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November 21, 2005
teaching term papers (genre 16.2/25)
Mustafa, Zahra. "The Effect of Genre Awareness on Linguistic Transfer." English for Specific Purposes 14:3 (1995): 247-56.
1 sentence summary: because "conscious knowledge of genre structure plays an important role in effective use of English in academic settings," "raising university students' awareness of term paper conventions" by explicitly teaching how to write term papers leads to students' creation of better term papers. (247)
rationale:
248. "despite the availability of...manuals and style guides, it is still necessary to provide explicit instruction on the constraints and the opportunities of the genre specific context (swales 1987...)....it is also well established that explicit instruction on academic genres introduces students to the intellectual activities of a certain discipline such as writing research reports; it acquaints them with the issues addressed and how they are resolved by the different lines of reasoning, assumptions about the audience, the writer's ethos and the purpose of communication (bazerman 1981; bizzel 1982)" but the details haven't been thoroughly explored.
249. in this context, "formal instruction" = "the taking of a course on term paper writing which includes providing detailed explanation, giving examples and exercises, indicating references (books, articles, manuals, handouts) and evaluation"
252. one problem: "the weight given to [an array of standard] conventions in the final evaluation of the paper varies from one professor to another and is not related to the provision of instructions on such aspects. three of those who provide instruction allocate to them 20% of the grade, while the other three do not give them any weight and may or may not comment on them. similarly, one of those who do not provide any instruction gives such aspects 20%, but the other does not."
254. result: "formal instruction through a special course on writing term papers plays an important role in raising students' awareness of the conventions and macrostructure of this genre" & "it is necessary that co-ordination between...teachers should include an agenda for agreeing on the features of the genres required from students and the criteria set for their evaluation"
response: meh. the charts & "data" don't clearly demonstrate (at least to me) the validity of the "instruction is important" claim, & the "it only really works if teachers agree first" caveat kinda kills it for me--the reality is that teachers (and broader-level academic & professional standards) don't all agree, so while teaching-to-the-test works as a short-term solution to an incredibly localized problem, its larger applicability is pretty darn consistently nil.
Posted by ttobryan at November 21, 2005 07:35 PM