Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, English

In this project, I set out to investigate how Writing Program Administrators (WPA) can draw on theories, research findings, and best practices of transfer from both composition and second language writing studies in order to develop curricula and pedagogical practices to support multilingual writers in First-Year Composition (FYC). Research from the two separate fields of writing studies around genre and transfer shows that facilitating genre knowledge, genre awareness, genre uptake, discourse community enculturation, and generative dispositions can encourage learners to transfer what they know to new contexts. A transfer-encouraging curriculum needs to recognize and teach the social and learner-based aspects of writing and learning. This is even more important when working with first-year multilingual writers who were enculturated in different cultures other than American culture and have achieved high proficiency in languages other than English before they are enrolled in FYC courses. Drawing on scholarship in rhetorical genre studies, English for specific purposes, and systemic functional linguistics genre studies, this dissertation uses a methodology on genre transferability to understand what FYC programs across the US do (and can do) to support multilingual writers and what theories are guiding programs' curriculum development, pedagogical practices, and professional development activities. I argue that if our goal is to help novice multilingual students effectively respond to the cultural, discoursal, and linguistic challenges they face, then WPAs across institution types must work to develop FYC initiatives that draw on transfer scholarship from both composition studies and second language writing studies. In Chapter 1, I propose a conceptual framework that draws on both fields of writing transfer studies and discuss pedagogical implications for curriculum development and writing instruction for teaching first-year multilingual writers. In Chapter 2, I ou (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Education (MEd), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Curriculum and Teaching

The educational community has long since recognized that there is preparation gap between high school and college-level writing. Current literature revealed six primary categories of concern: quantity of writing, use of formulaic writing strategies, development of cognitive skills, audience and purpose for writing/writing as communication, student qualities, and genre/cross-discipline features of writing. In light of these gaps, deliberate attention must be directed towards examining instructional strategies that might be effective in preparing students to meet the demands of college-level writing. Therefore, the focus of this research was to examine the effectiveness of current instructional strategies and their ability to address the preparation gap between high school and college-level writing. Three high school English Language Arts teachers participated in this study, which sought to explore the following research questions: 1) What instructional strategies are high school teachers using to teach college-preparatory writing? and 2) Are the instructional strategies used by high school teachers effective in addressing the main areas of the preparation gap between high school and college-level writers? A series of three interviews were conducted with three teacher participants, and classroom observations were conducted over the course of two months; additionally, artifacts such as curricular materials and student work samples were collected. The six categories of the preparation gap were used as a framework to analyze data from teacher interviews, observations, and artifact collection. Five themes emerged which directly relate to the effectiveness of classroom teachers’ instructional strategies in addressing the preparation gap: philosophy and purpose of high school writing instruction, instructional transparency, community, students’ identities as writers, and cross-discipline collaboration. Results from this study suggested that when (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, EDU Teaching and Learning

Most foreign/second language (L2) teachers invest a significant amount of time and effort in responding to student writing by providing written feedback. Despite the considerable number of experimental studies in the field of L2 writing on effectiveness of written feedback, correction of grammar errors in particular, our understanding of the nature of teacher feedback on student writing or on teachers' attitudes toward providing feedback is limited. The descriptive studies which have been undertaken in the field of L2 written feedback predominantly investigated teacher feedback from student perspectives. Therefore, little is known about the perceptions of L2 teachers on written feedback. Since most studies on the topic have been conducted in the English as a second language context, studies conducted in foreign language contexts are rare. Recently, research in the field of L2 writing has increasingly acknowledged the influence of contextual factors on teacher feedback, in turn creating a need for comparative studies on written feedback involving multiple populations with different linguistic/cultural backgrounds in diverse settings to fill a gap in the current research base. This comparative study explored teacher feedback on college L2 student writing from the teacher perspective by investigating the similarities and differences in perceptions of written feedback between teachers of a foreign language (Korean) and teachers of a second language (ESL) in North America. Using an online survey, the study investigated the perceptions of a total of 153 college instructors of ESL and of KFL (Korean as a foreign language) across North America. The 46-item questionnaire inquired about perceived types of written feedback, perceptions of the use of written feedback, perceptions of selected approaches to responding to student writing, and perceived written feedback practices. Descriptive and correlational statistics were used for the data analysis. Major differences between (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, EDU Teaching and Learning

