Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Second Language Writing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jslw

Balancing stability and flexibility in genre-based writing

instruction: A case study of a novice L2 writing teacher
Dorothy Worden
Department of English, Box 870244, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, United States

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Ongoing debates regarding explicit genre instruction have frequently focused on concerns that
Genre-based writing instruction inexperienced teachers may be tempted to engage in formulaic genre teaching, ignoring the
Teacher knowledge inherent variability and dynamism of genres. Yet despite the ubiquity of teachers within this
Pedagogical content knowledge debate, little research has examined how L2 writing teachers manage the simultaneous stability
Case study
and flexibility of genres within their classroom practices. This case study provides a rich account
of a novice teacher of L2 writing as she sought to balance genre stability and flexibility in her first
semester of teaching. This study examines how the teacher’s representation of a pedagogical
genre, the analytic essay, was influenced by her pedagogical content knowledge of genre, in-
cluding her knowledge of the required curriculum, her students’ needs, and her underlying
pedagogical values. Additionally, the analysis shows that the teachers’ representations of the
genre were not static, but evolved over the course of the semester. By considering this teacher’s
case, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the multiple factors teachers consider, and
the challenges they face, as they implement genre-based writing pedagogies.

1. Introduction

Various approaches to genre-based writing instruction (GBWI) have gained significant prominence in the last 25 years (Hyland,
2002). Genre research traditions vary, and it has become customary to discuss genre scholarship in terms of the three schools of
Systemic Functional Linguistics, English for Specific Purposes, and North American New Rhetoric (Hyon, 1996). Yet beyond these
distinctions genre scholars all generally agree that the concept of genre refers to more than just the visible regularities of different
types of texts. Instead, a genre is a dynamic, socially recognized way of using language to respond to reoccurring communicative
situations within a given community. Embedded in this shared definition are two seemingly contradictory features of genre – the dual
forces of stability and flexibility. These forces, what Bakhtin (1981) calls centrifugal and centripetal forces, are a fundamental feature of
language since “every utterance participates in the ‘unitary language’ (in its centripetal forces and tendencies) and at the same time
partakes of social and historical heteroglossia (the centrifugal, stratifying forces)” (p. 272).
Generic stability exists because genres respond to recurrent communicative situations. As people engage with these repeated
situations in ways that involve language, “the regularity of the situation will give rise to regularities in the texts which are produced
in that situation” (Kress & Knapp, 1992, p. 10). These textual regularities are what enable genres to function as rhetorical shortcuts
for writers and readers, allowing new experiences to be “made familiar through the recognition of relevant similarities” (Miller,
1984). Thus, the entire concept of genre depends on the existence of regularity at both the social and linguistic levels, connecting “a
recognition of regularities in discourse types with a broader social and cultural understanding of language in use” (Freedman &

E-mail address: dlworden@ua.edu.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2018.09.003
Received 28 May 2018; Received in revised form 29 September 2018; Accepted 30 September 2018
1060-3743/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Worden, D., Journal of Second Language Writing, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2018.09.003
D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Medway, 1994, p. 1). In other words, the presence of discursive regularity, stability, and convention is a given in genre studies
because “without conventions, we would not have genres” (Tardy, 2016, p. 8).
At the same time, because communicative situations change and because individual language users make choices within
rhetorical situations, genres are inherently dynamic and shifting. Often, this dynamism occurs within the boundaries of a given genre,
where “there is a huge potential for internal heterogeneity” (Hyland, 2003, p. 23) as examples from a given genre vary from the
prototypical to the unusual (Swales, 1990). These internal variations allow genre users “to exercise considerable freedom to ma-
nipulate generic conventions to respond to novel situations” (Bhatia, 1997, p. 361). In addition to variation within a given genre,
genres also “change, evolve and decay” over time based upon the shifting rhetorical needs of the society (Miller, 1984, p. 163).
It is this dual nature of genre as simultaneously stable and dynamic that gives genre so much power as a concept. As Devitt (2004)
puts it,
“Janus-like, genres inevitably look both ways at once, encompassing convergence and divergence, similarity and difference,
standardization and variation, constraint and creativity. Rejecting these dichotomies and sustaining these tensions, genre can
become, as language, infinitely and essentially creative” (p. 162).
The tension between stability and flexibility, then, is a uniquely productive tension, which fuels the creativity genres enable. Yet
this tension is also the crux of long-standing debates concerning the possibility and value of explicit genre teaching.
Advocates of explicit teaching argue that teaching genre conventions empowers students by giving them access to socially
powerful ways of using language (2007, Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Hyland, 2003; Martin, 2009). Those more critical of explicit genre
pedagogy argue that explicit teaching of genre forms is at best unnecessary and at worst damaging to students because it necessarily
involves removing a genre from its social and historical context (Coe, 1994; Freedman & Medway, 1994; Freedman, 1993), thus
obscuring what is “inherently fluid and dynamic” within such genres in order to render them teachable (Freedman & Medway, 1994,
p. 10). Within these debates, teachers and their knowledge of the genres they teach, play a central but often under-researched role.

