Mixed Messages A Disciplinary(?) Response to Physics Lab Reports
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Efforts to promote disciplinary literacy can help students integrate knowledge with ways of doing and being within disciplinary settings. Yet, effectively facilitating disciplinary literacy, even within an upper-level undergraduate physics course like the one studied here, is surprisingly hard. This article qualitatively analyzes an instructor’s responses to student lab reports and finds that his comments to students focused on issues of correctness, often at the expense of larger rhetorical concerns of the text. Analysis also suggests that the instructor was thinking about many rhetorical aspects beyond surface-level errors as he read. Together, these findings suggest that efforts to promote disciplinary literacy, especially related to writing instruction, benefit from recognizing the layered contexts of activity in which writing and responding to lab reports take place. These findings hold value for secondary and post-secondary literacy instruction; in broad terms, this study may serve as a cautionary tale by illuminating the overlapping and competing value systems involved in disciplinary literacy efforts
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (JoSoTL) right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, (CC-BY) 4.0 International, allowing others to share the work with proper acknowledgement and citation of the work's authorship and initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- Authors are able to enter separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- In pursuit of manuscripts of the highest quality, multiple opportunities for mentoring, and greater reach and citation of JoSoTL publications, JoSoTL encourages authors to share their drafts to seek feedback from relevant communities unless the manuscript is already under review or in the publication queue after being accepted. In other words, to be eligible for publication in JoSoTL, manuscripts should not be shared publicly (e.g., online), while under review (after being initially submitted, or after being revised and resubmitted for reconsideration), or upon notice of acceptance and before publication. Once published, authors are strongly encouraged to share the published version widely, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
References
Bawarshi, A., & Reiff, M.J. (2010). Genre: An introduction to history, theory, research, and pedagogy. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.
Bazerman, C. (1985). Physicists reading physics: Schema-laden purposes and purpose-laden schema. Written Communication 2(1). 3-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088385002001001
Brock, C., Wiest, L., Goatley, V., Raphael, T., Trost-Shahata, E., & Weber, C. (2014). Reading within and across texts. In C.H. Brock, V.J. Goatley, T.E. Raphael, E. Trost-Shahata, & C.M. Weber, Engaging students in disciplinary literacy, K–6: Reading, writing, and teaching tools for the classroom (pp. 35–56). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Carter, M., Ferzli, M., & Wiebe, E.N. (2007). Writing to learn by learning to write in the disciplines. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 21(3), 278-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651907300466
Collin, R. (2014) A Bernsteinian analysis of content area literacy. Journal of Literacy Research, 46(3), 306-329. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X14552178
Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (3 ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Dias, P., Freedman, A., Medway, P., & Paré, A. (1999). Worlds apart: Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Eodice, M., Geller, A.E., & Lerner, N. (2016). The meaningful writing project: Learning, teaching, and writing in higher education. Boulder, CO: Utah State UP.
Ericsson, K.A., & Simon, H.A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Fang, Z., & Coatoam, S. (2013). Disciplinary literacy: What you want to know about it. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 56(8), 627-632. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.190
Freedman, A., & Adam, C. (1996). Learning to write professionally: “Situated learning” and the transition from university to professional discourse. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 10(4), 395-427. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651996010004001
Gayani Sanjeewa, R.A. & Wilson, K.F. (2016). Learning to do science: lessons from a discourse analysis of students’ laboratory reports. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 24(2), 71-81. Retrieved from https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php
Keys, C.W. (1999). Revitalizing instruction in scientific genres: Connecting knowledge production with writing to learn in science. Science Education, 83, 115-130. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-237X(199903)83:2%3C115::AID-SCE2%3E3.0.CO;2-Q
Lent, R.C. (2016). This is disciplinary literacy: Reading, writing, thinking, and doing…content area by content area. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Lerner, N. (2007). Laboratory lessons for writing and science. Written Communication 24(3), 191-222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088307302765
Miller, C.R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638409383686
Moje, E.B., Stockdill, D., Kim, K, & Kim, H. (2011). The role of text in disciplinary learning. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, E. B. Moje, & P. P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. IV (pp. 453-486). New York: Routledge.
Moje, E.B. (2008). Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96-107. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.52.2.1
Parkinson, J. (2017). The student laboratory report genre: A genre analysis. English for Specific Purposes 45, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2016.08.001
Pressley, M., & Afflerbach, P. (1995). Verbal protocols of reading: The nature of constructively responsive reading. New York, NY: Erlbaum.
Reynolds, T., & Rush, L.S. (2017). Experts and novices reading literature: An analysis of disciplinary literacy in English Language Arts. Literacy Research and Instruction 56(3). 199-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2017.1299820
Russell, D. (1997). Rethinking genre in school and society: An activity theory analysis. Written Communication, 14(4), 504-554. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088397014004004
Russell, D. R. (2002). Writing in the academic disciplines: A curricular history. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Saldanã, J. (2014). Coding and analysis strategies. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of qualitative research (pp. 581-605). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1). 40-59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101
Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2012). What is disciplinary literacy and why does it
matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 32, 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0b013e318244557a
Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review 78(1). 40-59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101
Shanahan, C., Shanahan, T., & Misischia, C. (2011). Analysis of expert readers in three disciplines: History, mathematics, and chemistry. Journal of Literacy Research 43(4), 393-429. https://doi.org.10.1177/1086296X11424071
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Thaiss, C., & Zawacki, T.M. (2006). Engaged writers and dynamic disciplines: Research on the academic writing life. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.
Wineburg, S.S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation of documentary and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology 83(1). 73-87. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.83.1.73