In higher education, students are expected to present their knowledge through reading-to-write tasks such as synthesis writing (i.e., multisource-based writing), which is challenging for many L2 students. Research on L2 students' composing process during multisource-based writing has mostly been conducted using relatively controlled tasks written in decontextualized settings (e.g., integrated writing assessments or experimental design studies), and little research has been conducted in naturalistic contexts, such as English for academic purposes (EAP) writing classes, where this kind of writing is commonly assigned. Given the significance and complexity of multisource-based writing and the paucity of relevant research guiding our understanding of L2 students' composing process for completing such writing, the present qualitative multiple case study examined three L2 undergraduate students' understanding of and approach to composing a multisource-based argumentative essay in an EAP writing course. Data sources for this reading-to-write study included participants' writing samples (outline, first draft, and final draft of their argumentative essay), reading-to-write logs, semi-structured interviews, stimulated recall protocols, instructor's written and oral feedback, and pretest and posttests on synthesis writing. To depict how the participants approached a reading-to-write composing task, the data were primarily analyzed using category construction analysis guided by Stein's (1990a) cognition of reading-to-write model and then Lenski and John's (1997) patterns for reading-to-write. Textual analysis was also conducted for use of source integration types (Sole et al., 2013), purposes (Harris, 2017), and strategies (e.g., quoting and paraphrasing). The findings revealed that, in this naturalistic context, the participants adopted varied composing approaches to this reading-to-write task that fit their individual needs and experiences despite sharing the characte (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

This longitudinal, qualitative multiple-case study explored four MA students' second language (L2) academic writing anxiety in coursework for a TESOL program. The participants in this study came from China, Uyghur in China, Vietnam, and Mexico. They were culturally and linguistically diverse. Employing a social cognitive theoretical framework (Bandura, 1986) and a complex dynamic approach (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008), this study investigated the many facets of L2 writing anxiety. Viewing writing through the lens of the process writing approach (Flower & Hayes, 1981), this study examined the sources, intensity, and fluctuations of L2 writing anxiety during each phase of writing academic papers as well as at different times during one academic semester. Given the nature of assignments in the TESOL MA program, another lens through which the participants' engagement with writing anxiety was investigated was reading for writing. Major sources of data included semi-structured interviews, participants' responses to anxiety self-evaluation scales, recall protocols, course syllabi, field notes, and writing samples. Findings are reported first through four separate case studies and then through cross-case analysis in response to the study's research questions. At a broader level, the study found that the TESOL MA students' L2 academic writing anxiety was multi-faceted, situation specific, and individually driven. In more specific terms, and with respect to the writing process, the highest level of L2 writing anxiety occurred during the pre-writing stage. As for major anxiety sources, this varied for each individual. For some it was writing topic and task representation, while for others it was new learning context, language use (grammar and vocabulary), or teacher evaluation of their writing. With regard to movement across the semester, anxiety levels were high at the beginning of the semester due to fear of unfamiliar assignments, and then, after a long period of rel (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, EDU Teaching and Learning