1.1. The role of teacher knowledge in genre pedagogy

Regardless of their perspective on the possibility and advisability of explicit teaching of genre, all genre scholars acknowledge that
the success of genre pedagogies is highly dependent on the professional knowledge of writing teachers. While genre pedagogies are
potentially empowering for teachers, they are also “more complex and demanding for teachers than earlier approaches to writing
instruction” (Hyland, 2007, p. 154) particularly because they require high levels of content knowledge. Moreover, the success of any
explicit teaching of genre relies on “the accuracy of the teacher’s explicit knowledge” (Freedman, 1993, p. 244), which is almost
certainly incomplete since so much genre knowledge is tacit. The challenges of genre pedagogies are even more pronounced for
novice teachers who are particularly in “danger of reifying genres with a text-intensive focus” (Hyland, 2003, p. 27) and failing to
“acknowledge variation and choice” within genres. Johns (2002) takes this concern a step further, arguing that the temptation “to
provide templates in order to teach and test our students” is not an issue only for novice teachers, but part of “the everyday
requirements of teaching” in which “our curricular tendencies are to emphasize regularities and to search for stability so that students
can learn some concrete facts about texts” (pp. 237–238).
Yet despite the centrality of teachers to the success or failure of GBWI, very little research has examined “questions regarding the
kinds of knowledge and resources that teacher might need to implement such an approach in effective ways,” a particularly necessary
line of research given the previously noted “concerns that a genre-based approach may default to teaching static formulas” (Tardy,
2016, p. 174). Instead, most existing research on writing teacher cognition has examined more general teacher beliefs and attitudes
toward writing instruction (Lee, 2013; Winer, 1992) or their developing knowledge of process writing pedagogies (Bishop, 1990;
Farris, 1996), with little research examining the development of genre knowledge among L2 writing teachers. This general lack of
research points to a need for “studies of teachers’ experiences in the classroom” which “could enhance our understanding of the
challenges that teachers face in implementing genre-based pedagogies, even when the teachers themselves have a strong grasp of
related theories and practices” (Tardy, 2016, p. 175).
Several researchers who do examine teachers’ experiences with genre theory and genre pedagogy have considered the devel-
opment of teachers’ knowledge of the genres they are asked to write in their professional coursework. Negretti and Kuteeva (2011),
for example, examined how an ESP genre-based academic literacy course contributed to the development of metacognitive genre
awareness among eight preservice L2 English teachers. While all participants showed evidence of declarative and procedural me-
tacognitive awareness of the academic genres they studied, few developed conditional metacognitive knowledge related to contexts
and underlying reasons for the generic choices they encountered in published texts. In a study with similar goals, Hedgcock and Lee
(2017) examined 58 TESOL candidates’ knowledge of the academic and professional genres required in their graduate programs as
well as their perceptions of the value of genre-based instruction for their developing professional knowledge as future teachers.
Though most participants “displayed functional knowledge of genre classifications and their prototypical structure, fewer partici-
pants evinced extensive metacognitive knowledge of genres and their socioliterate dimensions” (p. 25). Regarding the perceived
usefulness of genre-based instruction for their professional practice, the participants tended to value professional teaching genres like
lesson plans and assessments over academic genres such as literature reviews. Overall, while both studies demonstrate that preservice
teachers can and do develop genre knowledge and awareness through experiences and instruction in academic writing, neither study
directly investigates how teachers make use of this genre knowledge in teaching. Thus, more work is needed to examine how teachers
“apply their genre expertise in the teaching of language and literacy in the classroom” (Hedgcock & Lee, 2017, p. 26).
In addition to examining the development of teachers’ knowledge of genres as writers, several studies have examined teachers’

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knowledge of genre specifically for teaching purposes. Drawing on previous work regarding the value of investigating unfamiliar
genres as a means of promoting students’ writing knowledge and confidence (Andrew-Vaughan & Fleischer, 2006; Bastian, 2010),
Bentley (2013) examined the learning of K-12 English Language Arts teachers completing a course project in which they were asked
to investigate, write, and design several lessons centering around an unfamiliar genre of their choice. Through completing the project,
the teachers learned to translate their insider knowledge as writers into instructional decisions and developed empathy for their
students’ confusion and frustration when encountering an unfamiliar form of writing. In another example, Gebhard, Chen, Graham,
and Gunawan (2013) found that the ten MA TESOL candidates in their study learned to incorporate concepts from Systemic Func-
tional Linguistics and genre-based pedagogy into their design of curricular materials, and a discourse-based conceptualization of
grammar largely replaced the traditional, sentence-level ideas about grammar they brought to the class. When it came to applying
these new realizations, however, the teachers expressed reservations regarding the feasibility of such functional perspectives in their
future exam-focused teaching contexts. Tardy, Buck, Pawlowski, and Slinkard (2018) examined how both teacher education and
teaching experience contributed to 33 writing teachers’ evolving conceptions of genre. Over time, the teachers in the study moved
away from associating the concept primarily with literary genres and began to express more socio-rhetorical conceptions of genre, yet
several teachers continued to question the relevance of the concept for teaching purposes.
More particularly related to the issue of stability and flexibility in genre-based instruction, several studies have highlighted
teachers’ beliefs about the teaching of form, particularly through the use of templates. Reporting on a forum attended by 48 English
language teachers from a range of contexts, Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998) discussed the teachers’ views on genre-based instructional
approaches. The confidence afforded by genre knowledge, the participants said, is particularly valuable for beginner and inter-
mediate students as it provides them with genre models to which they can compare their own texts. At the same time, however, the
teachers were concerned that genre approaches might become too prescriptive “in the hands of unimaginative teachers” in ways that
might demotivate students (p. 311). In contrast, many of the teachers in a survey conducted by Johns (2011) defended the use of
templates on the grounds that they enabled “students to learn – with confidence – the discourse structures of English” (Johns, 2011, p.
58). Gebhard et al. (2013) likewise noted that the use of templates was not the result of teachers’ failure to understand the inherent
dynamism of genres or the limitations of templates but was instead a response to educational systems, and particularly systems of
assessment, that worked against a more functional perspective on language. These results demonstrate the complexity of teachers’
thinking about issues of stability and flexibility in GBWI.
In short, previous research shows that though we do know that teachers can develop genre knowledge in teacher education, we
know less about how teachers apply such knowledge in their pedagogical practices (Hedgcock & Lee, 2017; Negretti & Kuteeva,
2011). Moreover, when it comes to the tensions between stability and flexibility in GBWI, previous studies indicate that teachers are
aware of this tension but do not always agree among themselves how best to manage it in instruction (Johns, 2011; Kay & Dudley-
Evans, 1998). Based on these findings, it is clear that there is a need for research that particularly examines how teachers transform
their genre knowledge for teaching purposes and how they use that knowledge to make decisions about how to represent the inherent
stability and flexibility of genres to their students. To inform this research, work on teacher knowledge from the general education
literature can be a valuable framework.

1.2. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge

Though relatively little research addresses the question of writing teachers’ knowledge of genre for teaching purposes, research in
general education has more broadly examined the distinctive nature of teachers’ knowledge of the subjects they teach. Much of this
research builds on the work of Shulman and his colleagues, who sought to articulate a professional knowledge base for teaching that
makes teachers’ knowledge of their subject matter central (1987, Shulman, 1986; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). Shulman
(1987) identifies seven categories of teachers’ knowledge base: content knowledge, including teachers’ knowledge of the major facts,
theories, and investigative procedures of a given subject area; general pedagogical knowledge, or, general non-content specific teaching
strategies; knowledge of curriculum; knowledge of learners; knowledge of educational contexts; knowledge of the purposes of education; and
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which Shulman defines as “that special amalgam of content and pedagogy” which is “of special
interest because it identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching” (p. 8). Following Shulman, Grossman (1990) in-
corporates teachers’ “knowledge and beliefs about the purposes of teaching a subject at different grade levels” and their “curricular
knowledge” of a given subject as central components of PCK (pp. 8–9).
Based on Shulman (1986, 1987) and Grossman (1990), for this study, I adopt a functional definition of PCK as the dynamic
integration of teachers’ content knowledge, knowledge of learners, knowledge of pedagogy, and knowledge of curriculum as informed by
their underlying pedagogical values related to teaching their subject matter.
Applied to GBWI, the PCK framework can help us understand the various aspects of professional knowledge writing teachers draw
on as they make instructional decisions – including those related to the stability and flexibility of genres. Teachers must first possess
content knowledge of genre. This is the knowledge that teachers share with non-teaching content experts and includes a general
understanding of the concept of genre as well as knowledge of specific genres they are asked to teach. Such genre knowledge, as
Tardy (2009) argues, is complex – composed of formal knowledge of the genre conventions, process knowledge of the “procedural
practices associated with the genre,” rhetorical knowledge of the genre’s purpose in its sociorhetorical context, and subject-matter
knowledge of the content the genre addresses (p. 21). Beyond the content knowledge they share with non-teaching content experts,
writing teachers must also possess knowledge of learners’ current level of comprehension as well as likely misunderstandings or sources
of confusion related to the genres they are teaching. Teachers also possess general pedagogical knowledge of instructional strategies. In
the case of genre-based instruction, a teacher’s knowledge of pedagogical tools such as move analysis (Swales, 1990) or the teaching

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 1. Model of Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Genre.

