Conversing in Communities: an Approach to Teaching Writing.

Abstract

This naturalistic study is an example of action-research conducted by a teacher in her own classes, two sections of freshman composition taught one spring semester at an eastern university. The teacher-researcher's problem was that her theory of composition emphasized much student talk while she found herself in a new teaching situation in which her students were more quiet and passive than any she had previously taught. The teacher-researcher attempts to convey the complex dialectical nature of the teaching-learning process by presenting a chronological account of her perceptions of the semester's progress and by presenting student writing and student comments about their attitude toward writing from the beginning to the end of the semester. The teacher used a variety of methods to gain a better underst and ing of her students so that she could help them form a learning community in which they readily conversed. Of particular importance to their success in community-building was the formation of stable small groups that worked together regularly. An assumption underlying the study is that students' forming community together both encourages and enables conversation: Students are encouraged to converse because they have come to know and trust each other; students are enabled to converse because of the opportunity for practice that their membership in the learning community offers. The teacher's function in this approach to writing is to provide a model for students and to design activities that provide students the opportunity to practice conversing, orally and in writing, within an academic discourse community. The teacher-researcher concludes that successful formation of learning communities in which students are comfortable conversing helps to improve their attitude toward writing, increase their confidence in their writing ability, and heighten their desire to work to improve their writing.