Kathleen's Page

I have been reading through Rochelle’s suggested chapter 21 in Bazerman by Richard Haswell. I am most interested in the table on p. 335 that lists teaching strategies that were most commonly used in college writing courses. Curiously, it specifically exclude ESL studies. I wonder why that is. Why would the strategies that work for native speakers not also be considered appropriate for new English speakers? In fact, the 2006 Report from the National Literacy Panel suggests that what is sound for instruction in L1 (first language) holds true for L2 (second language) instruction as well. Many of the activities listed on the aforementioned page are used in the second language learning classrooms. As I will point out Monday night, the presentation of the writing activities may vary, but the activities are very similar.

On p. 334, Haswell comments, “that measureable traits of writing, such as syntactic features, mature so slowly in writers that measurable growth may not record between the start and end of an academic course, or worse that most student performance on a sequence of writing tasks will show periodic regression (Hayes, Hatch, & Silk, 2000).” This corresponds to a principle in ESL that fluency precedes accuracy. As an illustration, fluency also precedes accuracy in speaking. As a young parent I would observe my children and their responses to my requests. At about 12 months they were able to understand my comments and directions, but unable to respond verbally. They could listen and cognizantly process what I had said but could not verbalize a comment or response. I think the same thing happens in writing; one can be cognizant of structure or syntax, but be unable to produce it without practice and maturation in the writing process, regardless of age. One can read but not necessarily write.

I am confident that I have read and understood the studies for my paper for Monday night, but I’m not sure that my writing is “accurate.” I would describe it as fluent, syntactically, semantically, and with regards to content, but accuracy of form has yet to be determined.