing in a Japanese university. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 14(2), 228–243.

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Tardy, C. M. (2016). Voice and identity. In P. K. Matsuda (Ed.), Handbook of second and foreign language writing. Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9781614511335-019

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Authorial Self: The presence of authors in the written text manifested through their authority in relation to the text content. Autobiographical Self: A display of writers’ personal life histories, values, and beliefs in written discourse that has an impact on their identity construction processes. Blog: A Web 2.0 tool, a regularly updated chronologically-designed website, that enables interactive and reflective engagement in knowledge construction and sharing in a blended collaborative learning environment. Coherence: A rhetorical device that establishes the connection of ideas including the development and support for arguments. Discoursal Self: The intentional or unintentional self-representation of authors to claim membership to a particular group they feel affliated with. Patchwork Writing: Displaying other authors’ voices in written discourse exclusively without acknowledging the source of information or giving credit to their work. Stance: The ways authors portray their presence in the text by expressing their own views and judgements. Writer Identity: The ways authors display their authentic voices in written discourse.

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APPENDIX 1 Table 1. The frequency of interactive and interactional markers in the reflective essays in line with Hyland’s (2010) interpersonal metadiscourse model Categories

Frequency of Markers

I.Interactive Markers

425

     · Transitions

230

     · Frame markers

100

     · Endophoric markers

25

     · Evidential markers

70

II.Interactional Markers

585

     · Hedges

60

     · Boosters

175

     · Engagement markers

205

     a) Reader pronouns

90

     b) Directives

100

     c) Rhetorical questions

15

     · Attitude markers

95

     · Self-mentions

50

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APPENDIX 2 Table 2. The main and sub-themes in the reflective journals and the semi-structured interviews Main and Sub-themes

Frequency of the Themes

     I. Autobiographical self (Presenting personal experience)

142

          A. Metaphors for the writer identities

20

     a) Writer as a curious explorer in an uncharted territory

12

     b) Writer as a bored soul in a straight jacket

8

          B. Article choice

30

     a) Topic familiarity

14

     b) Topics connected to daily life

16

          C. Style of writing

56

     a) Fluid written discourse

28

          i. Informative content with new perspectives

14

          ii. Intrinsic motivation for academic writing engagement

14

     b) Disorganized written discourse

16

          i. Coherence and unity problems

8

          ii. Extrinsic motivation for academic                     writing engagement

8

          D. Participants’ previous academic writing practices in L2

20

     a) Lack of engagement in L2 writing activities

10

     b) Limited engagement in L2 writing activities

10

     II. Discoursal self (Structuring the essay)

222

          A. Expert writer identity

71

     a) Extensive elaborations on the essay themes

16

     b) Justification of the arguments in the essay

14

     c) Promotion of reader engagement in the text

12

     d) Establishment of group membership in the text

14

     e) Use of boosters to promote the persuasion power of the written discourse

15

          B. New members of the academic community

40

               a) The pressure to be recognized as a member of an academic community

18

               b) Lack of familiarity with the written academic writing conventions

14

               c) Challenges with source documentation

8

     III. Authorial self (Making statements of value and beliefs)

26

     a) Reporter

14

     b) Biased judge

12

140

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Chapter 9

Second-LanguageWriting Skills: A Novel Look at Identity Sarah DeCapua University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA

ABSTRACT In this quantitative inquiry, instead of gathering data to answer a research question, the author developed a research question based on the data she gathered. As the author explored the answers the Chinese international students in her first-year writing seminar course provided on a second language background skills assessment, she became curious about what their answers revealed about their identities. Data collected consisted of 165 English skills assessments completed by her second language writing students over four semesters, from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. The skills assessed were speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar. Partial results indicated that the students assessed their speaking, listening, reading, and grammar skills as average; they assessed their writing skills as poor. The author explored the possible reasons behind the students’ self-assessments and how the students’ identities were expressed through their answers.

INTRODUCTION With China’s rapid economic development and the explosive growth of its middle class, that country now sends more students to study abroad in the United States than any other country in the world, with more than 351,000 students, representing just over one-third of the one million international students studying in this country during the 2016-17 school year (Institute of International Education, 2017), the most recent year for which statistics were available. “While these students are enrolled in large and small public and private institutions across the country, the majority are located in major public state schools, whose total international enrollments have doubled or quadrupled within the span of a few years” (Fraiberg, Wang, & You, 2017). Although colleges and universities in the United States concentrated their efforts on bringing this large population of international students to the United States, such instituDOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch009

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tions have struggled to respond to the dramatic impacts this changing demography places on campus life and, particularly, on pedagogy. As a result, a large body of literature exists addressing the unique needs, skills, and linguistic sophistication that Chinese international students bring to the classrooms of American college and universities. Scholars such as Fraiberg et al. (2017); Ma (2020); and Ning (2002) have written comprehensive examinations of the experiences of Chinese students in the United States. In the discipline of Composition/Writing Studies alone, Cai (2002); He and Niao (2015); Jingxia (2010); Kang (2008); Leedham (2016); Liu and Ni (2015); Nan (2012); Sang (2017); Sun (2014); Wang and Machado (2015); Yang (2016); Zhan (2015); and Zhang and Zhan (2020) are among the many scholars who have contributed to the growing canon that focuses on the presence of Chinese students in U.S.based writing programs. In her work on academic writing in general, Ivanič (2002) said writing is not just about creating content, but also about the representation of self. She posited, One of the reasons people find writing difficult is that they do not feel comfortable with the ‘me’ they are portraying in their writing. Academic writing in particular often poses a conflict of identity for students in higher education, because the ‘self’ which is inscribed in academic discourse feels alien to them. (p. xiii) This state of feeling “alien” can persist throughout students’ post-secondary careers (Burgess, 2010) and may hinder their writing progress (Arum & Roksa, 2010). Ivanič (2002), Burgess (2010), and Arum and Roksa (2010) focused the lens of their research on First Language (L1) writers. If representing the self feels “alien” to those L1 writers, it may seem truly daunting to some Second Language (L2) writers. L2 writers face myriad challenges that include insufficient preparation for academic writing (Jeffery, Kieffer, & Matsuda, 2013); academic and rhetorical traditions that differ from those of their L1 peers (Jwa, 2019); and a broad lack of knowledge on the part of instructors surrounding how L2 writers learn to write in English (Valdés, 1992). These and other challenges may combine to make the concept of consciously forming an identity through writing feel like an impossible task. For students who were raised in a collectivist culture (Hofstede, 1980), including Chinese students, establishment of individual identity may not be an active consideration, focused as they are on navigating the American university setting: understanding classroom work and assignments, managing teachers’ expectations, and acclimating to an unfamiliar culture, all while being thousands of miles away and 12 hours behind family and friends.

LITERATURE REVIEW In discussing issues of multilingual students’ identities, Fraiberg et al. (2017) contended there was a “need for closer insight into the ways that multilingual (translingual) and multimodal (transmodal) literacy practices of international students—inside and outside school-based contexts—mediate the development of their academic, disciplinary, and transnational identities” (p. 5). Ortmeier-Hooper (2008) showed that despite the fact that English may be a learner’s second language, many do not identify with the English as a Second Language (ESL) label because of previous institutional experience with the term. Marshall (2010) wrote,

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As students find themselves . . . identified by the institution and peers as ESL, SLW (second-language writer), multilingual, or even international, a distinction thus emerges between past and present senses of who you are (described in Joseph, 2004, p. 1, as how identity can be understood in the simplest terms) and what we might become (Hall, 1996, p. 4). The processes of identity construction of multilingual university students . . . are affected by a wide range of idiosyncratic and societal factors (self and society) (Marshall, 2010, p. 45). Giddens (1996) focused on self-identity as “a reflexively organised endeavour, involving a dialectical interplay of the local and the global,” and on “the capacity to keep a particular narrative going . . . the ongoing story of the self.” (pp. 5, 53–54) In their work on discourse and identity, Benwell and Stokoe (2006) suggested that Giddens’s emphasis on a “reflexive project of the self” is open to criticism due to the lack of focus on socialization, contexts, and history. Instead, they highlighted Butler’s (1990) view of identity as a discursive practice and as a performance characterized by nonessentialism, transience, and versatility (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006, p. 23, 33). Identities are also linked to specific social factors: broader political, economic, and historical context (Gal, 1988); access to resources, power, and privilege in a society (Norton, 1997); and social opportunity, political arrangements, relations of power, and language ideologies (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). With a focus on identity formation and academic writing, Ivanič (2002) used the term “discoursal identities” to refer to the different processes of identity formation that relate to learners and university writing: an autobiographical self built from life histories; a discoursal self, purposely constructed for a particular piece of writing; and an identity as an author. A similar focus can be found in Casanave (2002), who explored how the self is positioned within communities of practice and communities of academic writers. Marshall (2010) argued that “multilingual students . . . step tentatively into a space that carries a remedial deficit identity, and as they make their first steps they observe, identify, classify, and attach labels, developing and using a lexicon that serves the purpose of delineating difference between and within groups” (p. 46). He further maintained that the process of stepping into that deficit identity is both individual and societal: about who the student has been, is, and wants to become. It also relates to what a society/institution expects an individual to be and allows them to become/constrains them from becoming. The process is also reflexive (individually and institutionally) and discursive (in interaction with social and institutional discourses): individuals monitor and reflect on the discourses of the university and their interactions therein. In addition, the processes are transitional (between cultures, institutions, and communities of practice) and recursive (changing the processes of other individuals and resulting from and constituting/engendering change in social and institutional structures.) (p. 46) The experience of Chinese students is no different, regardless of whether they are considered to be in deficit positions by their institutions or by the programs of study in which they have enrolled. Instead, many programs, including writing programs, view the influx of Chinese international students as opportunities for reinvention of curricula, celebration of difference, and accommodation based on linguistic and cultural literacies and students’ backgrounds as learning resources. As a result, program administrators have developed asset-based approaches in which language and cultural differences are the foci for teaching and learning. However, Li (2006) pointed out that the challenge for teachers is not “simply about understanding cultural differences, but about reconceptualizing power differences and 143

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changing structural relations” (p. 3). Just as institutions, programs, administrators, and instructors seek to navigate the changes that high (and increasing) numbers of international students bring to the university environment, international students must attend to their own movement within and between language, institutional, geographic, and social borders. The language and identity approach to language teaching and learning has maintained that language constructs and is constructed by identities (e.g., Ochs, 1993) and that “second language learning in some respects involves the acquisition of a second identity” (Brown, 1992, p. 79). Research on language and identity in the field of second language education has explored issues such as teachers’ roles as cultural and linguistic negotiators and practitioners in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms (Duff & Uchida, 1997), the ways in which intonation engaged L2 speakers’ sense of self (Morgan, 1997), the discrepancies between how L2 students were institutionally identified with fixed categories and how they identified themselves in relation to institutional discourses (Thesen, 1997), the home language socialization practices of L2 children (Schecter & Bayley, 1997), and the investment in language and identity (Norton, 2000). Norton Peirce (1995) concluded that L2 learners invest when they learn the L2 and expect to have a good return on their investment, which will provide them with access to resources that are otherwise unattainable for them. McKay and Wong (1996) examined Chinese immigrant students’ investment in English in learner identities and concluded that “Chinese-language retention and strong English acquisition [exist] side by side” (p. 604); in other words, strong Chinese cultural identification and a strong desire to become American existed simultaneously. These multiple desires for both L1 and L2 and for both first and second identities can be in conflict with one another and are likely to change over time through interactions with others (Kramsch, 1998). L2 research has also explored how learners construct identities in online communication and negotiate memberships in the various communities in which they participate, including communities outside of school (e.g., Black, 2009; Bloch, 2007; Chen, 2013; Klimanova, 2013; Lam, 2000, 2004; PasfieldNeofitou, 2011; Sun & Chang, 2012). Clearly, much research has investigated identity issues among L2 students, but less research has focused specifically on identity issues surrounding Chinese college students in U.S. writing programs; this inquiry sought to contribute to that scholarship.

CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS This chapter’s author teaches at a large land-grant institution in New England, USA, with a sizable international student population at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In Fall 2017, the most recent year for which data were available, of the nearly 4,000 combined undergraduate and graduate international students enrolled at the main and regional campuses of the author’s institution, more than 60 percent came from China. More than half of those were undergraduates (L. Blansett, personal communication, February 11, 2020). The author did a small-scale quantitative inquiry, but it was not designed to answer a research question. Rather, the research question resulted from information the students provided on a worksheet called Second Language Writing Background Questions, originally developed by Reid (1998) as Sample Follow-Up Questions for ESL Student Writers (Appendix 1). As the author reviewed the students’ answers, the research question began to form: How do Chinese students in this writing course evaluate their English proficiency at the start of the course, and what do their self-evaluations reveal about their identity?

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The author began giving this worksheet to the international—majority Chinese—students enrolled in her First-Year Writing (FYW) course, which is dedicated to international students, on the first day of class in Fall 2018. The data were collected between Fall 2018 and Spring 2020 semesters. About 65 to 75 percent of incoming first-year students were advised to enroll in this course, based on standardized test scores (specifically, TOEFL) and writing samples (read double-blind) that were completed during International Student Orientation. The course she teaches occurs early in the First-Year Writing sequence; it introduces multilingual students to the rhetorical process. After successful completion of this course, students continue the First-Year Writing course sequence, where they are immersed in academic writing and multimodal composing, respectively. Initially, the author used the Second Language Writing Background Questions worksheet to enhance her understanding of the prior knowledge and English reading, writing, and comprehension experiences the students brought to her class. However, after the first semester of reviewing the students’ completed worksheets, she found herself drawn to their answers, particularly to Number Five (How would you evaluate your English language proficiency?). The author found those answers particularly fascinating because the answers to that question revealed to her how the students evaluated their own abilities. While the first three sections of the worksheet asked students merely for factual information (i.e., previous schooling and language learning, TOEFL scores, ESL class experience) to help the author identify the students’ competencies and needs, the fourth and fifth sections asked students reflective and evaluative questions, respectively (i.e., their experiences learning English and their self-evaluations of their English Language proficiency), revealing how they saw themselves. By reviewing their answers, particularly to Number Five, the author began to gain insights into how they judged their own English language proficiency in the areas of Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, and Grammar. The sample she investigated was small: Fifteen students in each of three sections of her writing for international students course in each of three semesters (Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019) completed the worksheet; fifteen students in each of two sections of the course in one semester (Spring 2020) completed the worksheet. The total number of completed worksheets was 165.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Question Number Five on the Second Language Writing Background Questions worksheet asked, “How would you evaluate your English language proficiency?” The categories of proficiency were: Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing1, and Grammar. Self-evaluation options were Excellent, Very Good, Average, and Poor. Table 1 shows the total number of answers the students provided for each category.

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Table 1. The total number of answers provided for each category Excellent

Very Good

Average

Poor

Speaking

17

32

87

29

Listening

17

47

76

25

Reading

0

37

105

24

Writing

0

26

98

41

Grammar

0

17

121

27

The author presents the results in aggregate for all course sections so readers can gain a perspective across all sections. The student demographics were the same across all sections of the course, so the author input the answers from all 165 worksheets into a spreadsheet and added the totals to determine the results, then used those results to create Table 1. Two results were most obvious here: 1) None of the students evaluated their skills in the categories of Reading, Writing, and Grammar as Excellent; 2) The students saw themselves as overwhelmingly average in all categories, especially Grammar and Reading, although Writing and Speaking were not far behind. A closer look at the results revealed that 80 of the 165 students (48 percent) evaluated themselves as Very Good in the categories of Reading, Writing, and Grammar. A higher number of students, 92 of the 165 students (55 percent), rated themselves as Poor in each of those same categories. For the overall results, in the category of Speaking, 49 students (29 percent) evaluated themselves as Excellent or Very Good at Speaking, but 116 students (70 percent) evaluated themselves as Average or Poor in that category. In the category of Listening, 64 students (38 percent) rated themselves as Excellent or Very Good, but 101 students (61 percent) evaluated themselves as Average or Poor. In the category of Reading, 37 students (22 percent) rated themselves as Very Good (none rated themselves Excellent), but 129 students (78 percent) evaluated themselves as Average or Poor. In the category of Writing, 26 students (15 percent) rated themselves as Very Good (none rated themselves Excellent), but 139 students (84 percent) evaluated themselves as Average or Poor. In the category of Grammar, 17 students (10 percent) rated themselves as Very Good (none rated themselves Excellent), but 148 students (89 percent) evaluated themselves as Average or Poor. Table 2 shows the order (from Excellent to Poor) the students ranked their skills in each category. Table 2. The order the students ranked their skills in each category Excellent

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Very Good

Average

Poor

1

Speaking

Listening

Grammar

Writing

2

Listening

Reading

Reading

Speaking

3

Reading

Speaking

Writing

Grammar

4

Writing (tied for third place with Reading)

Writing

Speaking

Listening

5

Grammar (tied for third place with Reading)

Grammar

Listening

Reading

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As a writing teacher, the results in the Writing category were most interesting to the author. Again, in that category, only 26 of 165 students (15 percent) evaluated themselves as Very Good (0 students rated themselves Excellent), while 139 students (84 percent) rated themselves as Average or Poor. Other Writing category results included: • • • •

Writing skills tied (with reading and grammar skills) for the last place in the Excellent category. Writing skills ranked fourth in the Very Good category. Writing skills ranked third in the Average category. Writing skills ranked first in the Poor category.

The author surmised that the students avoided choosing Excellent and Very Good because they believed their presence in a course designed specifically for international/Second Language Writer students identified them as academically deficient in the area of writing in English and, therefore, in need of “remedial” instruction.2 Scholars have criticized such siloing of international students/Second Language Writers as a deficit model of education (see García, Skutnabb-Kangas, & Torres-Guzmán, 2006; Lindahl, 2015; Marshall, 2010; Ortiz, 2001; Ortmeier-Hooper, 2008; Toohey, 1992). In other words, the author’s students, knowing the university writing program’s placement process had already identified them as in need of a writing course designed specifically for students whose home language is not English, evaluated themselves similarly, either consciously or subconsciously. Further, the Writing category results reflected the Chinese students’ lack of comfort with and confidence in their English writing skills when the course began. This lack of confidence in their writing skills may have reflected an overall lack of confidence regarding their relatively new exposure to American culture and the university education system, and their ability to succeed as university students. The discomfort related to integrating into the target culture may adversely affect student success, as reflected in the work of scholars including Gareis, 2012; Gareis et al., 2011; Tanaka, 2007 and Ward & Masgoret. Students’ own mindsets, or beliefs about whether the ability to learn a language is fixed or capable of being acquired through education (see Mercer & Ryan, 2009), may also have affected their levels of confidence. Closely aligned with the Writing category was the Grammar category. It was not surprising that the vast majority of students (89 percent) rated themselves Average or Poor in English grammar. Research has shown that students whose home language is not English express a need and desire for grammar instruction in the target language, in both the classroom and writing center contexts (e.g., Chuang, 2005; Mohan & Lo, 1985; Myers, 2003). The author did not correlate worksheet answers to the students’ success in the course as represented by final course grades; however, it appeared the Chinese students underestimated their abilities at the beginning of the course. A cursory investigation showed that students who rated their writing skills as Average or Poor received better than average final grades in the course. This result led the author to wonder if Chinese students entering First-Year Writing courses at her university underestimated their abilities, just as American students do (anecdotally speaking) when they attend higher education institutions that offer Directed Self-Placement (DSP). The author’s institution did not offer DSP at the time this inquiry took place, but she wondered then if doing so would affect the students’ answers on the worksheet. In other words, if the students placed themselves in an introductory course through the DSP process, would their worksheet answers reflect their pre-conceived judgment about their writing skills. Although international students at many institutions often assess their own learning ability, research has suggested that errors in self-assessment do occur: International students sometimes underestimate or 147

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overestimate their language ability (MacIntyre et al., 1997). Part of the reason for underestimating their English language competence is that L2 language anxiety may affect the students’ perceptions (Dörnyei, 1995; MacIntyre et al., 1997; Ready-Morfitt, 1991, as cited in Shang, 2013). Bandura (1988) wrote that perceptions of self-efficacy determine the amount of effort expended in pursuing a goal. In other words, students’ beliefs in their capabilities play a crucial role in their ability to learn how to write (Jones, 2008). Shang (2013) found, “When EFL learners have low self-efficacy of writing competence, they expend less effort, with less success” (p. 3). Shang (2013) also revealed that students became nervous when asked to write an English composition in class because they feared making mistakes in language forms (e.g., grammar and vocabulary). The effects of anxiety on foreign language learning have been well documented and that anxiety may have played a role if the author’s students underestimated their abilities when answering the Background Questions worksheet. The issues of discomfort with and lack of confidence in their English language skills, a focus on grammar correctness, and the presence of writing anxiety in the L2 as represented by the Second Language Background Questions worksheet results suggested that the Chinese international students in the author’s course were grappling with the most common issues encountered by international students recently arrived on U.S. campuses, instead of on consciously developing their identities. At that early stage of their college careers, they seemed to be considering how their past academic and personal experiences were informing their approach to the new context of an American writing classroom and negotiating how they would fit in to that context. Chang and Sperling (2014) wrote of similar “negotiated literacy” (Canagarajah, 2013, p. 61) by maintaining that L2 students make meaning of their learning and negotiate their group membership “based on the affordances and constraints of the contexts in which they find themselves, including cultural norms, social expectations, and institutional ideologies, as well as students’ goals, personal histories, and multiple identities” (p. 32). The students in this inquiry, being first- or second-semester (depending on whether the author gave them the worksheet in the Fall or Spring semester) university students still finding their way—both literally and figuratively—on a college campus, appeared to be in the peripheral position described by Lave and Wenger (1991) wherein learning takes place along the edges, or periphery, of a community through participation in the sociocultural practices of a location (in this case, an American university). Gradually, the learner became involved in more central and meaningful activities in the community. Thus, the newly acquired learning impacted the evolution of the learner’s identity. Lave and Wenger (1991) described this theory in relation to professional identities, but the author extended it to the students in her inquiry because, as professional students, they were in the process of learning through participation in the university community and acquiring the knowledge and experience that came from engaging in that community. However, being relatively new students on the campus, they were still in the peripheral location that Lave and Wenger (1991) described. Huhtala and Lehti-Ecklund (2012) maintained that “feeling, thought, and action are interdependent . . . [and] all of these are inseparably linked to each other” (p. 9). The Chinese students in the author’s courses clearly had pre-existing feelings about their abilities in English, thought about those feelings in relation to answering Question Five on the worksheet, and put those feelings and thoughts into the action of judging their own skills as they considered their effort to become members of a new community of practice. Additionally, Huhtala and Lehti-Ecklund (2012) argued that “for an L2 student the university context, the community of fellow students and teachers, as well as that of target language users are some of the contexts where students interact with others and go through identity development” (p. 15). However, the students in the author’s inquiry had not yet encountered the types of experiences Huhtala 148

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and Lehti-Ecklund (2012) described because the university context was still new to them. It was also possible that the students’ collectivist mindset (Hofstede, 1980; Ning, 2002) and discomfort with their new surroundings kept them interacting with their Chinese compatriots, and, thus, they had little interaction with the target language users. As a result, their identity as Chinese international students had not yet evolved to include a dual identity like the one McKay and Wong (1996) described, wherein Chinese cultural identification and a strong desire to become American existed simultaneously. Jones and Abes (2013) argued that identity is so complex that “no one theoretical framework can capture the complexity and present a complete picture” (p. 214). They, therefore, insisted that practitioners within higher education must find new and creative ways to incorporate multiple theories and perspectives into a blended understanding of college student identity development. This contention that college student identity development is multidimensional seemed closely related to the author’s own conclusions regarding the Chinese international students in her course. Despite the fact that Jones and Abes (2013) focused on domestic college students, their conclusion was generalizable to the international students in the author’s inquiry. Fraiberg et al. (2017) described the complex system of literacy and learning that took place among Chinese international students at a midwestern university, where the students negotiated the “social, cultural, and class divisions that were intensified by the perception of international students as operating in ethnic enclaves” (p. 3). The authors described the process by which Chinese students in any particular class identified “lords” (p. 98) and “scumbags” (p. 56) of learning. Lords of learning were those students who easily grasped the course content and were identified by their peers as experts who would help weaker learners. Scumbags were the weaker learners who relied on the lords to “carry” (p. 98) them in the course. The students formed online social media communities to collaborate and exchange course information. In other words, the students operated within their collectivist (i.e., familiar) space to negotiate the university, instead of extending themselves beyond their comfort zones to work within the new environment of what was to them a foreign university. Fraiberg et al.’s (2017) work was instrumental in informing the author in the ways that Chinese students at their university created, built, and maintained complex academic and social networks for the benefits that could be gained, both in the short-term, while they were in the university, and over the long-term, as they anticipated the connections they made during their university years would benefit them professionally and financially after they returned to China. What Fraiberg et al. (2017) described, then, was the retention of Chinese social, cultural, and identity norms, even as the students moved through the American university system. The author recognized in her own Chinese students much of what these authors described. The author’s newly arrived Chinese international students continued to rely on their Chinese identity, assigning roles of learning lords, collaborating and exchanging class information in an online social media platform, and generally operating within and among themselves with little or no interaction with American students—or even other international students whose home country wasn’t China—because they had not yet experienced the situations that result in an evolution of their identities. As a result, as Chinese-identifying students, they would likely consider their English abilities in the areas of Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, and Grammar as not yet existing at the level of proficiency they believed they needed to achieve. As new university students in a new culture, they relied on familiar social and academic systems, so perhaps they were unaware that they were avoiding immersion in the new culture, even as they created their own cultural space. They brought their Chinese identity with them and retained it, at least for the first two semesters when the author encountered them in her courses.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY This inquiry was not initially designed to be a study. Rather, the inquiry grew out of students’ responses to a worksheet that was originally intended only to gather background information about the author’s Chinese students’ academic histories and English language learning. Because the question of selfevaluation and identity grew out of the students’ answers, there are several ways the author would like to continue investigating students’ identities. The most obvious is to replicate this inquiry with a larger sample and over a longer period of time. Further, one of the foundational tenets of the author’s teaching is guiding students to the understanding that their opinions matter, that they have individual voices and their writing is a contribution to extant conversations. Many students, however, especially international ones who may have learned only to repeat information to instructors in order to achieve a desirable grade on a standardized test that will enable them to study abroad, opt instead to seek out traditional responses to their writing and, in so doing, to their identities in the university setting. According to Ivanič (1994), “writers’ opportunities, experiences, and encounters are shaped, enabled, and constrained by the social, economic, and cultural factors that reflect different access to discourses and identification with particular social groups” (as cited in Fernsten, 2008, p. 51). Building on this idea, Fernsten (2008) maintained, What many students . . . typically omit from . . . personal writer identities are the elements of access, ethnicity, race, dis/ability, and class that are implicated in these identity topics. These are not often part of writing class discourses in U.S. educational institutions. Although some educators would argue that mastering academic discourse is all that is important, part of learning for ESL speakers is acquiring the discourses needed to think and write about complex ideas. (p. 51) Indeed, the author’s own inquiry did not purposefully consider the students’ identities in the context of access, ethnicity, race, dis/ability, and/or class, making future inquiry that does account for these elements a desirable possibility. These considerations also make carrying out this inquiry at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) or Historically Black College or University (HBCU) an attractive option. Another possible direction for future study would involve creating a mixed-methods study in which the author gives the Second Language Writing Background Questions worksheet—or even just Question Five—to her students again, this time at the end of the semester. It would be interesting to see if the students’ answers on the worksheet change, and then follow up those end-of-semester worksheets with semi-structured interviews with volunteer participants to gain insights into how and why they evaluated their skills as they did, and if their self-evaluations changed as a result of changes in their perceptions of their English proficiency, as well as their identities, from the beginning of the semester to the end. A second mixed-methods study would be one that combines the Second Language Writing Background Questions worksheet with interviews in which the students themselves define what it means to be “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Average,” or “Poor” in each category (Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, Grammar). In other words, how do the students define each of these measures of ability? In the present inquiry, the students probably considered how the author, as the course instructor, defined each term; it is also possible that the students compared their abilities to those of native English speakers. With anxiety and uncertainty affecting their confidence, they may have underestimated their abilities because they did not possess a clear definition of how to judge themselves in each category. Pre- and

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post-worksheet semi-structured interviews to find out more about how and why the students evaluated their own abilities would illuminate their identities. Three more quantitative study possibilities exist. In one, the study would explore whether there is a correlation between Chinese students’ beliefs in their skill levels and their actual achievement in the course as reflected in final course grades. In other words, did students who rated themselves “Excellent” or “Very Good” in any of the five categories achieve higher grades in the course than those who rated themselves “Average” or “Poor”? In a second qualitative study that focused on course placement, the author would like to explore her supposition about the Chinese students identifying themselves as “Average” or “Poor” writers in English to see if there is a correlation between their self-evaluation and their placement in the course. Finally, the Chinese students in the author’s courses indicated a lack of comfort with and confidence in their English writing skills. The author would like to give them a worksheet similar to the one used in the inquiry on which they evaluate their writing skills in their native L1 (i.e., Standard Chinese, Mandarin, or Cantonese). The author surmises that the results between the two would be stark: Students would evaluate their competence in writing in their L1 as “Excellent” or “Very Good,” while they would judge their competence in writing in English, their L2, less so. The author would like to investigate if their results would support her supposition and, if so, what implications exist for students with high confidence in their L1 abilities versus low confidence in their L2 abilities. Specifically, the author would like to explore if and how the L1 abilities inform the students’ confidence in their L2 abilities.

CONCLUSION The inquiry described in this chapter occurred by accident. What began as merely a means by which to gather information about the author’s Chinese international students in an effort to understand their literacies through asking them to complete a first-day-of-class worksheet of Second Language Writing Background Questions turned into a four-semester-long investigation of how her students evaluated their own skills in the areas of Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, and Grammar in English. The author then began looking for patterns among those answers. Finally, the author explored whether those patterns revealed information about their international student identities. The inquiry reflected that the Chinese international students in the author’s FYW course believed their English language proficiency skills to be inadequate, perhaps because they were enrolled by the FYW program in a course specifically for international students. As a result, those students may have underestimated their skills as a result of being in a support course. The students’ self-evaluation of English language proficiency reflected their discomfort with and lack of confidence in their English literacy skills. Finally, the students retained their Chinese social, cultural, and identity norms for at least the first two semesters of their American university experience. Extant research supports these results, but further investigations of Chinese international students in the context of U.S. FYW courses is needed to continue this conversation. Although further research is needed, this inquiry has implications for the author’s pedagogy in the FYW course described in this chapter. First, while the Chinese international students expected to be enculturated into the standards of the American university system, students’ unique cultural identities should be considered in assignment design, response to students’ writing, and assessment. As students negotiate their L2 literacy through their writing, they are “learning to find the right balance between authorial intentions and community expectations, writers’ voices and readers’ uptake, writerly designs 151

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and audience collaboration” (Canagarajah, 2013). This process of negotiation should have a space in the writing classroom and inform the instructor’s writing pedagogy. Practical examples of ways to make space for international students’ negotiation include using low-stakes assignments such as blogs, vlogs, short in-class writing prompts, and small group work where students can experiment with language, their own as well as the target language. Second, in the area of identity, the students in this inquiry retained the identities they brought with them to the university. Insofar as research demonstrated that identity evolves over time (Jones & Abes, 2013; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Norton Peirce, 1995), there is likely little opportunity for FYW students to “try on” various identities and embrace or discard them during their first semester or two. Educators can utilize classroom practices that are inclusive of international students’ identities, such as designing assignments that draw on students’ lived experiences in their home countries that inform their approach to assignment completion. Practical examples of assignments that invite students to include their unique identities in their work include photos or audio-file essays in which students capture images or sounds that are related to a class reading about, for example, an environmental issue, then present those visual/ audio essays to the class, explaining how their images or sound files represent the environmental issue in their home community. Ramanathan and Atkinson (2011) contended, The twenty or so years of education and socialization [two components of identity] into particular ways of knowing and being in the world that international undergraduates bring with them to [American] . . . universities should not be considered insignificant or ruled out . . . any more than it should be considered the full measure of the person. What we know about cultures and their varying approaches to knowing, meaning, and being . . . should be seen as integral to . . . the individuality of the living, breathing, thinking, feeling, laughing, and crying human beings that we meet every day in our classrooms. (p. 185) Assignment suggestions like those above, as well as Ramanathan and Atkinson’s (2011) contention, support the author’s final pedagogical implication: That FYW instructors of international students should educate themselves in their students’ native cultures and individual identities. They can do this by, for example, asking the students appropriate questions about their lives outside of class/university or enlisting their aid in learning vocabulary from the students’ L1, which may boost the students’ confidence in their English literacy skills by showing them that their teachers care about who they are as people, instead of just as students.

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Gareis, E., Merkin, R., & Goldman, J. (2011). Intercultural friendship: Linking communication variables and friendship success. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 40(2), 153–171. doi:10.108 0/17475759.2011.581034 Giddens, A. (1996). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Polity. Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1–17). Sage. He, X. J., & Niao, L. N. (2015). A probe into the negative writing transfer of Chinese college students. English Language Teaching, 8(10), 21–29. doi:10.5539/elt.v8n10p21 Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Sage Publications. Huhtala, A., & Lehti-Ecklund, H. (2012). Language students and emerging identities. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 6(2), 5-17. Institute of International Education (IIE). (2017). A Quick Look at Global Mobility Trends. Washington, DC: IIE. Retrieved from https://www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors#.WMGiEaJT7Ms Ivanič, R. (2002). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins. Jeffery, J. V., Kieffer, M. J., & Matsuda, P. K. (2013). Examining conceptions of writing in TESOL and English Education journals: Toward a more integrative framework for research addressing multilingual classrooms. Learning and Individual Differences, 28, 181–192. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.11.001 Jingxia, L. (2010). Teachers’ code-switching to the L1 in EFL classroom. The Open Applied Linguistic Journal, 3(1), 10–23. doi:10.2174/1874913501003010010 Jones, E. (2008). Predicting performance in first-semester college basic writers: Revisiting the role of self-beliefs. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33(2), 209–238. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2006.11.001 Jones, S., & Abes, E. (2013). Identity development of college students: Advancing frameworks for multiple dimensions of identity. Jossey-Bass. Joseph, J. E. (2004). Language and identity: national, ethnic, religious. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230503427 Jwa, S. (2019). Transfer of knowledge as a mediating tool for learning: Benefits and challenges for ESL writing instruction. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 39, 109–118. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2019.04.003 Kang, J. (2008). Yingyu xiezuo zhong hanyu dui cihui de fu qianyi xianxiang [The negative transfer of Chinese on lexicons in English writing]. Yuyanxue yanjiu, 50(3), 50-53. Klimanova, L. (2013). L2 identity, discourse, and social networking in Russian. Language Learning & Technology, 17(1), 69–88. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford University Press.

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Lam, W. S. E. (2000). L2 literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 457–482. doi:10.2307/3587739 Lam, W. S. E. (2004). Second language socialization in a bilingual chat room: Global and local considerations. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 44–65. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511815355 Leedham, M. (2016, July). Chinese students’ writing in English: Implications from a corpus-driven study. ELT Journal, 70(3), 362–365. doi:10.1093/elt/ccw035 Li, G. (2006). Culturally contested pedagogy. SUNY Press. Lindahl, K. (2015, September 21). Power of words: Deficit discourse and ELLs [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.tesol.org/power-of-words-deficit-discourse-and-ells/ Liu, M. H., & Ni, H. L. Q. (2015). Chinese university EFL learners’ foreign language writing anxiety: Pattern, effect, and causes. English Language Teaching, 8(3), 46–58. doi:10.5539/elt.v8n3p46 Ma, Y. (2020). Ambitious and anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education. Columbia University Press. doi:10.7312/ma--18458 MacInty, P. D., Noels, K. A., & Clément, R. (1997). Biases in self-ratings of second language proficiency: The role of language anxiety. Language Learning, 47(2), 265–287. doi:10.1111/0023-8333.81997008 Marshall, S. (2010). Re-becoming ESL: Multilingual university students and a deficit identity. Language and Education, 24(1), 41–56. doi:10.1080/09500780903194044 McKay, S. L., & Wong, S. C. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review, 66(3), 577–608. doi:10.17763/haer.66.3.n47r06u264944865 Mercer, S., & Ryan, S. (2009). A mindset for EFL: Learners’ beliefs about the role of natural talent. ELT Journal, 64(4), 436–444. doi:10.1093/elt/ccp083 Mohan, B., & Lo, W. A. (1985). Academic wiring and Chinese students: Transfer and developmental factors. TESOL Quarterly, 19(3), 515–534. doi:10.2307/3586276 Morgan, B. (1997). Identity and intonation: Linking dynamic processes in an ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 431–450. doi:10.2307/3587833 Myers, S. (2003, Fall/Winter). Reassessing the “proofreading trap”: ESL tutoring and writing instruction. Writing Center Journal, 24(1), 51–70. Nan, F. (2012). Bridging the gap: Essential issues to address in recurring writing center appointments with Chinese ELL students. Writing Center Journal, 32(1), 50–63. Ning, Q. (2002). Chinese students encounter America. University of Washington Press. Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 409–429. doi:10.2307/3587831

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Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. Longman. Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. doi:10.2307/3587803 Ochs, E. (1993). Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26(3), 287–306. doi:10.120715327973rlsi2603_3 Ortiz, A. (2001). English language learners with special needs: Effective instructional strategies. Cal Digest, EDO-FL-01-08. Ortmeier-Hooper, C. (2008). English may be my second language, but I’m not “ESL.”. College Composition and Communication, 59(3), 389–419. Pasfield-Neofitou, S. (2011). Online domains of language use: Second language learners’ experiences of virtual community and foreignness. Language Learning & Technology, 15(2), 92–108. Pavlenko, A., & Blackledge, A. (2004). Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. Multilingual Matters. doi:10.21832/9781853596483 Ramanathan, V., & Atkinson, D. (2011). Individualism, academic writing, and ESL writers. In P. K. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom (pp. 165–191). Bedford/St. Martin’s. Reid, J. (1998). ‘Eye’ learners and ‘ear’ learners: Identifying the language needs of international student and U.S. resident writers. In P. Byrd & J. M. Reid (Eds.), Grammar in the composition classroom: Essays on teaching ESL for college-based students (pp. 3–17). Heinle. Sang, Y. (2017). Investigate the “issues” in Chinese students’ English writing and their “reasons”: Revisiting the recent evidence in Chinese academia. International Journal of Higher Education, 6(3), 1–11. doi:10.5430/ijhe.v6n3p1 Schecter, S. R., & Bayley, R. (1997). Language socialization practices and cultural identity: Case studies of Mexican-descent families in California and Texas. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 513–541. doi:10.2307/3587836 Shang, H. F. (2013). Factors associated with English as a foreign language university students’ writing anxiety. International Journal of English Language Teaching, 1(1), 1–12. Sun, X. H. (2014). Ungrammatical patterns in Chinese EFL learners’ free writing. English Language Teaching, 7(3), 176–183. doi:10.5539/elt.v7n3p176 Sun, Y., & Chang, Y. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 43–61. Tanaka, K. (2007). Japanese students’ contact with English outside the classroom during study abroad. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 13, 36–54. Thesen, L. (1997). Voices, discourse, and transition: In search of new categories in EAP. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 487–511. doi:10.2307/3587835

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Toohey, K. (1992). We teach English as a second language to bilingual students. In Socio-political aspects of ESL, (pp. 87–96). Toronto: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Valdés, G. (1992). Bilingual minorities and language issues in writing: Toward professionwide responses to a new challenge. Written Communication, 9(1), 85–136. doi:10.1177/0741088392009001003 Wang, P. Z., & Machado, C. (2015). Meeting the needs of Chinese English language learners at writing centers in America: A proposed culturally responsive model. Journal of International Students, 5(2), 143–160. Ward, C., & Masgoret, A. (2004). The experiences of international students in New Zealand: Report on the results of a national survey. Ministry of Education. Retrieved from http://mudface.net/IEC_NewZealandInternationalStudentExperience.pdf Zhan, H. F. (2015). Frequent errors in Chinese EFL learners’ topic-based writings. English Language Teaching, 8(5), 72–81. doi:10.5539/elt.v8n5p72 Zhang, F., & Zhan, J. (2020, May). Understanding voice in Chinese students’ English writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 45, 100844. Advance online publication. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100844

ADDITIONAL READING Bakla, A. (2020). A mixed-methods study of feedback modes in EFL writing. Language Learning & Technology, 24(1), 107–128. ClearinghouseW. A. C.University Press of Colorado. DOI: https://wac.colostate.edu/books/practice/ stories/ doi:10.37514/PRA-B.2020.0308 Kang, E., & Han, Z. (2015). The efficacy of written corrective feedback in improving L2 written accuracy: A meta-analysis. Modern Language Journal, 99(1), 1–18. doi:10.1111/modl.12189 Kerr, J. A., & Amicucci, A. N. (2020). Stories from first-year composition: Pedagogies that foster student agency and writing identity. Practices & Possibilities. The. Roozen, K., & Erickson, J. (2017). Expanding literate landscapes: Person, practices, and sociohistoric perspectives of disciplinary development. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press. Sang, Y. (2017). Investigate the “issues” in Chinese students’ English writing and their “reasons”: Revisiting the recent evidence in Chinese academia. International Journal of Higher Education, 6(3), 1–11. doi:10.5430/ijhe.v6n3p1 Seloni, L. (2018, January 18). Identity, voice, and the second language writer. Retrieved from: doi:10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0527 Starke-Meyerring, D. (2015). From ‘educating the other’ to cross-boundary knowledge-making: Global networked learning environments as critical sites of writing program administration. In Ed. David S. Martins, Transnational Writing Program Administration, (pp. 307-331). Logan: Utah State University Press.

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Yang, D. T. (2016). The pursuit of the Chinese dream in America: Chinese undergraduate students at American universities. Lexington Books.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Chinese International Students: Students who encountered most, if not all, of their K-12 education in China and are pursuing college or university education in a country other than China. English Proficiency: A student’s ability to communicate in English effectively, including through speaking, writing, reading, or listening. First Year Writing (FYW): A program of study that helps incoming students build on their skills and abilities to develop fundamental writing skills necessary in their university studies and in the wider world. Identity: The sense of self that is developed through lived experiences, relationships, values, and beliefs. L1: First language, or dominant language; the language the student primarily speaks at home. L2: Second language; a language learned by a person after learning the first language. Second Language Writers: Students who write in a second or non-dominant language for academic, personal, or professional purposes. Self-Assessment: The process of analyzing or evaluating oneself and one’s actions or abilities.

ENDNOTES 1



2



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The worksheet did not specifically refer to “Writing” as academic writing, nor did the author specify when she gave the worksheet to the students that they should consider “Writing” academic. Given that the worksheet was provided to students while they were assembled in an academic writing class, it was assumed that “Writing” did refer to academic writing, but the difference between academic writing and writing for other purposes and students’ perceived skills in them is an area for potential future inquiry. The course catalog description of this FYW course stressed that it is an introduction to the rhetorical process for emerging second-language writers and that students’ home languages and cultures are resources for discussing language and rhetoric in a global context. In other words, it is not considered a remedial course, but preexisting ideas regarding remediation persist among students and some faculty and administrators.

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APPENDIX 1 Second Language Writing Background Questions Name: _________________________________________________________ What is your English name? ________________________________________ 1. Is English your second (or third or fourth) language? _______________ a. What is your first language? _______________ b. List your previous schooling i. In your first language: grade ____ through grade ____ Total years _____ ii. In English: grade _____through grade_____ Total months/years _____ 2. Did you graduate from a U.S. high school? Yes ____ No ____ 3. If the answer to the last question is (Table 3) Table 3. ­ No

Yes

TOEFL score: _____

High school attended: _________________

TOEFL section scores:

Year of graduation: __________

Listening: _____

ESL classes taken:

Structure/written expression: _____

Hours each week: _____

Reading: _____

In grades ____ to ____

TWE: _____

Was your first language schooling interrupted? Yes ____ No____

Full-time English language study:

If yes, how long? _____

Yes____ No _____

Fluency in first language (high, medium, or low):

If yes, where? ___________

Speaking and listening: _____

For how long? _____

Reading: _____ Writing: _____

Please continue on the other side 4. How did you learn English? (Table 4)

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Table 4. ­ A Lot

Some

A Little

None

Studying grammar Listening to English speakers Practicing with language programs Reading English literature Watching U.S. movies Watching U.S. television Other: (Please specify)

5. How would you evaluate your English language proficiency? (Table 5) Table 5. ­ Excellent

Very Good

Average

Poor

Speaking Listening Reading Writing Grammar

Credit: Reid, J. (1998). “‘Eye’ learners and ‘ear’ learners: Identifying the language needs of international student and U.S. resident writers.” In P. Byrd & J.M. Reid (Eds.) Grammar in the composition classroom: Essays on teaching ESL for college-based students (pp. 3-17). New York: Heinle.

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Gender and Language: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Second Language Writing Didem Koban Koç Izmir Democracy University, Turkey

ABSTRACT The present study investigated gender differences in the use of linguistic features as well as the social meanings attached to those differences. Academic essays, written by 44 (22 male, 22 female) first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the English Language Teaching program at a government university were analyzed with respect to the use of linguistic features (adjectives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, linking adverbials) as well as the number of words and sentences used by the students. The results showed that, in comparison to males, females used more adjectives, intensifiers, and words. Males, on the other hand, used more empty adjectives and linking adverbials than females. Based on the results, pedagogical implications are discussed, and recommendations are provided in order to increase teachers’ awareness of gender differences and improve students’ writing skills.

