TEACHING, TUTORING, AND REVISION: THE EXPERIENCES OF TWO

FRESHMEN ESL STUDENTS IN A RHETORIC CLASS

by

Carmen Mota de Cabrera

An Abstract

Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of

Philosophy degree in Education (Language, Literacy and Culture)

in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa

December 2003

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Carolyn Colvin

1

ABSTRACT

Although there is a considerable body of research

examining the effects of teacher written commentary on

second language writers’ revision processes, scarce

attention has been given to examining the larger

pedagogical context in which multiple instructional,

linguistic, and cognitive factors interact and affect the

way students react and use varying kinds of feedback (e.g.,

teacher, tutor, peers) in the revision of their texts.

The purpose of this ethnographic case study is to

document the kinds of strategies used by two ESL students

enrolled in a first-year rhetoric course at a Midwestern

university when revising different writing assignments. I

explore the larger pedagogical context and its influences

on the students’ revision processes. In this in-depth, long

term exploration of the philosophical perspectives and

instructional practices of Rhetoric instructors, I document

the feedback provided by a writing tutor and analyze the

patterns that characterize the focal students’ revisions

while also illuminating the focal students’ perspectives

concerning the varying kinds of feedback they receive.

I present the findings in the form of a case study and

analyze the data searching for key themes that emerged from

data sources that include class observations, interviews

with teachers, students, and key administrative staff. I

audiotaped tutoring sessions, recorded students’ revision

2

think-aloud protocols, collected and examined copies of the

students’ writing for discourse analysis, collected course

handouts and department philosophy statements, kept

fieldnotes and a journal to record my observations and

reflections.

The results suggest that ESL college students exhibit

important rhetorical, cultural, and linguistic differences

that may stand in the way of academic success.

Rhetoric/composition teachers need greater preparation in

order to effectively address these differences. The study

also highlights the important role played by writing center

tutors in helping ESL students cope with the demands of

rhetoric classes and improve their writing skills. Through

individualized instruction and specific instructional

approaches (e.g., questioning, modeling, and cognitive

structuring), the tutor in this study proved successful in

stimulating the focal students’ analytical and critical

skills in the resolution of different tasks thus enhancing

the ESL students’ chances for academic success.

Abstract Approved: ___________________________

Thesis Supervisor

___________________________

Title and Department

___________________________

Date

TEACHING, TUTORING, AND REVISION: THE EXPERIENCES OF TWO

FRESHMEN ESL STUDENTS IN A RHETORIC CLASS

by

Carmen Mota de Cabrera

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of

Philosophy degree in Education (Language, Literacy and Culture)

in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa

December 2003

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Carolyn Colvin

Copyright by CARMEN MOTA DE CABRERA

2003 All Rights Reserved

Graduate College The University of Iowa

Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

____________________________

PH.D. THESIS

_______________

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of

Carmen Mota de Cabrera

has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Education (Language, Literacy, and Culture) at the December 2003 graduation.

Thesis Committee: __________________________________________ Carolyn Colvin, Thesis Supervisor

__________________________________________ Carol Severino

__________________________________________ Anne DiPardo

__________________________________________ Kathy Heilenman

__________________________________________ Cynthia Lewis

ii

To Edmundo, Gaby, Dany, and Laura: My inspiration to carry on

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a special thanks to my dissertation director,

Dr. Carolyn Colvin, who despite her busy schedule, read my

various drafts and offered me continued help, support, and

guidance. I’m also grateful to all my dissertation

committee members who gave me excellent ideas during the

conception, execution, and completion of my degree and this

study. I’d like to extend a special thank you to Dr. Carol

Severino whose seminars provided the original impetus for

this project. I deeply respect her knowledge and

scholarship and have gained a great deal from working with

her. She constantly encouraged me to keep going practicing

her philosophy of caring for and supporting International

students.

I am deeply indebted to the participating teachers and

the two case study participants, who often provided their

support, time, and enthusiasm. Yuna and Cindy, thank you

for sharing with me your experiences, struggles, and

friendship. Equally important was the unlimited support of

three great colleagues who are also very special friends,

José Villalobos, Yesenia Rodríguez, and María Mercedes

Ortiz. They were always there for me offering their support

at times when I felt overwhelmed.

A special thanks to Lorna Van Gilst for her responses

to early drafts of this document and to Renita Schmidt for

her excellent editing job. I am especially grateful to

iv

María Gabriela Cabrera for the long hours spent on

transcriptions and for her help to deal with computer

programs.

Thanks also to my beloved husband and children whose

unconditional support, patience and love encouraged me to

keep going. Finally, I want to thank the University of Los

Andes in Venezuela for providing me with the funds to

improve as a teacher and as a researcher. Their financial

support greatly contributed to the successful completion of

my studies.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES..........................................viii

LIST OF FIGURES...........................................ix

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION.....................................1 Theoretical Framework.........................6

Collaborative Learning....................6 The Sociocultural Theory of the Mind

and the Zone of Proximal Development..........................12

Research Questions...........................15

CHAPTER II REVISION IN THE LITERATURE ON L1 AND L2 FEEDBACK AND REVISION......................19

Research on Teacher Response to First

Language Writers.........................20 Research on Teacher Response to ESL

Writers..................................28 Research Examining Students’

Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Teacher Written Commentary...........29

Research Examining Types of Feedback.....34 Research on Other Types of Feedback:

Peer Feedback and Tutor feedback.........38

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY...................................49 Overview.....................................49 The Research Site............................51 Research Participants........................54

Karla: Learning Resource Center Tutor................................54

The Students.............................56 Yuna.................................57 Cindy................................58

The Rhetoric Teachers....................58 Matt: Yuna’s Teacher.................59 Anne: Cindy’s Teacher................60

Data Sources and Procedures..................61 From the Rhetoric Department.............63 From the Tutor in the Learning

Resource Center......................63 From the Rhetoric Classrooms.............64 From the Rhetoric Teachers...............64 From the Students........................65

Data Analysis................................67 The Textual Analysis.....................70

My Role as a Researcher......................71

vi

Summary......................................76

CHAPTER IV THE PEDAGOGICAL CONTEXT.......................78 Rhetoric as a General Education Course.......80 The Basic Pattern of the Rhetoric

Curriculum...............................81 Assignments..............................82

PDP: The Professional Development Program..................................83

The Learning Resource Center.................92 Patricia: The Writing Center

Director.............................94 The Rhetoric Teachers........................97

Matt: The Non-Fiction Writer.............97 A Typical Class..........................99 Anne: The Medical Anthropologist........104 A Typical Class.........................106

Summary.....................................112

CHAPTER V KARLA: A MUSICOLOGIST SERVING AS A WRITING TUTOR IN THE LEARNING RESOURCE CENTER.....114

Overview....................................114 A Personal Portrait.........................115 Rhetoric and the Development of Critical

Thinking................................118 Tutor as Mediator for Joint Problem

Solving and Knowledge Construction......124 Perceptions about Feedback..................131 Summary.....................................134

CHAPTER VI THE FOCAL STUDENTS............................136 Yuna Choi...................................136

A Personal Portrait.....................136 Yuna’s Educational Background...........138

Rhetoric as a Means of Becoming a Critical Reader and Writer..............139

Rhetoric as a Challenge for ESL Students....144 Cindy Guan..................................146

A Personal Portrait.....................146 Cindy’s Educational Background..........147

Rhetoric as the Means to Becoming a Critical Reader and Writer..............148

Tutoring Sessions as Mediator for Problem Solving.........................155

Summary.....................................164

CHAPTER VII FEEDBACK AND REVISION: A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS....166 Overview....................................166 How Different Sources of Feedback Shaped

Yuna’s Revision Strategies..............169

vii

The Assignment..........................169 How Different Sources of Feedback Shaped

Cindy’s Revision Strategies.............176 The Assignment..........................176

Discussion of Findings......................184 Surface Changes.........................185 Content-based changes...................189

Summary.....................................201

CHAPTER VIII CONCLUSION..................................204 The Contexts................................205

The Rhetoric Class......................205 The Tutoring Sessions...................218

Patterns of Revision........................223 Limitations of the Study....................225 Implications for Pedagogy...................226 Directions for Future Research..............229

APPENDIX A REVISION PROTOCOLS............................231

APPENDIX B FINAL ASSIGNMENT..............................241

APPENDIX C WORKSHOP SHEET................................245

APPENDIX D STUDENTS FIRST AND SECOND DRAFTS..............248

REFERENCES...............................................279

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Participants in the Study........................61

Table 2. Data Sources.....................................66

Table 3. Taxonomy of Revision Changes.....................71

Table 4. Summary of the Combined Revision Changes in Yuna’s Final Paper..............................183

Table 5. Summary of the Combined Revision Changes in Cindy’s Final Paper.............................183

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Revision and the Pedagogical Context............79

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Responding to students’ texts has always been central

to teaching writing (Fitzgerald, 1987; Murray, 1978;

Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). However, it was not until

the emergence of the writing process movement during the

1970s that greater theoretical attention was given to the

importance of feedback and revision (Fitzgerald, 1987).

Beach (1992) points out that learning to revise is

essential for improving one’s writing. Murray (1978)

stresses the importance of revision within the writing

process when he states that writing is rewriting. In other

words, once a writer has generated a draft, revision allows

for reflection where the writer is able to rethink, resee,

and reshape words and ideas. Thus, revision is perceived as

discovery, as a repeated process of beginning again, as

starting anew (Blannon and Knoblauch, 1982).

In this ethnographic case study, I examine how the

pedagogical context shapes the revision strategies of two

freshman 1ESL students enrolled in different sections of a

Rhetoric class and participating in tutoring sessions. I

conducted field research for fourteen weeks at a university

in the Midwest during Fall 2002. Focusing on the tutoring

1 For the sake of convenience, the term ESL is used in this study to refer to students whose first language is one other than English, although the label is not completely accurate.

2

sessions, classrooms events, and focal interviews, my

primary goals as a researcher were to document and analyze

the students’ revision experiences. I use collaborative

learning (Brufee, 1984, 1993) and sociocultural theory

(Vygotsky, 1978; Lantolf, 2000) in order to understand how

the students worked within their zone of proximal

development (ZPD) to construct new knowledge and develop

academic literacy skills in collaboration with peers.

Views of revision and its role in writing have changed

dramatically over the last three decades (Fitzgerald,

1987). Traditionally, revision had been viewed as editing,

as a task that came at the end of the act of writing. Now,

scholars and researchers in the area of writing pedagogy

have come to agree that revision is a complex cognitive

process (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Faigley & Witte, 1981;

Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1983), and that studying the

process of revision by solely focusing on the written

product limits full examination of the process of writing

(Goldstein, 2001). Fitzgerald (1987) emphasizes the

importance of revision in these terms, “Revision is

significant partly because under certain circumstances it

may enhance the quality of final written work and partly

because, when writers use revision to work out thoughts and

ideas, it may powerfully affect writers’ knowledge” (p.

481). A focus of my study is to document the thoughts and

ideas of ESL students as they revise their writing.

3

A teacher’s response represents one of the most

important forms of feedback and serves as one of the most

direct sources for affecting students’ writing performance

(Ziv, 1984). The way teachers respond to their students’

writing reflects in a way their own philosophy of writing

and their own priorities regarding revision.

Research on teacher response to second language

writing has been scarce and is limited in scope (Goldstein,

2001; Chavez & Ferris, 1997). When one examines research in

this area there is the tendency among ESL writing teachers

to rely on and provide the same kind of feedback

recommended for native English-speaking writers (NES). Many

researchers and theorists in the field of second language

writing have frequently questioned this tendency (Ferris et

al., 1997; Silva, 1988, 1993, Zhang, 1995), while stressing

the notion that second language writers have distinctive

characteristics and needs. According to Goldstein (2001),

it is necessary to move away from an over-reliance on

research about first language writers “because first and

second language writers may differ in crucial respects” (p.

74).

An important but neglected aspect of ESL composition

instruction is an examination of the relationship of

teacher responses to ESL students’ writing and the ways

that students revise according to response. More

specifically, there are few studies that attempt to account

for learner reactions to teacher response behaviors in

4

terms of both oral and written comments (editor, expert,

peer), behaviors that ultimately might influence learners’

composing skills (see, for example, Doher, 1991; Ferris,

1995; Hedgcocke & Lefkowitz, 1994).

Furthermore, most research on revision, particularly

in studies of second language learners, has focused on the

text rather than on the learner (for example, Polio &

Knibloe, 1999). One explanation for this trend in research

is that by focusing on the texts themselves it is possible

to examining larger sets of data. But by focusing on the

product, researchers have failed to consider a more

contextualized view of revision and, more importantly, what

each individual student brings to the process of revision.

How do the factors of teacher, student, text, and context

interact? How are these interactions influenced by the way

in which teachers respond to their students’ texts? How do

students perceive and react to the feedback provided and

how do they employ feedback in the revision of their texts?

It is these questions and others that currently guide the

research in revision.

Even though ESL students frequently use writing

centers and tutors as resources to improve their writing

skills, there has been little inquiry to connect what

happens during writing center tutoring sessions and the way

that student writers revise subsequent drafts. The majority

of studies conducted on second language writers in writing

centers have focused on the analysis of interactional

5

characteristics of sessions and writing center theory

(Blau, Hall & Strauss, 1998; Ritter, 2002; Thonus, 2001).

In other words, few studies have documented what transpires

in terms of revision following the writing tutoring

sessions. In an effort to address these gaps in the

research literature on ESL writing and writing centers, I

document the role of feedback provided by a writing center

tutor during writing conferences as it shapes ESL students’

revisions in specific writing assignments.

My interest in the importance of feedback and revision

developed while I served as a tutor for ESL students. As a

tutor, I came to understand the benefits of one-on-one

conferencing, a method that proved particularly effective

for ESL students who were challenged when they faced

written assignments for different courses.

An investigation of the processes of ESL students’

revisions as influenced by feedback has important

pedagogical implications for teachers who work with

immigrant and International students on their writing

processes. Likewise, this investigation may contribute to a

deeper understanding of the role that feedback plays in

shaping students’ revision processes and in helping

students achieve a greater understanding of academic

writing in their second language.

6

Theoretical Framework

Collaborative Learning

This study begins with the premise that knowledge is a

social construct rather than a cognitive entity and that

learning is a social process (Bruffee, 1984,1993; Bushman,

1991; McComiskey, 2000). According to this view, knowledge

cannot be conceptualized as an entity that we transfer from

the mind of one person to another. Learning must be viewed

as a social, active, and constructive process that occurs

in a context and that is fostered through transactions with

others.

From a social learning perspective, knowledge is

viewed as a social artifact created by a community of like-

minded peers. In the peer tutoring situation, then,

knowledge is created through the collaborative efforts of

the tutee, “who provides knowledge of the subject to be

written about and knowledge of the assignment,” and the

tutor, who provides “knowledge of the conventions of

discourse and knowledge of standard written English”

(Bruffee, 1993, p. 10).

Bruffee suggests that the value of collaborative

learning is evident in social learning contexts which can

be transformed. In the case of peer tutoring, the

traditional hierarchical academic model where teachers

lecture to mostly passive students is replaced with a model

7

of cooperation and collaboration as in the peer tutoring

conference.

Muriel Harris (1986) agrees that the tutoring

environment involves highly productive dialogues between

writers and tutors and provides a rich learning context for

students. Tutoring has the potential to develop tutees’

cognitive abilities, which is likely to translate into

improved revising skills. Likewise, tutors develop the

ability “to read a paper and to compare what they see in it

with what the writer had intended to write” (p. 32).

Although the more recent history of collaboration in

education began in Britain in the late 1960s, collaborative

learning began to interest many American college teachers

as recently as the 1980s (Bruffee, 1984). For college

teachers in the United Sates, the roots of collaborative

learning lie in the nearly desperate response of concerned

college faculty during the early 1970s to a pressing

educational need. A decade earlier, faculty and

administrators at institutions acoss the country became

aware that, increasingly, students entering college had

difficulty doing as well in academic studies as their

tested language abilities suggested they should be able to

do. Although some of these students were underprepared for

academic contexts, many appeared to have strong preparation

in the K-12 context. A feature common to both groups of

students seemed to be the difficulty of adapting to the

traditional conventions of the college classroom.

8

To provide alternative assistance to traditional

classroom teaching, some colleges turned to peer tutoring

(DiPardo & Freedman, 1988). Through peer tutoring, teachers

could reach students by organizing them to teach each

other. What the term collaborative learning meant in

practice was a form of indirect teaching in which the

teacher proposed the problem and then organized students to

work collaboratively.

According to Bruffee (1993), research on collaborative

learning has been inadequate because of the tendency of

educational research projects to be dominated by cognitive

understandings of the nature and authority of knowledge.

Bruffee challenged the traditional understanding of the

authority of knowledge and stressed the importance of

understanding the learning process as an interdependent,

collaborative endeavor. For this purpose, he proposed the

idea that knowledge is “constructed through negotiation

with others… Collaborative learning models the conversation

by which communities of knowledgeable peers construct

knowledge” (p. 52). Thus, in collaborative learning,

knowledge is viewed not as an entity to be transmitted as

in the lecture format; but rather, as consensus among the

members of a community of knowledgeable peers.

Bruffee (1984) cites literary theorist Michael

Oakeshott (1962) as one who argues that what we refer to as

reflective thought is both organically and formally related

to human conversation. As Bruffee put it,

9

Reflective thinking is something we learn to do, and we learn to do it from and with other people. We learn to think reflectively as a result of learning to talk (p. 639).

It follows, Bruffee insists, that “if thought is

internalized conversation, then writing is internalized

conversation re-externalized…By writing, we re-immerse

conversation in its social medium” (p. 640). Hence, the

conversational nature of peer tutoring is the root of

clarity of thinking and writing.

As framed by collaboration, writing is understood as

“a social, collaborative, constructive conversational act”

(Bruffee, 1993, p. 54). According to Bruffee, because

writing is itself a displaced form of conversation,

teachers have to find ways for students to learn to engage

in constructive conversation with one another about

writing.

Collaborative dialogue has also been found to play a

key role in second language learning, specifically in the

construction of linguistic knowledge. According to Swain

(2000) collaborative dialogue “mediates joint problem

solving and knowledge building” (p. 102). Interaction also

provides the learners with the opportunity to use the

target language. Sociocultural theorists (Lantolf, 2000)

view collaborative dialogue as a social process that can

result in the joint construction of new knowledge. Dialogue

is viewed as a way for the novice to extend current

knowledge by first relying on expert support, subsequently

leading to self-regulation.

10

The role of collaborative learning, in the case of

students whose first language is other than English,

deserves further study because enrollment statistics in

American universities indicate that the number of second

language writers in composition classes and seeking

assistance at university writing centers is increasing

every year. No less important is the fact that at many

institutions composition instructors have limited or no

preparation in how to deal with the different problems that

second language writers face; nor do they have background

in theories of second language learning. Familiarizing

teachers and tutors who work with second language writers

with basic knowledge of these issues can inform their

interactions with these learners.

Some researchers in second language writing

(Kroll,1990; Harris & Silva, 1993) have stressed that the

first step toward accomplishing this goal is to acknowledge

openly that second language writers are not only learning

to write in a second language, they are also learning in a

second language. In addition to acquiring a second

language, second language writers are entering a new

discourse community in which they must master many new

skills. Some scholars (Bushman, 1991; Harris, 1986) have

suggested that the writing center is an ideal place to

address the problems and challenges of second language

writing especially because of the fact that writing centers

are by nature focused on the individual. Writing centers

11

can also provide the extra time and attention that second

language writers need to complete assignments, assistance

that is not often available in most classes or from their

teachers.

Collaboration in one-on-one tutoring is thus perceived

as the ideal context for cognitive apprenticeship in which

students can rely as they move through the process of

achieving the “power of self control” (Bruffee, 1993, p.

4).

Collins, Brown, and Newman (1989) describe

collaboration in one-on-one tutoring in these terms:

The context wherein an expert or instructor guides—through coaching, questioning, modeling, and practice—a novice in specific problem-solving experiences, adjusted tacitly on a moment-to-moment basis to the learner’s zone of proximal development where the learner is at” (p. 198).

It follows that the bond established between tutor and

student during writing tutoring sessions facilitates

learning through individual attention and instructional

approaches. Students learn how to develop their analytical

and critical thinking skills through dialogic exchanges

with the tutor. The paradigm for this form of learning, as

Murphy (1991) contends, is “apprenticeship learning in

which the craft of writing is learned by an apprentice

writer from a more experienced and knowledgeable writer”

(p. 278).

12

The Sociocultural Theory of the Mind and the Zone of Proximal Development

The sociocultural approach draws heavily on the work

of Lev Vygotsky with regard to first language learning

(Lantolf, 2000). A fundamental concept of Vygotsky’s work

is that humans use physical and symbolic tools—among them

language—to regulate relationships with others and with the

self, in order to change these relationships. As linguistic

processes, speaking and writing are perceived as inherently

social, and their development proceeds from the social to

the individual as a consequence of the linguistically

mediated interaction which arises between learners and

other, often more experienced, members of their

sociocultural world (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994).

Vygotsky (1978) proposed the concept of the zone of

proximal development (ZPD), as a frame for understanding

central tenets of his cognitive theory: the transformation

of an interpersonal (social) process to an intrapersonal

one, the stages of internalization, and the role of

experienced learners. The zone of proximal development, he

wrote is

The distance between the [child’s] actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p. 86).

The implications for adult students and zones of

proximal development are that learners first depend on the

guidance of more skilled individuals (other individuals to

13

regulate learning) to perform new and difficult tasks.

Through collaborative dialogue, learners extend existing

knowledge, and the initial reliance on the expert yields to

internalization of new knowledge by the novice and

subsequent self-regulation. On the other hand, the

construct of the ZPD specifies that development is unlikely

to occur if too much assistance is provided or if a task is

too easy (Snyder, 2000).

According to Lantolf and Aljaafreh (1995), the learner

and expert engage in dialogue in an attempt to discover

specifically what the learner is capable of achieving

without help and what the learner can accomplish with

assistance. The nature of effective assistance in the ZPD

varies depending upon a variety of factors, including the

expertise of the helper, the nature of the task, the goals

of the participants, and the developmental levels of the

learners (Snyder, 2000).

When Vygotsky’s theoretical insights are applied in

response to student writing, it seems apparent that for

response to be effective, teacher experts must collaborate

with student writers with the goal of helping the writers

become independent (Freedman, Greenleaf & Sperling, 1987).

According to these authors, it is important to think of

collaborative problem solving not just as a way of teaching

but as jointly enacted teaching and learning whereby

teacher and learner negotiate the roles they play.

14

In ESL writing, conferencing is usually viewed as a

classic example of a teacher-led use of the zone of

proximal development (Chavez & Ferris, 1997; Cumming & So,

1996). Chavez & Ferris (1997), for example, describe

conferencing in these terms:

An expert meets with a novice to address a given task; the expert assists the novice in performing the task, guiding the novice toward performing the task independently. Knowledge is externalized, mediated through language and action, for both the satisfactory resolution of the immediate task at hand and to give the novice multiple opportunities to acquire the knowledge” (p. 52).

Conferencing is thus conceptualized as language

socialization events in which experts and novices focus on

writing and how to use writing successfully in specific

institutional contexts.

Cumming and So (1996) hold a similar social view of

conferencing. They describe one-on-one tutoring as “a

dialogic process with potential for learning through

focused talk, modeling thinking processes and relevant

writing behaviors, and focusing attention on specific text

features” (p. 198).

One-on-one conferencing provides the kind of dialogic

interaction between a tutor and a tutee that goes well

beyond the apparent simple act of providing feedback to a

student making revisions to written work. In the case of

ESL students, one-on-one conferencing is an effective way

to meet students’ needs as framed by the zone of proximal

development. Teachers of ESL students must take into

15

account what students can do on their own as well as those

moments when they need assistance. One-on-one conferencing

has important pedagogical implications.

Conferencing is beneficial in enabling student-

discussion of cultural presuppositions regarding their own

writing and about their language-learning experiences in

general. Because of the normal constraints of classroom

dynamics, it is almost impossible to properly address all

these issues with students on an individual basis. As

Harris (1993) points out, the writing classroom cannot

provide all the instructional assistance that is needed for

ESL students to become proficient writers.

Research Questions

During the summer 2002, I conducted a pilot study

aimed at investigating the impact of writing center tutor

feedback on an ESL student writer, and the ways in which

the feedback shaped the student’s revisions of an assigned

essay. The pilot study was significantly useful first,

because it refined my understanding of feedback and

revision for ESL students. Second, because I was able to

frame my initial research questions and generate others

that inform this research.

Based on my pilot study and the research directions

suggested from this early work, I devised the following

overarching questions to guide my research. First, I

document the pedagogical influences in two settings—the

16

Rhetoric classroom and in the sessions with the Learning

Resource Center tutor. Research strongly suggests that the

pedagogical settings are likely to shape the responses and

feedback to student writers (Carson, 2001; Ferris, 1997;

Leki, 1990; Mathinson-Fife & Oneil, 1997; Reid, 2001). I

explore the pedagogical influences in two different and

important settings. The third area I explore is related to

the revisions ESL students make based on the feedback and

response they receive in two pedagogical contexts.

1) How do Rhetoric instructors characterize their

practices within the pedagogical context of the Rhetoric

classroom? Specifically, how does the course instructor

describe his/her ultimate goals and purposes in teaching

Rhetoric? How does the course instructor describe more

specific goals with regard to the focal students? What are

the key influences as named by the Rhetoric instructors in

working with students (e.g., departmental curriculum

guides, pedagogy-related coursework, prior experiences,

Professional Development Program)? How do Rhetoric

instructors describe the intentions behind particular

course assignments? What kind of feedback do instructors

provide? What kind of opportunities are provided for peer

feedback? What kinds of feedback do peers give?

2) How does the tutor characterize her practices

within the pedagogical context of the tutorial setting? How

does the tutor describe her larger instructional goals and

purposes for tutoring in general? Specifically, how does

17

the tutor describe her goals in her work with ESL students?

What does she name as key influences on her work with

students? (e.g., departmental curriculum guides, pedagogy-

related coursework, prior experiences, professional

training)? What kinds of feedback does the tutor provide?

What kind of verbal interaction features are evident in

subsequent revisions? How can the nature and length of

negotiation by the tutoring pair be characterized?

3) What patterns characterize the revision processes

of focal students and their beliefs about the influence of

each pedagogical context? What patterns characterize the

focal students’ revisions? That is, what kinds of revisions

do they make? Do the revisions lead to the improvement in

the quality of their drafts as evaluated by their

instructors? How do focal students perceive the kinds of

feedback they receive? What kinds of feedback from the

teacher, peers and tutor are identified by the focal

students as useful and less useful? To what extent are

these perspectives reflected in their actual revisions?

What explanations do they provide for incorporating/not

incorporating particular kinds of feedback?

In the chapter that follows, I review the literature

relevant to the study. First, I deal with the research on

teacher response to first language (L1) writers. I then

turn to the discussion of research on teacher response to

second language (L2) writers, including an analysis on

research related to students’ perceptions and attitudes

18

towards teacher written commentary and on other types of

feedback, such as peer feedback and tutor feedback.

19

CHAPTER II

REVISION OF THE LITERATURE ON L1 AND L2

FEEDBACK AND REVISION

The conceptualization of feedback and revision as

valuable pedagogical resources in writing instruction is

relatively new. Indeed, the beginning of the writing

process movement in the 1970s gave birth to numerous

research studies which intended to analyze the various

aspects of the writing process of composition students.

However, as Sommers (1980) states, revision had been

notably absent in many of those studies. According to

Sommers, the lack of interest in investigating revision had

to do with the prevailing concept of linearity in the

writing process. According to this conception, revision was

perceived as a separate stage at the end of the process.

Faigley and Witte (1981) claim that, for many years,

teachers saw revision as “copy-editing, a tidying-up

activity aimed at eliminating surface errors in grammar,

punctuation, spelling and diction (p. 400).” What

researchers in those early studies failed to recognize was

that far from being linear, writing is a recursive process

(Flower and Hayes, 1980; Sommers, 1980). In other words,

during the act of composing, writers move back and forth to

go over and make changes in what they have already written.

The importance of revision in the act of writing has

been amply recognized among researchers in the field of

20

composition studies, especially because of the potential

benefits that this process has on both the quality of final

written work and the refining and reworking of thoughts and

ideas (Fitzgerald, 1987; Leki, 1990). In spite of the

importance of the process of revision in the field of L2

writing, research on teacher response to L2 writing has

been rather limited (Ferris, 1999).

In this chapter I will examine a body of previous

research on feedback and revision. Although the focus of

the present investigation is the revision processes in

second language (L2) writing, I will approach some of the

investigations related to feedback and revision in first

language (L1) writing, especially because many pedagogical

practices in L2 writing classrooms are derived from

findings in L1 composition studies and practices in L1

classrooms.

Research on Teacher Response to First

Language Writers

The concept of linearity that characterized the early

writing process movement during the 1970s led some

researchers to view writing as a linear structure of

writing separated into discrete stages. This linear model

of writing was thought to consist of prewriting, writing,

and postwriting (Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, & Rosen,

1975 as cited by Fitzgerald, 1987). Some researchers in the

field of composition studies challenged this notion of

21

linearity in the writing process, stating that it was a

simplistic view of composing (Faigley & Witte, 1981) and

that revision should not be understood as a separate stage

at the end of the process (Sommers, 1980).

Sommers (1980) for example, who was dissatisfied with

both the lineal model of writing and the lack of attention

to the process of revision, conducted a case study to

examine the revision processes of student writers and

experienced writers to see the role revision played in

their writing processes. Taking a different perspective

from the concept of linearity, Sommers defined revision as

“a sequence of changes in a composition, changes which are

initiated by cues and can occur continually throughout the

writing of a work” (p. 380). In general, the results of

Sommers’ study showed marked differences in the way the two

groups of writers perceived revision and the way they went

about revising their texts. As far as the revision

strategies of the student writers were concerned, results

indicated that the students understood the revision process

as “a rewording activity” (p. 381). In other words, they

perceived words as the unit of written discourse;

consequently, most of their revisions privileged the

selection and rejection of words, which they used as

indicators of the success or failure in their compositions.

As for the revision strategies of experienced writers,

Sommers found that they conceived of writing as a “constant

process” (p. 384). They also manifested a concern for their

22

readership. Unlike students, experienced writers made

changes at all levels and used all revision operations.

Through the interviews, Sommers also found two

important elements that characterized the experienced

writers: a holistic perspective of the writing act and the

perception that revision was a recursive process.

Undoubtedly, Sommer’s study significantly contributed to a

shift in the conceptualization of writing as a process,

from a rigid linear perspective to a more dynamic nature of

the process of writing as a recursive act. It also

contributed to a change in common views of revision, thus

highlighting its important role in the writing process.

Holding a similar perspective regarding the importance

of revision in the writing process and trying to understand

the effects of changes on the meaning of a text, Faigley

and Witte (1981) saw the need to classify the kinds of

changes writers made when they revised. For this purpose,

they designed a system to analyze the effects of revision

changes on meaning, and then conducted two research studies

that used the proposed taxonomy. Similar to Sommers’ study

but using a third group of subjects, these researchers

compared the revision strategies of six inexperienced

student writers, six advanced student writers, and six

expert adult writers. The six inexperienced writers were

selected from a writing laboratory designed for students

with writing skills deficiencies. Professional writers with

journalistic experience comprised the expert group.

23

Results from this study supported Sommers’ findings

with regard to the different strategies that expert and

inexperienced writers use when revising. Faigley and Witte

found that the advanced students were the most frequent

revisers, not the expert writers as might have been

expected. Not surprisingly, most of the changes by the

group of inexperienced writers were surface changes,

whereas most of the changes in the case of advanced

students and expert adults were meaning-based changes. The

investigators also showed that the expert adults and the

advanced students made more revisions of all kinds during

the composing of the first draft as compared to the

inexperienced students. The differences observed in the

groups studied corroborated other researchers’ findings

(Flower & Hayes, 1980) suggesting that experts often stop

to reread what they have written as they move forward in

writing a text. As for the inexperienced group of writers,

results tend to suggest that they hardly ever stop to

reread what they have written and that their strategies of

revision are limited to the correction of surface errors.

One limitation of this and other studies on revision—as

recognized by the investigators—is the artificiality of the

writing situation, which fails to account for the

situational variables that might affect revision. The study

reported here will address selected situational variables

that affect revision.

24

Process-oriented composition classes emphasize the

importance of multiple drafts, feedback, and revising

during the composing process (Perl, 1979). Among the

different forms of feedback, the use of teacher written

comments has been viewed as one of the most powerful

strategies to inform the writing process (Ziv, 1984;

Beason, 1993; Sperling, 1994; Ferris, 1999). Ziv (1984),

for example, conducted an exploratory study to analyze the

effects of teacher comments on successive drafts of

students’ compositions. Ziv’s goal was to develop a model

to categorize teachers’ comments and to see how these

comments shaped students’ subsequent revisions for their

final drafts.

Ziv used a case study method to explore how four

college freshmen perceived the written comments on their

papers and how they used these comments in revising. The

students were selected from a required expository writing

course that the investigator taught during a fall semester

at New York University. The procedures for data collection

in this study included three recorded think-aloud protocols

of the students while revising (the first of them was done

at the researcher’s office, the other two at the students’

homes), three different drafts of an assigned paper, and

one final interview about the students’ writing experiences

during the semester and their views on teacher intervention

during the writing process. Ziv developed her own taxonomy

to classify teacher comments and students’ reactions to

25

these comments. The results of Ziv’s study indicate that

the students responded favorably to the investigator’s

explicit comments on the conceptual and structural level,

whereas their responses to her implicit comments on the

lexical and sentence levels were not as positive. Based on

these results, the researcher hypothesized that it is

necessary for inexperienced revisers to receive explicit

cues about how to revise their papers, not only on the

structural and conceptual levels, but also on the lexical

and sentential levels. With this study, Ziv stressed the

importance of shifting the teacher’s role in revision, from

that of an evaluator who corrects final products to one who

provides supportive responses during the writing process,

engaging students as active participants.

The general assumption regarding the role of teacher

comments on students’ writing performance is that “students

will learn from such comments and will apply the same

knowledge to subsequent papers or drafts of the same paper,

leading to improved writing” (Doehr, 1991 p. 48; Hillocks,

1982; Ziv, 1984). To analyze the effect of teachers’

comments on students’ writing, students’ reactions, and

their subsequent revisions, Doehr (1991) chose an

undergraduate writing-across-the-curriculum program at the

University of Texas. Students were required to revise

drafts of class papers after receiving teachers’ written

comments. The investigator used as data sources copies of

students’ first drafts of two assigned papers along with

26

the teacher’s comments, copies of students’ revisions,

transcripts of the students’ think aloud protocols,

recorded in the process of revising each assignment, notes

students made during revision, and transcripts of an

interview conducted with each student after revising their

second paper. Using Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy of

textual changes, the researcher categorized teachers’

written comments, adding another category to account for

comments that did not call for students to make textual

changes, such as “’good’, ‘nice metaphor’, or ‘nice

conversational style’” (p. 49).