This study explores L2 (second language) students' experience with the writing tutorial in a university writing center. University writing centers were initiated to provide writing instruction to L1 (first, native language) students and have since developed to enhance their writing ability for academic purposes. With the shift of the concept of literacy in the U.S, the focus of writing instruction in the writing center has moved from focusing on the rules of grammar and punctuation in order to “make better writing”, to a collaborative pedagogy aiming to “make better writers” (North, 1984). However, as international students are increasing in the American university, their concerns for writing in English as L2 writers seem to have some conflict between the writing center's philosophy of writing instruction and the expectation that the international students have to fulfill their own needs to improve their writing ability. This study, in this light, was conducted to gain a better understanding of the work of writing centers with L2 students in terms of how the tutor and the L2 students interact with each other during the tutorial, focusing on issues and elements that inhibit the L2 students from improving their English writing ability. From the perspective of social constructionism, this study is framed by the notion of instruction as a conversational accomplishment, and learning in this view occurs as a social process mediated through interaction. With a particular focus on analyzing the talk and interaction transcribed form videoed tutorials and interviews with tutors and tutees, this study aims to examine the nature of L2 learners' writing practices occurring in the one-to-one writing tutorials with the tutors and to provide a comprehensive vignette of experiences of L2 writers in the writing center. Nine issues that capture the dynamics of the international students' interaction with Writing Center tutors emerged from the analysis of the corpus of data: six origin (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2008, English/Rhetoric and Writing

This study explores undergraduate creative writing instruction with regard to the complex issue of audience in the three areas that converge in the creative writing classroom: rhetoric and writing theory, literary theory, and creative writing pedagogy. After an overview of the project in Chapter One, Chapter Two reviews scholarship specific to creative writing pedagogy. The core of the study, Chapter Three explores the theoretical approaches to audience from both rhetorical theory and literary theory and creates a theoretical lens in which to examine audience in undergraduate creative writing. Chapter Four shows the methodological approach and the data analysis methods used in a pilot study of undergraduate creative writing syllabi and textbooks. Included in this chapter is a table listing terms that suggest audience developed from the theory built in Chapter Three. This table informs the pilot study. Chapter Five provides the results of the pilot study, offering evidence of how audience manifests itself within twenty-seven syllabi and twenty-four currently used creative writing textbooks. By tabulating the references to audience and analyzing their contexts, I offer a look into how the reader is considered in undergraduate creative writing instruction. The distinct and interesting patterns that emerged are explained in Chapter Six. Besides revealing the ways and contexts in which audience surfaces in the teaching of creative writing, I offer suggestions on how this important concern to writers can be more transparent. This chapter uncovers the ways in which audience functions-or perhaps can function-within the creative writing classroom. Given that some creative writing instructors are admittedly apprehensive about having a theoretical foundation for their instruction, this dissertation argues that taking on the single issue of audience may create a more critical approach to student writing, and may create avenues to examine other important writerly matters within (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This study seeks to understand how students will be asked to use writing once they enter into writing intensive courses (WIC) that are specific to their discipline. The findings add to the field of Writing Studies and writing in the disciplines by observing how instructors outside of an English department teach writing, and the reasons behind their pedagogical choices. This study analyzes 36 writing assignment documents, interviews with 18 instructors, as well as the feedback to student writing of 7 instructors by focusing on identifying the presence of writing pedagogy. The analysis stems from pre-existing definitions of learning to write (LTW) and writing to learn (WTL), adding to these definitions with nuanced discussions of how these writing instructors develop their WICs. The analysis identifies moments of disciplinary interdiscursivity to connect the presence of varying writing pedagogies across the data sets, to understand how the instructors' past experiences while working and learning in their field have impacted their pedagogical development. Ultimately, this work uncovers how and why these experiences influence instructor pedagogy, showing that these courses are a valuable means of learning about writing's role in various professions and disciplines.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

This project advocates for sustained, explicit, graduate-level reading instruction in the discipline of writing studies. It posits that professional academic reading is a complex activity that requires graduate students to develop contextually unique skills and habits of mind to perform effectively. It posits also that graduate students struggle to learn this form of reading and would benefit from direct instruction. Further, it positions threshold concepts for reading—oft-“invisible” disciplinary assumptions or ways of thinking that are troublesome to learn but important to internalize to fully enter an academic community—as an important pedagogical tool in graduate-level reading curricula. The project makes several moves in advocating for such reading instruction: (1) It makes the case for why graduate-level reading instruction is needed; (2) it consolidates multiple strands of reading theory that have influenced writing studies into a working definition of professional-level reading in the discipline; (3) it constructs a list of threshold concepts for disciplinary reading; (4) it outlines a framework—the reading sandwich cycle—for integrating threshold concepts with reading instruction; (5) and it makes suggestions for integrating reading instruction throughout course work and elsewhere in graduate curricula.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, EDU Teaching and Learning

