Equipping Tutors to Transfer Multimodal Writing Knowledge to Writing Center Contexts (original) (raw)

SEEING IS BELIEVING: RE-PRESENTATION, COGNITION, AND TRANSFER IN WRITING CLASSES

Transfer, as a cognitive process that recognizes the interrelations of genres, is really an act of seeing (Nowacek, 2011). It describes the recognizing of similarities between contexts, which means seeing the boundaries between contexts as constructed, malleable, and fluid (Tuomi-Gröhn, Egenström, & Young, 2003). Transfer is the making and remaking of boundaries in ways that make them capable of being transgressed. As an example, consider the boundaries between a learning context, such as a FYC course and a novel context such as a history course. To transfer from the former to the latter would require the ability to see similarity between those contexts, meaning one would need to conceive of the boundary between them as transgress-able rather than impenetrable—if one conceives of a boundary between them at all. Of course, some writers see more similarity than others, which means transfer isn't simply a matter of innate similarity between learning contexts and novel contexts but a matter of one's ability to see similarity between contexts. To teach for transfer, then, is to teach a particular way of seeing, a way that comes as the result of malleable and transgress-able cognitive boundaries. Writing-related transfer theorists often discuss the boundaries between contexts , disciplines, and genres, but rarely the cognitive boundaries within individuals. But a conception of cognition as socially situated acknowledges the fact that boundaries that exist socially exist within individuals, as well, as a result of our intertextual nature (Fleckenstein, 1999). These boundaries impact the seeing of individuals and thus, impact the capacity to transfer. In fact, the boundaries between writing contexts are easily conceived of as boundaries within individuals rather than objective boundaries in the social landscape. Mark Johnson (1987) referred to the boundaries that make up our seeing as " image schemata, " the cognitive blue prints people use to make meaning of and give meaning to

Questions of Transfer: Writers' Perspective on Familiar/Unfamiliar Writing tasks in a Capstone Writing Course

2010

QUESTIONS OF TRANSFER: WRITERS' PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILIAR/UNFAMILIAR TASKS IN A CAPSTONE WRITING COURSE Heather G. Lettner-Rust Old Dominion University, 2010 Director: Dr. Joyce Magnoto Neff Understanding what students bring from one writing context to another may the central concern for teachers of writing from elementary school to adult learning. Research from the field of composition studies offers knowledge about writing as process(es) (Emig, 1971; Shaughnessy, 1979; Russell, 1999), as socially constructed performances (Flower & Hayes, 1980; Bartholomae, 1985; Bloom, 1985), and as part of a larger activity system (Russell, 1997). This dissertation ties together theories of writing as an activity in a broader system of tools and outcomes and current research on transfer in writing in order to illustrate writers' perspectives on particular writing tasks. Essential to the understanding of what students are doing is to know what tools students report using to complete familia...

Crossing Boundaries: Co-op Students Re-learning to Write

Crossing Boundaries: Coop Students Relearning to Write This article reviews the deeply conflicted literature on learning transfer, especially as it applies to rhetorical knowledge and skill. It then describes a study in which six students are followed through their first coop work term to learn about which resources they draw on as they enter a new environment of professional writing. It suggests that although students engage in little one-to-one transfer of learning, they draw on a wide range of internalized rhetorical strategies learned from across their academic experience. As teachers and researchers of writing, we once assumed that if only we could teach students the skills they would really need in both their academic work and in their future personal and professional lives, they would be able to transfer those skills from the writing classroom to other writing occasions with little difficulty. However, since writing studies researchers began applying situated learning and activity theory to the question of learning transfer, we have questioned whether learning transfer can be accomplished as easily as we once assumed—or indeed, whether it happens at all. This is troubling for all teachers who hope that their students will find what they have learned useful somewhere else, but it is especially so for teachers of business and technical communication, who hope to prepare students for writing in the world of work.