(Adapted from Grossman, 1990; Rothery, 1996; Shulman, 1986, 1987; Swales, 1990; Tardy, 2009)

learning cycle of the Sydney school (Rothery, 1996) would be examples of pedagogical knowledge. Knowledge of curriculum of genre
would include teachers’ awareness of both the “lateral” and “vertical” curriculum (Shulman, 1986). The lateral curriculum en-
compasses the genres students are encountering and producing in other contexts concurrently to the writing class, and the vertical
curriculum includes the genres students have encountered in the past and those they will likely face in the future. Finally, informing
all these dimensions of knowledge, are the teacher’s underlying pedagogical values of writing instruction, including genre-based
teaching. For example, a teacher who sees the purpose of her class as preparing students to write using accepted conventional forms
will approach teaching differently than a teacher who sees the purpose of her class as promoting critique of powerful genres. The
dynamic integration of these dimensions of teacher knowledge is PCK, a form of knowledge that “is uniquely the province of teachers,
their own special form of professional understanding” (Shulman, 1986, p. 8). Fig. 1 summarizes these facets of teachers’ PCK of genre.
Based on the existing research demonstrating the importance of teachers’ genre knowledge and drawing on the literature on PCK,
this study seeks to answer Tardy’s (2016) call for “studies of teachers’ experiences in the classroom” that highlight the “challenges
that teachers face in implementing genre-based pedagogies” (p. 174), particularly focusing on the challenges of balancing genre
stability and flexibility in GBWI. Utilizing a case study methodology (Duff, 2008), this study provides a rich account of Jennifer1, a
novice teacher of L2 writing, in her first semester of teaching an introductory academic writing course for international students at a
U.S. university. This study examines how Jennifer’s representations of a pedagogical genre, the analytic essay, were influenced by her
knowledge of genre, the required curriculum, her students’ needs, and her underlying pedagogical values. Additionally, the analysis
shows that her representations of the genre were not static but evolved over the course of the semester. By considering this teacher’s
case, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the multiple factors teachers consider, and the challenges they face, as they
implement GBWI.

2. Methods

The data presented here are drawn from a larger study examining the development of PCK among four first-time teachers of L2
writing at the university level (Schreiber & Worden, in press; Worden, 2015, 2018). I chose to focus on novice teachers for both
practical and theoretical reasons. On the practical side, the program in which these teachers taught was primarily staffed by graduate
teaching assistants who typically either graduated or moved on to other teaching and research assignments within one or two years.
This high level of teacher turnover meant that the majority of teachers in the program, and the majority who volunteered for the
study, were novices. From a theoretical standpoint, however, this population of novice teachers fit well with my research focus on the
development of L2 writing teachers’ PCK. While experienced teachers can also certainly continue to develop their PCK, their cognitions
tend to be more stable compared to novices who are actively in the process of transforming their content knowledge for teaching for
the first time, making novice teachers a particularly relevant population for a developmental study such as this.

1
Pseudonym.

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

This study adopted a case study methodology (Duff, 2008) because its exploratory and longitudinal nature enabled the devel-
opment a rich picture of a teacher’s PCK over time. Though this teacher’s experiences represent a unique situation and are not
generalizable to all teachers, it is my hope that the analysis of Jennifer’s case can contribute to “hypotheses, models, and ultimately
theories” (Duff, 2008, p. 44) to inform future research and teacher development initiatives.
While the larger study did not specifically focus on teachers’ knowledge of genre or their negotiation of generic stability and
flexibility in genre-informed teaching, these themes quickly emerged as central to Jennifer’s experiences in her first semester of
teaching. Therefore, subsequent analysis of Jennifer’s specific case focused on the following research question: In what ways does
Jennifer’s pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) inform how she balances stability and flexibility in her teaching of the analytic essay genre?

2.1. Research context

The context for this study was a required, credit-bearing L2 academic writing course for undergraduate students at a large public
university in the northeastern United States (ESL 1012). Teachers in this program were required to use a standardized curriculum,
which the teacher handbook classified as “somewhat genre-based” while also incorporating many strategies from process-based
approaches such as invention exercises and peer review (Teacher Handbook). This standardized curriculum specified the course
goals, learning objectives, textbook, and the required four major writing assignments:

1 the extended definition essay

2 the comparison/contrast poster presentation
3 the analytic essay
4 the researched argument essay.

Within this framework, individual teachers had relative freedom to design the day-to-day lessons in their courses. As additional
forms of professional development, the teachers attended a two-day orientation prior to the start of the semester of the study. This
orientation introduced teachers to the required curriculum and the policies of the ESL 101 program and provided general teaching
suggestions. Beyond an explanation of the major assignments, it did not, however, specifically focus on genre-based pedagogy. The
teachers also attended regular professional development meetings at which they could ask questions, discuss teaching difficulties, and
share successful teaching materials with each other.
This study focuses on the third of four required essays – the analytic essay. This essay was chosen in consultation with the ESL 101
program director, who believed its position late in the semester, when the teacher and students were familiar with one another but
prior to the stress of the final essay, would make data collection for this essay less disruptive to the classes than other units. The
teacher handbook described the analytic essay as “basically a ‘report’ based on research” in which students must “do more than just
describe an incident [.. .] they need to learn, through their research, something about the causes of the incident, and its impacts: how it
affects, or affected, the larger society” while also refraining from arguing (Teacher Handbook).

