The Conceptions of Literacy of New Graduate Instructors Teaching Composition

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The Conceptions of Literacy of New Graduate Instructors Teaching Composition THE CONCEPTIONS OF LITERACY OF NEW GRADUATE INSTRUCTORS TEACHING COMPOSITION A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Meaghan H. Brewer May 2013 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Eli Goldblatt, Advisory Chair, Department of English Dr. Michael Smith, Department of Teaching and Learning Dr. Steve Newman, Department of English Dr. Jessica Restaino, External Member, Montclair State University ii © Copyright 2013 by Meaghan H. Brewer All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT This study explores the variety of understandings of literacy, or conceptions of literacy, that exist among graduate instructors in the fields of English literature, rhetoric and composition, and creative writing in their first semester of teaching and what the implications are for having these conceptions, particularly with regard to their teaching. I collected two kinds of data from seven participants who were enrolled in a fall 2010 composition practicum at a large, public university in the Northeast. The data I elicited included interviews of participants in which they examine their own writing, an assignment ranking activity, observations of participants as they teach composition, and field notes I collected from the Practicum course meetings. I also collected artifacts from their work in the Practicum course and their teaching, including two drafts of a literacy autobiography that they wrote for the practicum and marked-up student paper drafts from the composition course they were teaching. Following the work of Michael W. Smith and Dorothy Strickland, I parsed the data by content units. Using Peter Goggin’s categories for defining literacy from Professing Literacy in Composition Studies, I coded data using the qualitative data management system Atlas.ti according to seven conceptions: literacy for personal growth, literacy for personal growth, social/critical literacy, critical activist literacy, cultural literacy, functionalist literacy, and instrumental literacy. My analysis of the data reveals that graduate instructors came to their first semester of teaching with powerful preconceptions about why people read, write, and engage in other literacy activities and that these positions deeply affected their teaching. I also contend that although all of the graduate instructors had complex, multifaceted iv conceptions of literacy, each graduate instructor had one primary conception, which acted as a kind of lens through which every other conception was viewed and filtered. This primary conception functioned as the graduate instructors’ terministic screen for viewing literacy, even when other conceptions were at play. Finally, given the fact that all of the graduate instructors received the same syllabus for the composition course they were teaching, the extent to which each one of them was able to inscribe their own ideas about teaching and literacy onto the course was surprising and points to the power of these literacy orientations, even in the face of competing conceptions communicated to them in their practicum. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this dissertation without the support of several colleagues, friends, and family members. I would first like to thank my husband, Jonathan Wert, for helping me draft my research protocol for this study for the Institutional Review Board, for being a constant source of encouragement from my first days of graduate school, and for always being the voice of reason and a source of calm. Jon, I will always remember and appreciate the countless hours when you did your own thing while I drifted off into dissertation world, and I could not have done it without your patience and understanding. I also want to thank my parents, William and Tracy Brewer for inspiring me to go to graduate school in the first place. Part of my desire to explore the literacy conceptions of the participants in this study is motivated by my own position as the daughter of an English professor and a library media specialist. I am grateful to them for always believing in me and for buying me books, even when it seemed like I already owned every book on Greek mythology ever written. I was tremendously lucky to have worked with such supportive and intelligent colleagues throughout this process. Eli Goldblatt and Michael Smith worked with me to create this study. Many of my “aha!” moments occurred as I puzzled through chapters with them in their offices. Their thoughtful wisdom will be with me in every class I teach and every piece of scholarly work I undertake. Steve Newman guided me from the early stages of drafting my prospectus and helped me to create more textured accounts of the historical backgrounds of the conceptions. Jessica Restaino introduced me to the body of work on graduate students, teaching, and graduate practicums and graciously agreed to serve as outside reader for this project and travel to campus for my defense. Lori Salem and Rebekah Buchanan in the Writing Center at Temple University helped me with an vi early study on how pre-service educators decide what to teach, which ended up serving as an inspiration for this project. Christine Farris offered sage advice on one of my chapters during the Research Network at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Finally, Christine Palumbo and my fellow summer placement test readers listened to me puzzle through a number of my findings in this study and served as a source of humor and camaraderie. I would also like to thank the graduate instructors who were participants in this study. Barbara, Blake, Garrett, Jordi, Karen, Lily, and Max all opened up to me in ways I never could have imagined and gave me the great gift of their time during their busy first semester of teaching. They were patient with my questions and thoughtful in their responses, and it is to them that I owe thanks for the richness of the data that informs this study. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1 2. LITERACY FOR PERSONAL GROWTH ..................................................................81 3. SOCIAL/CRITICAL LITERACY...............................................................................163 4. CULTURAL LITERACY...........................................................................................237 5. FUNCTIONALIST AND INSTRUMENTAL LITERACY.......................................335 6. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................403 REFERENCES CITED....................................................................................................434 APPENDIXES A. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL........................................................................................452 B. ASSIGNMENT RANKING ACTIVITY ..................................................................454 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. A Conception of Literacy.........................................................................................8 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION In his now iconic Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges, James Berlin argues that in “any social context, . there are usually a number of rhetorics competing for allegiance” (1). I would argue that the same is true for conceptions of literacy – that various, often conflicting, forces have given rise to a number of different understandings of what literacy is, what it is for, and what it should be. The purpose of this study is to explore the variety of understandings of literacy that exist among graduate instructors in their first semester of teaching and what the implications are for having these conceptions, particularly with regard to their teaching. As a research population, graduate instructors in the fields comprising English studies, including literature, rhetoric and composition, creative writing, are an interesting and generative group because their decision to attend graduate school reflects a deep commitment to reading and writing. Understanding this group (new graduate instructors) is especially important given that they teach almost a quarter of composition classes, according to a study done by Anne Ruggles Gere of 643 writing programs in the 2008- 2009 academic year (4). Tina Lavonne Good and Leanne B. Warshauer found similarly, through a survey of journal articles in composition that most composition courses are staffed by graduate instructors, adjuncts, or graduate instructors as adjuncts (x). In this study, I examine the conceptions of literacy of seven graduate instructors enrolled in graduate programs in English literature, rhetoric and composition, and creative writing who are teaching their first semester of composition at a large, public university in an urban area in the Northeast. 2 The study arose out of questions that I had about how ways of valuing literacy shape pedagogy when I was working with pre-service education students in a writing center for middle grades students that I helped to set up in a local elementary school. Each group
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