I TENOR I
4.1 Analysis and Interpretation of the Learners' Literate Life Histories (LLHs)
4.1.1 Quantity of Writing and Range of Genres Experienced
In both language classes (English and Zulu) and content subjects, Thulani (Appendix 3), Gladys (Appendix 4), Prof (Appendix 5), Romeo (Appendix 6), Roka (Appendix 7) and Kingsize (Appendix 7) all report similar experiences. In language classes Thulani states that he wrote 'business and informal and friendly letters' and compositions on 'birthday parties and trips'. He never experienced writing an argumentative essay and remembered writing an average of two compositions a year, one ofthem being in an examination: 'We write one composition and write one composition in the exams, two compositions'. Kingsize remembers writing one letter and one composition per year in English and the same for Zulu in the primary school. In standard six he wrote three different types ofletters, namely the formal letter, the informal letter and the business letter. The amount of writing throughout his high school career averaged around two letters and an essay a year in both English and Zulu although he described the three compositions he did in standard eight as 'dialogues'. Gladys mentioned only 'reports on things they had read from books' and letters and had never written an argumentative (expository) essay. Prof's memories of writing experiences at high school consisted of two essays in Zulu in standard seven (grade nine) and one in English, and six or seven letters across both languages. In standard eight he recalled 'two compositions in Zulu and about three letters' and in English' only one letter and two compositions'. He commented that in standard eight 'nothing was new ...basically we were forced to stay with the language we had to push the language'. This can be interpreted from my observations of other classes as a focus on grammar exercises and comprehension exercises. In standard nine Profrecalls writing two compositions, one essay and four letters across both English and Zulu and was never asked to write an argumentative essay although he recalls making notes for oral debates. Romeo' s first experience of any extended writing in both English and Zulu was in standard four when he wrote about five letters in Zulu and 'two or three' in English. In standard five he remembers writing three telegrams, no letters because 'telegrams were new to us' and two compositions in both Zulu and English. In high school in standard six he encountered a business letter 'to order something' which was written in both Zulu and English. This was a feature ofthat year, what was written in Zulu was also written in English. He felt that he encountered an unusually heavy writing load in that year, 'write too many, too many', as he wrote four compositions in Zulu and four in English. The rest of his high school career consisted of two
letters and two compositions a year for both Zulu and English. Roka remembers about four writing activities a year in primary school where learnerswere given a topic and could choose between writing a letter, dialogue or composition around that topic. Roka's high school experience of extended writing was minimal. He remembers two or three compositions a year but some of these had been copied from boards; when questioned about what writing he had done himself, he said that he had only written one a year and another in the examinations. In his standard nine year he had only written one 'composition' which consisted of a letter written by the teacher on the board (I was present on this occasion), copied by the learners: 'she was just telling us, just showing us on the board, you also do the same and that's how we did it'. This he maintained was how he 'wrote' all his letters during his high school career.
The overwhelming impression from these respondents is that they wrote few essays and that these essays were predominantly recounts or descriptions. The topics that seemed prevalent were topics about journeys ('My Journey by Train/Bus'), accidents, important days in their lives, sports events, frightening or important experiences, and topics like 'My School', 'The School that I would Like', 'My First day at School' for descriptive essays. Kingsize recalls writing about 'myself, 'my dog and my school', and 'about what you want to be when you grow up'. One respondent remarked in conversation that he had written 'My Journey by Train' each year for three years. He added that as he had not ever been on a train he made a story up each year. When I have mentioned this in workshops that I have conducted with teachers and adult educators, they indicate that that particular topic is formulaically set on a regular basis across the school system.
There is no evidence of any of these pupils being asked to write an argument. Prof and Romeo have experienced oral class debates but they were never required to present these arguments in written form. Romeo recalls a debate against another school where only a small group of five were involved in preparing the debate. In relation to issues of access to wide communicative power through control over a variety of genres, it seems that these learners have been provided with access to an extremely narrow range of genres. This will impact negatively on their opportunities to participate in society. The complete absence of any writing of argument, for example, would make success in tertiary institutions very problematic. Furthermore, these students are not being provided with the scaffolded experience to move from everyday spoken language and be apprenticed into the abstraction of specialised knowledge (Macken-Horarik
1996).