2.2. Participating teacher

At the time of the study, Jennifer was in her final year of an MA TESL program. Jennifer volunteered to participate in the study
after the opportunity was presented to all teachers in the program at the instructor orientation prior to the start of the semester.
Though the semester of the study was Jennifer’s first time teaching a college-level academic writing course, she had a variety of
previous teaching experiences including tutoring as an undergraduate, working as a substitute teacher, and teaching two classes for
recent immigrants to the U.S. through a community-based ESL program. Additionally, in the summer prior to the semester of the
study, Jennifer had worked as the writing instructor at an ESL academic summer camp for middle and high school students.
In terms of her preparation to teach, as an MA TESL student, Jennifer had taken a variety of relevant academic courses including
courses in general TESL methods as well as a course specifically focused on teaching L2 writing. The L2 writing methods course
included readings and discussions of genre-based writing pedagogies. However, genre was not particularly emphasized within this
course but was presented alongside other topics such as intercultural rhetoric, voice, assignment design, teacher feedback, and
assessment.
Because the curriculum of the class was relatively flexible, the extent to which each teacher incorporated a focus on genre varied.
Jennifer’s approach could best be described as what Tardy et al. (2018) call a “genre-informed approach” in that genre was an
important concept within Jennifer’s teaching but was not uniquely emphasized (para. 17). The role of genre in Jennifer’s overall
pedagogy can perhaps be best seen in a visual representation of her goals for the course completed after the semester had ended. Her
drawing (Fig. 2) depicts the goals of the class as a series of interconnected circles which represented what Jennifer considered to be
elements of writing which could be taught in a class like ESL 101.
“Genre” is included as one of these teachable aspects of writing, but not a primary focus. As Jennifer explained, “Genre, I just
included as one element rather than the whole larger circle because, you know, it’s not necessarily that they [students] have to give it
a whole lot more weight than the other ones, but it is it is an important element that we as instructors can focus on making sure that
they understand” (Concept Map 6, 1/29).

2
Pseudonym.

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 2. Visual Depiction of Course Goals.

2.3. Data collection

Data collection lasted for six months, encompassing one sixteen-week academic semester.3 As part of the study, Jennifer parti-
cipated in five semi-structured interviews in which she was asked to reflect on her knowledge, beliefs, and experiences regarding the
teaching of L2 writing. All interviews were audio-recorded. During the interviews, she also completed six concept maps that visually
represented her knowledge of the goals and curriculum of the class at various points in time (as in Fig. 2). Jennifer’s process of
drawing the concept maps and her accompanying verbal explanations were video-recorded. Concept maps have been demonstrated
to be a valuable tool for investigating teachers’ conceptual thinking (Miller et al., 2009). In this study, because of their non-linear and
multimodal nature, these concept maps proved to be a particularly useful tool for capturing the integration of various elements of
teacher knowledge. Additionally, I attended and video-recorded all of Jennifer’s class sessions during the teaching of the analytic
essay unit and conducted three audio-recorded stimulated recalls with her in which she watched and verbally reflected on excerpts
from the video recordings of her teaching or other artifacts such as students’ drafts. Finally, I collected the instructional artifacts
Jennifer used while teaching this unit, including presentation slides, handouts, grading rubrics, and assigned readings.

2.4. Data preparation and analysis

All interviews, stimulated recalls, and classroom interactions discussed in the stimulated recalls were transcribed for content with
selected conversation analytic transcription conventions included to preserve word stress (denoted by underlining), which demon-
strated changes in Jennifer’s emphasis across time, and paralinguistic features such as laughter or non-verbal elements of the data
such as the use of physical artifacts like the whiteboard (denoted by double parentheses). I used QSR International’s NVivo data
management software (QSR International, 2017) to facilitate my analysis of the data. My first step was to do several rounds of broad,
open coding of all the data (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). At this stage, I read all the transcripts and materials carefully, noting
recurrent themes and concepts that emerged. It was at this stage that the themes of stability and flexibility were identified as a central
concern in Jennifer’s teaching. To better understand how Jennifer balanced this tension in her teaching, I conducted a second round
of coding in which I adopted analytical categories from the previous research literature on PCK. In particular, I examined Jennifer’s
explanations of her thinking and practice related to the issue of stability and flexibility as expressed in her interviews, stimulated
recalls, and concept maps. I adapted the components of Shulman’s (1987) and Grossman’s (1990) model of PCK as my coding scheme.
The codes generated from this model were: content knowledge, knowledge of students, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of pedagogy,
and underlying pedagogical values.
These codes were then used to construct the case study. Steps taken to ensure the trustworthiness of the analysis included
triangulation among different data sources (e.g. interviews, stimulated recalls, classroom teaching). Additionally, as a form of
member-checking, Jennifer was invited to read a draft of this analysis to provide feedback on my interpretations, which she con-
firmed aligned with her own perception of her teaching and pedagogical reasoning.

3. Results and discussion

Over the course of the semester, Jennifer’s teaching and reflections were characterized by consistent attention to the relationship
between genre stability and flexibility. As she designed teaching materials, interacted with individual students, and reflected on her
teaching, Jennifer sought to balance her own beliefs about genre and teaching, her perceptions of her students’ current and future

3
For a full data collection schedule, see Appendix A.

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writing needs, and the requirements of the curriculum in her teaching of the analytic essay genre.

3.1. Jennifer’s mantra – “There’s more than one way”

Before addressing Jennifer’s specific thinking regarding the analytic essay, it is important to get a sense of her underlying ped-
agogical values, as such values have a significant effect on the development of teachers’ PCK (Grossman, 1990; Gudmundsdottir,
1990). In other words, the way in which Jennifer approached the tension between genre stability and flexibility was not an isolated
feature of her thinking, but instead represented a logical extension of a more general and deeply held set of beliefs about the value
and purpose of writing instruction. Jennifer’s teaching philosophy was characterized by her belief in providing students with choices
about how they approached writing tasks (quotes are verbatim, relevant sections are in bold and stressed words are underlined).
Excerpt 1:
Jenn: I'm big on the there's more than one way. Now just that's probably my mantra to it, especially since I had a very
interesting and different writing developmental background. So I saw that, you know, so many things just didn't work for me or I
didn't need it, you know, these- we seem to have gone through a phase where you're supposed to do this, and then you
move on to this step, and then this step, and it's got to build, and not only do you have to be able to do these steps, you have to
memorize them and be able to write them out so that you can prove you know them on some test. And I just think that's
absolutely ridiculous and it doesn't allow the freedom of expression, the development of ideas even. I see so many papers
where alright, you're presenting some facts, but nothing's really been developed. And I want to see you in this paper. ((imi-
tating scared student voice)) “Oh no, we're not supposed to!” So I want to also be an empowerer in the writing, and I think
I am to some degrees. And then of course being in the classroom and the summer program where, alright, I have, you know, the
institution, you know, telling me I have to put certain things in. I've got some of the students' parents, you know, "we
expect this from the program" and having to put them in, and a lot of them were at odds to my little mantra there because
it was supposed to be a way and you know this is it. (Jennifer, interview 1, 8/28)
Jennifer’s “mantra” of “there’s more than one way” came from her own experiences as a student, in which she found rigid
instruction frustrating and unnecessary. Jennifer wanted to implement a more facilitative and empowering pedagogy which provided
space for “freedom of expression” and “development of ideas.” At the same time, however, Jennifer recognized that this vision of
writing instruction would potentially put her in conflict with the expectations of various other stakeholders whose expectations for “a
way” were “at odds” with her own pedagogical values. In fact, Jennifer had already encountered such resistance in her previous
summer’s teaching at the academic summer camp. In this position, she had experienced pressure from the institution and her stu-
dents’ parents to provide “a way.” Her students also provided a source of resistance through their tendency to react to her desire “to
see you in this paper” with a fearful “oh no, we're not supposed to!” Thus, even from very early in the semester, Jennifer expressed a
strong belief in her mantra of “more than one way,” while simultaneously being aware of how this mantra might conflict with the
expectations and preferences of both the program and the students.