INTRODUCTION The purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between gender and written language in English as a foreign language (EFL) setting from a sociolinguistic point of view. The role of gender in using a language has always been an important component of sociolinguistics. While some scholars (Longobardi et al., 2016; Newman et al., 2008) investigated how different gender groups form their identities through language in social contexts, some (i.e., Troia et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2019) examined the relationship between gender and academic achievement in educational contexts. Many scholars who conducted sociolinguistic research usually acknowledged three important studies: Jespersen’s (1922) pioneering book entitled “Language, its Nature, Development and Origin” (1922), Lakoff’s (1975) pivotal work on “Language and Woman’s Place” and Tannen’s (1990a; 1990b; 1994) “Genderlect Theory”. Jespersen’s (1922) book marked the beginning of a new era in sociolinguistics. In his chapter on “The DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch010

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 Gender and Language

woman”, Jespersen (1922) argued for linguistic differences in the speech of men and women. For example, he observed that while women used empty adjectives, intensifiers, and euphemisms more than men, men used more adverbs and impolite words than women. He stated that: The vocabulary of a woman as a rule is much less extensive than that of a man. Women move preferably in the central field of language, avoiding everything that is out of the way or bizarre, while men will often either coin new words, or expressions, or take up old-fashioned ones, if by that means they are enabled, or think they are enabled, to find a more adequate or precise expression for their thoughts. (p. 248) Lakoff (1975), based on analyses of how she and her acquaintances spoke and how television programs and commercials were presented, identified a variety of linguistic features that women used more than men. According to the author, women used empty adjectives (adorable, lovely), tag questions (he’s eating a desert, isn’t he?), hedging (it seems like, kind of), polite forms (would you mind…?), correct grammar, color terms, intensifiers (so, very, really), modals (should, could), wh- imperatives (Why don’t you…?), and declarative statements to ask questions. Women also avoided impolite language, apologized more than men, and lacked a sense of humor. These usages, according to the author, were the result of male dominance and unequal power relations between males and females. As she (1973) explained: Our use of language embodies attitudes as well as referential meanings. [...] In appropriate women’s speech, strong expression of feeling is avoided, expression of uncertainty is favored, and means of expression in regard to subject-matter deemed ‘trivial’ to the ‘real’ world are elaborated. [...] The personal identity of women thus is linguistically submerged; the language works against treatment of women, as serious persons with individual views. (p. 45) Tannen (1990b), on the other hand, emphasized that the language used by men and women was affected by the ‘culture’ to which they have been exposed. This, according to Tannen (1990b) resulted in ‘cross-cultural’ miscommunication in conversations. For example, Tannen (1990b) observed that when women talked to their female friends, they often interrupted each other. This behavior, which Tannen (1990b) called “participatory listenership” (p. 3), did not cause any problems among women; however, men perceived it as interruption and lack of attention. Another observation was concerned with the amount of talking that men and women did. According to Tannen (1990b), while men were more talkative than women in public, women talked more than men at home. Although Lakoff’s (1975) and Tannen’s (1990a; 1990b; 1994) observations contributed to sociolinguistic research, they remained as insufficient theories in regard to explaining why men and women behave linguistically different from each other. One of the major problems with these studies was that men and women’s speech behavior was in fact examined in isolation, which led to stereotypes about men and women. Recognizing this problem, scholars (e.g. Eckert et al.,1999; Cameron, 2005; Okamoto & Smith, 2004) focused on interactional contexts, in other terms, communities in which speakers interact and engage in the activities with other speakers, along with speakers’ ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, age, and culture. In these communities, they directed their attention to “how and when language use constructs gender difference as a social category rather than understanding how sex or gender shaped language use” (Higgins, 2010, p. 245). Analyzing interactions between men and women in communities in which they lived or worked gave scholars more rational results as to how, when and why men and women behave the way they do. For instance, Goodwin (1990) observed how African-American boys 162

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and girls behaved in a variety of games using speech activities such as directives, stories, and arguments. Her results showed that while girls and boys behaved linguistically the same in some activities, they behaved differently in others. The above-mentioned influential theories and hypotheses gave way to many qualitative and quantitative studies that examined gender differences in language from different perspectives. Although there are solid published sociolinguistic studies that analyzed the influence of gender on written language produced in the native language, studies addressing the same topic in EFL settings are still scarce. As will be mentioned in the review of the literature, many studies did not go beyond identifying the differences between men and women in language use. The study is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature by examining how gender identities are reflected on the EFL learners’ use of certain linguistic features (e.g. adjectives, linking adverbials, intensifiers, empty adjectives and so on) in writing. The uniqueness of the study is its analysis of gender as a social rather than an individual characteristic. The findings will shed light on how identities of gender influence the way learners use linguistic features in their writing and provide further information about improving the writing skills of students in EFL classrooms. The following section provides a review of previous research conducted on gender differences in language use. The section entitled ‘the present study’ provides the research questions and information about the participants, setting, data collection, and an analysis of the results, which lead to solutions, recommendations and a conclusion of the findings.

BACKGROUND In the literature, while some researchers were interested in only identifying the differences between men and women in using a language, some took the research one step further and also studied differences from a sociolinguistic perspective. When the differences between males and females were considered, the results of a number of comprehensive studies showed that females outperformed males especially with respect to writing quality, writing ability, frequency of writing, and the processes they used when writing essays. Most of these studies were large-scale studies that focused on the writing portions of standardized national and international exams and included nearly or more than a thousand participants. For example, according to one of the most comprehensive studies (U.S. Department of Education, 2008) conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences on the relationship between gender and writing performance by eight and 12 graders, females composed better quality narrative, persuasive, and informational essays on the National Assessment of Educational Progress between 1998 and 2007. Malecki and Jewell (2003) analyzed the differences between males and females with respect to their writing performance on a short standardized test, which measured academic skills. The participants’ performance was measured according to the number of words used, number of correctly spelled words, and correct use of writing sequences. The participants were 946 students selected from first through eighth grade in five different schools located in Illinois, U.S. The students were asked to write a text in three-minutes. An analysis of the texts showed that female students outperformed males regarding performances in all categories; in addition, as students had gotten older, they had outperformed the younger ones in all categories. Along similar lines, Troia et. al. (2013) tested the effects of gender on writing motivation, writing activity, and writing performance by analyzing narrative essays written by 618 students who were between grades 4-10 (grade 8 was not included in the study). The results showed that female students performed at a higher rate than males in terms of writing quality, writing ability, and frequency of writing activity. 163

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Recently, Scheiber et al. (2015) analyzed the effects of gender on achievement in different academic fields such as math, reading, and writing. The data were collected from a total of 1,574 students who ranged in age from 6 to 21 years. The Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement was used to collect the data. The writing portion of the exam required the students to write and edit a newsletter, expressing their ideas in writing. The authors found a significant difference between males and females in terms of their writing skills, that is, females performed better than males in writing. Further, the authors drew attention to the fact that the gap between males and females widened as they became older. To improve the writing skills of males and increase their motivation in writing, the authors recommended strategies such as providing explicit instruction in writing and selecting writing topics that could increase male students’ motivation to write. Similar findings were reported in a more recent study conducted by Zhang et al. (2019) who have investigated whether or not there was a difference between males and females in terms of the writing processes they employed when writing online. The processes involved fluency, editing, and planning. The data were collected from a total of 2.619 students who were in grades sixnine and enrolled in 27 schools in eight states in the U.S. The students were asked to write six essays involving two subgenres on the computer. The essays were analyzed in terms of writing essentials such as structure, coherence, phrasing and written conventions as well as quality, development of argument, and audience awareness. To determine the rate of fluency, editing and planning, the authors conducted an analysis of the recordings of the keys struck on a keyboard. The results showed that there were differences between males and females, with females scoring higher in writing than males. There were also differences between the two gender groups with respect to their writing processes. Female students composed their essays more fluently, did more editing, and paused less during writing than males. The authors concluded that the differences did not depend on the level of writing proficiency, but rather on gender. Studies were also carried out in non-educational contexts with different population groups. For instance, Roth et al. (2010) investigated the relationship between gender differences and three kinds of abilities such as self-concept, social, and writing skills. Data were collected from a total of 283 males and 44 females who were applying for a Civil Engineer managerial position at a transportation company. The participants were asked to take a work sample test that included tasks similar to those performed on the job. The results showed that the females outperformed the males with respect to social and writing skills. The results, however, could not be generalized to other populations due to the fact that the study involved only one sector. Therefore, the authors recommended including other areas of industry in future studies. Some studies, however, showed contrasting results. For instance, Kaufman et al. (2004) investigated whether students’ general writing ability was affected by race/ ethnicity and gender. The data were collected from eight grade students who were of different ethnic origins such as African American, Caucasian, Asian, and Latino/a. The students wrote a total of 103 poems, 104 fictional stories, and 103 personal narratives, which were analyzed through the Consensual Assessment Technique used to determine the creativity of the students’ written language. The results showed that there was not any significant difference between males and females with respect to creativity. In a later study, Massey et al. (2005) analyzed the writing portion of public examinations taken by 16-year-old students in the UK. The findings demonstrated that gender differences did not have a significant effect on writing patterns. This result was confirmed in a more recent large-scale study conducted by De Smedt et al. (2018) who determined whether there was a relationship between cognitive and motivational factors and writing achievement. The effect of gender on writing performance was also analyzed. Participants were fifth and sixth grade students enrolled at elementary schools in Belgium. There were a total of 1,577 participating students. Based on their teacher’s judgment, the students were categorized as average, low, and high achievers. 164

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Data were collected via the Self-efficacy for Writing Scale, the Self-Regulation Questionnaire–Writing Motivation and a questionnaire to determine the students’ planning and revising writing strategies. The results showed that there was not any significant difference between boys and girls with respect to the three variables analyzed. The study was not without any limitations. One important limitation was its use of self-report questionnaires, which according to the authors might have led students to overestimate their writing skills just to give the desired responses. In order to prevent this from happening in future studies, the authors recommended the use of other types of measures such as pen movements, thinkaloud measures or keystroke logging. Other studies demonstrated that males outperformed females with respect to e.g. constructing paragraphs. For instance, in a large-scale study, Jones and Myhill’s (2007) investigation into 700 essays written by teenagers revealed that the boys had better paragraph organization, that is, their topical organization and constructing of topic sentences were better than those of the girls. However, it was also found that boys wrote longer sentences that lacked coherence and longer paragraphs, which led them to stray off the topic. In regard to the studies conducted in the Turkish context, which the present study focuses on, not many studies dealt with the effect of gender on language use. Çiçek (2016) analyzed the effect of gender on the type of words and number of words used. The participants were 10 eighth grade students of which 5 were males and the other five were females. The researcher had the participants write three essays each. The participants used free writing. A total of 30 essays were examined. The results showed that female students used more nouns than their male peers. In another study, Yıldız-Çiçekler (2007) analyzed the usage of adjectives, adverbs, and sentence structures in the stories of six-seven-year-old children enrolled in public schools in the west part of Turkey. Seventy-two children (36 girls and 36 boys) participated in the study. The effects of social variables such as age, gender, and socio-economic status on the usage of the above-mentioned linguistic features were also analyzed. The results showed that the girls used more demonstrative and indefinite adjectives than the boys and the boys used more quantitative adjectives and adverbs than the girls. The authors did not explain the reasons why certain structures were favored by girls and boys. As was discussed above, another line of research involving gender and language considered the social reasons underlying the linguistic behaviors unique to men and women. For example, Kanaris (1999) examined boys’ and girls’ written language from a sociolinguistic perspective. The author analyzed the use of linguistic features such as adjectives and verbs, as well as the number of words and sentences used by a total of 54 primary school children who were between the ages of eight and 10. The results showed that girls used a variety of verbs and adjectives, and wrote longer and more complex sentences than boys. Boys’ writing, on the other hand, turned out to be more egocentric than girls, that is, boys used first-person singular pronoun more than girls. Based on the present and previous results, which found that girls are better writers than boys, the author drew attention to the fact that just because boys lacked writing skills that they will not succeed in other areas. Kanaris (1999) pointed out that: Society places different values on the types of literacy boys and girls are good at: the skills developed by perfecting narrative writing and developing more traditional literacy competency are not valued, particularly in the world of work, and as such boys’ lower levels of competency in this area seems to be of little concern. Boys are in fact the ones advantaged in the world of work because of their other, often very highly developed, literacy skills, skills that do not threaten their position as masculine. (p. 266)

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In a large-scale study, Newman et al. (2008) examined written and spoken texts written by a total of 14.324 authors of which 5.971 were males and 8.353 were females. The texts involved concepts related to emotion, fiction, time management, and conversation. The researchers found that women used words associated with thoughts, emotions, negations, and present and past tense verbs more than men. Men, on the other hand, used numbers, articles, prepositions and swearwords more than women. Furthermore, women used more words than men. In a recent study, Ishikawa (2015) analyzed argumentative essays written by males and females. The author investigated whether or not there were gender differences with respect to the use of vocabulary items and the frequency with which the lexical items were used by males and females. The data were collected from 100 native speakers of English who were between the ages of 19 and 29. Fifty-six males and 44 females participated in the study. The results showed that while females used more pronouns, intensifiers and modifiers than males, males used more nouns related to social and economic events than females and focused on words related to time and place. According to the author, females’ extensive use of pronouns resulted from their interests in persons rather than any other information, and their uses of intensifiers and modifiers were derived from their desire to give vague messages. Males’ usage of nouns, on the other hand, was associated with their interests in certain economical and social topics. Studies also focused exclusively on the use of adjectives and intensifiers by women. For example, Jespersen (1922) argued that females were fond of using intensifiers like so. According to him, the reason for this usage is that “…women much more often than men break off without finishing their sentences, because they start talking without having thought out what they are going to say” (p. 250). Recognizing the neglect of quantitative analysis of gender differences in the use of intensifiers or words carrying emotions, Tagliamonte (2005) explored the use of intensifiers found in the transcripts of the television series ‘Friends’. More than 9.000 adjectives that can be used with intensifiers were extracted from the corpus. The authors, focusing on the most frequently used intensifiers such as ‘so’, ‘really’, and ‘very’, reported that the female characters used ‘so’ and ‘really’ more than the males. The author attributed this result to the usage of more emotional language by women. Further analyses showed that the female characters used ‘so’ with emotional adjectives more than the males whereas the males used more “very” with emotional adjectives. The following examples in which ‘so’ modifies the adjective ‘sorry’ and ‘really’ modifies ‘freaked’ are taken from Tagliamonte (2005, p. 289). 1. I’m so jealous you’re all going! I can’t believe I never knew that you can’t fly in your third trimester. [Phoebe]. 2. And then I got really freaked. [Rachel] Xiao and Tao (2007) examined the effects of a variety of social variables such as age, education level, gender, audience gender, register, and publication date on the use of 33 intensifiers in the spoken and written texts found in the British National Corpus (BNC). The results showed that intensifiers were more frequently used in speech than writing. Moreover, women used intensifiers, such as ‘really’, ‘very’ and ‘quite’, more frequently than men in instructional writing. The authors attributed this result to the fact that women are more likely to express themselves emotionally and socially. The language used by males and females when using blogs, WhatsApp, or social media has also attracted the attention of several researchers. For example, in a qualitative study, Amir et al. (2012) examined the differences between males and females in terms of the language they used in blogs. The participants were teenagers living in Malaysia. The authors examined diaries in which the participants 166

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wrote about their daily lives. The results showed that females used intensifiers, hedging, tag questions, empty adjectives and adverbs at a higher rate than males. The authors attributed this result to gender. A similar study (Mat Ali et al., 2016), which also investigated language use in blogs showed differences between males and females regarding the use of adjectives, intensifiers, length of sentences, and hedges, however, these differences were at a minimal level.

THE PRESENT STUDY Research Questions The present study investigated the relationship between gender and language with a focus on essays written by EFL learners. The study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. Is there a significant difference between male and female EFL students with respect to the quantity of linguistic features used in written language? 2. What kinds of social meanings are associated with the linguistic features used by both genders? Based on the findings of previous studies, it was hypothesized that female students would use more adjectives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, and linking adverbials and produce more words and sentences than males.

Methodology Participants, Setting, and Data Collection The present study received approval from the Research Ethics Committee of the university in which the research has taken place. The research took place in the Department of Foreign Languages Education of a government university in Turkey. The participants were first-year undergraduate students who were enrolled in the English Language Teaching Program, which accepts students based on their nationwide college entrance exam scores. If students do not have sufficient English skills upon enrolling in the above-mentioned program, they take additional English language courses at the Preparatory School of the university for about a year. Most of the students in the present study had taken English classes at the Prep School. The students were expected to be English language teachers upon the completion of their studies in the English Language Teaching program. The students ranged in age from 18 to 20 and came from similar socio-economic backgrounds. All of the students were Turkish. The data were collected at the beginning of the Spring semester of 2020, during a class session. The data were collected from 44 students of whom 22 were males and 22 were females. The students were asked to write an opinion essay responding to a prompt about the importance of college education. In their essay, they were asked to support their claims with evidence or examples drawn from what they have read, learned in school, and/or personally experienced. They were expected to write at least 200 words. The students had 90 minutes to complete their essays in the classroom.

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Data Analysis and Results The first research question explored whether there was a significant difference between males and females regarding the quantity of linguistic features used. The linguistic features were categorized into linking adverbials (enumeration/addition, summation, apposition, result, contrast, transition etc.), adjectives (quantitative, demonstrative, possessive, and distributive), intensifiers (so, really, very, real), and empty adjectives. Number of words and sentences were also calculated. The features were first identified and extracted manually by the help of a native speaker of English currently working as an English language instructor in the US. Then, type-token ratios (TTR) regarding the adjective, empty adjective, intensifier and adverbial usages were calculated. TTR is calculated by dividing the total number of different words (types) by the total number of words (tokens) (Thomas, 2005). The following Table shows the TTRs for the use of linguistic features used by males and females. The ratios are shown as percentages. Table 1. Usage rate of linguistic features by males and females Linguistic Feature

Adjective Empty adjective Intensifier Linking Adverbial

Groups

Number of Tokens

Number of Types

Percentage of the Type With Respect to the Tokens

Female

6.540

636

9.7

Male

5.583

525

9.4

Female

6.540

30

0.4

Male

5.583

56

1.0

Female

6.540

17

0.25

Male

5.583

4

0.07

Female

6.540

302

4.6

Male

5.583

281

5.0

As the above Table shows, the females used adjectives and intensifiers at a higher rate than the males. However, this was not the case with the use of empty adjectives and adverbials, that is, the males used more empty adjectives and adverbials than the females. To determine whether there were significant differences between the gender groups in terms of the four variables, independent-samples t-tests were conducted. The results were significant with respect to the use of empty adjectives only. The males used empty adjectives (M=.010, SD=.010) at a significantly higher rate than the females (M=.005, SD=.005), t (42)=-2.088, p = 0.04. The other variables did not turn out to be significant between the gender groups. Below are some examples taken from the participants’ essays. The examples contain adjectives, adverbials, intensifiers, and empty adjectives, which are shown in italics. Ex. 1: “I think it is important mainly because of two reasons” (Male #23). Ex. 2: “On the other hand, you develop your self-esteem” (Male #25). Ex. 3: “If you want to have a good job, then you have to graduate from a university” (Male #30). Ex. 4: “Thanks to these programs, you can go abroad and you can study there” (Female #1). Ex. 5: “Also, you make a lot of friends and you can always go there whenever you want” (Female #12).

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Ex. 6: “This makes it easier to find a good profession” (Female #17). Ex. 7: “The same research shows 63% of addicted people say they would not have started to any addictive drugs” (Male #29). Ex. 8: “Some important people have never gotten college education” (Male #31). Ex. 9: “Statistics show that college education can lead to a good social life but it cannot bring a fancy life all the time” (Female #25). Ex. 10: “Do you think why our educational level is so low?” (Female #1) Ex. 11: “This opportunity is very great for us because we can gain very important chance for developing ourselves” (Female #8). An independent samples t-test was conducted to determine whether there was a difference between the males and females with respect to the total number of words used in the essays. The independent variable was gender and the dependent variable was the number of words. Table 2. Independent Samples T-Test: Number of words used by males and females Groups

N

M

SD

Female

22

297.23

66.2

Male

22

244,41

67,5

p < .05

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the two gender groups, that is, the females used words at a significantly higher rate than the males. Another independent samples t-test was performed to explore the relationship between gender and the number of sentences used by the participants. Although the females (M = 19.1, SD = 6.04) used more sentences than the males (M = 15.6, SD = 5.9), this difference was not significant, t(42) 1.91, p = 0.06.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS In the present study, male and female EFL students were compared in terms of their use of linguistic features such as adjectives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, and linking adverbials as well as the number of sentences and words used in their essays. An opinion essay was employed for the study. Two research questions were explored concerning whether there were differences between males and females regarding the above-mentioned variables and if those differences carry any social meanings. The results showed that female students used more adjectives than males. This finding is consistent with the previous studies documenting that females used more adjectives when writing (Kanaris, 1999; Yıldız-Çiçekler, 2007; Wardhaugh, 2006; Halpern, 2012; Mat Ali & Krish, 2016). The advantage that female students showed with respect to the use of adjectives can be due to the fact that females have high verbal skills (Scheiber et al., 2015; Roth et al., 2010) and tend to express their emotions and describe situations by using a variety of words. The study results also showed that male students used more empty adjectives and linking adverbials than the females. This was a surprising result because

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previous studies found that the use of these linguistic features was unique to females, in general. Thus, this result does not support the findings of previous studies, which demonstrated that women’s speech consists of more empty adjectives than men (Jespersen, 1922; Lakoff, 1973; 1975). It is important to note that most researchers reached such conclusions by examining the spontaneous speech of women and men. The present study, on the other hand, focused on academic essays written by prospective English language teachers. Therefore, it can be said that female students avoided the use of empty adjectives and instead preferred to express their thoughts and feelings precisely. Further, the result that the females used more intensifiers than the males partially supports previous studies conducted by Jespersen (1922) and Tagliamonte (2005). Jespersen (1922) argued that women usually start out their sentences by using the intensifier ‘so’ and prefer not to complete their sentences when speaking. Tagliamonte (2005), on the other hand, concluded that women used ‘so’ and ‘really’ with adjectives related to emotions. Since the present study focused on academic essays, the females avoided using emotional verbs. Finally, a significant difference between males and females was observed only with respect to the number of words used in the essays. This result is in line with the earlier studies (Kanaris 1999; Newman, et. al. 2008; Malecki & Jewell, 2003). In order to better address gender differences in language use in the classroom, it is important that teachers and instructors of foreign languages should, first of all, be knowledgeable about the fact that gender identities can influence the way males and females use language in writing and speaking. According to Higgins (2010), instructors lacking such knowledge may have a negative attitude towards students who prefer to use linguistic features based on their gender identities and may praise those who use standard norms in a language. Therefore, prospective language teachers and pre-service teachers should receive training with respect to how different gender groups use a language. Furthermore, while teachers should allow students to express themselves freely in writing, they should also enable students to use words that are commonly used in academic texts. For example, teachers can provide a list of vocabulary items that students can use instead of empty adjectives. Of course, one should not wait to give such training to EFL students until they start going to college. School administrators and teachers need to ensure that students master the skill of writing at the secondary and high school level. Unfortunately, in Turkish public schools, language teachers mostly focus on grammatical structures rather than listening, speaking or writing. The teaching of English is geared towards preparing students for the nation-wide university exam, a multiple-choice exam-based mostly on grammar. The result regarding the insufficient number of words used by males is also noteworthy. Most of the male students did not meet the length requirement of at least 200 words. There are several ways that teachers can help male students to increase the amount of words when writing. For example, through explicit teaching, teachers can expand students’ vocabulary knowledge by exposing them to academic essays and draw their attention to commonly used academic words, multiword phrases as well as supporting details. Another effective way to improve students’ verbal skills is to help them develop competency in intensive and extensive reading. Teachers should help students acknowledge that quality writing depends on the amount of reading performed inside and outside of the classroom. Exposing students to a variety of reading genres, in particular, can help them analyze different strategies and structures that authors use. This way, students can apply them in their own writing. Below are some writing activities that teachers can make use of in their classrooms. •

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Writing Task 1 (Creative Writing): In this creative writing activity, students form groups of four or five. They read the first part of a story called “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

 Gender and Language

After they read the passage, they are supposed to complete the phrase starting with “One dark winter night…” by adding one more sentence. Each student in the group adds a sentence and passes the story to another student in his/her group so that they can read it through and add more sentences. The students are encouraged to use adjectives when building up their stories. After the groups complete their stories, one student from each group reads their group’s story to the whole class. The students then can read stories other than their own to check for accuracy and fluency. Every night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlor of the George at Debenham - the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four would be each planted in his own particular armchair. Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously, and a man of some property, since he lived in idleness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while still young, and by a mere continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman. His blue camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the churchspire. His place in the parlor at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous, disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham. He had some vague Radical opinions and some fleeting infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and emphasize with tottering slaps upon the table. He drank rum - five glasses regularly every evening; and for the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic saturation. We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of his character and antecedents. (One dark winter night… (Stevenson, n.d)) •

Writing Task 2 (Fill-in-the-blanks): This activity involves a reading passage taken from the New York Times. Students are asked to fill in the blanks with the linking adverbials in the box. The words can be used more than once. (New York Times, James Gorman)

Table 3. ­ As if Not to mention But Not only…. but also So It seems like Even though Or However

Whisky Knows Her Toys There’s something about a really smart dog that makes it seem ________ there might be hope for the world. China is in the midst of a frightening disease outbreak and nobody knows how far it will spread. The warming of the planet shows no signs of stopping; it reached a record 70 degrees in Antarctica last week. ________ international tensions and domestic politics.

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________ there’s a dog in Norway that knows ________ the names of her toys, ________ the names of different categories of toys, and she learned all this just by hanging out with her owners and playing her favorite game. ________ who knows what other good things could be possible? Right? This dog’s name is Whisky. She is a Border collie that lives with her owners and almost 100 toys, ________ it seems like things are going pretty well for her. ________ I don’t have that many toys myself, I’m happy for her. You can’t be jealous of a dog. ________ at least you shouldn’t be. Whisky’s toys have names. Most are dog-appropriate like “the colorful rope” ________ “the small Frisbee.” ________, her owner, Helge O. Svela said on Thursday that since the research was done, her toys have grown in number from 59 to 91, and he has had to give some toys “people” names, like Daisy or Wenger. “That’s for the plushy toys that resemble animals like ducks or elephants (because the names Duck and Elephant were already taken),” he said. During the research, Whisky proved in tests that she knew the names for at least 54 of her 59 toys. (Gorman, 2020). •

Writing Task 3 (Writing a review for a movie): This activity is designed to help students practice the use of adjectives. First, the students are presented with several reviews written for the movie called “Parasite”. The reviews are taken from “Rotten tomatoes”, which is one of the most reliable sources that gives accurate ratings to TV shows and movies. The students read the reviews and underline all types of adjectives. Then they write their own reviews for a movie that they have recently seen. When writing their reviews, they are encouraged to use the following adjectives commonly used in the reviews.

Table 4. ­ Provocative hilarious romantic amusing uplifting beautiful Perfect surprising compelling inspiring (un)realistic overrated Fascinating predictable badly-acted powerful disappointing poignant Tense humorous entertaining overacted breathtaking captivating Amusing complex original

Sample Critic Reviews for “Parasite” Bong delivers a stunning return to form with this newest venture. An imaginative comedy-thriller with darkness at its core. If the movie is a Rorschach of who you identify as parasite and host, it’s a test you’re just as likely to fail; a filmgoing experience that refuses to fit into any box, and forces viewers to breathe the dangerous air outside of it too.

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Let’s just say that by “Parasite’s” conclusion, what started out as a comedy of manners has become a furious snarl of rage and his most arresting social satire yet. Even if its social message about culture and class (Alfred-Hitchcock-by-way-of-Karl-Marx) is laid on too thick in the end, this Parasite slithers most agreeably. It isn’t an easy ride, and as with life in the non-metaphorical world, the destination is uncertain. You’ll see strange and wonderful things along the way. Parasite surprised me over and over. I constantly had no idea what was going to happen next. But what did happen was amazing and extremely well done. When the history of this moment in world cinema is written, Parasite will take its place as the movie that got the moment right. A monumental achievement in film and the rare film that goes from “very good” to “historically great” in its final act. (“Parasite”, 2019).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS The present study is an attempt to understand the ways Turkish males and females differ from each other with respect to writing in the English language. The study is not without limitations. The first one is concerned with the participant group. Recall that the participants in the study were first-year students enrolled in the English teacher-training program at a government university. The students had already received explicit instruction in writing. Most of the students had taken writing courses in the English Preparatory Program and all of them took an academic writing course one semester before the present study was conducted. Therefore, the students knew what kinds of linguistic features they were supposed to use and how to use them. In addition, since the students in the study were planning to be English language teachers, it can be said that their motivational beliefs and attitudes toward writing were more positive than students majoring in other areas. To what extent the results of the study can be generalized to other populations is debatable. Thus, a further study can be conducted with a different student population engaged in different areas of study such as engineering, medicine and so on. Another limitation has to do with the number of participants. Note that the present study included 44 participants due to the fact that the researcher did not have access to more students. Further studies should recruit more participants. Finally, the present study examined academic essays written by college students. Further studies can investigate how gender differences are reflected in different speech communities. As Freeman and McElhinny (2009) recommended, empirical studies should be conducted to explore how men and women in communities speak with each other, and “how issues of dominance and resistance play out in situated activities throughout the community” (p. 268).

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CONCLUSION The results of the present study underscore the importance of gender differences in the use of certain linguistic features in written composition. The results of the present study partially correspond to the findings of previous studies, in that, the female EFL learners used more adjectives, intensifiers and, in general, more words than males in their use of English in the Turkish context. The results of the study draw attention to the importance of improving learners’ writing skills in the English language at the secondary and high school level in Turkey as well as teachers’ professional development by informing them regarding gender effects in language use. Currently, understanding of the effect of gender on the use of a language, in particular, a second or a foreign language is still limited. Therefore, more research examining males and females’ speech, in particular, is also needed. Finally, the activities that are recommended not only can be beneficial but also motivating for EFL students.

REFERENCES Amir, Z., Abidin, H., Darus, S., & Ismail, K. (2012). Gender differences in the language use of Malaysian teen Bloggers. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 159–171. Cameron, D. (2005). Language, gender and sexuality: Current issues and new directions. Applied Linguistics, 26(4), 482–502. doi:10.1093/applin/ami027 Çiçek, Ö. R. (2016, April 6). 8. Sınıf öğrencilerinin yazılı metinlerinde dil ve cinsiyet arasındaki ilişki: Söz varlığı. Dil ve cinsiyet arasındaki ilişki. https://prezi.com/hwmx2odsidty/dil-ve-cinsiyet-arasndaki-iliski/ De Smedt, F., Merchie, E., Barendse, M., Rosseel, Y., De Naeghel, J., & Van Keer, H. (2018). Cognitive and motivational challenges in writing: Studying the relation with writing performance across students’ gender and achievement level. Reading Research Quarterly, 53(2), 249–272. doi:10.1002/rrq.193 Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1999). New generalizations and explanations in language and gender Research. Language in Society, 28(02), 185–201. doi:10.1017/S0047404599002031 Freeman, R., & McElhinny, B. (2009). Language and gender. In S. McKay & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching (pp. 218–280). Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, H. M. (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among black children. Indiana University Press. Gorman, J. (2020, February 20). Whisky knows her toys. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/science/ dog-learning-toys.html Halpern, D. (2012). Sex differences in cognitive abilities (4th ed.). Psychology Press. Higgins, C. (2010). Gender identities in language education. In S. L. McKay & N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language education (pp. 370–398). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.21832/9781847692849-016 Ishikawa, Y. (2015). Gender differences in vocabulary use in essay writing by university students. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 192, 593–600. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.078 174

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Jespersen, O. (1922). Language, its nature, development and origin. London: George Allen & Unwin. Jones, S., & Myhill, D. (2007). Discourses of differences? Examining gender differences in linguistic characteristics of writing. Canadian Journal of Education, 30(2), 456–482. doi:10.2307/20466646 Kanaris, A. (1999). Gendered journeys: Children’s writing and the construction of gender, language and education. . doi:10.1080/09500789908666772 Kaufman, J. C., Baer, J., & Gentile, C. A. (2004). Differences in gender and ethnicity as measured by ratings of three writing tasks. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 38(1), 56–69. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2004. tb01231.x Lakoff, R. (1973). Language and woman’s place. Language in Society, 2(1), 45–80. doi:10.1017/ S0047404500000051 Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and women’s place. Harper & Row. Longobardi, E., Spataro, P., Frigerio, A., & Rescorla, L. (2016). Gender differences in the relationship between language and social competence in preschool children. Infant Behavior and Development, 43, 1–4. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.03.001 PMID:26974894 Malecki, C. K., & Jewell, J. (2003). Developmental, gender, and practical considerations in scoring curriculum-based measurement writing probes. Psychology in the Schools, 40(4), 379–390. doi:10.1002/ pits.10096 Massey, A. J., Elliott, G. L., & Johnson, N. K. (2005). Variations in aspects of writing in 16+ English examinations between 1980 and 2004. Research Matters, A Cambridge Assessment publication, Special Issue 1. http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/173518- research-matters-special-issue-1.pdf Mat Ali, S., & Krish, P. (2016). Gender-specific English language use of Malaysian blog. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 16(3), 21–35. doi:10.17576/gema-2016-1603-02 Newman, M. L., Groom, C. J., Handelman, L. D., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2008). Gender differences in language use: An analysis of 14,000 text samples. Discourse Processes, 45(3), 211–236. doi:10.1080/01638530802073712 Okamoto, S., & Smith, J. S. (Eds.). (2004). Japanese language, gender, and ideology: Cultural models and real people. Oxford University Press. Parasite. (2019, January 10). Rotten tomatoes. Retrieved April 10, 2020, from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/parasite_2019 Roth, P. L., Buster, M. A., & Barnes-Farrell, J. (2010). Work sample exams and gender adverse impact potential: The influence of self-concept, social skills, and written skills. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 18(2), 117–130. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2389.2010.00494.x Scheiber, C., Reynolds, M., Hajovsky, D. B., & Kaufman, A. S. (2015). Gender differences in achievement in a large, nationally representative sample of children and adolescents. Psychology in the Schools, 52(4), 335–348. doi:10.1002/pits.21827

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Stevenson, R. L. (n.d.). The body snatcher. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from http://www.eastoftheweb. com/short-stories/UBooks/BodySnat.shtml Tagliamonte, S. (2005). So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends. American Speech, 80(3), 280–300. doi:10.1215/00031283-80-3-280 Tannen, D. (1990a). You just don’t understand. Women and men in conversation. William and Morrow Company. Tannen, D. (1990b). Sex, lies and conversation. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www. washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/06/24/sex-lies-and -conversation/01cb17ba-1af7-4bf48a02-3d1b6c11648f/ Tannen, D. (1994). Gender and discourse. Oxford University Press. Thomas, D. (2005). Type-token ratios in one teacher’s classroom talk: An investigation of lexical complexity. Retrieved from https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college -artslaw/cels/essays/ languageteaching/DaxThomas2005a.pdf Troia, G. A., Harbaugh, A. G., Shankland, R. K., Wolbers, K. A., & Lawrence, A. M. (2013). Relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, and writing performance: Effects of grade, sex, and ability. Reading and Writing, 26(1), 17–44. doi:10.100711145-012-9379-2 U.S. Department of Education. (2008). The nation’s report card: Writing 2007. IES, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved April 8, 2020, from https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/ main2007/2008468.pdf Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Blackwell. Xiao, R., & Tao, H. (2007). A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of amplifiers in British English. Sociolinguistic Studies, 1(2), 241–273. doi:10.1558ols.v1i2.241 Yıldız-Çiçekler, C. (2007). Language structures of the 6–7-year-old children in stories made from pictures [Unpublished thesis]. Adnan Menderes University, Aydın. Zhang, M., Van Rijn, P., Deane, P., & Bennett, E. R. (2019). Scenario-based assessments in writing: An experimental study. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 24(2), 73–90. doi:10.1080/10627 197.2018.1557515

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ADDITIONAL READING Bamman, D., Eisenstein, J., & Schnoebelen, T. (2014). Gender identity and lexical variation in social media. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(2), 135–160. doi:10.1111/josl.12080 Bourke, L., & Adams, A. M. (2012). Is it differences in language skills and working memory that account for girls being better at writing than boys? Journal of Writing Research, 3(3), 249–277. doi:10.17239/ jowr-2012.03.03.5 Eckert, P., & McConnell‐Ginet, S. (2002). Language and gender. Cambridge University Press. Holmes, J., & Meyerhoff, M. (2005). The handbook of language and gender. Blackwell Pub. McKay, S. L., & Hornberger, N. H. (2003). Sociolinguistic and language teaching. Cambridge University Press. Reilly, D., Neumann, D. L., & Andrews, G. (2018). Gender differences in reading and writing achievement: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The American Psychologist. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/ amp0000356 PMID:30234314 Sunderland, J. (2006). Language and gender: An advanced resource book. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203456491 Weisberg, Y. J., DeYoung, C. G., & Hirsh, J. B. (2011). Gender differences in personality across the ten aspects of the Big Five. Frontiers in Psychology, 2(178), 1–11. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00178 PMID:21866227

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Empty Adjective: Adjectives without any exact meanings. English as a Foreign Language: The teaching of English to people who live in a country where English is not used as a native or primary language. Gender: The features that distinguish males and females in terms of the norms they follow in the society. Intensifier: A grammatical term used for vocabulary items that strengthen or weaken a word’s meaning. Linguistic Features: Grammatical or phonological characteristics of a language. Linking Adverbial: Adverbs that are used to connect clauses in a meaningful way. Sociolinguistics: An area of study in linguistics that deals with the relationship between language and social variables such as gender, social class, socioeconomic status, educational level, occupation and so on.

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Identity Formation in Second Language Writing: Models of Metadiscourse Nayef Jomaa Karabuk University, Turkey

ABSTRACT Part of the researcher’s duties towards his supervisees is to guide them in their postgraduate research journeys. Two important questions were raised by his supervisees. One of them is why the majority of studies follow Hyland’s framework in analysing identity. The other question is why we do not follow Hyland’s (framework in analysing the reporting verbs instead of Halliday’s transitivity system. Is it because the latter is so difficult to understand? Therefore, this chapter aims at focusing on identity in second language (L2) writing, comparing between Halliday’s modality, Vande Kopple’s taxonomy, Crismore et al.’s taxonomy, and Hyland’s model of metadiscourse. The findings showed a sort of similarity as well as variety, thus resulting in overlapping and lacking a solid model for analysing how writers reveal their identity. Therefore, a necessity arises to present a comprehensive model that can be used to identify all the categories and subcategories related to interpersonal meanings.

INTRODUCTION The increasing expansion in the number of students studying abroad implies the diversity of students attending the universities, including ethnicity and age (Coffin et al., 2003; Hyland, 2006). More specifically, the diversity of cultural and social backgrounds, the students’ academic needs, and the linguistic diversities of non-native speakers of English entail students’ varieties in their identities, understanding, and learning (Lillis, 2001; Coffin, et al., 2003). This casts more responsibility on the shoulder of the university academic staff and represents significant challenges for them in teaching second language writing due to several reasons. Among these challenges is that the concept of academic language is unfamiliar to the non-native speakers of English (Manjet, 2016) during the high school period (Hyland, 2006), as well as students’ interpretation and understanding will be different (Coffin, et al., 2003). Consequently, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch011

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universities require staff with specific training and skills to cope with students’ needs, particularly students’ writing in English, which has become the international language of research (Bruce, 2008). In addition, publishing in English has increased worldwide recently (Ferguson et al., 2011), including not only countries with English as the official language or the first language but also those with English as the Second Language (ESL) or English as the Foreign Language (EFL), either as a personal choice or as a necessity (Tang, 2012). Thus, it can be argued that these kinds of developments represent rational reasons to unpack the academic discourse (Hyland, 2011), particularly the issue of the writer’s identity. Writing is concerned not only with communicating the content but also with the representation of self. Writers can achieve credibility by means of projecting their identity, thus revealing confidence, certainty, probability, usuality or commitment. This raises the issue of teaching students when and how to project this identity while communicating their ideas in L2 writing. Analysing discourses represents a strategy to study language in action or examine a text within its social context. The research in the area of academic genres could demonstrate the varied ways and strategies adopted by the writers in different disciplines (Hyland, 2009; Hyland, 2016). The writer’s stance towards the arguments should be ‘appropriate’ and of ‘acceptable voice’ (Hyland, 2008, p.7, 2011, p.9; Bloch, 2010). However, lack of evaluation (Petric`, 2007; Monreal & Salom, 2011), difficulty, neutrality, and ambiguity in adopting an attitude by the writer can be attributed to the influence of the writer’s native language, its academic culture (Rowley-Jolivet & Carter-Thomas, 2014) and a cross-cultural variation (Jalilifar & Dabbi, 2012). Novice writers’ dependence on conversational words and ‘fancy’ verbs in academic writing (Lang, 2004; Monreal & Salom, 2011; Nguyen & Pramoolsook, 2015) reflects a non-academic perspective and might taint a fact or a piece of information with subjectivity (Parkinson, 2013). Writing is central to our personal experience and social identities (Hyland, 2005). However, due to lack of theoretical rigour and empirical explicitness of the use of metadiscourse (Hyland, 2005), this chapter explores how identity is formed in L2 writing by discussing models that have addressed identity, particularly Halliday’s (1985) modality and Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) model. This linguistic comparison of varied models could contribute to the field of teaching L2 writing to ESL/EFL learners by highlighting the implicit meanings of metadiscourse and linguistic devices in order to employ them appropriately and avoid using them randomly at the same time.

BACKGROUND In academic writing, the process is not only concerned with conveying the content; rather, it requires the writer to find his/her own individual voice among other writers’ voices who might be more expert and possess more knowledge (Hyland, 2002; Murray & Moore, 2006). However, if the writer detaches himself/herself from the literature, s/he will be exposed to more criticism from more informed experts. On the other hand, if the writer is too close to the conventions of his/her discipline, there will be no room for fresh voices due to the dominance of the popular names in a certain field. For MacDonald (1987), discipline-specific features imply conventions and norms at all levels. For example, research physicists deliver to the students their notions and concepts of writing which were formed through their research, whereas philosophers pass notions based on the discipline-specific features related to philosophy. The formal features of each discipline are visible enough causing less problems for the inexperienced writers than the more internalized and implicit assumptions within the disciplines. In other words, comprehending and adopting the internal axiomatics of the discipline is a necessity to write successfully in any field.

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That is, writing in a certain discipline or in a certain domain of knowledge requires the writer to follow the conventions of that discipline or domain in order to meet the expectations of the readers and the academic community to which s/he belongs. However, the writer’s failure or unfamiliarity with such disciplinary conventions and principles could expose him/her to much criticism. What is disliked by many academic writers is their feeling that they are limited in what they desire to say, either due to their lack of the appropriate language or because of following established conventions for each academic discipline (Murray & Moore, 2006). This disciplinary variation reveals significant features about the academic research and writing. Thus, writing in a discipline implies adopting and assimilating specific rhetorical features used previously by members of the academic community. However, learning aspects of only linguistic knowledge are not sufficient unless integrated with the pragmatic knowledge and other conventionalized forms of communication, thus enabling the writer to use the language accurately and appropriately (Bruce, 2008). Hyland’s (2006) argument implies that disciplines have shared distinguished features as a register of academic discourse that is different from the register used at home or at work. These features of academic writing are grouped into three fields: a high lexical density (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs), a high nominal style (formation of a noun phrase from verbs and adjectives), and impersonal constructions such as avoiding using ‘I’ and expressions of feelings. Therefore, the genre analysis has got much attention in the field of applied linguistics, where three main approaches for analysing genres have emerged, including English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and EAP, North American New Rhetoric studies, and Sydney School of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Hyon, 1996). Figure 1. Types of genre analysis (Hyon, 1996)

Hyon’s (1996) study revealed that ESP and the Australian SFL genre research provide instructors of English Second Language (ESL) with insights of the written texts’ linguistic features as well as advantageous guidelines to present these linguistic features in the classroom. On the other hand, the North American New Rhetoric School provides language instructors with a full perspective of the institutional contexts surrounding the professional and academic genres, as well as the functions of these genres in these settings. Though the Australian genre theories have developed at the same time with the ESP and the New Rhetoric studies, these Australian genre theories were independent of the ESP and the New Rhetoric studies. Besides, they have centred within a larger theory called Systemic Functional Linguistics that was developed by Michael Halliday, who founded the department of linguistics at the University of Sydney in 1975. Halliday’s (1985) theory has an effect on education and language theory in Australia (Hyon, 1996).

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Halliday and Martin (1993) presented five orientations in order to summarise the specific features of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). A) Rule/resource- SFL is concerned with describing the language as ‘a resource for meaning rather than as a system of rules’ (p.25). That is, SFL focuses on the meaning potential of what the speaker can mean. B) Sentence/text- SFL focuses on texts rather than sentences since the text is the unit that is used to negotiate meaning. However, Coffin and Donohue (2012, p.65) argue ‘’in SFL, text refers to units as small as a clause or as large as an entire academic monograph’’. C) Text/context- The focus of the Systemic Functional Linguistics is on the solidary relationships between the text and the social contexts and the social practices they realize. In other words, the text is not looked at as a decontextualized structural entity. For example, the science as a text and the science as an institution are two complementary perspectives on the scientific discourse. D) Expressing/constructing meaning- Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) focuses on the language as a system that is used to construct meaning. Hence, language is viewed as meaning-making rather than a channel to express thoughts and feelings. Parsimony/extravagance- The orientation of the SFL is towards extravagance rather than parsimony. In other words, SFL is concerned with developing a model where the universe, life, and language can be viewed through semiotic and communicative terms. According to Bruce (2008), the Systemic Functional approach in classifying texts is derived from the concepts of the social anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (Malinowski, 1992), whose proposal implies understanding the language within the local situation and the cultural context. Thus, this approach emphasizes the social use of language and its interpretations as a discourse, revealing the implication that language is a social-semiotic system that is able to express the potential meaning used by the society. In this regard, language is considered a semion realized in two contexts: the situational context and the cultural context. Halliday (1985) has characterized the three dimensions of situation as follows: Field, Tenor and Mode which constitute the register of a text. When this register changes or varies, the patterns of meanings in the texts also change and vary (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Hasan, 1985). Overall, tenor, field and mode are called the register variables (Halliday & Martin, 1993; Martin & Rose, 2008). These three context variables- field, tenor, and mode- simultaneously work together to produce a kind of configuration of meaning. This configuration, in its turn, has its role in determining both, the form and meaning of its text, including three dimensions of meaning: ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings. Thus, in SFL, a close relationship exists between the three aspects of context of situation: field, tenor, and mode, and the concept of language metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Martin, 1993; Eggins & Martin, 1997). Field is associated with the ideational metafunction that is concerned with the logical relation of one going-on to another and with constructing experience: what is going on, including ‘who is doing, what, to whom, where, when, why and how’. Under the logical relations of clauses, Halliday (1985) assumes that the notion of ‘clause complex’ presents a full description of the functional organization of the sentences. Tenor is the second register variable that is associated with the interpersonal metafunction that is concerned with the discourse’s social meaning, including both the interactional and the transactional meanings; how people are interacting, including the feelings they try to share. The third register variable is associated with the textual meaning which refers to how semions and symbols are organised to express the ideational and interpersonal meanings. In other words, the textual meaning is concerned with information flow; the ways in which ideational and interpersonal meanings are distributed in waves of semiosis (Halliday & Martin, 1993; Martin & Rose, 2008). In Martin’s terms (1996, 2000), each metafunction is associated with a particular concept; ideational meaning with a particulate structure, textual meaning with a periodic structure and interpersonal meaning 181

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with a prosodic structure (Martin & Rose, 2008). In the particulate structure, the segments are organized either in orbital, similar to the solar system and atoms with only one nucleus and having other segments depending on it, or in serial patterns, where each segment depends on one another in a chain but without having one main nuclear element- multi-nuclear structures. The other point implies the association of textual with a periodic structure where meaning, whether orbital or serial structure, is organized in a form of information waves. The third metafunction interpersonal, is associated with the prosodic structure, where the author attempts to color his/her discourse with different colors using descriptive and evaluative lexis, such as sweet, loving, very loved in order to express his/her identity. The prosodic structures are mapped onto discourse in two ways: saturation and intensification. For saturation, the writer tries to realize a meaning through using attitudinal adjectives to express his/her identity, whereas in intensification, the writer attempts to give strength for his/her feeling by means of using modifiers, such as very loved, or using iteration, such as loving, cute, and sweet. A third way to map the prosodic structure over several patterns of a discourse is to link it with a position or an attitude adopted by the experiencer to express his/her stance towards, for example, a trip to somewhere by saying, it was very fun. The interpersonal meanings or voice represents an essential issue since it carries both implicit and explicit meanings and evaluations by the writers. Therefore, Atkinson (2001) argues that the notion of voice must be carefully examined and evaluated since the view of what constitutes metadiscourse is different based on each study. In other words, the voice generally refers to the interpersonal function (Crismore & Farnsworth, 1990), and the most prominent category involves markers of modality and attitude, whereby the writer comments on the content of the text. This aspect overlaps with the extensive literature on evaluation and hedging. According to Prior (2001), voice is often used to express either a personal and individualistic view or socially as a discourse system. In this regard, voice was explained by Voloshinov and Bakhtin’s theory that is called the Sociohistoric Theory. Based on this theory, Prior (2001) presented his view arguing that the discourse is historical, situated, and indexical. More specifically, the voice is a typification linked to the social identity. Second, the voice is re-envoicing of other’s words in texts through processes of repetitions and presuppositions. Third, the voice is linked to a situated production of persons and social formations. In his study, Thompson (2001) argues that interaction can draw on both interactive and interactional resources. The former, the interactive resources, is concerned with the management of the flow of the information, thus guiding the reader through the content of the text. On the other hand, the latter, the interactional resources, involves the reader collaboratively in the development, argument and echos of the text by commenting on the text using modality and evaluation. To help students improve their assignments and theses, the attention is directed towards the content and organization. Further, Thompson and Zhou (2000) argue that the kinds of the arguments can be presented either logically or interpersonally. Therefore, it could be highly beneficial to train novice writers on the interactive aspects in their discourse. The majority of studies on identity have used the term ‘metadiscourse’ which was created by Zellig Harris in 1959 to present a method for understanding language in use, thus representing the attempts of the writer or the speaker to guide a receiver’s perception of a text. The concept has been further developed by writers, such as Williams (1981), Vande Kopple (1985), and Crismore (1989), and collects together a range of discoursal features, such as hedges, connectives, and various forms of text commentary to show how writers and speakers intrude into their unfolding text to influence their interlocutor’s reception (Hyland, 2005). Essentially, metadiscourse embodies the idea that communication is not only to exchange information, goods or services, but also to involve the personalities, attitudes and assumptions 182

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of those who are communicating. Tardy (2005) points out that linguistic abilities are not sufficient to show an advanced level of academic literacy; rather, a student needs to employ rhetorical strategies that are specific-discipline when displaying information. In this regard, Dunleavy (2003) emphasized that a thesis writer should meet the expectations of the readers since English language is ‘writer-responsible’; the writer or the speaker is responsible for clarifying and organizing the concepts (Hinds, 1987). One significant key to acknowledge their roles as ‘writer-responsible’ is through using metadiscourse (Dahl, 2004) in order to organize the text and interact with the reader.