Results from this study, as revealed by the interviews

and think-aloud protocols, suggest that in spite of the

students’ perceptions that revision was beneficial to learn

about writing, they all saw revision ”as predominantly an

exercise in correcting errors to get a higher mark” (p.

50). Not only did the students have this narrow view of

revision, but they also manifested a tendency to avoid

introducing new ideas because they feared challenging their

teachers’ corrections. The most important finding of this

study had to do with the roles of teachers and students.

Teachers took on the role of evaluators, whereas students

acted as passive correctors whose main purpose was to

obtain higher grades on their papers by meeting teachers’

expectations. In other words, teachers maintained authority

on papers.

27

Sperling (1994) also investigated the role of the

teacher written comments, although her study focused on the

influence of the teacher’s orientation as a reader as

reflected in her written comments. The purpose of this

study was to investigate how one teacher’s perspective as

reader of her students’ writing was revealed in her written

comments for different students and on different texts. The

setting for this study was an eleventh-grade American

Literature class of 34 students at a suburban high school

with an ethnically diverse population. For the purpose of

the study, the researcher selected a subset of eight

students who reflected different ranges of ability and

achievement levels (as indicated by standardized test

scores and previous years’ English grades).

The investigator used five frames of reference or

orientations to describe the perspectives the teacher

brought to the students’ writing: Interpretative

Orientation, Social Orientation, Cognitive/Emotive

Orientation, Evaluative Orientation, and Pedagogical

Orientation (p.181). Results from this study suggest that

the teacher’s perspective as a reader and as reflected by

her written comments on students’ papers, differed across

students and across writing assignments. Results also

indicate that for all students the teacher’s comments

generally reflected the following tendencies: a) her

concentration on stylistic choices and appropriate

language, b) her role as an expert far more frequently than

28

her role as a peer, c) her more frequent analytical

responses rather than emotional responses, d) far more

frequent negative responses than positive responses to

students’ writing, and e) comments which most frequently

served to change or correct the students’ language or

structure. Above all, this study contributed an analysis of

teacher’s written comments from a social perspective within

the context of classroom and instruction. It also provided

a valuable framework to understand the difficulties

students have when dealing with different readers’

perspectives.

Research on Teacher Response to ESL

Writers

In spite of the widespread notion that teacher

response to student writing can have potential benefits

both on students’ writing and on their attitude toward

writing (Leki, 1990), research on the nature and effects of

teacher comments in L2 writing has been scarce and limited

(Ferris, et al., 1997; Goldstein, 2001). As these

researchers state, most of the studies of teacher response

have failed to examine teacher response under a broader

perspective that takes into account important contextual

variables, like student factors, teacher factors, text

factors, and the characteristics of the instructional

context, including the pedagogy of the classroom and the

institution as a whole (Goldstein, 2001). Another important

29

concern in the area of L2 writing has been the frequent

observed tendency on the part of L2 composition researchers

and teachers to rely excessively on the pedagogical

strategies and techniques suggested for L1 students

(Ferris, et al., 1997).

Taking into consideration the different levels of

inquiry among studies in the area of teacher response to L2

writing, I will first report on studies that examine

students’ perceptions and attitudes towards teacher’s

written commentary. Then, I will describe studies that

analyze teacher response from the perspective of what was

emphasized in feedback (rhetoric/content vs. sentence-

level). Finally, I will report on studies that analyze

writing conferences and their effects on student revision.

Research Examining Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes Toward

Teacher Written Commentary

A controversial issue in responding to L2 writing has

centered on the question of whether teacher feedback

actually helps students to improve their writing, and also

on how and when teachers should provide feedback to make it

more effective. Some researchers, in both L1 and L2

composition studies, have claimed that teacher feedback

does not help students to improve their writing (Hillocks,

1986; Truscott, 1996). Others have claimed that certain

styles of feedback don’t help students (Knoblauch and

Brannon, 1981). However, other scholars (Ferris, 1999;

30

Ferris, et al., 1997; Goldstein, 2001; Leki, 1990) have

questioned this argument, stating that previous studies on

the effects of teacher comments on the overall improvement

of students’ writing have failed to take into account the

entire teaching environment. As to the question of when to

provide comments to facilitate improvement, several studies

(Ferris, 1995; Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Hedgcock &

Lefkowitz, 1994) have shown that in those contexts in which

revision and multiple drafting were consistently required,

students were more

likely to pay close attention to teachers’ advice, to use a

variety of strategies to resolve difficulties, and to

respond to teacher feedback than they were when feedback

was provided on final drafts only.

One of the studies addressing students’ perceptions

and attitudes towards teacher feedback in a multiple-draft

setting was conducted by Ferris (1995). In this study

Ferris surveyed 155 students in a university ESL

composition program to find out what teacher feedback

tended to address and in what form it was presented. She

also investigated how much of this feedback students

processed, how they went about doing this, and what forms

of feedback might be difficult for the students to

interpret. Finally, Ferris sought to determine whether

there were differences in teacher feedback and the type of

student response to the feedback between preliminary and

final drafts. All the participants in this study were

31

immigrant (not International) students who had taken at

least one previous composition class at the university.

The results of this study can be summarized as

follows: (a) the students paid more attention to teacher

feedback provided on preliminary drafts (vs. final drafts)

of their essays, (b) they utilized a variety of strategies

to respond to their teachers’ comments, (c) the students

seemed to appreciate receiving comments of encouragement,

and (d) overall, students found their teacher feedback

useful in helping them to improve their writing. Responses

to the survey also showed that the students experienced a

variety of problems understanding their teachers’ comments.

Although this study added to previous research on ESL

students’ reactions to and perceptions of their teachers’

feedback from the perspective of a multi-draft setting as

opposed to a single-draft context, it did not analyze the

relationship between students’ perceptions of teacher

feedback and their overall writing achievement.

In another study assessing learner receptivity to

teacher response, Hedgcock and Lefkowitz (1994) analyzed an

in-depth survey of 247 ESL and foreign language (FL)

writers’ responses to feedback conventions employed by

their composition instructors. More specifically, these

researchers looked at how L2 learners reacted to teacher

feedback and how these reactions affected the evolution of

students’ perceptions of text quality and their composing

processes. They also sought to determine whether there were

32

systematic differences between the two groups of writers in

terms of their response patterns to teacher feedback.

The findings of this study show significant

differences between ESL and FL student responses to

feedback. As to the subjects’ preferred mode of teacher

response, results indicated that written feedback combined

with writing conferences was the most preferred form of

teacher response. Regarding the preferred intervention

practice, both FL and ESL responses indicated a strong

concern for formal text features, such as lexical and

grammatical accuracy; however, ESL writers showed a

stronger preference for teacher’s comments on writing style

than did FL subjects. Likewise, ESL writers expressed a

higher concern for rhetorical, as opposed to grammatical,

text features than did FL writers, a not surprising finding

given the emphasis of most ESL courses to provide students

with the practice of rhetorical styles of the U.S. academy

in order to academically succeed.

As the researchers of this study acknowledge, one of

the flaws of this investigation is the failure of their

instrument to account for individual factors, “to capture

subjects’ demonstrable strengths and weaknesses as L2

writers” (p. 156). The way teachers comment and the way

students react and use comments when revising is a complex

issue that needs to be thoroughly explored and analyzed.

Evidently, this area of inquiry cannot be limited to

textual analyses that fail to account for the larger

33

context of the writing classroom, including teacher-student

relationships (Ferris, 1997).

To address some of the gaps in previous research on

teacher response to student writing, Ferris and her

colleagues (1997) conducted a discourse analytic study to

investigate the nature of a teacher’s written comments.

More specifically, they looked for evidence of variation in

teacher response across student ability levels, across

assignment types and at different points during the term.

For this study, the researchers selected 47 freshmen

and sophomores enrolled in three different sections of a

sheltered-ESL freshman composition course. Most of this ESL

population was comprised of permanent residents rather than

International students. The sample consisted of 247 papers,

written in response to another author’s argumentative

essays. Results from this study showed that the teacher

provided different types of commentary on various genres of

writing assignments. The study also demonstrated that the

amount of teacher feedback decreased as the term

progressed, and that she responded somewhat differently to

students of varying ability levels. One of the drawbacks of

this study is the lack of consideration of some important

variables which have to do with the personalities and

interaction of the participants with the teacher, aspects

that can play an important role in the nature and tone of

teachers’ feedback, and which can be more properly

addressed in an ethnographic study such as the one here.

34

Research Examining Types of Feedback

A controversial issue in the field of second language

writing has been the question of whether teachers should

focus their responses to student writing on content (e.g.,

rhetoric, organization) rather than on form (grammar,

mechanics); whether they should respond to both levels at

the same time; or whether no feedback at all should be

provided in the case of L2 writers (Ferris, 1999; Truscott,

1996, 1999).

In spite of the emphasis placed on the writing

process, with its focus on multiple drafts to work on

content and to leave form to final editing, many teachers

maintain a strong interest in correctness (Applebee, 1981).

Some research studies on L2 writing have focused on how

teachers correct form and how they respond to content. Some

studies that have investigated the effects of feedback on

form (Lalande, 1982; Fathman & Whalley, 1985) have drawn

different conclusions regarding its effectiveness in

helping students improve their writing.

Research examining teacher response on rhetoric and

content is relatively new, not beginning until the early

1990s (Goldstein, 2001). Some studies in this area (Zamel,

1985; Redecki & Swales, 1988; Cohen & Robbins, 1976) have

reached similar conclusions as previous L1 studies,

indicating that comments on content tend to be vague and

contradictory (Fathman & Whalley, 1990).

35

To investigate the effectiveness of teacher feedback

that focuses on both form and content, Fathman and Whalley

(1990) conducted a study with 72 students enrolled in

intermediate ESL college composition classes at two

different colleges. The purpose of the study was to

determine how the students’ ability to rewrite compositions

varied when they were focused on the form and/or the

content of their writing. As a writing prompt, the

researchers asked the participants to write a composition

telling a story about a sequence of eight pictures.

Students were randomly assigned to one of four groups in

which they received a different kind of feedback on their

compositions: Group 1 received no feedback; 2 received

grammar feedback only; 3 received content feedback only;

and 4 received grammar and content feedback.

In general, the results of this study suggest that

grammar and content feedback, whether given alone or

simultaneously, positively affect rewriting. Students

showed significant improvement in grammatical accuracy when

teachers underlined grammatical errors in their texts.

Results also indicate that general comments improve the

content of students’ compositions rewrites. Finally,

results showed that when teachers underlined errors and

provided general comments at the same time, students

improved significantly in both grammar and content when

they rewrote their compositions.

36

Ferris and Roberts (2001) also examined the effects of

language (grammar) feedback on revision. Specifically, they

investigated 72 university ESL students’ differing

abilities to self-edit their texts across three feedback

conditions: a) errors marked with codes from five different

error categories; b) errors in the same five categories

underlined but not marked or labeled; and c) no feedback at

all. Under the premise that L2 student writers can benefit

from error feedback from their teachers, these researchers

wanted to specifically investigate how explicit error

feedback should be for it to help students self-edit their

texts.

Similar to the Fathman and Whalley (1990) study, the

results of this investigation show that both groups that

received feedback substantially outperformed the control

“no feedback” group. However, no statistically significant

differences were observed between the “codes” and “no

codes” groups as to their ability to successfully edit

their essays. As the researchers of this study

acknowledged, good error-labeling techniques are not enough

to give adequate input that helps ESL students to reduce

errors over time. It is necessary to examine classroom

instruction and other contextual variables to assess

student progress in writing accuracy over time.

Dheram (1995) also investigated what ESL students

wanted to have emphasized in feedback (e.g. language use or

content), and whether learners responded to both forms of

37

feedback while revising. Using a case study as an approach

for her investigation, Dheram chose five ESL students

enrolled in a ten-week pre-session course conducted at a

British university. A questionnaire, an interview,

classroom observation, and the students’ writing were used

as primary data sources for this investigation. To analyze

the data, Derham used a checklist to examine the changes

that the students had made while revising the first two

drafts of an assigned course writing activity. The

checklist consisted of two basic categories: form-focused

changes, and text-focused changes. To analyze the changes

observed, the researcher compared the first and second

drafts with reference to individual changes. Although

Derham provides some details about the results of her

analysis, she does not draw definite conclusions regarding

her research questions. Her coding system is problematic,

especially the contradiction that exists between her

definition of text-focused changes as “changes which affect

the meaning of the sentence and the meaning across sentence

boundaries” (p.163) and the specific examples she provides

of this kind of change. For example, the category “Adding

details,” in which the student writer adds another word

that expands the information provided in one part of the

sentence, does not affect at all the meaning of the

sentence; rather it makes the information more precise to

the reader. Some other flaws of this study are the lack of

information regarding procedures to tabulate changes and

38

also failure to triangulate all the data sources. There is

also no information provided as to the type of responses

obtained from the questionnaire. With the lack of these

important pieces of information in reporting the results,

it is impossible to replicate the study to see if similar

or different results can be obtained.

Research on Other Types of Feedback:

Peer Feedback and Tutor Feedback

Peer response and one-to-one writing conferences

between tutor and student are two forms of feedback that

have been frequently recommended by process advocates

(Ferris et al., 1997). Although these forms of response

differ in their purposes and effects, they will be grouped

for the purposes of the present review, taking into account

that they are different forms of feedback as compared to

teacher written comments.

Several researchers in the field of L2 writing (Berg,

1999; Connor & Asenavage, 1994; Cumming & So, 1996; Chavez

& Ferris, 1997; Goldstein & Conrad, 1990; Mendonca &

Johnson, 1994; Tsui & Ng, 2000) have conducted studies that

attempted to account for the ways in which one-to-one

writing conferences and peer reviews are used as

pedagogical tools in the writing setting, and to analyze

their effects on ESL students’ revision processes and the

overall quality of their writing performance.

39

Berg (1999), for example, investigated the effects of

trained peer response on 46 ESL students’ revision and

writing outcomes. For this purpose, she divided the

students into two groups, one trained in how to participate

in peer response to writing and the other not trained.

Students were asked to write five formal out-of-class

compositions, with each assignment involving invention

activities, drafting, peer response, revision, and editing.

Procedures for data analysis included the marking and

counting of meaning changes made by students in the

revision of their second drafts. Using Faigley and Witte’s

taxonomy of revision (1981) the investigator discriminated

between changes that affected meaning and those that did

not. Results of this investigation indicate that trained

peer response positively affected ESL students’ revision

types and quality of texts.

In order to describe the types of negotiations that

occur during ESL students’ peer reviews and the way these

negotiations shape students’ revision activities, Mendonca

and Johnson (1994) conducted a study with 12 advanced ESL

learners enrolled in a writing class. The class was

designed for high-intermediate/advanced international

students at the graduate level who were preparing to engage

in research in their academic disciplines. During peer

reviews, which took place between students in pairs,

students gave oral feedback and wrote comments on each

other’s papers about ideas that they had difficulty

40

understanding. Data sources also included the students’

first drafts (written before the peer review) of an

assigned essay and second drafts (revised after the peer

review), which were analyzed to identify evidence of

revisions in the written texts. The researchers also used

post-peer review interviews to determine whether students

had found the peer review activity beneficial, how they had

used their peer recommendations, and whether they had used

other sources to revise their drafts. Results of this study

indicate that overall, ESL students find peer reviews

useful, and that although they use their peers’ comments

when revising their drafts, they do so selectively. In

other words, there were some instances in this study in

which students chose not to use their peers’ comments in

their revision, a feature that the researchers describe as

the student writer ability to “consider their audience but

also judge their audience’s comments, making decisions

about them” (p. 766).

In another study addressing the impact of peer

responses on subsequent revisions Connor and Asenavage

(1994) conducted a study with text analysis in which they

analyzed the types of revisions that two peer-response

groups enrolled in an ESL freshman writing class made based

on peer comments. The study also analyzed the impact of

peer responses as compared to responses from other sources,

like the teacher or other readers, such as writing center

tutor. As data sources, the investigators used three

41

audiotaped and transcribed peer review sessions. They also

compared students’ first and second drafts of their essays

in terms of revisions. All revisions were marked and coded

using Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy of revisions. In

general, results of this study showed that only

approximately 5% of the revisions that the students made

resulted from peer comments; 35% of the revisions resulted

from teacher comments, and about 60% of the revisions

occurred as a result of self (initiated by the student) or

others. An interesting finding from this study is that the

revisions based on teacher comments were primarily at the

surface level. Although the researchers draw some

conclusions questioning the effect of peer response

activities in the ESL classroom, there are some information

aspects of the study that were left out. For example,

although the results indicated a very high proportion

(about 60%) of instances in which students used a source of

revision other that the peer review, the researchers did

not try to account for this tendency in their results. This

study in particular shows that text analysis, as the only

means to analyze revision, is limited. In order to have a

clearer picture regarding the real effects of feedback on

revision, it is necessary to use some other important data

sources like think-aloud protocols and interviews, as my

study does.

To account for the roles of teacher and peer comments

in revising in a second language, Tsui and Ng (2000)

42

investigated the revision processes of 27 secondary L2

English learners in Hong Kong. The specific goal of this

study was to analyze whether peer comments and teacher

comments facilitated revision, and what the roles of

teacher comments and peer comments were in prompting

students to make revisions. The investigators used a

questionnaire survey, students’ drafts and comments

collected in the last writing cycles, and follow-up

interviews as data sources. The findings from this study

suggest that the students favored teacher comments more

than peer comments; consequently, teacher comments induced

more revision. From the interview data, it was clear that

students had more confidence in teacher comments because of

the image that the students had of the teacher as more

experienced and more authoritative than their peers.

One important area of inquiry in ESL writing is the

role of one-to-one tutoring in the overall improvement of

students’ writing. Conferences are usually viewed as

valuable pedagogical resources that allow students to

actively participate in the response dynamics by clarifying

their thinking and their teachers’ responses and by

collaboratively exploring effective ways of expressing

meaning (Goldstein & Conrad, 1990; Tsui and Ng, 2000).

In spite of the recognized influence of writing center

tutorials on students’ writing development, most studies on

writing centers have focused on tutor-writer interaction,

in particular, how the roles for tutors and writers are co-

43

constructed in interaction (Blalock, 1997; Blau, Hall &

Strauss, 1998; Thonus, 2001)) and writing center theory.

Very few studies have reported on the effects of tutor’s

feedback on the subsequent written products (Williams, in

press).

Cumming and So (1996), for example, described the

dynamics of problem solving in one-to-one tutoring of

second language writing. The aim of this study was to

determine if these processes might vary according to the

instructional approach or the language of communication

utilized. Seven graduate students and one professor, all of

them experienced ESL classroom teachers with no training in

WC pedagogy, tutored the students in four sessions of text

revision on four similar compositions they had previously

written, alternating these sessions between provision of

error correction versus procedural facilitation. They also

used the second language or learners’ mother tongues

(Mandarin, Japanese, and Cantonese), forming a 2 (approach

to tutoring) x 2 (language of communication) factorial

design.

Findings from this study showed that tutors’ and

students’ cooperative efforts to solve problems in the

students’ drafts focused primarily on local levels of the

compositions (i.e., grammar, word choice, spelling,

punctuation), guided mainly by tutors’ decision making, in

all of the experimental conditions. This finding parallels

what has been found in most previous studies of text

44

revision (Beason, 1993). An important finding in this study

was that individual tutors tended to differ from one

another in the extent to which they solicited students’

input (opportunities to negotiate and resolve independently

perceived problems in their texts) to the discourse. The

variations range from an extreme of “Socratic teaching,

with a tutor persistently urging students to seek solutions

to textual problems”, to an opposite extreme of tutors

rapidly resolving, by just “correcting textual problems for

students” (p. 219).

Goldstein and Conrad (1990) also studied the dynamics

of conferencing between one teacher and three students

enrolled in an advanced ESL composition course at a large

urban university to determine how students dealt with the

revisions discussed in the conferences and the role of

negotiation of meaning played in the success of such

revisions.

The three participants of the study, who were science

majors in their junior year, had different cultural

backgrounds: one from Iran, one from Vietnam, and the third

from the Philippines. Data collection included tapes of 20-

minute conferences which were then transcribed and coded.

Written data consisted of two drafts each of ten pages, one

draft written before the conference and then discussed in

the conference, the second draft of the paper written after

the conference. Only those revisions that were examined in

the conference were taken into account when looking at the

45

relationship between what had been discussed in conference

and what had been revised in the subsequent draft.

Results from this study showed significant variations

across the students in the amount of input they contributed

during their conferences. There were also observable

differences as to the degree with which they clarified

meaning. All the data obtained in the study tended to

support the hypothesis that there is a positive

relationship between negotiation and successful revision.

In the case of this study in particular, when teacher

and student negotiated revisions, the resulting revisions

were almost successful. However, these results do not

support the claims made in much of the literature in the

sense that the very act of conferencing leads students to

contribute input. As this study suggests, there are

variations across students and this may affect the way they

behave in a conference. An important conclusion of this

study is that negotiation of meaning during conferences

plays a key role in order for successful revision to occur.

As Goldstein and Conrad put it, “Negotiation in the

conference may clarify the need for revision and the

strategies to undertake the revision. Students, therefore,

may understand more clearly what to revise, how to revise,

and why they need to do so. In addition, negotiation may

lead to better retention of what has been discussed” (p.

457).

46

In another study analyzing the effects of conferencing

on revision, Patthey-Chavez and Ferris (1997) analyzed the

discourse generated by four teachers around a set of their

teacher-student writing conferences to investigate the

connection between these conferences and the changes in

student writing. More specifically, the researchers sought

to determine whether certain characteristics of the

students (e.g. weaker/stronger; native/non-native speaker)

and the course (general freshman composition/specialized

genre-specific) affected the conferencing and its outcomes.

Six of the subjects who participated in the study were

International students who had been assessed as ready for

regular (non-ESL instruction), including freshman

composition instruction. The other two participants were

native speakers of English completing their composition

program in their sophomore year. Data sources included

copies of students’ first draft of Essay 1, tapes and

transcripts of a one-to-one conference conducted several

days after the first drafts were written; copies of the

students’ revised drafts; and copies of the first draft of

the next essay assignment (Essay 2).

Findings from this study are consistent with the

results obtained in Goldstein and Conrad’s study (1990) in

the sense that conferencing has a positive effect on the

revision process: all eight students in the study revised

their papers consistent with the points raised and

discussed during their respective conferences. Likewise,

47

the study showed that the same instructional event (a one-

to-one writing conference) does not generate the same

response from all students. In the case of this study, the

stronger students produced more substantial revisions as

compared to revisions performed by the weaker students, who

tended to transfer the teacher’s suggestions verbatim into

their final drafts. The differences detected between the

two groups of students lead to consider the possibility

that divergent student background might have a structuring

effect on the conference and its outcomes.

The reporting and analysis of the body of research in

this literature review leads me to conclude that what seems

to be missing in most of the studies reported here is the

provision of a more detailed account or description of the

larger pedagogical context and other contextual variables

that might have an effect on the way ESL students react to

feedback and the way they revise. It is necessary to

provide a whole picture of the participants’ background

experiences in L2 writing, especially students’ perceptions

regarding the importance of revision within their writing

processes as well as teachers and tutors’ perceptions about

their work with ESL students and their writing processes.

It is expected that the present investigation will

fill some of the gaps of previous research studies on

teacher response to L2 writing, especially the lack of

consideration of the larger pedagogical context of the

48

writing situation, and the role that contextual variables

play in the way students go about revising.

49

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Overview

With this research I document the kinds of strategies

used by two ESL students enrolled in a first-year rhetoric

course at a midwestern university when revising different

writing assignments. I also explore influences of the

larger pedagogical context specifically on the students’

revision processes. In this chapter I describe the

research design, research site, participants, data

collection and data analysis procedures and, finally, my

role as a researcher.

The research approach for this investigation uses a

qualitative case study (Merriam, 1988). Merriam defines a

qualitative case study as “an intensive, holistic

description and analysis of a single instance, phenomenon,

or social unit” (p. 21). Marshall and Rossman (1989)

describe qualitative studies as “research that entails

immersion in the everyday life of the setting chosen for

study, that values participants’ perspectives on their

worlds and seeks to discover those perspectives, that views

inquiry as an interactive process between the researcher

and the participants, and that is primarily descriptive and

relies on people’s words as the primary data.” (p. 11)

Likewise, Bogdan and Biklen (1992) refer to the goal of

50

qualitative research as “rich description of people,

places, and conversations.” (p. 2).

Given the prevalence of qualitative case studies

throughout the field of education (Merriam, 1988; Erickson,

1986) and the particular nature of the present

investigation, qualitative methods are best suited to

address my research questions. The rationale for using this

particular approach reflects my desire to examine the

influence of both the larger context of the Rhetoric

classroom and the more focused context of tutoring sessions

on the students’ revision processes.

My goal was to undertake an in-depth, long-term

exploration of the perspectives and practices of Rhetoric

instructors, documenting the feedback provided by a tutor,

and the patterns that characterize the focal students’

revisions. I was also interested in illuminating the focal

students’ perspectives concerning the varying kinds of

feedback they received.

In order to address the research questions that guide

the investigation, I take into account the perspectives of

different individuals including students, teachers, tutors,

and key administrative staff. According to Merriam, the key

philosophical assumption of qualitative research is the

idea that “reality is constructed by individuals

interacting with their social world” (p. 6). As is the case

with most naturalistic inquiries, the present study relies

on multiple data sources in order to provide a rich

51

descriptive account of the nature of teacher and tutor

response to two ESL students’ writing.

The Research Site

I conducted this study in the fall of 2002 at

Midwestern University2. Because the focus of the present

study is on the description and analyses of the revision

processes of two ESL first-year students of Rhetoric and

the influence of the broader pedagogical context, the

Rhetoric Department and, more specifically, the Learning

Resource Center (LRC) and two Rhetoric classrooms became

key sites for data collection.

Faculty and students at Midwestern University view the

Learning Resource Center as a place where any student,

graduate or undergraduate, can attend to improve his/her

writing. Often times, Rhetoric teachers advise students,

especially ESL students, to enroll in LRC when assistance

beyond what is provided in Rhetoric classrooms is needed.

For many years, the Center was labeled the Writing Lab. As

such, it was viewed as remedial, “as a place to send

troubled or problem writers, especially those who had

failed the placement or exit exams.” (Learning Resource

Center Web Page). This remedial focus has changed

drastically during the tenure of Patricia Jones, the

2 Pseudonyms have been used throughout the study in order to preserve the identity of the research site and the participants.

52

current Center Director. Talking about the different goals

and purposes of the current Learning Resource Center, she

said:

Well, obviously now it is no longer a program only for the under-prepared… the function is just coaching and feedback and revision suggestions on any piece of writing by any student, for any purpose and any audience from…from short stories to Astrophysics dissertations, so… in my view, I have broadened the purpose of the Learning Resource Center….We are trying to make it an all-university-center to serve many types of students, not only under-prepared students, not only ESL students, but everybody and for everyone to see it as a kind of normal procedure, not something that is stigmatized…

As Patricia asserts, the goals and purposes of the

Center shifted from the remedial purpose that it used to

have in the past to a broader perspective encompassing

every single individual of the learning community

requesting help to improve rhetorical and communication

skills. This broader perspective is also reflected in the

Center’s demographic diversity represented by International

and multiethnic participants.

The selection of this particular research site seemed

like an obvious choice for two main reasons. First, I had

developed a level of familiarity with the Center, having

served as a tutor for two years. Although I had experienced

an insider research perspective while conducting a pilot

study with an International ESL student enrolled in the

Center in the summer of 2002, I was interested in

conducting an investigation that allowed me to see the

nature of tutoring sessions, specifically with ESL

53

students, from an outsider perspective. As a researcher, I

wanted to experience “the coupled skills of detachment and

involvement a fieldworker needs” (Chiseri & Sunstein,

1997). In other words, to better understand the dynamics of

tutoring sessions, it was necessary to adopt a more

detached perspective in an attempt to uncover the many

layers of behaviors and beliefs of the research

participants.

I also selected this research site because of my own

interest in the number of ESL students enrolled in the

University Rhetoric courses who also seek assistance from

the Center. As evidenced by the literature on composition

studies and writing centers, little attention has been paid

to the unique challenges that ESL students face in

composition classes (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Spack, 1997).

Although ESL students are members of the University

community, they can become invisible when they need

assistance with writing.

My own experience as a tutor has given me the

opportunity to work with ESL students taking writing

classes designed, according to Silva and Matzuda (2001),

“primarily with monolingual, native-English-speaking

students in mind” (p.13). In my experiences with ESL

students, I have witnessed many of their struggles as they

try to cope with the cultural demands posed by certain

writing assignments from their various courses. For this

reason, I was interested in more deeply understanding

54

primary challenges that the students participating in the

study faced in Rhetoric classes and how those classes and

the tutoring sessions at LRC influenced their development

as writers of English.

Research Participants

The research participants in this study include one

tutor, two freshmen ESL students enrolled in different

sections of Rhetoric and participating in tutoring sessions

at LRC, and two Rhetoric teachers. Portraits of each

participant follow.

Karla: Learning Resource Center Tutor

At the time of the study Karla, from Ontario, Canada,

was a Ph.D. student in Musicology. In 2000 she was hired by

the Department of Rhetoric as a Fine Arts-Across-the

Curriculum instructor to work as a tutor at the Learning

Resource Center. After serving as a tutor for a semester,

she was hired to be a Rhetoric teacher as well.

The selection of the tutor participant of my study was

not an easy task. After receiving permission from the

Chair of the Rhetoric Department and the Learning Resource

Center Director, I engaged in the difficult task of

searching for a tutor who met the following criteria.

First, the individual had to serve as a tutor for an ESL

student enrolled in Rhetoric (students in the Center are

randomly assigned to a tutor, unless they openly indicate

their desire to work with a specific instructor. Generally,

55

only returning students fall into this category). Second,

the tutor I selected had to be willing to participate in

interviews during the study and also allow tutoring

sessions to be audio-taped.

It was my impression that tutors tend to be

apprehensive about having a third person involved in their

interactions with students, either for fear of being judged

or because of the perception that their strategies as

tutors might be criticized, or simply because it is

undesirable to have an outsider who might affect the normal

dynamics of the interaction. For all these reasons, I

thought that the search might prove difficult.

Karla had been randomly assigned to be the tutor for

the two ESL students who later agreed to take part in the

study. After I assured Karla that the procedures for data

collection would be as unobtrusive as possible, she

indicated interest in my study and gave me her written

consent. One of the most persuasive arguments in convincing

Karla to participate in the study was my desire to address

and perhaps expand the research on ESL writing in order to

gain better understanding of the common problems that ESL

students encounter in writing classes. I described my

interest in documenting the work of ESL tutors, and of

“building a base on which our knowledge can be constructed

and our practice refined” (Lerner 2002, p. 53). She agreed

to participate in the study and served as the tutor for

both ESL students.

56

The Students

The search for student informants proved an even

harder task to accomplish than the search for the tutor.

Anticipating that first-year Rhetoric students might

represent a more challenging group to study because of

their potentially less sophisticated competence in English,

I considered studying ESL students in Rhetoric II3 as the

ideal group. However, after looking at the registration

rosters in both Rhetoric II courses and in the Learning

Resource Center, there was only one ESL student. More

student choices were available in the Rhetoric I group, so

I focused my search on this group.

Two of the ESL students assigned to Karla’s group not

only fulfilled the requirements of the study, but also

shared interesting features in common. The two students

were pre-business majors enrolled as first-year Rhetoric

students. Both had registered as regular students in the

Learning Resource Center requiring them to attend tutoring

sessions twice a week with the same tutor. And both

happened to have first time Rhetoric teachers in the same

Professional Development Program (PDP) group. An

interesting feature about the selected participants was the

fact that one of the students, Yuna, was an International

student from Korea, whereas the other one, Cindy, was an

immigrant student from China. The review of the literature

3 Rhetoric II students are enrolled in their second and final year of Rhetoric requirements at Midwestern University.

57

on ESL writing indicates that most research dealing with

revision has centered either on International students

(Patthey-Chavez, and Ferris, 1997) or on immigrant students

(Ferris, 1995; Ferris, Pezone, Tade, and Tinty, 1997). More

research with ESL students and their revision strategies is

needed to dispel myths and assumptions concerning the kind

of feedback that immigrant and International students will

benefit from receiving and the feedback that they

incorporate in their subsequent revisions.

I approached the two students during the second week

of sessions in the Center and waited for them to arrive at

the scheduled time for their tutoring sessions. After they

finished their session with Karla, I explained the purpose

of my research so they could understand my desire to have

them to participate in the study. After assuring them that

their real identities would not be revealed at any point,

and that the process of data collection would not interfere

or represent an extra burden for them in terms of work and

time, they both accepted my invitation to participate. The

fact that I am an International student may have partially

contributed to gaining their trust from the onset of the

study.

Yuna

Yuna is a 28-year-old International student from

Seoul, South Korea, who came to the United States about two

years earlier to pursue a degree in business at Midwestern

58

University. Yuna’s perceptions about Rhetoric courses can

be summarized as follows: “Very difficult for ESL students,

a very demanding course, with a level of demand far too

high for ESL students’ written and communicative skills in

English.”

Cindy

Cindy is a 19-year-old student from Beijing, China.

She immigrated to the United States in the year 2001, when

her grandmother, a U.S. resident, decided to bring her here

so she could complete her last year of high school and then

enroll at Midwestern University to study business. “It’s

not my decision; it was my family’s decision for me to come

and study here,” she says. For Cindy, every Rhetoric class

represents a challenge, the challenge of dealing with a

language barrier not only in the meaning of language, but

also with the specific demands of the class.

The Rhetoric Teachers

Because of my interest in understanding the

complexities inherent in the larger pedagogical context in

which feedback and revision were embedded, I sought to

describe the multifaceted interaction of the various

factors affecting feedback and revision (see Chapter IV for

a full description of the pedagogical context). An

important aspect of qualitative case studies is the

possibility of illustrating the complexities of a situation

59

“the fact that not one but many factors contributed to it”

(Merriam, 1998, p. 30).

In order to uncover the different layers of

particularity in the specific case of my study, I observed

each of the two Rhetoric teachers in the context of their

classrooms twice a week to learn about the class dynamics.

I also interviewed the two teachers at the beginning and at

the end of the semester in order to understand their goals

and purposes regarding the Rhetoric class in general and

specifically with regard to the focal students.

Matt: Yuna’s Teacher

For Matt, a former Engineering student and a current

Ph.D. student in the English Department, his work as a

teacher in the Department of Rhetoric represents a

completely new experience for him. The first time I talked

to him and expressed my interest in conducting research in

his classroom that would also involve Yuna, the only ESL

student in his class, he agreed to participate. One of the

aspects that Matt continued to stress during our interviews

was his goal to make the class interesting and challenging

for the students. As he put it,

My past is the most important influence in my work as a teacher…the school where I came from, which was small and…it cheated the students. What they offered them didn’t do enough to challenge the students…It’s very important that the student feels challenged.

Matt’s notion of challenge was particularly reflected in

his assignments and this feature, as shall be seen later,

60

had an important effect on Yuna’s perceptions about her own

writing process and, more specifically, about her revision

strategies.