Source-based writing is considered as a significant strand of academic literacy that focuses on how individuals read, understand, create and produce texts. At the doctoral level, synthesizing a candidacy examination essay is an example of a particularly demanding task in source-based writing that is based on the meticulous selection, organization, and combination of voluminous source texts at a sophisticated and advanced level. Due to the importance of synthesizing in displaying ESL students' academic literacy skills in English at a highly advanced level, this study explored synthesizing through the lens of the doctoral candidacy examination experience at a Midwestern university. Adopting a multifaceted perspective of literacy and writing, I carried out qualitative multiple case studies where I examined how ESL doctoral writers dealt with the sophisticated reading-to-write challenges associated with such writing. Influenced by Spivey's (1990, 1997) discourse synthesis framework (i.e., organizing, selecting and connecting) from existing research on L1 composition, I researched the students' challenges with synthesizing, their task representation of synthesizing, and reading-to-write processes in synthesizing while approaching the task of writing an exam essay. Through the course of one academic semester, I obtained several sources of data, including semi-structured interviews, stimulated recall protocols, exam writing artifacts, my research notes, and past coursework-related documents and artifacts. I analyzed the data inductively and triangulated them to examine the different avenues the students utilized in approaching this advanced synthesizing writing task (i.e., the challenges encountered, how they represented the task, and the read-to-write process they followed). Findings of this research indicated that the participants' essays and processes of synthesizing entailed using the three sub-processes of selecting, organizing and connecting to varying extents. (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

Writing in the Disciplines (WID) scholarship attends in detail to experts' composing practices in professional discourse communities and to students' learning in disciplinary classrooms. Yet few studies consider the writing-related pedagogical practices of disciplinary instructors. This study contributes to WID scholarship by exploring the writing-related expectations instructors in two disciplines (history and social work) hold for their undergraduates. Disciplinary instructors often aim to impart their discourse communities' values to their students. Thus, study of instructors' writing-related pedagogical practices and expectations for student writing can also reveal instructors' writing-related disciplinary values. I explore participating instructors' pedagogical practices, writing assignments, and perspectives on teaching writing to identify not only the instructors' expectations for student writing, but the disciplinary ideologies and values underlying those expectations. In this qualitative study, methods of data collection include: semester-long observations in two undergraduate courses, one taught by a history instructor, one by a social work instructor; analysis of the instructors' written feedback on student texts; and interviews with the two instructors, as well as with eight additional history instructors and six additional social work instructors. I coded and analyzed these data using iterative methods of constant comparison based on grounded theory. Findings revealed participating instructors' pedagogical strategies and expectations for disciplinary assignments. The two classroom instructors each engaged students in the thinking practices valued in their respective disciplines. The history instructor, for example, encouraged students to perceive historical texts as subjective documents to be analyzed, while the social work instructor introduced students to multiple example client case studies to prepare them for client assessments in future socia (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

Classrooms are to be supportive environments where students learn writing as a way to participate in activities, discussions, and communities. Writing researchers need to explore the classroom context with a view of writing as a social practice. In 2016, the National Council of Teachers of English announced the position statement that the nature of writing instruction is contextualized and complex in order to support students' writing and learning about a range of ideas and experiences as well as in a variety of genres. However, previous studies indicate that writing instruction implemented in secondary schools in the United States do not always align with this theoretical and practical perspective. Writing instruction is often designed through teacher experiences and pedagogical knowledge. However, several other influential factors such as teacher's differing epistemologies, individual experiences, and process of socialization shape the instructional designs of writing. To date, little evidence has confirmed the effectiveness of different epistemologies for teaching writing in English language arts classrooms. This study provides a unique perspective of writing instruction to show that although they have the same goal, teachers with different epistemologies orchestrate activities, understand concepts, and respond to student work differently. Using an ethnographic approach, I collected data—audio and video recordings, pre and post-observation interviews, student work, and artifacts—over a period of one academic year, from August 2017 to May 2018, in two ninth-grade English language arts classrooms. I argue that the landscape of teaching and learning argumentative writing can be fundamentally different due to different epistemologies, despite identical teacher training to incorporate the same writing approach. Through the exploration of writing instruction from two teachers with different epistemologies, this dissertation presents a way to build an iterative series o (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, English