MAIN FOCUS Although the issue of identity has attracted the interest of several studies, researchers are usually not sure of the appropriate model to follow when writing, analysing, or teaching metadiscourse devices. Four main models are concerned with the interpersonal meanings, namely Halliday’s (1985) Modality, Vande Kopple’s (1985) model, Crismore et al.’s (1993) model, as well as Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) model of metadiscourse.

Halliday’s (1985) Modality Polarity is choosing either positive or negative, such as is/is not and do/do not which can be expressed in English by using the Finite element. Each Finite verbal operator has two forms, one of them is positive like has, was, is, can, whereas the other one is negative, such as has not, can not, was not. However, Halliday (1985) showed that the possibilities are not limited only to either yes or no; rather, they include varied degrees intermediating between yes (positive poles) and no (negative poles) and are called MODALITY. Halliday (1985) adds that language is used to establish a relationship between the speaker and the addressee. More specifically, propositions include information, statements, and questions. In propositions, the positive pole implies assertion and affirmation, whereas the negative pole means denying. On the other hand, proposals include goods and services, offers and commands, whereby the meaning of the positive and the negative poles is prescribing, like ‘do it’, and proscribing, like ‘do not do it’. Between the positive and the negative, two intermediate possibilities exist based on the speech function. In (i) commands, intermediate points refer to varied degrees of obligation, such as ‘allowed to, supposed to, required to’, whereas in (ii) offers, degrees of inclination are represented, like ‘willing to, anxious to, determined to’. Both obligation and inclination are described as MODULATION. Statements, questions, offers, and commands are the four basic move types that refer to speech functions. Hence, each dialogue includes these speech functions. If a person wants to make a statement, he/ she will use a clause with a declarative structure, as in the example below: e.g. It is Swales’ classification of citation. (Statement) On the other hand, if the speaker wishes to make a command, the imperative is used: e.g. Read this book. (command) In offering something to the addresses, a modulated interrogative is used as in the example below:

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e.g. Would you like to read this book? (offer) When asking a question, an interrogative clause is used: e.g. Have you read about citations? (question) Exploring the Mood structure under the interpersonal metafunction focuses on how clauses are structured to exchange information. A clause usually consists of two components: MOOD and RESIDUE. On the one hand, MOOD involves ‘Subject’ and ‘Finite, whereas RESIDUE includes ‘Predicator’, ‘Complement’, and ‘Adjunct’. Table 1. Identity could have several names. Identity

Could

have

several names

Subject

Finite

Predicator

complement

MOOD

RESIDUE

The MOOD component of the clause carries the rhetorical exchange. In MOOD, the subject is the nominal group, whereas the Finite is part of the verbal group which expresses: 1. Primary Tense (Temporal) (e.g. is, was, has, had) 2. Modality (Modal) (e.g. can, could, may, might, will, would, should) The Finite element makes the proposition arguable. In other words, modality expressed by the finite carries the identity of the speaker/writer related to either probabilities or obligations. These Modal Operators have intermediate degrees between positive and negative poles; they can be employed by the speaker/writer to express low, median or high stances: Low: can, may, could, might Median: will, would, should, is to, was to High: must, ought to, need, has to, had to In some examples, the Finite element is fused with the lexical verb, particularly in the simple past tense and simple present tense. On the other hand, the Residue structure of the clause has many elements, including (1) predicator, (2) complement, (3) Adjunct (Circumstantial) represented by an adverbial group or a prepositional phrase, (4) Conjunctive adjuncts, and (5) Modal Adjuncts. These Modal Adjuncts are divided into two categories: (i) Mood Adjuncts and (ii) Comment Adjuncts. Based on the Functional Grammar (FG) of Halliday (1985), two types of intermediate possibilities exist, including: 1. degrees of probability: possibly, probably, and certainly

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2. degrees of usuality: sometimes, usually, and always. Figure 2. Modal adjuncts

(adapted from Halliday, 1985)

Some examples for probability, usuality, and opinion which represent Mood Adjuncts include ‘probably’, ‘usually’, and ‘in my opinion’, respectively. On the other hand, examples of Comment Adjuncts, namely admissive, assertive, presumptive, desirative, tentative, validative, evaluative, and predictive are ‘frankly, honestly, evidently, (un)fortunately, initially, broadly speaking’, and ‘to my surprise’, respectively. Each type of these modal adjuncts has its own meaning which can be exploited by the writers in their L2 writings to reveal their identity towards either the information or the readers. One of the most common interpersonal metaphor is based on the logico-semantic relationship between two clauses, whereby the speaker/writer can express the opinion towards the possibility by means of the projecting clause in a hypotactic clause complex. In this type of clause complexes, two clauses are involved: the projecting clause and the projected one (Jomaa & Bidin, 2019; Halliday, 1985) for expressing modality. Figure 3. Expressions of probability (adapted from Halliday, 1985)

As mentioned in Figure 3, probability can be stated as subjective or objective, and in each, two ways can be adopted: explicit or implicit. To reveal either the subjectivity or the objectivity explicitly, projecting clauses including ‘I think…..’ and ‘It is likely that…..’ can be used, respectively, whereby the proposition is projected as a ‘fact’ in the projected clause. Projection according to Halliday (1985) has three types: Quoting ‘direct speech’, Reporting ‘indirect speech’, and Reporting Speech/Quoting

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Thought. In their recent study on projection in two different domains of knowledge, namely Applied Linguistics and Information Technology, Jomaa and Bidin (2019) revealed several subtypes, whereby either verbal or mental processes are used in the projecting clauses, whereas the other clause includes any other types of processes. In conclusion, based on Halliday (1985), Modality includes modalization –indicative type- and modulation –imperative type. Both types, Modalization and Modulation, have intermediate degrees between the two polarity poles: positive and negative. These degrees can be classified as low that is close to the negative pole, high that is close to the positive pole or median that is in the middle between the positive and negative poles. This Modality can be expressed by means of: 1. Polarity (positive or negative) (e.g. is/is not) 2. Finite Modal Operators (e.g. can, could, may, might, shall, should, must) 3. Modal Adjuncts: a. Mood Adjuncts (e.g. Probability-probably, certainly, maybe, possibly) (e.g. Usuality – always, often, seldom) b. Comment Adjuncts (e.g. presumption- clearly, obviously, apparently) 4. Projection (e.g. He thinks that stance is significant in academic writing) Figure 4. Halliday’s modality (Halliday, 1985)

Based on this discussion, it seems that Halliday’s (1985) modality included both interpersonal and logical metafunctions. The first metafunction consists of elements within the boundaries of the clause simplex –polarity, finite modal operators, and modal adjuncts (mood adjuncts and comment adjuncts), whereas the second metafunction shows modality beyond the limit of the clause simplex, thus extending to the clause complex. In such clause, two clauses are involved by means of the logio-semantic relations; these clauses are called projecting and projected clauses. Similarly, Hyland (1999a) presented a taxonomy of evaluative reporting verbs used to show the identity by either the citing writer or the cited author. However, the evaluative potential of the reporting verbs by Hyland (1999a) neglected the modifying elements represented by the finite modal adverbs and adverbs which can neutralize the stance of the evaluative reporting verbs. Thus, Halliday’s (1985) modality seems to be comprehensive compared to other models of metadiscourse since it only focused on the elements that show the voice of the writer, but it needs particularly to consider the differences between hedging and boosting devices mentioned in Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) model of metadiscourse.

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Vande Kopple’s (1985) Taxonomy of Metadiscourse Due to the importance of the interpersonal meanings in revealing the identity of the writer towards either the content or the reader, several studies have dealt with this aspect giving it several descriptions, such as the writer’s identity, the authorial stance, the writer’s voice, the metadiscourse, and interpersonal meanings. It is worth mentioning that using the metadiscourse effectively by the writers and controlling the level of personality in their discourse by demonstrating a reliable representation of themselves and their concepts are a central characteristic of successful writing. Despite the increasing interest and research on metadiscourse, a need still arises for a major analytical approach to written discourse since metadiscourse is still under-theorized and is empirically vague (Hyland, 2005). In addition, the origins of metadiscourse in the pedagogic guides and instructions (Williams, 1981) and intuitive reflection (Vande Kopple, 1985) have not provided sufficient theoretical basics for analysing texts or understanding the way followed by the writers to reveal their stance efficiently and projecting their identity into their texts since speaking and writing are considered a social engagement. The majority of metadiscourse taxonomies is influenced by Vande Kopple’s (1985) classification. This taxonomy consists of seven kinds of metadiscourse markers divided into textual and interpersonal subtypes (Table 2). Table 2. Vande Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy of metadiscourse Metadiscourse Textual Metadsicourse

Interpersonal Metadiscourse

Text Connectiveness

These are employed to show the connectiveness of the text parts: a) sequencers e.g. first, next, in the second place b) reminders e.g. as mentioned in Chapter.. c) topicalizers e.g. with regard to, in connection with,

Illocution markers

The illocution markers make explicit the discourse act the writer is performing at certain points e.g. to conclude, I hypothesize, to sum up, we predict.

Code glosses

The code glosses help the readers grasp the intended meaning of the writers. These code glosses explain or define the sense of a usage, sometimes putting the reformulation in parentheses or presenting it in the form of an example, etc.

Attitude markers

The attitude markers express the writer’s attitudes towards the prepositional material. e.g. unfortunately, interestingly, I wish that, how awful that.

Validity markers

Validity markers show the writer’s commitment to either the probability or truth of the statement: a) hedges: perhaps, might, may b) emphatics: clearly,undoubtedly c) attributors: according to Einstein).

Narrators

Narrators are used for the source of the information presented. e.g. according to Smith,… e.g. the Prime Minister announced that..

Commentaries

The commentaries draw the readers to the implicit dialogue by commenting on the reader’s probable mood or possible reaction to the text. e.g. You will certainly agree that.. e.g.You might want to read the third chapter first.

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Although Vande Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy of the metadiscourse presented a good classification, it failed to present a clear-cut boundary between the textual metadiscourse and the interpersonal metadiscourse. In other words, the two categories (textual metadiscourse and interpersonal metadiscourse) and their subcategories overlap. Therefore, adopting Vande Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy may not lead to successful analyses of texts. Consequently, the metadiscourse taxonomy was refined by several researchers, such as Nash (1992) Vande Kople (2002), and Xu (2001).

Crismore, Markkanen, and Steffensen’s (1993) Taxonomy of Metadiscourse One of the most significant modifications of metadiscourse taxonomies was by Crismore et al. (1993) that is described in Figure 5. Crismore et al. (1993) deleted the narrators, shifted some sub-functions to a new category of the textual markers, and moved the code glosses and illocution markers into another new category under the interpretive markers. These two new categories represent the textual role of the metadiscourse, with textual markers referring to features which help to organize the discourse and interpretive markers which function to ‘help readers interpret and better understand the writer’s meaning and writing strategies’ (Crismore et al., 1993, 47). Figure 5. Taxonomy of metadiscourse (Crismore et. al., 1993)

Although Crismore et al.’s (1993) taxonomy of the metadiscourse made an improvement on Vande Kopple’s approach, both taxonomies are based on classifying the metadiscourse elements into textual and interpersonal metadiscourse. The interpersonal metadiscourse of these two taxonomies are similar to the broad term ‘interpersonal meanings’ of Halliday (1985), but the textual metadisocurse seems to correspond to other elements of Halliday’s (1985) theory. Another feature of Crismore et. al.’s (1993) taxonomy is the division of the textual metadiscourse into two subcategories, which is, according to Hyland (2005), vague and has no clear justifications. Therefore, Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) presented his model of the metadiscourse.

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Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) Model of Metadiscourse Hyland is considered the most prominent author in the field of disciplinary academic writing in general and metadiscourse in particular. In his studies, he has tried to attract the attention of the authors in different disciplines to the issue of identity (Hyland, 1998b, 1998c, 1999b, 2005). Consequently, several studies have dealt with this aspect giving it several descriptions, such as the writer’s identity, the metadiscourse, and interpersonal meanings. These metadiscourse markers can be exploited by the writers to organise the text or reveal their stance towards either the content or the reader (Hyland, 2005). Figure 6. Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) model of metadiscourse

The role of the metadiscourse is to organize texts, reveal the attitude of the writer and engage the readers. Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) distinguished between the interactive and interactional metadiscourse. The former is concerned with organizing the text with the purpose of guiding the reader through it, whereas the latter is concerned with engaging the reader in a relationship with the writer in order to direct the reader towards the perspectives of the writer on the propositional content. Hyland (1998a) explored the use of metadiscourse in 28 research articles in four academic disciplines (Microbiology, Astrophysics, Applied Linguistics, and Marketing) to show how the appropriate use of metadiscourse depends on the rhetorical context. Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) adopted the metadiscourse taxonomy of Crismore et al. (1993), which classifies the metadicourses into textual types and interpersonal types, and these are classified into more specific functions. 1. Textual metadiscourse devices are used to form a coherent and convincing text, depending on the functions of five categories, among them is using evidentials to indicate the source of the information, such as ‘according to’, ‘Hyland (2000) argues’. Although evidentials are relatively similar to the projection mentioned by Halliday (1985) in its structure, the function is different. In other words, Halliday (1985) illustrated that projection can be used to show the stance under the interpersonal meanings, whereas Hyland (1998a) classified it under the textual metadiscourse that is concerned with organizing the text.

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2. The other type of metadiscourse taxonomy by Hyland (1998a) is the interpersonal metadiscourse, which is used to convey the attitude of the author towards the reported statement, such as certainty, assertiveness, tentativity, doubt, neutrality and uncertainty, and this attitude has been referred to by previous authors (Thompson & Ye, 1991; Hyland, 1999a) as a stance. In other words, this type of metadiscourse is mainly interactional and evaluative that is used to indicate the writer’s persona, revealing the author’s intimacy, commitment, and attitude. This type of metadiscourse includes several subcategories. (a) Hedges are the first subcategory, which are used to reveal the writer’s cautious attitude and withholding his/her full commitment towards the statements through using words, such as perhaps, might, about, it is possible, and possibly. (b) Emphatics as the second subcategory are used to reveal the writer’s certainty when reporting the statement or the proposition by using words, such as it is clear, clearly, obviously, obvious, in fact, and definitely. (c) The third subcategory of the interpersonal metadiscourse is the attitude markers which are used to reveal the writer’s affective attitude towards the textual information, but this is relatively different from hedges in the sense that they convey more varieties, including obligation, agreement, importance and surprise. Examples of attitude markers include ‘X claims, I agree, and surprisingly’. These attitude markers are also relatively similar to the comment adjuncts of Halliday (1985). In his study, Hyland (1994) examined hedging in 22 English for Academic Purposes (EAP) textbooks intended for L2 students around the world to prepare them for academic studies. Based on the findings, modal verbs occupied the majority of the textbook coverage; nonetheless, only English for Science and Writing up Research addressed the epistemic usage of the modal verbs, which can be used to reveal writers’ attitude of uncertainty towards the reported information. The modal verbs included will as the most certain, through would, should, may, and could as the most tentative modal verb. However, these textbooks did not include sufficient information about the modal verbs. In addition, the awareness towards using hedges was rarely described in such textbooks. Boosters are the other devices used to show the power of argument and certainty. According to Hyland and Tse (2004), boosters are linguistic expressions, such as demonstrate, undoubtedly, it is clear that, which are effective in strengthening the illocutionary force of speech acts (Holmes, 1982). Obviously, the function of boosters is implied in emphasizing certainty towards a proposition or confidence in an assertion (Holmes, 1988; Crismore et al., 1993) or ending the debate or the possible alternative argument by asserting the writer’s position (Hyland, 1998a; Gillaerts & Van de Velde, 2010). As Hyland (2005) argues, ‘‘by closing down possible alternatives, boosters emphasize certainty and construct rapport by marking involvement with the topic and solidarity with an audience, taking a joint position against other voices’’ (p. 53). In other words, hedges and boosters are metadiscourse linguistic expressions adopted by the writer in order to either express uncertainty or certainty towards the propositional content. The process of evaluation helps the writer in constructing his/her argument successfully. That is, writers usually attempt to establish a recognizable social world by means of rhetorical options which enable them to create interpersonal negotiations and make balanced claims for the originality, significance, and plausibility of their studies (Hyland, 2005). Devices, such as polarity, mood adjuncts, and finite modal operators (Halliday, 1985; Eggins, 1994) can be also used to carry an evaluative stance, attitude, commitment or certainty on the part of the writer. In their recent study on the extent of changes in the use of metadiscourse in professional writing in different disciplines over the past 50 years, Hyland and Jiang (2018) analysed a corpus of 2.2 million words diachronically from articles in the top journals in four disciplines. Their findings showed a significant increase in interactive features and a significant 190

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decrease in interactional types. Surprisingly, interactional metadiscourse shows a marked decline in the discursive soft knowledge fields and a substantial increase in the science subjects.

Citations and Reporting Verbs Another feature of discourse which can be used by the writers to reveal their identity is the citations. The significance of citation use is implied in their role to exhibit scholars’ knowledge in a certain field, build their works on such knowledge or criticize it and claim membership of a certain research community (Hewings, Lillis, & Vladimirou, 2010; Petric` & Harwood, 2013; Samraj, 2013; Swales, 2014). The concept of citation is best described as standing on the giants’ shoulders, so that we can see more (John of Salisbury as cited in Feak & Swales, 2009). The reporting verbs used in the integral type of citations, namely verb controlling represent a significant element that can be used in different tenses and different voices to reveal the writer’s stance. Based on the American Psychological Association Publications Manual (2010) guidelines, ‘’verbs are vigorous direct communicators’’ (p.77). Hence, choosing the appropriate verb in almost all types of writings necessitates a careful use. These reporting verbs are used to achieve two functions. First, they are used to describe the kind of research activities. The majority of the classifications in this group agree on three types of denotative verbs, including verbs of research, verbs of discourse, and verbs of cognition. Second, they can be used to convey the writer’s stance towards the reported proposition. In such case, the writer has several options of attitude, including positive, negative, or neutral. Other classifications revealed other types of stance, such as certainty and tentativity. However, there are other elements which can affect the evaluative potential of the reporting verbs. In other words, denotation refers to textual, mental, or research activities. On the other hand, the evaluative potential refers to stance that is inherent in the verb itself. This stance can be positive, negative or neutral (Hyland, 1999a; Thompson & Ye, 1991). For example, the reporting verb ‘find’ indicates the activity of the cited author as finding something, but there is no inherent evaluation in the verb itself to reveal the author’s stance towards the reported findings. The reporting verb ‘suggest’ was also used in John’s (2012) study to reveal a neutral stance towards the citation. The reporting verb ‘claim’ is different from the previous two reporting verbs, ‘find’ and ‘suggest’, in the sense that the verb ‘claim’ has a strong evaluative stance used by the writer to express his/her commitment towards the cited proposition. This reporting verb can be classified, as Hunston (1993) states, as an arguing verb, depending on the context, and is used by the writer to reveal his/her disagreement with the sourced author. The reporting verb ‘point out’ can be used by the writer as a strong indicator to reveal the full agreement between the citing writer and the sourced author, where there is no place for disagreement. Hyland (1999a) reclassified Thompson and Ye’s (1991) taxonomy of the reporting verbs into denotative and evaluative categories. First, the denotative categories were classified according to the type of the activity: Research (real-world) Acts, Cognition Acts, and Discourse Acts. Research (real-world) Acts are used in either findings statements, such as observe, discover, notice and show or procedures, such as explore, assay, calculate, and analyse. Cognition Acts refer to mental activities and processes, such as view, suspect, conceptualize and believe. Discourse Acts refer to verbal expressions, such as state, hypothesize, discuss, and ascribe.

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Figure 7. Denotative reporting verbs

(Hyland, 1999a)

Second, the evaluative reporting verbs can be used to employ their evaluative potential in adopting a stance. More specifically, the writer can adopt a stance towards the reported message or ascribe the stance to the original author. Regarding the writer’s stance, the reported information can be presented as true using (acknowledge, point out, establish), false using (fail, overlook, exaggerate, ignore) or non-factive presenting no clear stance. Under this latter stance, the writer can attribute the stance to the original author. Consequently, the original author’s stance can be positive (advocate, argue, hold, see), neutral (address, cite, comment, look at), tentative (allude to, believe, hypothesize, suggest), or critical (attack, condemn, object, refute). Figure 8 represents the other division of the reporting verbs which can be used to either reveal the writer’s stance or attribute the stance to the sourced author. Figure 8. Evaluative categories of the reporting verbs (Hyland, 1999a)

The use of these evaluative reporting verbs is highly significant to show the writer’s identity or attribute the stance towards the original source. This can be true when using no other evaluative devices. For instance, using ‘as’ structures and other modifying adverbs influence the linguistic structure of the citation. Using the conjunction ‘as’ in the example, (as John (2012) argues), affects the evaluative stance and the quality of the reporting verb. In addition, using the reporting verb ‘suggest’ alone would suggest a neutral stance, whereas using ‘as’ structure implies that the citing writer wishes to be involved in the proposition presented by the cited author. Thus ‘as’ structure can have a boosting effect used to increase the writer’s positive stance.

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Modifying the evaluative feature of the reporting verb can be also achieved by means of using modifying adverbs which carry evaluative features themselves. For example, using the adverb ‘critically’ can change the reporting verb of a neutral stance, such as ‘analyse’, to another stance to reveal how the writer interprets the sourced author’s neutral activity. Similarly, the reporting verb ‘suggest’ does not have a commitment position towards the reported proposition on the part of the sourced author. However, using the adverb ‘strongly’ with the reporting verb changes the evaluative stance of not only the sourced author but also the citing writer who reveals a positive stance (John, 2012). As a result, using modality with the reporting verbs of the Author act implies two concepts: politeness and pride. It implies that the author’s ideas are not reported clearly or the inability of the writer to comprehend the author’s perspective. In addition, when using a modal verb with an obligation, it implies that the author was not in control of his/her work; therefore, a modal verb with a reporting verb would be classified as the Writer act rather than the Author act (Thompson & Ye, 1991). It can be concluded that using ‘as’ structure, the modifying adverbs, and the modal verbs could probably have an additional evaluative stance on the reporting verb and the whole clause.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE TRENDS The issue of identity in general and stance in particular remains a critical issue in both spoken and written genres of the different fields for language teachers, users and researchers due to the implicit communicative messages accompanying the content. Several studies have tackled this issue including Halliday’s (1985) Modality, Vande Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy, Crismore et al.’s (1993) taxonomy, and Hyland’s (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) model of metadiscourse. Halliday (1985) attempted to present modality between the positive and negative poles of polarity with varied intermediating degrees. These are achieved by means of finite modal operators, modal adjuncts (mood adjuncts and comments adjuncts) as well as projection. Halliday’s (1985) model seems to be more comprehensive since it includes several devices for the interpersonal meaning at the clause level with varying degrees of low, median, and high. However, Halliday (1985) did not present the textual metadiscourse under the interpersonal meanings. In contrast, Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) presented a modified model of the metadiscourse based on Crismore et al.’s (1993) taxonomy, which included both textual and interpersonal metadiscourse elements. These models explain how the identity of the writer can be revealed by varied means, including, but not limited to, finite modal operators, mood adjuncts, comments adjuncts, and projection. These elements have been modified, renamed and reclassified by several prominent authors in the field, namely Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b, 2005). The linguistic devices of Halliday’s (1985) modality have intermediating degrees between the positive and the negative poles to express certainty, probability, commitment or usuality. On the other hand, models by Vande Kopple (1985), Crismore, et al. (1993), and Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) were based on classifying these linguistic means according to their interpersonal meanings. Pedagogically, such models and taxonomies could be adopted in the field of L2 writing to teach ESL/EFL learners, particularly postgraduate students how to project themselves appropriately in a way that communicates their identity and voice and at the same time asserts their membership of their academic community. However, a controversy still exists about which model to follow while analysing discourses or teaching L2 writing. Consequently, a need arises to present a model that considers all interpersonal meanings.

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Nash, W. (1992). An Uncommon Tongue. Routledge. Nguyen, T. T. L., & Pramoolsook, I. (2015). Citation in Vietnamese TESOL: Analysis of master’s thesis introduction chapters. The Asian ESP Journal, 2(1), 95-184. Parkinson, J. (2013). Adopting academic values: Student use of that-complement clauses in academic writing. System, 41(2), 428–442. doi:10.1016/j.system.2013.03.002 Petrić, B. (2007). Rhetorical functions of citations in high- and low-rated master’s theses. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(3), 238–253. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2007.09.002 Petrić, B., & Harwood, N. (2013). Task requirements, task representation, and self-reported citation functions : An exploratory study of a successful L2 student’s writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(2), 110–124. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2013.01.002 Prior, P. (2001). Voices in text, mind, and society: Sociohistoric accounts of discourse acquisition and use. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1-2), 55–81. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(00)00037-0 Rowley-Jolivet, E., & Carter-Thomas, S. (2014). Citation practices of expert French writers of English: issues of attribution and stance. In A. Lyda & K. Warchal (Eds.), Occupying niches: Interculturality, cross-culturality and aculturality in academic research (pp. 17–34). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02526-1_2 Samraj, B. (2013). Form and function of citations in discussion sections of master’s theses and research articles. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(4), 299–310. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2013.09.001 Swales, J. M. (2014). Variation in citational practice in a corpus of student biology papers: From parenthetical plonking to intertextual storytelling. Written Communication, 31(1), 118–141. doi:10.1177/0741088313515166 Tang, R. (Ed.). (2012). Academic writing in a second or foreign language: Issues and challenges facing ESL/EFL academic writers in higher education Contexts. Continuum. Tardy, C. M. (2005). “It’s like a story”: Rhetorical knowledge development in advanced academic literacy. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 325–338. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2005.07.005 Thompson, G. (2001). Interaction in academic writing: Learning to argue with the reader. Applied Linguistics, 22(1), 58–78. doi:10.1093/applin/22.1.58 Thompson, G., & Ye, Y. (1991). Evaluation in the reporting verbs used in academic papers. Applied Linguistics, 12(4), 365–382. doi:10.1093/applin/12.4.365 Thompson, G., & Zhou, J. L. (2000). Evalu- ation and organization in text: The structur- ing role of evaluative disjuncts. In S. Hunston & G. Thompson (Eds.), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Dis- course. Oxford University Press. Vande Kopple, W. (1985). ‘Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse’. College Composition and Communication, 36(1), 82–93. doi:10.2307/357609 Vande Kopple, W. (2002). Metadiscourse, discourse, and issues in composition and rhetoric. In E. Barton & G. Stygall (Eds.), Discourse Studies in Composition (pp. 91-113). Hampton Press.

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Williams, J. W. (1981). Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace. Scott, Foresman. Xu, H. (2001). Metadiscourse: A cross-cultural perspective. Southeast University Press.

ADDITIONAL READING Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075wll.5 Jomaa, N. J., & Alia, M. M. (2019). Functional Analyses of Metadiscourse Markers in L2 Students’ Academic Writing. Arab World English Journal, 10(1), 361–381. doi:10.24093/awej/vol10no1.30 Jomaa, N. J., & Bidin, S. J. (2019). Variations in the citation use and perceptions in writing the literature review by EFL postgraduates. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 441–460. doi:10.32601/ ejal.651398 Jomaa, N. J., & Bidin, S. J. (2019). Exploring Process ‘verbs’ in EFL Students’ Citations: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1), 188–203. doi:10.17509/ ijal.v9i1.13793 Matsuda, P. K., & Tardy, C. M. (2007). Voice in academic writing: The rhetorical construction of author identity in blind manuscript review. English for Specific Purposes, 26(2), 235–249. doi:10.1016/j. esp.2006.10.001 Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N. (2009). Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing. Studies in Higher Education, 34(2), 153–170. doi:10.1080/03075070802528270 Starfield, S. (2015). First person singular: Negotiating identity in academic writing in English. Language and identity across modes of communication. De Gruyter Mouton. Tang, R., & John, S. (1999). The ‘I’in identity: Exploring writer identity in student academic writing through the first person pronoun. English for Specific Purposes, 18, S23–S39. doi:10.1016/S08894906(99)00009-5

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Citations: Are employed in order to indicate a research area and pave the way for the unknown, thus creating a space for more studies to be researched. Cited Author: Is the researcher whose information or findings are reported by the citing writer. Clause Complex: Is the term used by systemicists for the grammatical and semantic unit formed out of two or more clauses which are linked in particular systematic and meaningful ways. Evaluation: Can be simply defined as revealing the writer’s stance towards the reader or the information in the text. Identity: Represents an essential element of the pragmatic competence which signifies the abilities of the writers in representing themselves as well as their claims credibly, and at the same time confirming themselves as members of their communities. Metadiscourse: Is defined as revealing the writer’s strategy to negotiate and communicate academic knowledge in a way that corresponds to the conventions of the academic community to which s/he belongs. Metafunction: Postulates that the content system in all languages is organized into interpersonal, ideational, and textual components. Modality: Is defined as the intermediate degrees of meaning that fall between yes and no, thus intermediating between the positive and the negative poles.

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The Future of Composition Studies: Reconstructing the Past Olubukola Salako American University, USA

ABSTRACT One of the hardest battles that composition practitioners encounter within the writing classroom is dealing with students’ poor writing skills. Traditional methods that only engage students to produce work that does not make use of the students’ faculties, only propel students to continue to create work that is unsatisfactory. Currently, as composition practitioners continue to look for teaching strategies that can help their students become better writers, they often believe that reading, speaking, and listening cannot facilitate the teaching of writing. Because of the historical views that have defined the composition field, the discipline does not allow any other paradigms to redefine or shape how writing is taught. What is needed to combat such problematic teaching pedagogy is the institution of other methods that incorporates the use of writing, listening, reading, and speaking to teach students how to become better writers.

INTRODUCTION Language can be as personal as the pronouns I and you---or as impersonal as a tax form. To live as mature human beings and functioning members of society we need to be able to communicate with others. In some cultures the ability to speak and listen carries the whole burden of communication. But our culture is organized by the most complex system of textuality the world has ever known. We need speaking and listening skills, to be sure, and we need to be literate in the traditional sense: able to read and write. But we also need to be “literate” across various and complex network of different kinds of writing and various media of communication. (Scholes, 130) Since the institution of Composition Studies within the university, the evolution of Composition Studies has developed into a field that Thomas Kuhn (Nickles, 2003) calls a ‘paradigm,’ which is a system that DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch012

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embodies a shared value, a shared belief, and a shared methodology in the teaching of composition. Hence, because of the nature of such collective ideologies, this intrinsic ‘paradigm’ has determined how the discipline is situated in the field. Retrospectively, this disallows any other paradigms to cultivate the field. What this means is that the separation of writing, reading, listening, and speaking are categorized into different educational disciplines. Ironically, what used to be grouped as one discipline is now a separate paradigm. Thus, the teaching of composition studies has unintentionally been disadvantaged by the exclusion of literary works, formerly known as reading and the teaching of orality, the art of speaking. The abandonment of teaching reading, writing, listening, and speaking have caused composition practitioners to fall into what Murphy (1982) calls “rhetorical sins.” Murphy (1982) attests that rhetorical sins are defined as separating writing from the writer and the second is the post McLuhan “inferiority complex” that teachers believe that nothing can be done in the teaching of composition. What is seen here is the domino effect, in which elementary teachers argue about which writing approach prepares students for high school education, and then this complaint is further reiterated by university professors that complain about students’ lack of writing abilities stemming from their high school curriculum (Murphy, 1982). Rhetorical sins in retrospect, are an offense against “rhetorical morality.” The composition morality may have digressed because the focus is no longer a cumulative incubation of what traditional composition represented. Downing, Hurlbert, and Mathieu (2002) describe the social forces guiding the education system of that current time by stating, “as Laurence Veysey explains, prior to the academic transformation of knowledge in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, academic “discipline” referred to moral rules of piety and conduct as in the “mental discipline” necessary to build character. . . the old time college sought to provide a fouryear regime conducive to piety and strength of character. Belief in such mental discipline was part of an interlocking set of psychological, theological, and moral convictions” (as cited in Downing, Hurlbert, & Mathieu, 2002, p. 25). At this time, what composition practitioners ought to be asking is, “How can the field transform from the static state it is in and transcend into an eclectic discipline?” What more can practitioners do to change this static state? What other implementations can be integrated into the field of Composition Studies? With this in mind, how much autonomy is the field given to practitioners to make the necessary changes needed to transform the field? These are the questions that should not be ignored nor streamlined to the side for further investigation. A constructive social awareness should be the resounding voice that permeates the composition field. Freire (1993) states that “dialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in the power to make and remake, to create and recreate, faith in their vocation to be more fully human which is the privileged of an elite, but the birthright of all” (p. 88). A dialogue must be initiated in the field of Composition Studies to regain the powers that have limited the teaching of composition in the classroom. Nonetheless, for this paradigm shift to occur, composition practitioners will have to reflect on what it means to teach composition studies. The only way to do this is to reexamine what Scholes (1998) views as the invidious binary divisions that have separated literature from composition in the English departments. To understand the opposing binary forces, it is important to realize how the divisions have influenced and have been embedded in the previous past ideologies from Plato to Paulo Freire. This can only be done by analyzing the historical contexts of composition and reexamining why reading, writing, listening, and speaking became separate entities of discourse. Once an objective evaluation of teaching has been examined, then practitioners can scrutinize the field of Composition Studies by Quintilian’s (1980) theory on education, which can offer the composition field as a way to redevelop how practi201

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tioners are teaching composition. Yagelski (1999) claims, “clearly, if a genuinely reflective practice is to lead to an “endangered pedagogy” which “empowers” students, then we ought to acknowledge and understand the discomfort and self-doubt on the part of the teachers that seem inevitably to attend our efforts to construct such a pedagogy” (p. 35). Finally, this historical analysis of the past cannot ignore the changing demographics of the changing population within the composition classroom, which entails the L1 and L2 students. There is a caveat to this analysis in terms of situating the process of analyzing the past to confront the future in the composition field, not only for L1 (first language) learners but also for L2 (second language) learners. The historical analysis for this chapter is to give an account of how the field of composition has been taught and to make practitioners aware of the social and political constructs that affect the field. Thus, the incorporation of reading, writing, listening, and speaking is a strong suggestion that practitioners should take into consideration and apply to their field. By looking to the past, composition practitioners can have a better understanding of the history; thus, enabling them the freedom to make the necessary changes needed to handle the different linguistic perspectives that are, and will continue, to affect the field of composition. Casanave (2004) views this as the “re-vamping” of the political and ideological stance, not only for the L1 learners, but most importantly, for the ESL writing classrooms.

REVISITING THE PAST In the introduction of Johnson’s (2004), article, she contends that the relationship between those who theorize and those who engage in actual class practices differ in variance. Thus, meaning that the hierarchical system established by the educational system divides how practitioners, students, and researchers give agency to the development of second language acquisition. What is suggested here is the hierarchical division that separates and promotes one voice while marginalizing the “others.” The others include the many voices of students and teachers who have firsthand interaction with their second language learners. What does this mean for the field of composition? Primarily, Johnson (2004) asserts that knowledge in the field is unequivocally inductive rather than deductive. What practitioners tend to view is the biased infrastructure in a field that minimizes any other input, which ultimately leads to a construction of theories and curriculum designs that have nothing to do with what actually happens in the everyday classroom. The bidirectional of shared knowledge does not fall solely on theoreticians, but rather encourages a collaborative effort on all participants in the teaching of second language learners. Such practices are not only indicative in the development of second language acquisition, but it also promotes and encourages teachers, students, and theoreticians to determine how they will amalgamate knowledge sharing into a bidirectional model that deviates from the linear model that only promotes one active voice in the field. Furthermore, it is possible to imagine that Johnson’s (2004) new model of SLA Knowledge-Building is a way to engage all practitioners on many levels to have a hermeneutics perspective in the study of second language acquisition. It is suggestive that Johnson (2004) is calling for a new model that opens the path for more than one static interpretation of knowledge sharing but instead a stream of many interpretations, which will only enrich the theoretical framework of second language acquisition. Hence, Johnson’s (2004) critic of the current model of knowledge transfer is not only innovative; it is also enlightening to the point where it asks theoreticians to reevaluate how they co-construct according to Johnson (2004), the “hierarchy of power and control of knowledge” (p. 2).

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Additionally, the school curriculums have incorporated a system that Freire (1993) calls “narration sickness.” It is a system that embodies a shared value, a shared belief, and a shared methodology in the education of students. Hence, because of the nature of such collective ideologies, this intrinsic paradigm has determined how education is developed within society. Generally, this rejects any other paradigms, thus affecting how students learn in the writing classroom. It is this sickness that has created the type of pedagogy that eludes educators to their own teaching process. The banking system is not an ontological reality for teachers, educators, administrators and even students. Freire (1993) describes the banking system as a system that deposits into the empty vessels of students’ minds. He states, “the outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power” (p.70). Juxtaposing this with Plato’s condemnation of the poets one can observe the same educational dogmas that were instituted in the Platonic era. It was an era that focused on a banking system in which “education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor” (Freire, 1993, p. 72). Plato just like Freire, views this imitative education as a poison to the development of the student’s educational intellect. Plato argues against the indoctrination of an education that only requires students to regurgitate what has been fed into their minds (Havelock, 1963). He reminds us that poetry is the “crippling of the mind” an antithesis against thinking, in other words, the “enemy of truth” (Havelock, 1963). Greene (1918) further purports a clear explanation of one of the reasons why Plato had problems with the ideology of poetry. He contends: In the first place, although we are led to suppose that the argument is to be one of literary form, it turns out that the argument is really concerned with ethical questions. That is because Plato begins by defining the types of literature according to their use of imitation, but then asks, not which is the best type, but quite a different question. He asks what sort of human nature ought to be imitated. The conclusion is, the sort of human nature that we ought in actual practice to imitate is the sort that poets ought by their art to imitate. The answer, then, is ethical. (Greene, 1918, p. 34) The issue is whether the poets can be trusted to educate the people in truth. The question Plato contemplated was the trustworthiness of the poet’s ability to project morality and ethics in their craft (Greene, 1918). Plato wanted poets who embodied the essence of morality and ethics, which in the end could “be imitated which would serve as examples for imitation by the citizens” (Greene, 1918, p. 34). Plato evidently, wanted to create men of character and moral upstanding. Greene (1918) further purports that “Plato had already pointed out, was not to be of profit to the spectators. . .what he does lay down as a principle is that poets must not be allowed to present realistically all sorts of persons and situations” (p. 34). In other words, the poets must have a specific agenda for their art. Ironically, this is the same assertions that Freire makes. Freire (1993) argues for a system that does not cripple the minds of students, a system that does not produce a vegetative type of mind that is only required to be drowned in knowledge without any mental reflection. Both Freire and Plato are eliciting a new educational system that is liberating and reflective in pedagogy. Greene (1918) reminds us that “when Plato declared in the Republic that there was an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, he was stating no more than the truth (p. 6). Plato’s claim is not against the use of poetry or poets themselves, but rather it is a condemnation against the binary system that does not permit students to become thinkers. Instead, students are taught to believe in a binary system that reinforces the hierarchal divisions between students and teachers. The hierarchal division is what imposes the “narration sickness” 203

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that forces teachers to continue a pattern of teaching obedient mimickers to believe that education can only function through the banking ideology. What Plato and Freire would rather have, is an educational system that breaks the teacher-student contradiction, a contradiction that is embedded in the ideologies of many curricula. Freire contends that “it is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which results from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world” (p. 73). The keywords in this quote are critical consciousness. Critical consciousness allows students to be able to become co-creators with active participation in their educational upbringing. Rather than being spectators, they become initiators of power, that shape and help redefine a system that is based on a hierarchal non-dialectical pedagogy. Critical consciousness is the realization that knowledge does not belong to one person, (the teacher), instead; it is a communal ritual that everyone partakes in through a process of negotiation and mediation. In relation to this, Plato also argues for a “philosophical rhetoric” that embraces the same ideology as that of critical consciousness. Plato’s contempt with the poets is their inability to conceptualize and internalize what they were learning. Although the poets were able to physically internalize the words through repetition, they were not able to constructively critique or question what they were digesting into their minds. Fittingly, to Plato, this type of education was producing a generation of students that were falling under a cancerous neurosis of the system. This is what Plato calls mimesis which is when a poet makes himself resemble another person’s voice or gesture; the poet is engaging in an act of being as the other poet. In its simplest form, it is nothing more than sheer imitation. Perhaps, what Plato was fighting against is not the system itself; rather, it is the construction of an oral system that is unwilling to change with the moving times. Havelock (1963) contends: the oral situation had persisted through the fifth century, one faces the conclusion that there would also persist what one may call an oral state of mind as well; a mode of consciousness so to speak, and, as we shall see, a vocabulary and syntax, which were not that of a literate bookish culture. And once one admits this and admits that the oral state of mind would show a time lag so that it perished into a new epoch when the technology of communication had changed, it becomes understandable that the oral state of mind is still for Plato the main enemy. (p.41) When Plato argues for a philosophical rhetoric, he is arguing for a new state of mind that recognizes the changing Greek society, a society where the introduction of written alphabets is beginning to change the oral discourse that was an active part of the poet’s lives. Like Freire, Plato was a radical thinker for his time. They both challenged the underlying dogmas that dictate a tradition that has reinforced a restricted system that does not make room for change. Plato is more concerned with raising another generation of poets that are unaware of their own minds. It is this lack of inner transformation that is taught in an education system that would rather create imitators then what Freire calls critical consciousness. Reverting back to Freire’s concept of the banking system, depository education was adamantly encouraged in Plato’s time; however, the shift from oral to literate cultures also influenced how students were learning. Oral cultures produced one type of students who were untouched by the written form, and these students were extremely skilled in their ability to memorize and produce poetry that has been passed down from one generation to the next. With the inception of the literate culture, other types of 204

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students were created. These students could read texts and write unlike the past generations who participated in the oral traditions. The connecting factor that both cultures have is that even with the institution of both oral to literate, they both suffer from “narration sickness.” If one examines Freire’s (1993) notion of “banking” he reminds us that those who use the banking approach “fail to perceive that the deposits themselves contain contradictions about reality” (p. 75). Havelock (1963) proclaims that in an oral civilization where documentation was not existent, men had to preserve their linguistic heritage which meant embodying a standard that could guide and lay out a foundation for the people. In as much, it is the same traditional foundation that guides men in a literate culture. It is the development of an educational apparatus that determines who, what, when, and how students will obtain knowledge. In connecting this back to Freire’s banking notion, education whether in oral or in literate cultures both have the same problems. They both are like the oppressors that dictate a standard that is oppressive and hierarchically based. What do Plato and Freire share in common? They both are radicals of their time calling for a new transformation in the education system. They both were not afraid to question the status quo. In retrospect, it was a sense of duty that they required of all citizens, whether rich, poor, or elite. It was more so a birthright and duty for all people, as reiterated by Freire in his book. Freire echoes the same social dilemmas that were plaguing Plato in his era, which are also common today. They both want an education system that incorporates and encourages the use of critical thinking to produce students that are consciously aware of their world. Freire (1993) states, “the banking method emphasizes permanence and becomes reactionary; problem-posing education---which accepts neither a “well-behaved” present nor a predetermined future---roots itself in the dynamic present and becomes revolutionary” (p.84). Thus, what Plato and Freire are calling for is an education system that permits students the opportunity to challenge the old system in a way that fosters a community of learners that know how to think critically. This is what currently must be done in the field of composition. The field must continuously be challenged by studying its history, deconstruct dogmatic ideologies, and tittivate the curriculum.

EVOLUTION OF COMPOSITION: UNDERSTANDING A CAUSE FOR CHANGE Since the inception of English classes dating back to when Harvard first opened its doors for the first composition class in 1873, according to Applebee, English was taught as “a fundamental liberal discipline, a body of specific knowledge to be preserved and transmitted rather than a set of skills or an opportunity for guidance and individual adjustment” (as cited in North, 1987, p. 10). After the creation of the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 1949, the teaching of composition did not take on radical changes until the late 1960s. Prior to the English reform, English was seen as a discipline, incorporating all of the four basic discourse modes: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This guiding ideology was thought to be a holistic way in the teaching of English. Thus, it focused on the needs of the students (North, 1987). Respectively, Murphy (1982) reminds us that this phenomenon, which is unknown to English professors now, has misled many to believe that all four basic skills were different entities to be separated: The history of the Boylston Professorship at Harvard University is virtually a paradigm of the history of English departments themselves. The first Professor was John Quincy Adams, who served from 1806 to 1809; the Harvard Corporation’s detailed statutes charged him to instruct students in reading, writ-

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ing, and speaking, using imitation and memorization as well as his own lectures. Basically, it was a program in classical rhetoric on the model of Quintilian. Later, Edward T. Channing (1819-51) was to include Whately’s Logic, but he also began to include a concern for literature and for the “criticism” or evaluation of literature. (p.4) After Harvard decided to establish a new English department the traditional ways of teaching English became obsolete and a new paradigm shift developed. This new paradigm became known as the term “Composition.” What this meant is that the teaching of composition could only and would only focus on the mechanics of writing (Murphy,1982). According to Murphy (1982), “the term “composition” at Harvard became known only as written composition, and the term “rhetoric” was narrowed to mean only oral composition” (Murphy, 1982, p. 4). Not only was this the guiding principle in leading the teaching of composition on a new path, but it also meant that high school English education would also fall into the trap of dividing the four basic language discourse modes. In the end, what remained according to Murphy (1982) was “literature” in the sense of critical readings of acknowledged masterwork. “The Harvard example demonstrates that we might learn something about the present state of affairs by looking carefully at the past. . .[the English] situation is but one instance of a much broader change in American attitudes toward rhetoric that took place over more than a century and is still only dimly understood today” (Murphy, 1982, p. 5). Consequently, after World War I, the decision to separate literature and composition in American education is neither clear nor well defined. Many political factors or educational factors could have caused the differentiation between both skills. However, Murphy (1982) eludes to the point that “this decision has resulted in the separation of reading from writing, creating a basically undemocratic situation that makes so-called literature an elitist. . .while creating a national aversion to writing. . .promoted by years of seemingly purposeless and rule-bound writing drills that have no apparent relation to human experiences in the world” (Murphy, 1982, p.7-8). What this creates is what Murphy (1982) calls a “rhetorical vacuum” where students have come to learn that writing is neither enjoyable nor useful. Rather, it has become an institutional encumbrance for those unfortunate enough to be forced to sit through a semester of writing drills. Murphy (1982) reiterates these sentiments by stating: Paradoxically, it is citizen awareness of the problem that makes this a uniquely valuable time to reassess the decision to separate writing from reading. The reintegration of human learning functions would be enormously popular (politically) and enormously satisfying (academically) if we only had the curricular courage to do it. . . the current three-tier organizational pattern would no doubt have to be collapsed into a single-level operation. (p.8)

Controversies Within the Discipline of Composition Historically, the separation of writing from reading was brought on by the American education system. Tradition and years of practice have made administrators and practitioners forget why the English curriculum used all four language discourse modes. Because of this, the education system has adopted this nonchalant pacified attitude towards changing the curriculum. According to Scholes (1998), “the aesthetic and the political, the literary and the rhetorical, the textual and the extratextual are deeply entwined, and their disciplinary separation has been costly” (Scholes, 1998, p. 31).