Anne: Cindy’s Teacher

Anne is a 26-year-old student in the second year of

study toward her PhD in Anthropology at the time of this

study. She is in her first year as a Rhetoric teacher and

she perceives teaching the course as a real challenge.

Cindy is the only ESL student in her classroom. When I

invited Anne to participate in the study she was eager to

know more, so I decided to meet with her to answer her

questions, to talk about the goals of the study, and

describe my need to observe Cindy in the context of her

classroom. She agreed to participate.

Describing her role as a Rhetoric teacher, Anne does

not see teaching students to write as her only priority.

Rather, she perceives her job is to teach students how to

formulate and defend arguments as well as have conviction

in their own beliefs. In other words, Anne’s focus as a

Rhetoric teacher seems to go beyond teaching her students

basic writing and speaking skills; she wants them to feel

strongly about what they are learning. This learning should

be reflected in their writing.

61

Table 1. Participants in the Study

Name Age Gender Nationality Role

Karla

Yuna

Cindy

Matt

Anne

32

28

19

33

27

F

F

F

M

F

Canadian

Korean

Chinese

American

American

LRC Tutor

Student

Student

Teacher

Teacher

By studying these two individual students and their

Rhetoric teachers and LRC tutor, I wanted to show how the

particulars of each case would illuminate larger,

significant issues about the revision processes in ESL

students. Keeping this purpose in mind and also taking into

consideration the complexities inherent in ESL writing

response and revision, I sought a multi-faceted approach to

research that enabled me to understand and explain this

reality “with as little disruption of the natural setting

as possible” (Merriam,1998, p.5).

Data Sources and Procedures

In an effort to capture the nature and influences of

feedback on revision generated within the Learning Resource

Center and the Rhetoric classroom, I relied on a variety of

methods for gathering data (see Table 2, Data Sources).

According to Glesne (1999) “The use of multiple data-

62

collection methods contributes to the worthiness of the

data” (p. 31). This practice, called triangulation, may

also involve the incorporation of multiple kinds of data

sources and multiple theoretical perspectives. Merriam

(1998) states that in order to understand the case in its

totality, it “mandates both breadth and depth of data

collection” (p. 134). An approach that combined multiple

qualitative methods for data collection would allow for the

multiplicity of voices within the Rhetoric classroom and

the Learning Resource Center to emerge, all aspects

critical to my dissertation.

In order to avoid problems of inadequate amount of

data, and lack of disconfirming evidence, I viewed

fieldwork as a process of deliberate inquiry (Erickson,

1986). According to this approach, “Fieldworkers’ daily

presence in the setting is guided by deliberate decisions

about sampling and by intuitive reactions as well” (p.

140). Eisner (as cited by Lerner, 2002) writes that our

investigations require a certain “consciousness” and “with

such consciousness we are in a better position to exercise

sensibility, taste, and the most precious human capacity,

rational judgment” (p. 54). For purposes of my study, the

intentional character of data collection procedures was

reflected by my ongoing and consistent actions of bringing

together research questions and data collection so that

they could inform and guide my work. I collected data for

14 weeks, from early September to mid-December. The

63

multiple sources from which I drew data are described

below.

From the Rhetoric Department

I conducted semi-structured half-hour interviews with

the director of the Learning Resource Center and one

Professional Development Program (PDP) leader once during

the 2002 fall semester. I also collected the department

philosophy statement, handouts, and brochures with

information about the department. I searched for and found

relevant information on the Rhetoric Department’s web page.

From the Tutor of the Learning Resource Center

The primary data sources for this study consist of

audiotapes of tutoring sessions between the Learning

Resource Center tutor and the two ESL students

participating in the study. I audiotaped and transcribed

the tutoring sessions with a focus on those sessions that

dealt with the students’ three major written projects in

their Rhetoric class. I also audiotaped semi-structured

half-hour interviews with the tutor (Karla) at the

beginning and at the end of the study to elicit a more

detailed sense of the tutor’s goals and purposes regarding

Rhetoric courses, regarding her role as a tutor in general

and also regarding the focal students. In addition, I asked

Karla to provide some written reflections on her philosophy

of teaching. We also had many informal conversations that

64

were not audiotaped but were documented in my fieldwork

journal.

From the Rhetoric Classrooms

Actual classroom observation did not begin until the

third week of the study. I thought it was necessary to give

the teachers some time to establish their relationship with

the students and to acquaint them with the organizational

structure of the course. The Rhetoric classes that I

observed met every morning for fifty minutes Monday-

Thursday; however, because of my need to be present during

the tutoring sessions that were also held in the mornings,

I was able to observe each class only two times every week.

In order to record my observations of classroom events and

my own reflections and comments, I kept a fieldwork

journal.

From the Rhetoric Teachers

I audiotaped two semi-structured half-hour interviews

with each teacher (Matt and Anne) at the beginning and at

the end of the study to elicit information about their

goals and purposes in teaching Rhetoric. I gathered the

syllabi for the two classes, course policy statements,

writing assignments sheets, workshop sheets, and handouts.

I also asked the teachers to provide a written reflection

about their philosophy of teaching.

65

From the Students

I audiotaped two semi-structured half-hour interviews

with each student, at the beginning and at the end of the

study, to elicit their general perceptions of the

effectiveness of the Rhetoric class and the learning

Resource Center sessions on their development as writers

and specifically on their revision strategies. The

interviews were also very useful to gather information from

the students about their emotional reactions to feedback

and to the classroom context. I asked the students to do

three revising protocols corresponding to the three major

writing projects. Since their early use, think aloud

protocols have been used in writing research “as a means of

studying the ways in which writers orchestrate what has

come to be viewed as underlying cognitive processes” (Witte

and Cherry, 1992 p. 20). The purpose of using a protocol in

the case of this particular study was to determine (1) the

student’s reaction to the teacher’s and the tutor’s

comments; (2) the student’s strategies for processing each

comment and the total revision; (3) the student’s attitudes

toward revising.

Although I had originally planned to use three

protocols as a main source for data collection, one of the

participants, Cindy, experienced some difficulties with the

task. Consequently, only one protocol corresponding to the

final written project could be audiotaped and transcribed

66

Table 2. Data Sources

Week Data Sources Artifacts

1 Field notes

Departmental policies and procedures Rhetoric Department brochures Rhetoric Department Website

2 Field notes Audiotaped tutoring sessions Class observation Interview with the Tutor

Rhetoric Handbook LRC tutor’s philosophy of teaching Transcripts Oral interview script

3 Field notes Audiotaped tutoring sessions Class observation Interview with PDP leader

Courses syllabi Courses policy statement Teachers’ philosophy of teaching Students’ writing samples Transcripts Oral interview script

4 Field notes Interviews with teachers Audiotaped tutoring sessions Interviews with students Class observation

Writing Assignment Project #1 Students’ initial drafts Oral interview transcripts Transcripts Oral interview transcripts Workshop sheets

5-7 Field notes Class observations Audiotaped sessions

Transcripts Students’ final drafts Project 1

8 Field notes Class observations Audiotaped sessions

Writing assignment Project # 2 Students’ initial drafts Transcripts

9-13 Field notes Class observations Audiotaped sessions

Writing workshops Students’ final drafts Transcripts Writing assignment project #3

14 Field notes Class observations Audiotaped sessions

Students’ initial drafts. Project #3

15-16 Students’ protocols Final Interviews teachers Final interview tutor Final interviews students Tutoring sessions

Transcripts Oral interviews scripts Transcription Students final drafts

in the case of each student. I also collected and

photocopied students’ writing samples, workshop sheets

(appendix C), initial and final drafts corresponding to the

67

three main written projects of the course, as well as

journal reflections. There were also several opportunities

in which I had informal encounters with each of the

students outside the context of the classroom and the

Learning Resource Center. The less threatening environment

of these informal encounters sometimes served to follow our

formal interviews and contributed much helpful data.

Data Analysis

Data analysis “involves organizing what you have seen,

heard, and read so that you can make sense of what you have

learned” (Glesne, 1999). For Bogdan and Biklen (1992), data

analysis is “the process of systematically searching and

arranging the interview transcripts, fieldnotes, and other

materials that you accumulate to increase your own

understanding of them and to enable you to present what you

have discovered to others” (p. 153).

Because of the high volume of material that needed to

be transcribed, I initiated the process of data analysis as

soon as possible. Trying to impose some sort of

organization and order to the data proved an overwhelming

task. Consequently, data analysis was a recursive process

that happened concurrently with data collection. Data

analysis done simultaneously with data collection also

enabled me to reflect on my data in order to focus and

shape the study as it proceeded.

68

During the early stages of the process, I wrote memos

to myself and developed analytic files in order to learn

from and manage the information I was receiving. As Glesne

writes, “these files provide a way to keep track of useful

information and thoughts” (p. 131). The memos proved useful

in order to deal with the amount of data that I collected

from the very beginning of the study and to capture and

analyze my thoughts when they occurred. The comments

recorded as memos served afterwards as links across my

data. As Glesne recommends, I organized the analytic files

by generic categories, such as interview questions and

tutoring sessions according to the particular writing

assignment discussed. As the data grew and, guided by

research questions, I created specific files according to

the specific patterns that started to emerge. An example of

the files created included those titled as rhetoric-based

feedback in tutoring sessions and the emphasis on revision

as a way to improve students’ writing skills.

When most of the data had been collected, I started

the process of analytic coding. First, I read the

transcribed recordings of the tutoring sessions, the taped-

transcribed interviews, my field notes, and the written

samples. I read across all data sources and read within

data sources. I coded the data, looking for recurring

patterns and underlying themes (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992).

The coding process enabled me to identify concepts and

central ideas that struck me as significant for the study.

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I used different colors and key phrases to identify the

different themes that emerged from the data. Examples of

emerging themes included the relationship between the

Rhetoric course and the development of critical thinking,

and the collaborative role of the tutor in joint problem

solving, among others. Although I frequently looked for key

linkages within the data that addressed issues in response

to my initial research questions, I remained open to other

issues that might arise from the data.

Merriam recommends that once the data have been

gathered and organized according to themes or categories,

they must be “read through several times from beginning to

end” (p.131). Similarly, DiPardo (1994) states that the

researcher can comb through the data to gather all types of

examples and evidence related to the themes. By

systematically reviewing the patterns that emerged from the

full set of data, I sought “to test the validity of the

assertions generated, seeking disconfirming evidence as

well as confirming evidence” (Erickson, 1986). In order to

achieve this goal, I constantly examined in more depth the

patterns or themes identified in the data and began to

theorize what they might mean in terms of my interpretive

frame.

In order to report the fieldwork research, I used

narrative vignettes (Erickson 1986). Erickson defines the

narrative vignettes as “a vivid portrayal of the conduct of

an event of everyday life, in which the sights and sounds

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of what was being said and done are described in the

natural sequence of their occurrence in real time.”(p.

150). I based the narrative vignettes on the field notes

that I took as the events happened and that I wrote shortly

thereafter. The purpose of using narrative vignettes in the

present study was to present a clear picture of my intended

interpretive points and to persuade readers of my

assertions regarding the particulars of the reported events

by providing sufficient and adequate evidence “selected

from the tremendous complexity of the original event”

(Erickson, 1986, p. 150).

The Textual Analysis

Because I wanted to examine the kind of feedback

provided by the LRC tutor, the Rhetoric teachers, and the

peers in response to the focal students’ major writing

projects, I first searched for a classification system of

written comments according to the textual changes they

suggested. Then I coded all revisions made by the students

using Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy of revisions in

order to identify the types of text revisions that were

sentence or rhetoric-based (See Table 3). The original

taxonomy was designed to analyze the effects of revision as

they relate to the meaning of a text. This taxonomy

categorizes revisions into two types: surface changes

(changes that do not affect the meaning of a text) and

text-based changes (changes that alter meaning of the

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text). In order to account for those comments that did not

call for the student to make textual changes, I decided to

add another category, comments calling for no change, to

identify those remarks, such as “interesting”; “good”, etc.

Since I was also interested in finding evidence that the

students had or had not incorporated the revisions

suggested in her final draft, I included the categories

“Revised/Not Revised” (Mendonca and Johnson, 1994) to code

this information in the final draft (see the revised

taxonomy in Chapter 7).

Table 3. Taxonomy of Revision Changes

Surface Changes Text-based Changes

Formal changes

Meaning-preserving changes

Microstructure changes

Macrostructure changes

spelling additions additions additions

tense, number deletions deletions deletions

modality substitutions substitutions substitutions

abbreviation permutations permutations permutations

punctuation consolidations consolidations consolidation

format

Source: Faigley and Witte (1981). Analyzing Revision. College Composition and Communication, 32, 400-414.

My Role as a Researcher

My level of participation was that of a participant-

observer. According to Moss (1992), participant observation

is the major data gathering technique in ethnographic

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research. Glesne (1999) describes a participant-observation

continuum along which the roles of participant-observers

may fall at different points and at different times

depending on specific variables, such as the kind of

inquiry, the context of study, and the researcher’s

theoretical perspective. In this study, I was more of an

observer than a participant. Assuming a participant

observer role required total immersion in the research site

in order to experience and observe first hand a range of

dimensions in and of the setting. Addler and Addler (1994)

describe the participant-observer role as one where

researchers are “involved in the setting’s central

activities, assuming responsibilities that advance the

group, but without fully committing themselves to members’

values and goals” (p. 101). I knew from the onset of the

study that I needed to build trust among the teachers, the

tutor and, especially, with the students in order to be

perceived as an insider; in other words, as another member

of their learning community. Getting close to the

participants and gaining their trust was essential in order

to better understand their feelings and perspectives. For

this purpose, I shared most of the classroom experiences

that the students had. I sat in the classes almost every

day, attended all their tutoring sessions at the Learning

Resource Center, and communicated with them between and

after classes.

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My high level of prior involvement in the daily life

of the Learning Resource Center at Midwestern University

was an aspect that influenced my role as a researcher. As

an insider at the research site, I had preconceptions about

the role that writing center tutors should play during one-

on-one-sessions. As a tutor, I was aware that I held

particular beliefs regarding tutoring ESL students that

could potentially conflict with the practices of the tutor

I was observing. I knew, for example, that some tutors

tended to concentrate more on surface-level errors when

providing feedback, especially to ESL students. This

practice sometimes reflects tutors’ notion that most ESL

students privilege grammar-based feedback over content-

based feedback; consequently, that is the kind of feedback

that they perceive students are expecting to receive and

the feedback that they actually provide.

My own experience as a tutor at the Learning Resource

Center has given me the opportunity to work with both

native English speakers and ESL students who usually come

to the Center believing that the tutors’ main role is to

have their papers fixed promptly. Often times, this

attitude is related to the brief time they are usually

given to complete their writing assignments. For this

reason, there is always anxiety on the part of students to

have their papers polished. It usually takes time to

convince them that the time and energy spent on helping

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them develop writing skills frequently pays off. Lerner

(2002) refers to preconceived notions, stating that:

We bring a set of assumptions or an ideological framework that can overwhelm our attempts to understand what we observe. As best we can, we must articulate these assumptions—both to us and to the readers of our research narratives—in order to allow our observations an existence of their own, apart from (or alongside) our powerful biases and preconceived notions. (p. 54)

Lerner goes on to say that preconceived notions

necessarily imply encountering different sorts of dilemmas

that need to be negotiated. As noted, I was aware of my

preconceptions about the role that tutors should play

during tutorials, but I was also aware of the need to

moderate the influence and power of my assumptions and

beliefs when I tried to make sense of my observations. I

tried to accomplish this by frequently stressing to the

teachers and the tutor that I was conducting an

investigation that aimed at being descriptive rather than

evaluative.

Nor only did I have preconceptions regarding the role

of writing tutors, but I acknowledged strong feelings

regarding the nature of teacher’s response to students’

writing in composition classes. I was particularly

influenced by the body of research on ESL writing that

suggests that certain instructional practices in writing

classrooms fail to positively deal with the sociocultural,

rhetorical, and linguistic differences that ESL students

bring to the learning situation (Raimes, 2001; Silva,

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2001). Moreover, my own experiences as a foreign language

learner and teacher were evident sources of potential bias.

I have been a foreign language teacher since graduating

from college, and I have taught English and Spanish for

almost twenty years at college-level institutions in the

U.S. and Venezuela. However, in order to mitigate my

preconceptions, I continued to examine my biases and

reminded myself of the need to be open to different

teaching agendas.

One of the primary challenges that I faced as an

insider occurred while trying to address the two focal

students’ frequent requests to provide extra feedback on

their papers in addition to feedback they were receiving

from their tutor, their teachers and their peers. At

different points during the investigation, I had to make my

role as a researcher explicit to the two students, politely

refusing to read their papers and provide feedback. As

Burawoy (1991) claims: “The roles of participant and

observer are inherently in conflict, and tension and

anxiety are an intrinsic part of fieldwork” (p. 293). I

experienced particular feelings of anxiety and concern for

the students’ emotional reactions with my refusal to help

them. Trying to mitigate those tensions and wanting to

maintain the rapport that characterized my relationship

with the focal students throughout the study, I decided to

offer the two students my guidance and support to get them

prepared for the oral presentations of their major

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projects. As an example of my support and guidance, I set

up a one-hour-weekly meeting with each one of the focal

students to work on their oral projects, specifically, on

the selection of possible topics, strategies for doing the

presentations, and selection of audiovisual aids.

I conclude this section by recognizing that because in

qualitative research the investigator is the primary

instrument for gathering and analyzing data (Merriam,

1998), there is always a potential risk of making mistakes,

or allowing personal biases to interfere in the process.

However, by acknowledging the limitations of their

research, researchers demonstrate the trustworthiness of

the data (Glesne,1999). As she put it, “Limitations are

consistent with the always partial state of knowing in

social research, and elucidating your limitations helps

readers know how they should read and interpret your work”

(p. 152).

Summary

By documenting the revision processes of two ESL

students within the larger pedagogical context, this study

represents an effort to fill in the gap that exists in the

research of second language writing. The study took place

at Midwestern University in the fall 2002. Primary data

consisted of audiotaped tutoring sessions, students’

writing samples, class observations of Rhetoric classes,

and formal and informal interviews with a Learning Resource

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Center tutor, two ESL students, their Rhetoric teachers,

and administrative staff. Data analysis followed an

inductive and recursive process that happened concurrently

with data collection.

In Chapter IV, I provide a description of the

pedagogical context; specifically, the Rhetoric courses and

the Learning Resource Center in order to get a better

understanding of their influence on the focal students’

revision practices and the development of their writing

skills.

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CHAPTER IV

THE PEDAGOGICAL CONTEXT

The intent of this chapter is to richly describe the

pedagogical context of two University Rhetoric classrooms

and a Learning Resource Center as the main sites in which

two freshmen ESL students, who are also enrolled in

separate Rhetoric classes, receive feedback for assigned

written essays. Taking into account that feedback and

revision activities are embedded communication contexts

within a larger discourse community, it is necessary to

examine the context in which these processes take place in

order to better understand how pedagogy shapes revision for

ESL students.

According to Goldstein (2001), feedback and revision

must not be conceptualized as linear processes but rather

as dynamic processes in which several aspects intersect in

complex ways. The complex interaction of the various

factors affecting feedback and revision suggests that any

description of these two processes must first be informed

by an examination of the contexts that affect the way in

which a teacher or a tutor respond to their students’

texts. Second, we must also examine the contexts for

student response. I’m guided by these goals in this

research study.

In order to show the multifaceted interaction in the

various settings where feedback and revision are present in

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the context of instruction, I sought a model that visually

represented such a complex relationship, specifically as it

deals with ESL students. Figure 1 shows this model.

Figure 1. Revision and the Pedagogical Context

Adapted from Goldstein (2001, p. 87)

The circle represents the pedagogical context, so

important in the feedback/revision process. Feedback and

revision are influenced by different factors as they relate

to ESL students. Most previous studies have concentrated on

products. The factors in my model are interrelated and they

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are influenced by different aspects of the context. As the

model shows, it is necessary to consider the goals,

purposes, and characteristics of the institutional and

programmatic context. Likewise, it is important to

understand how these characteristics define the setting,

how they shape teacher feedback, student response, and

student use of feedback for revision. The model also

illustrates the need to consider teacher, student, and text

characteristics.

In order to understand the influence of the broader

pedagogical context on the processes of feedback and

revision, I first describe the goals and structure of the

Rhetoric courses and the assignments. Then, I describe the

goals and purposes of the Professional Development Program

(PDP) and the Rhetoric Learning Resource Center. Finally, I

provide portraits of the two Rhetoric teachers and a

description of a typical class.

Rhetoric as a General Education Course

General Education courses in Rhetoric at Midwestern

University are often described as introductory courses in

college-level reading, writing and speaking. Although many

colleges require new students to enroll in these subjects,

Midwestern University is unique in its long tradition of

integrating them in a single course. The Rhetoric Handbook

(2003-2004) describes the goals and purposes of General

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Education courses in Rhetoric at Midwestern University as

follows:

Undergraduates are studying not English composition or public speaking but rhetoric. As an art of civic discourse, rhetoric challenges them to consider what it means to speak and write as a member of a community—indeed, of many communities. We ask students not only to advocate a point of view effectively but to understand their own advocacy within the broader context of the interests and concerns of others (p. 1).

As stated above, rhetoric courses comprise not only the

written expression but also oral expression. However, for

the purposes of the present investigation, I focus only on

the writing component of the Rhetoric course.

The Basic Pattern of the Rhetoric

Curriculum

The basic pattern of Rhetoric curriculum is the same

for all students. The Rhetoric Department offers three main

courses. Rhetoric I and Rhetoric II form a year-long

sequence for those students who are required to take two

semesters of Rhetoric. Students with higher ACT (American

College Test) scores cover the same material in one

semester of Accelerated Rhetoric.

Students in Rhetoric I learn what it means to

participate responsibly and effectively in a controversy.

They learn not only how to analyze particular rhetorical

acts but, in particular, students are taught to understand

how such acts relate to one another in the context of a

controversial exchange. In Rhetoric II, students are

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expected to assume the role of advocate and take a stand on

a controversial public issue, articulating a position for

themselves in relation to others. Accelerated Rhetoric

offers the same content as Rhetoric I and II but condensed

in one semester.

The focal classrooms in this study are two sections of

Rhetoric I with similar instruction offered in both

sections. The two sections were taught by two teachers new

to the Rhetoric Department. In each class, each focal

student was the only ESL student in the course. In Yuna’s

section, there were twenty students. In Cindy’s class there

were twenty-two students. Each class met in the mornings

everyday from Monday through Thursday for a fifty-minute

period.

Assignments

Rhetoric I, Rhetoric II, and Accelerated Rhetoric

courses require at least six major assignments, three

focused on writing and three focused on speaking. Major

assignments are conceived of as substantial and

challenging. Specifically, a major assignment is intended

to meet two criteria (quoted from the Rhetoric Handbook,

2003-2004, p.4).

1. The student’s performance goes through more than one

version or draft. It is not impromptu but has been

prepared in advance.

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2. The student receives a written response from the

teacher, peer response as well as tutor response in

the case of students enrolled in the Learning

Resource Center. Some sort of response is usually

helpful for each version or draft of the

performance.

In addition to the formal assignments, teachers pursue

their instructional goals through many less formal

assignments and activities, including reading responses,

brainstorming, impromptu speeches, and class discussion.

The Rhetoric Handbook (p. 4) describes these kinds of

assignments as follows:

1. “The student’s performance is exploratory and

improvised rather than fully revised and polished.”

2. “Response focuses on content, on discovery and

criticism of ideas rather than formal perfection.”

The philosophic goal of the Rhetoric classroom is to be one

of preparing students for success within the major

assignments by developing necessary abilities and exploring

possible topics and strategies.

PDP: The Professional Development

Program

The Professional Development Program (PDP) at the

Department of Rhetoric was created with the idea of

providing support to all Rhetoric teachers during their

first semester, while contributing to their long-term

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growth as educators. As stated in the Rhetoric Handbook “It

is not a training program but a forum for dialogue among

novice and experienced teachers learning from each other”

(p. 10).

The PDP experience starts with a three-day workshop

prior to the beginning of the fall semester. A faculty

member and one or two experienced TAs lead the advisory

groups made up of approximately a dozen new teachers. The

purpose of these advisory groups is to orient teachers

regarding important features of the Rhetoric class. Some of

the topics discussed include but are not restricted to, the

basic trajectory of the Rhetoric curriculum in its broadest

terms, the concepts that teachers need to cover in their

classes, and some discussion of what it means to teach

critical reading, writing, and speaking all in one course.

In their advisory groups, teachers begin developing general

plans for the semester as well as detailed plans for the

opening weeks. The workshop also serves as a framework for

discussing larger issues, ranging from rhetorical

principles to pedagogical approaches.

It is important to emphasize that PDP participation is

not restricted only to the three-day workshop. Discussions

about teaching continues in a required colloquium meeting

every week during the semester. Attendance and satisfactory

performance in the August Workshop and in the weekly

colloquium are part of every new TA’s and Rhetoric

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faculty’s employment contract. They must comply with these

requirements as long as they work as Rhetoric teachers.

Since the two participating Rhetoric teachers were

required to attend PDP sessions, I was interested in

acquiring a deeper understanding of the structure and

dynamics of the program. Likewise, I wanted to know if and

to what extent the program had any influence on their work

as Rhetoric teachers. For this reason, during the third

week of classes, I asked the PDP leader of the group, Nancy

Williams, to permit me to attend selected sessions where

the two teachers were present. Regrettably, my request was

turned down. In spite of my reassurance that my presence

would not be disruptive, she politely refused by saying

that the presence of a person strange to the group might be

uncomfortable because “sometimes delicate issues are

brought up.” She thought that the nature of the matters

discussed among the group could prevent some teachers from

expressing their ideas openly. Following her decision, I

asked her for an interview in order to understand the

intent of the PDP programs, an invitation that she kindly

accepted.

I interviewed Nancy during the first week of September

in her office, located in the Rhetoric Building. Nancy is

the faculty leader of the group, although there are two

graduate students who are co-leaders along with her and who

are experienced teachers of Rhetoric. Nancy describes her

main role in the program as follows,

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A facilitator, a guide; I’m also the teacher advisor for everyone in the group. I’m part of the supportive system and so forth…. Of course, they are answerable to me in terms of whether or not they are creating course materials and I’m looking at whether or not they’re keeping the classroom functioning, stuff like that. So, I’m sort of the first person they come to.

She describes her role as challenging in a number of

ways. She mentions a particular situation in the current

semester and describes, “having in the same room working

together in a PDP advisory group, people who have never

taught in a classroom before and people who have taught in

a classroom for twenty years... I mean, this is a new

culture” Nancy refers specifically to one of the teachers

who was recently incorporated to the program and who has a

very strong teaching background. Likewise, she has in the

same advisory group teachers who have never taught a

rhetoric class. In this particular situation, what Nancy

has tried early in the semester is to establish a kind of

teaching community in the PDP group. She values this

approach as a kind of resource, as an opportunity to bring

people together to share different kinds of information

that draw from varying areas of expertise. In the case of

people with extended experiences, she believes that they

can talk in PDP about their understanding of classroom

dynamics from that angle. Talking about her own perceptions

of the program she says, “I think of it very much as an

opportunity to acclimate teachers to this particular

teaching environment.” Nancy also stressed the

inconvenience of making assumptions regarding the teaching

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experience of the teachers who participate in the programs.

As she put it,

I can’t go into PDP assuming I’m talking to a bunch of novice teachers. Obviously, I’m going to lose part of my audience right away, and likewise I can’t go in assuming that people have years of understanding classroom dynamics, different approaches to pedagogy and curriculum and so forth.

Taking into account the importance placed on the

Professional Development Program by the Rhetoric faculty, I

was interested in the extent to which the PDP shaped the

enactment of the instruction in the Rhetoric courses. In my

attempt to document this influence, I interviewed the two

Rhetoric teachers, Matt and Anne and the Learning Resource

Center tutor, Karla, to understand their perceptions

regarding PDP.

Matt, for example, referred to PDP as “a good

workshop.” He added that he did not regard the program as

influential in his teaching work. As he put it, “I would

actually say that it doesn’t so much as influence my work.

It helps establish my own boundaries…” In the same vein,

Anne reported that the PDP groups exerted little influence

on her teaching. She said,

There are no really structured guidelines. We have to give them three writing assignments, three speaking assignments, but what we do is up to us…And we have to give back our ideas to each other, a lot of stuff, a lot of assignments come from that form.

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Karla views PDP as a resource that teachers can use to

improve their strategies as teachers, especially in the

case of the design of assignments. She said,

It (PDP) just gives me confidence because I realize…actually I have a very good idea and a pretty good plan for how to help these students, and I consider…. In terms of practicalness …helping them find where the argument is, but a lot of people would think whoa, I wouldn’t do that way, or…I think, you know, it’s wonderful to have that discussion but I don’t think it’s teaching them rhetorical analysis; it’s teaching them to get involved for debates or whatever, and so that’s the basic thing that PDP gave me, just to give me a sense of what I was doing…

As the above comments indicate, there seems to be a

perception among the teachers I interviewed that PDP does

not represent a key influence on their work with students.

Although PDP is represented by the Rhetoric Department as

influencing the development of their teachers, at least for

those I interviewed, this was not the case. Rather, they

seem to view PDP as a program that offers options for

instruction that they can take or not.

Although there is no one template for all Rhetoric

classes, there exists some fairly basic patterns that

nearly all teachers follow. Among the commonalities of all

Rhetoric classrooms, Nancy mentions in particular as common

elements the number of major assignments, the emphasis on

the workshopping and revision processes, and setting aside

of time for reading and discussion of written pieces

selected from a list of possible readers. Apart from those

common patterns, she said, “everybody has slightly

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different day-to-day schedules; everybody has certain

practices of how often they are going to read and have the

discussion.”

Talking specifically about the goals and purposes of

Rhetoric courses, she says:

I would say the goal of a teacher in a Rhetoric course should be to make sure that students complete that course and become more effective rhetoricians, able to shape language effectively to convey meaning very clearly, and to understand things, like who is my audience, who am I addressing, what is my purpose, what am I trying to convey…what is it that I’d like to get across to my audience…understanding the larger context, the issue of how the context you are using shapes your discourse. And in both cases—writing and speaking—again I think the kinds of readings that you do in Rhetoric, of course, will hopefully fit into provide examples for students on writing so that they can get some models to work on, some outstanding published professional writers, for example, formulating…using language effectively.

Nancy’s ideas regarding the goals and purposes of

Rhetoric courses seem to reinforce the idea of integrating

various literacy events—reading, writing and speaking—into

a single course that challenges students to consider what

it means to speak as a member of a community. Thus,

Rhetoric is viewed as “An art of civic discourse” (Rhetoric

Handbook, 2002-2003, p. 1).

I also inquired of Nancy concerning the ways in which

feedback and revision were approached in PDP. This is what

she said,

I would certainly say my main concern in the Rhetoric classroom is more that my students have something to get across, that they have a significant idea to share or argument to make, and I tell them with revision to work globally

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first, to look at the big picture, what is the general idea you are trying to get across; how have you broken it into units of meaning; are the transitions clear; is there supportive evidence, because they are almost always working with some kind of text beside from their own ideas. This applies to both teachers’ and students’ revisions: talk about all the stuff first, talk about the big picture, talk about content, talk about organization, talk about flow, talk about supporting evidence. Then, talk about things like how I do it, commas or other adjustments that need to be made at the sentence level… In my own classroom, the way they give feedback for each other in groups is pretty structured, and it’s again the different kinds of forms I use with them. I use workshop sheets to work during the semester.

The Rhetoric philosophy concerning feedback and

revision appears to reflect emphasis on steering students

away from sentence level fixing and on promoting

discussion. There seems to be a great emphasis on inviting

a writer to talk about his or her approach, about what

he/she is trying to tell readers, to ask questions and

express concerns. In summary, there is much emphasis on

revision as a kind of sharing of ideas. Content is

emphasized before form, unless form is interfering with the

communication of meaning. This approach to revision is

significant particularly in the case of second language

writers, whose concerns for grammar error correction on

their papers might conflict with tutors’ own agendas

regarding revision.

Nancy also praises the role of Learning Resource

Center tutors in providing effective feedback to students.

As she puts it,

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Tutoring feedback, I think, can be a lot friendlier. I mean, because there isn’t that sort of implied threat, that evaluative threat hanging over the student. Someone in the LRC can only be a coach in a way that a teacher can’t…

The Professional Development Program faculty usually

view feedback and revision in the case of ESL students as a

particular concern. The question usually gets framed in PDP

discussions as “What do I do about ESL students’ texts?”

Nancy sidestepped the issue and said she always stresses

the notion that mechanics and grammatical correctness

really shouldn’t be the central focus of revision. The main

focus should be whether the writer has a clear idea to

convey, and whether she is able to shape language

effectively enough so that she can get it across. In

Nancy’s opinion, if there are surface concerns and the

meaning is not evident, then teachers should certainly be

talking to the student about going to the Learning Resource

Center because they need to worry about making sure that

their ideas are clear at the surface level. In fact, the

PDP sessions have few explicit discussions of issues ESL

students face in Rhetoric classrooms.

In spite of the emphasis placed on content, Nancy

recognizes that there can be people who are starting to

teach writing and talk about surface level aspects first.

“Often they become burned out,” as Nancy put it. In fact,

some research studies conducted with second language

writers (Cohen and Cavalcanti, 1990; Truscott, 1996; Zamel,

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1985) have shown the negative effects of error correction

on student accuracy. The results obtained in these studies

seem to agree that some forms of feedback given by teachers

are erratic and inaccurate.

The Learning Resource Center

The Learning Resource Center at Midwestern University

was founded in 1934 and has a long-standing tradition of

one-on-one instruction in rhetorical and communication

skills. It offers free individual instruction to any

student, including Rhetoric students, who need or who want

more help than the class teacher can provide. A hallmark of

this Center has been an understanding of how discourse,

whether of writing, speaking, reading, or listening, is

both purpose-and audience-driven (Learning Resource Center

Web page). In other words, the Center’s philosophy matches

the Rhetoric courses’ focus on the analysis of texts from

the point of view of their effectiveness for particular

audiences, occasions, and purposes.

The Learning Resource Center is staffed by graduate

students from certain academic departments, particularly

English, Communication Studies, and Rhetoric. Students

hired as tutors to work in the Center are required to have

excelled in writing as well as have completed or be

enrolled in the seminar-practicum “Teaching in the Resource

Center,” offered during the fall semester. As part of the

requirements of this seminar, students are expected to

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spend most of the semester working in the Resource Center

as tutors and bring to the seminar the different issues

that arise during one-on-one conferencing. Seminar

discussions usually provide rich evidence of the most

common problems encountered during tutoring sessions,

serving as a springboard to offer possible alternatives and

solutions to address the problems.

Tutors are oriented to not “fix” individual papers,

but rather to assist writers in improving their strategies

of researching, organizing, drafting, editing, and

revising. All levels of discourse are addressed, from idea

development and brainstorming to word choice and comma

placement. Starting from the premise that writing and

thinking are processes that involve talking through

concerns and revising, instruction in the Learning Resource

Center is usually viewed as a collaborative act.

