Thoughts on Writing Transfer From FYC

Elizabeth Wardle <wardleea@MiamaOH.edu> April 22, 2018, 8:42 AM

Greetings all,

I hope this email finds you well. As you may or may not have known, I just finished a longitudinal study on
writing transfer from first-year composition (FYC) courses. Writing transfer has been a topic of interest for
me because it describes the way that students generalize what they have learned in previous writing
courses to new contexts. Seeing as the goal of FYC is to prepare students for future writing tasks, it is
essential that we understand how these courses facilitate writing transfer.

I found that students did not feel a need to apply the lessons they learned in FYC to other courses
because they were able to complete most assignments using their own judgment. However, when faced
with especially challenging assignments, students were unable to generalize what they had previously
learned in FYC. They required context-specific support such as previous experience with writing in the
same field. Since it is impossible to prepare students for every genre they will encounter, I believe that
FYC should focus on helping students develop meta-awareness about writing and rhetorical strategies.
This skill involves a student’s ability to analyze and recognize similarities across assignments as well as
determine what is required of them to meet the demands of an assignment.

I plan to write to the school board on how the curriculum for FYC courses could be adapted to further
facilitate writing transfer and would like to supplement my letter with other perspectives. Since you have
all also done research on writing transfer, I would really appreciate hearing what you all think about this
topic.

Thank you,
Elizabeth Wardle, PhD

Linda Bergmann <lbergmann@purdue.edu> April 22, 2018, 4:26 PM

Hi Dr. Wardle,

Dr. Zepernick and I also observed that students do not view the skills learned in FYC as necessary for
success in other courses, but we have a different explanation for this finding: students do not consider
English classes to be professional or academic. Instead, students take discipline-specific courses like
history more seriously and are more open to learning to write in these courses than actual English
courses. As you mentioned, learning in specialized contexts can promote transfer, but we observed that
learning in courses that are not meant to teach writing occurs on a trial and error basis. We don’t want
students sacrificing their first paper to determine the expected writing conventions of a given discipline, so
we suggest that FYC teaches students how to learn to write instead of just how to write. Students who
understand the process of acquiring discipline-specific writing skills will be better equipped to face writing
assignments in new contexts.

Dr. Zepernick and I hope that our findings are helpful for your letter. We definitely think that you should
include the importance of meta-awareness in it because students will be more likely to transfer if they are
able to consciously make writing choices based on knowledge about the rhetorical situation.

Best,
Linda Bergmann, PhD
Doug Brent <dabrent@ucalgary.ca> April 22, 2018, 8:31 PM

Hi Dr. Wardle and Dr. Bergmann,

I have been following Dr. Wardle’s work on writing transfer for a while and would be happy to share my
thoughts!

I agree with Dr. Wardle that meta-awareness through rhetorical analysis is transferable, but we should
note that we still don’t know the exact kind of rhetorical knowledge that would be most helpful for
facilitating transfer, although this may be an avenue of future research.

Both of your studies demonstrate that students struggle to transfer context-specific skills to new,
unfamiliar contexts. I found that this occurs because students are unable to see the similarities between
certain tasks or situations. To encourage the transfer of context-dependent skills like rhetorical
performance, I believe that FYC should repeatedly expose students to writing skills in the same
environments that such skills would need to be applied. FYC definitely has some room for improvement,
andI wish you the best of luck with your letter.

Best wishes,
Doug Brent, PhD

Elizabeth Wardle <wardleea@MiamaOH.edu> April 23, 2018, 9:18 AM

Hello again,

Thank you, Dr. Bergmann and Dr. Brent for your thoughtful responses. Context-dependent writing is
certainly a prevalent topic associated with transfer issues, and it seems as though we all agree that
meta-awareness is an essential skill that FYC should cultivate. I believe there is value in developing
writing assignments that involve other disciplines to ensure that students are better equipped for new
writing challenges. We want students to think about how writing conventions vary across disciplines and
how they choose writing strategies for different assignments.