This thesis reviews scholarship to create a synthesized framework for understanding community-based writing centers. It begins by establishing differences between writing centers at colleges and in the community. The framework is developed by exploring concepts of community, intersectionality, and writing. The thesis concludes by defining a community-based writing center by this framework, reiterating the current exigence for the proliferation of community-based writing centers, and also positing future directions research may go.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2018, English (Arts and Sciences)

Beset with political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental degradation, along with the imminent threat of nuclear war, the world might be at its end. Building upon Richard Miller's inquiry from Writing at the End of the World, this dissertation investigates if it is “possible to produce [and teach] writing that generates a greater connection to the world and its inhabitants.” I take up Paul Lynch's notion of the apocalyptic turn and suggest that when writers Kurt Spellmeyer, Richard Miller, Derek Owens, Robert Yagelski, Lynn Worsham, and Ann Cvetkovich confront disaster, they reach an impasse whereby they begin to question disciplinary assumptions such as critique and pose inventive ways to think about writing and writing pedagogy that emphasize the notion and practice of connecting to the everyday. Questioning the familiar and cultivating what Jane Bennett terms “sensuous enchantment with everyday” are ethical responses to the apocalypse; nonetheless, I argue that disasters and death master narratives will continually resurface if we think that an apocalyptic mindset can fully account for the complexity and irreducibility of lived experience. Drawing upon Zen, new materialism, and Yagelski's theory of writing as a way of being, I call attention to the affective dimensions of capitalism, anti-apocalyptic thinking, and environmental writing pedagogies that run contrary to capitalist-driven environmental disaster.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2017, English

This thesis investigates the development and influences of the writerly self-efficacies of three college students transitioning between first-year composition requirements and disciplinary coursework. Mixed-methods— including interviews, quantitative surveys of writerly self-efficacy, and portfolio analysis—provide insights into how students understand their abilities as writers. Students expressed both generative and disruptive self-efficacy expectations toward writing and learning. These self-perceptions were informed by mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experiences, and affective states surrounding writing. For some students, first-year composition was a meaningful transition for positive efficacy expectations. The study results support the importance of recognizing students' strengths, conferencing pedagogies, sponsoring co-curricular writing experiences, discouraging normative comparisons, and teaching for genre awareness. Interviews and the quantitative self-efficacy measures revealed at times contradictory data, confirming the importance of triangulation in studying writerly self-efficacies. Implications for classroom instructors are also discussed, including strategies for teaching to support generative self-efficacies toward writing performances and learning writing.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2017, English

This project examines how writers compose research texts, such as reports, infographics, digital content—so that they might circulate. Specifically, I study a group of writers at The Women's Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation (TWF) and their writing processes for their research texts, texts they write both to inform audiences and to motivate those same audiences to share and discuss the texts with others. TWF researches and distributes information on the unique socio-economic challenges women in Cincinnati face. They strive to change the local conversation about socio-economic issues so that everyone from citizens to businesses leaders to local politicians understand the distinct challenges that women face. They want to inform Cincinnatians about these issues and equip them to engage in discussions with others about these issues. Studying TWF's efforts to get their research texts discussed so as to change local conversations affords the opportunity to study how professional writers compose texts both to inform and to circulate. More specifically, it enables an examination of the ways writers compose amidst circulation, both its possibilities to expand conversations and its limitations. Additionally, it enables me to articulate specific strategies that other professional writers can draw upon in their efforts to compose texts for similar public engagements and circulation. To study TWF, I use a Circulation Studies methodology and corresponding methods to perform a multi-part case study of their strategies for a few representative research texts. I first outline the local conversation that TWF works to change, establishing the narrow constraints that influence what texts and information circulate. From there, I study TWF's understanding of that local conversation, particularly its narrow perspective on local social and economic issues. I next present how TWF incorporate that understanding into their research texts—infographics, reports, presentations, digi (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2011, English (Literature)

