In this particular reading for this week, there was this revolving discussion about how to teach writing. This seemed a little off-putting to me when I was initially reading both of Anne Beaufort’s excerpts, but the deeper I got into the readings, the more I started understanding exactly what Beaufort was trying to explain to her audience. It was this sort of outlined format for teachers and students alike to follow as they began their journey into the writing world.
In Anne Beaufort’s From Research to Practice: Some Ideas for Writing Instruction there was this sense that Beaufort was trying to give an outline… of sorts… to guide both teachers and students in writing instruction. This idea came from the subsection Teaching for Transfer where Beaufort breaks down the different methods/ideas that writing instructors can use when teaching students. Beaufort states this as “ The ideas presented here will also guide teachers and tutors to aid their students in developing what Smit (2004) calls “rhetorical flexibility” and I would refer to as multiple writing expertises.” Further into the article/excerpt, Beaufort breaks down the different topics that are discussed and taught in most writing courses, giving some details on how to teach them and make them more accessible to students.
What I think was the overall big theme in Beaufort’s From Research to Practice: Some Ideas for Writing Instruction was how Beaufort was exploring writing instruction and implementing specific ways to enhance it by incorporating research on writing development, disciplinary literacy, and the transfer of learning. This comes from her key focus on writing beyond the typical five paragraphs, writing as a social and contextual activity, developing metacognitive awareness in students, incorporating roles of the writing community, and integrating writing across the curriculum. Using these key focuses, Beaufort was calling for a shift from the rigid, decontextualized writing instruction to the more flexible, researched-informed approach that can help prepare students to write effectively in diverse situations.
Moving on after Beaufort’s excerpt From Research to Practice: Some Ideas for Writing Instruction, we turn to her other excerpt, College Writing and Beyond: Five Years Later, which discusses the other perspective that Beaufort took to make some corrections on her Appendix A: From Research to Practice. My initial reaction to this reading in particular was one of confusion which then turned to one of understanding as I read further. Unlike her previous excerpt, this excerpt seems to examine some of the long-term impacts that writing instruction has on students’ abilities to transfer their writing skills far beyond the writing classroom. Some of the Key points that Beaufort mentions in her excerpt are the ongoing challenge of transfer, limitations of general writing skills, the importance of metacognition (which was mentioned in her previous excerpt), seeing writing as both a social and contextual practice, as well as having implications for writing instruction in general.
Beaufort’s general argument was that writing instruction should evolve, as does everything in this world, to better support students’ long-term learning and transfer, as well as emphasize interdisciplinary writing experiences, reflective practices, and having a more authentic engagement with real-world writing tasks, all that occur outside of the writing classroom.
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