University of Louisville Dissertation: Exploring Explicit Genre Instruction and Antecedent Genres' Impact on Student Engagement

University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2013 Exploring the interaction of explicit, genre-based instruction with antecedent genres and student engagement. Jason Charles Dietz University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.edu/etd Recommended Citation Dietz, Jason Charles, "Exploring the interaction of explicit, genre-based instruction with antecedent genres and student engagement. Electronic Theses and Dissertations.18297/etd/346 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository.

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact thinkir@louisville. EXPLORING THE INTERACTION OF EXPLICIT, GENRE-BASED INSTRUCTION WITH ANTECEDENT GENRES AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT By Jason Charles Dietz B., Brigham Young University-Idaho, 2006 M., Idaho State University, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Louisville Louisville, KY May 2013 Copyright 2013 by Jason Charles Dietz All rights reserved EXPLORING THE INTERACTION OF EXPLICIT, GENRE-BASED INSTRUCTION WITH ANTECEDENT GENRES AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT By Jason Charles Dietz B., Brigham Young University-Idaho, 2006 M., Idaho State University, 2009 A Dissertation Approved on April 8, 2013 by the following Dissertation Committee: __________________________________________________ Debra Journet, Dissertation Director __________________________________________________ Joanna Wolfe __________________________________________________ Bronwyn Williams __________________________________________________ Andrew Rabin __________________________________________________ Ann Larson ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my wife Mae Loraine Dietz and to my children Faith Anne Dietz Peter Ammon Dietz Rebekah Mary Dietz Joseph Michael Dietz Elijah Samuel Dietz Stephen Amulek Dietz who have patiently endured and fully supported me over many years of schooling. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to thank my Heavenly Father for His continual guidance, support, and inspiration.

I would also like to express thanks both to Dr. Debra Journet, who graciously assumed directorship of my dissertation after data collection had been complete, and Dr. Joanna Wolfe, who guided my dissertation through the prospectus and data collection phase. Both have given invaluable guidance and displayed exemplary patience.

I would also like to thank the other committee members, Dr. Bronwyn Williams, Dr. Andrew Rabin, and Dr. Ann Larson, for their guidance, assistance, and encouragement both before and during the dissertation process.

I would especially like to thank my wife, Mae, for her patience, understanding, unflagging support, and unconditional love throughout our schooling and especially during our dissertation. My children also deserve my special thanks for enduring my absences and sequestering throughout these schooling years. My parents have continually encouraged my ongoing education, as I have pursued my dream. Finally, I would like to thank Dr.

Carolyn Rhodes-Shenton, who provided the encouragement that inspired my wife and me to begin this road. iv ABSTRACT EXPLORING THE INTERACTION OF EXPLICIT, GENRE-BASED INSTRUCTION WITH ANTECEDENT GENRES AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Jason C. Dietz April 8, 2013 This dissertation enters the ongoing discussion regarding whether or not genre can and/or should be explicitly taught in the classroom. It begins with an overview of genre theory, specifically centering on explicit genre instruction and the question of genre context.

It uses genre, transfer, student engagement, and creativity scholarship, as well as my own empirical research, to argue that instructors might best enable students to learn genres by linking classroom instruction not the social genre context, but to the individual’s genre context. I sought to evaluate such a pedagogical possibility by examining individual students’ propensity to cross genre boundaries, to repurpose their antecedent genre knowledge, and to engage with their writing assignments. The dissertation reports the results of my analysis in six chapters. Chapter one provides a comprehensive literature review and discusses the framework I developed for my project, over-viewing the concepts of boundary crossing, antecedent genres, student engagement, and creativity.

Chapter two reports my procedures for data collection, coding, and analysis, and describes the data sources for this project: interviews with four instructors and fifteen students, as well as pre- and post-writing surveys gathered from students in six first year composition courses. v Chapters three through six report the results of my research. In chapter three I examine the presence of a powerful, direct, pervasive, and at times, obstructive influence that I termed the “antecedent effect,” or students’ tendency to default to antecedent genre knowledge in a rhetorical situation. Chapter four reports the potentially mitigating impact of explicit instruction on the antecedent effect, specifically suggesting that explicit instruction may enable more students to cross genre boundaries than otherwise would.

Chapter five suggests that student engagement with writing prompts may be nearly universal, but also argues that such engagement may not always be positive for learning. This chapter also reveals an extensive overlap between boundary crossing, student engagement, and creativity. Finally, chapter six synthesizes the theoretical and pedagogical implications of my findings, recognizes the limitations of the research I have performed, and suggests areas for future research, including suggestions on ways that such research might be conducted based on my findings. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION…………………………………………………….v LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………………….ix LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………….

1 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Explicit Instruction: Socially-Centered Approaches to Genre. Concerns about Explicit Instruction: The New Rhetoric School and Transfer Studies 22 1. Context: The Substance of Genre. Research Examining the Importance of Context.

Transfer Research: Findings and Difficulties. Using the Individual to Evaluate the Social. Examining Antecedent Genres. Examining Private Motive.

Data Sources and Analysis. Ethics and Representation. 61 CHAPTER 3: DEFINING BOUNDARY CROSSING AND EXPLORING THE ANTECEDENT EFFECT. In Pursuit of Boundary Crossing and Boundary Guarding.

Viewing the Concepts Broadly. Nuancing: Boundary Crossing as a Meta-Ability. Nuancing: Boundary Guarding as Multi-Faceted. Combined Antecedent and Current Influences.

Linking Antecedent and Classroom-Originating Abilities and Genres. Explanations for Authorial Choices. Linking Academic and Non-Academic Writing. Antecedent Influence on Writing Choices.