3.2. Pre-teaching conceptions of genre and genre-based pedagogy

Jennifer’s underlying value of “more than one way” infused her teaching in myriad ways, including her PCK of the analytic essay
genre. We can see this influence in her pre-teaching concept of the genre expressed in the third interview, just prior to beginning the
analytic essay unit. In response to the question, “What do you think of as the genre of the analytic essay? So, what are the features of
it for you, and how you understand what it is?” Jennifer highlighted the variability of the genre depending on her students’ future
writing contexts.
Excerpt 2:
Jenn: How I understand the analytical essay is basically what the name implies. You are examining something in a fairly detailed
level, and since my undergrad is in Irish literature of course I could focus it specifically on that particular field, say, alright if I'm
doing an analysis, my opinion has no place in it. number one. I'm looking at, and now in literature I realize that it's a lot of
educated guesswork, what the author meant, you know, different ways you can see something or how many levels of analysis you
want to use or are even there. So I realize most of my students are rather in some type of scientific or mathematical field [.. .] so I
know this- that others will be looking at some type of analysis that better fits their field. So it's not going to be literary. But still we
can use some of the same skills, just close examination, asking the same questions, how, what, why. (Jennifer, interview 3, 10/4)
Jennifer’s response here highlights the emerging tension between genre variability and stability in her PCK of the analytic essay.
Jennifer grounds her initial explanation of the genre in her memories of the literary analyses she wrote as an undergraduate student.
She transforms this content knowledge by combining it with her knowledge of both students and curriculum. Part of this transfor-
mation involves her understanding of the variability of analysis across different academic fields. Her students, who are not literature
majors, will therefore, “be looking at some type of analysis that better fits their field.” Yet even as Jennifer considers this variability,
she attempts to find areas of stability across these diverse realizations of the genre, noting that “we can use some of the same skills”
regardless of field.
In addition to acknowledging the duality of genre stability and flexibility in her understanding of the analytic essay genre,
Jennifer also considers an awareness of this duality to be an important learning outcome for her students. This came up particularly in
response to a follow-up question about the value of writing papers like the analytic essay.

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Excerpt 3:
R: So you think that it's valuable for students to write the kind of papers where they're not supposed to include their opinion?
Jenn: I think it's valuable to do both because there are going to be quite a number, especially those working in the science and
maths, where it- a lot of the expectation is going to be, wait this is going to be I know dry presentation, you're not putting your
opinion, you're simply presenting the facts, and but that of course, as they get to higher level papers, or for different purposes will
be including opinions and then supporting it basing on the facts. So I just think that it's important they get a good sense of the
boundaries between the genres, if I can say that now, so that they can realize how they can manipulate and adjust them.
And just so that they're able to. So if they are faced with a major project that's really going to count for something, and then they're
given very clear, rigid paradigms that they have to work in, that they'll be able to adapt themselves into that and not have the
potential or [.. .] the tendency to shy out of bounds. (Jennifer, interview 3, 10/4)
Jennifer’s reasoning again rests on her knowledge of students and their future writing needs. As students move through their
chosen majors, Jennifer anticipates that the papers which avoid opinion in favor of “simply presenting the facts” will give way to
writing which “will be including opinions and then supporting it basing on the facts.” What students need to learn for this imagined
future, Jennifer reasons, is “a good sense of the boundaries between the genres.” Such an awareness allows students to both “adapt
themselves” into more stable forms of writing and to “manipulate and adjust” genres to serve diverse writing purposes. In other
words, in Jennifer’s thinking, even the teaching of genre boundaries and the provision of clear genre boundaries for her students
serves to allow the creativity and flexibility, her “more than one way” that she values so highly.

3.3. Adjusting genre representations in teaching

As she taught the analytic essay, Jennifer continued to navigate the tension between drawing clear genre boundaries and the
natural fluidity and variability of analysis as a rhetorical mode. In particular, we can see how Jennifer chooses to represent the genre
differently at different moments and activities within her teaching. In some instances, Jennifer highlights genre stability, while at
others she emphasizes the flexibility and variability of the genre.
Much of Jennifer’s drawing of firm genre boundaries was done through the official course documents she designed and adopted
for the unit. For example, in her grading rubric for the analytic essay, Jennifer included “genre” as a category of evaluation. Her
description of her grading criteria for this category presents a relatively strict vision of adhering to clear genre “rules.” For instance,
to receive full credit in this category, a paper must demonstrate “clear adherence to the rules of the genre” while “minor deviation”
from these “rules” would result in a grade reduction of two points and “significant deviation” would result in zero (Jennifer, grading
rubric). The language of these explanations with their focus on “rules,” “adherence,” and “deviation” presents genre boundaries as
rigid and inflexible.
Other documents Jennifer created show a similar preoccupation with clearly defining genre boundaries. One good example of this
comes the presentation Jennifer created to introduce the students to the assignment on the first day of the unit. She began her short
lecture by discussing the need to start with a research question. The second slide in her presentation addressed what a writer did to
answer the research question and provided the most explicit definition of the analytic essay genre in Jennifer’s teaching (Fig. 3).
This definition, which Jennifer adopted verbatim from an online source (Analytical vs. argumentative research papers, 2018)
emphasizes the objective nature of the analytic essay. As with her rubric, the focus of this presentation slide is on the creation of clear
genre boundaries, particularly between analysis and argument. The clarity of these boundaries is created through unmitigated di-
rectives and prohibitions as well as the repetition and rephrasing of the requirement for objectivity. In fact, the only change Jennifer
made to this original website’s definition, bolding “no” in the sentence “You have no preconceived notions or opinions about the

Fig. 3. Jennifer class presentation, 10/8.

