As Sharron mentioned, this is a question that comes up repeatedly at the
Writing Centre at McGill. The question of how we teach students in one
context-that of academe-how to write in multiple contexts with very
different values, networks, and genre systems seems to go back to the
question of the situatedness of literacy practices. How situated are these
practices within particular rhetorical contexts; how do we as teachers
connect students to various contexts, including the academic one; and how do
we teach students to cross the boundaries of such contexts? As Russ Hunt
stated, "there are lots of ways to get them [the students] out there," which
reminds me of John Dewey's observation that we teach not as much by what we
teach but by the contexts we create for the students to learn in and from.
The discussion on this list shows that there are various client, service, or
internship contexts we create and tap into depending on the students' needs,
the goals of the course, etc. I, too, for example, work with client projects
in my business communication courses, where students analyze communication
needs in an organization and by interacting with their client, work their
way through the genre system of report management (e.g. memos, proposal,
progress report, final report) to recommend changes that meet the needs of
the client and his or her audience.
As Russ Hunt points out in his discussion of plagiarism and the different
values and conventions of literacy practices (e.g. ownership, authorship,
sharing, etc.) in different contexts, students struggle quite a bit in
crossing the boundaries between different contexts. As teachers, we try to
alleviate their stress by asking them to write a cover memo to us in which
they explain why they made the rhetorical choices they did in writing to
their client, and we may use the project as a way to help students learn how
to write for different audiences with different interests, needs, and values
(e.g. the instructor and the client). However, as Lee-Ann Kastman-Breuch
suggests, these boundary-crossing projects sometimes "illustrate-rather than
address-the gaps" that may exist between the contexts. This brings me back
to my question of how we theorize with our students the boundary-crossing we
ask them to engage in?
Doreen
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Doreen Starke-Meyerring, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Rhetoric and Professional Communication
Department of Integrated Studies in Education
Centre for the Study and Teaching of Writing
McGill University
3700 Rue McTavish
Montreal, QC CANADA H3A 1Y2
Tel.: (514) 398-1308
Fax: (514) 398-4529
[log in to unmask]
http://www.mcgill.ca/edu-integrated
http://www.mcgill.ca/writing
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