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Realistically, to transform this static curriculum, what is needed is what Murphy (1982) calls “curricular courage.” Curricular courage is the reconstruction of American English departments in hopes of creating a more modified and interconnected curriculum. Without this courage, English departments will continue to adhere to the tune of equal but separate ideologies. Murphy (1982) outlines that without transformation, what practitioners will continue to see in the English departments are the three levels of separation: The “literary” faculty of prestige and tenurability, the “creative writing” faculty of mixed antecedents and problematic futures, and the “composition staff” of the chronically underemployables of various stripes from teaching assistants to part- timers and the odd enthusiast from the so-called regular faculty. But after all, isn’t the term “creative writing” a redundancy? Show me a department with a thriving creative writing program, and I’ll show you a department with a serious curricular disease---a detachment of the rhetorical retina. Any change in the now traditional hierarchy would be unpleasant to some and dangerous to others. (p.8) Within these levels, what is seen is the formation of and deep-rooted ideologies entrenched in the English department. It is this belief that writing and literature have always been separate entities. Thus, this ideology has also been used to describe the discourse. Because of this, conflicting ideologies of separation have been so deeply embedded in the language, to the point that the arbitrary divisions that separate composition and literature have erased any reputable respect for the teaching of composition within the English department. It is once again, this separatism that has caused practitioners to take sides and build a hierarchal divider between departments, which caused the love and hate relationship between composition and literature. Bizzell and Herzberg (1990) contend that “although composition was a required course in most universities in the United Sates, it was treated as a service provided by the English department, not a discipline in its own right” (p. 899). Even the introduction of literature into the composition field, according to Bizzell and Herzberg (1990), “provided teachable content, something to write about other than oneself or arbitrarily chosen subjects in which the teacher was not an expert” (p. 899). Unfortunately, many English professors still adhere to this misconception about the placement of composition in English Studies which only solidifies and validates the deep-rooted eccentric frame of mind. Hence, the question is not whether practitioners need a change in the English curriculum; it is whether they are ready for those changes. It is only when composition practitioners can honestly say that the composition field needs a deconstruction of ideologies, then they will have “curricular courage” to make those modifications.

The Need for Change in Composition Studies One of the major issues that composition practitioners constantly complain about is their students’ lack of ability to see the connection between writing, speaking, reading, and listening. Many students tend to have the notion that there is simply no connection. The idea that writing is separate from the four language discourse modes has been reverberated by high school teachers and even some traditional English practitioners. Because students have not been taught to perceive that their thoughts are part of the writing process, they are often confused when they hear that reading, writing, listening, and speaking can help them to become better writers. In Bruffee’s (1984) article, “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind,” he reiterates this notion by affirming: 207

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Like thought, writing is related to conversation in both time and function. Writing is a technologically displaced form of conversation. When we write, having already internalized the “skill and partnership” of conversation, we displace it once more onto the written page. . . writing is at once two steps away from conversation and a return to conversation. We converse; we internalize conversation as thought; and then by writing, we re-immerse conversation in its external, social medium. (p. 641) In retrospect, composition practitioners are bombarded with students who come from high school into the freshman college writing classrooms lacking knowledge in structure, organization, or cohesiveness in their essays. Downing, Hurlbert, and Mathieu. (2002) assert, “as composition theorist have argued for years, teaching writing and reading at any level calls for all the skills, resources, lore, and knowledge of a wide range of activities and practices, even though some forms of disciplinary criteria may not highly honor such work” (p. 31). It is this lack of understanding that has caused composition practitioners to continue to be gullied under the binary formulaic system, where the goal of writing is to practice a “process” in which students are taken through prescribed drills or formats, in order for students to gain a command of the language, especially the grammatical aspects of the English language.

Problems With Composition Studies Hence, the problem with Composition Studies is that no one is asking the right questions which are: “Why are students failing writing classes?” “What is wrong with composition classrooms?” “Who is at fault—the teacher or the student?” Some critics may ask, “Why do practitioners need a transformation in the composition classroom?” Simply, the answer is that if composition practitioners are encountering the same problematic issues, then their curriculum and pedagogy will have to be reevaluated. The notion of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” cannot be the guiding ideology of practitioners. If change is called upon, then the calling must be answered. In Shaughnessy’s (1976) article, “Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing,” she explains that the blame cannot be placed solely on the student in which she states: This system of exchange between teacher and student has so far yielded much more information about what is wrong with students than about what is wrong with teachers, reinforcing the notion that students, not teachers, are the people in education who must do the changing. The phrase “catching up,” so often used to describe the progress of BW [basic writers] students, is illuminating here, suggesting as it does that the only person who must move in the teaching situation is the student. (p. 234) By reverting to the past, composition practitioners can fully understand the field of composition by studying its historical contexts. Instead of taking two steps forward, composition practitioners must take two steps backward. By doing this, they will be able to see why teachers in the past, had students who were able to master all four basic language skills. Obviously, there was a reason why Quintilian (1980) proclaimed that students must be taught in all areas. The purpose was to produce students who were well-rounded and educated not only in one field, but in all fields, to create moral citizens. Are practitioners not searching for the same results from their students? It is not a matter of, “Should practitioners resort back to classical rhetoric to teach us about composition studies?” It is a matter of, “When are practitioners going to resort back to classical rhetoric to teach us about writing?”

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SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: WHY QUINTILIAN? Retrospectively, many may wonder why resort to Quintilian’s (1980) methods of teaching. The reason why composition studies should incorporate his style of teaching is that it offers students a way to become comprehensively well-rounded as students. It offers them a way to become fully educated not only in one area of study but in all areas. Quintilian’s (1980) methods embody an educational system that creates the “perfect citizen orator.” If the point of education is to produce students who will become educated citizens, then they must be able to articulate their knowledge not only in writing, but also in listening, reading, and speaking. All four language skills are interconnected. To ignore one and promote another is to deny the student the ability to fully utilize his or her potential. In Aristotelian times, the five domains of rhetoric consisted of: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery (Miller, 1982). Students were required to practice and use all five as a means of developing their skills. It was not uncommon to have students follow a model and then produce those models in a form of imitation. These exercises were intended to enrich the student; thus, making him the “perfect citizen.” The purpose of such a methodology was to produce students who were able to defend themselves in the public arena. Scholes (1998) supports this claim in which he states, “classical orations, epic poems and the great religious and philosophical texts took care of human values and morality, as well as what used to be called taste. Mathematics and the sciences developed the student’s reasoning powers and opened the way to careers in business and technology. Oratory and rhetoric stressed the uses of language that might be needed by a preacher, legislator, or lawyer” (p. 75). Currently, the word rhetoric or any connotations towards it is known as what Miller (1982) views as “the nasty word now usually mentioned only in reference to manipulative politicians and major oil companies” (Miller, 1982, p. 50). What many have failed to see is that in Quintilian’s (1980) time, the use of the five domains of rhetoric, especially in the composition class produced strong results. The results produced students who internalized that writing, speaking, listening, and reading were all comparably equal in nature. To master one is to master all. Quintilian (1980) proclaimed this in his Institutio Oratoria: I know that it is often asked whether more is contributed by writing, by reading, or by speaking. This question we should have to examine with careful attention if in fact we could confine ourselves to any one of these activities; but in truth they are all so connected, so inseparably linked with one another, that if any one of them is neglected, we labor in vain in the other two---for our speech will never become forcible and energetic unless it acquires strength from great practice in writing; and the labor of writing, if left destitute of models from reading, passes away without effect. (X. i.1-2) What can composition practitioners learn from this? One of the biggest mistakes that composition practitioners, “English Temps,” or even literature turned composition practitioners make is the mistake of teaching writing as a set of drills. Students learn to view the process as chunks of blocks rather than view it as a process intertwined with other disciplines. Consequently, because of such a notion, “good writing” has become defined as grammar, spelling, and punctuation in which invention and style belong to different disciplines (Miller, 1982). This is also common in L2 classrooms. Ideally, in L1 writing classrooms, students are constantly encouraged to think analytically and challenge their own beliefs. However, this is not always required of L2 writers who are often placed in a marginalized curriculum that affords one group (L1 writers) authority and another (L2 writers) acculturation into the education system. In Silva’s (1997) article, he states, “there are four basic ways in which ESL writers need to be 209

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respected: they need to be (a) understood, (b) placed in suitable learning contexts, (c) provided with appropriate instruction, and (d) evaluated fairly” (p. 359). Furthermore, when composition practitioners do provide examples of “good writing,” it often does not illustrate or teach students how to write. The examples often consist of arbitrary models that do not depict the real world. By adopting Quintilian’s (1980) methods, practitioners will know that their students will benefit from an array of examples that will prepare them for the real world. When this happens, then they will be able to amalgamate all four basic skills. Quintilian (1980), aware of such practices, reiterates this in his Institutio Oratoria: Accordingly, writing is relieved by reading, and the tedium of reading itself is relieved by changes of subject. However many things we may have done, we are yet to a certain degree fresh for that which we are going to begin. Who, on the contrary, would not be stupefied, if he were to listen to the same teacher of art, whatever it might be, through the whole day? But by change a person will be refreshed, as is the case with respect to food, by varieties of which the stomach is reinvigorated, and is fed with several sorts less unsatisfactorily than with one…so much more easy is it to do many things one after the other, than to do one thing for a long time. (XII. i. 5-7) If composition practitioners want to propel the field beyond the state it is in, an evaluative pedagogy will have to be established. It is not enough to sit back and complain and wonder why students cannot write. Rather, practitioners must conceptualize a new framework to help their students become better writers. Through conceptualization, practitioners can then transcend their pedagogy into a more dynamic curriculum that will produce effective results. Classical rhetoric offers educators this opportunity. Quintilian (1980) advocates that education starts as soon as the child is born to sharpen all of his senses. In as much, composition practitioners can emulate this same ideology by learning to teach their students to view writing, speaking, listening, and reading as interconnected disciplines. Although practitioners are not afforded the same advantage in educating their students from birth; however, adopting Quintilian’s (1980) ideology is a way to reform the unchanging “stagnant” state of Composition Studies. Adding to this, it is not only important to use Quintilian’s (1980) ideologies as a method to redefine the composition field, but it is also a method to re-invite and re-use pedagogical methods that have worked for centuries. Although the current state of teaching composition focuses less on orality when instructing students in the writing process, nonetheless, educational dogmas from the past were successful in rearing men to become well-rounded in all aspects of their education. Unfortunately, depending on how one sees it, the conditions that govern the English departments do not allow students to become reared in an oral society due to the textuality of the current world. However, composition practitioners have an advantage over the Aristotelian society because of the textual world that they live in currently. The irony is that even with all of the technology and hundreds of grammar books available, students nonetheless, do not know how to compose grammatically correct sentences, practice effective elocution, write argumentatively, and read critically. To critics, to revert may be archaic in thinking, but to not revert can be even detrimental to the future of composition studies. Practitioners cannot only revert to the past; they must also study their current composition plight in which Scholes (1998) states:

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And what is our present cultural situation? “we teachers as well as students---live in a society that is more fully and insistently textualized than anything people have experienced the past….But it is impossible to deny that language and other semiotic systems and their associated media of communication have in the course of history multiplied and penetrated more and more deeply into our daily lives….It is abundantly clear, moreover, that to function as a citizen of these United States one needs to be able to read, interpret, and criticize texts in a wide range of modes, genres, and media. What our students need to function in such a world, then, is an education for a society still struggling to balance its promises of freedom and equality, still hoping to achieve greater measures of social justice, still trying not to homogenize its people but to allow for social mobility and to make the lower levels of its economic structure tolerable and humane. (p. 84). If homogenization is what composition practitioners are searching from their freshman students, then, they will have to simply incorporate all four modes of discourse in an attempt to produce students who are conscientious writers. “We are living, as some of our acute thinkers keep reminding us, in an age of parody and pastiche. What is often called postmodernism is cultural production in which appropriation of the past plays a major part” (Scholes, 1998, p. 161). Scholes (1998) further suggests that “students who are encouraged not only to read the major texts of the past but pastiche and parody their styles will do a better job of getting inside the heads of those writers, and they will themselves become better writers because they have done so” (p. 160). Composition practitioners must learn that historical reflection is not only necessary, it is mandatory, for all practicing a field that is oftentimes marginalized by the literature departments. Scholes’ (1998) quote embodies the reflective practices that composition practitioners ought to be reflecting on, in which he asserts: As a habit of mind, the love of truth is one of the great things that we, as teachers, have to offer, but we cannot offer it by merely talking about it; we have to enact it, to embody it in our whole practice as scholars and teachers. This means being truthful with ourselves about how we came to be where we are, what interests we are serving, and what good we can hope to accomplish. It means ending what I will call …hypocriticism and taking a new approach to our culture, our textual canon, our curriculum, and our classroom practice. For English teachers, it means reconsidering how we became what we are and what we do. (p. 57-58).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Casanave (2004) affirms, “all choices we make in the classroom are therefore laden with political and ideological implications” (p. 197). In a sense, if composition practitioners can require and even encourage L1 learners to be active agents in their own academic discourse, then it is only reasonable that L2 practitioners ask the same of their L2 writers. Casanave (2004) referencing Paolo Freire’s beliefs, states, “it is the responsibility of educators to do more than train students in various skills. Rather it is their duty to help raise students’ awareness of inequities in society and to provide them with means for challenging, questioning, and resisting” (p. 204). Composition practitioners must understand the substantial amount of power they possess in the classroom. Such power must be utilized to the fullest to create and nurture conscientious students capable of making use of the four modes of language which are writing, listening reading, and speaking. This can 211

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only be done by the indoctrination of a critical pedagogy which teaches practitioners to become active agents of power in their classrooms. Suitably, such ideology can be implemented by asking practitioners to move beyond the teaching of cultural acculturation and saturation of social standards. Casanave (2004) reminds us that curriculum overthrow is neither easy nor encouraged by administration. How does reading affect writing? Traditionally, research has stated that reading and writing are interrelated. It is believed that students who read more tend to become better writers. Not only is this theory evident in L1 pedagogy, but it is also evident in L2 pedagogy. Can reading cause learners to become better writers? In Grabe’s (2003) article, he examines how reading and writing can facilitate L2 learners to become better writers. One of the key issues outlined in this article is the use of using reading texts to help students become aware of structural and grammatical functions of an essay. Grabe (2003) states, “one of the most common tasks in school and academic settings is to read texts and then use that information for writing purposes” (p. 243). Why is this strategy still an interest for many researchers in the field of L1 and L2 writing classrooms? According to Grabe (2003) this question can be easily answered by practitioners doing a needs analysis. By doing a needs analysis, practitioners can determine what texts to use and what assignments will lead to their students acquiring the language skills needed to master writing, reading, speaking, and listening. Frequently, L2 writers do not always understand how to use the language especially when they are required to write. This is also evident with L1 writers who are skilled in the native language. When practitioners provide reading assignments that incorporate all four modes of language skills and a variety of styles, L1 and L2 writers will improve their writing skills. In the article, Grabe (2003) discussed the use of task-based activities to facilitate the learning curve of L2 writers. This can also apply to L1 learners because these activities allow both groups of students to become better writers. For future research activities, this can be achieved by having writing activities that produce: Step 1: Realistic academic goals Step 2: Mimics “fluency”, “accuracy”, and “complexity” Step 3: Introduces formal and informal language Step 4: Introduces structure and form Overall, by using multiple methods to increase L1 and L2 language acquisition, practitioners will see improvements in their work. The implementation of writing, reading, listening, and speaking allows students to become intellectually astute, while also preparing them to become proficient writers.

CONCLUSION Quintilian (1980) viewed education as a way to raise conscientious citizens. His main aim of education focused on the development and rearing of children who will become better citizens because of their education and training. He believed that the importance of education was not only to learn but also to create moral individuals. In relations to composition studies, composition practitioners also believe in rearing students to understand the fundamental benefits of learning how to write. If practitioners are asking their students to become proficient writers, then they will have to train them to think, act, be, and finally, internalize the concept of what leads one to evolve into a writer. Therefore, 212

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practitioners should adopt Quintilian’s (1980) theory of education. His focus in education is the students, and once composition practitioners incorporate that into their own focus, their strategies may result in generating a curriculum that will redefine how students write. Murphy (1982) purposes that “those who do not study the history of rhetoric will be the victims of it” (p. 11). If composition practitioners believe in producing students that are capable of writing, then they will have to look at their curriculum and reevaluate what they are teaching as composition. In the words of Ohmann (2003) in his book, “Politics of Knowledge: The Commercialization of the University, the Professions, and Print culture,” “a historical sense is not enough” (p. 48). Composition practitioners must question, investigate their students, their field, and their pedagogy. Perhaps when these investigations take place, composition practitioners will gain a better insight into the discipline that they are teaching. In summary, Robert Connors (1997)’ book “Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy,” he lays out the fundamental questions that composition practitioners ought to be contemplating. He further states, “one of the continuing questions informing rhetorical theory and teaching has been: What are students of discourse supposed to know, to be able to speak and write about. . . should we emphasize honest, personal writing, stress academic, argumentative, or practical subjects?” (1997, p. 296). Undoubtedly, these are the same questions Quintilian (1980) had to face and these are the same questions composition practitioners will have to contemplate. What happens when practitioners reflect back to history? What can they learn from Paulo Freire, Plato, and Quintilian? The answer may seem simple. However, it is the renewing of the minds that will lead to a more harmonious relationship in the field of Composition. Practitioners cannot continue to separate reading, writing, listening, and speaking in the classroom and expect students to be well rounded composers, whether it is in the L1 or L2 classrooms. It is in this congealment of ideas that practitioners can produce students that can create the type of work necessary in academia. What is the purpose of instituting one skill over the other? In totality, it is nonsensical to have students lacking in one area, while focusing on others. Practitioners need students that can write and be able to convey their thoughts about their writings in an educated and analytical process. It is within this process, their speaking, reading, and listening skills should also be developed. Altogether, by reflecting on the social, political, and ideological history of the field, composition practitioners can find the means to reconstruct the future of Composition Studies.

REFERENCES Bizzell, P., & Herzberg, B. (1990). The rhetorical tradition: readings from classical times to the present. Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press. Bruffee, K. A. (1984). Collaborative learning and the conversation of mankind. National. Council of Teachers of English, 46(7), 635–652. Casanave, C. P. (2004). Politics and ideology. In Controversies in second language writing: Dilemmas and decisions in research and instruction (pp. 195-236). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Connors, J. R. (1997). Composition-rhetoric backgrounds, theory, and pedagogy. University of Pittsburgh Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt5hjt92 Downing, B. D., Hurlbert, M. C., & Mathieu, P. (2002). Beyond English inc.: Curricular reform in a global economy. Boynton/Cook Publishers.

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Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. Grabe, W. (2003). Reading and writing relations: Second language perspectives on research and practice. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp. 242–262). CUP. doi:10.1017/ CBO9781139524810.016 Greene, W. C. (1918). Plato’s view of poetry. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 29, 1–75. doi:10.2307/310558 Havelock, E. A. (1963). Preface to Plato. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Johnson, M. (2004). A philosophy of second language acquisition. Yale University Press. Miller, S. (1982). Classical practice and contemporary basics. In The rhetorical tradition and modern writing (pp. 46-72). New York, NY: The Modern Language Association of America. Murphy, J. J. (1982). The rhetorical tradition and modern writing. The Modern Language Association of America. North, M. S. (1987). The making of knowledge in composition portrait of an emerging field. Boynton/ Cook Publisher. Ohmann, R. (2003). Politics of knowledge: the commercialization of the university, the professions, and print culture. Wesleyan University Press. Quintilian. (1980). The institutio oratoria of Quintilian. Harvard University Press. Scholes, R. (1998). The rise and fall of English: reconstructing English as a discipline. Yale University Press. Shaughnessy, M. P. (1976). Diving in: An introduction to basic writing. College Composition and Communication, 27(3), 234–239. doi:10.2307/357036 Silva, T. (1997). On the ethical treatment of ESL students. TESOL Quarterly, 31(2), 359–363. doi:10.2307/3588052 Yagelski, P. R. (1999). The ambivalence of reflection: Critical pedagogies, identity, and the writing teacher. College Composition and Communication, 1(51), 32–50. doi:10.2307/358958

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ADDITIONAL READING Connor, U. (2003). Changing currents in contrastive rhetoric: Implications for teaching and research. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp. 218–241). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139524810.015 Kubota, R., & Lehner, A. (2005). Response to Ulla Connor’s comments. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14(2), 137–143. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2005.05.005 Kumaradivelu, B. (2003). A postmethod perspective on English language teaching. World Englishes, 22(4), 539–550. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.2003.00317.x Leith, D., & Myerson, G. (1989). The power of address: Explorations in rhetoric. Routledge. Matsuda, P. K., Cox, M., Jordan, J., & Ortmeier-Hooper, C. (Eds.). (2006). Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Miller, J. L. (1990). Creating spaces and finding voices. Teachers collaborating for empowerment. State University of New York Press. Nickles, T. (Ed.). (2003). Thomas Kuhn. Cambridge University Press. Rupiper, A., Shick, K., & Tate, G. (2001). A guide to composition pedagogies. Oxford University Press. Scarcella, R. (2002). Some key factors affecting English learners’ development of advanced literacy. In M. J. Schleppegrell & M. C. Colombi (Eds.), Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages: Meaning with power (pp. 209–226). Erlbaum. White, H. (1987). The content of the form. Narrative discourse and historical representation. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Composition Studies: A professional field dedicated to the art of writing, especially in the college level. Critical Consciousness: An ideology created by Paulo Freire to bring an awareness to the social and political contradictions within society, especially against the oppressed. Listening: The ability for a person to receive and interpret a message in the communication process. Narration Sickness: A term coined by Paulo Freire in the description of how education is taught in a mechanical process within the classroom. Paulo Freire: A social and political educator and philosopher whose work influenced the education system. Plato: A Greek philosopher who created the Platonist school of thought who is well known for Western philosophy and the dialectic forms of philosophy. Reading: The ability to read print work. Speaking: The ability to convey ideas through spoken words. Writing: The ability to construct grammatically coherent words in a sentence, paragraph, or essay.

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Locating the Transrhetorical in Multilingual Writing: A Closer Look at Autobiographical Narratives Leonora Anyango-Kivuva Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), USA

ABSTRACT Students’ lived lives and experiences are tools that they can use to learn and own their writing as they grow and become fluent writers. Theorists have described different ways that students draw from their first languages and culture to write in another language. This chapter showcases how two African students bring their culture of orality into the classroom and use it as a tool to understand, develop, and conquer their writing. The chapter gives examples of the students’ narratives as they navigate their writing. As they write, they constantly dig into their culture through tools of translation in order to perform, inform, and transform their writing in English, a language that is different both linguistically and culturally from their own.

INTRODUCTION: CULTURE AND MULTILINGUAL WRITING Multilingual writing scholars have invested their minds and brains in explaining what goes into the writing process as students negotiate this process in another language. Various terminologies have come up over the years to show that there is no simplicity or a straightforward answer to explain this. During the mid-sixties, the gaze was on contrastive rhetoric. Contrastive rhetoric has its origin in notions of language structure, learning and use which are not strongly autonomous, and its goal is to describe ways in which written texts operate in larger cultural contexts (Grabe & Kaplan 1996, p.179). In order to address the needs of second language writers in college composition, Goen-Salter et al. (2009) conducted a study to “help us better address the obstacles these students face in becoming proficient speakers, readers, and writers of English” (p. 235). They suggested that there was a need to “use DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch013

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knowledge of students’ background to inform teaching and classroom practice” and also to “help students to... make connections between learning preferences, spoken language and written discourse” (p. 235). Kubota (2004) sees the need for a critical view of contrastive rhetoric where English becomes a language that is added to the ways with words students bring to the classroom rather than a linguistic system meant to supplant their familiar discourses. She adds that “a significant goal of an English writing course (ESL or EFL) is the addition of new and different ways of writing rather than the subtraction of ways a teacher might find inappropriate or lacking” (p. 21). Multilingual students, therefore, get richer and stronger by drawing from what they know in order to succeed better in their writing. Canagarajah and Matsumoto (2017) define translingual literacies as texts and textual practices that go beyond language and community boundaries to accommodate differences (p. 390). Canagarajah (2013) recognizes that two languages at work during writing are a “synergy, treating languages as always in contact and mutually influencing each other, with emergent meanings and grammars, drawn from diverse languages” (p.62). Translingualism, therefore, seeks to strengthen student writing through the differences that students carry with them into English from other languages and cultures. Wang (2015) states that “transrhetorical practice brings self and other together and subjects both to transformation in a close cultural and linguistic encounter. The dialectical doubleness entails a recursive process of seeing self and other through a binocular lens—a process of creating a third language from plural local terms” (p. 248). Here, both linguistic and cultural encounters have weight. However, it does not stop there. The “recursive process” makes this a rhetorical encounter, and an extension that is worth studying in multilingual student writing. Wang (2015) further states that the prefix “trans” not only implies the physical crossing of national and geopolitical borders but also signifies the discursive crossing between two or more cultures (Wang, 2015, p. 248). This “discursive crossing” is the one we see happening, more often than not, when students have to make the decisions on how to write in another language. I now turn to African orality, one of the ways that that students experience the discursive crossing between cultures.

BACKGROUND: AFRICAN ORALITY Mama was always the best teacher I knew. Through her stories, proverbs, songs and anecdotes, she would teach us all the lessons we needed in life. She had a story for everything, and they always started with a proverb or an idiomatic expression. The characters in the stories had their dwelling in our family, and we would speak like Mama when we wanted to correct one another. Therefore, a person who was not clean was “Manya,” the character in Mama’s story who had to be urged by friends to go to the river and take a bath. The person who did not fulfill their duties would be “Oyundi,” Mama’s infamous character who feigned illness during work but showed up during meals. Mama’s way of knowing became my way of knowing. In a culture where knowledge was transmitted through oral forms, she passed on her knowledge to me the best way she knew how. She did not have to read a book. Her storytelling became the way I framed my writing, and I saw and felt her influence in my way of thinking and writing. I learned about oral literature in high school with an indescribable passion, and enjoyed the novels of African writers who depicted their influence from oral literature in their writing. These included Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Grace Ogot. Mama tantalized us with her stories, yet a lot of learning took place simultaneous to the entertainment. Anoka (2012) writes that “orality means something passed on through the spoken word,” and 217

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it “grows out of tradition and keeps tradition alive” (p. 19). Our tradition stayed alive while we were taught through these words. Mabana (2009) posits that “the artistic use of the word has created a valuable poetry and a rich range of oral devices that constitute what is known as African oral literature” (p. 1). The uses of these words, however, carry with them more than can be easily explained. Anoka (2012) attempts to capture it thus: Africa is a communal civilization where the word has a powerful impact on the life of people. In such a civilization, the cultures and aesthetic sensibilities of the people are particularly to be seen in orally based forms of cultural expressions. In addition, the identity of the people finds expression in such orally based forms of cultural expressions. It is their way of relating to their world, their manner of saying who and what they are, how they lived and how they are living. It is their means of testifying to their existence. (p. 20) It is this “means of testifying to their existence” that is at the heart of the expressions, past and present, that are uttered in different artistic forms—narratives, proverbs, songs, and riddles—to bring forth the uniqueness of people touched by them. This way of knowing that once was a way of transmitting knowledge and history from one generation to another through orality, became embraced avidly in the writings of African writers who not only used it with skill in their writings but also used it in the new language they had learned through their education. Achebe (1959) captures the importance of orality in the works of African writers, and he displays it in his own work. Describing Okoye, one of his characters, he writes: Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. Okoye was a great talker and he spoke for a long time, skirting round the subject and then hitting it finally. In short, he was asking Unoka to return the cowries he had borrowed from him more than two years before. (p. 7) Achebe’s (1959) writing style that included his rich background of African orality brought another dimension to English literary works. Likewise, other African writers have since recognized the need to keep their identity as they write in English. In her powerful flashback of her childhood, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, in her memoir Unbowed (2006), recounted with nostalgia what she remembered about the land and the environment: At the time of my birth, the land around Ihithe was still lush, green, and fertile. The seasons were so regular that you could almost predict that the long, monsoon rains would start falling in mid-March. In July you knew it would be so foggy you would not be able to see ten feet in front of you, and so cold in the morning that the grass would be silvery-white with frost. In Kikuyu, July is known as “mworia nyoni,” the month when birds rot, because birds would freeze and fall from the trees. We lived in a land abundant with shrubs, creepers, ferns, and trees, like the “mitundu, mukeu,” and “migumo,” some of which produced berries and nuts. Because rain fell regularly and reliably, clean drinking water was everywhere (pp. 3-4).

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Maathai (2006) wrote in a way that echoed African orality and storytelling. She kept to its rhythm and to the corresponding diversity of African cultures and languages. It is a testimony to the immense influence of oral forms of knowledge, and the writers’ celebration of the same. It is also a testimony to the fact that African orality has defied the test of time and that those exposed to it would carry it on as part of their knowledge base and worldview. They would share it as part of their life’s story, their autobiographies, as Anoka (2012) explains: Africa’s narratives constitute the autobiography of Africa: biography brought to life by Africa and about Africa. One cannot deny the fact that many narrative situations in Africa mark important moments of its people… Therefore, to claim to know and understand the people involved comes from having accepted the invitation extended by their autobiographies. It is in this sense that Africa’s narratives, which constitute the autobiography of African communities, invite us to enter into conversation with them and to react to them. (p.20) It is these “important moments” of some of Africa’s people, the African students in my classrooms, that I wanted to capture, and thereby, through their autobiographical narratives, have them “invite us to enter into conversation” as they shared their culture with us through writing. In their work on student writing, Blitz and Hurlbert (1998) capture the need for educators to know the histories of their students in the most precise way: But the fact is that sometimes when we are in the classroom the only map of rhetoric and pedagogy that we can make is an anecdotal map in which we collect the various stories told to us by our students, a collection we share with our friends and colleagues with the idea of creating a deep history of shared experiences. This history offers a chance for generating deep understandings of what we do, which, in turn, supplies us with opportunities for becoming more prepared for our work as teachers—and makers of maps. (p. 21) This quest to be “a maker of maps” has inspired my current study on African students’ writing. If students can be inspired to write stories they already know orally, they would share experiences that generate deep understandings, which will in turn inspire the vision in educators to make the maps of pedagogies that will enhance multilingual student writing in English.

STORIES IN THE MAKING: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE METHODOLOGY I teach English as an Academic Language (EAL) students in a two-year college in Western Pennsylvania. Students in my multilingual writing classroom—usually in their second semester of learning English— experience writing in multiple genres according to the common syllabus that is generated by members of the English as an Academic Language discipline (ESL in other contexts). The autobiographical narratives are only one of the genres that they write in. They still must experience other genres like argumentative essays, research papers, and expository writing, among others as they get ready for college writing courses. The autobiographical narratives are, however, the students’ comfort zone. Most or all of them are usually unfamiliar with long pieces and may still be struggling with writing a three- page essay. For their narrative, they choose the story that they want to write, even though they have instructions 219

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to follow. As they write this through the semester, they also work on other genres that strengthen their academic writing. This helps them to advance their writing while enjoying it. Johns (2009) advocates for advancing writing for second language learners: …to be successful in postsecondary contexts, students need to move from their comfort zones into analyzing and critiquing unfamiliar topics, language, arguments, and contexts from a variety of texts. In order to succeed, students must be motivated to develop the rhetorical flexibility (emphasis hers) that enables them to move from the familiar, assess an academic situation, and write successfully in the genre that each situation requires. (p. 204) This advancement to academic writing is so crucial, thereby the need for students to be able to write in multiple genres. Having the narrative writing as a semester-long project, however, is something that engages them while grounding them in their own cultures and moves them from their past to their present. It also gives them a chance to learn many other writing techniques associated with creative writing. For the last seven years, I have been using a narrative pedagogy in my multilingual writing classroom. I have always admired the way my students put their language struggles aside to realize the goal of writing their own story. The main ingredient of their story is that it has to be an autobiographical topic; whether it is about them, or their parents, or their children, or their family, they have an opportunity of choosing their own topic and writing their work. This becomes their semester long project that we work on beside other assignments. Blitz and Hurlbert (1998) clearly nudge our conscience by stating that “more and more it seems that much of what we do-or ought to do-as composition teachers is to create respectful spaces for students to tell others who they are” (p. 7). These spaces cannot be respectful if we forget who the students are and what they can do, and, most importantly, give them the tools to do it. They are also the spaces where our students express where they have been, where they have come from, and what they have lived through. I seek to humanize every individual student’s life, acknowledging that they come from storied pasts, and from a place that value their storytelling selves within. Pagnucci (2004) writes that “when we live the narrative life, we learn to trust more in stories. We choose them more consciously, share them more eagerly, and preserve them more carefully” (p. 54). I recognize that my students have their storied lives within them, something that can be a valuable resource for their writing. I have worked with them to show that beyond wondering what the best way is, it is possible to work with students who have limited knowledge of English for them to produce writing that is meaningful to them. Hurlbert (2012), writing about the semester-long writing pedagogy he has used in his college classrooms for many years, posits: …students who write semester-long pieces remain in the recursive processes of reflecting, composing, revising, and editing (emphasis mine). Indeed, by going over and over a single piece of writing as many times as possible, students learn more about writing than students who perform short, exercise writing. (p.193) In my narrative writing pedagogy, I have borrowed from Hurlbert (2012), but also made it my own, depending on the groups of students I have every semester and the kinds of stories they write. Smorti (2011) introduces the concepts of autobiographical memory and autobiographical narratives. He discusses the fact that when someone is writing an autobiographical narrative, s/he has to remember 220

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what they are writing in order be able to produce the desirable narrative. She writes that if the narrator is provided with a tool to reflect on their memories, then they can retrieve the information in a much more coherent way. Smorti (2011) is concerned about coherence as it is an important factor in any autobiographical narrative, in order for the researcher and the narrator to follow and understand the story well. In her study, therefore, she used the tool of “narrating-transcribing-reading-narrating” (p. 308). After narrating their story, the researcher transcribed the narrative and read it together with the participants. By reading their narratives, the participants were able to make additions or self-correct the facts. The transcribed narrative, therefore, became a tool that jogged the participants’ memories. Moreover, they were able to add insightful details and present time facts in their stories. In this inquiry, I adapted Hurlbert’s (2012) and Smorti’s (2011) strategies. I came up with the steps for autobiographical writing as explained below. Step One: Explanation and discussion. During the first class, I mainly talk to the students about the research project and what it constitutes. We discuss the question, “What is an autobiography?” I explained this in simple terms as “stories about you, told or written by you.” My students, though from multiple cultures, are almost always familiar with storytelling. I explain that now they need to tell their story through writing. As they listen to the explanations, they also ask questions and contribute to their own thoughts by giving examples and brainstorming on possible topics. I assist them with choosing a topic that would work well with their language level and urge them not to worry about an appropriate title yet. Once the topic is settled, we move on to the next step. Step Two: Writing. The second step is for them to write their autobiographies. I explained that although it is important for them to look at certain points in their lives (landmarks) that they may not want to forget, they are free to write their story as they wish. This freedom gives them permission to work with parts of their lives that they are comfortable sharing. Making this clear sets them free from thinking that they must write everything they remember. The most significant feature of the writing process is the questions or prompts I give the students to facilitate the writing of their autobiography. Since they are still learning English and struggling with their thought processes in a second language (English), they find it difficult to write the entire story without proper guidance. By looking at what they have already written, I start scaffolding by giving them questions they can answer to expand their writing and continue with their story. With time, even though I continue to give them guiding prompts, they try their best to write more, and in detail, before they bring their work back to me for checking. I make sure that the prompts are in-depth and clear. An example is when I asked Niyo when she did not have dialogue or detail in her story featured here: What are some of the things you asked your friend/ father when they told you about ethnicity? Did it make sense to you? What was going on in your mind? This prompted Niyo to continue with her story by adding more details and dialogue between her and her friend, and also between her and her father on this topic. After that, she recognized the kind of writing that I expected and continued writing mostly on her own. The students turn in their work in bits throughout the writing process. I give them ideas to continue. Even though sometimes they work with peers, I do not make this mandatory because some are not so comfortable with their language level. After I read students’ responses to the prompts, I write a followup question emanating from their own writing if a student needs more guidance. The story unfolds step by step, in a way that the students find it easier to handle than if they did not have guidance as needed. 221

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Step Three: Reviewing. I work with the students in the way Smorti (2011) states, for them to make necessary additions in their story as they remember the events. This helps with cohesiveness, and therefore the proper flow of the story. By going through their stories and marking the places that needed changes, I assist the students to make necessary adjustments in their language and details, and they can to talk about their work and seek advice on improvement. I mainly utilize follow-up questions and urge them to check back on their work constantly in order to minimize repetition of similar mistakes. Step Four: Rewriting. Students are given the opportunity to improve their stories and add more details. While they type their work, I help them identify places that need corrections or details, and I write comments in parenthesis (bold) with what needs to be done. I write (revise) or (add details) or (clarify), just to name a few. I use these methods more than the track changes one because I have realized that they follow better when everything is inside the text. They embark on rewriting their work by responding to these requests, thus expanding their writing further. In this chapter, my intention is not to showcase the process by showing drafts of student writing, but I saw the need to explain how students get to the final product of excerpts displayed and discussed here. It is a long and arduous process, but with a rewarding ending to both the teacher and the students. For this study, I chose to conduct a qualitative research study. By its very definition, qualitative research: …is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. Qualitative research consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible. These practices transform the world. Qualitative researchers…attempt to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p.3). As a researcher, I am ‘located’ in the classroom with my students. Using the ‘interpretive’ tool of autobiographical writing, the students share their writing to make their cultures known to others. I have used different techniques to analyze the stories that my students have written. Pavlenko (2007) sees the necessity of analyzing not only content but also context and form. In the case of bilingual and multilingual participants, language should also be analyzed because certain linguistic factors may be at play, and they equally deserve attention, like “code-switching, language play, conceptual transfer and manipulation of levels of linguistic competence circumstances” (p. 180). Pavlenko (2007) adds that …speakers use linguistic and narrative resources to present themselves as particular kinds of individuals. In the context of autobiographic interviews, the preferred portrayals may emphasize ethnic, linguistic, and cultural loyalties, and interpret one’s own decision-making in the light of these loyalties, rather than chance (p. 176-177). I, therefore, do not assume that my students are a homogenous group without individual ways in which they interpret similar experiences. Each one of them has a unique way of expression in their writing.

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CULTURE AND STORYTELLING: AFRICAN STUDENTS WRITING THEIR STORIED LIVES The path of writing and becoming writers through their own stories has been worth travelling for my students. They use English language without feeling the limitations of what they know, and that it is okay for them to write in ways that make sense to them according to their first languages. When they use words, even from their own language, they are using English language in the way that Achebe (2003) describes: My quarrel with English language has been that the language reflected none of my experience. But now I began to see the matter another way…Perhaps the language was not my own because I had never attempted to use it, had only learned to imitate it. If this were so, then it might be made to bear the burden of my experience (emphasis mine) if I could find stamina to challenge it, and me, to such a test. (p.65) Achebe (2003) heavily reflected his culture in his writing over the years, only after finding a way to make English his own. When he made English “to bear the burden of my experience”, he freed himself from imitating English. He “owned” English. My students can use English in this way as they write their narratives. If they want to use phrases as they are used in their languages, they are free to do so. Tsunoda (2005) in showing the importance of identity in one’s first language, states that: The value of traditional languages is in their integrative, rather than instrumental or pragmatic function… Traditional languages have an integrative function in that they play an important role in maintaining the group’s identity…traditional languages may have a symbolic value, as an “ethnic marker”, even if they can no longer have a communicative value. (pp. 135-136) The examples I have from my African students show their quest to relive their culture as they write in English. In my classroom, I usually have students from various parts of the world. This chapter features students of African origin who have attended my composition class. I chose two of these students through purposive sampling as I indicated above, to represent the oral narrative writing style of African students. The students are from two different African countries, one from Western Africa, and another from Eastern Africa. Pseudonyms are used to protect their identities, and the titles of their stories are also altered.

“Under a Coconut Tree”: AYO Ayo is from the African country of Nigeria. Nigeria, being the major West African country that has English as its official language, has produced some of the most celebrated African writers who write in English. The most notable one is, of course, Chinua Achebe. Ayo wrote fluently in English, but she was still not sure she would write her autobiography in the way that I was asking for it. “It sounds like a novel,” she mused. I told her she was not wrong, but that it was more a novel of her own story, a memoir. She had to be creative, take us there with clarity, and write out conversations whenever she could. Indeed, she took up the challenge. Her story was entitled, “under a coconut tree.” Ayo portrayed a loving family where her father and mother both used to tell her stories. In her introductory paragraph, she shows her pride in her hardworking family:

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I recall growing up in my little town of St. Savior, I saw a fair share of poverty and then wealth. St. Savior was where I learnt to crawl, walk and then run. A lot of my family members say my smartness was due to the gene of my parents; a diligent father and a mother who still worked with the same establishment after about forty-five years as a cook. In a compact paragraph, we get to know that she is proud of being a part of this family. She even speaks of her smartness as part of her noble inheritance, even at a time when they struggled as a family. Ayo continues to write about how her father was aware of his own poverty growing up, yet it was his motivation to work hard and he eventually made sure his children never had to go through all that. She writes: He once told us, “The same uniform I wore to school was what I had as clothing for end of year festivities until the bottom of my shorts became torn. I would wear it to school and be careful so that it does not get caught in the nails on the bench but you (my children) are lucky to have multiple school attires; I was never that lucky.’ In this excerpt, and elsewhere in her story, Ayo shows the resilience that she has gained by remembering what they have been through as a family. Quoting her father’s story also shows how she is part of a larger story, not just her own. Amid all their situations, we learn more about Ayo’s father and his diligence toward the education of his children. Ayo appreciates the fact that her father made sure she and her siblings got the best education, both traditional and Western. After school, they would go to an elder who would teach them their traditions and culture: I remember in a bid to make us learn to read, write and speak our mother tongue, he enrolled us in a tutorial with a sixty-five years old retired principal who tutored us under a coconut tree. It was so interesting to be able to sit down and listen to tales about our customs and traditions. The old man would take us through spelling and diction classes. I got to know a lot of things concerning the people of my birth. We learnt the various greeting patterns, their origin and significance. I still can tell a lot from that period of my life. He would conclude with the song; Oba Ovoranmwen no’ gbai si. Oba gha to kpere, Ise! (Oba Ovoranmwen so powerful he could not be defeated. Long live the Oba, amen!). From this story, Ayo is sharing with us her rich culture. The way the old man presented it is a gem that she will always carry with her. The important things here are that she learned her history, including the influence of colonialism and her tradition, and the importance of learning her own language. We cannot doubt that as a result, even though she attended private schools in Nigeria, she is also fluent in her mother tongue, and she can write it well. She can use this knowledge to bring her story to us in English without losing the flavor of her own culture. Another valuable skill that Ayo brings here is how she keeps her mother tongue in the key parts of the story that she would like to remain but gives us the translation in parenthesis. Whether we have the patience of reading what she has there or not, we can visually see her linguistic knowledge and how she works with it in English by still leaving the untranslatable without being translated.

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My all-time favorite part of Ayo’s story was when she asked the usual question that children liked to ask. Ayo painted a beautiful picture of the exchange between her and her father, in the spirit of writing descriptive conversations that I had asked them to write: I was curious to know a lot of things despite all the discoveries we made daily from the interesting classes. One day I asked him; “Baba, how are babies born?” I could tell he was uncomfortable with my questions. He untied his large white towel he normally tied around his waist, spat out some juice from the chew stick he had in his mouth and cleared his throat. Ayo transports us to her home where we see her father’s every action, showing how he is not ready to answer this question. We can see him with his chew stick, a cultural aspect peculiar to this region. Ayo uses artifacts that are unique to her culture to bring the picture of her father to us before he answers this “tough” question. The struggle to answer this question is a cultural communication situation between a father and a daughter. The ingenuity of the answer Ayo’s father gives is not only surprising but exciting. Rooted in the culture of tradition and storytelling, Baba’s answer is a story that we are bound to enjoy: My children, Osalobua (God) created okpia (man) and found out that all of His other creations had partners, angels could not be asked to partner okpia because while angels were made from fire, man was made from dust, and they were different and incompatible beings. He created ikhuo okaro (first woman) and commanded them to go into the world and multiply. The multiplying population was to continue to serve and praise Him. Aghabie (giving birth) is a way of fulfilling that demand from God. A man marries a woman who is not his relation following customs and tradition and they begin to live together. In the process of living together, a woman begins to bear a budge in the stomach which usually lasts for nine months and then a baby (either male or female) is born. So, my children when you hear siwo siwo, vbokhin. Oyemwen no! (Congratulations, it is a time of joy) know that a baby has been born. The wisdom of Ayo’s father here to use a story to illustrate what he feels uncomfortable explaining is what gives us a proper glimpse of the function of stories in this culture and in African cultures in general. We get to know the creation story and the characters in it, in relation to the question at hand. Ayo herself acknowledges her father’s wise way of dealing with her question when she ends this part of the story by writing, “He therefore explained creation without grazing the intimate details.”