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

topic,” further emphasizes the strong line that is being drawn between analysis and argumentation.
While her unit documents such as this presentation slide presented the concept of genre as a rigid set of “rules” which formed
clear boundaries between different types of writing, at other points, her explanations construed genre as more fluid and contingent.
This can be seen in Jennifer’s verbal explanations of the definition of the analytic essay in Fig. 3, particularly related to the re-
quirement that the writer include “no preconceived notions or opinions about the topic” in the analytic essay genre. While Jennifer
had visually highlighted this prohibition in the slide itself, when she explained it to the class verbally, she complicated this clear
prohibition with a much more nuanced understanding of the role of opinion in the analytic essay.
Excerpt 5:
Jenn: So no preconceived notions or opinions about the topic. Now ((using laser pointer to highlight link at bottom of screen))
this statement I took from this webpage down here, which you can see a little better if you open this up. So, but, so no, no
opinions. That's probably the important one. You may have an opinion. You all probably do, especially as you're doing your
research. You'll have an opinion on what's important to study, what's important to present. You may have a reason why I
want to present this because I want the world to know. So you're going to have formed some opinions along the way, but
for the analytic paper, you have to be really careful. Some on them might come out a little bit, but the paper is not about
stating your opinion, getting people to follow your- agree with your line of thinking. So you don't want to persuade them yet, or
argue them into it. So you're just basically showing the facts, the support, research, exploring it. (Jennifer, class session, 10/8)
As Jennifer verbally explains the definition she included in the slide, she moderates the strong emphasis on excluding all opinions.
While her visual presentation emphasized that the students should “have no preconceived notions or opinions about the topic”
(Fig. 3), here Jennifer creates a much more flexible boundary between the analytic and argumentative essays. In both, writers have
opinions. In both, the opinions may be visible. The distinction then is not whether the essay contains opinions but rather whether the
purpose of the essay is to “persuade” the reader or “argue them into” the writer’s viewpoint. In this moment of teaching, then,
Jennifer pairs a rigid conceptualization of the analytic essay in the slide with a much more flexible representation in her verbal
explanation.
In her reflection on this moment of teaching, Jennifer demonstrates that this tension was not only something she was aware of,
but a central feature of her thinking. In the first stimulated recall, I asked Jennifer to explain how she designed the definition in Fig. 3.
Her response highlights the tension between genre fluidity and student freedom on one hand and genre boundaries and curricular
requirements on the other.
Excerpt 6:
Jenn: So here is trying to make it sort of specific enough that they could see the difference between analytic and ar-
gumentative when we get there, when I highlight the argumentative essay next unit, but I also wanted them to realize that
there was some freedom, this is an exploratory process. So they can do it differently. And I was really really trying to
make that clear, and I know I've reiterated that with a number of students either generally like I did in the introduction or
specifically based on their questions. [.. .] I also knew that in the syllabus we have analytical and we have argumentative, so
I was figuring that the program is seeing a distinction, so alright I need to find this distinction. (Jennifer, stimulated recall
1, 10/18)
In this explanation Jennifer again focuses on providing her students with specificity in her descriptions of the genre while also
allowing for “freedom” to treat writing as “an exploratory process” that they can approach in different ways. Moreover, in this
explanation, Jennifer demonstrates how her knowledge of the curriculum impacts her representation of the analytic essay genre.
While Jennifer’s personal understanding of the analytic essay included a legitimate role for opinion, the curriculum’s separation of
analysis and argument pushed Jennifer “to find this distinction” so that her students would be able to move through the curriculum
smoothly. The result of these competing demands and conceptions of the analytic essay was a definition that Jennifer hoped would be
“sort of specific enough that they [the students] could see the difference between analytic and argumentative when we get there” and
yet also would enable her students “to realize that there was some freedom, this is an exploratory process. So they can do it
differently.” Also emerging in Jennifer’s explanation is a conflict between the immediate needs of her students to transition from the
analytic essay to the argumentative essay with their longer term needs to write various forms of analyses in their future classes. It was
this simultaneously defined and open-ended nature of the genre and assignment that Jennifer “was really really trying to make that
clear” in her explanations to the class.
As Jennifer notes in excerpt 6, another way that she worked to balance the simultaneously stable and flexible nature of the genre
in her teaching was emphasizing genre flexibility and freedom in her one-on-one consultations with her students. At another point in
the first stimulated recall, Jennifer further elaborated that she saved these more flexible explanations of genre for the students “who I
didn't think would be so confused by the fact” and “who I thought could handle it” (Jennifer, stimulated recall 1, 10/18). One
example of Jennifer’s practice of adjusting her explanation of the genre for more advanced students happened during the second of
two workshop days she scheduled during the unit. Toward the beginning of this class, a student, S1, approached Jennifer to ask her
advice on a potential topic for the analytic essay.
Excerpt 7:
S1: Is it possible to write about (.) the symptoms of leukemia?
Jenn: The what sentence?

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

S1: Like, symptom.

Jenn: A symptom. Like analyzing a symptom or the symptoms?
S1:The symptoms.
Jenn: Okay, there are different types of leukemia, so you would probably have to look that up first
S1:Bone marrow one. Bone marrow?
Jenn: Okay. So like- so analyzing the symptoms, that would be more straight description, so how you could turn that into
an analysis would be maybe looking at some of the procedures, or how diagnoses are made based on the symptoms?
Because there are probably going to be some different and some more interesting things than just outlining the symptoms, that
you can do with that.
S1: I can describe leukemia and then talk about the procedure.
Jenn: Yeah, yeah, and the description in that case would support your analytical (.) exploration of what's done, what
people go through, those types of things.
S1: Okay.
Jenn:Because if you just describe symptoms, it's more like an extended definition.
S1:Yeah.
Jenn:Yeah. (Jennifer, class session, 10/17)
Jennifer’s response to this student’s question draws a distinction between description and analysis that she did not include in her
initial explanations of the genre to the whole class. She explains that “analyzing the symptoms, that would be more straight de-
scription” and that such an essay would be “more like an extended definition.” These comparisons serve to highlight the boundaries
between these genres. However, even as Jennifer is creating these boundaries between description and analysis, she is also com-
plicating the relationship between these genres. Although description and analysis are clearly distinct, description can “support” an
analysis and a “straight description” can be turned “into an analysis” through slightly shifting the focus.
Her intention to focus on the fluidity of the distinctions between these genres becomes even more pronounced in her reflections on
this episode. In the stimulated recall, Jennifer describes communicating the potential interconnections between these genres while
respecting this student’s freedom to develop his own paper in his own way as being her primary concerns in this interchange.
Excerpt 8:
Jenn: What I was trying to avoid, and this came out a little bit in the awkwardness of my responses, was trying to avoid telling
him to do it, to go down a particular way. I wanted to leave that freedom. So I was trying to give, you know, a couple
examples, and I did this with almost every student who asked me I think, a couple of examples of what you could look at. So
hoping he doesn't try to take all the examples and squeeze them in, that's going to be a bit messy ((laughter)). [.. .] So I was also
trying to prove that, yeah you can use other elements of, or elements of the other two genres that we worked with and
include them in here. (Jennifer, stimulated recall 1, 10/18)
In this interaction and others like it, Jennifer both attempts to guide the students to perform a recognizable instantiation of the
genre as defined by the curriculum and to accurately represent the flexibility of genre boundaries, particularly noting here that the
previously studied genres of extended definition and compare contrast could be incorporated into an analytic essay. In addition to
trying to communicate this complex understanding of the relationship between the genres to S1, Jennifer also reports a concern with
giving this student freedom to develop his paper in his own way. As she notes, her strategy of giving students several examples of
what they could do to adjust their approach to the assignment to satisfy the need for genre adherence was motivated by her desire to
“avoid telling him to do it, to go down a particular way” and thus “leave that freedom” for the student to choose his own way to
develop the paper.