Consequently, a mentoring relationship between tutor and

tutee is likely to develop. Like the Center itself,

tutoring is defined by both theory and practice. Tutoring

is conceived of as an instructional practice grounded in

the humanistic tradition’s appreciation for interpersonal

dynamics and for individual learning styles (Murphy and

Sherwood, 1996).

Students who opt to participate in the Learning

Resource Center can choose from three different programs

that vary according to the levels of involvement: the

Enrollment, the Appointment, and E-mail tutoring. Students

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who attend the Enrollment program work with the same tutor

every session (approximately thirty minutes each session)

twice a week. In the Appointment program, students are not

assigned the same tutor. Tutors are available for students

on a daily basis during evening hours. The E-mail Tutoring

program is also available for all the students who don’t

have enough time to enroll but who want to receive some

feedback on their writing. However, ESL students are

usually advised to register for enrollment hours in order

to meet the different needs that they have and that cannot

be effectively addressed through e-mail tutoring.

Taking into account the important role that the

Learning Resource Center plays within the Rhetoric

Department, I needed to explore more deeply this dimension

of the pedagogical context. For this purpose, I decided to

interview the LRC director in order to get a better

perspective about the goals and purposes of the Center. We

met at her office during the third week of classes.

Patricia: The Writing Center Director

Patricia Jones, an Associate Professor at the Rhetoric

Department, began her term as director of the Learning

Resource Center in 1991. Before that time, she worked for

twelve years at an urban university in the Midwest as an

instructor in a program especially designed for high risk

students, for students who were from low socio-economic

backgrounds and/or who are first generation college

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students, including African Americans, Puerto Ricans and

Mexicans. Talking about the connection between her prior

experience as an instructor of a program for the under-

prepared and her new position as a director of the Learning

Resource Center, Patricia says,

Students recruited by this program had special classes that were more intensive for them, so I said oh this sounds like a good position for me, because they were going to end that program that I was working for; it was going to become all African American, so I needed another job, not being African American right? So, I applied for it and the people in the search committee saw the connections between what I was doing and the LRC, which then was conceived of as a program for the under prepared, so the understanding was that that’s what I was gonna do, run the LRC. For a year I taught Rhetoric, I took PDP, and I took the LRC course, and then the next year I became the LRC director, and I have been ever since…

Although the Learning Resource Center was originally a

program for underprepared students, Patricia believes that

she has broadened the Center’s goals and purposes so that

now it reflects more than a retention or remedial type of

function. Patricia conceives of the Learning Resource

Center as an open space for every interested individual,

not only ESL students, not only the under-prepared, but for

everyone. She expects the learning community, both

students and instructors, to see attendance at the Center

as a kind of normal procedure, not something that is

stigmatized.

As LRC director, Patricia co-ordinates the three LRC

programs: Enrollment, Appointment, and E-mail tutoring. She

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also teaches a seminar to prepare new tutors, and

supervises a pre-Rhetoric course taught via LRC tutorial.

She manages a LRC staff of approximately 30 people at three

sites. At the same time, she conducts writing center

research, representing the Midwestern University LRC at

national and international conferences. She also serves on

the editorial boards of various writing journals.

One of the salient features of the Center is its

demographic diversity, reflected in its International and

multiethnic participants. Every semester, students from ten

to fifteen different language backgrounds and countries

enroll (Center Web Page). When discussing enrollment

statistics in the Center, Patricia estimates that about 120

students per semester participate in the Enrollment

program, more than 450 students participate in the

Appointment program, and about 300 students per semester

participate in the E-Mail Tutoring. The Enrollment option

is the most intense of the three programs but has the

smallest population because of the high level of commitment

to attend and participate. ESL students’ registration has

usually represented about 40-50% in the Enrollment program

and around 20% in the Appointment program. During the Fall

Semester 2002 when data collection for the present study

took place, the figures for the ESL enrollment decreased

slightly to about 33%. According to Patricia, this decrease

can be attributed to the number of Rhetoric students

enrolling in the Appointment program.

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Patricia believes the E-mail Tutoring program is a

challenge for the ESL students. Currently, this option is

mostly used by native speakers of English and is staffed by

a Program Assistant, who is also a creative writer.

Describing the Center’s accomplishments, Patricia expresses

satisfaction for tripling the capacity of the Center and

broadening the services offered to students. She is also

proud of the quality mentoring service available to the

whole University community.

The Rhetoric Teachers

Matt: The Non- Fiction Writer What follows is Matt’s introduction to his Course

Policy Statement,

At 6000 feet it is easy to forget how it is that one has summited Mount Spokane, even easier to forget the days of inclement weather or just what reason drove the self to attempt such. Sitting here with an MSR one liter fuel bottle depleted for a tea ceremony, I reflected on the ascent. It’s not about summiting but the journey. My mind drifts among many thoughts, the way the weather turned, the poor hold I chose early on the ascent, and the avian I spoke with while climbing the snow covered face. I want to write about which of these thoughts should bespeak most…and what is underlying all? I drink the Matcha from the bowl allowing my thoughts to quiet… January 12, 2002.

Matt’s introduction to the Course Policy Statement

shows his unconventional approach to writing and reflects

in many ways his goals and purposes in teaching Rhetoric.

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He says he wants to use a thought-provoking narration based

on a personal experience and immediately poses a question

that asks students to reflect on: “What does the above have

to do with rhetoric?” to stimulate students’ thinking.

Talking about Matt’s goals and purposes when teaching

Rhetoric, he says that the focus of the course is the self

with respect to place and position, and Rhetoric is used

“to uncover the How’s, What’s and Why’s of everyday

arguments.” He believes that too often people tend to

overlook the smaller elements that establish an argument.

For this reason, one of his purposes is “to spend a good

deal of time considering what an argument is, how it might

be established, and for that matter even where an argument

can be found.” Challenge is an aspect that Matt stresses in

all of the activities of his class, especially in the

assignments. Because I was interested in having a better

perspective of the way Matt enacted his teaching philosophy

in the Rhetoric class, I decided to observe him in the

context of his classroom. What follows is a description of

a typical class.

A Typical Class

I visited Matt’s classroom for the first time early in

September 2002. It’s the first day of the third week of

classes and only a few students have arrived in the

classroom, located in the basement of the Rhetoric

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Building. They look at me curiously, probably trying to

find out the reasons for my presence there. One student

approaches me and asks if I’m a new student. I reply by

telling her that I’m conducting a research study and that I

will be observing the class until the end of the semester.

All the seats are already arranged in semi-circles,

and I am thankful to be there early and to take one of the

seats in the right corner so that the students do not feel

distracted by my presence in their classroom. Yuna arrives

some minutes later and takes the seat close to mine. She

greets me with a big smile, her face revealing no anxiety.

I also greet her cheerfully, feeling relaxed because of her

seemingly friendly attitude.

After a few minutes, the classroom is crowded with the

20 students enrolled in the class, out of which Yuna is the

only ESL student. Matt shows up at the exact class time and

greets the students respectfully. He starts the class by

asking the students: “Has anybody worked in workshops

before?” No one raises their hands. Today, students will

work in groups to “workshop” their responses to an assigned

composition based on the students’ prior visit to the Art

Museum. As used in the context of the Rhetoric courses,

workshops are a form of peer response activity in which

students work together to provide feedback on one another’s

writing in both oral and written formats. Liu & Hansen

(2002) view peer feedback and editing as an important

component of writing instruction that “builds audience

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awareness, helps make reading-writing connections; and

builds content, linguistic, and rhetorical schemata through

multiple exposures to a text” (p. 3).

In Matt’s class, the workshop activity will serve as

the basis for the instructional unit that the teacher has

titled “Self Identity: The Self as Modeled Through Artistic

Rhetoric.” For this assignment, students are required to

choose a piece of art and describe it, taking into account

“the way it embodies your personality.” For the workshop,

Matt hands out a set of guidelines referred to as “Twelve

Steps to Building a Better Essay,” which the students will

use as a reference to comment on their peers’ compositions.

After handing out the material, Matt provides some general

explanations regarding the purpose of the workshop

activity. He urges that students avoid referring to

grammatical errors when reading the students’ essays but

rather refer to content by writing comments in the margins.

In other words, students are required to provide both oral

feedback and written feedback in their comments.

Students are randomly assigned to groups by counting 1

to 4. All the students move their seats to work face-to-

face with their group members. Yuna is assigned to work

with a six-person group. I’m sitting some distance from her

group, so I am not able to make up the content of the

interaction. I concentrate my observation on Yuna, who is

listening attentively to what other people in the group are

saying. From time to time, she looks something up in a

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bilingual dictionary that she has in her backpack, but I

see no talking on her part. Matt walks by the groups and

interacts with them by asking questions about the activity.

Privately, I wonder why the groups are so big and how this

activity is going to help Yuna improve her essay, but at

the same time I’m conscious of the need to be objective and

to avoid making judgments. After approximately a thirty-

minute interaction, the students finish the activity and

the teacher reminds them of the next day’s activity.

A week later, the students are discussing a previously

assigned reading. The piece is titled “What Makes a Good

Leader” by Daniel Goleman and is based on the author’s

views of the relationship between leadership skills and

success in the changing workplace. Together with the text,

Matt provides the students with some verbal prompts to

guide students’ comprehension of the most important ideas

contained in the reading. Matt opens the activity by using

some of the prompts to stimulate a discussion among the

groups. In spite of Matt’s efforts to engage the students

in the discussion, most of them, including Yuna, remain

silent. In response to the students’ passivity, Matt

reacts by answering his own questions and leading most of

the discussion. Because of the lack of participation by the

students, the flow of the class is rather slow. I continue

to observe some of the students go over the readings as if

they were looking for specific answers, but there is no

attempt on their part to participate in the discussion.

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Yuna is one of the students who remains not only completely

silent; she also looks bored and unfocused. The teacher

chooses not to push her and the rest of the students who do

not participate to become more involved in the discussion.

Matt’s tone of voice—sometimes too low, sometimes too loud—

makes some of the students laugh and lose their

concentration on the activity. Matt’s rigid position

enhanced by speaking from his desk also contributes to the

slow dynamics of the class discussion.

Matt raises some questions for which the students seem

not to have an answer. In this case, Matt immediately

provides the answer and the students do not make any

attempt to discuss it. When the class is over, I approach

Yuna and ask why she was so silent during the discussion.

She replies by saying that she lacks the necessary

background knowledge on the topic and sufficient vocabulary

in English, so she feels she is not prepared to engage in a

discussion.

This anecdote of a class event typifies Yuna’s

experience in Matt’s class. In most classes, she seemed

engaged, but did not feel confident enough to participate

in the discussions. The fact that Matt showed sympathy and

understanding for Yuna’s lack of confidence to communicate

in English by never pushing her to participate more

actively in class, contributed to Yuna’s decision to remain

silent and not take risks. Yuna’s low level of

participation in class discussions seemed to not have a

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negative effect on Matt’s perception about her as a

Rhetoric student. He said,

The specific case of my ESL student is really interesting. She has come very prepared…and I’d venture to say more so than most of the students in the class. Challenge is based on communication and establishing a sense that we are communicating. And I would say that this student gets these items very well…and when she doesn’t, she does ask for help, which is very important. And it’s something like…I guess if I had a whole class of ESL student, this might be more difficult because I would have to work with each individual…on an individual basis.

During our interviews, Matt also emphasized that he

was “fairly liberal” when correcting Yuna’s essays. This

particular approach to correction allowed him to set aside

grammatical errors and focus on the content of her essays.

As he put it,

She (Yuna) has had two, three months of English…and there are idiomatics that just don’t transfer What I did was set that aside and said I can correct this, this is really good, this is really doing what it needs to…

What follows, is a description of a typical day in

Cindy’s classroom. Although teaching the same course and

attending the same PDP group, Matt and Anne seem to have

distinct agendas that reflect their own goals and purposes

in teaching rhetoric. This description will also illustrate

the different dynamics of both classes. As shall be seen,

Anne’s strategies to engage students in class discussions

differ considerably from those of Matt’s.

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Anne: The Medical Anthropologist

“Writing is a tool to share ideas rather than an

activity.”

Anne, a woman in her twenties, has never considered

herself as a writer although it is an integral part of what

she does. Because of the nature of her work as

anthropologist, she says that she rarely reads literature.

Because of her lack of time for doing so, she says she is

more interested in world events rather than fiction.

However, there are some novelists who have had an impact on

her. They include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende,

and Rodolfo Anaya because of their use of language and

their power as storytellers. She also appreciates James

Michner, Gunter Grass, and Umberto Eco for their sense of

history and for their prowess as storytellers. As far as

scholars are concerned, Michel Foucault has had a great

impact on her work. The two scholars who are currently most

important to her are Paul Farmer and Nancy Scheper-Hughes,

medical anthropologists who advocate health among

impoverished peoples, ”peoples who are impoverished not

because of lifestyle choices but because of a system in

which the poor get poorer and the rich get richer,” Ann

reports. This quote illuminates Anne’s philosophy of

writing, a philosophy that is also consistent with the way

she teaches Rhetoric,

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As an anthropology student, my main tasks are reading and writing, but for me the pursuit of knowledge is paramount and writing is a reflection of intellectual integrity. Therefore, I cannot separate writing from other intellectual practices—reading, speaking, or engaging in thought-provoking discussions….Writing for me is not just an activity. It does not stop when the piece is finished, the paper handed in to the professor, or the abstract is submitted. It is about knowledge production and the sharing of ideas. Therefore, for me writing is a way to get something out into the world. It needs to do something whether that is try to persuade a reader to take a certain action or just allow the reader to enter into another world. But writing for me is often difficult. Thoughts and ideas that seem concrete in my mind do not make it onto the page fully formed. I am rarely pleased with the end result and often feel that what I have written does not reflect the knowledge that I have….The confidence I feel in the knowledge that I have, does not translate onto the page.

Talking about her role as a Rhetoric teacher, Anne

does not see teaching students to write as her first

priority. Rather, she perceives her job is to teach

students how to formulate and defend arguments as well as

have conviction in their own beliefs. She wants them to

feel strongly about what they are doing and this should be

reflected in their writing. She stresses the fact that she

always tries to keep those ideas in mind in teaching

students how to write. As she put it,

I stress the importance of finding an issue that they can relate to and I am more concerned with the strength of the main argument than with grammatical errors or structure. I am sure many of them have trouble writing, but for different reasons. Their investment in the material they are writing on, or lack thereof, makes the process in some ways both easier and more difficult for them…easier because their passions are not being displayed on the page to be judged

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and critiqued; more difficult because they do not have the passion guiding them.

A Typical Class

My observations of Anne’s Rhetoric class started the

first week of September. Her classroom, located in the

basement of the Rhetoric building, is a rather tight space

for the 22 students enrolled in the course. Desks are

usually arranged in a semi-circle, making it possible for

the students to see each other. There is a big chalkboard

positioned at the front of the room, together with the

teacher’s desk and an overhead projector. The walls are

painted in a light color and bear no visual display. As

compared with Matt’s classroom, people in this group appear

to know each other better, as reflected by the camaraderie

that I perceived from the first time I entered the room.

Before Anne’s arrival, students in small groups are

engaged in lively discussions and telling funny jokes.

Cindy shows up some minutes later and respectfully greets

me, taking a seat close to mine. Predictably, some of the

students look at me curiously, but there is no attempt to

inquire about my presence in their room, nor is there a

formal introduction of me by Anne before starting the

class.

Anne’s class is characterized by frequent

interactions, between teacher and student but also students

interacting with each other. She frequently uses different

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strategies to make students participate in the discussions

generated in the classroom, including questions and other

prompts. It is apparent that students are motivated to

express their points of view regarding diverse issues that

are brought up during the group discussions. Anne

encourages the students’ voluntary participation in class,

but she also engages the more silent students by constantly

posing various types of questions to individual students.

Anne says that the dynamics of her classroom is an

expression of her goals and purposes in teaching Rhetoric,

My overall goal is really to get the students here to think about issues, really engage information and become really involved…and get some sort of passion no matter what it is, but to really get involved in some of these issues, any issue, I don’t care what it is. So that’s my overall goal-it’s to really try to… engage some issues and get them to think about that. In writing, my major goal is just to…make them see writing as a different kind of meaning rather than just writing as they speak. The other one is trying to stress the importance of writing…as something always evolving…the written word has power and that if they can do something with it, it’s just not something for a grade but that they can really have this passion that I want them to discover. They can find a way to express it in the written word. It’s not something to put on a paper and get a grade on it. It’s something they can really get involved in and they can express well…

During the first week of October, I observed a class

that would serve as an introduction to the unit on

controversies, the content for both the second oral and

written projects. For this class, Anne’s students are

required to read a magazine article titled “Are the

Photographs Racist or Real? The Furor Over Crack’s Color.”

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The teacher opens the discussion by stating, “There is a

point to be made here. The author focused on only one

racial group.” Some of the students raise their hands,

stating that probably the author is racist. Anne leads the

discussion and cites specific bibliographical references

related to racism and drugs. Some of the students try to

discuss the question first and an interesting discussion

begins to take place. She also asks different kinds of

questions prompted by some of the pictures shown in the

text. “What is the power of these images? What is the

message? How is color, lighting, positioning used to convey

the message? What emotions, feelings are evoked?”

Using the questions above as prompts for discussion,

the teacher asks students to work in groups of four with

several pictures that she has brought to the class.

Students are required to use these pictures and the prompts

during the discussion and concentrate specifically on their

reactions and feelings about the pictures. In discussions,

they are also required to refer to specific aspects such as

color, lighting, and angle in the pictures. I am not able

to see each picture clearly, but the ones that I am able to

observe portray a Nazi concentration camp, and a pile of

gas cans used for crematory chambers. Two other pictures

show a girl in a lonely street amid Communist slogans. Anne

stresses the importance of color in the pictures: “Colors

are very purposeful... Sometimes, images are more powerful

than words.” As a follow-up of this activity, students are

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required for the next class to get in groups of five and

take pictures of different sites in the local community.

Anne calls this project “Selling the Local Community.” The

idea is to use the activity as an example of how to put art

in context.

As stated earlier, the purpose of the activity was to

introduce the unit based on the description of

controversies. Anne’s strategy with the pictures of

powerful images appeared to be useful in helping her

students understand how specific elements of images, such

as lighting, color and positioning can be used to evoke

feelings and emotions. Through the analysis of these

elements and the discussion about the pictures’ intended

messages, Anne was able to lead her students into a

rhetorical analysis of the artifacts. Anne’s follow-up

activity of asking students to take their own pictures also

proved beneficial, not only because it allowed them to use

their own criteria in the selection of powerful images, but

also because it required of them the use of effective

arguments to sell their product—the local community.

At the beginning of the next class, students joined

their groups to analyze the photos and to come up with

captions that describe the content and context of every

picture. Most of the pictures that I observed were

landscapes of the university campus, and attractive and

well-known spots of the city.

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Trying to follow the interaction that is taking place

in Cindy’s group, I sit close to capture the essence of the

discussion. There is much talk in the group; each student

takes turns observing the pictures and suggesting possible

captions for each picture. Even though Cindy observes the

pictures, she does not participate in the discussion, nor

is she required by the group to express her views about the

pictures or to come up with ideas for the captions. After

this part of the activity, the teacher collects the

pictures together with the captions from each group and

then redistributes them among different groups. Now, the

students are required to read the captions and come up with

different captions, keeping in mind the idea that they will

use the photos to sell the image of the city. Again, in

this part of the activity, Cindy remains completely silent.

Regrettably, there is not any attempt, either from the

group or by Cindy to contribute her ideas in the

discussion.

The class is over and I decide to wait for Cindy

outside the classroom to inquire about the activity in her

group. Visibly upset, she tells me that she had not tried

to participate in the discussion because she did not feel

comfortable with the assignment. She thought that the

activity would have worked better had the pictures been

evenly distributed among the group and had every student

been given the opportunity to come up with a caption and

write it beneath each picture. She also acknowledged that

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her lack of confidence in her English oral skills usually

prevented her from participating in the group discussions

During our interviews, Anne described Cindy as a hard-

working student “who has put forth more effort than any

other student in this class.” In an interview, Anne praised

Cindy’s progress as a Rhetoric student stating that,

From her first paper to this last speech, I can see huge, huge improvement. She understands the assignment and is working so hard at getting the language correct…and she’s got such sophisticated thinking…

She also acknowledged that sometimes it was hard for

her to understand her writing. For this reason, she found

it necessary to sit down one-on-one because Cindy was still

lacking in some of the writing skills, such as putting

sentences together. She added, “I wish that I had had more

time to work with her.” She also commented on Cindy’s lack

of confidence, although she saw improvement in that aspect

as well at the end of the semester.

Summary

My first subject of research questions focuses on the

pedagogical context of the Rhetoric classrooms. In this

section, I address these questions. The data sources that

inform my comments include interviews, class observations,

course syllabi, course policy statement, and fieldnotes. In

considering the characteristics of the broader pedagogical

context in which feedback and revision are embedded, it is

possible to see how the uniqueness of these characteristics

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defines the research setting. The lack of contextual

studies on teacher feedback and student revision has led

researchers to conceptualize the process as a linear one

(students write, teachers respond, and then students

revise). As Goldstein (2001) remarks, this notion ignores a

process in which multiple factors interact in very complex

ways, factors that are unique for each study. By

documenting the interpersonal dynamics of feedback and

revision within the larger context of instruction, a more

dynamic representation of the factors that affect the way

in which a teacher or a tutor respond to ESL students’

texts, and students’ react to it may emerge. The chapters

that follow will document how these various factors

interact.

Consistent with the Rhetoric Department’s pedagogy,

Rhetoric classes and the Learning Resource Center at

Midwestern University seem to emphasize understanding of

discourse as both purpose-and audience-driven. Although

teaching the same class and attending the same PDP group,

both Rhetoric teachers were free to set their own course

goals. In other words, how they enacted their teaching was

up to them.

There seems to be a common agreement in all the

various contexts analyzed to approach revision as based

both on self-criticism and audience response, and as a

process in which content is privileged over form. These

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aspects, as shall be seen later, will have an important

effect on the way the two focal students approach revision.

In Chapter V, I explore another dimension of the

pedagogical context for the focal ESL students by

documenting Karla’s philosophy of tutoring. The data

presented in Chapters VI and VII will help us better

understand the connection between Karla’s approach to

tutoring and the way the two focal students approach

revision. The sessions will also illuminate the themes that

started to emerge as a result of the nature of these

tutoring sessions.

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CHAPTER V

KARLA: A MUSICOLOGIST SERVING AS A

WRITING TUTOR IN THE LEARNING RESOURCE

CENTER

Overview

In this chapter, I portray Karla, the participating

writing tutor, based on interviews and her interactions

with the two focal students in the Learning Resource

Center. The rationale for focusing on the tutor has to do

with my desire to deeply explore the influence of her

tutoring work particularly on the students’ revisions

processes, and generally on the development of their

writing skills. Because of Karla’s close and regular

contact with the two focal students and because she was the

main source of feedback for the students as they revise

their written assignments, it was reasonable to assume that

she had a good understanding of their strengths and

weaknesses as student writers. Consequently, it was

important to explore this dimension of the pedagogical

context.

In order to understand Karla’s major influence on the

students’ revision processes, I selected key transcripts to

illuminate the philosophy of tutoring that she enacted

through the use of inductive approaches to help students

clarify arguments and resolve semantic problems. Focus will

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be on the final sessions because they illuminate the

culmination of an entire semester’s worth of sessions.

A Personal Portrait

I met Karla in 1999, when we both were enrolled in the

seminar-practicum “Teaching in the Writing Center.” As

stated in the course description, one of the main goals of

this seminar is to train prospective graduate students to

work at the University Learning Resource Center by

providing in-depth study in five specific strands: reading

and writing processes, writing center issues (e.g., the

need to expand the Center’s programs and to have tutors who

are diverse with regard to culture, race, language

background and discipline), the dynamics of one-to-one, ESL

learning issues (e.g., Contrastive Rhetoric, problems of

word choice, sentence structure, and grammar and how these

aspects should be addressed), and basic writer issues

(e.g., how can pre-Rhetoric and Rhetoric students be

encouraged to write fluently about controversies when they

are doing much less personal writing in class?).

Of fourteen students, Karla and I were the only

International students taking part in the seminar. After a

few weeks of classes, we came to identify with one another,

probably because of our shared condition as non-American

students. When I found out that Karla would serve as the

tutor for the ESL students participating in my study, and

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that she was willing to participate as well, I was more

confident and relaxed. I knew that the task at hand was not

going to be an easy one and that the cooperation and

support provided by the tutor was an important condition

for the successful completion of my study.

A doctoral student in musicology, Karla is originally

from Ontario, Canada, where she obtained an undergraduate

degree in Music History with a major in music theory and a

concentration in violin performance. She began her

undergraduate program with the intent of pursuing a

performance degree but felt that because of her late start

in music, at age ten, it would be wise to cultivate her

other interests. Since music history by nature is

interdisciplinary, she viewed this path of study as the

best way to combine all her interests: music, history,

literature, art, drama, history, religion, philosophy,

aesthetics, and writing. She also completed a Masters of

Arts degree in Musicology “the thinking side of music

rather than the playing side of music,” as she put it, and

a bachelor’s degree in Music with honors from McGill

University in Montreal, Canada.

In addition to her formal education, she began to

study piano privately at the age of ten, taking exams

through the Royal Conservatory of Music. Afterwards, she

began violin instruction at age fourteen and took her exams

through the Western Conservatory of Music. Karla believes

that knowledge of European languages is essential to

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musicology and thus, in addition to music history and

theory, she has studied German, Latin, Italian, and Old

Occitan as part of her academic programs. Beyond her

schoolwork, Karla’s interests and hobbies include traveling

and reading novels.

Before becoming a tutor in the Learning Resource

Center, Karla had been working in the music department at

Midwestern University where she taught courses ranging from

Music Appreciation, Music History, Introduction to Graduate

Studies, and Graduate Music History. Because she considers

musicology to be related to writing, expressing ideas, and

arguments, she decided to apply for a scholarship offered

as an enticement for graduate students from departments

other than English to enroll in the “Teaching in the

Writing Center” course. She received the scholarship and

finally enrolled in the course. Talking about the course,

Karla said: “I took the course and I just loved it and then

I applied to teach in the Learning Resource Center and they

hired me as a Fine Arts-Across-the-Curriculum person.”

After being encouraged by teaching assistants from the

Rhetoric Department to apply for a Rhetoric position, she

decided to apply and the Department hired her to work as a

teacher while simultaneously tutoring in the Learning

Resource Center.

Karla does not see a gap between her area of

specialization and her work in the Rhetoric Department.

Rather, she names music as one of the major influences in

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her work as a Rhetoric teacher: “I sort of think about it

(her work as a Rhetoric teacher) like teaching music

theory, actually, where students learn paradigms and learn

how the paradigms work and are trained to create their own

paradigms and analyze, look for those paradigms in pieces

of music, and that’s the same thing that I do with

arguments...” Karla’s parallel usage of comparing music and

Rhetoric teaching helps us understand her conceptualization

of composing (both in music and writing) as creative acts,

as invention, and as forms of using language effectively.

In the following sections, readers will distinguish

some of the patterns that characterize Karla’s tutoring

work. I will provide specific examples of how Karla enacted

her philosophy of tutoring during her sessions with the two

focal students. All the examples provided are with Yuna

because the points I want to emphasize were more clearly

evident with Yuna.

Rhetoric and the Development of

Critical Thinking

At the time of data collection for this study, Karla

was teaching the first course of a year-long sequence of

the Rhetoric class that met four times a week. She was also

working at the Learning Resource Center where she was

tutoring four ESL students, all from Asia. Because of

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Karla’s busy schedule, it was hard to set a time to

interview her.

For our first formal interview, we met at her office,

located in the same building where the Learning Resource

Center and the Rhetoric classrooms are located. The space

is divided into four small cubicles separated by dividers.

Since she has to share the place with four more teachers,

at the beginning I was uncomfortable speaking openly with

her in the presence of others. However, Karla’s relaxed

appearance and her friendly tone of voice helped with

reassurance.

Talking about her role as a Rhetoric teacher, Karla

describes her main goals and purposes as follows,

My main goal is to teach students how to analyze, how to find out where the main argument is located in a text; how to identify a claim and a reason and the evidence…and to make sure that they understand the argument is all of these things going together…I’m a claim-and-evidence kind of person-that’s what I aim to do in Rhetoric. And so, most of the time is spent teaching them how to look for those… and quick ways to find them in a very deep way.

When I asked Karla whether the same goals rang true in

the case of ESL students, she said that she had exactly the

same kind of expectations and goals. She believes that,

regardless of the problems ESL students’ prose presents at

the local level, her approach to teaching Rhetoric helps

them the most if they are able to clarify their argument

and their rationale. Although Karla does not make any

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distinction between English native speakers (ENS) and

English-as-a-second language (ESL) students regarding her

goals and purposes in teaching Rhetoric and also with

regards to tutoring, she does recognize ESL students’

struggles to analyze arguments among the many challenges

they must face in Rhetoric courses. As she puts it:

Having them [ESL students] balance everything sometimes seems to be a lot more challenging for them because… it is for an undergrad in general, it’s a very foreign concept for them. They are having to do this way of critical thinking that they may have never done before at all, and so they are weak at it, they are just learning how to do it, and then having to do it in their second language, or third language for some of them, and just having the basic vocabulary, a lot of those words that we are using, like ethos, pathos, logos… have nothing to do… I mean, they are Greek words anyway. So, the English speakers have trouble weaving them into sentences, even they have trouble. But these guys… I mean, just getting them to understand the concepts in a way that is meaningful to them is hard because a lot of times they understand the explanations in the books, and you have to go over, over, and over with them, whereas the English speakers, if they don’t understand the concept, a lot of the time it is because they just haven’t paid very much attention to it, so I guess that’s the difference. It is that the English speakers need their attention focused to the concepts and they usually get it, but the ESL people sometimes… They struggle to use technical terms that they just don’t get, or they understand the term on the surface…”

Karla’s perceptions of the different approaches for

ESL and native-English speakers regarding argument

structure are consistent with the results of research

studies (Connor, 1984; Oi, 1985) that document the

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differences between ESL and NES composing processes when

dealing with this kind of genre. In general, this body of

research suggests that ESL writers’ composing processes

seem constrained in important ways and that they write with

more difficulty because of a lack of lexical resources

(Silva, 1997). According to Silva, “Many of the perceived

limitations of ESL writers are developmental; that is, they

exist because these writers are still learning English”

(p.210).

The following excerpt from a tutoring session between

Karla and Yuna exemplifies how a lexical problem that arose

during the discussion was addressed. Specifically, the

problem arose around confusion with the meaning of the word

“resolve” and Yuna’s synonym, “preserve,” an inappropriate

selection that led to greater confusion.

It was the first of a series of five tutoring sessions

and the purpose of the interaction was to discuss the

specific requirements and goals of Yuna’s final essay, “The

Need for Forest Fires as a Management Tool for Forest

Conservation.” For this assignment, Yuna and her classmates

were required to read four different articles representing

strong opinions and varied perspectives on how to manage

the forest system as well as to discover and rhetorically

analyze how each party represented a divergence of thought

or policy. K: Karla Y: Yuna

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(1) K: Okay, so far what I’m understanding… your assignment is to read four articles …

(2) Y: Uh huh. (3) K: And figure out how they differ on an issue? (4) Y: Different? Yeah. (5) K: How they differ? (6) Y: Differ…yes. First…first I have to figure out

who they are and what they support. (7) K: Okay. (8) Y: But the way they approach each…hum…give ah…give

reasons why they should remove and should resolve the forest. One part …

(9) K: Okay wait…can…I’m a little bit confused ‘cause I don’t understand the part of how they resolve the forest. I don’t understand how they resolve the forest

(10)Y: Not how, I mean why (11)K: I don’t understand why…like what you mean by

resolving the forest? (12)Y: Resolving. (13)K: Resolve to me means… (14)Y: Preserve, preserve. (15)K: Oh, preserve okay, cause resolve…you understand

what resolve means? What does it mean? (16)Y: It’s…like…save? (17)Y: Resolve? (18)Y: Yeah resolve…keep… (19)K: Okay, reserve is very close to the word

resolve…resolve is spelled like this r-e-s-o-l-v-e.

(20)Y: Uhuh. (21)K: Resolve…and what I heard you saying many times

was resolve, you see this word resolve is solve? When you solve something, you know what are you doing?

(22)Y: mmhmm… (23)K: What is it? (24)Y: Solve means…like…um…find…find the answer of a

math problem… (25)K: Yap, so when you resolve something what are you

doing? (26)Y: Hum…to do again? (27)K: Pardon me? (28)Y: To do again…I mean, to solve it again? (29)K: Okay, that makes sense ‘cause it has the word

re, right? That’s a very good deduction, excellent deduction, and you know, looking at the grammatical components of the word, no wonder you think it’s to retry solving the problem again… but…literally speaking, you can not resolve a forest, can you?

(30)Y: So… (31)K: Because a forest is a thing and resolve goes

…that word is specific as to stick with problem

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solving and forests are not specific words for problem solving, so it’s the wrong semantic category. So, reserve…you know what reserve means?

(32)M: Reserve is…hum…just save…and keep? (33)K: But it’s it’s more like…it’s saving but…it’s

putting aside for another day…

As the previous example illustrates, Karla and Yuna

collaborate to deal with the challenges of inadequate

lexical resources. The dynamics of the tutorial

conversation show Karla’s role in promoting a kind of

collaboration to solve a lexical problem as she builds on

the student’s ideas (Blau, Hall, & Strauss, 1998). During

the exchange, Karla fails to understand Yuna’s initial

utterance about “resolving the forest” (lines 8-13).

Afterwards, Karla opens a conversation where she negotiates

meaning through questioning (turns 15, 21, 23, 25, 31), and

clarification requests (turns 17 and 27), pushing Yuna to

verbalize her meaning intention in more comprehensible

terms. Turn 19 also shows Karla scaffolding (Vygotsky,

1978) Yuna’s response by spelling the word “resolve”, as

Karla attempts to help Yuna make the speech to print match.

According to Van den Branden (1997) language learners,

especially beginners, are unable to verbalize their meaning

intentions in a meaningful and appropriate context that is

correct. In the specific case of this interaction, the role

of the tutor’s feedback is to provide a scaffold for Yuna

to enable her to produce language that is meaningful. Karla

also provides scaffolding for more correct target language

output which is vital to restore and/or maintain mutual

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understanding. In this example, Karla and Yuna are

unsuccessful in their collaboration.

The interaction between Karla and Yuna reinforces my

belief which is supported in the research literature that

ESL students have special needs, including those of lexicon

and semantics, and these needs are better addressed in a

one-to-one conferencing setting. Because of the normal

constraints of regular classroom settings (heavy teaching

loads, and large classes), teachers of such classes are

often unable to devote the extra time and attention that

ESL writers require. It is through the tutor’s coaching,

questioning, and modeling that tutoring sessions provide

the ideal context for novice writers to be guided in

specific problem-solving experiences (Collins, Brown, and

Newman (1989). In the next section, I use key transcripts

from the tutoring sessions to illustrate Karla’s role as

mediator in specific problem-solving situations.