“Left an Orphan”: NIYO The making of this story was bittersweet. While I liked so many aspects of Niyo’s story in terms of the orality techniques that were presented, I also admired the courage that she displayed by writing a story that was obviously extremely sad and difficult to write. Niyo hails from the East African country of Burundi. The ethnic wars in the countries of Rwanda and Burundi ravaged for years as the two major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi, fought each other mercilessly. In Niyo’s story, these moments are captured amidst a young child’s innocence, a situation that brings pain to any reader of this story. Juxtaposed side by side are the years of normalcy and calm as Niyo lives with her parents in a quiet suburb of Bujumbura—her father a minister in the government—and years of war that leave her orphaned after her parents’ death. The first part of her story is a glimpse into some of the most cherished moments with her father and other children in the neighborhood. 225

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Niyo’s attempt at conversation writing was with the story about where milk came from: My dad asked me when I was 10 years old, “Where do you think milk comes from?” “It comes from the bicycle,” I answered. He looked at me and said. “You are so innocent, and I am not blaming you, it is my fault.” “Why dad?” I asked. “I should have enough time for you guys to give you the basic information you need, but my job takes all my time.” He answered. “I am so confused, dad, how the bicycle can give us milk,” I said. “That is a good question my sweetheart. I feel prouder of you because you are so intelligent, and I see a good future for you.” This conversation led Niyo’s father to take his time and share the knowledge of how milk came to the table, giving details and all the traditional “instruments” used to get milk from the cow: Milk comes from the cow and there is some equipment appropriate to get it from the animal and process it. There is icansi, which is one of those pieces of equipment to put the milk in. The next one is igisabo which is the other equipment, usually bigger than icansi and it helps to conserve a big amount of milk. The third is inkuyo which is another equipment to clean everything else. Niyo uses the word “equipment” for all the three things to serve her purpose. In her mind, that is the only word that comes readily, even though they may be more of containers than equipment, since they are used to store milk. In this case, size does not matter in the English word, although she works hard to describe the containers as big or small. Admirably, Niyo drives all her points home. Niyo grew up with great admiration for her grandmother. While she grew up in the city, she visited her grandmother in the rural area from time to time. Her grandmother’s musical prowess fascinated her. She writes: I always sat around grandmother at bedtime because I knew that she was going to sing for us the traditional music with some traditional instruments called Umuduri and inanga before bedtime. In her house, there were many types of traditional instruments. Umuduri was a traditional instrument that was most popular and had cables connected on the wood. The Inanga was another popular traditional instrument. It was in the form of a circle with cables connected on it. Here, Niyo teaches us while she is also being taught. She showcases her grandmother’s instruments and helps us to learn their names—which have no English equivalency—and their functionality. More so, she describes how these instruments look like for us in order to help us visualize them. Her senti-

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mentality as she remembers this captures our hearts. We see her enjoying the music and learning about how to be a good girl at the feet of her grandmother: It was amazing to see her play them. When she started to sing everyone kept quiet and enjoyed the music because her voice and how she put emotions was wonderful. Sometimes I fell asleep during the song because the sound was slow. It was an amazing moment ever. It was one called wamwanawe, and it talked about the respect every kid must give to the old people and the benefit for the kid who does that kind respect. Niyo does not feel limited in the use of language to tell her story. She explains her grandmother’s way of singing with emotions the best way she knows how. Even though she may say “emotional voice,” she does not feel limited by her inability to do so. She sees her grandmother’s voice and emotions as two separate entities, with one being added or “put” into another. Notice how she also uses the word “sound” instead of music.” Her goal is for us to get the message. This “slow sound” lulls her to sleep. Niyo’s added details of the song’s title and the theme are exemplary. We cannot help but picture her in this place. Niyo’s skill of handling time is enviable. From her grandmother’s story, she transitions to the playground. This playground is supposed to denote innocence, but it is where Niyo sadly loses hers when her friend makes her aware of something she had never known. Her friend decides to discuss their different ethnicities, and she becomes curious about it. She learns that there are two major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. This revelation makes Niyo probe further about the subject, and her friend takes her through the historical roots of this division: “Did your dad tell you how to know if someone is Tutsi or Hutu?” I asked. “Okay let me tell you exactly what my dad told me about this. If you want to know if someone is Hutu or Tutsi, you need to look at their noses or the shape of the body. Hutu have big and short noses. Tutsi have small and long noses. My dad told me that from the colonization when white people from Belgium came in our country to take over our government, they tried to divide us because it was the only way, and it could be easy for them.” This stark reality is not only revealed by a playmate, but the clarity of the details are mind-boggling. We learn here that these conversations have been simmering in some homesteads non-stop. With them, an old hatred and rivalry between the two ethnic groups is brewing. While Niyo gets to know everything from her friend, she decides to know the real truth from her dad whom she trusts. Her father is apologetic for not telling her, but he has good reasons for it, which he outlines. Sadly, his shielding of his family ends there, and he calls on them to lead a different life from now henceforth She reveals this to Niyo: “I didn’t want to tell you guys about the hate existing between the Hutu and Tutsi. It has been there for a long time but for me I need to keep you away from this hate. From now you all need to keep an eye on it.” After that conversation, I had double feelings. One feeling was being proud to know my ethnicity, Tutsi, and another one was to be scared what could happen if the Hutu decided to do vengeance against Tutsi. I started being careful and cautious. I started looking at people’s noses and shapes and guessed their ethnicity.

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Niyo gets to know about this too close to the time when it gets out of control. The inevitable happens without warning. “It was on Sunday night after dinnertime around 8 p.m., when we started to hear some shooting around the city. Everybody was at home even my dad.” This does not sound like good tidings. When they hear loud noises outside, they decide to lock the door that they previously open for the neighbors running from danger. But it does not help. We can’t help but empathize with this sevenyear-old and her family when she writes: I was extremely scared. I tried to be closer to my dad because I was sure that nothing could happen to me if my dad was around. I knew that dad was an overprotective man. They finally got in the house and dad tried to fight, trying to push them out. One of them turned around and shot my dad’s chest and my dad fell on the floor. He died in front of my eyes. We can’t help but notice that in her writing, Niyo has been so detailed so far, but not in this scene. Her brevity in describing the demise of her father is a mirror through her heart to show how traumatized she is even as she remembers this situation now after many years. As a Swahili proverb aptly puts it, Hakuna msiba usiokuwa na mwenziwe, there is no misfortune that is unaccompanied. Niyo chronicles how she went through hardships after her father’s death, with their lives falling apart after his salary was stopped after only one year. Her mother falls sick after five years when she is twelve and efforts to save her are fruitless at the hospital: One of those doctors came out with a disappointed face and said. “We are sorry, we did our best to save your mom’s life but unfortunately, it was too late.” I cried so hard and I ran inside the emergency room calling my mom’s name, saying, “Don’t leave us alone mom, we don’t have anyone to take care us, please mom…” I couldn’t believe she could die and leave us by ourselves. With the simplicity in her writing, Niyo still succeeds to carry our emotions with her, and we can read her desperation of losing a parent she was just talking to a few minutes ago. We can see the toll that Niyo’s father’s death put on the family, especially her mother, until she eventually passes away from a broken heart. It is the desperation with which Niyo explains her uncertain future that makes her writing strong and clear. Even without adequate words to explain her situation, we can see her bringing out the fear of the unknown: After my last parent died in front of my eyes, I started thinking if God exists. We weren’t mature enough to face life, we didn’t have anyone to provide for us care and support, just us. We didn’t know if we could be able to go back to school, we didn’t know if we could survive alone in this world, nothing. Niyo’s voice in this story represents that of many orphans that were left during the various wars that ravaged Burundi, and the neighboring Rwanda. By extension, this is also the fate of many children in war-torn nations. Even with these hardships, Niyo survived to tell the story. She survived to begin a new life in the USA and attend college in order to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a nurse like her mother. She was resilient. Lennette et al. (2013) say, “Everyday life-worlds are not just ‘stadiums’ in which we might observe resilience in action, but that everydayness is itself an achievement and a

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potential aspect of resilience” (p. 640). This everydayness was necessary for Niyo to move on with her life beyond her parents’ demise.

LOCATING THE TRANSRHETORICAL: MULTILINGUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING AS A RHETORIC OF TRANSLATION AND MEANING When multilingual writing is seen as translation, it does not mean that students must write in their language first and then translate into English. It means that the process they are engaging in as they navigate in what Wang (2015) calls “border-thinking” (p. 248) involving translation in their mind. There is plenty going on as students transition from one language to another. In case of African students, it is likely that the process is even more complex than meets the eye. The layers of stories in their cultures, the figures of speech, and the general landscape of the culture, as we have seen in the represented stories, renders it difficult for them to navigate the waters of writing in English. However, they make it work for them and as we have witnessed, they present and represent their culture with courage in a language that is very different from their own. The differences between the two cultures call for conscious or unconscious translation in their minds as they look for ways to fit in their stories in English without leaving their culture behind. In strong support of African orality, Achebe (1997) opines: What I do see is a new voice coming out of Africa, speaking of African experience in a worldwide language. So my answer to the question:”Can an African ever learn English well enough to be able to use it effectively in creative writing”? is certainly yes. If on the other hand you ask: “Can he ever learn to use it like a native speaker”? I should say, I hope not. It is neither necessary nor desirable for him to be able to do so. The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use (p. 347). This “submission to many different kinds of use” is what I have given my students permission to do, and by so doing, they are honoring the value of what they bring into English: new and expanded horizons. In their writing, it is evident that they write as they negotiate meanings as well as balance between what their language and culture offer them, and what is available in English to express this. The African students featured in this study understand that in our classroom, culture and first language are a part of them. They use proverbs and phrases that result from the oral stories of their first languages. As I look at their writing, I marvel at their ingenuity in using the resources they have in order to express themselves the best way they can. In this chapter, I have given examples of two African students’ autobiographical writing. I purposely chose them for this analysis due to the African orality features that I saw in their stories. As described above, orality influences the way African students and scholars write. The call by Achebe (1997) to make English work for Africans is the same one I heed to, giving students the space to write their culture in their autobiographical narratives. Solorzano and Yosso (2002) state that researchers acknowledge that educational institutions operate in contradictory ways, with their potential to oppress and marginalize coexisting with their potential to emancipate and empower (p. 26). This makes it necessary to look out for the students who may be marginalized, thus the need to teach for social justice. To this end, educators are advised to “facilitate the discovery of knowledge from individuals and sources largely ignored in traditional approaches to 229

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education, including the voices and worldviews of diverse groups” (Sinacore and Kassan, 2011, p. 262). It could not have been better said. Thus, this is a call for composition teachers to affect change by giving their students spaces to thrive in their writing, no matter who they are or where they come from. I recommend that teachers investigate the situations of their students and ways that can make them successful for them to work toward the pedagogical moves that matter to and for their students. Niyo’s writing exhibits a kind of decision making as she makes moves on what to bravely include or not. In the example about where milk came from, she explains the different things required for the process of milking. She uses the word “equipments” with no regard to size or purpose. Ayo, in her story, states that during the sessions under the coconut tree, “I got to know a lot of things concerning the people of my birth.” This phrase is non-existent in English, but her choice to translate it this way adds to the cultural beauty of her narrative. “People of my birth” appeals more to her than “my lineage,” or “my ethnic group.” These are examples that point toward a rhetoric of both meaning and translation. They go beyond what has come to be known as “translingual practice” where distinct languages are considered important and necessary within another language. Writing for these students becomes an activity where they are thinking through what they need to include or not, therefore becoming an entire process as described by Wang (2015): More specifically, transrhetorical practice is process-oriented. It describes the meaning-making process of translation (including both interpretation and articulation) that takes place in the interstices of two or more different worlds caught in highly asymmetric power relations. Transrhetorical practice brings self and other together and subjects both to transformation in a close cultural and linguistic encounter. (p. 248) There is a “close cultural and linguistic encounter” when African languages meet English. Embedded in the differences between these two languages is a rift of difference that cannot be conquered without proper negotiation between the encounters in these two spaces. I opine, therefore, that transrhetorical practice is a way of describing this encounter due to the complexities that involve and include both rhetoric and meaning.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHERS AND TEACHER EDUCATORS One of the crucial areas of great need for my students is college writing. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) summarize the responsibility I feel toward my students by stating that: We are not merely objective inquirers…who study a world lesser in quality than our moral temperament would have it…On the contrary, we are complicit in the world we study. Being in this world, we need to remake ourselves as well as offer up research understandings that could lead to a better world (emphasis mine). (p. 61) In the quest of making a better world, I use a writing pedagogy that utilizes the students’ prior experiences and culture to enable them to develop and grasp writing techniques that are important and 230

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meaningful to them. In shedding light on transformative frameworks, Creswell (2013) states that the purpose of knowledge is to improve society, and therefore people with knowledge should seek to “contain an action agenda for reform that may change the lives of participants, the institutions in which they live and work, or even the researcher’s life (p. 26). Solorzano & Yosso (2002) state that “researchers acknowledge that educational institutions operate in contradictory ways, with their potential to oppress and marginalize coexisting with their potential to emancipate and empower” (p. 26). This makes it necessary to look out for the students who may be marginalized, thus the need to teach for social justice. To this end, educators are advised to “facilitate the discovery of knowledge from individuals and sources largely ignored in traditional approaches to education, including the voices and worldviews of diverse groups” (Sinacore and Kassan, 2011, p. 262). It could not have been better said. This is a call for composition teachers to affect change by giving their students spaces to thrive in their writing, no matter who they are or where they come from, bringing together multiple pedagogies that boost the morale of multilingual writers. I recommend that teachers investigate the situations of their students and ways that can make them successful for them to work toward the pedagogical moves that matter to and for their students.

FUTURE RESEARCH This is an exciting area for multilingual writing with a focus that is rare. The first and urgent need for future research would be to look at other multilingual writers who are in my classrooms and others to compare stories from other regions. How does orality or other features of these cultures manifest themselves in student writing? It would also be useful to look at the kinds of stories that emerge from other regions and how they reflect those communities. In this work, I attempted to look into features that seemed to have been influenced by first language, especially culture. I have also looked at how students might have made rhetorical moves through translation and negotiation of meaning. However, a study that looks more deeply into student work to discover words and phrases that emerge as a result of these translation and rhetorical moves need to be carried out. This would help us understand transrhetorical moves more as a concept that can be used to understand multilingual writing beyond translation.

CONCLUSION: SUMMING IT ALL UP Multilingual writing is an art. For students who engage in it, they work hard and use different techniques to negotiate their writing. In this chapter, I have showcased a methodology I have developed from the work of Hurlbert (2012). I have used the steps described here to assist my multilingual students to write their autobiographical narratives for about seven years. I have used examples from two African students to show how their culture of orality influenced the content of their writing as they told multi-stories of their lives. In so doing, they showed how they used English for their purposes to tell their stories without altering their culture. Achebe (1997) sums it up categorically thus:

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I have been given this language and I intend to use it… I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home, but altered to suit its new African surroundings (348-349). Achebe’s (1997) feeling as a masterful artist is shared by my students who are still learning to write. As they walk this journey, they use all tools, including translation and rhetoric, to make meaning for them to succeed in their writing. Having looked at the writing of students still in their early phases of writing in English, it is good to note that there is great hope of success. I used Wang’s (2015) term transrhetorical to show that students are not only seeking to use words from another culture, but they are also working rhetorically through translation in order to make meaning of their autobiographical narratives. In the words of Wang (2015), “though laden with anxiety and vulnerability, this process promises the possibility of new meanings, new conceptual categories, and new ways of knowing and thinking” (248). Given these opportunities, multilingual students are bound to continue being cultural custodians, tutors and advocates as they illuminate their worlds to us through their stories. These would be their ways of bringing about new horizons to multilingual writing and college composition.

REFERENCES Achebe, C. (1959). Things fall apart. Heinemann. Achebe, C. (1997). English and the African writer. Transition, 75/76(75/76), 342–349. doi:10.2307/2935429 Achebe, C. (2003). The African writer and the English language. In I. Okpewho (Ed.), Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart: A casebook (pp. 55–65). Oxford University Press. Anoka, V. (2012). African philosophy: An overview and a critique of the philosophical significance of African Oral Literature. Peter Lang. Anyango-Kivuva, L. (2020). “My other heart is telling me…”: Translating orature as a rhetoric of meaning [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Southern Illinois University Press. Blitz, M., & Hurlbert, C. M. (1998). Letters for the living: Teaching writing in a violent age. NCTE. Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Negotiating translingual Literacy: An Enactment. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(1), 40–67. Canagarajah, S., & Matsumoto, Y. (2017). Negotiating voice in translingual literacies: From literacy regimes to contact zones. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(5), 390–406. doi :10.1080/01434632.2016.1186677 Clandinin, D., & Conelly, F. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Creswell, J. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing from five approaches. Sage. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. The sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage.

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Goen-Salter, S., Porter, P., & VanDommelen, D. (2009). Working with generation 1.5 Pedagogical principles and practices. In Generation 1.5 in college composition: Teaching academic writing to U.S.— educated learners of ESL (pp. 235–259). Routledge. Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R. (1996). Writing across cultures: Contrastive rhetoric. In W. Grabe & R. Kaplan (Eds.), Theory and practice of writing (pp. 176–201). Longman. Hurlbert, C. (2012). National healing: Race, state and the teaching of composition. University of Utah Press. Johns, A. (2009). Situated invention and genres: Assisting generation 1.5 students in developing rhetorical flexibility. In M. Roberge, M. Siegal, & L. Harklau (Eds.), Generation 1.5 in college composition: Teaching academic writing to U.S. educated learners of ESL (pp. 213–230). Routledge. Kubota, R., & Lehner, A. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 7-27. Maathai, W. (2006). Unbowed: A memoir. Knopf. Lennette, C., Brough, M., & Cox, L. (2013). Everyday resilience: Narratives of single refugee women with children. Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice, 12(5), 637–653. doi:10.1177/1473325012449684 Maathai, W. (2006). Unbowed: A memoir. Knopf. Mabana, K. C. (2009). Oral tradition, myth and education in African Francophone literature. www. cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/CHiPS/.../Mabana 2009.pdf Pagnucci, G. S. (2004). Living the narrative life: Stories as a tool for meaning making (Vol. 3). Boynton/ Cook. Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. doi:10.1093/applin/amm008 Sinacore, A., & Kassan, A. (2011). Utilizing community portfolios in teaching for social justice. Teaching of Psychology, 38(4), 262–264. doi:10.1177/0098628311421326 Smorti, A. (2011). Autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative: What is the relationship? Narrative Inquiry, 21(2), 303–310. doi:10.1075/ni.21.2.08smo Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. doi:10.1177/107780040200800103 Tsunoda, T. (2005). Language endangerment and language revitalization. Mouton de Gruyter. Wang, B.(2015).Transrhetoricalpractice.Rhetoric Review, 34(3), 246–249. doi:10.1080/07350190902958719

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ADDITIONAL READING Anyango-Kivuuva, L. (2014). Inspirations from Mama’s Two Wisdoms. Writing on the Edge, 24(2), 75-88. Retrieved September 4, 2020, Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43157519 Silva, T., & Matsuda, P. (Eds.). (2010). Practicing theory in second language writing. Parlor Press. Spector-Mersel, G. (2010). Narrative research: Time for a paradigm. Narrative Inquiry, 20(1), 204–224. doi:10.1075/ni.20.1.10spe Steinman, L. (2005). Writing life 1 in language 2. McGill Journal of Education, 40(1), 2005. Tate, G., Rupiper, A., & Schick, K. (2001). A guide to composition pedagogies. Valentino, R. S., Emery, J., Forrester, S. E., & Kuzmanović, T. (2017). Rhetoric, Translation, and the Rhetoric of Translation. 13(1), 1-12. Vandenberg, P., Hum, S., & Clary-Lemon, J. (2006). Relations, locations, positions. Composition theory for writing teachers. NCTE. Zhu, W. (2010). Theory and practice in second language writing: How and where do they meet? In T. J. Silva & P. K. Matsuda (Eds.), Practicing theory in second language writing (pp. 209–228). Parlor Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS African Orality: Handing down education, culture, and history through storytelling, songs, proverbs, etc. Autobiographical Narratives: Stories related to oneself, family, life, etc. Culture: Way of life of a group, people, or nationality. Multilingual Writers: Students writing in another language other than their first. Rhetoric: Convincing and effective speaking or writing using various tools Translation: Rendering of the meanings of words or texts from one language to another. Transrhetorical: Convincing and effective speaking or writing using various tools across languages or cultures.

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Expressive Multilingual Writing: A Transformational Healing Skill for a Pandemic Challenge Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Maha Alawdat Kaye College of Education, Israel

ABSTRACT The purpose of this chapter reveals the healing power of writing at times of stress, turmoil, and crisis from multilingual perspectives. Writing relieves emotional chaos, stress, and even physical pain as evidenced by research. Multilingual writing is a process-based, complicated act that requires a series of intellectual stages to be developed as a skill. In parallel to this rationale, multilingual learners can generate creative spaces for their well-being and growth by using writing as a skill to express their emotions for easing feelings related to stress, turmoil, and crisis. This chapter encourages and models emotional or expressive writing as an innovative method to use in educational and health settings to allow creating novel experiences into language learning phases.

WRITING IN A TIME OF CRISIS Good afternoon. In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled. There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals. (World Health Organization, 2020, para. 3) DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch014

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 Expressive Multilingual Writing

Writing, as a discipline, is used to announce critical and life-changing moments that will be recorded in the course of history. With this shocking piece of writing, which is carrying unexpected meaning-making and informative linguistic units, a global crisis in the name of a COVID-19 pandemic is announced. A pandemic is a global crisis affecting all humanity until the time that’s controlled and cured, and it brings quite many limitations to all routine daily life activities. The world absolutely was not prepared for this written announcement from World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General that literally paused the course of life on March 11th, 2020. No doubt, and quite importantly writing is one of those few disciplines that has the power to affect the future as a definitive and informative source and influence. From a technical perspective, this announcement above is not only a piece of a written document from an organization or institution, but this brief written text will also appear in the course of history as a highly critical message that resulted in radical changes in social life. Every single person on Planet Earth, regardless of their social, political, or cultural status is affected after this written message despite the fact that the level of impact varied among communities. All of a sudden, people had to adjust their lifestyles by giving up on their social lives for safety reasons. It is therefore crucial to be clear regarding the significance of writing in crisis times, especially during COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. First of all, restrictive bans in social life posed a significant challenge to all fields of disciplines including the writing discipline around the world. Almost all social events including the writing discipline related ones are either postponed or canceled. Many writers around the world did not even have the chance to go out if they needed inspiration to capture the complexity of unique moments in life. Eventually, traditional face-to-face writing classes were canceled. The pandemic, which indeed turned into a social crisis in countless platforms, taught people that traditional education systems failed too quickly once there is a global crisis. In times of stressful crisis, writing for healing is crucial to overcome times of difficulties and crises. Voicing through writing helped many people around the world to stay stable and stronger than before because life might never go back to normal for them. COVID-19 pandemic is one of the crises that has inevitably and forcefully inspired many researchers to examine a variety of issues related to this pandemic including writing discipline researchers. In their writing workshops, the organizers of Northeastern University Writing Center highlighted a critical issue on the fact that “writing can be a powerful tool for reflecting and healing” (para.1) of experiences of unrest, loss, and anxiety during COVID-19 crisis. During the COVID-19 crisis, writing teachers may urge their students to write in order to help them cope with their experiences with the sudden pandemic and social distancing. Surviving the pandemic crisis of the year 2020 requires a pen and a paper or a digital tool to maintain the wellbeing with writing for staying rational and well balanced. With the writing discipline, it is possible to advance our understanding on healing during the chaos. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to initiate a discussion on the significance of the writing discipline at times of crisis. A model of expressive multilingual writing exercise is modeled for writing teachers (please see Appendix). Within the context of futuristic implications of teaching writing for multilingual writers, this study theoretically examined the impact of expressive writing for healing in times of distress and crisis. Both a scientific and theoretical discussion will be introduced with the hope for a healed multicultural and global world.

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THE HEALING POWER OF WRITING “Why does writing work? Some scientists suggest that repeatedly confronting painful emotions eventually lessens their impact~ we adapt to them” (Pennebaker, 2013, p. 4). Writing can express instant emotional feelings without the need to reveal it unless it is shared. Writing also allows people to express their emotions by having the chance to reflect on their feelings without the interfering nature of other simultaneous types of communication styles. Writing creates a random private space for people to quietly think, reflect and revise. Creating spaces for listening to the self by hearing solely intuitions and sharing them at a time of desire is both freedom and power. With writing, people can aim to have their own privacy for the sake of expressing their deep feelings for self-discovery and healing through a self-dialogue. Creating spaces for reflecting stream of thoughts is a type of privacy that is not present in other forms of communication. Writing is one of the influential methods that is proven to be effective in dealing with stress, trauma and emotional turmoil, and thereby writing has the power to heal. Likewise, writing for healing and writing therapy become famous among psychologists in times of crisis, and it costs less compared to actual medication. Ackerman (2020, May) explained that writing therapy, which is used for healing patients, is a practice used by therapists and scholars for personal growth, empowerment, and healing. She added that It’s easy to see the potential of therapeutic writing – after all, poets and storytellers throughout the ages have captured and described the cathartic experience of putting pen to paper. Great literature from such poets and storytellers makes it tempting to believe that powerful healing and personal growth are a few moments of scribbling away (para. 10). Recording events within writing therapy helps writers to capture the events that cause the source of their pain and suffering. Such events offer writers the space to rethink their trauma related-life events. Nye (1997) explained that “people found it healing to make sense of their lives. Writing their life stories, particularly key moments and events, helped them become more aware of their lives and reckon with the past” (p.448). Tyler (1999) added that “a well-written essay about a traumatic personal experience can help us find meaning in human suffering and enrich our understanding of the human condition” (p. 21). Specifically, writing has the power to relieve inner pain and distressful mind during crisis times because overcoming pain in life helps to develop one’s self and personality from both educational and psychological perspectives. Georges (1995) noted “a clear and positive association between the disclosure of personal events and the restoration of health” (p. 17) is evident. Pennebaker (1990) also detected “the relationship between suppressing our stories and illness, on the one hand, and telling our stories and increased health, on the other” (p. 11). Recent scientific evidence reveals the fact that writing not only heals the soul, but it can also heal physical wounds. It is quite interesting that the emotional state has a direct correlation with people’s well-being and health. It is indeed scientifically a proven fact that writing positively affects people’s emotional state, and improves people’s health. While writing has the power for people to express their feelings by reducing their stress and anxiety; in contrast; stress prevents wounds to heal. With stress, recovery pace slows down in patients, and stress even causes impairment in surgical wounds and postpone

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healing (Altemus, et al., 2001; Broadbent et al., 2003; Cole-King & Harding, 2001; Crawford, 2019; Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 2005; Maple et al., 2015; Muizzuddin et al., 2003; Walburn et al., 2009). Memories that are the result of traumatic or stressful events are stored as fragmented or poorly organized thoughts and images. Because these memories have not been processed, they may appear at random or as an intrusive thought, such as a flashback. After journaling, during which a traumatic experience is written out, fragmented thoughts and images become part of a story, a narrative, smoothing the ragged edges of a memory. (Borkin, 2014, p. 10) Writing as healing is based on a thread of narratives for the purpose of healing which enables people to see life from different perspectives (Bird & Wanner, 2020). Because people shared the same COVID-19 pandemic, which they had no control over its devastating spread that left them all emotionally uncertain, they turned to digital writing. Using digital tools for writing enables people from different ages and backgrounds to write about facts, emotions, and a combination of both; facts and emotions, in a positive way. Pennebaker and Beall (1986) conducted a study to examine if the damaging effects of inhibition on health could be improved by writing disclosures. The researchers reached the conclusion that allowing learners to write for fifteen minutes on a daily basis about different conditions affected their health positively, and they managed to be healed emotionally. Accordingly, people turned to digital writing, which aided them to rediscover their inner selves during COVID-19 pandemic in order to reach more people who have similar feelings and thoughts about the lockdown crisis. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown of 2020, worried individuals turned to writing for recording memories from their lockdown locations. They used social media to vent out and share what distresses them through posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other online platforms and ePortfolios, where they found support from other people who shared the same conditions, situations and feelings. Unconsciously, there has been an increased level of contribution in social media for people to express their pain and struggle during the pandemic and social distancing due to the fact that digital platforms were the possible available tools for communication. The availability of digital communication positively affected people from who went into the depression to people who refused to follow regulations by going out without masks and gloves despite the strict regulations of the health departments. Being in such a desperate situation, for example, motivated and enhanced students’ writing in distance learning classes (Alawdat, 2013) where students wrote about their feelings and expressed their emotions. At the same time, the availability of digital tools urged people to write their opinions on the pandemic and share their narratives with others through digital tools which become the platforms for writing that eventually helped people to survive through joining support groups around the globe. Involving in digital platforms for the purpose of sharing worries, anxieties and helpless emotions through writing indeed started a movement of healing. People around the globe, including writing teachers, patients, and scholars from a variety of fields, have started writing more often than before on social media to get their voices heard and to support each other. Perhaps the most captivating part of this is the recent interest in writing as a way of healing during COVID-19 pandemic. Writing diaries, keeping journals, and blogs, including other forms of writing such as poetry, fiction, nonfiction, list-making, and others, have always been there for writers and clinic patients to heal. Ackerman (2020, May) pointed out that “Writing in a diary or journal is generally focused on recording events as they occurred, while writing therapy is focused on thinking about, interacting with, and analyzing the events, thoughts, and feelings that the writer writes down” (para. 14). 238

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In parallel with the idea of healing through writing; writing teachers, who is familiar with the radical changes in social life can help their students to cope with their pandemic lockdown. “Pedagogically focused pieces taking up personal disclosure and writing as healing in classroom” (Molloy, 2016, p. 135) reflect students’ writings about their current social distancing and what they want to do after the pandemic is over. Writing is an effective healing method which links specific events with the emotions that are affecting our lives (Sarton, 1980; Pennebaker, 1990; Nye, 1997; Molloy, 2016). Cangialosi (2002) indicated that “people simply start writing about a specific event or situation or relationship that affected them” (p. 69). During COVID-19, people similarly wrote about their emotions and situations on digital platforms, where they shared their feelings and their lives about their pandemic lockdown. Sharing their attitudes during their lockdown and social distancing enhanced healing effects on their emotions while digitally writing and sharing with others on different social media provided them with endless opportunities to reach out to crowds. What’s more striking, people around the globe, who shared different cultures and languages had one single concern that united them, and it was a sudden urge to heal together. People’s healing process has been initiated by the same concern that clearly threatened their health and everyday freedom. Their healing urge has been also initiated by the same concern. All of a sudden, almost everyone wanted to heal either physically or psychologically, and it was possible to heal psychologically through the power of writing.

EXPRESSIVE MULTILINGUAL WRITING “Expressive writing is democratic and accessible. No special knowledge is needed, supplies are available, and affordable, and research confirms that outcomes can be profound and even life changing” (Adams,2014, p. 9). Expressive writing is a collection of truthful judgments and feelings on genuine actual experiences with a new perspective (Adams, 2014). The idea of healing through expressive writing has been debated among researchers for the past thirty years. The negative emotions related to traumatic events, memories or even thoughts are released through reflective and expressive writing, and it is an evidenced fact that expressive writing improves people’s mental state as well as their physiological health (Frattaroli, 2006; Pennebaker, 1997; Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999; Sexton & Pennebaker, 2009; Smyth, 1998; Klein & Boals, 2010). The transformation that writers experience in their emotions can be described as “real time awareness, thoughts and behaviors” (Adams, 2014, p. 2). In the world of expressive writing, there have been previous studies on second language writing and second language pedagogy which is used for communication (Hanauer, 2012; Pfeiffer & Walt, 2016), and addressed “various forms of expressive writing (Arshavskaya, 2018). Accordingly, multilingual writers could experience an awakening of exploration on their writing potential since expressive writing reveals optimistic feelings during and after the process of writing. Evidently, expressive writing leads to feelings associated with wisdom, maturity and sensibility by providing a fresh pair of eyes for the writer to look at the very same experience with empathy and self-discovery. People often turn to documenting their suffering through expressive writing in order to stay mentally stable instead of entering a condition of hallucination and depression. Expressive writing, according to Lindgren (2018), has been known to be associated with “a wide range of physical health measures…or measures of psychological health and well-being” (p. 50). This human strategic nature releases emotional

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burden when people in stress realize that sharing their writing brings them relief (Kupeli et al., 2019; Hussain, 2010; Burton & King, 2009; Brewin & Lennard, 1999; Pennebaker & Chung, 2007) especially “for individuals who find concentrating difficult because of painful memories, worries about the future, or because they are highly stressed” (Lindgren, 2018, p. 30). When expressive writing combines the worldviews of two or more languages, multilingual writers offer unique conceptual ideas through their voice, identity and experience. They bring along their culture-specific, identity derived, unique writing styles to writing classrooms through translingual writing practices. Kabuto (2011) pointed out that “writing is an act of discovery that requires perceptual rearrangements and physical representations and always embedded in special and cultural contexts” (p. 53). On the other hand, translingual writing practices are the framework through which cultural sources function as a bridge between multicultural writers’ voice, identity and their culturally conditioned genres during expressive writing practices. Multilingual writers use their linguistic repertoires and extensive cultural exposure as a path to discover their voice in between these resources. Multilingual writers indeed locate their identities between spaces (Canagarajah, 2018). What is more interesting, the combination of expressive writing and culturally rich multilingual writing is a buried treasure waiting to be discovered in language classrooms. Writing expressively and creatively can function as a transformational self-discovery process for gaining metacognitive awareness in another language’s writing system. Metacognitive awareness is one of those rare skills that can guide multilingual writers in their own language learning process by providing them both intuition and critical thinking skills on overcoming their own language learning obstacles (Hancı-Azizoglu, 2018). Language learners’ writing performance often depends on their beliefs of their potential to overcome the obstacles perceived by monolingual educational settings. Expressive writing has a magical component that enables multilingual writers to reimagine and reflect on their past memories, which is an endless source to be discovered for self-growth and well-being. “Expressive writing originates from the writer’s lived experience- the past, present, or imagined future life. Written in the author’s own voice, expressive writing creates bridges between thought and feeling, reason and intuition, idea and action” (Adams, 2014, p. 9). What’s more, multilingual writers may represent endless opportunities for providing the audience their past memories, which can be reflected through expressive writing. Expressive multilingual writing is a special journey to unlimited spaces along with a three-dimensional creativity, and the audience does not need to buy an actual plane ticket to enjoy this unique travel in time. Beyond question, language learners do not need to be advanced learners in order to practice expressive writing. Research studies on patients clearly revealed that there is not a direct correlation between educational level and the ability to perform a piece of expressive writing According to this perspective, writing is available to all people from different cultures and ages because anyone could express their opinions and feelings without any previous writing training. Despite the common belief, people from all educational backgrounds are able to perform to write expressively regardless of their spelling or grammar errors. They are still able to give the underlying message regarding the content with powerful and meaningful stories (Pennebaker & Evans, 2014). Thus, what is it that affects people’s emotions during the course of expressive writing? No doubt, and quite importantly, the theorists confirmed the fact that emotions can be regulated through expressive writing. As a healing act, expressive writing provokes feelings and emotions associated with traumatic experiences from which multilingual writing enhances mental and physical health (VanderWal, 2020; Pennebaker, 1990; Kupeli, et al. 2019). Kupeli et al. (2019) pointed out that according to the linguistic theory “the writing of expressive writers can also be analyzed to provide 240

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insight into how language use might be linked with health benefits and the potential mechanism driving expressive writing” (p. 2). The psychological theory which also combines writing with healing is based on expressive writing. According to this theory, “expressive disclosure relies on recounting and reappraising relatively inhibited trauma” (Kupeli et al., 2019, p. 2), which is based on thoughts and feelings surrounding a traumatic experience (Greenberg et al., 1996; Burton & King, 2009). Thus, the theorists confirmed the fact that emotions can be regulated through expressive writing, and this is not to deny that expressive writing has an actual scientific working mechanism that depends on phases of expression evidenced by expressive writing theorists. Travagin et al. (2015) defined expressive writing in terms of attentional processing, habituation and cognitive processing, while the process of expressive writing for multilingual writers conceptually differs.

THE PROCESS OF EXPRESSIVE MULTILINGUAL WRITING 1. Attentional Processing for Multilingual Writers Attentional processing refers to revealing memories and experiences that people either consciously or unconsciously avoided. Avoiding unpleasant memories causes stress and anxiety, which results in psychological and physiological disorders over time that is evidenced by researchers (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007; Nye, 1997; Baker, 2011; Tyler, 1999). At this point, expressive writing directs writers’ attention from a negative perspective to a positive one by creating a process of emotional disclosure that results in relaxation. What’s more, the writers’ level of anxiety and stress is reduced after articulating their hidden and disturbing memories and emotions through expressive writing. Accordingly, multilingual writers could be encouraged to express their feelings in writing (Travagin et al., 2015). Multilinguals have the privilege to write differently because they come from two or more cultural backgrounds and they can think and function in two or more linguistically formed worlds. This multilingualism makes learners have “differences in experience and knowledge” (Baker, 2011, p. 336). Learning an additional language is indeed a gradual and effort demanding life-long task for many multilingual learners. Since research indicated that there is not a direct correlation between expressive writing and writing proficiency or skills (Pennebaker & Evans, 2014), language learners can practice expressive writing regardless of their language proficiency level when age appropriateness and guidance are provided. It should be remarked that expressive writing has its own risks as it reveals students’ selfdiscovery by exposing their emotional states along with their memories. Then, multilingual writers are better encouraged to write expressively, but they should not be forced to share what they consider to be private unless they are sincerely willing to share. Perhaps more importantly, language teachers might encourage their students to practice free writing. Based on Hurlbert’s (2006; 2012) pedagogy, multilingual students exercised to write about the phenomenon they were burning to tell the world, and they wrote their personal stories on their language learning challenges through using second language literacy and expressive multicultural creativity. Within an inviting and welcoming environment of freely expressive writing, Professor Hurlbert (2006; 2012) asked his multilingual students to express what they experienced within a sense of freedom and emotional healing. In Hurlbert’s (2006; 2012) classroom, he purposefully directed his multilingual students’ attention to a specific memory that all his students shared. Since all students were culturally diverse and multilingual, their attentional processing phase refers to the challenges of their language learning

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phases, and they chose the ones that affected them the most. Thus, language teachers who are working with multilingual writers can apply the same technique of “attentional processing” for an unlimited set of challenges to bring out the same sense of expressive freedom into their language classrooms. This theory is applicable around the globe for multilingual writers to overcome their stress, turmoil and anxiety for the world’s crises. For instance, writing about COVID-19 can start a healing process for all multilingual writers across the globe. From the same scientific perspective, creating an atmosphere for diverse students poses a significant challenge for teachers. Due to the fact that Hurlbert (2006; 2012) created a very welcoming and inviting learning environment that never created competition, multilingual writers coming from all over the world united under one roof to support each other. The opposite situation is always possible, and it could be quite challenging to reveal deep feelings of students unless the teacher creates a healing habitat for language learners to express themselves freely. The following graph explains this process and then it is followed by a detailed explanation. Figure 1. The process map of expressive multilingual writing

2. Creating Multilingual Habituation for Expressive Writing Habituation refers to the setting, where writers reveal their emotions through writing. Providing a safe and secure environment is the basic principle of emotional writing, and only a sheltered and supportive setting can be considered a convenient habituation for expressive writing. In addition, habituation reduces stress with repeated exposure of the stimulus that is the source of the stress itself. In other words, planned and continuous writing that is exercised for the purpose of revisiting the same chaotic topic reduces the

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stress and anxiety levels of writers over time due to the frequency of exposure (Grissom & Bhatnagar, 2009; Travagin et al., 2015; Greenberg et al., 1996). From a similar perspective, multilingual writers’ affective filter should be reduced in a safe and peaceful environment to create an ideal habituation for them to practice writing. It might not be the best idea for a group of multilingual writers to share their writing pieces with peers unless the habituation welcomes diverse opinions with respect and empathy. It should be remarked that revealing inner feelings through self-discovery and writing can be risky within a habituation that is not ready to foster or nurture the content that is revealed through expressive writing. Another crucial factor is to internalize the cognitive process while multilinguals write expressively.

3. The Cognitive Processing of Multilingual Writing In a multilingual setting, the enrichment a multilingual could bring into the writing class could be quite fascinating. Multilingual writers have the chance to bring along their cultural stories as a source of enrichment into a language classroom (Baker, 2011; Arshavskaya, 2018). Allowing multicultural genre within language learning settings could prepare a rich learning environment for multilingual writers to develop voice and identity with their unique background knowledge and experience. Cognitive processing is the most critical phase of expressive writing due to the fact that writers can transform their ideas, emotions, and future insights after the actual writing is produced. In expressive writing, the audience could be the writer. By this definition, the writer may explore endless privacy and freedom by deciding on whether the writer would be the sole audience for selfdiscovery or whether the writer will share a collection of emotions as a process of cognitive disclosure and reevaluation. Logically speaking, people can experience a healing process cognitively after being able to evaluate a problematic memory or incident with the feeling of wisdom the writing act itself is offering. The multicultural aspect of such a language learning environment would bring novel experiences for all classmates to cognitively process the feeling of empathy to be tolerant of other cultural views and opinions. The perception of multilingual writers is a representation of various intellectual systems, and thereby a collection of experiences articulated in the form of writing would also give educators the chance to get to know their students closely. What’s more, no other form of language teaching could provide a richer and deeper experience for students, and this close connection would create a strong bond between educators and language learners, which would increase language learners’ motivation and achievement.

CONCLUSION AND FINAL REMARKS Writing for healing happens because people can learn more about themselves when they are surrounded by an uncontrolled crisis, like COVID-19, which makes them helpless. People’s writing attempts become their healing power, which triggers them to write about their experiences about the lockdown pandemic period, and eventually, they explore a lot about their inner world and their abilities to survive. In her article, Writing as Healing, Nye (1997), conducted a study to examine how writing can be used as a therapeutic healing for patients. The author tried to find a connection between writing and people’s well-beings. She found out that the patients’ narratives demonstrated different categories including general perspectives about life, helping and teaching others and empowering self for survival issues. An interesting finding,

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which is an important outcome of writing for healing during COVID-19 pandemic, is that the writers reach a pattern as a shared idea about a turning point in their lives. Turning points, according to Nye (1997), remarked new beginnings, new perspectives, and new people, whose narratives helped them to heal through expressive writing. Expressive writing is also a method recommended by many scholars, therapists, psychologists, and even by investigating departments due to its powerful and easy reachable remedy for body and mind. Expressive writing, as VanderWal (2020 April) explained, “can relieve emotional pressure and help us to make sense out of what we are experiencing” (para. 1). A traumatic life experience can be devastating for anyone; however, it would be far worse if a person keeps this traumatic experience a secret. In fact, people who did not prefer to express their traumas will be at a high risk of developing an illness while people who write about it would feel relieved (Pennebaker & Evans, 2014). Struggling people who pass through different types of trauma find paper and pen essential tools to release anxiety and stress and to cope with emotional trauma. Despite the fact that writing is there since the existence of humanity in a variety of forms, less is known how writing has become a way of healing in times of trauma and crisis. “Healing is rarely heard in academic discussion of writing and teaching, perhaps because it has become the province of those credentialized to heal: physicians, psychologists, perhaps ministers—but surely not writing teachers” (Tyler, 1999, p. 18). Recently with the emergence of COVID-19, there has been a growing interest of what people have been writing on social media concerning their pandemic experiences. Yet, there has not been a specific writing theory to be connected with the trauma of COVID-19. Although multilingualism is common around the world where there are nearly more than 7000 languages (Lewis, 2009; Baker, 2011), there is a gap that few studies addressed multilingual learners and multilingual authors in writing classes. This study reflects a futuristic perspective on language and expressive writing among multilinguals. The theories highlighted in this study can promote future research about writing as a therapeutic skill of experiential learning in the writing classroom. Based on this conclusion, learning a language is not only for communicative purposes, but it is more of a living experience. Relatedly, expressive theory, cognitive theory, and psychotherapeutic theory are possible theories that could be connected with traumatic effective treatment. Since there is a lack of research on this issue, this chapter might be a trigger for researchers to investigate writing therapy, writing for healing, and traumatic writing more often for the purpose of using expressive writing in multilingual teaching settings for dealing with global crises as in the example of a pandemic. Molloy (2016) indicated that “Writing to heal might very well be a positive movement; however, the pedagogy also has the capacity to carry with it narrowly defined, hegemonic dispositions toward trauma and recovery as well as to offer writers constricted interventional purviews within which to imagine and recast their experiences.” (p. 136) Within the same context, this chapter revealed the healing power of expressive writing at times of stress, turmoil and crisis in terms of the following inferences: • • •

Expressive writing provides opportunities for reflection and self-discovery. Expressive writing brings a fresh pair of eyes for multilingual learners to reevaluate a past memory or experience through the act of writing Expressive writing can be a soul healer as well as a physical comfort provider

This linguistic theoretical study, therefore, initiated a discussion on the significance of the writing discipline at crisis times. Following this discussion, this study explored expressive writing from a scientific 244

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perspective to investigate the healing outcomes of expressive writing. Furthermore, this study highlights how multilingual classrooms could be transformed into a welcoming environment that process models novel language learning experiences through expressive writing, and its healing component. Thus, this study presented the process model of expressive writing from a multicultural perspective with a self explanatory sample writing task for multilingual writers about COVID-19 pandemic (See Appendix 1). This formulation seems to open up a whole world of possibilities for rethinking and questioning which components trigger healing through expressive writing in actual and applied multilingual settings for future studies.