3.4. Adjusting a mantra – “have to be given a way”

Overall, through the course of teaching the analytic essay, Jennifer’s instructional talk and her reflections in the stimulated recalls
were characterized by a consistent focus on the central tension between certainty, absolutes, and rigidity on one hand and flexibility,
freedom, and choice on the other. This underlying tension manifested itself in many of the smaller sources of conflict and tension in
Jennifer’s teaching, particularly her understanding of the genre as both rigid and flexible, her understanding of her students’ current
need to meet the assignment requirements with their future needs for adaptability as writers, and the institutional and curricular
expectations that she provided her students with “a way” with Jennifer’s own mantra of “there’s more than one way” to write and
teach.
In the early stages of her teaching, Jennifer tended to emphasize flexibility and freedom to a slightly greater extent. Upon reading
her students’ final drafts, however she noted that many students had written essays that had not fully met the requirements of the
analytic genre but had instead “evolved into a persuasive essay” (Jennifer, stimulated recall 3, 11/26). This difficulty maintaining
adherence to the genre prompted Jennifer to reconsider how she balanced stability and flexibility in her pedagogy. At the end of the

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unit, Jennifer described her current PCK of the analytic essay as balancing the messy, flexible aspects of the analytic essay genre with
her students’ need for structure and clear guidance.
Excerpt 9:
Jenn: I think quite a number of my students will do better if they at least have the idea that, okay, we're working with
some hard and fast rules, rather than this soupy mess where we have to analyze the pieces because how can we analyze it if
we don't know the rules? That type of thing, I think, is the fear coming on. So despite the fact that I think ideally ((laughter))
you can, by seeing things and being exposed and getting- learning and developing through that process, I think sometimes just
have to be given a way and work with that in order to see a little bit more. (Jennifer, concept map 4, 11/26)
This excerpt represents an important shift in Jennifer’s PCK of genre. Though she still holds to the ideal of developing genre
knowledge through exposure and working through a personal process, here, Jennifer acknowledges that many of her students’ have
strong and fearful emotional reactions to the uncertainty of writing. These students, she reasons, need the security of “some hard and
fast rules” or “a way” in order to be successful. This excerpt represents a significant change from her initial teaching philosophy prior
to teaching the course (see Excerpt 1). Whereas before Jennifer positioned the pressures to provide “a way” as being “at odds” with
her mantra of “more than one way,” after teaching the analytic essay for the first time, Jennifer seems to be recognizing the value and
necessity of providing “a way” as a form of emotional scaffolding (Rosiek, 2003) to help her fearful students successfully complete the
assignment.

4. Discussion and implications

Within debates about genre-based pedagogies, teachers and their knowledge are a frequent topic of discussion. Particularly
concerning for many is the temptation teachers face to be swayed by the centripetal forces of language (Bakhtin, 1981) and to
overemphasize genre conventions and downplay variation to make genres easier to teach and learn (Freedman & Medway, 1994;
Hyland, 2007; Johns, 2002; Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998). This temptation toward prescriptive genre teaching, many argue, is par-
ticularly dangerous for inexperienced and uncreative teachers (Hyland, 2003; Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998). As Jennifer’s case de-
monstrates, however, teachers’ decisions to represent a genre as more or less stable or flexible are influenced by a variety of complex
factors going far beyond experience and imagination. This section will work to answer the research question, In what ways does
Jennifer’s pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) inform how she balances stability and flexibility in her teaching of the analytic essay genre?
Additionally, I will address implications of Jennifer’s case for future research and L2 writing teacher education and professional
development.
As research in the PCK framework has long argued, teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter they teach has features that
differentiate it from the knowledge of non-teaching content experts (Shulman, 1987). Jennifer’s knowledge of genre as expressed in
the data supports this claim. While Jennifer’s PCK of the analytic essay incorporated her own experiences as a writer, it was also
deeply influenced by her knowledge of her students. In particular, Jennifer sought to balance her students’ imagined future writing
needs, which were diverse and required a flexible understanding of genre, with their current needs for clarity and certainty as novice
writers. Importantly, Jennifer’s knowledge of her students’ likely difficulties did not focus primarily on their language proficiency or
even their abilities as writers. Instead, she focused on their likely emotional reactions to the content and style of the class. This finding
supports previous research regarding the inherent emotional dimensions of teachers’ PCK (Rosiek, 2003; Zembylas, 2007). Research
in this vein has considered the emotional aspects of teachers’ responses to content as well as teachers’ awareness of their students’
emotional reactions. As Zembylas (2007) argues, “the emotional knowledge that enables teachers to connect with the content, the
students, themselves and curricular development seems to be an inextricable aspect of the amalgam of PCK” (pp. 357–358). More
concretely, Rosiek (2003) provides an example of how teachers’ emotional knowledge blends with their knowledge of content,
students and pedagogy by examining the process of “emotional scaffolding.” This concept refers to teachers’ knowledge of students’
likely emotional reactions to particular topics and the choices they make to scaffold students’ emotional responses by decreasing
unproductive emotions like frustration and fear and promoting productive emotions such as self-confidence and empathy.
Jennifer’s belief that many of her students would respond to the flexibility of the analytic essay genre with fear and insecurity in
part led her to emphasize generic stability in official course documents such as the grading rubric and the presentation slides and to
restrict her representations of generic flexibility to her verbal explanations of materials and her one-on-one interactions with students
who she believed could handle the uncertainty of genre flexibility. Even despite these adjustments, by the end of the unit, Jennifer
still cited her students’ anxieties as the primary reason to provide a more structured approach in following units and semesters.
Jennifer’s movement towards genre stability based on her students’ emotional needs echoes findings from Johns’ (2011) survey of
EFL teachers who argued for the inclusion of templates on the grounds that they enabled students to confidently participate in genre
structures.
Given these results, future research that examines how L2 writing teachers’ knowledge of student emotion shapes their peda-
gogical practices, including their teaching of genre, would be a valuable line of inquiry. Additionally, teacher educators could support
writing teachers by helping them develop more diverse strategies for providing emotional scaffolding for their students (Rosiek,
2003). Teachers’ desire to ease students’ fears about unfamiliar genres is a reasonable and important one, but it is not clear whether
simplifying the content by presenting genres as absolute and stable is the best or only option for reducing student anxiety. Both pre-
and in-service teachers might benefit from discussing the role of student emotion as it relates to genre flexibility more openly and
from brainstorming alternative strategies for helping students overcome their unproductive emotional responses. Several of the
emotional scaffolding strategies identified by Rosiek (2003), from associating difficult content with topics the students already find