Tutor as Mediator for Joint Problem

Solving and Knowledge Construction

According to Gallimore and Tharp (1990), “teaching

consists of assisting performance through the Zone of

Proximal Development” (p. 177). In other words, teaching

can be said to occur when assistance is provided at points

in the ZPD at which performance requires assistance. They

identify four major means of assisting performance: feeding

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back, modeling, questioning, and cognitive structuring.

Briefly defined, feeding back occurs in interactive

teaching. It is an effective means to guide a student to

substantial performance. Modeling provides standards for

performance that can be exemplified by the teacher until

accuracy is achieved. Questioning explicitly calls for

active linguistic and cognitive response. Finally,

cognitive structuring “refers to the provision of a

structure for thinking and acting” (p. 182). Karla’s use of

these various means of assisting performance during most of

the tutoring sessions with the two focal ESL students was

apparent as the examples provided will show.

When evaluating her roles as a Rhetoric teacher and as

a tutor, Karla believes that she is more effective in one-

on-one settings rather than in the classroom situation. It

is through the individualized instruction provided in the

Learning Resource Center that she can effectively help

students work on their composing processes—from the

interpretation of assignments to the generation of ideas,

to drafting and to revising. These are aspects that Karla

often emphasizes in her tutoring sessions with students.

The following exchange was taken from the second of

five tutoring sessions devoted to Yuna’s final project at

the close of the semester. Karla’s efforts to help Yuna

explore options that connect all the articles are central

in this exchange. The interaction also reveals Karla’s

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attempts to stimulate Yuna’s generation of ideas to write

her final essay. K: Karla Y: Yuna (1) K: Now, how does forest conservation—which means

protection, and not having litter and controlling the amount of people who walk through it—what does that have to do with forest fires?

(2) Y: Hum…when forest fires happen… (3) K: Um hum (4) Y: Ah…there is …there is …huge damage to…huge

damage to people like house, their house and their farm…

(5) K: Um hum (6) Y: But, on the other hand, there is a…benefit for

…hum…nature effect… (7) K: Okay (8) Y: Because the forest fire can… create good soil… (9) K: Okay so what it sounds like….you are not really

talking about the issue of…a general issue about forest fires as much as you seem to be saying that they are talking about…whether or not forest fires can be useful in…forest conservation.

(10)Y: Well, I think they should… in three parts of the readings…

(11)K: So…um… (Karla begins to write to pose a question for Yuna) Can forest fires, which are often thought of as a bad thing, be used as an effective tool for forest conservation? The yeses and the nos. That might be one way for you to start. Just in general, make a list off the top of your head of all the yeses and all the nos that you can come up with from what you read, forget about…don’t worry about who said them yet, just…just brainstorm….just to get a handle on it and see if that’s what the question is …What else might be the possible issue of…of this topic of forest fires, so we have this one question for example: Can forest fires, which are often thought of as a bad thing, be used as an effective tool for forest conservation? What else? What other question do you think might these four articles be a response to?

(12)Y: Hmm…I have to answer yes or no? (13)K: Well, now I want you to invent a different

question.

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(14)Y: Ah…hum…How forest fires…affect …hum…habitat of animal; I mean…very rare animal, species…

(15)K: (writing) Species. So, how… We want the word do because we are asking a question, right? So, how do forest fires affect the habitat of rare animal species? So, everybody’s… all four articles are all set or trying to find um…are arguing about how forest fires affect the habitat for rare animals? No…Yes or No?

(16)Y: No (17)K: No, so that’s probably not a good central issue

any…after all. Let’s brainstorm another one… Okay, what’s another possible issue for…for…that connects all of these articles together about fire. It’s another way of thinking.

(18)Y: I think a common issue…the common issue of three of them maybe…um…um…how do forest fires affect the ecosystem, I mean nature and people’s lives.

(19)K: (writing) So, how do forest fires affect the ecosystem and people’s lives? So, some people are saying…that it affects them…in a good way; some people are saying it affects them in a bad way; some people are saying it affects them in both good and bad ways and…Did you say three of the articles connect that way? But you have four articles.

(20)Y: Only…um… have…have the opinion of the effect. (21)K: So it’s still talking about the effect. (22)Y: Yeah. (23)K: So that might be a nice way to frame the

central question. We’ve got two so far: Can forest fires, which are often thought of as a bad thing, be used as an effective tool for forest conservation? And so…that’s a possible one; then you’ll have to think about the yeses and noes…How do forest fires affect the ecosystem and people’s lives? And then you will need to come up with…one, two, three, four, five …explanations of that.

(24)Y: Um…these these explanations hum… is supposed to be from… the materials?

(25)K: Yup, Yup and so the first…just to give some sense of freeness, it might be nice just to sit down and think about, write about that, just write off the top of your head…how do forest fires affect the ecosystem and people’s lives? You know, here is one idea, write it down; here is another idea write it down; here is a third idea write it down, and brainstorm from what you’ve read in these…using what you’ve read in these articles to guide your brainstorming; go back and see what you’ve got and then decide

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which makes it more interesting or more…which of these two ways of framing …makes for…the… best way to talk about the controversy…

Most of the 30-minute session was devoted to the

discussion of the role of fires in forest conservation as

framed by the reading sources used for the assignment. The

interaction reflects Karla’s view of writing as a process

of discovery in which she can help Yuna learn how to frame

the issues evident in each article as well as analyze them

rhetorically.

As a means of assisting performance, Karla is also

scaffolding Yuna (see for example turns 1,9,11,and 21) by

providing a cognitive structure for writing and thinking.

Specifically, Karla makes use of the question as a frame

for guiding Yuna back to the text to delve more deeply, to

reconsider, and to analyze. In these turns, Karla helps to

point out key portions of the text and foster Yuna’s mental

and verbal activation. The interaction also provides

opportunities for Yuna and Karla not only to negotiate

meaning, but also to focus on form (see for example turn

15).

Karla’s strategy fits into what Harris (1986)

describes as the ideal role that tutors must play during

writing conferences. This role has to do with encouraging

an exploration of what it is that the writer has to say by

writing and discovering meaning that emerges as one writes.

This particular interaction illuminates Karla’s role as the

more capable peer in assisting Yuna in her ZPD (Vygotsky,

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1978) in order to perform the task at hand. The discovery

of meaning is promoted by Yuna’s generation of ideas

through Karla’s scaffolding.

Karla believes that one of her most important roles as

a tutor is to help students, particularly ESL learners,

better understand “the cultural context of words.” Karla

used this phrase to refer to the different connotations of

English words according to the specific contexts in which

they are used, an aspect that is usually challenging for

ESL students. This kind of assistance is almost never

available from other sources, particularly in good

dictionaries that intend to provide contexts for words. As

Karla put it,

Putting words into their cultural contexts is something that very few books do and even fewer students are willing to take the time to go and figure out for themselves…it just takes so much time…that’s why people are better than computers, you know. So it’s giving them, I guess, cultural context for the words and the arguments that they are dealing with.

In spite of Karla’s efforts to help ESL students

better understand the cultural context of English words,

she views time constraints as a limitation in her work as a

tutor. She believes that in order to address all the

special needs that ESL students have with their English

skills, especially issues related to cultural context, it

is necessary to spend more than the approximately 30

minute-session assigned to tutor each one of the students.

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Karla’s comments reflect her concerns about the limitations

of her work as a tutor, especially as she is working with

four ESL students at the same time:

Time seems to be thin because sometimes this [tutoring ESL students] just takes forever to explain why something is wrong, because they don’t understand why it’s wrong and I need to ask them to tell me what they understood. I sort of have to do that because I notice, especially with people from specific background countries and Asian countries, they are very, very afraid to admit that they don’t understand, and so they just say…they just nod and act like they know and then it’s a month later and I found they haven’t understood what I have said. And that’s happened to me more than once.

Karla’s perceptions regarding Asian students reflect

some general perceptions associated with the way students

with an Asian background behave during tutorials. According

to Cai (1999), Asian students prefer to nod rather than

confront those with whom they disagree as a means of

showing respect, a value inculcated in their native

countries. They may also pretend that they understand what

is being discussed when actually this is not happening. For

Harris (1997) nonnative students’ passivity may stem from

behavior learned in classrooms in other countries.

Karla stresses the importance of avoiding assumptions

that ESL students have an understanding of certain ideas

that have a cultural connotation. Karla experienced this

situation during a tutoring session with Yuna in which she

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was trying to tease Yuna to lighten the mood for the

discussion of Yuna’s final project:

I was teasing Yuna today about the word “spark” and how funny it was that she was writing a paper about a controversy and the thing that sparked the controversy was fire and the paper was all about fire and forest fire prevention, and, you know, it took me twenty minutes to get the joke across to her…

Karla views the Learning Resource Center as providing

an ideal setting for ESL students to better understand the

cultural contexts of certain words and expressions.

Likewise, she believes that tutoring sessions represent a

valuable means of individualizing the teaching-learning

relationship. As Harris (1986) puts it, conferencing is not

only a talk, “it is also, for the teacher, an art—chiefly

the art of drawing forth ideas and fostering thinking, by

asking questions” (p. 10). Karla’s tutoring strategies are

a reflection of this form of art. Now, I will turn my

attention to the kind of feedback Karla favors during

tutoring sessions.

Perceptions about Feedback

Karla draws on her experience and says many ESL

students come to the Learning Resource Center with certain

expectations that potentially conflict with her own agenda

of what should be discussed during a tutoring session.

Because of students’ concern with grammatical correctness

and vocabulary, ESL students usually view Karla or any

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tutor as “a fixing machine, who will circle all their

mistakes and fix them for them.” This is a situation that

Karla usually experiences in spite of her initial comments

on the goals and purposes of the Center and her work as a

tutor,

A lot of times they don’t really understand my speech, and so they are just being polite and say yes, yes, yes. And then, it takes a couple of weeks. All of a sudden they realize… wait a minute, she’s serious. We are going to work on the argument, we are going to work on the concept, on expressing the basic logic rather than getting…of course, if that’s good and solid, then I’m all ready to turn to a deeper level or…more surface level, I suppose.

Most of the time that Karla devotes to her tutoring

sessions at the Learning Resource Center with native

English speakers and with ESL students is focused on the

analysis of arguments and concepts drawn from the students’

assignments. Karla strongly discourages an emphasis on

grammar correction during tutorials, stating that this

practice does not help students to improve in their writing

skills. As she put it,

We can spend the whole rest of our lives, you know, doing a close analysis of their grammar in one paragraph and never get any further. I mean, it’s happened to me before where I’ve spent several days polishing a paragraph so that it is grammatically correct. Bu then, the whole concept behind the paragraph, the driving motivation for that paragraph, is completely faulty and wrong. And so, in the end, from my point of view it’s been an exercise on futility because I haven’t helped them with the content at all… We’ve just wasted all this time polishing and editing, and making something clear.

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Talking about her own strategies when providing

feedback to her students, Karla states that she tends to

use oral comments rather than written comments because she

can speak and say more than she can write. She also tends

to underline phrases in their written work, and then

circles and points while giving students comments so that

they note specific elements on the text while she is

talking. She admits that time management is not her

strength, and results in her lack of time to provide

students with a summary of the most important points

discussed during the tutoring session. Another reason for

her preference for oral comments rather than written ones

is to avoid students’ tendency to repeat verbatim what the

teacher or tutor has expressed through written comments. As

she put it,

Some people hang on every word I say, and literally do exactly what it was that I said, without really taking into account what their teacher has given them, what the assignment says, that kind of thing…I just see a whole lot of me, Karla, in their writing. And so, I try not to put words in their mouth anymore, because they often are just being dutiful and they don’t really understand what they are doing; they just do it…which is why I sort of stopped writing things.

When Karla told me about her preference for oral

feedback during tutoring sessions, I raised a concern

regarding the fact that once students leave the Center,

there is a risk that they miss part of the most important

aspects discussed during the session, as well as the

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recommended changes to improve their papers. She admitted

this was a potential risk. However, she believes that if

students work on their revisions immediately after each

session, this risk can be minimized.

Summary

Even though Karla has experienced the roles of both a

Rhetoric teacher and a tutor, I was more interested in her

perception of her goals and purposes in tutoring the two

focal ESL students. As a tutor, Karla strives to strike a

rapport and create a sense of ease with each student so

that she is not seen as an authority figure, but rather a

writing coach. She views her main role as a tutor to help

students clarify prose and understand the basic

expectations of an argument. She also tries to model

revision and thinking critically about their own work. Her

goal is to teach them how to make sure their paper

sufficiently supports their thesis and then work from the

big picture to the small picture. It is also important for

her to figure out each student’s personal writing issues

and address one or two ideas per session. It is her hope

that the students will create a personal checklist to

evaluate their own writing and thus become more aware of

their tendencies as writers.

In chapter VI, I describe each of the two students

participating in this study. For this purpose, I will use

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the interviews conducted with the students, together with

the recorded tutoring sessions to understand their

perceptions regarding the Rhetoric class and the tutoring

sessions. The data will also illustrate the rapport that

characterized most of the sessions between Yuna and Karla,

an affinity that was absent in Karla’s relationship with

Cindy, partly due to age differences.

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CHAPTER VI

THE FOCAL STUDENTS

Since I was interested in understanding how the

pedagogical context shaped ESL students’ revision

practices, I chose the focal students from the group of ESL

students enrolled in the Learning Resource Center and also

attending Rhetoric classes. Ideally, I wanted to study the

two ESL students in the context of the same Rhetoric class

and attending the tutoring sessions with the same tutor.

However, it was possible to locate two students in two

separate Rhetoric classes who shared the same tutor. The

students were selected on the basis of their interest in

participating in the project. I selected two female

students Yuna, an International student from Korea and

Cindy an immigrant from China.

Yuna Choi

A Personal Portrait

I find my essay is too wordy…I used the same words to express my ideas…there is kind of repetition, so it makes my essay boring and not focused. I think I’ve got a lot of problems in expressing my thoughts…I don’t know what words I’ve got to use…

These thoughts represent the most common perceptions

Yuna has of her own writing in English, perceptions that

remained almost the same throughout the fall semester of

2002 in spite of her apparent progress as a rhetoric

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student. I became aware of those perceptions after reading

Yuna’s think-aloud protocols while she was composing and

revising her three major papers, but also during formal and

informal conversations with her.

Yuna is an International student born in Seoul, Korea,

28 years ago. Her slim body and her child-like face make

her look much younger. She likes people to believe that she

is younger. Talking about her physical appearance, she

said, “It’s very difficult to guess the age of Asian

people. Actually, I look younger…even than other Asian

girls…but I am not that young…I am married…and I already

got a degree in my country.” She defines herself as an

easy-going person, who loves to watch movies, go shopping

and participate in sports in order to be in good shape.

Contrary to the tradition of some Asian people, she

does not like to eat vegetables but instead prefers all

kinds of meat. As she put it: “Some people say that those

who prefer meat are hot tempered and very aggressive, but I

am not like that…” Yuna likes to talk about her dreams,

“her beautiful and big dreams,” as she put it. She does not

hesitate to confess that one of her main dreams when she

was younger was to be an important diplomat and to make a

lot of money. “Some people say it’s not a dream,” she would

say.

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Yuna’s Educational Background

In Korea, Yuna had obtained a Bachelor’s degree in

Asian Literature, a path that she decided to quit “because

one can not make money out of it.” Looking forward to

achieving different professional goals, she decided to come

to the United States, along with her husband, to study

business. When I began this study, Yuna was enrolled as a

pre-business student at Midwestern University. As part of

the requirements of her program, she enrolled in the

Rhetoric course and two courses in the College of Business.

Her background knowledge in English dates back to her

middle school years and continues through to college, where

English courses were mandatory in the curriculum. Yuna

refers to the main goals of English courses as follows,

Those English courses had nothing to do with speaking; the emphasis was on grammar and teachers emphasized the learning of grammar rules. I don’t have any memories for writing stuff during my school days. I just memorized words and idioms and learned grammar.

Before coming to the United States, Yuna, as is the

case with many International students entering American

Universities, was required to take the Test of English as a

Foreign Language (TOEFL). She scored 250/300, a score

considered to be satisfactory to enter into the Business

program she applied for. Because Yuna got the required

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score for entering the program, she did not have to take

additional ESL writing or speaking courses.

Before starting the Rhetoric course, Yuna had many

concerns regarding her abilities to cope with the specific

requirements of the course. As she put it,

Before starting the Rhetoric class, I thought it would be tough because there is a lot of demand for writing…yeah, especially writing and speech, so…I think writing thing is very difficult for me. I don’t have many experience to write, so I knew it was…it would be difficult…

Rhetoric as a Means of Becoming a

Critical Reader and Writer

Yuna has found one of the most challenging aspects of

the Rhetoric course to be the demand placed on the students

to think, read, and write critically. She said,

In the Rhetoric class I have learned so many things, like thinking the way I think and the way I read. Before taking this class, I never thought about thinking critically or logically because I never learned about that, but after this class, I’ve got to know about this, so it has been very helpful…

Yuna heard about the Learning Resource Center during a

workshop held at the University for new International

students. Because she was aware of her own problems with

English writing and the demands of the Rhetoric course, she

decided to enroll in the Learning Resource Center choosing

the option for enrollment hours, which required her to meet

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with the same tutor twice a week during the whole fall

semester. “I thought I really needed this because writing

is difficult and I don’t have any experience, so I thought

I would go there sometime…,” she said.

Talking about her perceptions regarding the benefits

of writing center tutorials, she offered praise in this

way,

All my work with the Learning Resource Center tutor has focused on how to analyze and write rhetorically. Karla has helped me to think critically and logically, also to analyze content in the same way. It has been very helpful for me to improve my writing….Without her I don’t think I can make it but…I think she taught me really basic things for writing, the basic thing I think most students like me don’t know about… that is really simple basic things just for writing we should know about that… and we should know…we must know how to use the basic rules or routines for writing…

Yuna’s perceptions regarding Karla’s tutoring work and

the way it has contributed to her growth as a writer,

highlight the important role of one-on-one tutoring

sessions in fostering thinking and stimulating independent

learning. Yuna’s comments also stress the notion that the

ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978) necessarily involves interaction

between an expert and a novice in which the expert

transmits an ability to the novice through social

interaction (Lantolf, 2000).

The following excerpt from a tutoring session

illustrates Karla’s efforts to stimulate Yuna’s critical

thinking and comprehension of the four reading sources that

she was required to use in her last writing project titled

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“The Need for Forest Fires as a Management Tool for Forest

Conservation” For this writing project Yuna was expected to

analyze the multiple perspectives as outlined in the four

journal articles while maintaining neutrality.

K: Karla Y: Yuna

(1)K: (Referring to the authors of the readings) Generally what do they value in terms of the natural environment or what kinds of things do they, generally speaking, have an interest in, so the Sierra Club, what are they about?

(2)Y: Umm… (3)K: In general (4)Y: They think cutting old trees are affecting for

nature and wild fires is somehow good for nature and…

(5)K: Okay. But who are these people? Are they part of the government?

(6)Y: Well they are kind of ecologists and environment people…

(7)K: So their value is something about saving the environment and trying to urge people to protect the environment in general. Are they professionals? Are they professors and doctors in…professors of ecology and biologists and stuff?

(8)Y: Yeah, some of them, Sierra Club is more professional than BARK.

(9)K: Okay. Now these aren’t quite values yet but we…I’m putting them down to sketch out what the values could be, so…ok…and so BARK who…who…what is BARK?

(10)Y: BARK I couldn’t find… (11)K: Well right here it says is the voice for forest

protection and restoration (12)Y: So it’s a kind of (incomprehensible) voluntary

people (13)K: Are they volunteers? (14)Y: Well, you can…you can….be a membership [a

member] of BARK-but this is a group which is against the policy of the government or DOI.

(15)K So they’re anti-government. And so what does DOI stand for?

(16)Y: DOI? Well DOI is right according to the government. It’s better…

(17)K What does the word DOI stand for?

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(18)Y Umm…Department of Interior (19)K So it’s the Department of the Interior. Ok so

it’s the government, and um… (20)Y I think it is the most professional because

they are really…I mean…they are most of them are professors in ecology

(21)K Okay, so they’re scientists. So these guys aren’t exactly…so the Sierra Club isn’t exactly …scientists. They’re more just general environmentalists?

(22)Y Yeah, I think so. (23)K So they’re public sector group? (24)Y Yeah. (25)K So these are the scientists, this is the

government, and this is the…is this a radical, is BARK a radical anti-government group?

(26)Y Umm…. (27)K Did they say statements like we should burn the

Parliament, burn the Capital building? (28)Y No…no (29)K No? what is biodiversity… (30)Y (Interrupting) I think they are more general

than this group umm…from this region (31)K Okay, so if we know that this group is

environmentalist, what do we think they’re gonna value? In general?

(32)Y They…they put more weight in…in environment…. (33)K As opposed to? (34)Y Well their main…Sierra Club’s main claim is

that the DOI …allowed a number of companies to…trees [log trees] for commercial purposes while the… I mean the government…. (Incomprehensible) all the trees, so…

(35)K Okay, but our claim, is it on forest fires? Is the general controversy…what is? Last week you were telling me the general controversy was about forest fires. Have you changed your mind?

(36)Y No, it’s over forest fires so… (37)K So your main claim needs to be this group’s

position on forest fires… (38)Y So Sierra Club’s umm…agrees with forest fires.

They think forest fires have benefits for nature…

(39)K Okay, now the DOI. What do they say about forest fires?

(40)Y Basically they have two opinions; they divide forest fires into two ways so natural fire is good for forest…tropical fire is very different from normal fire; nature [natural] fire occurs in very short time and not that serious and tropical fire is…

(41)K So small fires they’re for but big fires they’re against and the Sierra Club is for all

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kinds of fires…And BARK. What do they say about using forest fires?

(42)Y Well, they have a similar opinion with Sierra Club so they agree with forest fire generally.

(43)K So forest fires benefit nature. So that means that Sierra Club and BARK both say that if there is a fire, no matter what, you should allow it to burn itself out even if the cost to human life is high.

(44)Y No, they…the fourth part basically agrees with natural fires but DOI emphasizes big fires; they don’t care about small fires; they think small fire is good for nature. They emphasize that the damage is the big fire so they take the policy for controlling fire but Sierra and BARK… they think….the natural fire is good for forest…

(45)K Ok (46)Y But they want… they didn’t want to bigger

fires… (47)K Can I interrupt you for one second? So the real

controversy isn’t over whether or not there should be forest fires. That’s…that’s not exactly what you are talking about after all; after all, you are talking about (writing) the use of small forest fires; use of small forest fires is what you’re talking about right? These two groups are completely for small forest fires, no problem. The DOI is for small forest fires but seems to be cautioning against big forest fires…

(48)Y So what that means the DOI is for small fires but against big forest fires.

(49)K Um hu (50)Y But the Sierra Club… (51)K So these two groups are not against big fires

or is it that they ignore that aspect of it? (52)Y The two groups know, they definitely know

how…how big or how small the big fire damage is to people and forest…

(pause)

This exchange illustrates Karla’s and Yuna’s

collaborative efforts to jointly solve a problem, in this

case understanding each author’s arguments in the

controversy. Karla’s strategy of asking various kinds of

questions in almost all of her turns(1,5,7,9,13,15,17,21

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23,25,27,29,31,33,39,41,51) proves effective in assisting

Yuna’s performance, drawing forth her ideas and fostering

her thinking. This session fits into what Reigstad (1982)

refers to as “collaborative conference”. In this type of

conference the tutor moves in and out of the tutor-tutee

relationship, asking questions and encouraging the

student’s participation. As this example illustrates,

Karla’s efforts to promote the development of Yuna’s

critical thinking skills is vital to approach the required

rhetorical analysis. This type of task, as Yuna asserts,

represents a challenge for ESL students.

Rhetoric as a Challenge for ESL

Students

Yuna views the Rhetoric class as particularly

difficult for any ESL student, “basically because the

academic level that we have differ from the academic level

of a Rhetoric class.” In the particular case of Yuna, it is

a challenge in many ways, especially because of her lack of

familiarity with rhetorical analyses which requires levels

of critical thinking and logical reasoning. Because of the

perceived difficulty that ESL students experience in the

Rhetoric class, Yuna believes that ESL students should be

placed in separate courses,

I think it would be better because for instance, even though I’m an ESL student there is no benefit like extra credit for ESL students, so that means that I have to compete with the other

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native speakers, so even though I try to overcome other native speakers, at least I think I can’t compete with them…

There is a general consensus among ESL writing

researchers and teachers that the goal of college-level

writing programs is to prepare students to become better

academic writers (Spack, 2001). However, as acknowledged by

Spack, the achievement of this goal is most often

complicated by the “large gap between what students bring

to the academic community and what the academic community

expects of them” (p. 91). In the specific case of ESL

students, this gap is considered to be even wider because

of their L2 linguistic and cultural differences.

Talking about the differences in ESL and native

English speaker writing, Silva (1993) documents the

findings of some research studies suggesting that ESL

students have special needs different from those of NES

students and for this reason should be given the option of

writing classes especially designed for them, thus avoiding

being forced into the mainstream university classroom

Matt has an opposite point of view regarding the

benefits of having ESL students in a separate course,

I think it would open up another can of worms, which is unfortunate because I do think they need to be grounded in a sense of obtaining education that they will use…and…you know…there is a question when you complete your four years or when you complete your eight years or how ever many decades you spend as an academic. Where do you go? Do you suddenly say, I will now become an American citizen. I will work in this country…or do you return to your home? So, yeah…Yuna needs

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to work on becoming, shall we say, the American student, which again is another issue…

After the fourth week of classes, during an informal

conversation that I had with Yuna on our way home, she told

me about her intentions of dropping the Rhetoric class.

Evidently distressed for the dynamics and the demands of

the class, she stated that she just did not fit in the

course and that she was terribly scared of failing the

class. After listening to all her concerns and

frustrations, I couldn’t help feeling concerned about her

decision, nor could I avoid experiencing feelings of

ambivalence and sympathy for an International student like

myself. I valued her confidence on me, but at the same time

I also felt discomfort because of my role as an observer

researcher trying to maintain distance from the

participants of my study.

Cindy Guan

A Personal Portrait

So far, I don’t clearly know why I’m coming here, but now, I think this is a good place to study. I think in here I can get all I need to study…

I met with Cindy, a nineteen-year-old immigrant from

China, for our first formal interview during the fifth week

of the semester at the Learning Resource Center. In this

first encounter, I asked Cindy about her personal and

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academic background. I also wanted to have a general

perception of Cindy’s feelings about the Rhetoric class.

The above quote portrays Cindy’ thoughts about the

decision to move from her home country to the United

States. Her grandmother, a resident of Seattle, made the

decision to bring Cindy to the US during her last year of

high school in her hometown of Beijing, China. Although

Cindy has a Chinese name, she prefers to be referred to by

the American name that she picked. “My Chinese name is too

difficult for people to pronounce,” she says. Cindy defines

herself as a friendly and outgoing person with a very

positive attitude toward life, and as someone who enjoys

music and playing the piano. She stresses the fact that

Chinese people are characterized as very hard working and

competitive. For this reason, she demands a lot from

herself, and comments that she likes challenges and that it

is very important for her to be a successful student.

Cindy’s Educational Background

Regarding her previous experience with English, she

describes it is a compulsory course in the Secondary School

curriculum in China. According to Cindy, the emphasis of

the instruction in English is on grammar. “They focus on

grammar, we do a lot of multiple choice exercises, and also

we are required to write sentences.” Besides these forms of

controlled exercises, Cindy specifically recalls particular

assignments that required students to think about

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artificial situations, such as, ‘You have a friend. You go

to the coffee shop to meet with your friend. What time

would you arrive? What would you talk about with your

friend?’ As she puts it, “There were no real opportunities

to be creative or to talk about real stuff; it was very

boring.” She was also unhappy with the fact that her

teachers were not native-English speakers. “Only once we

had an American teacher, but the time was too limited for

all the activities that she had for the class, like showing

videos and having discussions, stuff like that. We only had

one hour per week and that was not much.”

Because of her limited background experience with

English language learning in China, she considers it a real

challenge. In fact she believes most Asian students are

challenged when asked to write academic papers and to take

courses like Rhetoric, which demands a lot of writing and

speaking skills. She expressed little concern for the

Business courses that she is required to take during the

fall semester of 2002; all her concerns are centered on one

specific class—Rhetoric.

Rhetoric as the Means to Becoming a

Critical Reader and Writer

The most difficult thing for me is… every class I should do translations for the things they are speaking yeah so, and I don’t have enough time to solve in my mind. For me the class is more like just the language study and what they want us to learn maybe I get little…because I pay more attention to get the meaning you know…

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The above reflections suggest Cindy’s anxiety and

concerns regarding the challenges of the Rhetoric class.

She is aware of the fact that her linguistic and cultural

knowledge of English is still at a developmental stage and

that this puts constant pressure on her to meet the demands

of the course. She talks about her knowledge of certain

academic areas, such as calculus in which “You only need to

know the logic of figures. I don’t struggle with that.”

However, when referring to the capacity of expressing

feelings and emotions, she believes that “people need to

understand the language and how to use it…Sometimes, I

don’t know the things that the teacher is expecting from

us.”

In Cindy’s opinion, one of the drawbacks of the

Rhetoric class lies in the dynamics of the course and also

in the lack of modeling on the part of the teacher

concerning what constitutes good writing, and on what

students are expected to do in terms of writing a good

piece.

In class everything is so quick; there is not enough time to spend…to have some orientation on the papers, like yeah I just want to know what this…I haven’t write such kind of writing before so I want to read down the good…good writing to know what is good what is really this kind of…writing that the teacher wants you to write or analyze…I was very disappointed at my first paper’s grade. When I got this I knew I had a lot of things need to improve but I don’t clearly…know what part. Yeah, that’s the problem and… I want to read some example article like write really good for this kind of topic and to see how she or he writes.

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According to Spack (2001) determining what academic

writing is and what ESL students need to know in order to

produce it has not been an easy task for teachers and

researchers. Spack contends that assignments can be given

in a way that students understand from the beginning what

the task requires and what its evaluative criteria will be.

In other words, students can be helped to “deconstruct the

assignment prompt” (Johns, 1986, p. 247). Although Cindy’s

Rhetoric teacher, Anne, attempted to make sure at all times

that students in her course understood the requirements of

the assignments, Cindy acknowledged her constant struggles

to understand those requirements. In other words, she felt

she needed more assistance than was available in the class.

Cindy believes that one of the most beneficial aspects

of the Rhetoric course is the way it helps students

approach readings from a more critical perspective. She has

also found the Rhetoric class very useful in terms of the

strategies suggested to deal with difficult readings, like

summarizing and paraphrasing. As she put it: “In this class

I think the best thing I like is like…it teaches you some

way to thought [think] in English, like how to read things

and how to analyze.”

When I asked her about the kind of support and

guidance that she received from her Rhetoric teacher, she

said,

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If I…give her my draft or something, usually she would reply me and give a lot of suggestions and…I think like if I had questions to ask her, she would answer me and…give me a clear answer…and she has a lot of students so I don’t think she can spend a lot of time with me but I think classes are great, like she has a lot of discussion. I think it’s very useful. I can know how other people think about questions and… and learn some oral English.

Because Cindy is very much aware of the difficulties

that she has with both written and spoken expression in

English, she decided to enroll not only in the Learning

Resource Center but also in the Speaking Center of the

Rhetoric Department. Cindy’s perceptions about her need to

request extra help to cope with the demands of the Rhetoric

class grew even more intense after the first weeks of

classes. Referring specifically to the kind of help that

she is receiving from the Center tutor, she describes it in

these terms,

It’s like…first is, of course, grammar things she (Karla) helped me to do and tell me how to use…how to use dictionary to correct things and to…to find proper words and tell me how to search on line…and she…like asks me a lot of questions, like to let me know what kind of questions I should think when I write a paper for Rhetoric or for English writing…and Karla tells me how to search, how to do a lot of things. I think it’s very useful and give me some suggestions and tell me how it’s going on in American universities. How is writing in American universities. I think it’s very useful.

Cindy’s comments regarding the kind of help

provided during the tutoring sessions reflect most of the

activities that Karla describes as particularly relevant in

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the specific case of the tutorials with ESL students. These

activities can range from highly demanding activities, such

as the development of students’ critical thinking, to the

provision of cultural context for the words and arguments

that the students are dealing with, to the support of

certain basic activities, such as the use of the dictionary

and the search of information through the Web. This kind of

support, so necessary for ESL students, would never be

possible in the context of regular class time.

The following excerpt from a tutoring session between

Karla and Cindy, based on a discussion of the first draft

of the first writing project, “Rhetorical Analysis-Single

perspective,” reveals Karla’s efforts to help Cindy

understand essential terms that need to be applied to the

rhetorical analysis of Cindy’s paper. For this assignment,

students were required to choose an interesting and

engaging editorial from a journal or a newspaper and

analyze the article’s rhetoric, taking into account the

author’s tone, word choice, emphasis, and persuasive or

emotional appeal (assignment sheet)

In this particular session, Cindy expresses some

concerns regarding her difficulty in understanding the

meaning of three important concepts dealt with in the first

week of the Rhetoric class: ethos, pathos, and logos. She

also expressed uncertainty as to how to apply those

concepts in her rhetorical analyses.

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C: Cindy K: Karla

C: Those concepts of “ethos, pathos, logos” I don’t know what they are and how to use them.

K: Oh, well, those are very tricky words. I hate using them. Many, many people hate using them because they are Greek words and they don’t match the word forms that we have in English…They are problematic words, but what they represent is extremely important and so they are very helpful because they put um…a word on a big concept.

C: Yeah, I know K: Logos is logic, it’s the reasoning; it’s the

claim plus reason and evidence part of the argument, so that’s logos, so that’s the easiest one because we can say, oh well, when the author appeals to logos, when the author is making his argument really strong by using um…by really focusing on the logical aspect of the argument, on the fact and the reasoning. Ethos or ethic is a lot talking about values…values in the sense of what people feel and what is important to them. When the author is appealing to ethos what we are saying is that he is appealing to shared values between the author and the audience… It’s assuming, it’s understanding that the author and the people reading the paper or participating in the argument, they both have something that they share…so make the argument strong…between these connections. Pathos is also connected to values…what makes people happy, what makes them sad, what makes them laugh…When you are examining that part of the argument, you are looking at the vocabulary, the tone, that kind of thing.

This specific interaction points up Karla’s

collaborative role by creating a framework to help Cindy

understand specific lexicon. Using Cindy’s paper, Karla

illustrates her points using some examples from the text.

Karla keeps on saying that those words are really

confusing. To support her rationale, Karla seeks extra

assistance from the Learning Resource Center’s book

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Everything’s an Argument (Lunsford, Ruskiewicz, & Walters,

2001) to look for additional information on these terms.

Cindy remarks that she has tried to look for a definition

of those terms using her course text In Context (Feldman &

Mc Manus, 2002) without successfully finding them. Karla

confesses that even she is starting to get confused with

the differences between ethos and pathos. “I usually try to

avoid them because I’m afraid of messing them up, confusing

them.” Karla looks for the definition of the words and

reads. “Presence of an author in argument is called ethos.”