Rhetorical Awareness and Facility. Antecedent Experiences with Writing. Voice and Creativity. Elements that Appear Unconnected to Boundary Crossing and Guarding.

107 CHAPTER 4: PROPOSING EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION’S CONTRIBUTION TO BOUNDARY CROSSING. Overviewing the Instructors. The Power and Importance of the Writing Prompt. Students’ Focus: The Assignment within the Classroom.

Assignment Clarity and Stability. Assignment Achievability: Challenge vs. Pre-Grading Feedback. Organization and the Role of Templates.

Summary Synthesis and Implications. 169 CHAPTER 5: EXPLORING THE LINKS BETWEEN BOUNDARY CROSSING, STUDENT ENGAGEMENT, AND CREATIVITY. Synthesizing Student Engagement and Explicit Instruction. Theorizing Student Engagement.

Exploring Student Engagement. Student Engagement and Explicit Instruction. Synthesizing Student Engagement and Boundary Crossing/Guarding. Student Engagement and Boundary Crossing.

Student Engagement and Boundary Guarding. Synthesizing Boundary Crossing/Guarding, Student Engagement,. The Engaging, Creative, Boundary Crossing Task. The Engaging, Creative, Boundary Crossing Environment.

The Engaging, Creative, Boundary Crossing Instructor. Summary Synthesis and Implications. Dissertation Summary, Implications, and Synthesis of Findings. The Antecedent Effect.

Explicit Instruction as a Contributor to Boundary Crossing. Student Engagement and Creativity as Related to Boundary Crossing. Additional Theoretical Implications. Calls for Future Research.

238 viii LIST OF TABLES 3. Identification of boundary crossing interviewees with quotes illustrating classification …………. Identification of boundary crossing/guarding interviewees with quotes illustrating classification. Identification of boundary guarding interviewees with quotes illustrating classification ….

Similarities and differences noted between academic and non-academic writing by boundary crossers and boundary guarders………………………………………. Comparison of average number of antecedent rhetorical strategies mentioned……………………. Comparison of average number of current instructional elements mentioned ……………………. Sources of writing guidance students found most influential …….

Explanation for responses in Table ………………………………………………. Attitudes regarding templates ………………………………………………………. Visual representation of chapter 4 data …………………………………. Survey responses regarding flow during assignment given during research ………………….

Summary representation of overlapping criteria between boundary crossing, student engagement, and creativity ………………….…189 ix LIST OF FIGURES 1. Illustration of Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of optimal engagement………………………. Visual representation of nuance with the boundary guarding concept…………………….81 x INTRODUCTION Genres order nearly every aspect of our lives, affecting how we interpret reality. Genres appear on the side of our cereal boxes, in the warnings on our medicine containers, in our perusal of movies or books, in the academic research which influences policy and pedagogy, and in classroom writing assignments.

Genres surround us and enable us to make sense of the world we live in by helping us anticipate the information we will find or not find in a piece of writing, as well as the order, the diction, and myriad other elements crucial to our ability to accurately interpret written language. In recent decades, facets of composition studies have focused on genres as an academic study, seeking to discern meaning, but also hoping to refine pedagogy to better enable our students to navigate the world of genres. My dissertation enters this drive toward pedagogical refinement by adding to our understanding of how individual students interact with explicit, genre-based classroom instruction. Specifically, I argue that students’ antecedent experience with writing powerfully affects how they repurpose and reshape that experience, subsequently influencing how well they are able to merge their prior knowledge with new classroom knowledge, how successfully they can participate in classroom genres, how well they transfer knowledge to future genre performances, and how fully they engage with their writing assignments.

In addition, based on my research and analysis, I contend that a number of elements of explicit genre-based instruction appear to positively impact the 1 student experience in each of these areas. Therefore, my project suggests that learning and engagement occurs most often when we approach our students’ antecedent writing experience from an explicit instructional frame. For this empirical research project, I created a theoretical framework to examine the effects of explicit instruction on antecedent genres, student engagement, and creativity. This framework incorporates genre theory, engagement theory, and research into both explicit instruction and transfer.

More specifically, I relied heavily on Reiff and Bawarshi’s genre-based concepts of genre boundary crossers and genre boundary guarders and Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of full engagement, most commonly known as “flow.” In the introduction that follows, I will explain how this framework, and these two theories specifically, enabled me to provide insight into issues of transfer and genre performance, as well as answer Reiff and Bawarshi’s call to “study prior genre knowledge in its fuller complexity” (334), as I sought to address the following sets of questions: 1. In what ways are students who are taught through explicit (template) genre- based instruction able to articulate: a. Their antecedent experience with genres? b. Their rhetorical awareness of their antecedent and current writing experience? c.

Their awareness of how templates and their antecedent genres connect? 2. In what ways are students in an explicit (template) genre-based curriculum drawing on and/or adapting antecedent genres and/or rhetorical abilities? 2 3. Are students in an explicit (template) genre-based curriculum where the genre is new able to fully engage a flow experience, as explained in the preceding chapter? 4. What factors distinguish students who merge their antecedent abilities with current instruction (boundary crossers) from students who write exclusively using their antecedent abilities (boundary guarders)? 5.

What factors distinguish students who use or disregard templates from those who don’t? Are those factors related to boundary guarding and/or boundary crossing? 6. What factors distinguish students who fully engage with the writing prompt from students who don’t engage at all? Finally, the over-arching question about which I sought insight was: 7. Does explicit instruction appear to lead to boundary guarding? Crossing? Have no effect? To address these questions, I turned first to genre theory. Since its inception, the school of genre studies has examined genre performances as an intersection between social exigency and individual motive (Miller).