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interesting, to directly acknowledging students’ negative emotions and encouraging them to persevere through them, could be
applied to GBWI as viable alternatives to prescriptive teaching.
Another dimension of her professional knowledge that shaped Jennifer’s representation of the analytic essay genre was her
knowledge of the curriculum. As is the case for many teachers in many contexts, the curriculum in this class was not designed by
Jennifer but was provided by an outside source. While previous research has demonstrated that novice teachers frequently rely on
curricular materials to help them conceptualize new content (Ball & Cohen, 1996; Grossman & Thompson, 2008) including genre
(Tardy et al., 2018), in Jennifer’s case the required curriculum did not just inform but overrode elements of Jennifer’s own under-
standing of the genre. This shows up most clearly in Jennifer’s efforts to “find the distinction” between the analytic and argu-
mentative essays though she did not see these as entirely distinct genres. In her quest to differentiate the analytic and argumentative
essays, Jennifer emphasized the exclusion of opinion in the analytic essay, presenting the genre as more stable and absolute than she
believed it to be. This is particularly apparent in the official course documents Jennifer created, including her assignment description
and grading rubric, while her representations of the genres as related and flexible were restricted to her verbal explanations and
individual consultations with students. To what extent the students heeded these more informal, verbal explanations was beyond the
scope of this study, but it is likely that the official curricular documents and their emphasis on rigid genre boundaries had a strong
impact on student understanding because of their permanence and their direct relationship to students’ grades.
Those responsible for designing L2 writing curricula might use Jennifer’s experience to inform their work. Curricula can have an
important impact on teachers’ developing conceptions of genre (Tardy et al., 2018) and, as Jennifer’s case shows, can also lead
teachers to represent genres in more rigid ways. What is particularly interesting with Jennifer’s case is that the ill-defined conventions
of the classroom genres she was expected to teach, rather than leading her to emphasize generic flexibility, pushed her to reify the
genres in order to make them more learnable by her students. In other words, it may be the case that the less conventionalized a given
genre is, the more temptation teachers may face to render it stable and therefore learnable. In a genre-based approach then, par-
ticularly for novice students, a curriculum that emphasizes genres with more clearly identifiable conventions and rhetorical situa-
tions, rather than promoting prescriptive teaching, may allow students and teachers to safely explore the flexibility within each genre
without fear of obliterating genre boundaries all together.
Jennifer’s perceptions of her students’ expectations, anxieties, and immediate need for clarity along with the constraint of the
standardized curriculum all functioned as centripetal forces that pushed her to concretize and stabilize her representation of genre.
The primary centrifugal force pushing in the other direction, toward genre flexibility, was her personal mantra of “more than one
way.” This mantra represented a deeply-held value based in Jennifer’s own, often negative, experiences with writing instruction as a
student. For Jennifer, her mantra of “more than one way” shaped multiple aspects of her teaching, including her conceptions and
representations of the analytic essay genre. This pedagogical value may have predisposed her to emphasize genre flexibility to a
greater degree than other teachers who may start with beliefs that are less well-disposed to a focus on genre flexibility. For a teacher
who was less committed to the idea of freedom and variation, perhaps a former writing student who found such freedom anxiety-
provoking, the centripetal pressures of curriculum and student expectations may well have led to a much more prescriptive pedagogy.
Indeed, even despite Jennifer’s mantra, we see a movement in this direction in Jennifer’s final reflections where she begins to
acknowledge the value of providing students with “a way.”
A final significant finding from Jennifer’s case is the fact that her PCK of the analytic essay was not stable but was itself dynamic.
She changed her explanations of the genre depending on a variety of factors such as her perceptions of an individual student’s
abilities. In addition to these moment-to-moment shifts in a given class period, Jennifer’s PCK was also responsive to her students’
writing – becoming more structured over the course of the unit based on her students’ challenges. This finding is important because it
shows the value of examining teachers’ actual classroom practices and their reflections on that practice. Just looking at Jennifer’s
course materials might lead one to believe that her pedagogy would be largely structured and rule-based because these elements were
emphasized in her written documents. It was only through examining her representations of the analytic essay genre in multiple
modes (written and spoken) and class arrangements (whole class versus individual student conferences) that the dynamism of her
teaching became apparent. Given this finding then, I would argue that our questions about teachers’ genre teaching must rely on
these direct observations of classroom practice and self-reports of teachers’ reasoning for their choices. Such a focus would allow us to
perhaps move beyond polarizing debates over explicit genre pedagogies to more nuanced discussions of the actual classroom stra-
tegies real teachers use and, crucially, the reasons behind them. Future research would also benefit by including students’ per-
spectives, a move which was beyond the scope of this study but would be provide crucial information about how students perceive
and respond to their teachers’ instruction. Such research would be a valuable move toward answering Tardy’s (2016) call for research
that might “enhance our understanding of the challenges that teachers face in implementing genre-based pedagogies” (p. 175) and
inform more realistic and relevant teacher education efforts.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Icy Lee, the anonymous reviewers, and “Jennifer” for their thoughtful feedback on earlier versions of this manu-
script. Any mistakes remain my own.

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D. Worden Journal of Second Language Writing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Appendix A. Jennifer Data Collection Schedule

Date Data Collected Research Focus

8/28 Interview 1 Participant background, teaching philosophy, goals for class

Concept Map 1 Understanding of goals for student learning
9/4 Interview 2 Understanding of class curriculum, syllabus walkthrough
Concept Map 2 Understanding of class curriculum
10/4 Interview 3 Goals for analytic essay unit, understanding of the genre, potential student
responses, curriculum walkthrough
Concept Map 3 Understanding of goals / curriculum of analytic essay unit
10/8 - 10/29 Analytic Essay Unit (6 class periods; Classroom instruction of analytic essay
7.5 hours of instruction)
10/18 Stimulated Recall 1 Collaborative reflection on classroom episodes and artifacts
11/1 Stimulated Recall 2 Collaborative reflection on classroom episodes and artifacts
11/26 Stimulated Recall 3 Collaborative reflection on classroom episodes and artifacts
Interview 4 Reflections on teacher/student learning in analytic essay unit,
understanding of the genre, student responses to instruction, future
changes to curriculum
Concept Map 4 Revised understanding of goals / curriculum of analytic essay unit;
comparison with Concept Map 3
12/18 Interview 5 Understanding of class curriculum, syllabus walkthrough, reflections on
teacher/student learning in course, teaching philosophy, goals for learning
in future versions of course
Concept Map 5 Revised understanding of class curriculum,
comparison with Concept Map 2
1/29 Concept Map 6 Revised goals for student learning, comparison with Concept Map 1

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Dorothy Worden is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on the cognition, learning, and education of
second language writing teachers with a particular focus on how novice teachers’ knowledge of genre and genre-based pedagogies develops through the course of their
teacher preparation and their initial classroom experiences. Her research has recently appeared in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, the Journal of Second
Language Writing, Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, and Language and Sociocultural Theory.

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