After reading the whole definition of ethos, Karla keeps on

providing more examples and referring to some parts of

Cindy’s text. Karla continues to explain,

In your essay, the author that you are analyzing… you have a name, you even know who this person is…our job now is to understand the article as much as to …understand how the author is making his argument, and the different ways the argument can work and…it can work at different levels.

Again, Karla uses other examples to illustrate her

explanations of the terms. Because Cindy continues to be

confused about the term “ethos,” she asks Karla to give her

a simple example to explain what it means. This was the

example that Karla used.

K: When I am talking to you about something I can

…even if it sounds logical to me so that there are problems with my logos ah…I can persuade you to believe me because I’m the teacher and I have the power of being a teacher and therefore…you might be willing to believe what I say even if it doesn’t make sense to you

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because I’m the teacher and because I’ve been speaking English for thirty two years.

C: C: It’s ethos K: That’s ethos…I’m using my appeal…I’m making you

believe me, I’m persuading you to go by my argument, not because my argument makes sense but because I’m the teacher…

The example proved useful in engaging Cindy in the

discussion and in enabling her to provide additional

examples to illustrate the meaning of the term. Karla grabs

the book again, looking for more examples and ideas.

Referring to ‘pathos’, she says: “appealing to your

readers’ values.” Cindy asks many questions to expand her

comprehension in contrast with the start of the session

when she appeared to be anxious. The session ends with

Cindy commenting, “Now I feel more relaxed. I can

understand the terms much better.”

Tutoring Sessions as Mediator for

Problem Solving

In spite of Cindy’s reassurance regarding her

understanding of the Rhetoric terms discussed in the

previous session, the difficulties in applying them to

specific rhetorical analyses required in her assignments

persisted, as reflected in a later tutoring session based

on a discussion of the second draft of Cindy’s final

project, “The Cost of Capital Punishment.” For this final

assignment, students were required to work within a five-

member group to examine one aspect of a larger controversy.

The controversial aspect that Cindy chose was related to

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how people used economics in the debate of capital

punishment. As specified in the assignment sheet, students

were required “to pay attention to the context of the

author, intended audience, tone, language, and appeals to

argument to shape your own argument.” This excerpt

represents a long extended interaction where Karla asks

Cindy various types of questions to clarify the meaning of

ethos, pathos, and logos in the context of the discussion

on capital punishment. In order to make more sense of the

interaction, I’m going to break it in several units.

C: Cindy K: Karla

(1)C: Okay I’ve got a question like here the

pathos, ethos…do I need just to separate…do I need to put all the parts, like talk about ethos, pathos together or I can write here …write some part maybe this point appeals to ethos…another part appeals to logos…

(2)K: This is a very important question that you need to ask and ultimately you are the one that has to answer because you’ve done a lot reading and what you should ask yourself is what’s the most interesting and striking thing about my controversy that I’m studying and…how do I want to get my audience to understand that? So if you find that ethos, pathos, logos and different ways that people appeal to these kinds of argument…ah… are really important to highlight in the discussion that you will be well served to say…talk about ethos for each one together, then pathos together, then logos together…that’s only one way to do it. Another way, if you think that it’s first important to understand each argument individually then you might wanna talk about each argument individually um…so it’s gonna be up to you now. The one thing I would like you to consider and clarify…your job is to talk about the way people use economics in the debate of capital punishment, right? So in each discussion you

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may want to talk about…make up your own appeal, your appeal is an economic one, right? How is the appealing to economics tied to ethos, pathos, logos?

(3)C: They are really numbers…they are really things happen in the economic…like the real cause of this study is to appeal to ethos, appeal to ethos…

(4)K: Ethos is the authority of the author and the persona of the author

(5)C: And the logos is …analyze

In this part of the segment, Cindy shows uncertainty about

the best way to organize her paper. Karla provides some

possible options but stresses the fact that the final

decision will be up to her. In other words, Karla grants

Cindy’s ownership of her paper. An important element of

collaborative problem solving in this part of the session

is the sustained goal-orientation by Karla (turn 2) when

she reminds Cindy about the focus of her analysis. Then,

there is a change of subject when Cindy starts referring to

ethos. Karla’s reply can be perceived as another element of

scaffolding when she clarifies, once again, the meaning of

the term.

(6)K: Let’s talk about this for a second…so in terms

of economics, how does that affect the pathos…oops…the ethos in this argument…economic appeals do what to the authority of the author?

(7)C: Authors…like some authors just economists… (8)K: And… (9)C: And…they give the study the data in general… (10)K: Okay…and what does that do to the authority?

What effect does that have on their authority? (11)C: The authority? It’s very credible to the

reader. (12)K: Why? (13)C: Because they are…they are …they have higher

logic about this… (14)K: And what does this do to the larger

argument…about capital punishment?

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(15)C: Larger? What do you mean? (16)K: Well, you have a mini…You are looking at

several arguments… (17)C: Hum…Yeah (18)K: Economics (Karla writes in the last page of

Cindy’s paper)…But the big thing is economics and capital punishment

(19)C: Yeah (20)K: So how does…you are saying that … (21)C: They are studying the …the government system

you know, there are studies about the government system…

(22)K: And what does that do to the authority? (23)C: Like the government system control the cost of

the…capital punishment (24)K: And how does that make the author more

authoritative? (25)C: What…what do you mean? (26)K: Well you are talking about ethos and you said

that…when I asked you ah...how…all these articles…

(27)C: (interrupting) Like …hum…can I (28)K: Let me finish, okay, before you answer. Ah…I

asked you to think about ah…inventing a new appeal, not just an appeal to ethos, pathos or logos, but an appeal to eco…economic appeal, so the appeal to economy

(29)C: Uh hum (30)K: And then you were more interested in talking

about ethos, pathos and logos, so I want you to tie the economic move that these authors are making to…I want you to tell me how it connects to the ethos of the argument, which is the authority of the author. (Karla writes) So how does talking about economics make the author appear more authoritative?

(31)C: The connection that they have from government…and… use of…I’m talking about the…the government, the differences between the laws and their budgets, the best of their budgets and ah…hum…and talk about the…payers…the tax payers …and ah…

(32)K: But why does that make them authoritative? (33)C: Just the… (34)K: No, I don’t understand (35)C: (laughs nervously) (36)K: I really don’t understand that the fact that

they are talking about the government makes them more authoritative. How does that give them power?

(37)C: Because government has control…the system of judgment…of the capital punishment

(38)K: And how does that give their argument more persuasive power?

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(39)C: Everyone would accept the law (40)K: Okay… (41)C: I’m confused (42)K: ‘Cause this…I’m not…I’m not understanding and

I’m not sure that you thought about it …very deeply. When we were talking about ethos remember? We were talking about the authority of the writer of the argument…

(43)C: Aha…

In this part of the interaction, Karla keeps on asking

various kinds of questions—all of them related to the

meaning of ethos to assist Cindy’s performance and

stimulate her thinking (turns 6, 10,22, 24, 30, 32, 36, 38,

and 24 illustrate this effort well). This segment also

shows how Karla, through the use of nondirective leads

(Harris, 1986), resists Cindy’s need for quick answers.

Together, Karla and Cindy co-construct understanding, a

process that is triggered through the externalization of

Cindy’s thinking and the persevering responses of Karla.

After several turns, Karla becomes aware of the limited

time that she has available for the session and switches

the focus of the discussion to pathos.

(44)K: Let’s…let’s forget about… about ethos for a

moment and let’s talk about pathos, people (Karla writes) people trust government institutions because…why?

(45)C: Because they have the highest powerful…power in this country…

(46)K: Do they trust them because they have the power? Is that why they trust?

(47)C: The…they control the most important things. (48)K: Is that why they trust? (49)C: I don’t know. (50)K: Why do you trust the government? (51)C: (laughs) Because they are the government. (52)K: Simply because they are the government? You

have never questioned them? (53)C: I guess… because…

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(54)K: What do you expect of the government? (55)C: It’s a good question like…the it’s organization

of the society… and hum…control the system of people’s lives…the system…yeah.

(56)K: You know, I’m keeping…I’m wondering if this is, this is ah… one of the very first cultural differences we’ve had. In the United States the main reason to trust the government is because the majority of people picked them to be the government…

(57)C: Okay, they choose them (58)K: They chose the government; they elected these

guys to be in charge of the country, all right? First of all, and then you trust that they would act in your best interest, and that might be a Canadian and not an American idea (laughs)...hum…but primarily they are elected and so you…you…you picked them because they…they hum… represent what you personally agree…the best of everyone that you can choose from, those guys representing your ideas and values. What other values do people have…how is money a value?

(59)C: Because they would pay tax and the tax is…how tax is paid…like the cost of hum… capital punishment is depend on tax, how much tax will connect to…

(60)K: Aha, tax is an important value and people don’t wanna pay it, right? So when you’re taxed more money, you are being asked to give money that you don’t wanna give …

(61) C: Yeah, we want to…the public want to know the truth of how they pay their money, how the government pay their money

(62)K: How is their money being used (63)C: Yeah (64)K: Well, the general mentality is the less taxes

the better, right? (65)C: Of course (66)K: So this is something you need to…to address

head on, and it’s the lurking behind what you are saying that you haven’t addressed yet specifically…that would make things go better…

This quote shows Karla’s efforts to help Cindy clarify

her doubts and deepen her thoughts. It also highlights the

positive effects of the tutoring session not only at the

level of Cindy’s academic literacy growth, but also at the

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linguistic knowledge level (see for example turns 58 and 62

where Karla scaffolds Cindy by modeling the correct

utterances). Talking about her tutoring strategy, Karla

commented that she usually avoided being a problem solver.

“With this strategy, they are learning to question and

think about their own works so that, eventually, they don’t

need me.”

This particular tutoring session is a good example of

how collaborative learning works in the case of writing

center tutorials. The collaborative dialogue between Karla

and Cindy works to mediate Cindy’s understanding of the

rhetorical terms. Karla, as the more capable peer in this

case, guides Cindy through questioning in this problem-

solving experience. By first relying on Karla’s support,

Cindy is led to the internalization of new knowledge.

Specifically, this knowledge, as will be described later,

is reflected in Cindy’s incorporation of the terms ethos,

pathos, and logos in the final draft of her essay.

Taking into consideration Cindy’s condition as a non-

native speaker of English, the previous interaction is

beneficial in terms of its effects on the construction of

Cindy’s linguistic knowledge in her second language.

Interactions like these provide Cindy with the opportunity

to use the target language, thus helping her to improve her

communication skills. Growing number of studies in the

fields of both L1 and L2 acquisition (See for example Pica

et al., 1989; Swain, 1985, 1995) have shown that during

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interaction, language learners can be pushed by their

interlocutors’ feedback to produce more correct language

output. This kind of help would be unlikely to be offered

in the classroom context.

In spite of all the beneficial aspects brought about

by Cindy’s tutoring sessions, there were some other aspects

that did not work as well. The kind of dynamics that

characterized Cindy’s tutoring sessions with Karla

occasionally led to uncomfortable situations that affected

Karla’s perceptions of Cindy and vice versa. Despite

Karla’s assertions that she usually strived to strike a

rapport of ease with her students so that she would not be

seen as an authority figure, her tutoring work with Cindy

was not always smooth, as reflected in Karla’s words,

I didn’t work with Cindy as well as with Yuna because she seems to be a little more resistant. she’s a little bit younger, she’s got a lot of bravado, and you know she’s very brave and thinks that she knows all and it takes a few steps before she realizes that she actually didn’t understand… Cindy doesn’t want to be pushed very much; Cindy wants to be left alone and you have to make your case strongly with her. I mean, she cut me off a lot of times and I had to…sometimes I had to get kind of strict with her and I felt like I was impeded or something that wasn’t very good and I was happy that she didn’t speak English well to know that my tone was not patient…

Analyzing Cindy’s behavior during some of the

tutorials, it was clear that her attitude differed somewhat

from commonly held notions associated with Asians’ behavior

when interacting with people that they consider as

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authority figures (e.g., nodding, remaining silent even

when they disagree with teacher’s ideas, and accepting most

of teacher’s corrections.) Instead of the typical

backchannels (verbal devices such as um-hum, yeah, and um)

that ESL students use to respond to their interlocutors,

there were several occasions in which Cindy used

clarification requests, such as “What do you mean?” or “I’m

confused” when she did not understand Karla. Likewise,

Cindy repeatedly interrupted Karla in some of the sessions

when trying to state her own points of view. However, Karla

viewed this behavior as an attitude of resistance.

Talking about Cindy’s perceptions regarding writing

center tutorials, she views time constraints as an aspect

that negatively affects the quality of her interactions

with Karla. As she put it

I think the time in the LRC is like … a little short… Usually, you can’t finish a work in one time so I think it’s a big problem like maybe I finish this part, the other day I move again to these things and I will begin again, then it’s a wasted time. If you can have a long period of time, you can finish it like…the…in one time you wouldn’t forget…you would’t miss anything and ah…that time would be…I think that time would be richer than…like two days doing little things, like you can’t do….and sometimes is like fixed …just Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes I don’t have things to do, but sometimes I’m busy but I don’t have tutoring sessions; maybe you… like if you can…get in touch with your TA by appointment would be better. In the LRC work is usually very slow; my tutor usually asks a lot of questions to make me think. Usually I can’t finish my work.

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Time constraints during tutorials is an issue that

constantly bothers tutors and students alike at the

Learning Resource Center. As Karla affirmed in one of our

interviews, beside time management, there are some

important aspects, like individual and contextual variables

that play an important role on the way tutoring sessions

evolve. In the case of ESL students, these factors demand

more consideration taking into account the different

challenges that these students face in the Rhetoric

classes.

Summary

In this chapter, I portrayed each one of the two ESL

students participating in the study, focusing especially on

their academic background and on their academic experiences

in their Rhetoric classes and in the Learning Resource

Center.

I observed Yuna and Cindy in the context of their

Rhetoric classroom and during their interactions with Karla

in the LRC. Both students’ perspectives regarding the

Rhetoric class seem to agree in the sense of considering it

as a difficult class for ESL students. Writing assignments

are constantly regarded as particularly challenging for

them, first because most of the times they feel unsure

about the specific requirements of those assignments, and

second because they perceive that their less sophisticated

level of English and their lack of experience doing

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rhetorical analysis play a negative role in the successful

completion of those assignments. As second language

writers, Yuna and Cindy have had to

face not only the challenges of acquiring a second

language, but also the challenges of mastering new skills

that are necessary to enter a new discourse community.

Tutoring sessions, as evidenced by many of the

interactions between Karla and the two focal students, have

played a key role in helping the two focal students cope

with the demands of the Rhetoric class. Many of the

recorded sessions in the Learning Resource Center can be

conceptualized as good examples of a tutor-led use of the

students’ zones of proximal development. Through her

coaching and questioning, Karla assisted both students in

performing the assigned tasks.

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CHAPTER VII

FEEDBACK AND REVISION: A TEXTUAL

ANALYSIS

Overview

Responding to students’ texts has always been

essential to teaching writing (Reid, 2001). One of the most

common ways to respond to students’ texts is through

written comments (Doher, 1991). Teachers seem to assume

that students will learn from such comments and will apply

the new knowledge to subsequent papers or drafts of the

same paper, leading to improved writing. Several studies

on the influence of feedback on student revision support

this stance (see, for example, Fathman and Whalley,1990;

Frantzen and Risell, 1987; Ferris, 1997).

Besides understanding the impact of written feedback

on the way the two focal students revised their texts, I

also wanted to account for the oral feedback that Karla

provided during her tutoring sessions with the two

students. In this respect, my main interest was to find a

connection between what was discussed during these sessions

and how the students revised their drafts.

There were at least three sources of feedback that the

focal students used to revise different drafts for their

final major written assignments. These sources were: the

Learning Resource Center tutor, the Rhetoric teacher and

the peer-workshops. For purposes of the textual analysis, I

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added the category “self sponsored” in the case of

revisions that could not be attributed to any one of the

specified feedback sources.

In this part of the study, I first describe the

content and requirements of both Yuna’s and Cindy’s final

assignments. Then, I present the results of the analysis of

textual changes called for by the written and oral comments

provided by the different sources of feedback and the

changes actually made by each one of the focal students.

Finally, I compare the results obtained in each case and

discuss the impact of feedback on the two students’

revision strategies.

For the purpose of the textual analysis, I used an

expanded version of Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy of

revisions (see Chapter III for an explanation of the coding

system). Broadly speaking, the taxonomy distinguishes

between two kinds of textual changes: surface changes,

which do not bring new information to the text or remove

old information; and text-based changes, which alter the

meaning of the text. Because I was also interested in

learning about the focal students’ reactions to the

comments and about their strategies for processing each

comment and for the total revision, I asked each of them to

do a reflection protocol while revising their final paper.

I had used this technique for data collection with good

results during the pilot study that I conducted in the

summer of 2002. Consequently, I was relatively confident

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that the procedure would work well with the participants of

the present study.

Although Rhetoric courses include at least six major

assignments, three for writing and three for speaking, the

textual analysis of comments in the case of the present

investigation focused only on the feedback provided for the

final written paper. My rationale for selecting the final

assignment for analysis was based on my assumption that the

students’ levels of anxiety regarding the Rhetoric class

and about their own writing skills would have lessened by

the end of the semester as a result of their longer

exposure to the Rhetoric class and to the tutoring

sessions. I expected that their revision strategies would

reflect attention to sources of feedback as well.

With the permission of both of the students, I

collected copies of preliminary and revised drafts from

their third writing projects of the course. The first

drafts contained handwritten comments—both in the margins

and at the end of the paper—provided particularly by the

students’ peers during writing workshops, by the Rhetoric

teachers, and by the tutor. I also asked the two students

to allow me to copy the final draft that reflected the

relationship between the different forms of responses they

had received and what had been revised in their final

papers.

Since I was unsure whether Yuna and Cindy were

familiar with the dynamics of the reflection protocol, I

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decided to model one for them at the Learning Resource

Center. Some days before the due date for turning in the

final draft, I asked them to choose a quiet place to record

everything they thought about while revising their texts.

The same week when the students turned in their final

drafts to their teachers, each one of them brought a tape

with the recorded reflection protocols, which I later

transcribed (see the entire transcription of the two

protocols in Appendix A).

How Different Sources of Feedback Shaped Yuna’s Revision Strategies

The Assignment

For final writing assignments, Rhetoric teachers often

allow students to select the topic of the controversies

they are going to analyze. However, this was not the case

in Yuna’s class, a decision that disappointed most of the

students, including Yuna.

The final writing assignment (Appendix B), which

represented 15% of the total grade, was based upon the

analysis of four journal articles debating the possible

measures to prevent forest fires and restore the forest

ecosystem in the United States. Although the articles

debated the same issue, they represented various

perspectives on how to manage the forest system. The

journal articles used for this assignment were documents

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from the US Department of Interior (DOI), Sierra Club, US

Geologic Survey (USGS), and Biodiversity Northwest (BNW).

The goal of the assignment was to discover and analyze

how each party established its own “truth” in degrees of

separation from the other articles, based upon the party’s

opinion and specific rhetoric. In order for the students to

successfully complete the essay, they were required to

evaluate what the issue(s) were, how they were manifested,

and where they represented a divergence of thought/policy.

The prompt for this assignment was, “How is it that these

arguments debate the same issue but seek the same end road

(forest management through selective burns, and logging),

yet hold such strong and varied perspectives upon how to

manage the forest system?” (Assignment Sheet). While

discussing every argument, students were required to

maintain neutrality.

Matt also required that each student turn in a

proposal outlining their goals and any other selected

source material beside the ones already assigned. Likewise,

students needed to turn in two written drafts (each due for

workshop), “which while similar must show your ability to

re-craft the essay and develop its content; grammar and

spelling count, but are not indicative of a re-crafted

essay” (Assignment Sheet).

The required length of the essay was eight full pages,

which should include:

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“A declarative thesis paragraph stating the central

issue and the parties who argued and what their take was

within the national arena”

“An illumination of the arguments, breaking each down

into its constituents parts allowing for a thoughtful

analysis of multiple perspectives”

“A declaration and illumination of the rhetorical

appeal (s) used by each party”

“A summary which presents a clear and analytic view of

the issue and the arguments which could support themselves

devoid of the main essay”

“A conclusion that analyzes the findings from the main

body assessing the evidence each position presented

conclusively”

The general goal for this last assignment was to help

students develop the ability to write about the rhetorical

aspects of a controversy. In the first two papers, students

were expected to understand and apply basic rhetorical

concepts in the analysis of a writer’s stand on an issue.

The objective for this final paper was again to analyze

particular rhetorical aspects but in the context of

controversial exchange. As compared with the two previous

assignments, this final project was more challenging for

the students not only in terms of the required length of

for the paper, but also because of the need to explain a

position in relation to other positions for the analysis of

a controversy, a task that they had not done before. The

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assignment also called for students to synthesize the texts

and integrate source materials.

During the second week, after having received the

final assignment, some of the Rhetoric students expressed

concerns not only about the content of the readings

assigned as sources for writing the final paper, but also

on the specific requirements of the paper. Up to this time,

I had perceived Matt’s group as rather shy and passive in

class; consequently, I could not help feeling surprised to

hear several students’ voices (including Yuna’s) expressing

concern and frustration resulting from their difficulty

understanding what was expected from them and also grasping

the content of the readings.

During the class time, students voiced their concerns,

requesting further clarifications of the assignment and

asking Matt to provide specific strategies for approaching

the readings and for making the analysis. Students raised

different questions that ranged from basic issues like “How

can we organize our essays?” to more complex aspects, such

as “How can we find the arguments of each article?” and

“Once we find the arguments in each article, how do we

compare their positions in the controversy?”

For every question asked, Matt used diagrams and

drawings to get his points across. He also warned the

students not to use “I” because they were not supposed to

be advocating in favor of any position. After some minutes

of discussion, there were no more questions on the part of

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the students, but their faces still reflected the same

anxiety they showed before Matt’s clarifications.

After this question and answer session, Matt asked the

students to get in pairs to talk about their projects.

During this time, Matt also had individual conferences with

some students to talk about the final paper. Yuna joined

another female student. I sat close to them to follow their

conversation. Yuna expressed concerns about the readings,

pointing out that they were very difficult to understand.

Her partner agreed with her stating that she was also

struggling to understand the content of the reading

materials. She read Yuna’s proposal but because she spoke

with a low tone of voice, I could not make out the content

of her comments. After this, they took one of the readings

and started discussing it. After some minutes of

interaction with her partner, Yuna approached Matt for an

individual conference. Trying not to be disruptive, I

decided to remain seated in my chair. Nevertheless, I could

perceive Matt’s clarifications of the specific requirements

of the assignments and also his suggestions on how to make

the analysis. Yuna listened to Matt attentively without

interrupting him.

Examining the due date for turning in the proposal

(November 18) and the deadline for completing the final

paper (December 12) I was aware that Yuna had almost a

month to work on this project. This fact had an important

effect on Yuna’s writing process for this particular paper,

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especially because of the amount of feedback received from

the tutor during this time period. Talking specifically

about the tutoring sessions dedicated to work on the final

project, I was able to audiotape and transcribe a total of

five different sessions dealing with this particular

assignment. The frequency of the tutoring sessions devoted

to the final assignment differed significantly from the

time dedicated to discussing the two previous major

assignments, which averaged two to three sessions per

assignment.

Although Matt had scheduled two days for peer

workshopping, I found out later that Yuna had decided not

to show her drafts to her peers. When I asked her about the

reasons for this decision, Yuna commented: This time I didn’t get any feedback from my peers because…because simply I didn’t show my paper to them because I don’t think it’s that much helpful because they simply ah… check the grammar… grammatic mistakes. So, most of them…I mean, their correction about grammar hum… that I can do, so I didn’t show the paper to them.

When I asked her about what she had done during the

two days of peer-revision, she said that she had spent the

time reading and providing feedback to some of her peers’

drafts. Yuna’s decision not to seek feedback from her peers

seems to reflect her lack of motivation for using this

particular form of feedback, which she perceives as

particularly less helpful for improving her paper. During

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our final interview, Yuna asserted that her experiences

with previous workshops had been discouraging in terms of

the kind of help she was expecting to receive from her

peers and the kind of help they had provided. As she put

it,

The first time we had workshops I was really nervous and uncomfortable. I felt my opinion was less than theirs because English is not my first language. I thought their essays were better than mine, but they were not… During workshops, they just corrected grammar stuff, like articles and tenses…I was expecting to hear other kinds of suggestions, like this sentence is okay but it would be better to write it like this…or this sentence would make more sense if you write it like this… something like that, but they never did that…

Yuna’s perception demonstrates that ESL students—or at

least Yuna—can be very selective when considering their

audience and when incorporating the kinds of revisions

suggested. This finding is consistent with the results of

the Mendonca & Johnson (1994) study, when they describe

student writers’ ability to “consider their audience but

also judge their audience’s comments, making decisions

about them” (p.766).

During the last week of classes, I asked Yuna to allow

me to copy the submitted drafts (two conferenced with

Karla, and one with corrections from Matt) together with

the final version of the final paper (Appendix C). She also

turned in a micro-cassette with the reflection protocol

that she had recorded while revising for the final draft. I

compared the three different drafts with the final version,

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examining those places in the papers that had been

identified as needing revision. Then, I compared the

different drafts to find out which revisions had been made

and which had not. I present the results of these revisions

in Table 4. In the next section, I discuss Cindy’s final

assignment goals. I also describe the way in which she used

the different sources of feedback.

How Different Sources of Feedback Shaped Cindy’s Revision Strategies

The Assignment

For this final project titled “Mapping a Controversy”

Cindy, like Yuna, was required to analyze a controversy.

However, the format of the assignment differed slightly in

Cindy’s case, because students were given the option to

select among four possible topics. In Anne’s class, each

student was required to work within a group of 5-6 members

to examine one aspect of a larger controversy. This group

would also work together in a panel for the oral

presentation of their projects. The topics for which

students signed up included the following ones:

• Current situation in Iraq

• Gun control

• Capital punishment

• Genetically modified foods

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The issue picked by Cindy was “The Cost of Capital

Punishment.” It was not an easy decision for her and she

struggled to pick one of the assigned topics. During a

later conversation, she said she did not feel attracted by

any of the topics because she lacked prior knowledge on

each one. She believed it would have been better for the

students to have the opportunity to select a more

personally appealing topic and one for which they already

had previous experience or knowledge. For all these

reasons, Cindy did not feel at ease or motivated to do the

assignment. Cindy’s comments regarding the topic of the

assignment follow, I don’t like is the article we choose, the topic we choose, like usually the topic is a little boring like and ah…the paper we write is not very creative…it just depends on …how the…other writes…you don’t have opinion on your paper or something…I think.

Cindy’s comments regarding the lack of creativity of

the paper also seemed to reflect her dissatisfaction with

the specific requirement of the course to avoid advocacy in

favor or against a particular position. She kept on saying

that she did not understand why she had to wait until the

second part of the course sequence to advocate her own

position on a controversy.

Interestingly, all but one of the students on Cindy’s

panel were female. This means that all but one of the total

female students in the group selected “Capital Punishment”

as the focus of their final projects. After the selection

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of the issue to be analyzed, Anne oriented students on

possible aspects of the larger controversy for further

focus. Among several possible options, Cindy decided to

focus on the economic cost burden posed by capital

punishment, a decision she justified through her knowledge

from her academic orientation toward business.

A week later during class time, the students turned in

a typed one page, doubled-spaced proposal that outlined

aspects of the controversy they would examine and at least

two tentative sources. The same day, Anne also asked

students to write their reflections regarding the expected

goals for this last assignment. Although the students had

already received a handout with the specific requirements

of the assignment, Anne wanted to make sure that the

students understood what they were expected to do.

After the students handed in their comments to Anne,

she projected a transparency on a screen to show the

students what she wanted to see in their papers. The

information in the overhead read as follows:

A good paper has… - Title - Bibliography - Introductory paragraph that announces the argument

you are making in the paper - A discussion of the research you did (how you are

grounding your paper) - A discussion of the sources you used (name of the

article, author, years, pages) - Heavy use of your sources - Quoted sentences excerpts with indentation if long,

with page numbers - Connect citations of work that is not your own

regardless of whether it is quoted or rephrased

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- At least 2-3 drafts with substantial revision between each

- A thesis statement - Page numbers - A conclusion

When talking about revision, Anne spent some time

explaining what she meant by the term revising. She said:

“Revision is revisiting, not only correcting mistakes.” She

also stressed the importance of going over the peers’

comments when revising. As a preparation for the final

papers, the students were also required to bring their

bibliographic sources for next class in order to work with

them in class and to raise questions or doubts they might

have about their papers.

Talking specifically about the requirements for the

final project, students were asked to use a minimum of five

and a maximum of seven different sources, not counting the

Internet. The students needed to explore how arguments had

been made concerning the specific issue. They were also

warned to focus on analysis rather than summary or on

advocating their own position. Therefore, they needed to

pay attention to the context of the author, intended

audience, tone, language, and appeals to argument that

shaped their main argument. One of the aspects most

stressed for fulfilling the assignment requirement was to

steer away from a format that individually analyzed each

article the students had chosen. “Instead, you want to get

at the heart of each perspective and put them in

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conversation with each other” (Assignment Sheet). The

required length of the essay was 6-8 pages.

It is important to note that from the proposal due

date until the completion of the essay, Cindy and her peers

had a total of eight days. Furthermore, before the due date

for turning in the final essay, students had only one day

for workshopping their papers with their peers. Regarding

the tutoring sessions devoted to discuss Cindy’s final

paper, Karla and Cindy had only two sessions to discuss the

assignment and to work on a rough draft.

As explained in the section on Methodology, I used a

revision protocol as a secondary data source in order to

elicit additional information from the focal students

regarding the feedback they had received on their drafts,

and the revision strategies that guided their efforts. It

is important to notice that the protocol technique did not

work very well in the specific case of Cindy. I was already

acquainted with some of the drawbacks in the use of think

aloud protocols in writing research, among them that “they

require writers to simultaneously write and verbalize what

they are thinking as they pause” (Faigley and Witte, 1981

p. 412). However, I trusted that the activity would not be

intrusive, considering that the focal students were not

required to simultaneously talk while writing but to

comment and reflect on what was already written, while

focusing particularly on the feedback received in order to

understand their perceptions toward revising.

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Although at various points during the semester I had

explained to both focal students the dynamics and purpose

of the activity (I had scheduled three protocols

corresponding to each one of the major written

assignments), and in spite of my modeling a protocol for

them, Cindy experienced serious difficulties with the

activity. When asked about the reasons for this difficulty

the first two times, Cindy affirmed that she found it

difficult to verbalize what was going on with her revision

activities. She also referred to a lack of confidence in

fluently expressing her ideas in English. In order to ease

this difficulty, I proposed that Cindy use her first

language in the protocol. She replied saying that she would

resort to her first language only in the event that her

attempts to do the protocol in English failed.

For the last written project, the same as with the two

previous projects, I asked her to choose a quiet place to

record everything she did while revising her text. At the

next tutoring session, Cindy showed up with a triumphant

face and a tape with the recorded protocol.

In spite of all the difficulties that Cindy

encountered at the beginning with the activity (she already

had two failed attempts when revising the two prior major

projects), she was able to do a very complete and

thoughtful protocol for her final paper (Appendix A). One

of the most interesting aspects of her protocol was the

discovery that she had used it not only to talk about the

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different forms of feedback received and about her revision

strategies, but to reflect upon her own writing process and

about her writing problems.

During the last week of classes, Cindy turned in the

different drafts (each one of them with the identification

of the feedback source). I compared the different

conferenced drafts with Karla and Cindy’s peers with the

final version, examining those places in the papers that

had been identified as needing revision (see Appendix C

with Cindy’s drafts and final paper). Then, I compared the

different drafts to find out which revisions had been made

and which had not.

In tables 4 and 5 I present a summary of the findings

after the textual analysis of both Yuna’s and Cindy’s final

papers.

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Table 4. Summary of the Combined Revision Changes in Yuna’s Final Paper

Source of Feedback

Surface Changes Formal Meaning- Preserving

R

Not R

Text-based Changes

Micro Macro Structure Structure

R

Not R

Comments calling for no change

Peers

0 0

0 0

Rhetoric Teacher

20 29

38

11

0 0

4

Tutor

4 17

19

2

26 7

32

1

2

Self-Sponsored

10 33

R: Revised NR: Not Revised

Table 5. Summary of the Combined Revision Changes in Cindy’s Final Paper

Source of Feedback

Surface Changes Formal Meaning- Preserving

R Not R

Text-based Changes Micro Macro Structure Structure

R Not R

Comments calling for not change

Peers

3 6

6

3

4

4

6

Rhetoric Teacher

5 1

5

1 3

2

1

3

Tutor

3

3

11 8

15

4

1

Self –Sponsored

3 25

0 0 10

0 0

R: Revised NR: Not Revised

Adapted from Faigley and Witte (1981). Analyzing Revision. College Composition and Communication, 32, 400-414.

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Discussion of Findings

Revision is not easy to measure. As evidenced by the

review of the literature, there have been different

attempts to capture diverse aspects of the revision process

(see Polio & Knibloe, 1999 for a review). Most of the

previous studies conducted in second language writing have

focused on the analysis of the follow-up changes made in

drafts as a result of written comments. In other words, the

emphasis has been on the written product. The goal of the

textual analysis in the case of the present study is to

make possible connections between the different sources of

feedback (oral and written), especially tutor feedback,

that the two focal students received, and the subsequent

revisions of their drafts.

There were marked differences across the various

sources of feedback with respect to the focus on the

suggested revisions. The kinds of revisions discussed in

the tutoring sessions for both students, for example,

focused primarily on broader issues that ranged from the

discussions of the assignments’ goals and the

interpretation of readings, to discussions about the

meaning and application of basic rhetorical terms in the

students’ essays, and clarifications about the meaning of

specific words. It therefore made more sense to treat those

global issues qualitatively in order to understand their

possible effect on the students’ writing. In other words,

because of the complex nature of this type of change, it

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was harder to attribute them directly and quantitatively to

the interactions during the sessions. Consequently, I

provided rich descriptions of the interactions. Taking into

account the marked differences between the surface-level

changes and content-based changes called for by the

different sources of feedback that the students had

available, I will discuss each group of changes separately.

Surface Changes

As defined by the Faigley and Witte’s taxonomy of

textual changes, surface-level changes comprise copy-

editing operations that do not affect the meaning of the

text. An examination of the surface-level changes in the

texts analyzed indicates that the frequency of suggestions

for surface-level changes differed across the two focal

students.

In spite of the lack of feedback from her peers,

Yuna’s surface-based changes totaled 113 in a text of

approximately 1700 words. The majority of these changes

could be traced to her Rhetoric teacher’s suggestions (43%

out of the total). A comparison of Yuna’s first and

subsequent drafts reveals that she incorporated most of

these suggestions (77.5%), whereas she ignored 22.4% of the

proposed changes. In Cindy’s case, the total number of

surface-based changes was 46 in a text of approximately

1440 words, and most of these changes came as a result of

peers’ feedback (19.5%).

