Reconsidering Teacher Presence and Community Building in an Online ESOL College Composition Course During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The pandemic of 2019 exposed considerable weaknesses in how teachers were present and communities were built in asynchronous, international, online ESOL composition classrooms. Although teachers put more time into their courses, students still felt disconnected from their educational experience. This study, through student surveys and teacher reflections, followed two teachers who devised innovative solutions to actively do “being present” as teachers and to thereby more compellingly draw students into the community-building process despite the limitations of the online space amidst an international crisis. Included are recommendations about specific ways to challenge traditional online instructional methods, to allow and promote student agency through unstructured and semi-structured activities, to create connections via strategic vulnerability, and more. Also discussed are key concepts for future research and general conclusions about the need for such teacher adaptability and the lessons from it, both for during the pandemic and beyond it.

Written corrective feedback in English compositions: Teachers’ practices and students’ expectations

Written corrective feedback (WCF) has been the subject of many studies in the field of second language (L2) writing. This study sought to investigate: (1) teacher’s practices in marking students’ English language compositions, (2) students’ expectations of teacher’s WCF, and (3) compare whether students’ expectations correspond to teachers’ practices of WCF. Sixty-four students and three teachers of an upper secondary school in Malacca, Malaysia participated in this study. Teachers’ WCF practices and students’ preferences were elicited from two different sets of questionnaires. Findings revealed that both students and teachers generally believe that WCF is beneficial in improving students’ writing skills. It was also discovered that students prefer direct, specific, and comprehensive feedback over indirect feedback. However, the study showed some discrepancies between students’ preferences and teachers’ practices in composition classrooms in terms of the amount, type, and necessity of the feedback where most students were found to require more WCF than the amount their teacher was capable of giving. This misalignment calls for teachers’ and students’ adjustments to ensure the effectiveness of WCF strategies employed by teachers. Findings from this research also imply that the study of contextual factors and beliefs influencing preferences with regard to WCF may also be necessary.

Translingual and Digital Ecologies

Scholarship in cloud pedagogy has provided intriguing lenses through which researchers enhance pedagogical approaches for digital composition classrooms. However, there is a lack of discussion on how cloud pedagogy could be employed to benefit second language learners of writing. Scholars in both digital and translingual areas of research have touched on conceptualizing their theories through multimodal, collaborative, and ecological perspectives of writing. Therefore, this article looks into the theories and practices of translingualism, and explore how translingual writing can be merged and integrated into the multimodal applications of cloud-based learning. Following and expanding the practices of digital composition, this paper aims to argue for an ontological shift to a translingual view of cloud-based writing and examine how it informs second language learning.

Spanish Composition Errors from a Combined Classroom of Heritage (L1) and Non-heritage (L2) Learners: A Comparative Case Study

In a world of declining institutional budgets, decreasing student enrollments in departments that until now may have had the luxury of separate composition classrooms for heritage and non-heritage students, not to mention individual student schedule limitations, the steady increase in enrollment of L1 or heritage students in composition classrooms which were before primarily geared toward L2 learners has created a new reality and the urgency to rethink the organization, sequence, and emphasis placed on topics and structures in the classroom. The purpose of this case study was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of L1 and L2 student composition error data collected from a sample of fifteen students enrolled in a Spanish Composition (SPAN 302) class at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC). Specific objectives for this project were to determine from the data collected: 1) the frequencies with which L1 and L2 student participants committed word- and sentence-level errors in their compositions; 2) how error frequencies compare between L1 and L2 students over a semester’s time, and in particular, with the writing of a series of five different compositions, each targeting a more advanced level of writing proficiency; and 3) how knowledge of both similarities and differences between these two groups might be applied to enhance the author’s current pedagogical model that could work for future students from both groups in a single classroom.

A Triangulation Approach to Understand Multi-Cultural College Students' Technology Literacy in a Composition Classroom

Despite intense debates over the use of computer and networked technologies in composition classrooms, research has been limited by one dimensional support or criticism of integrating technologies into classrooms. The inability to consider students as a central role in the literacy acquisition process has led to many problems in the rhetoric of technology as well as in the implementation of computer and networked technologies in a composition classroom. This study employed a triangulation method to gather empirical data to better assess and critique the rhetoric of technology in composition pedagogy literature. The author collected both quantitative and qualitative data to uncover issues critical to students' technology literacy in a technologized composition classroom. A questionnaire survey was distributed to 62 bi-cultural undergraduate students conveniently recruited from a large southwestern university near the U.S.-Mexico border. Findings from the quantitative method discovered that English instructors' technology literacy had significant impacts on students' own technology literacy. Furthermore, narratives from the qualitative method identify the following themes about technology: effectiveness, practicality, instrumentality, and institutional enforcement. In conclusion, the author discusses the importance of technology literacy in composition classrooms to demonstrate its implications on global literacy theory and practices.

The Writing Exam as Index of Policy, Curriculum, and Assessment: An Academic Literacies Perspective on High Stakes Testing in an American University

Academic literacy is a policy goal universities implement through curricular and assessment decisions that are generally discipline-based. Disciplinary genres are traditionally seen as relatively fixed entities, easily evaluated by practiced members of the field and able to be emulated and mastered by students with training. This study examines the interplay of policy, curriculum, and assessment as they concern academic literacy in higher education and explore how writing assessment is employed in the maintenance and verification of academic literacy. The research took place at a small university known primarily for its pharmacy school and preparation for careers in the sciences and health sciences. The university is unusual in that it requires that students pass a writing proficiency exam in order to graduate. This research employed ethnographic methods and textual analysis to discover the interaction between university writing policy and its real-world effects. Data was collected in the form of fieldnotes of my observations of the Writing Center and interactions on-campus; ethnographic interviews with faculty, administrators, and students; course syllabi and other site documents; and exam bluebooks.This study looks at the use of the five-paragraph theme as an assessment tool, an academic genre rarely seen outside of composition classrooms and essay exams. It also evaluates the social and institutional function of a high-stakes testing policy, and how the policy serves to balance curricular ideologies with other constraints. It shows how universities, increasingly working under a business model, make curricular and assessment decisions in the interest of balancing hiring costs, academic ideology, and so on, in an iterative process. The results of this research have implications for evaluating writing policy in higher education institutions, and the use and structure of writing assessment in other arenas as well.