Exploring the interactions between writing instruction and disciplinary practice: Pathways of four multilingual writers

Despite the significant number of scholars and other professionals who use English as a second language, little is known about how multilingual writers develop skills in the genres of disciplinary communication; even less is understood about the potential role of writing instruction in this development. In a longitudinal multiple-case study, this dissertation investigates four international graduate students\u27 development of “genre knowledge”—knowledge not only of textual form, but also of subject-matter content, the rhetorical scene, and the procedural practices that accompany the genre. The study describes the writers\u27 knowledge of several genres at different points in time and traces the various influences on knowledge development. Collected data include ESL writing classroom observations, classroom documents, written feedback, oral interviews, and the writers\u27 texts produced over an 18-month period both in the writing classroom and in the writers\u27 disciplinary endeavors. The study centers on the writers\u27 developing understanding of the genre set of resumes and cover letters, the multimodal genre of presentation slides, and four classroom and research genres. As they approached these tasks in various rhetorical contexts, the writers drew on diverse resources and strategies, dependent on their prior experience with the genre, the availability of resources, and the situational exigencies of the task. As tasks became more “high-stakes,” the writers marshaled their available resources, making visible leaps in knowledge development. With experience gained through instruction and/or disciplinary practice, the writers integrated their knowledge of generic form, procedures, rhetoric, and content, so that their genre knowledge became increasingly sophisticated and automatic. Based on the findings of this study and previous studies in similar contexts, I offer a model of genre knowledge development for multilingual writers, defining individual, community, and task as the main parameters in the developmental process. This model takes into account both disciplinary practice and writing classroom instruction as sites for knowledge-building, integrating two domains that have traditionally been isolated in empirical studies of genre learning. For researchers and teachers, this model can provide a framework for understanding how multilingual writers develop their knowledge of different disciplinary and professional genres over time and in multiple contexts