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The differences observed in the number of surface-

based changes in both students is likely attributed to the

lesser amount of time that Cindy had available to receive

feedback from her different sources. This observation also

makes sense in the light of the high frequency of surface-

level changes in Cindy’s text that could not be attributed

to any specific source of feedback (60.8%), and that were

consequently classified as self-sponsored changes.

An analysis of Cindy’s drafts shows that she

incorporated the majority of her peers’ suggestions (66.6%

out of the total), and ignored 33.6% of these suggestions.

As most previous studies on feedback and revision have

shown, students tend to heed specific suggestions for

surface-level changes, either grammatical or lexical,

because of the ease of revision. In other words, it is

easier for a student to note or remember, for example, that

a verb is missing or that a word is not used properly and

make the appropriate change than to rewrite whole sections

of text in response to recommendation on text-based

revisions. The analysis of surface changes on the two focal

students’ texts also showed this tendency. Notice, for

example, the kind of surface-level changes that Yuna

incorporated in her final draft as a result of her

teacher’s corrections for one particular sentence of her

essay: (First version)

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Sierra Club is the biggest, longest environmental

organization in the world supported by environmentalists

and many volunteers who concern with protecting communities

and the planet.

(Revised version)

Sierra Club is the biggest, oldest environmental

organization in the world supported by environmentalists

and many volunteers who are concerned with protecting

communities and the planet.

(corrections are indicated by the bold letter)

As the edited version indicates, Yuna’s revision of

the sentence dealt basically with grammar and lexicon.

Similar suggestions for sentence-level corrections were

also present in Cindy’s case. However, not all the

suggestions were incorporated. Notice, for example, Cindy’s

peer suggested changes for the following sentence. See also

the kinds of changes that Cindy made in the final version.

(Cindy’s first version)

Not only purpose affects and influences the audience, but

also there are a lot of other factors determine the

audience.

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(Peer’s suggested changes)

Not only does the purpose of the articles influence the

audiences, but there are a lot of other factors that

determine the audience.

(Cindy’s final version)

Not only purpose of the article influences the audiences,

but also there are a lot of other factors that determine

the audience.

As the above examples show, Cindy did not follow all

her peer’s suggested changes, incorporating just some of

them in the revised version. Perhaps, Cindy viewed the

suggested structure as ungrammatical because pieces of the

argument were reversed. In spite of the incorporated

changes, the resulting construction is still awkward. This

finding corroborates findings from previous studies (Cohen

and Robbins, 1976; Chandler, 2000) indicating that the

feedback provided does not always results in successful

revision. At least in the case of this particular example,

the peer’s goal of improving the grammar and structure of

Cindy’s original sentence did not result in a successful

revision. Although Cindy made some slight changes, the

sentence structure was still problematic.

In her reflection protocol, Cindy referred to the

changes that her peer suggested for the above sentence and

commented about her decision to not incorporate all the

suggested changes. She said, “My classmate cancelled

[crossed out] one word…like cut the word ‘also’ but I think

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I don’t need to do that because it’s a sentence like’ not

only but also’…” Cindy’s comments regarding the feedback

provided might indicate that she did not understand the

scope of the changes suggested, or simply decided not to

incorporate all of them. This observation is consistent

with other studies (Mendonca & Johnson, 1994) that indicate

ESL students can be selective when incorporating the kinds

of revisions suggested.

As compared with surface revisions, suggestions for

text-based changes are more difficult to identify, partly

because a suggestion of this type can be repeated in

different ways and at different moments during the tutoring

session. I turn now to the discussion to this particular

kind of change and how the two focal students dealt with

them in the subsequent revision of their drafts.

Content-Based Changes

Results from the text analysis in both focal students’

sets of drafts seem to indicate that most of the

substantial revisions that they made in their final drafts

were stimulated by the tutoring sessions. Interestingly,

most of the revisions in both papers (61% in Yuna’s paper;

90.6% in Cindy’s paper), are traceable to sessions with the

tutor and deal mainly with text-based features. In Faigley

and Witte’s taxonomy, a text-based change constitutes a

major revision change that alters the summary of a text.

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The number of text-base changes observed in both focal

students’ final drafts contradicts some research studies

(Ritter, 2002) indicating that tutors tend to focus on

grammatical or lexical features during sessions with second

language writers. It also contradicts certain assumptions

regarding the kind of feedback that International students

prefer to receive (Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994; Leki, 1991).

According to these assumptions, International students are

more accustomed to feedback that addresses superficial

error correction; consequently, this is the kind of

feedback that they expect to receive and the one which they

mostly incorporate in their revisions. However, this was

not the tendency in the case of the present study.

The feature that characterized most of the tutoring

sessions between Karla and each one of the focal students

was the emphasis on the discussion of broader issues, such

as the content of readings, the structure of arguments, and

writer’s strategies to persuade readers. A close

examination of each one of the two focal students’ drafts

shows that the emphasis of feedback in the tutoring

sessions was particularly reflected in the way the students

revised their final drafts.

In the specific case of Yuna’s revisions, her final

draft showed a substantial rewrite, especially of content

and organization, reflecting the emphasis of the tutoring

sessions that she had with Karla. The following excerpt

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from the last tutoring session between Yuna and Karla

showed this emphasis: Y: Yuna K: Karla K: So I still want to know what the USGS [U.S.

Geologic Survey] say for their claims… Y: They don’t have much claims they just… I think

they just have some information or opinion, they agree with DOI [Department of Interior]

K: Um hu Y: And in general they agree with other two parts

but basically their opinion is there is no single solution…

K: Ok Y: To forests… K: No single solution (writing). Cutting down the

old trees is because… yes and no because…umm…good.

Y: They chose some actual evidence in different regions because….

K: So, these guys seem to be the most reasonable in the end; these guys are the ones I would take the most seriously, because these ones are saying, making a statement never ever cut down the old trees because it harms the ecosystem. Well, whenever you say never do this I mean that there is a problem. These guys say cut down all the old trees umm…it make sense on the one hand, but it sounds like they’re not really considering the harmful, they’re also taking an extreme position, just cut them all down. These guys are taking a moderate position. Don’t cut down the old trees cause it harms the ecosystem, but umm…the solution is in behavior and these guys seem to be taking the most, you know, they’re saying well there is not going to be a good solution so, umm…we need to take everything by a case by case situation or something like that.

In this particular session, Yuna and Karla engage in a

discussion regarding the kind of solutions that each party

offers to prevent forest fires and restore healthy forest

in the United States. After analyzing the various positions

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on this issue, Yuna and Karla agree that the four

organizations have the common goal of preventing

catastrophic fires and preserving the ecosystem. However,

there are discrepancies among the group on the best

strategies to reach their goal.

The DOI, for example, concludes that the main reason

for catastrophic fires in the west is the suppression of

fires; consequently, it favors planned burns and logging.

Sierra Club, an organization with a long tradition in

forest conservation, agrees with the negative effect of

fire suppression, but strongly discourages the idea of

cutting trees. It claims that logging trees destroys

healthy forests adding that logging companies take only the

high-value timber that is mostly fire-resistant. BNW

(Biodiversity North West), focuses on old growth

preservation for wild life and water quality. They suggest

thinning of brush and small trees but no logging. Finally,

USGS emphasizes the importance of fire as a natural

component of the ecological system. However, they

acknowledge that the effectiveness of prescribed burns

depends upon the specific characteristics of each forest.

Using the evidence of different research studies and, with

the support of advanced computer technology, they call for

different management tools to prevent forest fires.

After the tutoring sessions, Yuna’s paper retained

about a half of her original draft, and her revisions

reflected most of Karla’s suggestions, especially in

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identifying which group had more credibility based on the

arguments presented about the role of low intensity fires

on healthy forests and ecosystem. An analysis of Yuna’s

final draft shows how she incorporated this particular

suggestion: The USGS appeals to logos and ethos more effectively than the other three groups. It argues that every fire has different reasons, thus it needs different preventative tools. In some points, it agrees with the prescribed burns and regards fires as an important role for healthy forests and preventing catastrophic fires. However, it argues that in some areas, prescribed burns do not work, but fire suppression does. The USGS consists mostly of scientists who are experts in forest fires. They have researched all about fires based on various researches using advanced computer technology…It gives more credibility to its claims. In addition, it demonstrates the reason why different tools are needed to prevent fires logically, showing the examples of many fires occurring in different areas…

The impact of the tutoring session is reflected in the

way Yuna revised her final draft. The incorporation of this

paragraph, which was not present in the earlier drafts,

shows that Yuna changed the text to conform to the ideas

that that she had discussed with Karla during the tutoring

sessions.

As with Yuna’s paper, Cindy’s final paper also showed

a substantial rewrite. As compared with Yuna’s revisions

(she retained about a half of her original draft), Cindy

retained only about a quarter of her original draft.

Although Cindy was able to have only two tutoring sessions

with Karla to talk about her drafts, most of the

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incorporated changes reflected the focus of their

discussion on content and organization.

The specific content that Cindy had to deal with in

her final paper was related to the way different authors

looked at economic factors (cost of jury, judges, and

prisons) to make an argument about capital punishment.

Karla’s stressed the focus of the assignment in the first

tutoring session that she had with Cindy to revise her

final paper. This is what Karla said,

The one thing I would like you to consider and clarify…your job is to talk about the way people use economics in the debate of capital punishment, right? So in each discussion you may want to talk about…make up your own appeal, your appeal is an economic one right? How is the appealing to economics tied to ethos, pathos, logos?

In the two versions which follow, it is possible to

observe the way Cindy approaches the arguments that one of

the authors uses in the analysis of the cost of capital

punishment. She also describes how an appeal to economics

is tied to ethos and pathos. The arguments were taken from

the article titled “The Costliest Punishment-A Corrections

Administrator Contemplates the Death Penalty” written by

P.W. Keve in 1992. In this article, Keve argues that

contrary to what many people believe, the death penalty is

more costly than life imprisonment.

(Cindy’s first version) From the words used like “public”, “most people”, and the poll example [a New York state poll], you will find the author tries to carry on the conversation with the whole

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public. The example appeals to the ethos. Also there it appeals to pathos, because he tries to refer the public opinion to make every audience to build a position to make a strong relationship between the audiences and his arguments. (Revised version)

From the words used like “public”, “most people”, and the poll example, we can find the author tries to connect his argument with the whole public. The examples used are the facts of research. It appeals to ethos; it also appeals to pathos. The example provided here is about the public opinion; he also refers to the effects of the big cost of capital punishment on the government’s taxes situation and policy, aspects that relate to the audiences very closely. He tries to let the audiences relate the examples with themselves; then, he makes the audiences consider his thought when they build their own position in this controversy.

A review of the two versions shows not only the kinds

of changes Cindy made at the superficial level, but

especially at the content level. Cindy’s substantial

rewrite of this paragraph particularly reflects the

incorporation of new information specifically related to

taxes, an aspect that she discussed with Karla during the

tutoring session.

The revised version also reveals that the writing

tutoring session focus, specifically, Karla’s suggestions

to address more directly how the author appealed to pathos

in making his arguments, had an effect on the way Cindy

revised her final draft. The impact of the session on

Cindy’s revision is clear. She incorporated new and

specific information to conform to the content that Karla

stressed during the tutoring session.

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In her reflection protocol, Cindy addressed these

particular changes saying,

Karla gave me advice like to think things like ethos, pathos, logos deeply; then, to connect everything well… She also asked me to talk about how the authors used the economic appeal to refer to pathos I… read more about why it appeals to pathos umm….like the former sentence [her first version] is just very simple like it just appeals to pathos didn’t very deep to explain [does not explain very deeply] why and…I write like the example right here about the public opinion…

As I said before, most of the discussions between

Cindy and Karla for the revision of Cindy’s final paper

focused on content and organization. Organization, for

example, was an aspect that constantly bothered Cindy

because of the fact that she had to deal with five

different sources to analyze her topic. The first source

that she used was a testimony by Richard Dieter before the

Legislative Commission to study the death penalty and

related DNA testing (2002). The second source was the

article “The Cost of Capital Punishment” by Michael Coles

(2002). The third was an article published in The Economist

titled “Execution Reconsidered” (1999). The fourth was the

article “Trial’s High Costs Tax Jasper Coffers” by Robert

Bryce (1999). The final source was the article “The

Costliest Punishment-A Corrections Administrator

contemplates the Death Penalty” by P.W. Keve (1992).

Trying to address Cindy’s concerns about the

organization of her paper, Karla suggested the inclusion of

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a summary of the arguments for each reading. Such a summary

was not present in her previous drafts. An examination of

the revised draft reveals the incorporation of this

summary:

(Cindy’s final version)

Dieter discusses the net cost per execution, the factors that should be considered, and also his recommendations for reducing the cost. Coles tries to show that capital punishment is more expensive than a system where life-imprisonment is the maximum sentence. All these aspects refer to studies about the real cost of capital punishment. “Execution Reconsidered” published in Economics in June 1999 introduces several states’ decision to declare a moratorium on executions. Bryce’s article talks about how to solve the county’s budget problem originated the high cost of murder trials…Keve intends to persuade people against the capital punishment by analyzing the big waste caused by capital punishment on the country’s taxes and the victims’ lives…

When evaluating Cindy’s paper, Anne praised this particular

paragraph writing the following comment on the left margin

of her paper: “Good paragraph.”

Interestingly, 28% of the text-based revisions noted

in Cindy’s final paper could not be attributed to any of

the feedback sources that were available to Cindy;

consequently, I assumed that those revisions might have

been self-initiated. The rationale behind this assumption

is that during her revision protocol, Cindy often referred

to these changes using phrases such as “I did this,” “I

wanted to add this,” I changed this part” without

attributing the suggestions to any particular source of

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feedback. Another possible interpretation is that although

there was not an identified source of feedback for these

changes, the momentum for the revision processes may have

been provided in the tutoring session.

Text-based revisions that can be traced to tutoring

sessions can also be associated with interactional aspects

of negotiation that take place during the tutoring

sessions. Thus, extended negotiations in which the focal

students participated actively in the dialogue, seeking

clarification or stating their own points of view tended to

favor subsequent text-based revisions. See, for instance,

this exchange between Yuna and Karla discussing the

different arguments that the authors of the articles

presented to prevent forest fires. K: Karla Y: Yuna K: Ok let me ask you this question. You can only

join one of those groups, which one are you going to join Sierra Club or Bark?

Y: If my place… K: Yeah Y: Has a forest fire… K: Um… Y: I’m gonna go for Bark because Bark has a lot of

residents from the towns that have forest fires, but Sierra Club umm…I didn’t find any residents like umm…like Bark had…

K: Well that sounds to me like you’re really hitting on this concept of pathos in the sense that you’re saying the members of Bark are people who have personally experienced forest fires, whereas the members of the Sierra Club have not and so for you that…that makes you …that…that…that sort of makes you…that’s sort of makes you…. It’s appealing to your idea that someone that someone’s experience makes them

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umm…a….a….a…a more worthy spokesperson for a cause

Y: In terms of experience, experience can give you more credibility…

K: Exactly Y: The… the way they argue is… they are more

appealing umm… K: It’s more appealing? Y: Yeah, I mean Bark because many umm…umm…people

of Bark…try…are trying to appeal umm…people’s values like one of the people said… said like I don’t care about the policies of the government and I don’t care about the ecology system I want my home….make sure my home is secure and…yeah…

Yuna’s active participation in this particular

session, pushing her own perspective and demonstrating a

good knowledge of the reading materials, leads her to make

substantive revisions in her final draft. As compared with

Cindy, Yuna exhibited a higher level of involvement and

participation during the tutoring sessions. This finding

suggests that students’ individual characteristics, such as

age and previous academic background may have a role to

play in the way students approach revision.

The impact of revision on the improvement in the

quality of the students’ drafts, particularly in the

context of composition classes, is usually determined by

holistic assessment measures. In the present study, the two

Rhetoric teachers evaluated the students’ final drafts

using a scale A to F, with A the highest score and F the

lowest. As the textual analysis indicated, both focal

students’ final drafts exhibited substantial content level

rewrites compared to first drafts. However, there were

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slight differences in the way each teacher rated his/her

student’s paper. Thus, Matt evaluated Yuna’s paper as

deserving of A, whereas Anne evaluated Cindy’s paper and

assigned a B-. A possible interpretation for Cindy’s lower

grade is that she had less time to work on more drafts (one

week). Consequently, there was no way for Anne to evaluate

draft-to-draft changes. Although there is a tendency among

teachers and researchers to believe that revision does not

always lead to improvement in the quality of the texts, the

results of this study reveal that at least Yuna’s revisions

were successful. Not only did she get knowledge in the

process of revising drafts. The improved quality of her

essay was also apparent, an aspect that Matt acknowledged

by evaluating her paper with an excellent grade and writing

these comments in the last page of her paper, “This is a

very well written paper, showing considerable attention to

detail and a sophisticated sense of abstracting the

rhetoric of each group…The essay works as a wholly analytic

document that examines carefully the sense of multiple

perspectives.”

The preceding analysis of textual changes on the final

written essays of the two focal students shows the impact

that the different sources of feedback have on the way they

revise their drafts. As the analysis of content-based

revision changes demonstrates, each of the students’ final

papers exhibits a substantial rewrite. Most of the changes

in the paper reflect the emphasis of the tutoring sessions

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intended to deal with broader issues of content and

organization. Surface level issues were hardly ever

approached during the sessions.

These results suggest that the nature of the tutoring

sessions might have an effect on the way the students

revise. In other words, the focus of discussion during

tutorials is also reflected in the way students revise. At

least, this was the tendency in the case of the two focal

students, whose revisions reflected most of the tutor’s

suggestions.

Summary

In this chapter I analyzed how three particular

sources of feedback: tutoring sessions, teacher feedback,

and workshopping, shaped the two focal students’ revisions

of an assigned written essay. As compared with all the

sources of feedback that the students had while revising

their papers, the Learning Resource Center tutor was the

source of feedback that both students used most frequently

to revise their papers. Furthermore, the results of the

textual analysis seem to indicate a strong connection

between the tutoring sessions and the most substantial

revisions that the students made on their drafts.

During my interviews with each one of the focal

students, they often praised the tutoring sessions

referring particularly to the impact of these tutorials on

the improvement of their writing skills. Yuna, for example,

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referred to this support stating the following: “Karla,

teaches me how to analyze materials critically and

logically…She doesn’t focus on grammar things…she focuses

more on like basic arguments.”

Likewise, Cindy also referred to the influence of the

tutoring sessions on her revision strategies. She said,

When I revise, I pay more attention to Anne’s and Karla’s comments because most suggestions from them is about content… Karla’s suggestions is like make me…I think it’s more…improve my thoughts so I …I think I accept…advise or something more depend on to improve my thought. Usually you will find that final paper and my draft is totally different, so I change a lot… So, I think they give me a lot of… spirit to produce ideas.”

The sessions analyzed revolved almost entirely around

content and organization, with very little discussion of

grammatical or lexical problems. The focus of discussion

during the tutoring sessions was also the focus of the

students’ revisions on their final drafts. The connection

between what was discussed during the sessions and the

students’ subsequent revisions was evidenced by the amount

of revisions on the content area that the students made in

their essays.

There seems to be little doubt regarding the positive

outcomes of the tutoring sessions in the case of the two

focal students. Their interactions with Karla during

tutoring sessions and the way they approached revision

203

suggest incremental progress toward the acquisition of

academic skills.

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CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSION

I conducted this investigation expecting to acquire a

better understanding of the pedagogical contexts in which

feedback and revision were embedded and the way they shaped

two ESL students’ revision strategies. In an attempt to

characterize the nature of feedback and revision, I sought

to situate that embedded communicative context within a

Rhetoric classroom and a Learning Resource Center.

My own dissatisfaction with the way that previous

research studies had approached revision, especially in the

case of second language writers, led me to explore the

instructional complexities in a first-year Rhetoric class

and tutoring sessions where two students where exposed to

academic writing during an entire semester. As DiPardo

(1993) asserts, to appreciate the dynamics of the

dialectical relationship between writing students and

classroom communities, “one must look from multiple points

of view, at multiple layers of meaning” (p. 6). Starting

from this premise, I aimed to examine not only the

students’ written texts, but also the larger pedagogical

context, the inter-relations among the Rhetoric Department,

the Learning Resource Center, the two Rhetoric classes and

the two ESL students. I preface these concluding comments

by emphasizing that my purpose in analyzing these elements

is not to provide clear-cut answers to the posed research

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questions in Chapter I. Rather, my intention is to

highlight the complexities involved in the process and to

raise additional research questions. Before discussing the

implications of this research study, I will summarize the

study’s findings which are related both to the larger

pedagogical contexts and to the patterns that characterized

the two focal students’ revisions.

The Contexts

The Rhetoric Class

My observations of two separate Rhetoric classes at

Midwestern University during an entire semester suggest

that the students and instructors were members of an

instructional environment that provided a wide variety of

opportunities for writing development. In general, both

Rhetoric teachers (Anne and Matt) perceived that their main

goals and purposes in teaching rhetoric were to provide

students practice in reading, writing, speaking and

listening by examining the language and persuasive

strategies that shaped discussion of controversial topics.

For these purposes, both teachers designed different kinds

of activities that were aimed at developing students’

skills in discussing controversial subjects, listening to

multiple voices, and holding multiple positions in mind

simultaneously when discussing controversial topics.

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The Rhetoric teachers pursued their instructional

goals through formal and informal assignments and

activities. Formal assignments in both classes included six

major assignments: three for writing, three for speaking.

Less formal assignments included reading responses,

brainstorming, impromptu speeches, class discussion, and

others.

Based on my regular observations over the course of

the semester in the Rhetoric classrooms and on the focal

students’ comments, students generally perceived major

assignments as substantial and challenging. During our

interviews Matt, for example, always stated that his

intention behind the assignments was to engage his students

in deep analysis of arguments. With this rationale, he

designed different kinds of assignments that were not only

challenging for the students but to a certain extent

abstract and difficult to interpret.

With regard to Matt’s assignments, students were not

alone in their perceptions that assignments were

challenging. Karla also expressed her disagreement with the

way Matt approached and structured some of his assignments.

Referring specifically to the first major written

assignment that Matt designed, Karla said, Students have enough trouble finding arguments in pretty simple newspaper articles, but when they are asked to do something like analyze the rhetoric of a place…I just can’t get that…That’s pretty fancy for an introduction to building arguments kind of course.

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Karla believes that the negative side effects of this

kind of abstraction on students’ ability to approach

rhetorical analysis are evident when students’ motivation

is limited and they misunderstand the specific requirements

of the assignments. For Karla, these assignments were too

complex for those people just learning to identify parts of

an argument. Predictably, Yuna experienced many

difficulties with this particular assignment, not only

because of the specific level of abstraction and demand of

the task, but also because of her lack of experience with

English academic writing resulting from the difficulties

she still faced with both her English oral and written

skills.

So was Anne frustrated. She stated that the problem

was not only with the level of demand for each major

assignment. She named time constraints as another concern

on the three major written and oral projects. She added

that this is an aspect that the Rhetoric Department should

take into consideration in an attempt to improve the

quality of the courses. She expressed the opinion that in

order to achieve this goal, it was more convenient to work

in depth with fewer assignments “rather than working so

quickly on so many.”

In spite of the fact that the Rhetoric Department has

stated specific goals regarding instruction (as expressed

in the Rhetoric Handbook), Anne perceives that there is a

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lack of clear definition in terms of what every student

needs to learn. As she put it, I think I would like to see some sort of set rubric that every freshman needs to learn, more deeds of the rhetorical concepts that we are going to use because every teacher has a different end…

She added that if students had a set list of

rhetorical concepts that they could take with them to the

next course, it would help them retain some of the

knowledge of those concepts. During our last interview,

Anne expressed frustration and uncertainty about whether or

not her students would hold on to what they had learned in

her class at the end of the semester.

A central goal for both Rhetoric teachers was to make

a course with a student-centered orientation. They always

emphasized to their students the idea that their own work

would be the focus of class development and discussions.

Both teachers constantly reminded the students that the

success of the class depended on their working together to

create an environment in which everyone felt comfortable

presenting ideas as well as constructively responding to

the ideas of others.

During our interviews, both Matt and Anne always

remarked that their goals and purposes for teaching

Rhetoric were exactly the same ones in the case of their

ESL students. Matt, for example, viewed Yuna as a student

with a very good academic preparation and one with a very

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good sense of what she wanted to communicate. He added that

he believed in an even application of teaching and

instruction and not on favoring any student over another.

As he said: “I want to give the students as much as they

want to ask for.”

Like Matt, Anne asserted that she did not make any

kind of distinction between Cindy and the rest of the

students. She commented that Cindy had excellent ideas but

had problems in the written form of those expressions.

Anne, however, also stated that she was more interested in

how she was expressing her ideas rather than the structure

of it. Anne also expressed her conviction that with her

help and with the assistance of the Learning Resource

Center, “Cindy would overcome all those problems of

expression and produce great things.”

In spite of Matt’s perceptions regarding Yuna’s

academic preparation and Anne’s awareness of Cindy’s hard

work, both students constantly expressed concerns for and

struggles with fulfilling the requirements of the Rhetoric

course. They also perceived the lack of familiarity with

academic writing and, particularly, with rhetorical

analyses as a drawback for ESL students.

Most likely, both instructors’ set of belief systems

regarding ESL students were well intentioned. However, by

assuming this position, the two ESL students might have

inadvertently been held to unrealistic NES standards as

Reichelt and Silva (1995) put it, “to have an NES student’s

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familiarity with U.S. culture, history, conventions, and

rhetorical patterns, to have native speaker intuitions

about English and be penalized for making errors that

represent a natural stage in second language development”

(p. 16). When this happens, ESL writers are put at a severe

disadvantage. Taking into account the number of nonnative

speakers of English enrolled in Rhetoric courses at

Midwestern University, it is important for Rhetoric

teachers to receive special training on knowledge of ESL

writers’ special linguistic and cultural needs and the

challenges they face in Rhetoric classes in order to work

with them effectively.

Yuna’s and Cindy’s past learning experience with

English often seemed to play a negative role in their

performance as Rhetoric students. The students’ comments

during our interviews attested that all their previous

exposure to the English language before studying at

Midwestern University was exclusively restricted to classes

with a grammar focus and drills practice. The instruction

they needed for success in Rhetoric was more in-depth.

Another common feature of these classes was the dependence

on text memorization and on model passages as the principal

techniques for learning to write.

Given the emphasis of the TOEFL test (Test of English

for Foreign Learners) on the mechanics of the language, it

was not surprising that both Yuna and Cindy got a

satisfactory passing score and got accepted into the

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academic program to which they applied at Midwestern

University. Because they obtained the necessary score for

their academic programs, they were not required to take

writing classes designed particularly for ESL students.

These classes most likely would have helped them make a

smoother transition to the Rhetoric courses. This fact

might lead one to conclude that tests such as TOEFL (used

to measure ESL students’ proficiency in English) are not on

their own completely reliable. This test fails to assess

the kind of knowledge that ESL students actually possess

with regard to English and fails to provide measures of the

preparation needed to succeed academically in American

universities.

Carson (2001) asserts that testing measures for second

language learning that encourage a focus on the written

product may be at odds with writing instruction in U.S.

classrooms that is process oriented. Yuna’s and Cindy’s

past learning experiences with English writing instruction

in a foreign setting together with their lack of exposure

to process-oriented composition classes, may be perceived

as factors that played a role in the difficulties both

students experienced in meeting the demands of Rhetoric

classes.

Both Yuna and Cindy constantly acknowledged that poor

preparation in English writing in their countries of

origin, together with linguistic and cultural differences,

were factors that contributed to their struggles to fulfill

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the demands of the Rhetoric class. Yuna, for example,

became aware of her problems with expressing her ideas in

English at the beginning of the course. Her perceptions of

these problems were stated in the first reflection protocol

she did while revising her first major written assignment, I thought I knew a lot about English grammar, but it’s just not enough to know it. When I use my knowledge of English grammar, well suddenly my brain gets blank, and I have no idea of what I should write and I don’t know whether this is right…”

In these first reflections about her own writing, Yuna

realized that knowledge of grammar rules in English was not

sufficient in and of itself to write academic papers. After

the first six weeks of the semester, her concerns about

problems she was facing with academic writing shifted from

a grammar focus to a consideration of content-based

aspects, especially those related to rhetorical issues.

This change can be viewed as a good transition in that she

has better priorities now as a writer of English. Her

concerns became apparent in her comments about her second

major written project: This part about ethos, logos, and pathos is the most demanding in my paper. I think I didn’t get these concepts correctly. I don’t know much about rhetorical analyses or writing in a rhetorical way…

Even though writing researchers and teachers have

generally agreed that the goal of college-level writing

programs is to prepare students to become better academic

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writers, this goal is difficult to attain even in the case

of ESL students who are highly literate in their native

language (Spack, 2001). In spite of Yuna’s academic

background in Korea (a Bachelor’s degree in Asian

Literature) and, Matt’s perception about her academic

preparation, Yuna continuously struggled to meet the

demands of the Rhetoric class. Taking into account Yuna’s

major in Asian Literature, it is fair to state that in

comparison to Cindy, she came to the Rhetoric class with a

higher level of writing proficiency in her first language.

However, both students experienced similar difficulties in

fulfillment of the specific requirements of the course.

The value of Rhetoric classes in the case of ESL

students is difficult to assess. Although the idea of these

courses is to initiate students into the academic discourse

community, the achievement of this goal is complicated. In

the case of ESL students, a large gap exists “between what

students bring to the academic community and what the

academic community expects of them” (Spack, 2001, p. 91).

As the results of this study suggest, the two focal

students experienced several kinds of difficulties in

meeting the demands of the Rhetoric class. However, beside

the support that the Learning Resource Center and the

Speaking Center provide to ESL students, additional support

is not available to attempt to reduce the existing gap.

Rhetoric teachers could play an important role to

minimize ESL students’ struggles in these classes. However,

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as the Professional Development Program leader attested

during our interview, issues of ESL students are not

included as part of the agenda for the PDP preparation.

Consequently, Rhetoric teachers are often left alone to

make instructional decisions concerning the problems that

ESL students face in their classes.

During our final interview, Matt asserted that

although he agreed with immersion, he also found it

problematic. From his point of view, the positive aspects

of having English native speakers and ESL students in the

same class was the possibility of looking at the

multiplicity of voices and perspectives regarding specific

issues, an important goal in the Rhetoric class. On the

other hand, he believed that it was tricky to have students

like Yuna, with a good academic background, in the same

classroom with students who, according to their ACT scores,

were placed in Rhetoric I in order to improve basic writing

skills. Matt’s comments regarding immersion give rise to

other important considerations. For example, are American

universities taking advantage of students like Yuna in the

diverse perspectives they bring that may assist others

(Anglo) students and yet they fail to address ESL students’

rather specific language needs? As Silva (2001) asserts

second language writers’ academic needs must be

acknowledged and addressed by those who deal with L2

writers “if these writers are to be treated fairly, taught

effectively, and thus, given an equal chance to succeed in

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their writing –related personal and academic endeavors” (p.

201).

According to Matt, the specific characteristics of the

group did not help Yuna very much, especially during

workshops activities, a perception that Yuna seemed to hold

as well. As he put it, “When you have been speaking and

writing English for a short time, it is hard to know…weed

through what is correct or incorrect…”

Matt does not think that placing ESL students in a

separate course is the best solution either. He stresses

the importance for the students to be grounded in a sense

of obtaining education that they will use. However, he

believes that other factors, such as levels of expectations

on the part of student and their desire to stay in the

United States rather than return to their home countries,

need to be considered when placing ESL students in Rhetoric

courses. So student personal/professional goals ought to be

considered.

Consistent with the goal of Rhetoric classes to help

students develop the ability to use flexible and

appropriate processes for writing, speaking, and reading,

both teachers encouraged peer-revision activities

throughout the semester. For this purpose, both teachers

set aside considerable time to create a workshop

environment in which their students could have the

opportunity to share ideas and drafts, especially for the

major projects. There was a constant emphasis on revision

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as a way to share big ideas rather than dwell on mechanics

and grammatical correctness.

In spite of the emphasis of the two Rhetoric teachers

to encourage peer-revision activities among the students,

students seemed to distrust the responses peers made on

their papers. Both Cindy and Yuna expressed their

dissatisfaction with the kind of feedback they received

during workshops and stated that most of these responses

dealt with grammar aspects that did not help them improve

their papers. Cindy, for example, felt that her peers

lacked significant background knowledge on the topics

discussed; consequently, her peers were not adequately

prepared to provide useful feedback to her papers. As a

provider of feedback, she felt that her lack of confidence

to communicate in English was a factor that prevented her

from interacting effectively with her peers. She also

deemed insufficient the time set aside in class for the

students to provide and receive feedback.

Like Cindy, Yuna perceived most of her peers’ feedback

as useless. She contended that during peer-revision

activities, many students feared that their responses might

be misinterpreted or that their comments might hurt other

students’ feelings. For this reason, she perceived that

occasionally her peers avoided making comments on her

papers. In the same vein, she also avoided writing negative

comments on her peers’ essays.

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As a way to guarantee that every student provides and

receives feedback during workshops, some Rhetoric teachers

assign a percentage of the students’ total grade to this

activity. However, this was not the case in the two

Rhetoric classes that I observed. Writing workshops in

these two classes were viewed more as an optional source of

feedback for students. Thus, there was no way for teachers

to know if and how the students were considering the

comments and suggestions provided.

Teachers’ comments regarding peer-revision activities

also show their distrust in the potential benefits of

workshops on the students’ writing. Anne affirmed that she

generally distrusted the comments provided by other

students and declared that at the beginning of the semester

she had given her students the opportunity to decide

whether or not they wanted to have workshops in the class.

After hearing about some of the students’ successful

experiences with workshop, she decided to incorporate the

activity in her class. In our last interview, Anne

continued to express some reservations regarding the

benefits of workshops. She said, I think I’m not still crazy about workshops but I think it’s good for the students and I will continue to do that for every assignment…I don’t think that the student whose paper or speech is being workshopped really takes into consideration their peers’ comments, I don’t see that in the revision process but I think it is beneficial to read other people’s papers and to listen to other peoples’ speeches and to think about this critically for their own work…

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In other words, Anne perceives that the potential benefits

of workshop are not necessarily going to be found in the

incorporation of peers’ comments into subsequent revisions.

Rather, she sees workshop as an opportunity for students to

share ideas and develop audience awareness. As she said:

“students can think about these aspects critically for

their own works.”

By analyzing the pedagogical context of the Rhetoric

classroom, it has been possible to understand important

characteristics of the instructional setting: First, the

goals and purposes of the Rhetoric program and where it

fits in the overall curriculum. Second, the Rhetoric

teachers’ experience, their philosophy of teaching and

ideology of feedback, the relationship between instruction

and feedback, and their attitudes toward different

students. Third, the students’ proficiency, course

expectations and attitudes toward assignments. All these

factors uniquely define the pedagogical context and affect

not only teachers’ expectations and how they respond to

students’ texts. They also affect students’ expectations,

what they respond and how they respond to teacher feedback.