REFERENCES Ackerman, C. E. (2020, January 9). Writing therapy: Using a pen and paper to enhance personal growth. Positive Psychology. Retrieved from https://positivepsychology.com/writing-therapy Adams, K. (Ed.). (2014). Expressive writing: Classroom and community. Rowman & Littlefield Publisher. Alawdat, M. (2013). ePortfolios and ESL Learners. US-China Education Review, 3(5), 339–351. Altemus, M., Rao, B., Dhabhar, F. S., Ding, W., & Granstein, R. D. (2001). Stress-induced changes in skin barrier function in healthy women. The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 117(2), 309–317. doi:10.1046/j.1523-1747.2001.01373.x PMID:11511309 Arshavskaya, E. (2018). Using multilingual literature to enhance multilingual students’ experiences in second language writing classes. TESOL Journal, 9(2), 388–392. doi:10.1002/tesj.367 Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (3rd ed.). Multilingual Matters LTD. Bird, J. L., & Wanner, E. T. (Eds.). (2020). Healing Through the Arts for Non-Clinical Practitioners. IGI Global. Borkin, S. (2014). The Healing Power of Writing: A Therapist’s Guide to Using Journaling With Clients. W.W. Norton & Company. Brewin, C. R., & Lennard, H. (1999). Effects of mode of writing on emotional narratives. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 12(2), 355–361. doi:10.1023/A:1024736828322 PMID:10378172 Broadbent, E., Petrie, K. J., Alley, P. G., & Booth, R. J. (2003). Psychological stress impairs early wound repair following surgery. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(5), 865–869. doi:10.1097/01. PSY.0000088589.92699.30 PMID:14508033 Burton, C. M., & King, L. A. (2009). The health benefits of writing about positive experiences: The role of broadened cognition. Psychology & Health, 24(8), 867–879. doi:10.1080/08870440801989946 PMID:20205032 Canagarajah, S. (2018). Transnationalism and translingualism: How they are connected. In X. You (Ed.), Transnational writing education: Theory, history, and practice (pp. 41–60). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351205955-3

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Cangialosi, K. (2002). Healing through the written word. The Permanente Journal, 6(3), 68–70. Cole-King, A., & Harding, K. G. (2001). Psychological factors and delayed healing in chronic wounds. Psychosomatic Medicine, 63(2), 216–220. doi:10.1097/00006842-200103000-00004 PMID:11292268 Crawford, J. G. (2019). Writing for health: Development and evaluation of an internet-based benefitsfinding writing intervention for adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes [Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation]. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. ProQuest database. Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823–865. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.823 PMID:17073523 Georges, E. (1995). A Cultural and historical perspective on confession. In J. W. Pennebaker (Ed.), Emotion, disclosure and health (pp. 11–22). American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10182-001 Greater Good Scientific Center (2020, September 16). Expressive writing: How to do it. Greater good in action: Science-based practices for a meaningful life. Greenberg, M. A., Wortman, C. B., & Stone, A. A. (1996). Emotional expression and physical health: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 588–602. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.3.588 PMID:8831163 Grissom, N., & Bhatnagar, S. (2009). Habituation to repeated stress: Get used to it. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 92(2), 215–224. doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2008.07.001 PMID:18667167 Hanauer, D. I. (2012). Meaningful literacy: Writing poetry in the language classroom. Language Teaching, 45(1), 105–115. doi:10.1017/S0261444810000522 Hancı-Azizoğlu, E. B. (2018). Creative writing as a second language: What is creativity for second language writers? TESOL Journal, 9(4), 1–13. Hurlbert, C. (2006). A place in which to stand. In P. Vanderberg, S. Hum, & J. Clary-Lemon (Eds.), Relations locations positions: Composition theory for writing teachers (pp. 353–357). National Council of Teachers of English. Hurlbert, C. (2012). National healing: Race, state, and the teaching of composition. University Press of Colorado. Hussain, D. (2010). Healing Through Writing: Insights from Research. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 12(2), 19–23. doi:10.1080/14623730.2010.9721810 Kabuto, B. (2011). Becoming biliterate: Identity, ideology, and learning to read and write in two language. Routledge. Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Loving, T. J., Stowell, J. R., Malarkey, W. B., Lemeshow, S., Dickinson, S. L., & Glaser, R. (2005). Hostile marital interactions, proinflammatory cytokine production, and wound healing. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(12), 1377–1384. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.12.1377 PMID:16330726 Klein, K., & Boals, A. (2010). Coherence and narrative structure in personal accounts of stressful experiences. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 29(3), 256–280. doi:10.1521/jscp.2010.29.3.256

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Kupeli, N., Chatzitheodorou, G., Trop, N. A., McInnerney, D., Stone, P., & Candy, B. (2019). Expressive writing as a therapeutic intervention for people with advanced disease: A systematic review. BMC Palliative Care, 18(65), 1–12. doi:10.118612904-019-0449-y PMID:31375118 Lewis, M. P. (2011). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (16th ed.). SIL. Lindgren, H. (2018). Expressive writing: Quality of life, pronouns, and working memory- A pilot study [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Umea Universitet, Sweden. Maple, H., Chilcot, J., Lee, V., Simmonds, S., Weinman, J., & Mamode, N. (2015). Stress predicts the trajectory of wound healing in living kidney donors as measured by high-resolution ultrasound. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 43, 19–26. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2014.06.012 PMID:24973727 Molloy, C. (2016). Multimodal composing as healing: Toward a new model for writing as healing courses. Composition Studies, 44(2), 134–152. Muizzuddin, N., Matsui, M. S., Marenus, K. D., & Maes, D. H. (2003). Impact of stress of marital dissolution on skin barrier recovery: Tape stripping and measurement of trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL). Skin Research and Technology, 9(1), 34–38. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0846.2003.00354.x PMID:12535282 Nye, E. F. (1997). Writing as Healing. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), 439–452. doi:10.1177/107780049700300405 Pennebaker, J. W. (1990). Opening up: The healing power of expressing emotions. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162–166. Pennebaker, J. W. (2013). The secret life of pronouns: What our words say about us. Bloomsbury Press. Pennebaker, J. W., & Beall, S. K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. [PubMed]. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 5(3), 274–281. https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefingon-covid-19---11-march-2020 Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2007). Expressive writing, emotional upheavals, and health. In H. S. Friedman & R. C. Silver (Eds.), Foundations of Health Psychology (pp. 263–284). Oxford University Press. Pennebaker, J. W., & Evans, J. F. (2014). Expressive writing: Words that heal. Idyll Arbor. Pennebaker, J. W., & Seagal, J. D. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55(10), 1243–1254. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199910)55:103.0.CO;2-N PMID:11045774 Sarton, M. (1980). Writings on writing. Women’s Press. Sexton, J., & Pennebaker, J. (2009). The Healing Powers of Expressive Writing. In S. Kaufman & J. Kaufman (Eds.), The Psychology of Creative Writing (pp. 264–274). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627101.018

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Smyth, J. M. (1998). Written emotional expression: Effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66(1), 174–184. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.66.1.174 PMID:9489272 Travagin, G., Margola, D., & Revenson, T. A. (2015). How effective are expressive writing interventions for adolescents? A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 36, 42–55. doi:10.1016/j. cpr.2015.01.003 PMID:25656314 Tyler, L. (1999). Narratives of Pain: Trauma and the Healing Power of Writing. Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, 5, 14–24. VanderWal, B. (2020, April 29). Finding peace through expressive writing: An old method for a new challenge. Counseling and Psychological Services. https://blogs.hope.edu/caps/student-development/ caps/finding-peace-through-expressive-writing/ Walburn, J., Vedhara, K., Hankins, M., Rixon, L., & Weinman, J. (2009). Psychological stress and wound healing in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 67(3), 253–271. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2009.04.002 PMID:19686881 World Health Organization. (2020, March 20). WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020. Author. Writing as Healing During COVID-19. (2020, May 18-22). Northeastern University Writing Center at the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved from https://cssh.northeastern.edu/writingcenter/writing-in-stem/

ADDITIONAL READING Alawdat, M. (2014). English writing students’ perspective of using Eportfolio in the writing class. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2(6-3), 1-11. Bird, J. L. (2019). Narratives of Writing as Healing. In J. Bopp, A. M. Grebe, & J. H. Denny (Eds.), Healing Through the Arts for Non-Clinical Practitioners (pp. 108–123). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/9781-5225-5981-8.ch008 Koschwanez, H., Robinson, H., Beban, G., MacCormick, A., Hill, A., Windsor, J., Booth, R., Jüllig, M., & Broadbent, E. (2017). Randomized clinical trial of expressive writing on wound healing following bariatric surgery. Health Psychology, 36(7), 630–640. doi:10.1037/hea0000494 PMID:28383927 Pennebaker, J. W., Facchin, F., & Margola, D. (2010). What our words say about us: The effects of writing and language. In V. Cigoli & M. Gennari (Eds.), Close Relationships and Community Psychology: An International Perspective (pp. 103–117). FrancoAngeli. Robinson, H., Jarrett, P., Vedhara, K., & Broadbent, E. (2017). The effects of expressive writing before or after punch biopsy on wound healing. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 61, 217–227. doi:10.1016/j. bbi.2016.11.025 PMID:27890660

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Swanbon, T., Boyce, L., & Greenberg, M. A. (2008). Expressive writing reduces avoidance and somatic complaints in a community sample with constraints on expression. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13(1), 53–56. doi:10.1348/135910707X251180 PMID:18230232 Thompson, K., & Adams, K. (Eds.). (2015). Expressive writing: Counseling and healthcare. Rowman & Littlefield Publisher.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Attentional Processing: Attentional processing refers to the revelation of memories and experiences that people either consciously or unconsciously avoided from. Cognitive Processing: The process of gaining meta-cognitive awareness and wisdom on the experiences that are shared through expressive writing. COVID-19: A highly infectious deadly respiratory disease that is identified as a pandemic on March 11th, 2020. Creative Spaces for Multilingual Writers: Creating welcoming and inclusive spaces for multilingual writers to express their emotions in the form of writing. Expressive Writing: A type of writing that focuses on personal memories, experience and selfdiscovery through contextual meaning making processes. Habituation: Creating a safe and welcoming environment for multilingual writers. Healing Through Multilingual Writing: The process of providing multilingual learners the opportunity to express their emotions through expressive writing practices. Pandemic: A disease that can spread throughout a country or the world. Writing at Time of Crisis: The act of writing in times of turmoil and chaos for the purpose of healing.

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APPENDIX Expressive Multilingual Writing Exercises for COVID-19 Pandemic Time Required 20 minutes per day for four consecutive days

How to Do It Over the next four days, write down your deepest emotions and thoughts about COVID-19 Pandemic as the way it has been affecting your life. In your writing, really let go and explore the event and how it has affected you. You might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now, or even your career. Write continuously for 20 minutes. Tips for writing: • • • • • •

Find a time and place where you won’t be disturbed. Write continuously for at least 20 minutes. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Write only for yourself. Write about something extremely personal and important to you. Deal only with events or situations you can handle now—that is, don’t write about a trauma too soon after it has happened if it feels too overwhelming. Optional final step: After the four days of writing, try writing from the perspectives of other people involved in the event or situation.

•

Adapted from Greater Good Scientific Center

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Chapter 15

Writing and Young English Language Learners: Identity, Subjectivity, and Agency Hector Manuel Serna Dimas Universidad EAN, Colombia

ABSTRACT Bilingual education has been based on theories and research stemming from fields of linguistics, psychology, first and second language acquisition while the study of second language acquisition requires a change of paradigm that involves the social and cultural views of language and literacy learning. Within the context of this analysis, the paradigm in question includes the conception of literacy processes based on the ideas of identity, subjectivity, and agency. This study used classroom observations, open interviews, and students’ documents to conceptualize the literacy processes of Spanish/English learners in a bilingual K-12 school in Colombia. The data of this study indicate that students have a sense of their identity as bilingual learners. It should be remarked that the variables of these concepts greatly depend on the school culture’s official first and second agenda for literacy education, which often overlooks the facts on how students understand their circumstances of being bilingual and biliterate.

INTRODUCTION First and second language literacy environments are more meaningful, if teachers allow students to unpack their identities since teachers have the aptitude to guide learners for making meaningful connections with their learning. These meaningful connections are present as long as students are able to develop their own authorial voice. That is, the right and privilege to represent themselves through their writing. Likewise, both identity and subjectivity act as a springboard where students can literally catapult their sense of agency and more importantly the ownership of their writing. From this perspective, the purpose of the chapter is to present the results of a case study developed among young Spanish-English language learners in a K-12 bilingual school in Bogotá, Colombia. The chapter addresses some theoretical concepts as the underlying pedagogical framework for a case study DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch015

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based on the concepts of identity, subjectivity, and agency in these young learners’ bilingual literacy processes. The main reasons for researching bilingual literacy through these three concepts are (1) to problematize the reductionist technocratic idea of literacy in the current lockstep curriculum of standardized education in Colombia and (2) to advocate a conception of literacy that includes the social and cultural dimensions of their main participants, who are the students. The chapter begins with a background empirical research on the concepts of identity, subjectivity, and agency. For the next phase, it discusses the theoretical concepts that supported the research process since this is a project about education. The following section describes the case study used in this study, the research site, and research activities. The chapter follows with the analyses of the research concepts against participants’ literacy views with an attempt to conceptualize literacy processes through the perspective of identity, subjectivity, and agency. The chapter ends with scholarly conclusions about the role of identity, subjectivity and agency when writers perform their work, which range from the quintessential after-the-holidays compositions to full-fledged academic papers.

THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS Second Language Acquisition Language is perhaps one of the most fascinating acts of symbolic mediation used by humankind; and it is an essential component in all acts of human life within the society. In other words, language, according to Hassan and Perret (1994), is fundamental in the creation of individuals’ world of reference to understand reality. People’s native language allows the elucidation of a series of material, mental, and social processes to make sense of their communities as active members. When a person decides to assume a second language, there is a similar process of creating himself as an individual to be part of the second language community. Hassan and Perret (1994) consider this secondary socialization as an interesting scenario, where the acts of learning and teaching a language are populated by factors ranging from the personal to the social and institutional. This last aspect is worth mentioning since the educational agendas of most nations and institutions have English as a mandatory language. The above situation shows that accessing to English language has been institutionalized by means of educational policies in terms of accreditations and standardized testing. Consequently, the learners’ socialization processes in their second language (L2) are affected as either being a foreign or a second language learning. In the case of bilingual education, the efforts of most educational institutions are oriented towards second language learning, where English is the medium of instruction in areas of academic work. Watson-Gegeo (2004) argues for a paradigm shift in second language acquisition research that has been motivated by a series of developments in areas such as cognitive science, first language acquisition and socialization, child and human development. In fact, the paradigm shift has to do with the growing participation of second language learners’ communities that gravitate in the periphery of dominant societies in the global world. She asserts that the traditional views of SLA based on experimental modes of inquiry, over reliance on linguistics structuralism, and the inadequacy to generate a pedagogy that fully understands societies of the third world do not provide a clear idea of the complex processes involved in SLA. Moreover, these processes are highly permeated by cultural and sociopolitical circumstances (p.332). The inclusion of cultural and social ideas in language acquisition requires perspectives beyond the cognitive and linguistic views on SLA. Watson-Gegeo (2004) advances the idea of a paradigm that both 252

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acknowledges and takes as its foundations the language socialization. This language socialization (LS) view involves a series of premises that need to be taken into consideration to research SLA (p.339): 1. Individuals are active participants in the processes of language and culture that are mutually constructed. 2. Individuals’ activities within a community are politically constrained. 3. Context needs to be regarded as a factor that is influenced by aspects such as social identities and discourse patterns. 4. The learning of culture by individuals is influenced by linguistic events that frame the ways individuals understand the world and know about it. 5. Individuals build their mental representations of the world based on the ways they participate in learning events in their communities. These premises present themselves as elements that are very congruent with the current views of both first and second language literacy.

First Language and Second Language Literacy Literacy helps children develop abilities to make meanings using the language systems of symbols in a process that Hassan and Perret (1994) called semiosis, that is-making and exchanging meaning through symbolic mediation (p.180). When this process happens in first language (L1), children naturally engage in acts of communication through their repertoire of knowledge about the language systematicity. These interactions are made redundant by the constant exchanges and feedback from peers and adults, and this situation makes literacy a socially constructed and culturally situated dynamic activity. If literacy happens in an L2, there are a series of elements beyond the linguistic aspects. Individuals need to be exposed to the ways literacy works in the community, where they belong; and how these practices are generated so that these individuals are fully incorporated into the means of communication of their community. These means of communication may take the form of social gatherings, workplace activities, academic schoolwork, and even the most common social activities like church attendance. For second language learners to be able to immerse themselves in the above social transactions, it is fundamental that they are constantly contextualized in the negotiation of meaning. In other words, students are required to have relevant cultural schemata so that they develop successful communicative processes in either oral or written form. For this reason, it is necessary that the literacy of the classroom has a close relationship with the diversity of literacy within a community. Pérez and Norlander (2004) argue that Studies on the role of background knowledge and reading in bilingual contexts have found that secondlanguage students require careful prereading preparation to activate and expand background knowledge for comprehension. Children need to be made aware of the rhetorical organization of texts, and need to read extensively to become productive readers. (p.42) Investigating identity, subjectivity, and agency in L1-L2 writing processes requires contextualization of these concepts from the perspective of second language pedagogy.

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Sociocultural Theory: Social Interactionism Social interactionism is based on the idea that people are social by nature, and it is through socialization that individuals gradually make sense of the world. The main thinkers of this school, according to Williams and Burden (1997), are Vygotsky and Feuerstein (1979) who coincide in the idea that both mediation and significant people as mediators were central elements in learning. For Vygotsky (1962) mediation has to do with what he called a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), a space where learners meet and interact. Learning happens in this interaction as peers with differing levels of skill or knowledge. The idea of individuals involved in the act of mediation is that the more able helps the other learner. Feuerstein (1979), on the other hand, believed in the learner’s abilities to cope with the demands of the context, as he advanced the conception of the structural cognitive modifiability that learners exhibited in their learning process. From Feuerstein’s (1979) perspective, the role of the mediators is crucial since they are the ones, who select and shape elements from the environment that will lead to their learners’ development. Nonetheless, Williams and Burden (1997) provide words of caution about the criticisms to Feuerstein’s (1979) ideas since they may promote the excessive control of the adult mediator that may undermine the role of the learner. Thus, the authors talk about an interactive process where the relationship between the teacher and the learner is bidirectional instead of unidirectional (p.67). Constructivism relies on the idea that individuals actively construct personal meanings through their experiences. One of the most common scenarios for this type of learning is the learners’ active involvement in problem-solving activities that require a dialogue between teachers and learners. The teachers’ expertise becomes salient since he has to find ways to best orient students so that they develop skills and knowledge on how to conduct their own learning. Both social interactionism and constructivism allow both teachers and students to see themselves as full-fledge participants in the teaching-learning process. Moreover, these two learning perspectives argue for the recognition of the diversity of individuals, who participate in educational activities in which literacy or multiple literacies are fundamental for the integration of these individuals in society. For this reason, it is worth bringing into consideration the idea of dialogism in terms of Bakhtin (1981).

Bakhtin’s Dialogism Dialogism for Bakhtin (1981) goes beyond the common concept of conversation. Bakhtinian scholars such as Hirkshop (1999) as cited by Dressman (2004) claims that “dialogue is a contextualized process of exchanges between an author and his text, between readers and a text, and between the text, and the society in which experience takes place” (p.45). Bakhtin (1981) also had the idea that individuals needed interaction with others to help themselves in the process of developing their own selves. In other words, individuals need to interact with the outside world of others in order to identify themselves based on what others perceive about them. In this process of developing an author-self, there is a constant struggle within the individual internal construction of personal ideas and the external views and intentions of others which are filled with the tensions between both the authoritative and the internally persuasive discourse. In this tension lies one of the contradictions of institutions in society that tend to close off the possibilities of dialogism to promote what Greenleaf and Katz (2004) described as “singularity of viewpoints, transmission and recitation rather than meaning-making, and didactic and authoritarian discourses that have ceased to be internally 254

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persuasive to the thinking being” (p.174). These scholars see some similarities between these monologic views and the schooling of children where literacy is also conducted in such transmission fashion, and the focus of teaching writing is to control students’ possible sources of errors at the level of introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions in the case of expository texts. Valdés (2004) argues that what is missing in these teacher-student interactions is the idea of dialogue since “the notion of writing is about ideas, that presentations are about ideas and that, when one engages in writing and speaking, one also engages in dialogue with others” (p.87). These dialogues in which readers, writers, and texts are heard and responded as well as they attempt to hear and respond will allow for the manifestation of elements that are germane to the notion of expressing oneself; these elements are identity, subjectivity, and agency. This triad is essential if writing processes and the education of writers who are open to the diversity of the world. In other words, the educational perspectives in literacy instruction need to open up spaces where students have a voice of their own, and are able to use that voice to dialogue with their peers, teachers, and their communities as students and/or writers about issues that call their attention and are fundamental to their interests and performance in school and society. Only then will it be possible to experience the concepts of identity, subjectivity, and agency. A similar view is presented by Valdés (2004) when she maintains that Students should not be encouraged to merely pretend to talk to distant audiences so that their teacher can correct their vocabulary and syntax. They should be made aware of other voices, of how they speak, how they write, of the ways they say what they mean, of the resources they use to gain attention, to persuade, and to explain, and then, they should be encouraged to respond. (p.88) The research concepts of identity, subjectivity, and agency require to be defined in order to understand how they are going to take part in the ensuing processes of data collection and analyses.

THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS ON IDENTITY, SUBJECTIVITY, AND AGENCY The concepts of identity, subjectivity, and agency make up the backbone of second language acquisition, literacy learning, and both cognitive and sociocultural theories. Nevertheless, these concepts are not transparent, and they do not express themselves as a result of teacher and students’ participation in educational processes. Thus, it is necessary to determine how these theories echo aspects of identity, subjectivity, and agency in actual teaching and learning processes.

Identity McCarthey (2001) worked with a teacher and a class of students from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds in a school in Texas. The purpose of her study was to understand the role of literacy perceptions and practices in shaping identity. The data analysis rendered some findings that indicated agreement amongst some parents, teachers, and students about their positive perceptions of students who were successful and interested readers and writers. Regarding the students’ involvement in literacy activities, the results showed that their identity as successful readers and writers was related to their level of engagement in literacy practices. Another study that sheds light on the relationship between identity 255

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construction and literacy was conducted by Li (2007) whose research was concerned with the connection between culture, identity, and beliefs of second language learners and writing. Li (2007) used a qualitative case study approach in which the student from China was Case A, and the group of students from the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class was Case B. The research results indicated that there was a process of change in which students had to alter their previous beliefs and ideas about writing. Nonetheless, there were still moments in which students “wondered in the junctures of their first and second culture requiring their teachers’ motivation to work in the reconfiguration of their writing.” (p.58) The previous studies on identity show that identity is not a static idea related to peoples’ identification. In fact, literacy is essential in giving dynamism in constructing an identity that goes beyond the roles of individuals as students or writers. Both concepts of identity and literacy, are mutually shaping people’s worldviews that are not exclusively anchored around the commonly held belief of cognitive processes in today’s high achieving schools.

Subjectivity McCarthey (1998) developed a study in which she explores various subjectivity constructions of students in a classroom setting. The research asked questions about the influence of different factors that range from task and classroom context to gender, race, and ethnicity in classroom interaction. The conclusion of the study suggests that both teachers and researchers should consider individuals as social beings in constant evolution. They also propose looking at individuals in social circumstances, where personality traits or labels such as outgoing, extroverted, or timid may be limiting or misleading in the understanding of those complex individuals. Another study related to the idea of subjectivity was developed by Howell (2008). Her research project aimed to investigate how boys and girls in a secondary school in England developed aspects of their writing such as “thematic content, plot and structure, complexity of character relationships, focus on place, style, narrative voice, and implicit or explicit relationship with the reader” (p.515). The research findings indicated that there was a common sense of audience and narrative framework in both boys and girls. There was also a similar choice for topics such as loss, grief, death, and adventure to name a few. Yet, boys preferred male characters while girls preferred female ones. Nevertheless, the researcher argues that although some of the students’ writings suggest gender preferences, the boys’ stories within this study also included aspects such as reflection, feelings, and relationships among characters. (Howell, 2008, p.520)

Agency Norton and Toohey (2001) investigated the source of effective language learning in which they documented both the cognitive and linguistic aspects of SLA research. The researchers did not intend to disregard the fact that the social aspect was present in earlier studies of SLA; nevertheless, it was subsumed in the idea of the context which usually referred to how the external elements influenced the individual. Norton and Toohey (2001) wanted to explore a differentiating approach to separate good learners from bad ones, and what elements of these learners affected them to display either good or poor learning (p.308). In sum, they wanted to research “the receptions of their actions in particular sociocultural communities” (p.308).

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The results of both studies demonstrated that effective language learning of two individuals was related to the way they were received in their communities. The strategies showed that research participants’ agency in their communities is shaped according to their circumstances. The researchers’ discussions of agency are based on how learners gained access to their communities and used their intellectual social resources to broaden their inclusion by participating in different job or school related activities. The conclusions of the above studies suggest that the classroom as a community and the teacher as the “manager” need to pay attention to what students bring as legitimate contributions to the learning scenarios. When students are given the chance to be contributors to the teaching-learning experience, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to exert their agency.

RESEARCH PROJECT Research Concept Definitions Identity can be characterized as the self-making process of an individual through discursive practices. People enact their identities depending on the circumstances in which they are participating. In other words, individuals develop their self-representation when they participate in a number of social practices of their speech communities by showing command of the language. Subjectivity takes the form of the discursive practices that individuals deploy in order to develop particular perspectives or take positions. For the effects of literacy, subjectivity is related to authorship and the levels of consciousness that individuals have as authors of their writing. Nonetheless, subjectivity needs to be seen within the relationships of students and their teachers, where issues of power and marginalization are likely to happen. Agency is regarded as how much choice students feel they have in their literacy work and to what extent their views and proposals are included within the official school/teacher agenda for literacy settings.

Research Methodology This study was a multiple-case study with elementary school students enrolled in a K-12 bilingual school in Bogotá, Colombia. These students were selected after their completion of a purposive survey. The survey was meant to explore the students’ school history in terms of years of schooling, beliefs about literacy practices in their L1 (Spanish) and L2 (English), and their perceptions of success as bilingual readers and writers. This case study followed the logic of theoretical replication (Yin, 2009, p.54). That is to say, there is a prediction of students’ views about themselves based on their schoolwork in literacy practices. The research design consisted of three phases: the first one define and design; the second prepare, collect and analyze; and a third one analyze and conclude (Yin, 2009, p.57). In the first one, the steps were the establishment of a theory, the case selection, and the establishment of data sources and instruments. These cases had some units of analysis to explain their literacy processes and these units intended to disclose the students’ perceptions of their school and literacy by means of a purposive survey. The students’ class participation in literacy activities in Spanish and English was based on some class observations and field notes, and their personal views of their L1/L2 literacy were gathered through some open-ended interviews. Cross-case analyses of the students’ actions and narratives of their literacy work 257

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helped to determine to what extent these data either confirmed or discarded particular views of students’ identity, subjectivity and agency based on their literacy practices in their school context.

Study Site The students’ exposure to English language starts at the age of four in the preschool section for three years. At the end of three years in preschool, the students are promoted to first grade when they turn seven. From that moment on, they receive instruction in language arts, science, and mathematics in English while their Spanish, social studies, religion, physical education, music, and arts are taught in Spanish. The evaluation of the school’s bilingual program is based largely on students’ results on tests at the end of each academic term. A typical language exam is made up of four sections: listening and/or reading comprehension; vocabulary; grammar and mechanics; and writing instruction. It is of particular interest to point out that the evaluation of writing is based on an analytic rubric with descriptors. The students are then asked to write a text to characterize a specific genre such as a narration, or a description. Besides that, they are often given a series of instructions to meet the certain given criteria. For example, they may be told to write a minimum number of sentences. These sentences need to comply with criteria such as the use of adjectives or verbs; and they need to color-code these language tokens. At the intersentential level, students are asked to include specific tokens of conjunctions. On top of that, they are reminded to consider issues of word choice and audience as considerations for their writing.

CASE STUDY REPORTS Entering the Research Site The studies were generated by 4 students of 2 girls and 2 boys, who were observed in their Spanish and English lessons. In addition, they were interviewed on three occasions. The first interview was to get to know them and tell them about the purpose of the project. The second and third interviews focused on their writing assignments. Table 1 contains the participants’ pseudonyms together with their grades and ages and the amount of time they had been in the program.

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Table 1. Study Cases Participants’ Pseudonyms

Grade

Age

Number of Years in the Program

1. María

3rd

9

6

2. Luisa

3

3. Pedro 4. Juan

9

6

4

th

10

6

4

th

10

5

rd

Initial Interview: Getting to Know the Students The initial interview aimed at getting to know the students. Working with students from the same grade allowed the researcher to see the participants’ interaction about a common topic: María. She was the most outspoken girl of the group from third grade, and she always expressed strong ideas. María indicated that dance was her favorite class because she was a good dancer; however, she hated mathematics. She was quick to point out that she did not like the teacher very much. She felt that the teacher was not supportive when the girls specifically experienced difficulties. She expected the teacher to provide support to help students during the exercises, but she did not feel that this was the situation with the mathematics class. Luisa. She was the opposite of María. She did not present herself confidently at school. In fact, she claimed that she was too shy to ask questions and feels ashamed to ask her teachers for fear of rebuttals from classmates who may point out that her question had already been answered or was too silly. She said her favorite subject was physical education. Pedro. He claimed he felt fine studying both Spanish and English since he learned English from his kindergarten years. He added his father was an English teacher and had taught him words since he was very little. He said he did not have any problems with the languages; he asserted that Spanish may be more difficult than English since they were learning more things. Juan. He was more vocal than Pedro and had strong opinions about the fact that he was being schooled in English and Spanish. In regards to his school progress, he considered that he had similar problems in both languages regarding the grammar, and he was aware that most of his problems in English stemmed from the fact that he had problems with tense formation. Nonetheless, he was quick to assert that he still needed to continue working on these issues.

Second and Third Interviews: Writing Assignments The second interviews took place after the students were observed in Spanish and Language Arts classes. They needed to show their written work for this second interview. All of them brought some samples of their writing, which were in their notebooks, and they were part of class activities. Only two students brought a piece that they had written for the interview. María. The second interview with María started with her account of the term activities. She first talked about an activity they did in the Spanish class that she thought fun. The rest of the interview was about a piece of writing María entitled “The Cat”. Her assignment was to write a paragraph based on an animal’s characteristics. The teacher allowed them to choose an animal to describe. She felt she did a

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good job with the assignment. In fact, she believed she did more than her classmates because she found a lot more information about cats on the internet. She described her piece of writing and said that she found a lot of her information from Google™. When she was asked about the process of using the information from the internet, she said that she read it and used the ideas for her own writing. She pointed out that she used her own words when she put her ideas on paper. When Maria was interviewed for the third time, she started talking about her composition “The Cat,” she said that she would search on the internet for ideas, but she always wanted to make sure she found new things; things that people probably did not know about. She said that when she first wrote about her topic, she did not write “interesting” ideas. Then, she went home and worked on her piece using the internet, and completed her composition. She was clear to say that whenever she had information, she could write without internet; however, if she needed to work on something and provide information, she would make sure to find new things. In the last part of the interview, María talked about the books she found in the library. She felt that it was hard to find books that were suitable for her age. She said that most books were for little kids. She said she did not find many books about mysterious topics, which seemed to be the topic that attracted her for reading and writing. Luisa. She began her interview talking about her descriptive paragraph named “The Rabbits.” She talked about the problems she experienced and quoted examples from her text, where she had difficulties. When she was asked about the choice of the animal, she said that she liked giraffes better than other animals, but she decided to write about rabbits because she knew more words about rabbits in terms of their physical characteristics. She added that it was easier for her to write in Spanish because she knew more words in Spanish than English. She indicated that she could not write about certain topics because of her lack of vocabulary, and the teacher would not help her with words. Instead, the teacher told her to use the words she already knew. She claimed that a person had to be born in the United States in order to know more words. In fact, she mentioned the amount of vocabulary people are required to talk about topics that were not necessarily related to their everyday lives. Pedro. He talked about the class activities he does in both Spanish and Language Arts. He felt he did well in both languages. Pedro stated that he felt that his success in writing stemmed from the dedication he put into his writing pieces. He could not tell if his classmates felt the same way about their writing, but he knew that at least one of his classmates could write well. Pedro described an assignment he did for the Language Arts class. He wrote this piece following the instructions for the writing task. When he was asked if he remembered a project where he felt he had this authorial voice, he did remember a piece he wrote when he was in his preschool transition (prior to first grade) year. Juan. He did not want to show me his Spanish or language notebook. He came to the interview with his social studies notebook where he had some writings in Spanish. He affirmed that it was some work he did for the social studies class. He said he liked it because it was about “aliens”, and he liked to get involved in this topic. When he was asked whether he had the chance to select the topic, he responded that it was their choice; he stated that “I work better with topics of my choice because it is something that you like.” He compared the types of writing in Spanish and English, and he emphasized that they wrote summaries of stories in English. Sometimes they had to work with the vocabulary from the readings. He assumed they did not do any free writing except for the quintessential composition about the 260

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vacation activities. When he was asked about the story Thomas and the Library Lady (Mora, 1997), he believed that the other students and he thought the story was average. This part of the interview ended with his comments about the summary writings in language arts. He added that they did handouts and vocabulary activities.

Cross Case Analysis The purpose of this section is to see to what extent the cases̕ literacy practices and the participants’ opinions can answer the research questions of this study in terms of identity, subjectivity and agency:

Identity: Glimpses of Students’ Identities Through a Gaze Into the School Ethos The difference in meaning between the verbs “to gaze” and “to glimpse” has to do with both the nature, intentional or otherwise, of the act and with its duration. “To glimpse” suggests a coincidental fleeting vision whereas “to gaze” implies a longer deliberate look at something. Most of the research within this study was about the school context and its ethos, but glimpses of the children’s identities were identified during the analysis process, and the researcher’s gaze was drawn to this data in particular. However, it would be further informative to look at both the school and the students over a longer period of time to better catch the complexity of the participants’ identities. A possible scope for such a work would be an academic year, where students’ progress could be followed from one grade to the next. The narratives that students produced in the interviews and the evidence from the classroom observations showed that they have built their identities under the umbrella of the school ethos, which is oriented towards the students’ academic achievement. All of the students have been in the school since their preschool years and all made specific references to those years in which they had only English as the medium of instruction. They also talked about their current work in both Spanish and English. Their narratives suggested that they view both languages as distinct regarding their school life, especially in their literacy processes which they described for the most part in terms of achievement, grades, failure, and evaluations. Luisa was another student, whose narratives were oriented towards school achievement. She said she felt ashamed to ask questions in class since she was kind of afraid of her classmates’ reactions. In fact, in a Spanish lesson, she did try to participate by answering a teacher’s question in class, but her answer was not right. Immediately, she went quiet and withdrew from the class dynamics, and she decided to work with her partner to solve specific questions for the activity at hand. When Luisa was interviewed about her writing, the very first thing she claimed about her piece was that it had problems. Moreover, she knew what her problems were. When she was asked about the teacher’s feedback, she pointed out her problems again. The teacher’s feedback had some arrows indicating where she had misplaced the information in her description. The other source of feedback was a written comment that was read as: “organize your ideas the way it was taught!” María expressed some sort of discomfort with their schooling. She complained about a teacher’s handling of a class that did not seem to take into consideration that the teacher was working with a group of girls. She expected a teacher who worked with young girls should have taken them to the playground. She felt the teacher took his class too seriously. It is possible that María was making a claim about her identity as a student that was related to the identity as a child, whose life revolved around the idea of play.

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Similarly, Juan was very vocal about the fact that the school did not celebrate Colombian festivities. He asserted that the school was in Colombia, so they should have the Colombian celebrations in the school calendar alongside the American ones. The students’ narratives and class interactions were very much oriented to school achievement. In fact, they thought their school life in terms of what they do to comply with homework, carry out class projects, or get prepared for evaluations. However, all these ideas of achievement were more oriented towards English. They did not express further ideas about their school achievement in terms of Spanish language. Another aspect that appeared in some of the students’ narratives was the fact that they felt they were children, and that there were some ideas associated to the condition of being children; for example, they felt that curiosity, and the notion of play had a role in their education.

Subjectivity: Balancing the Yin: Doing What You Are Told to Do With the Yang: Having Some Fun The researcher tried to find the best means to convey students’ views of their subjective perspectives, and it occurred to the researcher that the Taoist idea of Yin-Yang captured the essence of their narratives as they accentuated the dualism of opposing forces that balance each other. However, this dualism did not suggest an either or scenario; it worked with the idea of supplementary perspectives. Furthermore, the notion of balance tied very well with the idea of subjectivity from the authorial-self perspectives. Nevertheless, this balance happened within what the school determined as first and second language learning, which was sourced for the most part from both the teacher’s work horizon and agenda for classroom practices. The students’ accounts of their literacy in terms of subjective perspectives or points of view revealed some compelling narratives. Some students had a sense of authorship regarding their writing; they even felt they could convey very personal ideas and feelings through their writing. However, most of them described their writing as complying with the requirements as determined by their teachers. The students brought their notebooks with writing exercises related to class activities for their interviews. Another interesting view of subjectivity in literacy was Pedro’s account in which he claimed he felt like an author when he was writing. He expressed that he tried to give his feelings to what he wrote. He clearly remembered a piece of writing he had done when he was in preschool. He felt that that piece was an example of his ideas as an author. He added that the project took him a fair amount of time to complete. He also talked about the ideas of dedication and hard work, which seem to point out that his view of writing is very attuned to the idea of apprenticeship. He viewed his writing as a work in progress that required both revisions and final approval from the master writer (the teacher). Maria’s perspective on subjectivity dealt with how she felt the construction of a writing piece is entailed. She emphasized that her writing was like putting together a puzzle. She talked about the idea of looking for new information to figure out the mysterious features of an animal she had to write about. María thought that a piece of writing needed to present new or interesting information to accomplish its purpose. This view was very attuned to the idea of giving a perspective to a particular topic. Luisa talked about her descriptive paragraphs “The Rabbits”. When she was asked if her choice was to write about rabbits, she said that she would have preferred to write about giraffes which she liked better. However, Luisa decided to write about rabbits because she knew more about them, and she could

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find more descriptive words for rabbits. In sum, she was more concerned to comply with the writing task which demanded the description of an animal in terms of physical characteristics and a habitat. Juan and Luisa thought that they could write in Spanish better than in English. They said they could write more because they knew more words according to Luisa. Juan added that he could use complex words in Spanish, and he considered his English words to be very simple and common. Luisa said that she would need a lot more vocabulary to understand topics such as myths and legends in English.

Agency: It Is Business as Usual The English idiom “business as usual” means that despite adverse circumstances people need to carry on with their ordinary activities. Both teachers and students go about the businesses of class activities according to school routines. However, students’ sense of agency was more welcomed in the Spanish lesson, where the “usual-ness” of the class business may be interrupted, adapted, or changed. Unlike the Spanish teachers, the Language Arts teachers seemed to feel they needed to provide for any gaps students may have in their lessons. Thus, their views would not let the class be interrupted, adapted, or changed even if the students were interested in pursuing very analytical or complex language tasks. The class descriptions and students’ narratives suggested that their sense of agency regarding their L1 and L2 literacy processes were constrained by the official school agenda. Spanish teachers gave a lot more leeway to students to work with their L1. Moreover, students had many more opportunities for interaction beyond the customary question/answer format of the lessons. They were also given the opportunity to build concepts based on exchanging ideas. Finally, they did not have to work with handouts for class activities. Thus, students were more vocal on how they conduct their class assignments. In fact, the Spanish classes were livelier in the sense that students talked among themselves or with their teacher at any given time; whereas in the Language Arts sessions teacher-fronted activities were pervasive.

The Language Arts Classes These classes seemed to run pretty much in the same manner. The teachers came to class with an agenda which is, for the most part, oriented towards the explicit teaching of grammar. If there was time for other types of activities such as listening or reading, sooner or later they would return to grammar activities. Reading consisted mainly of activities oriented towards comprehension or vocabulary work. Students had to work on summaries of the class readings, which they needed to have in their notebooks. In the case of an extensive reading such as the book 101 Ways to Bug Your Parents, students had to prepare summaries and list vocabulary words they did not know in order to find their meanings by learning the parts of speech and drawing them. The students’ writing and their reflections were also about the use of grammar to write different types of texts. Usually, the writing activities were preceded by a series of detailed instructions for what students needed to do in their writing. When students were asked about their writing assignments, many of them started by explaining exactly what they were supposed to do with their texts. Moreover, students were evaluated by the quality of their work against how well they could follow these writing prompts. Luisa made this very clear when she talked about her description of rabbits. The class observations and field notes showed some examples of how teachers dismissed students’ ideas that could have contributed greatly to the class dynamics. When students got to talk or do stuff, the teachers were paying attention to what students did or said to correct grammar among other things. 263

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The researcher found out that a student, who seemed to be institutionalized in this type of scenario was Pedro, who stated that the idea of the English class was to correct mistakes. He felt they needed to do all this work because the purpose was to learn more English.

CONCEPTUALIZING A BILINGUAL LITERACY PROGRAM: IDENTITY, SUBJECTIVITY, AND AGENCY A proposal for bilingual literacy programs that include identity, subjectivity, and agency cannot only be stated in terms of theories such as constructivism, social-interactionism or dialogism. Such a proposal has to include the aspects that these children can articulate through their views of their first and second languages and their literacy practices based on their life experience. In sum, a bilingual program that includes students’ identity, subjectivity and agency should include what these learners bring to the teaching-learning scenario as students, children, family members, and promising citizens.

Identity A program that includes students’ identities should consider the fact that these identities are not static or run by the biological clock. Lemke (2002) makes a case for challenging the “linear time” of human biology (p.80) when he asks the following questions: If you face a 12-year-old in the classroom, do you not also face elements of his behavioral repertory that were formed at age 10, or age six and still remain active or dormant and waiting to be recalled? Do you not also face a human being who has been learning to interact with a six-year-old sibling and a 10-year-old friend, a 15-year-old nemesis, and a 30-year-old parent? (p.81) Lemke (2002) proposes a view of language development and identity of multiple timescales that is not only applied to human development, but in the ways people understand language learning. He views language learning and teaching within timescales in both a short and a long term. For the short timescales, he proposes to study language in terms of what it is capable of accomplishing within many different domains particularly the “affective sensibility”. That is, he believes that education must acknowledge the power of language to move people through a variety of emotions such as laughter, wit, and humor (p.83). Within the terms of the longer term, Lemke (2002) proposes a collaborative view of languages or dialects of the same language so that the classroom becomes a multilingual setting where the promotion of dialogues and perspectives constitute a teaching/learning scenario. The longest time scale for Lemke (2002) will occur when students have had the opportunity to develop a “feel” for the language so that learners have developed their bilingual or multilingual selves and will consequently develop a voice (p.84). Lemke’s (2002) timescales idea on identity is also related to the classroom. He thinks that the classroom is one of many scenarios where people work on their identity formation as they interact with these cultural artifacts. These places are not that different from their houses, the mass media, or their personal activities like social networks. He feels that people mobilize their identities through these plenty of places and add layers to these configurations. However, he thinks that

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Classroom education and formal curricula which are supposed to create longer term continuity from lesson to lesson and unit to unit (though not, after the earliest years, from hour to hour across the school day or from year to year even in the same subject), are narrowly focused on informational content which is more or less unique to school experience. (p.77) The students’ perspectives that are gathered from their narratives seem to point in the direction of the ideas by Lemke (2002) in terms of multiple timescales. Luisa, for example, feels she knows “adult words” that she uses for her writing. In fact, she knows these words because her mom taught them to her. Luisa also feels she has some sort of edge in her math class because she has taken additional classes at a math academy after school. Similarly, Maria’s favorite class is dance, and she thinks she is a good dancer. Pedro recalls the first English words he knew because of his father, an English teacher. With regards to the Spanish class, a student built the concepts that helped her define legends based on a narrative of a trip she had shared with her grandparents to the eastern states of Colombia. This region is particularly renowned for having these stories intertwined in their customs and traditions. Similarly, students in the Spanish class had a comedic moment when they joked about a teacher’s mistake in spelling a word. In language classes, there were moments where students tried to make hypotheses about some specific vocabulary words, but their efforts were thwarted by the teacher’s need to stick to the class agenda. In another occasion, students complained when a student’s presentation was interrupted by the teacher, who asked them about the meaning of certain words or their pronunciation. It is acknowledged how such experiences mattered to those children. Thus, Lemke (2002) asserts that school experiences that mattered to students are essential in helping students building their “identity work” (p.78).

Subjectivity In regards to subjectivity, a literacy program needs to focus on the notions of students/writers and writers/authors. The emergence of the authorial-self is the paramount aspect in literacy since individuals are bound to express experiences on both physical and emotional levels, which have the power to make visible what Cely (2009) defines as “feel” or “what it is like to be” (p.97). This philosopher makes a case for subjectivity that ties in well with the idea of subjectivity as a position or a perspective that it has been presented as an authorial voice. In her idea of subjectivity, Cely (2009) considers that the idea of “I” first-person as opposed to “he”, “she” or “it” third-person prevails. Moreover, the “I”, first-person perspective gives the idea of the authority that individuals have about their experiences. The authority that individuals evidenced about their experiences is based on a series of networks of ideas that unpack intentional states in terms of beliefs, desires, and wishes that will account for the individuals’ actions (p. 123). If these aspects play an important role in terms of students’ writings, there will be a lot of elements to account for students’ literacy progress and learning. The most important aspect of the above reflection is the fact that the student will have elements to position himself/herself to cooperate with or resist the authoritarian/authoritative position of the teacher. Cely (2009) also talks about the importance of the dialogic exercise that will take individuals (students and teachers) to the intersubjective condition; however, both dialog and intersubjectivity need to operate towards equal grounds in different institutional settings. The idea of balancing doing assignments and having fun in her writing echoes the above reflection on subjectivity. In fact, it is Pedro’s apprenticeship as an author and Juan’s native language richness. 265

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Nevertheless, they do not deny the fact their second language could have the potential for similar richness if they knew more words.

Agency Literacy projects that include the construct of agency need to include students’ perspectives beyond the constraints of what the school considers to be literacy, writing and achievement, especially in today’s world of standardized education and accountability. That said, a literacy program also needs to take into consideration what students bring with them that from outside of school as a value. Lemke (2002) uses the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” meaning that we need to build communities, “villages”; however, these villages are like an ecosystem which means that they are not constituted by what participants have in common (p.74). Diversity rules in today’s world in education in spite of futile efforts to “level the field” (Street, ix, 2009). Literacy practices are mostly framed through activities, and it is the students’ participation in these activities that determine their learning. In fact, Birr Moje and Lewis (2009) conceptualize learning as “the enactment of their students’ histories through acts of participation” (p.16). Consequently, literacy educators need to regard with interest what students bring to the teaching/learning scenario when they take the floor in the classroom. María criticizes a teacher for “teaching his own way without acknowledging the fact that they are girls”. Moreover, she also claims that “playing” is part of their identity as girls. She feels the books she finds in the library are not age-appropriate of interests to her. She is also very outspoken when she describes a time students were given choices in a particular class project. Finally, Luisa talks about the fact that they need to shape their writing according to the teachers’ demands, which are the demands of the school system in terms of standards and competence descriptors.

CONCLUSION This study ties in well on a project about futuristic views on literacy education. Education, as a lifetime project, is under duress due to the growing demands from its multiple stakeholders. Society always claims for educated citizens; the workforce requires more competent and efficient workers, and educational authorities need to audit the completion of norms, standards, or accreditation systems quality indicators. The above situation exacerbates the already high expectations for teaching and learning environments, where the roles and the relationships between teachers and students have to change in order to help them respond to these agendas. A futuristic setting for educated people needs to empower learners with more autonomy, where the concepts and realities of identity, subjectivity, and agency will become the best means to show their accountability as citizens, workers, and students. With regard to the cases of this study, students feel at ease at school, and they are fond of being students there. They also have very meaningful ideas about their school life and their first and second language learning from the perspectives of identity, subjectivity, and agency; in fact, they seem to be willing participants of school life. However, there are important avenues of school work and research in terms of students’ ideas about their school life beyond accommodation. Certainly, the students’ experiences, narratives, and actions provide elements for reflection around the ideas of texts, roles, and contexts which are germane to the research concepts in this chapter. 266

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Agency is perhaps a key concept to pursue quite different human endeavors; however, it is indeed in education, where it must receive particular attention these days. Larsen-Freeman (2019) considers that agency is a concept that individuals do not command as they comply with a task, assignment, or a project. She argues that agency needs a sense of otherness to be fully deployed by learners. In sum, teachers and students exercise their agency through their encounters in the educational settings; however, agency is developed in relational terms. Moreover, she maintains that as the system moves through space-time, the agent and structure co-adapt, that is, the change is bidirectional and synchronous. What propels the change in humans is the reflexivity of which they are capable. (p.64) The above quote helps to explain the feelings and conversations students exchange after they have been given their syllabi and assignments at the beginning of a course. There are agency issues when these conversations are about what the teacher or the professor “wants”. A moment of reflexivity for both teachers and students is what they want to achieve from an assignment that they both share. The teacher’s view will be mainly about teaching, and the student’s perspective is learning. Finally, the study gave further confirmation of Faigley’s (1992) explanation for the nuances of the composition pedagogies in terms of cognitivist, expressivist, and social-epistemic perspectives. He affirms that the distinction among them is related to the way teachers determine and assign their students’ subjectivity in the classroom literacy practices.

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (EmersonC.HolquistM., Trans.). University of Texas Press. Birr, M. E., & Lewis, C. (2009). Examining opportunities to learn literacy: The role of critical sociocultural literacy research. In E. Birr Moje, C. Lewis & P. Enciso (Eds.), Reframing sociocultural research on literacy: Identity, agency and power (pp. 15-48). New York, NY: Routledge. Cely, F. E. (2009). Un retorno a la subjetividad. In F. E. Cely & W. Duica (Eds.), Intersubjetividad: Ensayos filosóficos sobre autoconciencia, sujeto y acción. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Dressman, M. (2004). Dewey and Bakhtin in dialogue: From Rosenblatt to pedagogy of literature as social, aesthetic practice. In A. F. Ball & S. Warshauer Freedman (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy, and learning (1st ed., pp. 34–52). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511755002.002 Faigley, L. (1992). Fragments of rationality. postmodernity and the subject of composition. University of Pittsburgh Press. Feuerstein, R, Rand, Y., & Hoffman. (1979). The Dynamic Assessment of Retarded Performers. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman.