Once again, thank you both for your responses :).

Best,
Elizabeth Wardle, PhD
Dana Lynn Driscoll <dana.driscoll@iup.edu> April 23, 2018, 1:54 PM

Hi everyone,

You have all made fascinating discoveries about the effects of external contexts on writing transfer, but Dr.
Wells and I believe that we should be paying more attention to individual dispositions.

Dr. Wardle mentioned that students did not transfer knowledge from first-year composition courses
because they did not feel a need to. Similarly, Dr. Bergmann’s study demonstrated that students are less
inclined to transfer from FYC because they do not value the skills that they learn from these courses. Both
of these results can be tied to a lack of motivation in students. If students do not think that what they are
learning will be useful in the future, they will not put in extra effort to master such skills. We consider the
issue with motivation to be a disruptive disposition, which is a disposition that negatively affects the
learner’s development. Dispositions shape how students use and adapt what they have learned, so future
studies of them may help us understand students’ struggles to transfer successfully.

Best,
Dana Lynn Driscoll, PhD

Irene Clark <irene.clark@csun.edu> April 24, 2018, 11:12 AM

Hello all,

Thank you for including us in this conversation! I’m sure that many of you agree that Dr. Wardle’s work is
groundbreaking, and Dr. Huber and I were actually inspired by her to perform our own longitudinal study
on writing transfer.

We agree with Dr. Driscoll and Dr. Wells that individual dispositions play a role in writing transfer. We
observed that students with a high level of self-efficacy (those who believed they were capable of
completing a new writing task) were able to improve the most in their writing. We hope to see more
research on the role of psychological factors, including dispositions, on writing transfer.

We also want to note that FYC still has some merits to it. We found that students were able to transfer the
ability to write a thesis-driven argument essay from their first to third year of college, meaning that FYC
successfully taught a group of students process-oriented strategies for approaching new writing tasks.
After hearing students reflect on the most important skills that they learned in FYC, we concluded that
some students developed meta-awareness of the process of engaging with a writing task. So while there
is room for more studies on the specific elements that influence transfer, it seems that first-year
composition courses have already taken a step in the right direction!

Hope this helps,

Irene Clark, PhD
Elizabeth Wardle <wardleea@MiamaOH.edu> April 24, 2018, 9:45 PM

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone for sharing your perspectives on writing transfer from first-year composition, and
@ Dr. Clark, thank you for reminding us that FYC still has a bright future ahead. It is clear that we all
agree that FYC should help students develop meta-awareness to better prepare them for the
context-specific assignments that they will face throughout college. To further encourage transfer, Dr.
Bergmann proposed teaching students how to learn to write and Dr. Brent suggested exposing students
to writing in the same contexts that they will later encounter. There seems to be a bit of disagreement
regarding what writing transfer studies should focus on. Dr. Driscoll and Dr. Clark both hold that individual
dispositions affect the likelihood of transfer, while I chose to focus on the effect of context on transfer.
Nevertheless, I appreciate everyone’s insight, and I am looking forward to relaying our discussion to the
school board!

Thank you,
Elizabeth Wardle, PhD
 Works Cited

Bergmann, Linda S., and Janet S. Zepernick. "Disciplinarity and transfer: Students' perceptions

of learning to write." WPA (2007).

Brent, Doug. "Transfer, transformation, and rhetorical knowledge: Insights from transfer theory."

Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25.4 (2011): 396-420.

Clark, Irene, and Bettina J. Huber. "Argument Essays Written in the 1st and 3rd Years of

College: Assessing Differences in Performance." Argument 11.1 (2018).

Driscoll, Dana Lynn, and Jennifer Wells. "Beyond Knowledge and Skills: Writing Transfer and

the Role of Student Dispositions." Composition Forum. Vol. 26. Association of Teachers

of Advanced Composition, 2012.

Wardle, Elizabeth. "Understanding 'transfer from FYC: Preliminary results of a longitudinal

study." WPA: Writing program administration 31.1-2 (2007): 65-85.