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- Title
The Power of Relevant Models The Power of Relevant Models: Using a Corpus of Student Writing to Introduce Disciplinary Practices in a First Year Composition Course.
- Authors
Hardy, Jack A.; Römer, Ute; Roberson, Audrey
- Abstract
In attempts to find appropriate and authentic materials for students who are developing their academic writing skills, instructors often turn to works written by professional academics. However, genres such as published research articles and textbooks in specific disciplines may not be the most suitable models for what first year composition writers are expected to produce. This article suggests using a corpus of successful student writing across disciplines as a more appropriate and more realistic model for lower-level writing students. It describes a first year reading and writing course (taught at an American liberal arts college by the first author of this article) that incorporates the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP) in helping students become ethnographers of disciplines and genres. As lower-level university students explore disciplines and narrow down their desired fields of study, MICUSP is used as a source of data from which students can (1) conduct linguistic research, (2) write subsequent research papers, and (3) become familiar with potential target academic discourse communities. Using a pedagogy of writing about writing, this process helped students raise their awareness of disciplinary practices. The article gives an overview of the course, focusing on class activities and including student evaluations of these activities. It demonstrates how a corpus like MICUSP can function as a useful and relevant tool in a discipline-specific, genre-based reading and writing course.
- Subjects
ACADEMIC discourse -- Study &; teaching; HUMANISTIC education
- Publication
Across the Disciplines, 2015, Vol 12, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1554-8244
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.37514/atd-j.2015.12.1.01