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Greenleaf, C. L., & Katz, M. L. (2004). Ever newer ways to mean: Authoring pedagogical change in secondary subject-area classrooms. In A. F. Ball & S. Warshauer Freedman (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy, and learning (1st ed., pp. 172–202). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511755002.009 Hassan, R., & Perret, G. (1994). Learning to function with the other tongue: A systemic functional perspective on second language teaching. In T. Odlin, M. H. Long, & J. C. Richards (Eds.), Perspectives on pedagogical grammar (pp. 179–216). Cambridge Applied Linguistics. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139524605.010 Howell, B. (2008). Literacy, subjectivity, and the gender divide: The freedom of writing implies the freedom of the citizen. (Sartre 1948). Gender and Education, 20(5), 511–525. doi:10.1080/09540250701797218 Larsen-Freeman, D. (2019). On Language Learner Agency: A Complex Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective. Modern Language Journal, 103(Supplement), 61–79. doi:10.1111/modl.12536 Lemke, J. L. (2002). Language development and identity: Multiple timescales in the social ecology of learning. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives. Continuum. Li, X. (2007). Identities and beliefs in ESL Writing: From product to processes. Teaching English to Speakers of Languages Canada Journal., 25(1), 41–64. doi:10.18806/tesl.v25i1.107 McCarthey, S. J. (1998). Constructing multiple subjectivities in classroom literacy contexts. Research in the Teaching of English, 32(2), 126–160. McCarthey, S. J. (2001). Identity construction in elementary readers and writers. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(2), 122–151. doi:10.1598/RRQ.36.2.2 Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2001). Changing perspectives on good language learners. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Quarterly., 35(2), 307–322. Pérez, B., & Nordlander, A. (2004). Making decisions about literacy instructional practices. In B. Pérez, T. Dien, T. McCarthy, M.E. Torres Guzmán, & L.J. Watahomigie (Eds.), Sociocultural contexts of language and literacy. (2nd. ed. pp. 277-308). New York. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Street, B. V. (2009). Foreword. In E. Birr Moje, C. Lewis, & P. Enciso (Eds.), Reframing sociocultural research on literacy: Identity, agency and power. Routledge. Valdés, G. (2004). The teaching of academic language to minority second language learners. In A. F. Ball & S. Warshauer Freedman, (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy, and learning. (1st. ed. pp. 66-95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511755002.004 Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. MIT. doi:10.1037/11193-000 Watson-Gegeo, K. A. (2004). Mind, language and epistemology: Toward a language socialization paradigm for SLA. Modern Language Journal, 88(3), 331–350. doi:10.1111/j.0026-7902.2004.00233.x Williams, M., & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teachers: A social constructivist approach (8th ed.). Cambridge Teaching Library. Yin, R. (2009). Case study research. Sage.

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ADDITIONAL READING Clandinin, J. D., & Connelly, M. F. (2011). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. Jossey-Bass. Dyson, H. A. (2001). Where are the childhoods in childhood literacy? An exploration in outer (school) space. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(1), 9–39. doi:10.1177/14687984010011002 Heron, A. (2003). A study of agency: Multiple constructions of choice and decision making in an inquiry-based summer school program for struggling readers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46(7), 568–581. Hirvela, A., & Belcher, D. (2001). Coming back to voice: The multiple voices and identities of mature multilingual writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1), 83–106. doi:10.1016/S10603743(00)00038-2 Howell, B. (2008). Literacy, subjectivity, and the gender divide: The freedom of writing implies the freedom of the citizen. (Sartre 1948). Gender and Education, 20(5), 511–525. doi:10.1080/09540250701797218 Isaacson, S. (1989). Role of secretary vs. author. Resolving the conflict in writing instruction. Learning Disability Quarterly, 12(3), 209–217. doi:10.2307/1510690 Mora, P. (1997). Tomas and the Library Lady. Dragonfly Books. Pacheco, M. (2010). Performativity in the bilingual classroom: The plight of English learners in the current reform context. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 41(1), 45–73. doi:10.1111/j.15481492.2010.01068.x Polio, Ch. (2003). Research on second language writing. An overview of what we investigate and how. In B. Kroll, (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (1st. ed. pp. 35-66). Cambridge: U.K. Cambridge University Press. Rymes, B., & Pash, D. (2001). Questioning identity: The case of one second-language learner. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 32(3), 276–300. doi:10.1525/aeq.2001.32.3.276 Schaafsma, D., & Vinz, R. (2011). Narrative inquiry: Approaches to language and literacy research. Teachers College Columbia University.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Bakhtin: A Russian literary theorist and language philosopher, whose theories have been used to understand the intricate relationship between writers, their work, and their audience. Dialogism: Bakthin’s (1975) theory regarding the fact that reading is never a static process and readers are not in the hands the author despite the fact that a writer discloses his/her voice. Karen Watson Gegeo: An Emerita Professor at UC Davies School of Education, who is an advocate for the recognition of rights of marginalized communities such as the indigenous people and immigrants. Lemke: Is a researcher about the role of culture and society in human learning regarding the concept of communication. Second Language Learning: The process of becoming proficient in a language that is different than the native language. Social Constructivism: Lev Vigotysky’s (1978) perspective on how knowledge was developed through active engagement within the social context through social interactions. Symbolic Mediation: The process of transforming natural behavior into cognitive processes to understand and learn about the world.

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A Transformative SecondLanguage-Literacy Program for Migrant Students A. Selcen Bingöl Gazi University, Turkey

ABSTRACT Migration, as old as the history of mankind, brings together many challenges for both the migrants and the receiving country. Certainly, among the most affected ones are the children of migrants, who have to continue their educational lives in their new land. Language learning is the first challenge for these children as it is the key to integration; however, not all the countries that receive migration are experienced in handling the adaptation process of immigrants. What’s more, migrant children are expected to write in a linguistically and culturally different writing system to be considered literate in their new educational settings. Since monolingual curricula fall short in today’s global world, multilingual flexible curricula should be adopted and implemented to meet various needs of diverse migrant groups. This chapter will provide critical insights and suggestions for Syrian migrant children in the Turkish context by taking into account a successful educational second language literacy program called KOALA.

INTRODUCTION Far from unprecedented, human mobility has marked world history. An understanding that intensified periods of migration have existed well before the contemporary era can shift the lens and avoid framing of contemporary migration as crisis. Undeniably, migration has existed since the dawn of time […]. (Menjivar et al., 2019, p.3) Today’s global world faces numerous incidents including wars, which still lead to mass migration movements throughout the whole world. Migration movements, which in fact, are as old as the history of humankind, have affected the lives of the migrant people as well as the people of the migrated country. This effect is mostly seen in educational systems in which the migrant children are tried to be integrated. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch016

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The first and most crucial requirement is to teach these migrant children “the language of the migrated country’s educational system,” so that they become successful in order to be completely integrated into a new society. Language, and understanding its written forms in that target language in question, has always been perceived as the key for integration since the power of communication can be achieved through effective language teaching strategies. In regards to Turkish Republic and its immigration status, Turkish educational practices take place officially in Turkish language as a representation of a monolingual writing system throughout educational and social settings. Recently, there have been massive migration movements from Syria to Turkey, which specifically took place since 2011 that brought high numbers of Syrian children into Turkey’s educational system unpredictably. In this context, Syrian people are referred to as “migrant” instead of “refugees” or “people under temporary protection”, and the situation is referred to as “migration” as suggested by International Organization of Migration (IOM, 2011) to define people groups’ place changing movement no matter what the reason, type or duration is. Initially, Syrian migrant students were educated in Temporary Education Centers, and then these children were offered an educational model with the Turkish children within the same school setting two years ago. Turkey, similar to other migrant-receiving countries, was not properly prepared for this rather unknown situation as both the education system and its associated written curricula in effect have always been monolingual for homogeneous Turkish speaking students (Arslangilay, 2018). Perhaps more importantly, receiving massive numbers of immigrant students into Turkish schools is a radical change in society’s educational system that requires particular reforms in Turkish public educational system policies in terms of teacher education, course material preparations and curriculum preparation. Curriculum is a process that should always be developed and evaluated according to the needs of the students, society as well as the whole world in context; therefore, significant educational needs due to migration movements should be reflected in the curricula of the migration receiving countries. In the first place, it seems clear that monolingual curricula are no longer effective in practice. By this definition, multilingual curricula that are both flexible and integrating should be developed in order to satisfy the needs of all heterogeneous populations in Turkish public schools. In order to shed light on this educational transformation, a model of a literacy curriculum that is part of a multilingual curriculum for Syrian immigrant children, will be proposed in this study. For this purpose, this study will exemplify a flexible and effective multilingual curriculum practice that was formerly applied in Germany in order to adapt a similarly functional curriculum model for Syrian children within the Turkish context. Germany, which is a country of migration for more than 60 years, applied a program called the KOALA Project (Koordiniertes Alphabetizeirung im Anfangs Unterrict) for especially Turkish migrant children, who make up the highest proportion of migrant origin students in Germany. In this chapter, the KOALA project would be presented as a good example that could be adapted to the Turkish context. KOALA is a flexible curriculum practice that helps the migrant children’s progress both in the native language and German coordinately so that they will neither forget their own language and culture nor will be unsuccessful in the education system (Bingöl-Arslangilay, 2013; Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a, 2011b). With this in mind, this chapter proposes an ideal multilingual approach for the recent migrant students’ literacy development within Turkish public schools by taking the KOALA project as a role model.

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LITERACY FOR MIGRANT CHILDREN Across history and across various cultures, literacy has seemed to many people what distinguishes one kind of person from another kind of person. Literate people, it is widely believed, are more intelligent, more modern, more moral. Countries with high literacy rates are better developed, more modern, better behaved. Literacy, it is felt, freed some humanity form a “primitive” state, from an earlier stage of human development. If language is what makes us human, literacy, it seems, is what makes us “civilized” (Gee, 2015, p. 50). Literacy does not simply mean how to read and write. Literacy is the inseparable part of human evolution. It is literacy that transformed the essence of knowledge across generations for all disciplines. Civilizations who practice literacy intensively in their social and constitutional intuitions become the reflection of a humanistic and civil world while uncontrolled senses of aggressiveness, rudeness and disrespect are often associated with being illiterate. It is not a coincidence that well-educated countries respected literacy, and they are respected by the world due to their up-to-date and intellectual educational systems, and well-established laws on human rights. After all, kindness has one native language regarding mutual respect and empathy. In a similar vein, countries who treasure their children and youth will be building bright futures for a more livable and civil world; however, even a few unexpected changes in a society’s structure may cause a crisis. Within the context of this chapter; a literacy crisis occurred in Syria as a result of a massive migration movement after people experienced the ugly face of war in their home country, will be explored. If migrants struggle with survival initially, their first and initial reaction would be the purpose of survival. It seems doubtful to expect any migrant to care for literacy when their life is at danger; however, once they are given the opportunity to adjust to a secure environment, the first thing they should be caring is their children’s literacy development because literacy is the key to open up new avenues for civilization. Beyond question, facing a new culture with all its linguistic and educational components is a challenge. When migrants pose significant challenges to governments, the recipient country brings together notions such as assimilation, integration, exclusion, multiculturalism, interculturalism, bilingualism and multilingualism. While some of these terms carry negative connotations, it is the role of a good teacher who would change the lives of the migrant children. There are inevitably models of standard, well-respected, and admired cultural models in a society; however, being literate is not necessarily associated with the dominant culture, and acculturation might pose risks for migrant students by creating conflicts with home culture versus the school culture. Even though acculturation might be associated with oppression by overlooking social identities migrants bring to their recipient country, teachers can be pioneers to find a balance between home and school culture for meaningful literacy practices (Gee, 2015). By this definition, the context of this study reimagines the terms of multiculturalism, bilingualism and multilingualism for creating a novel and a flexible curriculum for migrant children in Turkey for the best educational practices and outcomes.

MIGRATION AND EDUCATION Today the world is facing global problems that lead to migration movements all around the world. The term “migrant” is used, as suggested by IOM, to define people groups, who change their place. The

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changing movement of people is stated as “migration” no matter what the reason, type, or duration is (International Organization of Migration, 2011). Migration indeed is a very long-lasting phenomenon that affects both the people of the recipient country and migrants, and this transformation affects even the migrants’ future generations (Castles & Miller, 2008). The status of future generations of migrants is directly associated with the literacy opportunities and the support migrants would receive from the country they migrated to. The most influential, humanistic and long-lasting way to provide support for migrants is providing equal access for children’s education after basic survival needs of the migrants are provided. No doubt, and quite importantly, the failure to give proper attention to education with its long term effects on children and overall society would be devastating by creating a sub-group of an uneducated generation. Under such circumstances, the fact would remain that uneducated children would not meet their educational and personal goals for a brighter future. Suggesting the need to articulate a well-functioning society, educational attainment is the first milestone of structural integration for a migrant child (Söhn, 2011). On the other hand, cultural differences lead to the fact that migrant children face problems especially in the educational system. When children fail to adapt to the new educational system, it would harm the integration process. Education is the basic deed that would either help the children gain advantages as they grow up bilingual or multilingual, or it could surely turn into a disadvantage, if the migrant children have problems in attaining the languages. It should be noted that the first and foremost crucial skill for a migrant child to be literate in the migrant country’s language is to be competent in her/his mother tongue. In other words, being fluent in the mother tongue is the first prerequisite for migrant children in order to integrate into the education system of the new country. Individuals transfer their language learning strategy while they acquire their native language into the new language as language learning processes because learning a second language is directly associated with the individual’s use of the native language (Fidan, 2019). This formulation implies the fact that being literate is also related to the writing skills of migrant students, and it is of great importance for the education programs to cover the phenomenon of language teaching along with literacy skills by taking the native language phenomenon of the migrant students into account. Unfortunately, failing to learn how to write in the target language could be one of the main causes that migrant children would drop out of their education without having the change to acquire further knowledge of literacy in the target language. In an ideal world; countries, who are accepting migrant populations, should be equipped with educational standards that would accompany migrant children’s literacy needs in order to avoid creating subgroups of uneducated and unproductive citizens of new generations in their own society. On the other hand, migrants often face challenges over generations since countries are accepting migrants that they are not ready to foster and nurture. The biggest concern is usually providing literacy opportunities in educational settings for newcomers. In addition, the lack of experience on behalf of governments for providing highly qualified educational settings poses additional challenges. Not all countries’ education systems in the world have experiences in migrant education. Even Germany, known as a migrant country for at least 60 years but refused it until the mid of 1990s, tried many educational models and practices in order to provide partly multicultural education and teacher training. Another country, which has accepted large numbers of migrants is Turkey, and Turkey has no former experience or previously determined policies for fostering large numbers of migrants. In Turkey’s case, the Syrian war led to the migration of Syrians around the world, yet a massive Syrian population settled down in Turkey. This migration movement affected and changed the host country’s educational 274

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approaches due to the challenges of integrating high populations of school-aged Syrian migrant children into educational institutions.

SYRIAN MIGRANT CHILDREN IN TURKEY AND THEIR LITERACY PROBLEMS New literacy theorists along with researchers of social theorists describe literacy as a group of social practices in terms of observable events facilitated in the forms of written texts (Barton et al., 2000; Hanauer, 2008). To examine how literacy movements form in a migrant recipient country, it is hard to understand how one community practices literacy in forms of written texts regarding graphical and textual representations. Particular graphical and textual forms may reveal how an underlying communicative message is cognitively perceived and processed in one language uniquely. Here, the unsettling fact is while different countries use different language systems to communicate, their genre preferences could reflect their cultural mindset, which adds another crucial aspect for migrant students to comprehend and process. Therefore, learning to function in the recipient country’s language requires time, resources and substantial time for migrant students to adapt to their new educational settings. Undeniably, this is a very heavy load on young migrants’ shoulders to carry. Syrians, like many other foreigners, face challenges in learning Turkish because of its different grammatical structure and alphabet. To illustrate, Arabic is written from right to left, which is the opposite of the Turkish writing system. In Turkish education system, Turkish is both the native language and the official language of the society; however, it is a foreign language for Syrian migrant children and their families. Without further knowledge or education of teaching migrant children, Turkish teachers feel a chaotic burden in terms of teaching literacy to Syrian migrant children. Accordingly, Turkish education system did not train teachers to cope with such a large group of migrant students, who arrived in their classrooms, so Turkish teachers were by no means prepared for multiculturally sensitive educational models. Undoubtedly, Turkish teachers faced numerous problems in teaching both literacy and content knowledge to migrant Syrian children while the children are in the process of learning a new language (Arslangilay, 2018; Uğurlu and Kayhan, 2018). In order to assist teachers and migrant children, Turkish Ministry of National Education has encountered new practices to be implemented for making migrant children’s adjustment easier. Among these practices was Temporary Training Centers (TTC) in which a modified Syrian curriculum was implemented and the courses were taught by Syrian teachers in Arabic, which is the native language of the migrants.In these centers, teaching Turkish to these students was provided for better integration practices as well as cultural and social activities, and the progress was monitored by the Provincial Commissions (Arslangilay, 2018; İçduygu & Şimşek, 2016). However, these TTCs were closed nearly two years ago and all Syrian students are now educated in the mainstream Turkish schools with Turkish curriculum and Turkish language. Currently, most of the Syrian migrant students face problems because of their incompetency in Turkish language which in turn affects their academic success (Coşkun & Emin, 2016; Tanrıkulu, 2017). In addition, Turkish teachers were not ready for such a radical change in students’ linguistic diversity and most of them lacked “Teaching Turkish to Foreigners” training in their pre-service and in-service teacher training. Teachers are also faced with the problem of not having convenient materials to be used in these heterogonous classrooms. Turkish students, who are ready to understand the content knowledge in Turkish; and Syrian migrant children, who did not know Turkish to understand the class materials, are educated together in a challenging way (Arslangilay, 2018; Coşkun & Emin, 2016). 275

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From a positive perspective, there are some factors that facilitate Syrian children to learn Turkish such as having partially a common cultural heritage, and Syria has a shared border with Turkey. In addition, there are a few common words used in both languages. The fact that Syrians are exposed to Turkish in their daily lives, provides Syrians a setting for practicing their listening and speaking skills. Quite the contrary, it has been recognized that Syrian students are less successful in terms of writing skills as Turkish alphabet is different than that of Arabic. Moreover, there is a prejudice by the students that writing is perceived as a difficult skill, which is limited to classroom environment. This consequence leads to gaining less competence in writing skills (Çiçek & Kaplan, 2016). Despite structural similarities and differences occurring in languages, learning a second language usually happens in two socio-political dimensions because bilingualism is both a societal and an individual concern. For instance, people often refer to the U.S., a monolingual community by disregarding the fact that U.S. is a land of immigration that hosted a large number of migrants, who speak diverse languages. When the first generation retained their native languages, their children assimilated, and they did not have the chance to preserve their native language. When people lose the language of their culture, their family ties can be weakened, and with them often their religious ties as well, and their sense of ethnic identity and community. A shared language strengthens social and familial bonds. Only the bilingual speaker knows the rush of warmth of suddenly hearing his or her mother tongue in a land where few speak it (Chaika, 2008, p. 321-322). Therefore, the most favorable integration approach is the one that supports migrant children to celebrate their cultural differences, and migrant children can retain their native language while learning a second one simultaneously. In the other model, assimilation is the ultimate goal, and the faster the migrant kid adapts to the new language by forgetting his native language, it is the ideal one. In terms of society, “we consider what languages are spoken in a country, by whom, and for what purposes” (Chaika, 2008, p. 319). This is often a political or social principle imposed on migrants rather than a linguistic one, and well-designed program development for migrant children’s unique needs by respecting their cultural unity is the solution for their bright futures.

THE KOALA PROJECT: AN EFFECTIVE LITERACY PROGRAM FOR MIGRANT STUDENTS The KOALA Project is a unique program development that specifically aimed to improve bilingual and bicultural children’s education in Hessen State, Germany. The KOALA Project is a representation of a collaboration between Turkish teachers, German classroom teachers, German school principals, Turkish students and Turkish parents for the purpose of providing a multicultural curriculum for bilingual and bicultural Turkish migrant students within German educational settings. The KOALA Project contributed to intercultural communication and literacy learning among migrant children. The key role belonged to the bilingual teachers, who are both proficient in German and Turkish (Bingöl-Arslangilay, 2013). During the implementation phase of the KOALA Project, a bicultural welcoming environment is presented through an applied education for both the native language and German as a second language through effective literacy practices. Both native language teachers and German teachers of the migrant students should be proficient in two languages to be part of the KOALA project. This cultural amalgamation of teachers and the accommodating study are features of intercultural education, which is the main

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idea in the KOALA Project for working in equal circumstances and mutual openness. In this way, it is ideal to find solutions before problems occur (Nakipoğlu-Schimang & Binışık, 1998). Figure 1. ­

(Website: (RAA) Regionale Arbeitsstellen zur Förderung von Kindern und Jugendlichen aus Zuwandererfamilien)

Figure 2. Examples of bilingual studies from KOALA classes in which Turkish proverbs are presented in both Turkish and German.

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Figure 3. Turkish teacher is in the mainstream German class to support the children in need.

The KOALA Project is managed by a center named Fachberaterzentrum für Migration (FBZ), which is associated with Hessen Ministry of Education (HKM). This center serves for the accommodating needs and problems of migrant children. The center represents nine different migrant languages along with their curricula. They have in-service trainings for teachers in addition to bilingual, multilingual projects and intercultural projects (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a). The center aims at improving linguistic developments of migrant children both in their native languages and in German. As the concept of the native language is critical for children’s linguistic development by providing language awareness, it should be systematically developed, and it is the only effective way for children to acquire competency in German language (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011b). So, the conceptual framework of this center portrays language programs based on the heterogeneous nature of the students, and KOALA is the coordinative practice of the native language courses along with German courses (NakipoğluSchimang, 2009). Native language courses are adjusted to CEFR (Common European Framework of References), and by this way, their quality is improved. The European Language Certificates (TELC) are internationally recognized by crediting Turkish language within the program. Once Turkish language competency is certified, native language courses become more credible when migrant children receive their official certification (TELC, 2011) as a representation of their literacy development. This program formulation seems to open up a whole world of possibilities for Turkish migrant students to gain better educational outcomes as a result of developing their self-esteem in Germany. What’s more striking, the attendance rate of Turkish native language courses has increased once KOALA program model is implemented. Turkish teachers, who took active role in this integrating project indicated that they experienced support in their social and professional development, which is another positive outcome of the program (Bingöl-Arslangilay, 2013). The existing body of research recognizes (Bingöl-Arslangilay, 2013) that the KOALA program guided Turkish migrant children to develop bilingualism by preserving their cultural values. Accordingly, a program that exemplifies and improves the KOALA method for better educational outcomes could be implemented in Turkish public schools for Syrian migrant students. In this way, Syrian migrant students

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would have the chance to acquire Turkish while improving their native language with a bilingual and bicultural educational model.

THE IMPACT OF THE KOALA PROJECT ON LITERACY DEVELOPMENT Teaching writing, which is a skill that concretizes language, is composed of gradual stages and phases. Teaching multilingual writing to bilingual and bicultural migrant students refer to teaching writing in two different language systems. If the native and the target language systems belong to distant language families, even the first stage of being acquainted with the alphabet would be a challenge. Since bilingual teachers within the KOALA program would be familiar in both languages, it would be easier for these teachers to recognize what type of linguistic challenges are present when students compare and contrast these two languages during the acquisition phase. Comparing and contrasting the written forms and alphabetic structures are crucial at the first stage of literacy development (Tiryaki, 2013). The KOALA program aims to teach writing in both languages simultaneously. Within the context of this program, children were first introduced to the German language writing system, and once children acquired mastery to differentiate the similarities and differences within the native and the target language, migrant students are exposed to the writing system in their native language. Since native language courses and target language courses are taught with the same effective methods, migrant students are not confused when learning two languages simultaneously. The KOALA project specifically encourages to teach letters and sounds comparatively in a didactic way, and it requires continuous communication both in the native language and in German in order to monitor the development of the migrant child. The underlying purpose of this close follow up is to prevent failure by focusing on the problems they face at an early stage. In the KOALA model, both the native language teacher and German language teacher enter the classroom to actively monitor the students’ literacy development in the classroom environment. This scaffolding intervention helps the migrant students with the linguistic problems they are facing in German. In the same way, native language teacher actively monitors and supports migrant children with German content knowledge within the class environment by using a similar method without interfering with the flow of the class. The KOALA project implements the principle of “responding to diversity with multiple solutions.” Methods such as learning within stations, project-based learning, study plan, daily plan and free study according to the circumstances of the school and student profile within the KOALA program (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2004, www.koala-projekt.de) support the development of migrant children’s literacy skills.

THE CHALLENGES OF THE KOALA PROJECT Schools have historically failed with non-elite populations and have thereby replicated social hierarchy. This has ensured that large numbers of lower socioeconomic and minority people engage in the lowestlevel and least satisfactory jobs in society, while being in a position to make few serious political and economic demands on the elites. (Gee, 2015, p.34) Once there is a significant change in a country’s population demographically and diversely, that education system in question is subject to change whether for better or worse depending on the educational

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standards in question. With the KOALA project, this educational and social change is proposed to protect children’s rights for education and literacy despite the challenges migration brings along. Educational programs should be flexible in terms of practicality, which would be responsive to differences when putting education into practice (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2004, 2009) to overcome the challenges of migration. One of the most crucial challenges occurs due to identity formation when migrant children have not acquired their native language or their target language, German. The migrant children cannot follow content knowledge or branch courses if they fail to acquire none of the languages. Lack of competency in both languages is surely a disadvantage for all migrant children. Integration and adaptation to different social environments, including the school environment, require migrant children to be competent in their native language to be able to acquire the target language, German -even if it is up to a certain level. The opposite would cause problems in the identity formation of the migrant children, who are expected to develop different identities at home and school. Particularly, the migrant children who are unwilling to lose their identity could have problems in learning German (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a). It is, therefore, important that language plays a vital role in developing the critical thinking ability of the migrant children, and language development is a key that provides success at school. Within the context of language acquisition, language learning process is completed until the age of 10. If migrant children learn a second language without learning their native language first, their language acquisition would be limited to hearsay along with lacking grammatical competence. This lack of competence in both languages would result in failure in school and social life. From this scientific perspective, the KOALA project recognizes the heterogeneous nature of the migrant children in order to create a learning environment for children to practice their native language with German mainstream courses coordinatively. The other crucial problem that occurs when implementing this program is stated in Hessen State Primary Education Curricula within the context of native languages section: Language developmental skills of the same migrant group can be very diverse. Some are competent in their native language but lacking in German; whereas some are good in German but they are weak in their native language. What’s worse; some are lacking in both languages. These diverse levels of languages in children require changing in methods in native language education as well as in German (FBZ, 1997; Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009, 2011b). In environments, where there is cultural and linguistic diversity, each child should be evaluated based on his or her level. In addition, it is a fact that a child can only learn if s/he feels accepted by the society. Therefore, if the objective is the ultimate success of the migrant children, their identity and socialization process should be entirely accepted along with their unique bilingual and bicultural qualities. This is among the main principles of the KOALA Project (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a). When the KOALA project is reimagined within the Turkish context with Syrian migrants, the same challenges would be present. Migrant children, with low levels of Arabic and Turkish linguistic skills, face the risks of not being able to integrate into the school as well as the social life. In German setting, where Turkish population is high; Turkish children’s neither German nor Turkish language levels or literacy skills were developed. This problematic situation is now observable in Turkey. The underlying reason why foreign students make mistakes in writing Turkish derives from the fact that these foreign students have never acquired writing skills in their native language (Genç, 2017). Furthermore, Koçak (2012) found out that especially third or fourth generation Turkish migrant children lack Turkish writing and speaking skills, and unfortunately the same problem would occur with the Syrian children when they are not provided with multilingual educational programs.

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The KOALA project can also help migrant children to overcome the challenges of their identity formation due to lack of language acquisition and literacy. The KOALA project aims to teach both languages simultaneously while reinforcing common shared studies with both Turkish and German courses (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009; Nakipoğlu-Schimang & Binışık, 1998, www.koala-projekt.de). With the KOALA Project, migrant students had the chance to establish a connection with their native language and German, and gained metacognitive awareness on their language and literacy development. What is more with the KOALA Project, the migrant students acquired the habit of “learning to learn” and “learn independently” which developed their bilingualism and literacy skills throughout their lives without any additional support (Arslangilay & Özdemir, 2016) (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011b). Once this project is developed and practiced in Frankfurt in 1994-1995 academic year and in the Hessen State as well in the other states of Germany, The KOALA Project is also applied in Portuguese-German and Serbian-German language dual programs successfully (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a, 2011b, 2012). The basic aim of this project is teaching migrant children to read and write bilingually coordinatively especially in the first two years of primary school with the target of reducing language deficiency until the 4th grade. The other aims could be stated as (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a, 2011b, 2012): • • • • • • •

Providing bilingualism with curricula, Helping students improve competency in both languages by making connections between their bilingual and bicultural situations, Supporting students to cope with problems they could face due to their bilingualism by sustaining their linguistic developments independently. Teaching students the skill of learning to learn, Assisting language skills and guiding them to accelerate in writing skills, Motivating migrant students and motivating them in gaining self-confidence while teaching the students both languages as a whole system, Balancing the education in German and native language by emphasizing the content knowledge, Preventing disarrangement between socio-cultural differences of languages by focusing on similarities via comparisons to avoid confusion.

CONCLUSION In a world of globalization in the 21st century, heterogeneity and diversity are among the most crucial issues, and “learning towards diversity” becomes rather critical for migrant children within bilingual and bicultural settings. Diverse circumstantial situations are the framework that should be the first to be determined and described to meet the diverse needs of migrants (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009). The necessity to address a particular migration issue in its context is vital in order to create available circumstances to meet the diverse and specific needs. Accordingly, it was recognized that Turkish migrants in Germany will not be going back to their countries after 60 years have passed, and it is for the best that their migration related problems should be evaluated in terms of gaining human resources as an advantage for the society (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009, 2011a). Since history repeats itself, there is a similar massive migration movement occurring in Turkey. Turkey and Syria share a comparable migration movement except for the fact that Syrians did not enter Turkey as a resource for workforce but, they were in need of a secure land when the war was happening. Since the war has not been terminated, there is not much hope for these migrants to go back to their country.

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Therefore, Syrian migrants, most of whom are in school age, should also be provided high literacy standards and circumstances that they can adjust linguistically. One of the aspects that negatively influence children’s literacy development occurs when some of the Syrian families settle down in Turkey during a transit stay. During this temporary stay while travelling to another country, they fail to send their children to Turkish schools, and this situation creates a gap in children’s literacy development (Aras & Yasun, 2016). Another factor that affects literacy development of children is the attitude of society and the social environment that surrounds it. Therefore, the dynamics of interaction between literacy development and languages depend on the individual attitudes of migrants and the receiving country (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009, 2011a). By taking into accounts the challenges and positive outcomes within the context of this chapter, there are three vital aspects that need to be taken into consideration when designing or implementing literacy support programs for migrant children in the future. They are: lack of language development, welcoming migrant people in society for migrant children’s identity development and uninterrupted education.

1. Lack of Language Development Lack of knowledge in the target language prevents learning the content knowledge in the target language. Children either learn a foreign language by missing the content, or they can neither learn a second language nor the content knowledge associated with it. Part of migrant children did not acquire language competence both in their native language as well as in German. As a result, exposing children to content knowledge without prior language acquisition is not logical, and it wastes children’s time as well as resources. On the other hand, initial reading and writing instruction form the basis of literacy development and the effective understanding of the language. In this framework, the reading and writing skills of Syrian children, as well as their skills in understanding what they write, should be developed at an early age (Uğurlu & Kayhan, 2018). Apart from some exceptions in Germany, most migrant children could not be very successful as they have not received adequate support in languages (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2011a). Strong literacy and language support is an indicator that determines success or failure of migrant children in school environment together with the society itself.

2. Welcoming Migrant People in Society for Migrant Children’s Identity Development The starting point of the KOALA Project is to prevent migrant children from feeling unaccepted of their native language by supporting their personal developments. Individual differences in families, pre-school practices, and different attitudes of migrants according to their migrant status are among determining factors for unsuccessful practices of the migrant children. The language developments of the students will vary depending on the fact whether the migrant families isolate themselves from this foreign country or whether they are ready to integrate (www.koala-projekt.de). If families choose to willingly integrate, they will be an asset within the society, and their children would be part of their new land with their competitive literacy skills. Migrant children should be welcomed and their native language skills and culture should be encouraged by welcoming these students in the society. Werges (2004) states that native language courses are not solely crucial for learning a second language but for personality and identity development. Another factor that affects literacy development of migrant children is the attitude of the society and the social environment that surrounds it. Therefore,

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the dynamics of interaction between literacy development and languages depend on the individual attitudes of migrants and the receiving country (Nakipoğlu-Schimang, 2009, 2011a). The opposite situation would lead to isolation, which in turn would create a subgroup of uneducated children that would be a disadvantage both for these children’s future and the society itself. Welcoming migrant people, their culture and language would be vital to build brighter futures for all world’s children.

3. Uninterrupted Education One of the incidents that negatively influence children’s literacy development occurs when some of the Syrian families settle down in Turkey during a transit stay. During this temporary stay while travelling to another country, they fail to send their children to school, and this situation creates a gap in children’s literacy development (Aras & Yasun, 2016). This educational gap in literacy development may result in potential failure for migrant children. By this definition, migrant children should be provided with highquality education under all circumstances without waiting them to learn another language. Postponing education in the native language will allow their achievement gap to grow further as a result of creating inequality in accessing literacy. This chapter clearly discussed how migrant children benefitted from the KOALA project along with the challenges Klein (2011) found out that KOALA is a beneficial method for improving the bilingual competencies of students who are faced with semi-bilingualism while Bingöl-Arslangilay (2013) found out that the KOALA project improved Turkish children’s reading and writing skills both in German and Turkish. This chapter explored the ways to advance the KOALA project by discussing it and its possible challenges in detail in order to apply the project in new contextual educational settings. This study highly recommends further research in exploring and implementing the KOALA project with Syrian migrant students by allowing them to receive education in their first language effectively when acquiring new literacy skills in a target language.

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Krulatz, A., & Iversen, J. (2020). Building inclusive language classroom spaces through multilingual writing practices for newly-arrived students in Norway. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 64(3), 372–388. doi:10.1080/00313831.2018.1557741 Pacheco, M., & Nao, K. (2009). Rewriting identities: Using historicized writing to promote migrant students’ writing. Pedagogies, 4(1), 24–43. doi:10.1080/15544800802557128

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Family-Centricity: The belief that family is central to wellbeing and that family members and family issues take precedence over other aspects of life. Flexible Curriculum: Type of a curriculum that is designed to increase the success rate of migrant students by offering classes that are free from certain prior prerequisites based on the proficiency levels of migrant students. The purpose is support migrant students’ adaptation process into a new country’s educational system with ease. KOALA: The system that allows to teach how to read, speak and write in two languages effectively and simultaneously by focusing on teaching the mother tongue and the second languages coordinately by making comparisons in the similarities and differences of the languages. Migrant Students: The population of students who migrated to a new country by possibly being exposed to different languages and educational curricula with the hope of adaptation for success. Migration: The movement of changing places either temporarily or permanently. The reasons that results in migration can vary depending on the contextual nature of the migration itself. Multilingual Writer: The ability to be able to write in three or more languages as a result of being literate in those languages. Multilingualism: It is a linguistic skill that grants individual speaker of a group of speakers the aptitude to function in at least three or more languages.

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Contextualizing Second Language Writing in Literature Courses: Locality of Pedagogy for Innovative Practices Mir Abdullah Miri Herat University, Afghanistan Bui Phu Hung University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

ABSTRACT A vast body of research encourages the teaching of literature in language education to improve learners’ language competencies because literature is found rich in language features, contexts, and cultural instances. Even though previous research studies investigated second language writing (SLW) from different perspectives, they are inadequate in investigating ways of integrating writing into literature courses. For this purpose, this qualitative research involved five Afghan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers with experience in integrating writing into literature courses in colleges. In addition, the study aimed to explore Afghan EFL teachers’ reflections on integrating writing activities into literature courses. The results show that these teachers mainly suffered from workload, tight schedules, and shortage of relevant materials. While the challenges faced by the teachers reflected the local contexts, the advantages of reconciling writing with literature are perceived, and global pedagogical recommendations are made based on the findings of this study.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch017

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

 Contextualizing Second Language Writing in Literature Courses

INTRODUCTION English is considered an international language not only because of its linguistic features but also because of the power of its people (Crystal, 2003). In many non-English speaking countries, English is included in the curriculum as a required course for international communication. Globalization has been evoking the demand for learning English and English language teacher education. A vast body of research has demonstrated the importance of teaching literature in language education. These two facets bring more benefits when they are integrated in the curriculum for language education, especially for language teacher education. In particular, literature is rich in language-related features, especially lexical resources, contexts of the texts, and culture, all of which guide students to language use and learning (Glosn, 2002; Goodwyn, 2009; Bloemert et al., 2017). Like many developing and underdeveloped countries, Afghanistan has encouraged local and foreign direct investments in English language education. However, Afghan English language teachers and students are underrepresented in the field (Miri, 2019). Teachers usually provide students with limited opportunities to write because of the heavy workload and large heterogeneous classes (Miri, 2018). In addition, these college students have no access to writing support services (e.g., writing center). Each student at the undergraduate level is required to write a monograph as a degree requirement. When students reach this stage, their teachers realize that the majority of students struggle with their writing skill. This gap in students’ writing skill is often the cause that writing teachers are unfairly blamed, assuming that they did not do their jobs properly. Besides, because of the large number of students and excessive responsibilities, teachers do not have sufficient time to give students constructive feedback on their writing. Although these issues are related to the local context, this study leads to innovative writing practices that can be incorporated into a variety of similar teaching contexts worldwide.

Research Aims and Questions This qualitative exploratory study aimed to explore the perceived reported experiences of English language teachers concerning the integration of literature in teaching a second language writing (SLW) at a public university in Afghanistan. It specifically investigated the extent to which these teachers used writing activities, the challenges they encountered, and their recommendations concerning this issue. It attempted to answer the following questions: 1. What writing activities do Afghan EFL teachers utilize in integration with teaching literature? 2. Which aspects of integrating SLW into literature courses are perceived as advantages for Afghan EFL teachers? 3. What challenges do Afghan EFL teachers encounter from the integration of SLW and literature? 4. Which teaching strategies do Afghan EFL teachers recommend to develop the integration of SLW and literature? Lantolf and Thorne (2006) define the classroom activity as a cognitive, communicative, and social process in which learners are engaged in a knowledge-sharing context. It indicates that writing can be a negotiated action that can change according to the interaction. The teaching and learning of SLW used in this study refer to classroom practice in both EFL (English as a foreign language) and ESL (English as a second language) contexts (Chaisiri, 2010; Chen & Su, 2012; Shi et al., 2019). 288

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Significance of the Study The novelty of the research topic makes this study significant for several reasons. First, the empirical findings will shed light on advantages, challenges, and recommendations from EFL teachers on integrating writing into teaching literature. These results may be useful not only for Afghanistan but also for many other countries where English is used as a foreign language. A rich body of research has explored the effectiveness of using literature in ESL and EFL classes (Bloemert et al., 2017; Paran, 2008). However, this study investigates this integration from another perspective—the incorporation of writing activities into literature courses. Since Afghan English language teachers and learners are underrepresented in the field, this study gives voice to these individuals in the field. The findings from this study would help ESL and EFL teachers in different contexts to learn possible methods of using writing activities when teaching literary texts. Moreover, the results would help educational authorities and policymakers to consider the possibilities of integrating writing and literature in curriculums in English departments.

LITERATURE REVIEW The Intertwinement of Language Skills Recent studies have explored the effectiveness of using various teaching writing approaches in EFL contexts. Among these studies, several of them have discussed the significance of providing learners with frequent opportunities to write and receive feedback on their writing (Ferris et al., 2013). However, there are still many teachers who undervalue the importance of SLW and treat writing as the last language skill to be acquired (Hamp-Lyons & Heasly, 2006). The philosophy of teaching language skills separately dates back to the audio-lingualism. Kumaravadivelu (2003) claimed: “During the 1950s and ‘60s, before the advent of communicative approaches, proponents of audiolingual method believe that language is basically aural-oral” (p. 226). In addition to introducing separation of language skills, audio-linguists propose a sequence of language skills - listening, speaking, reading, and writing. “They believe learners should not be allowed to attempt to speak before they listen or to write before they learn to read” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 226). As a result, SLW pedagogy and its relevant aspects receive less attention. A recent concept proposes that the learning of writing is a social process which involves the writer’s interaction with the teacher and peers in a setting of idea exchange. It has evoked several recent studies on skill integration in the SLW class (Chaisiri, 2010; Chen & Su, 2012; Shi et al., 2019). This integration of language skills provides students with chances to practice meaningful literacy (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). He added, “language skills are being taught in isolation more for logistical than for logical reasons; that is, it is done more out of administrative convenience and availability of time and resources than out of any sound theoretical or experiential knowledge” (p. 228). Many language textbooks, in particular, promote splitting language skills, overlooking the students’ needs for learning integrated skills. On the other hand, Kumaravadivelu (2003) advised teachers not to merely over-rely on the book, but focus on the course objectives and learners’ needs.

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The Nature of Reading and Writing Recent research asserts that those who have read more have better writing skills (Kirin, 2010). Research by DuBrowa (2011) explored the impact of integrating reading and writing skills by designing an integrated reading-writing course at Berkeley College for students with marginal critical thinking and writing skills. The empirical results demonstrated that skill integration enhanced students’ reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Therefore, she concluded that “reading and writing are just two sides of the same coin” (DuBrowa, 2011, p. 32). Likewise, Hirvela (2004) suggested the integration of reading and writing in foreign language teaching. If students do not perform well in their writing assignments with poor reading skills, splitting language skills in the curriculum may be responsible. Seeking how to write through reading (e.g., learning about common sentence structures, linguistic features) can help learners improve their writing skills. “We need to understand the students’ problems or limitations in reading because the act of writing about the texts began with the readings of them” (Hirvela, 2004, p. 45). Similarly, Zhang (2013) conducted a classroom-based study to investigate the effectiveness of synthesis reading on students’ writing skill. She assigned her ESL students to one experimental group and one control group by teaching them both reading and writing. Unlike the control group, the experimental group learned reading and writing skills in integration. The results of this study showed that students in the experimental group scored higher in the posttests. As a result, Zhang (2013 highly encouraged teachers not to confine themselves to the prescribed textbooks which educate language skills separately, but he recommended reconciling language skills in reading and writing to boost the learning outcomes. Some recent studies have updated pedagogy for integrating reading and writing in L2 education. Burgos (2017) and Nago (2019) suggested the three-stage text-based SLW pedagogy. First of all, the teacher delivers at least one target sample text, and students are required to read for the target features. The second phase is a social process in which teacher-student interaction and peer interaction take place. Afterwards, students work individually on their writing assignments. The procedure ends with peer feedback and self-revision. The study by Shi et al. (2019) also reflected that Chinese teachers highly appreciated this approach. Literature can provide good readings in different respects (Yoon & Uliassi, 2018), and thus L2 teachers can use a piece of literature as reading and weave literature and writing in the L2 classroom.

Weaving Second Language Writing and Literature Recent research on second language education has also been interested in integrating content and language to develop learners’ vocabulary and motivation (Gierlinger & Wagner, 2016; Goris et al., 2019). In terms of literature and writing integrated education, related literature provides the discourse of texts, which is rich in cultural clues as an inventory of language features by evoking critical thinking (Yoon & Uliassi, 2018). Those who teach literature claim that literature is significant both in education and in people’s lives (Showalter, 2003). This is because literature reminds individuals that they are part of a community-cultural literacy (Jago et al., 2011). By this definition, teaching literature does not merely refer to teaching a text of arts. Teachers need to provide students with chances to interact with the text they read. This is because “literature is meant not just to be understood but to be experienced, not just to teach us but to move us, not just to be accepted but to be reflected on and sometimes even resisted” (Oslon, 2011, p. 145). Providing students with chances to critique texts they read promotes learner autonomy. Similarly, using multicultural literature 290

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in language classes allows students to broaden their perspectives, hinder negative stereotypes, improve their diversity knowledge, and appreciate their own culture (Iwai, 2015). When students find and construct meaning in the texts they read, they consider it as a rewarding task rather than a routine classroom drill. This means a process-based knowledge construction happens when teachers provide students with activities “to move from reading (what the text says) to forming their own interpretations (what the text means)” (Oslon, 2011, p. 173). She also added that when students connect the text they read to real life, it is likely that meaningful literacy happens. This perspective is similar to Showalter’s (2003) argument regarding teaching poetry: “Lecturers can present, explain, and demonstrate the subject matter of poetic analysis and interpretation, but telling the students about it is not the same as involving them in it” (p. 68). In much the same way, students who study literary works need to be equipped with the skill of moving from judging a text by the first impression, which is emotionally charged, to an analytical evaluation of the text (Gibson, 2017). Since responding to a text can be different among students, who come from different academic socialization backgrounds, assigning writing activities like a reader-response helps students to share their thoughts about the text they read and teach others about their personal literacies. In this engagement process, students are treated as active agents (Sterponi, 2010) because broadening the notions of genre contributes to incorporating everyday experiences into writing practices, resulting in preparing a curriculum that meets the students’ needs and interests (Elola & Oskoz, 2017). One way to help learners develop their analytical skills by engaging their needs and interests is using personalization activities that can be done through various writing activities, namely timed essays, coursework essays, learning journals, response statements, autobiographical assignments, and note-taking exercises (Gibson, 2017). Because there is no fixed truth when students write their responses, no ideal reading exists. This integration, therefore, allows students to reflect backward and reflect forward in their writing. When literature and writing are integrated, students receive opportunities to write for an authentic audience, resulting in validating their diversity and developing both their language skills and their confidence levels (Giouroukakis & Connolly, 2019). The fact remains that contextualizing any pedagogy draws the attention to locality.

Locality of Pedagogy Locality is not only about time and context. It “is also about the perspectives, the language ideologies, the local ways of knowing, through which language is viewed” (Pennycook, 2010, p. 129). When individuals deal with a global phenomenon like English (Crystal, 2003; Pan & Block, 2011), they need to make sure that their teaching philosophies meet the requirements of the local context. In this study, the researchers employ the term local from both national and global perspectives. This is because there can be several localities with specific features within one nation. When teachers use a new theory in their teaching, they need to question the underlying principles of such a theory. “Most researchers and practicing teachers are reasonably comfortable with their own senses of what writing is, how [it is] used, how it is developed in given contexts and settings and how it can be best taught” (Grabe, 2001, p. 39). According to Kumaravadievelu (2003), the concept of method should be problematized because we deal with concepts that are “geared toward idealized contexts” (p. 28). He claims that no approach or method should be deemed the best, and when teachers rely merely on one approach or method of teaching, they restrict the creativity of themselves and their students.

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Kumaravadivelu (2003) compared methods to analyze the concepts that limit the creativity of teachers. In the same vein, Kumaravadivelu (2016) argued that most methods which are developed by English speaking countries and are connected to native speakers “promote the native speaker’s presumed language competence, learning styles, communication patterns, conversational maxims, cultural beliefs, and even accent as the norm to be learned and taught” (p. 73). Kumaravadivelu (2003) argued that pedagogy should not be limited to teaching predetermined materials, methods, and assessments. He claimed that teachers deal with various political and socio-cultural issues that are peculiar to locals. Thus, he argued that pedagogy should meet three pedagogic parameters to be successful, namely particularity, practicality, and possibility. Figure 1 demonstrates the critical descriptors for each parameter proposed by Kumaravadivelu (2003). Figure 1. The Parameters of Post-method Pedagogy

Kumaravadivelu (2003) and Thornbury (2002) claimed that pedagogy should be judged on its appropriateness. Specifically, Kumaravadivelu (2003) introduced some macro-strategies that English teachers in different contexts can use to develop their context-specific teaching techniques. These macro-strategies include: maximizing the learning opportunities, minimizing perceptual mismatches, facilitating negotiated integration, promoting learner autonomy, fostering language awareness, activating intuitive heuristics, contextualizing linguistic input, integrating language skills, ensuring social relevance, and rising cultural consciousness. (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, pp. 39–40) Kumaravadivelu (2003, p. 43) stated that his macro-strategic “framework seeks to provide a possible mechanism for classroom teachers to begin to theorize from their practice and practice what they theorize.” Many “language teachers have the inside view of their world in that they live in each day and know up close what issues are most important for them and their students” (Farrell & Jacobs, 2010, p. 117). This point is true with the Afghan English language teachers as well because they know what teaching strategies work better in their local teaching contexts. Thus, the researchers used Kumaravadivelu’s (2003) three pedagogic parameters as a theoretical lens to explore the perceived reported experiences of Afghan teachers concerning the use of writing activities in literature teaching and learning.