This thesis examines the effects of the language used in an idea generation task on the quantity and potential quality of ideas developed during a timed idea generation task; quality here being how developed the ideas are. This was done by having two Japanese ESL students, of differing proficiency levels, engage in three rounds of idea generation tasks using their native language (Japanese), their second language (English), or the language of their choice depending on the round. When the participants finished a round of idea generation, they then wrote a short essay, in English. To code the data, the Japanese was glossed into English. Then all idea generation tasks (English, Japanese, Choice) were coded using a modified version of episodic units (see Brice, 2005). This thesis corroborates findings of Wang and Wen (2003); which seems to suggest that the language used in idea generation may correlate to a writer's level of English proficiency. Also, it was discovered that the participants of this study appeared to develop their ideas more thoroughly in English, as opposed to Japanese. This may be because of differences in the languages “communication mode(s)”(Scarborough, 1998).

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2006, English-Composition

Writing Values: Between Composition and The Disciplines explores the differences I imagined between Composition and other classrooms, especially the social sciences. Three Composition instructors and instructors from History, Sociology, Political Science, and Economics explain their experiences with writing in their classrooms. They discuss revision, the student, the purpose of writing, and writing assessment. I compare their stories with my own experiences against a backdrop of theory in the field of Composition to find out the nature of the disconnect, if any, between writing in Composition and in other disciplines.

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

This dissertation examines the effectiveness of blogging to improve student writing fluency and writing self-efficacy in ninth-grade English courses at Mount St. Mary Academy. Utilizing a case study approach with convergent mixed methods, a paired samples t-test found no statistically significant changes in pre- and post-assessments of general and writing self-efficacy over an eight-week period. A bivariate correlation revealed a moderately positive linear and statistically significant relationship between SESAW (pre- and post-assessment) and WCVALUER scores—indicating a strong association between initial self-efficacy and writing fluency development. Furthermore, specific blogging activities, such as reflective pieces following a communal class retreat, showed significant correlations with the SESAW and WCVALUER. The qualitative analysis revealed both positive and negative perceptions of writing among students, highlighting areas of stress and anxiety alongside opportunities for engagement and growth. Implications for practice include program refinements and tailored interventions to meet student needs, supported by ongoing faculty development programs. Future research could explore unique correlations observed in this study, particularly relating to communal experiences like the class retreat. While this study adds to the understanding of blogging as a tool for enhancing student writing outcomes, continued research and refinement of instructional practices are essential for maximizing its effectiveness in educational contexts.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, English: Composition and Rhetoric

This thesis investigates how undergraduate writing center consultants' engagement in their disciplinary and writing center communities mutually inform their conceptions of their disciplinary and consultant identity, expertise, and writing values. Through the lens of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), I analyze data from interviews with seven consultants to understand how writing consultants' identities as writers and consultants are influenced by their academic disciplines and writing center training as well as explore the impact of disciplinary expertise on consulting strategies, addressing the question of how writing center consultants conceptualize, adapt, and engage with disciplinary affiliations and expertise during consultations. From this analysis, I detail implications for threshold concept-based tutor training on the development of consultant identity and provide recommendations for consultant development that focuses on working with disciplinary writers. Ultimately, this thesis explores participants' perceptions, stories, and values as disciplinary writers and writing center consultants, arguing that consultants' insights can inform and contribute to research on writing identity, disciplinary writing, and expertise, and enrich the very disciplinary and writing center communities of which they are members.