Beaufort identifies five "knowledge domains" that a writer relies upon when writing a specific text for a particular discourse community. In your experience as a Writing Center tutor, which of the five domains do you think the students you work with most frequently struggle with? In other words, which of the five kinds of knowledge of a particular assignment do they usually lack?
Please answer in a paragraph (or more). You may wish to describe an example from recent tutoring experiences.
I think most students struggle with subject-matter and genre knowledge. This is because although they are usually able to identify a topic/audience and compile facts from research, they tend to have a lot more trouble translating that information or expounding upon it. I read a lot of papers where students integrate quotes from outside sources without reiterating to the reader what it really means. Students also seem to have a lot of difficulty deciding which information is most important/relevant, and the "flow" the paper should be written in. For PTAP/CLS assignments, students often complain that it's hard to pick out the most useful information because they feel "all of it is important." Students in Writing classes tend to have more difficulty with sequencing; this is possibly because they normally have to generate their own ideas (as opposed to PTAP/CLS courses, which require simply following the flow of the author). If I had to choose between the two, I would say that students have more difficulty with genre knowledge.
ReplyDeleteBased off of my own experiences thus far as a writing tutor, I feel that students struggle mostly with subject-matter knowledge. Within my first three months as a tutor, I have identified this issue within the majority of student's papers I have read. I find that students tend to only include the bare minimum of relevant information on their topic, or they do not elaborate enough on certain facts and quotations that they include within the paper. I believe this issue is due to students not doing the necessary research beforehand. It seems as though the students are doing the majority of their research as they write their papers. Students in level one, even level two, writing courses tend to throw in quotes and significant factual data without any further developing of the statement. Many of the papers I read have great potential, yet the students are lacking the subject-matter knowledge needed to further augment the paper itself.
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The students I have tutored seem to be lacking most in writing process knowledge. Some students do not know how to begin a paper and do not understand what a thesis is. Many struggle with their introduction and conclusion and staying focused throughout their paper. They also have a hard time making decisions during the writing process. For example, some do not know when to write their abstract or whether or not they should write an outline. This lack of procedural knowledge is most likely due to a discrepancy between their previous school’s writing standards and Our Lady of the Lake’s standards.
ReplyDeleteWhen considering the five domains in writing I believe that the knowledge most lacked depends on which stage in the writing process that they came in. That being said the most I see are struggling with the writing process itself. When reading over papers I always try to ask them to point out the thesis and give reasons for every major component in the paper. Most times they cant. I spend quantities of time trying my best to clarify the instructor's directions and making sure they understand the best approach to the assignment. Knowing the basics of the writing process would help the majority of the students do better and spend less time doubting themselves and their writing ability.
ReplyDeleteBased on my experiences in the writing center, the knowledge domain students most commonly struggle with is genre knowledge. With several more professors requiring their students to come to the writing center, we have seen a wider variety of assignments from lab reports and summaries to proposals and persuasive essays. As Beaufort acknowledged, each type of writing differs in how it should be written and what information should be included, because each type of writing serves a different purpose. Many times students are focused on completing the writing process and demonstrating their content knowledge, but lose perspective on how the genre shapes their piece of writing. I think this somewhat overlaps with rhetorical knowledge in that students are often times failing to recognize the importance of audience and purpose.
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