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RESEARCH METHODS Research Approach and Design The current study employed a qualitative approach as it aimed to investigate and interpret in-depth data about EFL teachers’ experiences in order to give meanings to their worlds (Merriam, 2009) in a sociocultural natural setting (Creswell, 2012). The researchers used an elicitation technique, semi-structured stimulated recall interviews, to collect data from the Afghan EFL teachers on Skype.

Participants This study employed the purposeful sampling technique. It involved five Afghan EFL instructors working at a university in Afghanistan. All the voluntary participants were current EFL instructors in the same context and had experience as a literature instructor. The following table illustrates the detailed background variables of the participants, such as gender and experience. Their names were kept confidential to assure the research ethics codes. Their nicknames used in this study were chosen by the participants. They were informed of their rights and treated with full respect and dignity. Table 1. Participant’s Demographic Information Participants (Pseudonym)

Years of Teaching at AU

Gender

Experience of Teaching Literature Courses

The Literature Courses Taught

Ramin

Male

3 years

2 semesters

Amer. Lit., British Lit., World Lit., and Intro. to Novel

Sahar

Female

3 years

3 semesters

Amer. Lit., British Lit., and World Lit.

Mohammad

Male

2 years

2 semesters

World Lit.

Wadiah

Female

4 years

3 semesters

Amer. Lit.

Aziz

Male

10 years

8 years

Intro. to Lit. I (Fiction), Amer. Lit., British Lit., Literary Criticism, World Lit., Drama, and Poetry

Data Collection and Procedures This study applied semi-structured stimulated recall interviews and class observations to collect in-depth information. In the interviews, the participants were asked follow-up questions to explore their beliefs and experiences. Since the participants of this study were not in the same setting as/with the researcher, the researchers decided to conduct the interviews on Skype. Upon the approval of the Ethics Review Board, the researchers emailed the consent form to eight teachers. The informed consent form clearly stated the purpose of the study, risks and benefits of participation, and management of confidentiality and privacy. The participants could choose to accept or refuse to participate in the study. Five participants out of eight candidates in contact accepted to participate in the study. All the five participants signed

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and sent the scanned copies of their informed consent forms to the researcher. The class observations were done after the interviews for data triangulation. The Skype interviews were conducted during May–June 2015 upon the receipt of scanned copies of the signed informed consent forms. The time and place of the interviews were chosen based on the participants’ preferences, resulting in a more relaxed and pleasant interview conversation. The participants preferred to be interviewed in English. Each interview lasted approximately twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, and the interviews were recorded upon the participants’ approval. One of the researchers used his laptop to record the interviews through QuickTime Player and saved the collected data in a secure, password-protected folder.

Data Analysis After conducting the interviews, the researchers transcribed, analyzed, and coded all the recordings verbatim into four main themes revealed by the participants. The themes were guided by the parameters of post-method pedagogy (see figure 1) and revealed by the participants. In this current research, the researchers followed the exploratory content-driven approach to analyze the data. In an exploratory/ content-driven approach, the codes are not predetermined, and they are derived from the data to prevent bias in data analysis (Berg, 2007; Cohen, Manion et al., 2013; Creswell, 2012). The four main themes of coding are (1) approaches incorporating writing into literature teaching and writing activities, (2) perceived advantages of combining SLW and literature in English language education, (3) challenges with integrating writing and literature, and (4) recommendations for the integration of writing in literature courses.

RESULTS Writing Activities Employed by the Afghan EFL Teachers Analyses of the collected data show some overlaps or divergence in the participants’ viewpoints. Reader response was the only shared writing activity that all five teachers incorporated into their literature courses. They generalized reader response as a reflective writing activity, written in an essay format, towards a specific text. They all assigned their students to write reader responses as an in-class writing activity. The only difference was found in particular ways they asked their students to write a reader response. For example, Ramin noted that he instructed them on how to write various types of essays before asking his students to write a reader response. In other words, Ramin had taught his students how to write a five-paragraph essay before requiring them to write their reader responses in the format of an essay. They thought the genre or format was very important to help students to develop and organize ideas properly. Mohammad and Aziz did not require students to adhere to a particular format or genre. However, they provided their students with a set of questions to consider when writing their reader responses. They asserted that writing should be creative and adhering to a certain genre or format restricted students’ creativity in writing. For example, Aziz asserted that discussing what specific things to include in a reader response (e.g., providing relevant textual examples, critiquing, reflecting) played a pivotal role in his students’ performance. Accordingly, whenever his instructions for writing reader responses were specific, his students responded better. In the same vein, Mohammad provided them with a set of 294

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questions to answer when writing their reader responses to produce a position and critique because his guideline discouraged his students from writing the summary of the readings as their reader responses. On the other hand, Sahar and Wadiah asserted that they did not confine their students to a specific format or genre for writing their reader responses because they just wanted to see the reflection and reaction of their students’ towards a text; students were required “to share their own ideas related to what they studied”. This openness of reader responses in terms of genre and structure caused some of Wadiah’s students to write their reader responses in the format of poetry. Three of the participants reported that their students wrote poetry in their literature courses. Of those three, Aziz included haiku as a predetermined genre for writing activity for his literature courses. On the other hand, Ramin and Wadiah noted that poetry writing had been a coincidence in their courses (see Ramin and Wadiah’s descriptions for more detail). Unlike Aziz, who had instructed his students how to write haiku, Ramin and Wadiah did not provide their students with clear instructions on how to write poetry. In other words, Ramin and Wadiah did not even require their students to write poetry but let them decide how to write their works. Although Ramin required his students to follow a five-paragraph essay format for their reader responses, once he realized that some of his students were interested in poetry writing, he permitted them to write their reader responses in the format of poetry. Table 2. Participants’ Incorporated Writing Activities Participant

Reader Response

Poetry

In-Class Writing

Aziz

• Requiring students to address specific points in their reader responses

• Predetermined (haiku writing)

• Haiku

Mohammad

• Requiring students to address specific points in their reader responses

N/A

• Paraphrasing • Summarizing

Ramin

• Requiring essay format • Accepting poetry as a reader response

• Coincidence

• Outline writing • Leaving comments on students’ posters

Sahar

• No genre or structure limitation for reader responses

N/A

N/A

Wadiah

• No genre or structure limitation for reader responses

• Coincidence

N/A

In summary, the teachers’ reflections were quite varied. Some of them considered literature as the target content and writing, and they were integrated to assist students’ literature learning. These teachers mainly focused on the teaching and learning of literature in class and assigned writing as homework. Their responses and class observations demonstrated a five-stage class procedure. The teachers first required to review a text individually to find answers to the teachers’ rhetorical, reference, inference, and vocabulary-in-context questions. This phase helped those who did not read the text in advance although the teachers asked them to. In the second phase, the students worked in groups of up to 5 to share their opinions about the open-ended questions assigned by the teachers. These questions were mainly composed to evoke students’ opinions, emotions, and debates. Group presentations were also encouraged. However, one or two group representatives made a presentation. Then, the teachers provided guidelines

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on how to do homework (writing assignments) on the piece of literature covered in the class. In most cases, the teachers gave prompts on the writing assignment. The class ended with peer feedback and feedback from the teachers. However, the other teachers offered writing activities in class in integration with the teaching and learning of literature. The classroom observations confirmed the teachers’ reflections on their pedagogy. In the first stage, the teacher asked students to read a piece of literature and figure out the target genre as well as language features used in the text. Then, the teacher interacted with the students on their answers. In the second phase, the students were required to work in groups on the main point in the target text. They were required to discuss on the plot, writer’s tone and attitudes, characters’ attitudes and behavior, and incidents. Afterwards, they were required to write individually. The writing assignments could require the students to synthesize the ideas acquired from their discussion or create a short piece of writing of up to 300 words with the same genre. After the writing assignment, the teacher required students to work in pairs to give peer comments from which they revised and edited their papers before submission. Finally, the teacher gave general comments on students’ learning and attitudes.

Perceived Benefits of Incorporation of Second Language Writing and Literature All five participants in this study acknowledged that students benefited from the incorporation of SLW and literature in various ways. There were two advantages that all the five participants mentioned concerning the integration of writing in literature courses that it (1) improved students’ language skills, and (2) developed students’ creativity and critical thinking. Wadiah among the participants indicated that assigning writing activities in literature courses improves students’ writing skills, while the other participants noted that this integration develops students’ language skills. Another advantage of integrating writing and literature, which is common among the participants of the current study, is the connection students make with their readings. All participants, except Wadiah, mentioned that when students write, they connect to the text they read. According to Sahar, when students are required to write a reader response, they first need to think about the reading and then take a position to critique the text, resulting in connecting to the text. That is to say, writing makes students think critically about what they read and write. Mohammad and Ramin noted that the inclusion of SLW in the teaching of literature increases students’ participation and interest in the course. Mohammad specifically mentioned that writing allows teachers to hear everyone’s voice in the class. According to Mohammad, when a teacher asks students’ perspectives on a topic, a few students will be given a chance to share their thoughts. However, when the teacher asks students to write down their responses, all the students are equally invited to participate in discussions and share their thoughts. In the same vein, Sahar asserted that writing brings variety to the teachers’ way of teaching and makes the learning process more fun for the students. In summary, the integration of writing and literature in second language teaching provides students with an opportunity to move away from always receiving a text to producing their texts. The teachers also revealed that they mainly depended on their experience in lesson planning, but they did not adhere closely to the course requirements and objectives. This made them perceive and perform differently in class. Some perceived benefits from using literature to teach writing, but others wanted their students to concentrate mainly on literature, and writing was assigned as a follow-up practice.

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Challenges of Integration of Second Language Writing and Literature Courses The teachers revealed that they faced challenges from integrating writing activities and literature in the curriculum for L2 education. The sufferings were mainly from students’ attitudes towards writing, time constraints, heterogeneous and large classes, and a shortage of localized relevant materials. All participants, except Ramin, noted that some of their students showed negative attitudes towards writing in literature courses. For example, Aziz indicated that a few of his students had misconceptions about the purpose of literature courses. They showed resistance towards writing a persuasive essay in their American Literature course. He added that some of his students claimed that there is no need to incorporate writing into literature courses because their program requires them to take four writing courses—two general writing courses and two academic writing courses. Besides, Mohammad pointed out that some of his students showed resistance to write. They preferred speaking to writing because of not receiving the opportunity to share their writings with the whole class. In other words, they perceived writing as a task that will be shared merely with the teacher, resulting in not knowing their classmates’ opinions about a text. Besides, Wadiah argued that some of her students did not want to learn; they wrote their reader response only to pass the course. Finally, Sahar mentioned that those students who did not consider themselves as good writers did not enjoy writing. According to Sahar, since writing is a difficult skill and requires many steps, “it is a little bit difficult … to make students write”. All five participants also revealed time constraints as one of the main obstructions preventing them from incorporating writing and literature in second language teaching. For example, Aziz mentioned that they only have fifty minutes for one classroom meeting, and throughout the semester, teachers have to cover many reading materials in their literature course. On the other hand, Ramin mentioned that the instructors deal with large classes, “50, 60 or 70 students”, and when they assign students with writing, they may not be able to check their papers to give feedback since instructors are required to teach at least 16 hours per week. Similarly, Wadiah noted that she could not include many writing activities in literature because she had heterogeneous classes—students with different English proficiency levels. Aziz and Wadiah noted that a lack of locally relevant materials in literature courses prevented them from integrating writing activities in their courses. Wadiah and Aziz added that reader response was commonly the only writing activity presented in their textbooks and instructional materials. The instructional materials which they used did not satisfy their students’ needs “because the textbooks we are using now are American high school textbooks, so they are written for native English speakers.”

Recommendations for Integration of Second Language Writing and Literature The participants recommended the integration of writing and literature in second language teaching curriculum. Although the recommendations that the participants made were mostly different from one another, their recommendations were global and local. Such integration was perceived to increase students’ interest in learning L2. Furthermore, the integration of writing within literature classes provided easy adaptation to materials by international publishers to reflect both local and global issues for the students. Mohammad and Wadiah mostly shared the same recommendations. They both stated that teachers should integrate in-class writing activities, particularly group writing activities. Mohammad also suggested the use of writing activities that did not require teachers and students to spend much of class time regarding the efficacy of pedagogy. Since Ramin had incorporated writing the outline, reader responses and poetry writing in his classes and had received positive feedback, he suggested that other teachers 297

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could incorporate them into their literature courses. Moreover, Sahar recommended the use of diverse literature genres and multimodal writing activities, such as presentation slides, reader response, argumentative essays, and posters to develop learners’ interest in the language courses which they are taking. She also suggested that when teachers incorporate writing activities into literature courses, they need to focus mostly on the content of students’ writing rather than the linguistic structure of their writing. Unlike the other participants, Aziz’s recommendations addressed the institutional levels. He suggested that Afghan English language teachers adapt materials to be related and relevant to their context so that the materials they utilized could meet their students’ needs and interests. In addition, he recommended the combination of writing and literature as a way to provide students with meaningful writing opportunities.

DISCUSSION The empirical findings presented in this study show several key findings which contribute to the current knowledge of teaching SLW by reconciling this target language skill into a literature course. The key findings for this particular study reflected the EFL teachers’ experiences. They are interpreted and discussed for theoretical and practical contributions to the current literature in teaching and learning SLW. One of the most common reflections from the teachers was the development of students’ creativity and critical thinking from incorporating writing in literature courses. From the participants’ reflections, students showed more creativity in writing than in oral presentations. For example, Ramin stated that when teachers offered in-class discussions on the readings, the discussions did not last long. However, when students were required to write their responses, they spent more time thinking about their arguments, and they used novel approaches to produce and generate their ideas. It enhanced students’ knowledge development and activated their prior knowledge by connecting the reading to their background and culture (Plakans et al., 2019). This finding indicates that writing is a thinking act in itself; once students identify the knowledge-making feature of writing, they engage with critical thinking and creativity (Estrem, 2015). Moreover, three of the participants highlighted the importance of developing students’ critical thinking through writing. Mohammed noted that students analyzed the text and shared their own experiences. This is aligned with Paul and Elder’s (2006) argument about the connection of writing and critical reading, “The reflective mind improves its thinking by thinking (reflectively) about it. Likewise, it improves its writing by thinking (reflectively) about writing. It moves back and forth between writing and thinking about how it is writing” (p. 5). It was also found that when literature and writing are combined, creativity happens. This was evident among Ramin’s and Wadiah’s students who wrote poetry as their reader responses. Since Wadiah did not require her students to follow a specific structure or genre for their reader responses, some of her students did not limit themselves to the traditional five-paragraph essay format, and wrote poetry. This speaks volume to Jones’s (2016) argument concerning the impact of creativity on changing the status quo: “Just as creativity in linguistic form disrupts our expectations about language, creativity in language use has the potential to disrupt habitual social practices, social orders and relationships of power” (p. 6) Furthermore, the incorporation of writing activities into literature courses has allowed the participants’ students to analyze and critique the readings, connect to the text, and utilize novel approaches to generate something different and new in their writing assignments. Sarsani (2005) believed that human beings are born with a strong capacity for creativity, and creativity could be developed “at all ages and 298

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in all fields of human endeavor” (p. 47). In other words, creativity occurs “whenever human intelligence is engaged” (Robinson, 2001, p. 7). The findings also show that the teachers taught from their experiences rather than the objectives of the course. Some of them focused mainly on literature as the target content. These teachers did not give time for writing in the class, but they provided guidelines for a writing assignment. Nevertheless, other teachers used literature as a tool to teach writing. The contemporary outcome-based approach shows that teachers should adhere to the course objectives which help students achieve the objectives of the whole program (Gurukkl, 2018; Pham, 2019). We also found that students who were provided with the chance to write haiku, a new writing genre, enjoyed the experience because they produced something themselves. This is because writing is similar to psychological ownership in that it is a cognitive-affective “state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is ‘theirs’ (i.e., it is MINE!)” (Pierce et al., 2003, p. 86). Students need to have the right to decide what to write and how to write it. They need to have a voice in the multimodal writing tasks they choose (Lim & Polio, 2020). Wadiah acknowledged that because she did not restrict her students to a specific structure or genre for their reader responses, a few of them wrote poetry. Similarly, Ramin realized that his students are interested in writing and encouraged them to try their reader responses in the format which they preferred because it “sparked [his students’] interest, and every day before the class or at the end of the class, a couple of the students raised their hands, and really wanted to come in front of the class and recite their poems”. This finding is supported by Hanauer’s (2012) perspective that learners should be at the center of the learning experience. Kramsch (2009) also argues that “language learning experience is likely to engage learners cognitively, emotionally, morally and aesthetically” (p. 43). Students were not required to write a reader response at the end of every single chapter, but some of them wanted to share their compositions every day. This pedagogy aligns with expressive pedagogy by Iida (2008; 2010) that aims “to develop the writer’s individual voice in a specific context” (p. 173). Therefore, Ramin’s pedagogy provided his students with an opportunity to express themselves and their voice through poetry writing. This finding was significant in the participants’ educational context because they did not ask their students to express their feelings and emotions through writing. The students themselves volunteered to share their feelings through writing. From the lens of post-methods pedagogy, poetry writing can be used as a macro-strategy to give voice to students in writing. The approaches adopted by Ramin and Wadiah encouraged their students to write because their students were not required to follow any specific format for their reader responses. Teaching writing itself is a learning process. It is rhetorical (Tate et al., 2014). Teachers experience something different in every single session. As teachers expect our students to be critically reflective, they should also attempt to detect patterns to draw on our teaching practices (Kumavaradivelu, 2016). If teachers reflect upon their teaching experiences and consider their students’ interests and needs, they will probably facilitate the learning process for their students more effectively, meaning that teachers’ reflections might result in providing better instruction for their students. Reflection can take various forms. For example, when students visit writing centers to work with a tutor, they sometimes critique their works. This is similar to intuitive heuristics, which is defined as “the process of self-discovery on the part of the learner” (Kumavaradivelu, 2016, p. 176). Although the term intuitive heuristics has been mostly used with the learners in educational contexts, it could also be used with the teachers since pedagogy is a heuristic practice (Tate et al., 2014). Time constraint, workload, and students’ attitudes towards writing and literature courses were identified as other main challenges from the teachers’ responses. They noted that these challenges prevented 299

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them from incorporating many writing activities in their literature courses. The majority of the English language teachers in Afghanistan dealt with large classrooms. In addition, university instructors were often required to teach 16 hours per week. These obligations made the instructors in literature courses focus more on text reception than text production. That is to say, providing students with opportunities to write would not be deemed efficient. Interdepartmental collaboration plays a pivotal role in improving Afghan English language learners’ writing skills. It crosses the borders and builds bridges between courses. There is currently a conspicuous lack of shared detailed objectives for the courses offered at the investigated institution, which is typical in Afghanistan. Meeting the needs of students in a department became very difficult if the instructors did not have shared objectives for their courses or if they did not consider their shared objectives (if available) when writing their course syllabi. However, teacher collaboration or task sharing would be likely to give more opportunities to improve their pedagogies and address their students’ needs. It is also significant to discuss interdepartmental collaboration regarding the curriculum the participants of the current study implemented in their department because “Collaboration among instructors does work, but if it is not consolidated and not fixed in the curriculum, it would be transient” (Ramin). This finding suggests that the instructors should spend more time reflecting and working collaboratively to review their curriculum. Considering their department’s mission, they need to discuss if they have clear objectives for each of their courses and in what ways their offered courses relate to each other. Another major challenge as a hindrance to reconciling SLW writing in literature courses in Afghanistan, according to two of the participants, was a shortage of relevant materials. Kumaravadivelu’s (2016) argument about the concepts of power and hegemony that “The hegemonic forces in our field keep themselves ‘alive and kicking’ through various aspects of English language education: curricular plans, materials design, teaching methods, standardized tests, and teacher preparation” (pp. 72–73). That is, similar to the imposition of methods, the instructional materials that are published in English speaking countries are recommended and utilized in different parts of the world. Reflective teachers revise their course syllabi. They do not always duplicate their teaching materials because a course syllabus taught in one city might not be appropriate for students in another city, let alone for students in another country. When EFL teachers design their lesson plans and syllabi based on their students’ diverse proficiency levels, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, they are most likely to facilitate the learning process for their students (Wang, 2017).

CONCLUSION All the EFL teacher participants in this study integrated SLW and literature. They also utilized globally popular writing activities in their courses. The challenges encountered by the teachers mainly reflected the shortcomings of the Afghan context. However, the advantages perceived by the teachers were quite global. The recommendations which these teachers made could be used to improve the practice of integrating writing into literature courses in Afghanistan and other EFL contexts. This particular study leads to innovative writing practices within the Afghan context; however, it can be a vivid example for similar teaching backgrounds throughout the world for advanced writing practices.

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Limitations and Future Research Directions Although the contributions of the contemporary study were clearly presented in the results and discussion, its limitations were inevitable. First, due to the limited timeline for this research project, the participants’ years of teaching experience, their number of instructed literature courses, and their educational qualifications were not considered when discussing the study results. Additional research might provide unique insights into the connection of teachers’ qualifications, knowledge, and teaching experiences with the participants’ perceptions about incorporating writing activities into their teaching practice. Second, the findings only presented the instructors’ views of their students’ learning and success. The results of the current study could be further strengthened by investigating the students’ perceptions of integrating writing activities in literature courses because what constitutes success is tricky and problematic. Finally, this study was specific to its study context: one Afghan university. Caution should be exercised in generalizing the results to other groups of teachers. Therefore, the limitations mentioned above should be taken into consideration while making applications of the study findings.

Implications for Teaching and Administrations in Higher Education SLW teachers can make the teaching of writing and literature more communicative by utilizing selfexpressive pedagogy. First, they can begin their courses with some self-expressive assignments (e.g., reader response, journal writing, literacy autobiography, poetic auto-ethnography) to know more about their students. Next, they can modify their instructional materials in order to meet their students’ backgrounds and needs because teachers in multilevel classes need to cope with students with different literacy and socialization backgrounds. The use of personalized learning activities allows teachers to help their students in discovering their aspirations and frustrations so that they can reach their educational goals. The findings of this study show that all the participants supported integrating writing in their literature courses. Six arising themes give several implications for teaching and administrations in higher education. In practical terms, SLW instructors can integrate writing activities in their teaching practices. This integration is not just limited to literature instructions; it can be applied in teaching other language courses. As one of the participants noted, teachers should be mindful of the number of writing activities they use when teaching literature. They should emphasize the sheer joy of writing instead of overdoing writing integration although there are some obstacles. Perhaps most obviously, it was found that teaching large classes and heavy workload mainly prevented the participants from integrating writing activities in their courses. In order to cope with this issue, some participants recommended the use of pair work group work activities (e.g., leveled groups, group roles, think-pair-share). In other words, teachers can assign their students to different groups and ask them to work together and write a collaborative text. They can also ask their students to write individual responses once they did the group discussion. If giving feedback to each individual is not feasible for the teachers, they can encourage peer feedback in their classrooms. Students can function as one of the best resources in improving their friends’ writing skill, if a respectful and non-threatening learning environment is provided. What’s more, teachers and educational authorities can develop some writing support centers, and they can recruit some volunteer students to work as tutors to help first- and second-year students with their writing skills, and there is an urgent need for writing support centers in Afghan university settings. In addition to establishing writing centers at ESL/EFL university settings, they should equip universities 301

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with online library databases. A lack of access to online library databases would be one of the main reasons many SLW teachers and scholars were underrepresented in developing countries. Once these teachers have access to up-to-date online published research, they can conduct research and theorize from their practices. Educational authorities with the coordination of their local teachers should begin to develop their locally relevant materials. Finally, higher education authorities should also consider the needs of SLW teachers and students to support them. Educational authorities should not only emphasize the significance of writing and research, but they should also provide resources for both students and teachers in this regard.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research was supported by Herat University, Afghanistan, and University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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ADDITIONAL READING Abrams, Z. I. (2019). The effects of integrated writing on linguistic complexity in L2 writing and taskcomplexity. System, 81, 110–121. doi:10.1016/j.system.2019.01.009 Belcher, D., & Hirvela, A. (2000). Literature and L2 composition: Revisiting the debate. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(1), 21–29. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(99)00021-1 Grapin, S. E., & Llosa, L. (2020). Toward an integrative framework for understanding multimodal L2 writing in the content areas. Journal of Second Language Writing, 47(100711), 1–8. doi:10.1016/j. jslw.2020.100711 Hall, G. (2005). Literature in language education. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230502727 Han, J., & Hiver, P. (2018). Genre-based L2 writing instruction and writing-specific psychological factors: The dynamics of change. Journal of Second Language Writing, 40, 44–59. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2018.03.001 Mostafa, T., & Crossley, S. A. (2020). Verb argument construction complexity indices and L2 writing quality: Effects of writing tasks and prompts. Journal of Second Language Writing, 49, 100730. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2020.100730 Payant, C., McDonough, K., Uludag, P., & Lindberg, R. (2019). Predicting integrated writing task performance: Source comprehension, prewriting planning, and individual differences. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 40, 87–97. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2019.06.001

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Activity: A cognitive, communicative, and social process in which learners are engaged in a knowledge-sharing context. Genre-Based L2 Writing: An approach to teaching writing that emphasizes the importance of considering purpose and context when assigning writing tasks. Literature and Writing Integrated Learning: The intertwinement of writing activities in literature courses. Outcome-Based Approach: An educational theory which places parts of an education system around the expected outcomes. Post-Method Pedagogy: A model that encourages context-specific education. Reader Response: An explanation and defense of personal reaction to an assigned text. Skill Integration: A concept and practice in second language teaching and learning that different language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) should be integrated to maximize the learning outcome.

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About the Contributors

Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoğlu gained her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a double major in Composition/Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics/TESOL. Her knowledge and experience lie in the areas of English language, literacy, culture, and writing. She is an expert on global perspectives on language and literacy policies, practices and English language learning and writing programs. She has extensive English Language teaching experience in American public schools and universities. She served as a chair in English Departments, where she developed English language programs depending on her students’ unique and diverse needs. The recent course she has given was a graduate level course to certified American schoolteachers to provide them leadership and skills on language teaching methods for multicultural students. Her research interests are linguistic analysis, the poetic and creative function of English as an additional language, writing program development, English for academic purposes, cultural studies, and social justice. Nurdan Kavaklı received her Ph.D. degree in English Language Teaching from Hacettepe University, which is a top-tier university in Turkey. She was awarded by the graduate scholarship program of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey for her excellence in research aptitude and leadership. She is currently a full time Assistant Professor at the department of English in Izmir Democracy University. She is also the member of the board of directors of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction (WCCI), and the editor-in-chief of Futuristic Implementations of Research in Education. Dr. Kavaklı’s research interests include language teacher education, language testing and assessment, second language writing, and language attrition. *** Maha Alawdat holds Ph.D in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Master degree in foreign English Literature from Ben Gurion University in Israel. Currently, she teaches at Kaye College of Education and Ort Abu Rabe’a Multidisciplinary school. Previously, she taught at Indiana University of PA and the Language Center in the United States. During her career, she got a number of awards like Teaching Excellence Award from IUP, Graduate Women’s Leadership, Fulbright Scholarship from the American Embassy, Award for Dissertation Completion, and Exceptional English Teacher Award from the Israeli Ministry of Education. She also has a number of publications including articles, poems, and a book.

 

About the Contributors

Leonora Anyango-Kivuva is a language, culture, and education expert of international repute. She is an applied linguist, specializing in language teaching and learning, multilingual writing, and translation. She invests in working with diverse groups of students to use language as a tool to advance their scholarship. Dr. Anyango-Kivuva has a vast knowledge and understanding of multiple languages including Kiswahili and Japanese. Recently, her research has concentrated on non-Western Rhetoric, especially African Rhetoric. She also writes on the benefit of using narrative pedagogy in the multilingual writing classroom and draws on her own knowledge of story-telling and writing to instruct students on writing their own stories. Dr. Anyango-Kivuva is also an avid writer of creative nonfiction and has published in this area. Her non-fiction work has appeared in Assay: Journal of Non-Fiction Studies, among others. She is currently working on completing her memoir, Inspirations from Mama’s Two Wisdoms. Aslıhan Selcen Bingöl is currently working as an associate professor in the Faculty of Education, Educational Sciences Department, Curriculum and Instruction and also as Vice Coordinator of Education and External Relations at Gazi University Ankara, Turkey. She received a Ph.D. degree in “Curriculum and Instruction” from Gazi University, an M.Sc. degree in “Social and Historical Foundations of Education” from Gazi University, and a B.A. degree in “American Culture and Literature” from Hacettepe University, Turkey. She has won scholarships from Denmark and Malaysia Government, has worked in various European Union Projects and held researches in Germany, United Kingdom and Denmark. Her research interests are bilingual/multilingual curricula, education of migrant and refugee children, 21st century skills and teacher education. Sarah E. DeCapua is Assistant Professor in Residence in the First-Year Writing Program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs), where she teaches primarily in the Second Language Writing Program. She received her PhD in Composition and TESOL in 2016 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation research explored student response to written teacher feedback in First-Year Composition. Her research interests include Second Language Writing, student response to instructor feedback, rhetoric, and writing program administration. Nayef Jomaa received his BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Aleppo in 2002. He worked as an English teacher for three years in Syrian Arab Republic and seven years at the International Academy for Health Sciences in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabi. In 2014, he received his master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and got a PhD scholarship from the same university. In 2017, he received his PhD in Applied Linguistics from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). He is currently working as an Assistant Professor at Karabuk University in Turkey. His main research interests focus on Systemic Functional Linguistics, genre analyses, academic writing, L2 writing, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Işıl Günseli Kaçar, PHD, is an English instructor at the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey. She is interested in pre-service language teacher education, pre-service teacher identity, English as a Lingua Franca, flipped instruction, mentoring/ementoring, the integration of technologies into English language teaching (ELT), telecollaboration, and teaching writing. She worked as a tutor at the academic writing center at METU previously. She is currently coordinating a number of national and international research projects on pre-service teacher education and e-mentoring. She has published several book chapters related to the integration of technology in ELT. 347

About the Contributors

Didem Koban Koç is currently working as an associate professor in the Faculty of Education/Department of Foreign Languages Education at İzmir Democracy University, İzmir, Turkey. She received a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics from the City University of New York, USA, an M.A. degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) from New York University, USA, and a B.A. degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) from Middle East Technical University, Turkey. She taught in a variety of institutions such as the City University of New York, Pace University, the College of New Rochelle in the United States and Hacettepe University in Turkey. Her research interests are bilingualism/multilingualism, sociolinguistics and teacher education. Mir Abdullah Miri is a faculty member at English Language Department, Herat University, Afghanistan. He holds a master’s degree in TESOL from Indiana University, USA. His research interests include second language writing, language pedagogy, NNEST issues, and topics related to access and equity. He has several papers indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. His orcid is 0000-0001-7392-3277. Bui Phu Hung holds a PhD in TESOL. He graduated at ELT from National University of Vietnam in 2003, and then achived a master’s degree in TESOL from Victoria University, Austrlia in 2006. He is now responsible for research affairs and graduate programs at Department of Foreign Language Studies, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam. He has many papers indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. His research interests include applied linguistics and English language teaching. His ORCID ID is 00000003-3468-4837, and ResearcherID is Q-7685-2019. Olubukola “Bukky” Salako received her Ph.D. in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She obtained her master’s degree in TESOL from Inter American University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Salako’s area of expertise are in Composition Studies and Teaching English as a Second Language. She has published work on non-native English speakers and presented on topics such as Sociolinguistics Analysis, Composition Theories, and Second Language Acquisition. She has participated in a variety of conferences, presenting on topics such as African American Vernacular English, Nigerian Pidgin English, Task Based Oral Testing, Lived Experiences, and Composition Studies. She visited and studied in South Korea (Explorations in Global History) at Kyungpook National University as an exchange student during her Ph.D. program. Additionally, she has published in the International Journal of Language & Linguistics, “Marginalized Labeling: An Evaluation of English Speaking Africans Classified as ESL Students” and has a chapter contribution in the book, Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing, “Using My Lived Experience to Teach Writing: A Reflective Practice.” She is a Professorial Lecturer at American University in the English Language Training Academy. Burcu Şentürk holds a BA degree in English Language Teaching from Middle East Technical University (METU). She received an MA degree in English Language Teaching/TEFL from Bilkent University MA TEFL Program and PhD in the Department of English Language Education at Hacettepe University. She worked as an English instructor at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University School of Foreign Languages for 13 years and she was the Head of the same department until 2018. She is currently working as an Assistant Prof. Dr. at Bartın University Faculty of Education English Language Teaching Department. She is also the Head of Foreign Language Education Department and the Director of the School of Foreign Languages at the same university. Additionally, she is the editor of Bartın University Journal of Faculty of Education. Her main teaching and research interests are educational linguistics, 348

About the Contributors

self-assessment, language teaching methodology, teaching language skills, technology integration in education, writing, digital writing, 21st Century skills, teaching foreign languages. Héctor Manuel Serna Dimas is a full professor for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universidad EAN in Bogotá, Colombia. Professor Serna has developed research in education on a number of topics such as content-based instruction, second language learning, and intercultural communicative competence. His research interests are professional development, second language pedagogy, bilingual education, and second language literacy. Dan Tannacito is Professor Emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. Dr. Tannacito earned two doctorates at the University of Oregon in applied linguistics and literature. He designed and developed the doctoral program in Applied Linguistics and Composition at IUP where he was the director and taught for 35 years. He directed more than 60 doctoral dissertations. He founded and directed the intensive English institute at IUP. He taught and lectured widely in China, Turkey, and Europe. He was director of the MA TEFL Program at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He published books on discourse analysis, second language writing, and intensive English teacher preparation. His journal publications include articles in the Journal of Second Language Writing and elsewhere. In retirement, he lives on the Oregon coast with his wife and dog. Bashak Tarkan-Blanco earned her Ph.D. in English Composition and TESOL at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are world Englishes, non-native English language teacher identity and training, composing processes of multilingual student writers, and theories of teaching composition. She has taught freshman composition, source-based writing, and ESL grammar and writing at the community college level for the past eighteen years. She currently is a professor of English composition and research writing at Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Florida. Sharon M. Virgil received her BA (1995) and MA (1996) in English from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. She has spent all of her teaching career at Bermuda College, a Community College on the island of Bermuda. In 2011, she took a year-long sabbatical from Bermuda College, to pursue her PhD at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, in the Composition and TESOL program. Under the tutelage of renowned IUP Composition professor, Claude Hurlbert, she completed a narrative dissertation, which focused on teaching Freshman Composition using a student-centered-book-writing pedagogy. She completed her PhD degree in 2015. Using her student-centered-book-writing pedagogy, she encourages her Composition students to find and use their voice. She currently serves as Chair of the English Department at Bermuda College, teaches Freshman Composition and literature courses, serves as an Academic Advisor, is a member of the Academic Council, and is the Faculty Advisor for the Bermuda College Literary Society.

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Index

21st Century Learning Skills 66, 82 21st Century Teachers 103, 117

A academic writing 13-14, 24-26, 28-30, 41, 44-46, 68, 80, 82, 86, 99-100, 118-124, 126-137, 142-143, 145, 154, 156, 158, 173, 179-180, 186, 189, 194198, 220, 233, 297 activity 4, 30, 37, 55, 60, 70-71, 75-76, 81, 115, 127, 163, 170-172, 176, 191, 193, 222, 230, 253, 259, 261, 288, 294-295, 297, 303, 306 adjective 161, 166, 168, 177 African orality 217-219, 229, 234 Attentional processing 241-242, 249 authorial self 17, 119, 121, 124-125, 130, 132-133, 138 autobiographical narratives 216, 219-220, 229, 231232, 234 autobiographical self 17, 119, 121, 124-125, 138, 143 autobiography 16-17, 24, 26-27, 60, 219, 221, 223, 301

B Bakhtin 18, 24, 80, 182, 251, 254, 267, 270 Bermuda College 48-49, 51-52, 56, 61 bilingual 16-20, 22-27, 49, 155, 157, 222, 245, 251253, 257-258, 264, 269, 274, 276-281, 283-284 blended learning 112, 118, 120-122, 132-133, 136 blogs 85, 87, 102-103, 108, 114, 118-123, 125, 131134, 152, 166-167, 238, 248 Book-Writing Pedagogy 48, 51-52, 61

C challenges 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 44, 47, 50, 64, 75, 84-86, 90, 94-96, 100, 108, 116, 118, 123, 126, 129, 142, 154, 174, 178, 196-197, 241-242, 271, 273-275, 279-284, 287-289, 294, 297, 299-300  

Chinese international students 141-143, 148-149, 151, 153, 158 citations 38-39, 129, 184, 191, 195-199 cited author 186, 191-192, 199 clause complex 181, 185-186, 196, 199 Cognitive Processing 241, 243, 249 coherence 8, 39, 108, 129, 132, 135, 138, 164-165, 221, 246 Composition Studies 45, 200-201, 207-210, 212-213, 215, 247 coronavirus 84-86, 88-91, 93-94, 96-97, 99-102, 105, 108 COVID-19 pandemic 96, 103, 107, 236, 238, 244245, 250 Creative Spaces for Multilingual Writers 235, 249 creativity 2-3, 6, 11, 16, 25-27, 52, 59, 67-68, 70-71, 73, 76, 78, 107, 164, 240-241, 246, 291-292, 294, 296, 298-299, 304-305 critical consciousness 200, 204, 215 cross-cultural 16-17, 20, 22-23, 25, 27, 134, 136, 162, 179, 198 culture 4, 11, 13, 21-23, 26, 61, 99, 120, 127, 129, 131-133, 142, 147, 149, 154, 162, 173, 179, 194, 196, 200, 204-205, 211, 213-214, 216-217, 219, 223-225, 229-232, 234, 251, 253, 256, 270, 272273, 276, 282-283, 285, 288, 291, 298 curriculum 5, 7, 67-68, 71, 90, 105, 201-202, 205-213, 252, 271-273, 275-276, 285-286, 288, 290-291, 297, 300 Customization of the Learning Process 1, 5-6, 15

D dialogism 251, 254, 264, 270 digital access 86, 102, 110, 113, 116 digital age 12, 102, 115-116, 303 Digital Collaboration for Second Language Storytelling 75, 82 Digital Immigrant 85, 101-102, 104, 116

Index

digital literacy 6, 72, 75, 79, 84, 87, 89, 95-104, 106, 114-116, 122, 133 Digital Native 84, 101-102, 104, 116 digital storytelling 14, 66-67, 70-83 Digital Storytelling for Second Language Writers 66, 72, 82 digital tools 7, 67, 73-74, 76, 82, 84-97, 101-102, 104, 106, 108, 112, 115-116, 238 digital writing 5, 12, 14, 82, 84-93, 95-106, 108, 110, 112-114, 116, 238 discoursal self 119, 121, 124-125, 127, 138, 143 distance learning 84-85, 94-97, 99-101, 238

E educational landscape 1, 5-7, 15 EFL preservice teacher education 118, 133 Emoji 1-2, 15 Empathy as a 21st Century Learning Skill 83 Emphatic Education 1, 15 Empty Adjective 161, 168, 177 English as a Foreign Language 17, 45, 103, 118-119, 122, 136, 144, 156, 161, 177, 287-288 English as a Second Language Writing Anxiety 28 English proficiency 78, 141, 144, 150, 158, 297 E-Portfolio 115-116 ESL Writing Apprehension 46 essay 4, 28, 31-32, 35, 37-40, 45, 47, 49-50, 52, 56-57, 61, 63-64, 85, 113, 126-129, 131-132, 136-137, 167, 169, 174, 212, 215, 219, 237, 294-295, 297-298, 303 evaluation 3, 7, 30-32, 37, 74, 90, 93, 99, 115, 179, 182, 190-191, 195-197, 199, 201, 206, 246, 258, 284, 291 expressive writing 99, 235-236, 239-249

F Family-Centricity 271, 286 female 161-170, 174, 225, 256 First Year Writing (FYW) 158 Flexible Curriculum 271-273, 286 Foreign Language Curriculum 287 Foreword 56-57, 61, 63-64, 268

G gender 9, 19, 21, 125, 137, 153, 156, 161-170, 173-177, 256, 268-269, 293 genre-based approach 302, 304 Genre-Based L2 Writing 306

H Habituation 241-243, 246, 249 Healing Through Multilingual Writing 235, 249

I identity 8-9, 13, 16, 19-27, 71, 79, 118-123, 125, 127130, 132-138, 141-144, 148-158, 162, 177-179, 182-187, 189, 191-193, 195-196, 198-199, 214, 218, 223, 240, 243, 246, 251-253, 255-258, 261, 264-269, 276, 280-282 Identity Ken Hyland 178 Intellectual Devolution 1, 15 intellectual rhetoric 1-2, 9-10, 15 Intensifier 161, 168, 170, 177 interpersonal 21-22, 106, 121-122, 135, 139, 178, 181-190, 193, 195, 199

K Karen Watson Gegeo 270 knowledge economy 6, 10, 15

L L1 17, 89, 97, 134-135, 137, 141-142, 144, 151-152, 154, 158, 202, 209, 211-213, 253, 257, 263 L2 6, 8, 11, 23, 41, 43, 49, 51, 77, 79, 81, 106, 116, 134-137, 141-142, 144, 148, 151, 154-155, 157-158, 178-179, 185, 190, 193, 195, 197-198, 202, 209, 211-213, 252-253, 257, 263, 290, 297, 303-304, 306 Lemke 68, 79, 251, 264-266, 268, 270 linguistic features 12, 161-163, 165, 167-170, 173-174, 177, 180, 288, 290 Linking Adverbial 161, 177 listening 23, 68, 100, 103, 141, 145-146, 149-151, 158, 170, 200-202, 205, 207, 209-213, 215, 237, 258, 263, 276, 289, 306 Literature and Second Language Writing Integration 287 Literature and Writing Integrated Learning 306

M male 161-162, 164-165, 167-170, 225, 256 metacognition 36, 46, 99 metadiscourse 118-122, 124, 132, 135, 139, 178-179, 182-183, 186-191, 193-199 metafunction 181-182, 184, 186, 199 351

Index

Michael Halliday 178, 180 migrant students 271-276, 278-279, 281, 283, 286 migration 271-274, 278, 280-281, 284-286 modality 178-179, 182-186, 193, 199 multilingual 11-12, 14, 24-26, 43, 45, 81-82, 84-86, 89, 92, 94, 96-98, 118, 137, 142-143, 145, 153-156, 216-217, 219-220, 222, 229, 231-232, 234-236, 239-245, 249-250, 264, 269, 271-272, 274, 278280, 285-286, 304 multilingual writers 86, 89, 137, 153, 231, 234-236, 239-243, 245, 249, 269 multilingualism 17, 25, 98, 241, 244, 271, 273, 286

N narration sickness 200, 203, 205, 215 narrative 16, 23-25, 27, 38-40, 51-53, 59-60, 68, 71, 77, 80, 90, 126, 143, 163, 165, 203, 215, 219-223, 230, 232-234, 238, 246-247, 256, 265, 269 Non-Judgmental Teacher Feedback 46

O Outcome-Based Approach 299, 306

P pandemic 9, 84, 88, 91, 93, 96-97, 99-103, 107-108, 111, 235-236, 238-239, 243-245, 249-250 Parables 53, 61 Patchwork Writing 131, 138 Paulo Freire 200-201, 213, 215 Plato 200-201, 203-205, 213-215 Post-Method Pedagogy 292, 294, 306 Process for Digital Storytelling in a Second Language 66, 83

R reader response 294, 296-299, 301, 306 reading 4, 12, 14, 16, 18, 26, 37-38, 42, 45, 51, 5457, 60-63, 77, 79, 81-82, 95, 99-100, 103-104, 110, 115-116, 119, 122, 126, 129, 132, 137, 141, 145-147, 149-152, 157-158, 164, 170-171, 174, 176-177, 198, 200-202, 205-215, 221, 224, 234, 248, 253, 258, 260, 263, 268-270, 282-283, 285, 289-291, 296-298, 302-306 rhetoric 1-3, 9-10, 12-13, 15, 43, 59, 82, 158, 180, 195, 197, 204, 206, 208-210, 213, 215-217, 219, 229-230, 232-234 Rhetorical Technology 1, 3, 15 352

S second language education 68, 81, 144, 287, 290 second language learning 68, 77, 81-82, 144, 251-252, 262, 266, 270 second language writers 4, 9, 11, 33, 45, 59, 66, 68, 70-72, 74-75, 78, 82, 141, 147, 158, 216, 246 Second Language Writing 6, 9, 11, 14, 25, 28-29, 32, 41-43, 46, 66-67, 69, 76, 79, 82, 135-136, 141, 144-145, 150-151, 159, 161, 178, 194, 196-197, 213-215, 233-234, 239, 245, 269, 287-288, 290, 296-297, 303-306 second language writing performance 32, 41, 46 self-assessment 37, 147, 158 self-directed learning 34, 37, 43 Self-Regulated Learning 36, 46 skill integration 289-290, 306 Social Constructivism 136, 251, 270 social meaning 161, 181 Sociolinguistics 161, 174, 176-177 speaking 2, 17, 55, 68, 78-79, 103, 119-120, 141, 145-147, 149-151, 158, 170, 185, 187, 200-202, 205-207, 209-213, 215, 229, 234, 243, 255, 272, 276, 280, 288-289, 292, 297, 300, 306 stance 6, 118, 121-125, 128-130, 132, 137-138, 178179, 182, 186-187, 189-193, 196-197, 199, 202 strategies 7, 28-30, 32-34, 36, 41-42, 45, 51-53, 56-57, 64, 66-67, 70, 76, 78, 84-90, 92-96, 99, 111-112, 114, 126, 130, 132, 153, 156, 164-165, 170, 179, 183, 188, 200, 213, 221, 257, 272, 288, 292, 304 struggles 16-19, 27, 33, 42, 220 symbolic mediation 251-253, 270 Systemic Functional Linguistics 180-181, 194

T The process for digital storytelling in a second language 66 translation 26, 82, 216, 224, 229-232, 234 Transrhetorical 216-217, 229-234

V voice 5, 16-21, 23, 25, 27, 38, 40, 43, 45, 48, 50, 5253, 57-59, 69, 72, 74, 79, 98, 109, 111, 119-121, 130, 133, 135, 137-138, 157, 179, 182, 186-187, 193-194, 198, 201-202, 204, 227-229, 232, 240, 243, 251, 255-256, 260, 264-265, 269-270, 289, 296, 299, 304

Index

W Watson-Gegeo 251-252, 268 Web 2.0 tools 70, 102, 117-118 writer identity 24, 118-123, 125, 127-129, 132-134, 136-138, 153, 196, 198 writing 1-38, 40-72, 74-116, 118-138, 141-159, 161, 163-166, 169-180, 183, 186-190, 193-198, 200203, 205-223, 225-226, 228-251, 253, 255-263, 265-266, 268-269, 271-272, 274-276, 279-283, 285-292, 294-306

Writing as Collaboration 28, 46 Writing as Process 28, 45-46 Writing at a Time of Crisis 235 Writing paradigms 178 writing tools 56-57, 61, 98-99, 103, 106, 108, 113-114

353