The Tutoring Sessions

First and foremost, Karla’s work as a tutor played a

key role not only in the improvement of the two focal

students’ writing skills but also on the students’

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motivation and attitude toward the Rhetoric class. Karla’s

tutoring approach reflected her own philosophy of learning

as a collaborative endeavor. As evidenced by the results

reported in Chapters 5, 6, and 7, Karla often stressed her

goal of inducing students’ thinking in order to work

jointly in the solution of different kinds of problems.

Through individualized instruction and specific

instructional approaches, Karla frequently sought to

stimulate her students’ analytical and critical thinking

skills in the resolution of different tasks, particularly

those related to rhetorical analyses. During our

interviews, Karla commented on her particular strategies as

a tutor to exercise students’ thinking, During the sessions, I usually ask questions that I try to provoke them into thinking, so they are learning to question and think about their own works so that eventually they don’t need me.

In other words, during tutoring sessions Karla also enacted

Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of “self-regulation” used as a

framework to explain knowledge development. Questioning is

a particularly helpful strategy in working with ESL

students as Gallimore & Tharp (1990) assert “first, because

there is the mental and verbal activation of the pupils,

which provides them with practice and exercise. Second,

during this exercise of the pupils’ speech and thought, the

teacher will be able to assist and regulate the students’

assembling of evidence and their use of logic” (p. 181).

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Karla also stressed the importance of encouragement

and positive reinforcement as factors she believes

contribute to the improvement of the two focal students’

writing skills. Karla referred specifically to the way Yuna

had improved her writing fluency and expression at the end

of the semester,

Being motivated and then being supported in that motivation and having somebody who knows her working habits and knows her mistakes, so you know her saying…I think when you work with someone you get to know them, their personality, their strengths, their weaknesses…

Karla’s perceptions regarding her role as a tutor,

highlight the notion that one-on-one tutoring sessions are

the ideal context for tutors to become familiar with

“student’s weaknesses and strengths and with the student’s

uniqueness as a writer and as a person” (Harris, 1986, p.

15). These are highly beneficial aspects, especially for

ESL students, albeit difficult to attain in the regular

classroom context.

The benefits of the tutoring sessions were also

apparent with regard to the two focal students’ strategies

for revising. During the sessions, Karla provided the focal

students with different means of assisting performance that

led to substantial revisions of their papers. Among these

means of assisting performance, modeling, questioning and

cognitive structuring proved the most beneficial for both

focal students to clarify basic rhetorical concepts, a

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crucial aspect to successfully fulfill the requirements of

their Rhetoric assignments.

Karla’s simultaneous work as a Rhetoric teacher and as

a Learning Resource Center tutor was an aspect that

influenced the way she approached tutoring and feedback.

Her experience as a Rhetoric teacher, allowed her to

understand what specific aspects regarding rhetorical

analysis needed to be stressed during the sessions and what

students needed to know in order to effectively approach

these analyses (e.g., understanding of audience, occasion,

and purpose; issues and claim; varieties of evidence).

During most of the tutoring sessions, both Yuna and Cindy

were encouraged to be inductive learners and think

critically as opposed to just receiving information from

their tutor (Liu & Hansen, 2002). The emphasis during most

tutoring sessions was typically on discussion of rhetorical

concepts, comprehension of assigned readings, and structure

of arguments. Of the total number of tutoring sessions that

I recorded and analyzed, none dealt with grammar issues.

The substantial rewrite of papers, especially in content

and organization, proved to be the emphasis of most of

sessions.

As evidenced by the results reported in Chapter 7,

students’ active participation during tutoring sessions

played an important role in the way they revised their

written essays. The analysis of several negotiation

episodes between Karla and the two focal students

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(especially during the revision of the last written

assignment), were particularly illuminating in this regard.

As the results obtained in the textual analysis suggest,

the focal students’ active participation during the

negotiation episodes, seeking clarification and pushing

their own perspectives, led to the most substantial

revision of their drafts. These findings are consistent

with the results obtained by Pathey-Chavez and Ferris

(1997). In their study with second language writers,

results indicated that active participants in student-

teacher writing conferences made more substantial revisions

in their drafts. The results obtained are also consistent

with Conrad and Goldstein’s (1990) and Williams’ (in press)

findings which suggested that students who were more active

participants in negotiation during conferences, were more

likely to make substantial revision in their drafts.

The analysis of the tutoring sessions in the present

study suggests that the nature and content of the various

sessions devoted to revision of the students’ major written

assignments had an impact on the nature and level of the

students’ subsequent revisions. It is my sense that Karla

was responsible for: a) shaping the manner in which

participation occurred in the tutoring sessions. She

prompted the focal students to talk and made space for

questions; b) she focused discussion on content. She

pointedly avoided grammar discussions consistent with her

philosophy and instructional goals.

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Patterns of Revision

Results reported in Chapter 7 suggest that most of the

substantial changes made by the two focal students in their

written essays can be traced to feedback provided in the

tutoring sessions in the Learning Resource Center.

Likewise, the results suggest that most observable changes

in final drafts were content-based.

Although there was not explicit agreement between the

two Rhetoric teachers and the tutor regarding the kind of

support and guidance that the two focal students needed to

improve their performance in the Rhetoric course, the three

of them agreed that in order to approach rhetorical

analyses, students needed to learn how to convey meaning

clearly and understand how different contexts shaped their

discourses. Both Rhetoric teachers also seemed to agree

that the Learning Resource Center’s support was critical in

helping the two focal students improve their writing

skills. Thus, in terms of the feedback provided during

tutoring sessions, content was privileged over form and the

focus of what was discussed during these tutoring sessions

was directly related to the focus of revision.

The common assumption that tutors tend to focus on

grammatical or lexical considerations during tutoring

sessions with ESL students, was not applicable in the case

of the present study. Karla’s emphasis on the analysis of

arguments, rhetorical concepts, and the expression of basic

logic was a common feature of most of her sessions with the

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two focal students. In this respect, Karla acknowledged

that her approach to tutoring has sometimes created

tensions during tutoring sessions (both with English-native

speakers and ESL students), especially when there is a

marked divergence in the tutoring pair’s agendas. All in

all, Karla’s speech to her students at the beginning of

each semester about her work as a tutor of the Learning

Resource Center attempts to transform the “fixing machine”

image that some students have of tutors in general. She

firmly believes that the time and energy demanded from her

tutoring style pay off for the potential benefits that it

has on the development of second language writers’ academic

skills.

As a caveat, the results obtained in the present study

cannot be considered as representative of the kind of

feedback provided during tutoring sessions with ESL

students in general. Any attempt to explain the effect of

tutoring sessions on students’ subsequent revisions, must

take into consideration important variables, such as

tutors’ and students’ backgrounds and individual goals, and

interactional features during the sessions. The methodology

used in this study was appropriate to understand the effect

of these variables on the focal students’ revision

processes.

The findings reported in this study lead me to

conclude that the pedagogical contexts in this study played

an important role by virtue of the kind of feedback offered

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and the way the feedback was taken up by the focal

students. The Rhetoric teachers’ and the tutor’s views of

feedback and revision as processes that lead to the

generation of new knowledge, shaped the way in which the

two focal students embraced revision.

Limitations of the Study

Taking into account my approach to this research

project, I am unable to generalize the results reported

here. I focused my observation on two rhetoric classrooms

with a relative small number of ESL students participating

in the study (two). Given the small number of ESL students

who volunteered for the study, any generalizations about

such students’ performance on rhetorical writing and the

patterns that characterize their revisions should be made

with extreme caution. Likewise, it is not possible to

suggest that the kind of feedback provided can be

generalized to other tutoring sessions with similar

results. As stated earlier, the nature and outcomes of

tutoring sessions are influenced by complex variables, such

as tutors’ and students’ backgrounds and individual goals.

However, this inquiry offers a multi-faceted approach for

studying feedback and revision in the case of second

language writers which may be applicable to English native

speakers and other instructional levels. In other words, a

similar methodological approach may offer insights across

other research settings.

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Implications for Pedagogy

As the results of this study suggest, ESL college

students exhibit important rhetorical, cultural and

linguistic differences that can stand in the way of

academic success. However, these differences should not be

perceived as intellectual deficiencies. The question to be

raised then, is how can university composition programs

effectively address these ESL writers’ differences? Is it

an effective option, as Yuna proposed, to have a separate

Rhetoric course with only ESL students? Probably, as Matt

stated, the best solution is not to separate ESL students

from their native-English-speaking counterparts. By doing

so, students from each group would be deprived of gaining

cultural and linguistic knowledge from each other.

Likewise, separate courses with only ESL students would be

perceived as remedial. Is mainstreaming then the best

option for ESL writers? The results of this study seem to

indicate that it is not.

The Rhetoric course where Yuna and Cindy were placed

can be perceived as a course designed primarily for

inexperienced native-English writers. In this kind of

setting, students are expected to interact with and learn

from one another. However, ESL students are not necessarily

always basic writers. Yuna was a good example. She was a

student with an undergraduate degree when she came to

Midwestern University. She would not be considered a basic

writer in her first language but was a novice writer in

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English. Consequently, as Reichelt and Silva (1995) assert

”curricula, syllabi, methods, and techniques designed for

NES basic writers may not be appropriate for these ESL

writers” (p.16). Likewise, teachers in charge of these

courses might be unable to devote the extra time and

attention that ESL writers necessitate. It is only by

observing the dynamics of writing classrooms, interviewing

teachers and student writers, analyzing assignments and

teachers’ responses and students’ revisions that we may

gain a deep understanding of the nature of academic writing

that students are expected to produce.

If the idea of a university writing class is to

initiate students, including ESL students, into the

academic discourse community, it is necessary first of all

that every writing class reflects a clear and coherent

definition of what academic writing is and what ESL

students need to know in order to produce it (Spack, 2001).

It is also necessary that academic departments in charge of

writing classes take a more active role in addressing ESL

students’ specific needs. Given the importance that the

Rhetoric Department at Midwestern University places on the

Professional Development Program to support all instructors

and faculty in their work as Rhetoric teachers, it is

essential that as part of PDP, teachers also be given the

necessary tools and strategies to address ESL writers’

special linguistic and cultural needs.

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If, however, students that had been mainstreamed and

classes that had separated ESL students from their peers

have been ineffective in addressing the specific

instructional needs of first year students, other options

must be considered. It is necessary to support the creation

of more cross-cultural composition classes as Reichelt and

Silva (1995) propose. The idea of this type of course is to

include an approximately equal number of ESL and NES

students. The focus would be aimed at meeting the

instructional needs of both groups, while simultaneously

fostering “cross-cultural understanding, communication, and

collaboration…It would also have the potential to enhance

their writing abilities” (p. 17).

In a composition class with a cross-cultural

perspective, assignments would not necessarily be focused

on the discussion of American western issues only. Rather,

assignments and resulting discussions would take a broader,

perhaps global, perspective to raise students’

intercultural awareness of various cultures, thus lowering

the pressure posed on ESL students “to work on becoming the

American student,” as Matt put it while learning to write

academic discourse.

Needless to say that in the absence of composition

classes with a cross-cultural perspective, writing centers

continue to be the best learning resources to address ESL

students’ cultural, rhetorical and linguistic needs. In

order to increase the potential benefits of tutoring

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sessions on ESL students, it is important that writing

centers develop connections to individual instructors’

goals and assignments (Wolfe & Segade, 1999), including

having tutors who are affiliated with particular courses,

as was Karla’s case.

Directions for Future Research

By situating the study of feedback and revision within

the larger pedagogical context of two Rhetoric classrooms

and a Learning Resource Center, this research represents an

attempt to address gaps existing in a fairly new area of

inquiry in the field of second language writing that so far

has not received much attention and has not been examined

in depth. Taking into account that “contexts are anything

but standard” (Goldstein, 2001), there is a need for more

qualitative studies that concurrently look at how writing

programs’ philosophy of feedback, teachers’ commentary, and

students’ revisions mutually shape one another in different

settings. This study is a move in this direction.

If a similar study is to be done, it would be

interesting to use a more heterogeneous sampling of ESL

students (not only Asian students or not only females) to

analyze whether gender and different cultural assumptions

with regard to writing in a second language have roles to

play on students’ perceptions of teacher comments and on

the way students use these comments when revising.

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The present study focused on the feedback provided by

a Learning Resource Center tutor who had a previous

academic training on how to deal with ESL students’

problems and issues and also was an experienced Rhetoric

teacher. It would be interesting to see whether the

obtained results in this study would vary in the case of

tutors with no training in tutoring ESL students and no

background experience in teaching Rhetoric. What role would

a tutor with these characteristics adopt during tutoring

sessions with Rhetoric students (e.g., peer, editor, expert

or gatekeeper)? How would ESL students perceive and react

to these different roles?

Another important aspect that should be addressed in

future studies is the effectiveness of tutor feedback for

writing done across the curriculum. In other words, how

would ESL students and faculty from other disciplines

perceive the kind of feedback they receive from tutors who

have little expertise or training in specific areas of

study? What are the perceptions of ESL students from other

disciplines who are enrolled in writing centers regarding

the impact of the writing tutorials on the improvement of

their writing skills in their specific areas of study?

Second language writing is still a fertile area of

inquiry and many questions remain to be addressed. I

envision more exploratory and descriptive studies that will

allow for human voices to emerge, voices that are often

mute in quantitative studies.

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APPENDIX A

REVISION PROTOCOLS

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Paper 3 (Yuna) I’m going to start…saying about my final paper. First, this time I didn’t get any feedback from my peers because…because simply I didn’t show my paper to them and because I don’t think it’s that much helpful because they simply ah… check the grammar… grammatic mistakes. So, most of them…I mean, their correction about grammar um… that I can do, so I didn’t show the paper to them. So and…hum…so I got some feedback from M (her teacher) and first he found many mistake in grammar then…Then…yes…among the grammar things there is some interesting thing, he crossed “the Bush government” to “Bush administration”, so first time I thought that government and administration is equal cause in my country both are equal, but here Bush administration and government actually…the federal government are totally different things, so I found that I had to…I had to hum… know some kind of society matter or culture matter. I think this is about society…I mean, I have to know about US society more…more… correctly? I don’t know how to express this. So, many things I did mistakes in grammar, in part because ah… there is a misunderstanding about US culture or society. Then hum… I still got many mistakes in prepositions, like in the second page hum… I should have…I should have wrote…I should have wrote like “at the same time” instead of “in the same time”, and most times I forgot prepositions hum…after the verb or before the noun. Then, especially I think that prepositions in English is very important because prepositions…prepositions make hum…content more… more um…clear, more clearly, so right prepositions is really important to hum… make to make the sentence reasonable. And also he (the teacher) suggested that some adverbs …the position of adverbs. Well, I found M’s request of putting… where is …this putting…ah adverbs in right position. M in the very first page, in second line, I wrote like this (reads a complete sentence), so at the first time I put this adverb seriously at the end of the sentence, but he said that adverbs should be… go between…before verbs. There is another example that I mistake… did a mistake, like the other day, I wrote like “there would be always some mistakes” so, I thought adverbs always should be after the verb…I mean, after the ‘be’ but hum…many native speakers, I mean my peers, and M and K say that…technically or grammatically hum…it’s not wrong but semantically or hum…to more natural flow of sentence ‘always’ I mean adverb ‘always’ should be hum…positioned…before the verb ‘be’, so ‘there always…there would be always a mistake’ should be corrected like ‘there would always be some mistake’, but the funny thing is that latter on…it was crazy for me cause I always, I though there would be …there would be always some mistake is right so it was my thought about…this time I learnt about that, I mean the position of ‘always’. So, this day I found just some…ah…I found hum…my weaknesses and mistakes about adverbs and…prepositions; well, actually I did these mistakes …every time so far but the reason I didn’t find about this because…hum…at the beginning of the semester I just worried about hum…simple grammar thing like…the articles, where I put the ‘a’ or ‘the’ or singular where I put a verb…I just worried about that thing, but time goes by. I can find another mistake…this mistake is a little bit different from the mistake of…like articles or plural and singular verb because hum…it’s about semantic…thing; I mean, first I did many mistake in grammar…grammatic matter but hum…in…when I write the paper more and more hum…I could correct or use correct hum…article and plural and singular verb, but the right …hum…using right preposition and put the adverb into right

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position is the best semantic matter so…anyway, the thing I want to tell you is about hum…I think my writing is improving from very basic grammar problems to hum…semantic problems. So, I learned some information hum…research, it said that most ESL students at the first time did these many grammatical mistakes about simple grammar thing; then time time…goes by hum…they found that they….they did some mistakes semantically. So I think I’m in that hum…moment. Okay, well I said the last thing about adverbs so…and here is another comment from M, he said ‘I need some information about hum…where I get the source material or information to support the paper…I mean, in some part I referred to …hum the argument or opinion of someone and she said I had to …hum give some information where I got that opinion…or sim…or I had to refer to…this…like this information is from this material…something like that, and the comments from K, hum…she also corrected the grammar mistakes and…most of times we talked about the content of the paper and…I think my problem is basically hum…because of my background of Korean language because in my Korean hum… I can’t write like this. This is hum…this is the …at the end of the fourth page, I wrote like this: Thus, it suggests management tools like prescribed burns and mainly logging trees.” So, I thought this is the way remove redundancy…I mean, remove redundant sentence so, I tried to combine two sentences to one, so I said like “prescribed burns and mainly logging trees”, but K said it doesn’t make sense because…my first thought hum…was to emphasize logging trees rather than prescribed burns so that’s why I put the ‘mainly’ between ‘prescribed burns and logging trees’, but K suggested that I should break down one to two sentences like “he suggested management tools like prescribed burns period and however, he prefers logging trees…where it emphasizes…it hum… emphasizes logging trees more…or something like that. I can find this problem in many times in my paper and I think this not because of…hum…grammar matter of the material, this is just because of my background of Korean language; I mean, the way we think …it’s so very different from American people so…to me this sentence is pretty much…makes sense but not to American people. In this final paper I found a new problem. I still got grammar problems but this time I found out that hum…I’m having some problems to make sentences clear, where I convey my opinions clearly to others hum…also I’ve got still problems about organization, content but I feel…I feel that grammar problem and organization improved but this time hum…I think I have much problem in semantic …hum part and…convey my opinion economically and effectively, but this thing I didn’t find in the last two papers because hum… simply I didn’t think about that but actually I…I don’t have…hum…I didn’t have idea about semantic problem or hum…express and convey my opinions, I just worried about grammar and…organization but I think most native speakers also have some problems in grammar and organization but this class recast us about hum…taught about writing rhetorically and logically, that means first I have to figure out the content correctly; then, I have to write hum…paper rhetorically and I have to convey or declare my opinion very clearly, so these things are really important in Rhetoric class, but suddenly I think that hum…I…hum …so far I totally ignored…that problem. So, other thing…I think it’s a truly different matter hum…that…I mean hum…can’t speak English very fluently or hum…write paper very hum…write papers like native speakers, that doesn’t mean you can’t convey your opinion clearly or logically; that’s why many other native speakers have some troubles hum…to write the paper, and I feel I have the same problem even though I feel that this time I …I was sure

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about…I really figure out…I really figure out the content correctly I spent huge time to figure out the content but I also spent a lot of time to organize but still there is…I feel like I missed…I missed something and I found that I missed some hum…some way that I conveyed my opinion very logically and clearly so hum…so that’s why my papers many time did not trade (?) any other native speakers. I didn’t know why I …didn’t find this problem in the rest of the two papers, I just thought that the reason my paper is very boring because of I got many grammar problems and I got many redundant, but this time I think that that’s not because of grammar or hum…that’s not because of my grammar problem or my redundant, that was because of hum… semantic matter; I mean, well I think this is really a challenging thing to most ESL students so hum…even though I write one sentence without no grammar flow, I have.., I still have some problem to convey my opinion hum…sometimes because…the way I express I express my opinion or the way I convey my opinions like I said…said hum…I tried to combine two sentences into one so like this case I tried to …remove many sentences…remove many sentences for economy hum…for economic sentence or like to remove redundant but somehow it doesn’t make sense to other native speakers or simply it doesn’t make sense for…the paper. I did this thing in many part and so far…so I found that I need use more proper words for express…expressing my opinion and to convey hum…my opinion clearly and…I strongly feel I have to throw away my Korean mind…for…the way I think in Korean way but it’s really doesn’t helpful for improving English writing. So to summarize, this time I found that I still have many grammar matter and…another thing hum…using adverbs and pre…preposition in right position and most of all I think that I have serious problem hum…express…no, not about express…convey my opinion with American style, so this is about semantic matter so… I think to write hum… good paper first I need…I need…I need to use proper words to express my opinion and I need to organize sentences or break down or combine sentences to convey my opinions clearly and make then sense. So to improve this skill most of all I think that I have to write more and more besides, I feel strongly that I …I have to read many articles like newspaper or magazine so…so I think I need to learn about hum…American mind instead of Korean mind to improve…improve writing skill, so this time I find hum…semantic problem rather than grammar problem. That’s it!

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Paper 3 (Cindy) I changed the first paragraph, the last sentence so like if the part can’t be in the public controversy of capital punishment to like in the part that can’t, added one word; like it’s from my classmate’s comment. I think is more clearly (expressed) and more grammar (grammatical). I changed the sentence to cause is the focal point in the controversy to the cause is important and it may influence in a wider range because like I want to connect the next sentence starting from different level different people; a wide range is more like a….I mean, it covers a lot of different classes of people in the sociation (society). And Karla (the LRC tutor) said like the former sentence is (has) the same meaning as the quote. I found my article (paper) didn’t….. like talking about four, five articles ummm…but I didn’t summarize their meaning, their argument so when I re-read my paper, maybe people will feel a little bit confused so here I add a paragraph to talking about each articles’ argument and compare their aspect to view the questions. I want to show the difference between their arguments in aspects, like a talk about like two is about the study of the cost (of capital punishment) the other two (articles) is from the government spending the tax in ways…. Like… Another one (article) is used to constitute due to their view against the capital punishment. I changed the sentence to “cost of capital punishment influences a lot in the country’s justice system; it is not only the topic of the government’s budget, but also connects to pay and the economics. I think the former….Like I changed the sentence to “connecting the country’s justice system, government’s budget and only tax payers the economists, and the government leader, cost of capital punishment is a controversy covers nearly every one in society. My classmate have (has) questions like the last former sentence is the controversy covers nearly everyone in the society? People give arguments in a lot of forms. umm…I changed the sentence because it connects with what I mean more close (closely) to people I want to talk and the and the what do you mean by cover nearly everyone in the society? (another comment by her peer) and the sentence becomes more simple. I added a sentence like the people related vary, so the form people give their arguments also vary. I want to connect the last sentence for like the controversy covers everyone, connects with the content I want to say about it before. I said the director’s testimony is a typical speech, tends to like…director’s testimony gives an example of speech because my classmate have (has) questions about the word typical and what I mean is just that like the form of speech umm… I don’t want to explain what is typical here means, so I change it to an example speech. My classmate asked me to change the specific gender to just gender but I didn’t change it because I think I want to emphasize like it’s a speech but the other articles are just like the article in the magazine or something it’s the writing language. I changed like is the different use of language to the different language used umm… is from the advice from my classmate, I think it’s better. I added one sentence it makes sure every audience can get ideas at the same time every word give out after the specific genre determines the different languages. I want to explain why is needed a different language. I want to more explain about how to use of the speech language. Karla asked me to think about what ethos mean and why people should trust the author and … (incomprehensible). So in this part I add something to explain like why in this speech the first article people (the author) introduction (introduces) himself; why it appeals to ethos. The former sentence’s interesting thing is director’s background also supports the author’s ideas. Karla thinks

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this sentence is some kind of confuse (confusing) to her, so I changed the sentence to the interesting in the director’s study is used as evidence of the author’s ideas. I tried to explain everything more clearly like umm…for how is ethos, logos, pathos, so I added some sentences for that. I added the sentence “director’s study is government’s testing evidence and information (from) his study gives its scientific and professional, like I used the dictionary to find the word scientific I just know science but I need to add so I use the umm…the dictionary to find that form of science. Sometimes I make mistakes using for and from like when is F-O-R and another one is F-R-O-M. Sometimes I make just a little mistake with s-possessions (use of genitives). I changed the word promote into provide because I think that is more clearly and promote is umm….provide is like giving information; promote is ask someone to do something I think so, I changed it. I added a little conclusion in this paragraph, at the end of this paragraph. Here we can, we also can find the fact is the more powerful and basic evidence umm…is like I just want to…that my article have a path like umm…have some stuff in the middle of it and it will be more clearly. I changed the word like the purpose differences into the different purpose, like because it would really confuse to people if I use the purpose difference; the purpose can’t be used as a add or something to go to go with a noun and if I use the different in front of the purpose it will be more clearly the same thing with umm...some like the difference in style or something and I changed my the by analyze to by analyzing I changed the verb to a noun. I changed the words (incomprehensible) to (incomprehensible). Like the term, some kind like is more too formal and umm… is like the concept or something and the word is more specific for this article. I changed the word other like also it appeals to pathos to it also appeals to pathos the also is umm…delegates the words of appeals if you use in front of the sentence it maybe it will confuse the audience. I…I… read more about why it appeals to pathos umm….like the former sentence is just very simple like it just appeals to pathos didn’t very deep to explain why and…I write like the example right here about the public opinion; he (one of the authors) also refused to the effect of the big cost of capital punishment on the government’s tax situation and policy. A part that relates to the audience very close he tried to let the audience relate to the example with himself …he makes the audience consider his sort (position) when they build their own position in this controversy. My final formal sentence is also that it appeals to pathos because he is trying to refer to public opinion to make every audience to build their position to make a strong relationship between the audience and his argument. I didn’t refer to the example; why he used that example; what’s the significance the example is (has) and here I want to add something like a claim how people feel the same feeling with him or the public in relationship with the example and more analyze, so I think the reader could understand more clearly. I don’t know whether he’s right or wrong to use the positions…positions here umm….I just want to show like people’s against or for the issue. My classmate canceled one word…like cut one word “also” but I think I don’t need to do that because it’s a sentence like not only but also. My sentence is “not only the purpose of the article is to influence the audience, but also there are a lot of effects that determine the audience”. I changed another part like um…the purpose of the article so is more clearly like the purpose who’s purpose? and that is classmate’s advice. I changed this sentence like from other example talking about only talking about the content’s effect on audience to other examples about only deal with how the content influences how to determine audience. If

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I just like talking about is like I talk about, but here the content that I talk about but here is the subject, the object is other example, so I think deals with is more match the sentence (matches more the sentence) and umm….I changed the content’s effect to content’s influence like the content’s effect is very wide so people may be confused so I changed it to “influence how to determine the audience”. I changed the word “as we know Dyster’s testimony” to “in the case of Dyster’s testimony” we know is like umm….umm…seems like the audience also read the articles Here if we use in the case of Dyster more fluth (fluid) and umm…is like different from the oral word. And I changed I cut this long sentence “As we know, Dyster’s testimony is made for the study of death penalty and the related DNA testing” to “In the case of Dyster’s testimony, it was made for the study of the death penalty and the related DNA testing” and I cutted like four to little sentence and add some word like it was then people will feel umm…if it is too long maybe will people will lost (will get lost) in what subject is talking and maybe will re-read it, need to re-read it if it’s confused about what I’m talking about if I cut to little sentence like the fragment will be more clearly and more smooth, easy to follow. Here I changed like is “because of the evidence of other scholar as Coerse and Brice” to “also becomes the evidence of other scholars such as Coerse and Brice” first mistake is Coerse and Brice is not simple so I need to add S after scholar and I also mistake use of “as”, as is like as some reason or as the symptoms, so if you want to add some umm…end um….some nouns after something like the same thing show like the other thing like for example, you should use such as this is, this mistake I often make, so I change here. I’m confused with words like on, in, to, under, below something here like the purpose of the author is just to show all the fact in the……on the…..on the…. in the search of the cost of… I mistake the use of in; it should be changed to on…I don’t really know exactly the difference between on and in um…I mean, in at some… as resource….research study, this word is very abstract; for the position I can’t know the difference between on and in and for this words I don’t know how to match them….here I look in the dictionary I found on is better. I added a little sentence like in this sentence the former sentence is “including the data to analysis Gator made without a personal opinion” to “including the data the analysis Dyster made how to research and why studies like these wish be conducted without exhibiting personal emotions and expressing opinion …(incomprehensible) and make it as clearly as possible because I think here the most important part is to is to ummm….to show how to get it as like Dyster is make this study he want to everyone know his work is well credible, (to) make his evidence he should explain why it is why ….(incomprehensible) like how to search and why studies like these. I added a new part and another quote; this quote is “the excellent cost studies conducted at Duke University similarly applying an exclusive rate of ten percent in calculating the costs in North Carolina”. What this means is that the cost of death penalty is so high because it is an incredibly inefficient system. Here we can say that the author appeals to logos through the use of very logical examples and a step by step procedures and then connects them with his argument and Karla advised me to make the analysis of the logos, pathos deeper, and I think this is good because in this article the author emphasizes how to….how he studied and why he studied in this way so he explained more in the logos side the logos use here is very important to this article and connect with others so I add this part to explain what I see. I changed the sentence “All the difference between the articles come together appeals in language” to “all the difference between

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the articles appeals to different languages the author decided to use” and if I use like between the articles come together like people don’t know what is meaning (means) and I mean is just like that all the difference at final will appeal in language so I changed here to appeals to different use like is more simple, it’s simpler than that is more simple and clearly…and the word is more match they come together is all something like where object things get together, gets, is mean the position get together and here it just means final umm…order is appears together, so I think it’s better. In the draft I used the sentence after the quote in page six like “Good morning… bla bla bla” the oral language has used appeals tone (incomprehensible) in this speech, I think this sentence is useless umm…like it isn’t (doesn’t) connect everything together I just want to say how’s the speech how’s the tone appeal in the content follows just explains that and I don’t need to use like….I didn’t talk about anything about oral language with the relationship between the oral language and the tone, so I think this sentence is useless, so I cut it. I added a little sentence like the represent the government works on the test and after like because of the audience are the governors who also have the authority “explain why this” my classmate have questions about what is meaning (what this means). I added a paragraph like “they only know how general and surface knowledge but they want to get some new voice to refresh the idea” after the sentence like especially to be interested in and eager to know the things in this topic because I wanted to explain why….why the like the (incomprehensible). In my former sentence is not very clearly is just to see what the audience but it isn’t clearly why the person’s significant. I changed the word special to especially like here specially is match for the word give and so it must be especially because it’s a verb. In this sentence language also appeals to logos for using the sentence form “although”…and some words like “tend to” that is very exactly here is not very clearly so I changed to “the language also appeals to logos” for using the sentence form although and some words like “who tend to” to limit the things he is talking about the former is the tend that is very exactly I didn’t say why it is exactly so I changed it to limit the things he is talking about so it’s more specific and I think people will understand, and I changed the word to words because here is “who tend to” is not just one single word. I changed the sentence “For the cost of capital punishment have more relationship with the government spending and justice system” I need a lot of information to explain the argument into “For the cost of capital punishment is about a real government’s spending and justice system” but all their questions are thought; it required a lot of information to use as the basic evidence to build the argument umm….in the former sentence I like I just said about a real government spending and justice I didn’t say like why is needed information and umm….I should umm…point out it’s a real thing, so I add the word real different from the abstract thought like, I mean like, if we discussion whether we believe God or who’s the real God. Is just a thing of thought; it’s not like beauty or real money in your hand so here I add word and I change it to require; it needed some kind of people need something here umm…about article need something so it requires is more proper. I changed the word to “use the data and the science research report” to “the use of emphatic data in the science research reports” because here the report is umm….I made a mistake here to forget an “S” because in my original, my mother language we do have different (incomprehensible) in the number of the noun so here….I changed, I added a word emphatic here in data maybe people believe that data must have some requirement, so I added this word. I add a sentence “the controversies about the public philosophy” so

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it needs a connection between the facts and the thought by using logos after the sentence it is also effective to the audience the language the article used appeals to logos. Here I just say it appeals to logos I didn’t say why it appeals to logos so it’s not very smooth between my sentence and the quote and I didn’t explain it very clearly so maybe people will confuse and maybe use some examples or something and I want to say why they use this way and how they work and I think it’s the requirement, the purpose of this assignment. I changed the word “In the logical analysis” to “In the logic analyze first they point out the question analyze to answer here the, the words before it is steps and I think people will want to know what steps and, because in this quote is you must to refine the meaning so I will point, I added a word like first point out questions; it’s more clearly for people to understand what’s the logos in my umm…explanation, my understanding of the issue will know, like, how I understand the logos and to show why the quote I choose works. And the last sentence “is covered both sides of things”. I did this, like if I just see both sides of things it’s like when my head is inside-outside and I changed to “and his analysis is well complete covering positive and negative both sides” it’s more clearly for people and is like real things from against sides to view it. I added a last sentence in this paragraph “the article appeals to pathos because the best way to control public’s voice is to influence their feelings” umm…I added this word because my analysis for ethos, pathos, logos is not completely in my draft. I have examples for pathos about umm….aaa…I think you can find it in the article but I didn’t mention it here in this paragraph just to specify, the specific to analyze the pathos, logos so I added this one and I think this is also very important for in my opinion the article, how the article works is like these reasons work together, so I need to mention it and here is five (the fifth) article how it works this is another vary good…. I think it’s a good point to connect this article together. I changed the last sentence “controversy means not forgetting other people’s opinion for you never can stand in others’ position to view the world” to “controversy means not forgetting other people’s opinions for you never can stand in others’ position to view the world and the world is not only made for you” first I changed like you umm…other people’s opinion to opinions (for) the same reason I mentioned above and for umm….and add the sentence “and the world is not only made for you” it’s just…I wanted to make the conclusion stronger, my classmate thinks is not very stronger. Maybe I think I didn’t give a very strong sentence umm…but I don’t think I need to do much things about it, I like my conclusion and I think it’s enough I just add this sentence to make it more clearly and my last sentence “the more you can hear means the more people care about our society” is what I think. Overall, I can see that most of my classmate’s advice, like she advices more about the grammar things and how to use the words and make things clearly and Karla I asked her about the content and she gave me advice like to think things like ethos, pathos, logos deeply; then, to connect everything well. To understand ethos, pathos, logos especially for ethos is very difficult for me, so I spent a lot of time on it umm…when I re-write my paper I pay more attention to how to make it more clearly and make the organization very smooth umm….I think Karla’s advice is very useful is like make me see things very clearly and know what I can do before that is like I know I should improve something but I don’t know how to do it and what part should to do so I think it’s very useful. Some part of my of my classmate’s advice is just like they aren’t…their not very…..I don’t think they are very useful, but her advice to make the grammar something is really useful, she for me….it’s…..some words I don’t

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know how to say very….very…I know the words I know these things but I don’t know how to…how to…umm…put them together so the other…which match which…

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APPENDIX B

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

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Cindy’s Final Assignment

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Yuna’s Final Assignment

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APPENDIX C

WORKSHOP SHEET

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Workshop Sheet Used in Cindy’s Class

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Workshop Sheet Used in Yuna’s Class

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APPENDIX D

STUDENTS’ FIRST AND SECOND DRAFTS

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Yuna’s First Draft

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Yuna’s Second Draft

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Cindy’s First Draft

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Cindy’s Second Draft

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