These conclusions are reinforced when one examines their experiences of writing in content subjects. Most of their writing seems to consist of copying notes from the board. This was corroborated by my own informal observations around the school and when I followed a class from lesson to lesson over a week. Thulani speaks of his writing over a school day as consisting largely of copying notes from the board, ' ...in History we are taught then given the skeleton notes of the chapter and then the teacher asks us to make our own notes most of the time.I do notes in History, Biology and Geography'. In standard six, seven and eight they did not write any essays in history: ' we were just answering short questions'. In standard nine they were confronted with an essay topic but 'we were not informed about how we must put our ideas, we just put it on all scattered all of it not in a paragraph form ...our writing was like the notes from the board'. Gladys reported that she had not written any compositions in Geography or History.Prof also reported extensive copying from the board in Physics, Biology and Geography. He explainsthis as result of a shortage of textbooks in the classroom and also in terms of a dependence on the teacher. For example, the Geography teacher used to do her own notes and photocopy them for learners. Prof stated that she did the notes because 'they propose how can the student do their own notes, but the problem is you see the students were complaining they can't do that ... it's too hard, some of us were saying yes we can do the notes, some of us can say no we can't, so the majority say we can't so we end of saying okay the teachers have to do the notes'. In Geography learners were not required to write an essay, 'we just go straight to the points the main points we have to do'. This was confirmed in observations of other classrooms where in the Biology class, for example, students walked into the classroom and immediately copied notes which filled the blackboard across the width ofthe classroom. In the last fifteen minutes ofthe session the teacher explained the notes.Both Romeo and Kingsize confirm this observation.Kingsize described the experience as follows:
Hey, in Biology as you saw, we would have to write notes, then the next day the teacher would explain the notes to us. We had to write an assignment-maybe we would have to write about, explain this, in so many words. Or maybe we would just describe - the parasite life cycle, you see.Then we would have to write it like that.
He used Biology as an example ofthe type of writing he experienced in other subjects - copying notes from the board and using those to reproduce short answer 'assignments'. Gladys describes her experience of History as, 'I copy from the board andI, I read the questions, from that notes'.
Thulani's explanation for this seems to be centred around his sense of students' grammatical inadequacies which he feels make textbooks incomprehensible: 'we must know how to place the words that we might help the ideas, the meaning'. He also feels the teachers know what is important for examinations and tests:
The book sometimes mentioned the things that are not very much important. The teacher will give the notes because he know what the test needs. He will just give the important things.
He is aware that this has serious effects on pupils' confidence and their ability to write:
That's why you may find that if you talk with the students he will take time to understand what is being said because most of the time he is not talking he is first given the work, given the work. When you done the work, given the mark, finish.
All the respondents describe their writing experience in other subj ects as confined to writing short answers to questions set by the teacher. Roka describes writing in science as 'describe experiment, analyse its use' and in biology examination tasks as 'she will give us a diagram of a male reproductive cell then we will label it and we will ask questions...'. When asked about his writing experiences in other subjects Romeo used the example of Biology: 'There was nothing, nothing.
You only write notes and the teacher will explain to us, then he will give us some c1asswork we must do this, do that, we must answer these questions'. The same sort of process applied in Prof s experience of geography. Martin (1993a) and Macken-Horarik (1996) both emphasise the need for factual writing to be explicitly taught from the early stages of schooling. Martin questions the practice in Australian schools often years of narrative/expressive writing followed by a sudden and unsupported demand to write argument, literary criticism and other forms of more advanced factual writing. He argued that this favoured middle class learners: those whose patterns of
interactionand access to reading enabled them to gain control over these genres without explicit help . For learners from ESL and marginalised communitiesthis sort oflearning experience would be inadequate and would result in unequal access to tertiary education and employment opportunities. Thulani describes a similar sort of experiencewith the writing of History essays:
During standard eight and seven we didn't write essays,we were just answering those short questions ... [in standard nine] while wewere given thetopic [of a history essay] wewerenot informed about how we must put our ideas,wejust put it on all scattered, all of it not in a paragraph form ... we had no idea what strategies we must use.Our writing was like thenotes from the board. We done it and when she marked it she didn't complain that we used the wrong tactic to write the essay.
The sort of teaching practices described by the pupils above indicates that they are not being systematically inductedinto'dealing with texts which construct and disseminateknowledge'nor with the wayin which 'knowledge is built up and modelled through the languageof thewritten style'. Martin (1993b) would argue that science learners would 'need an understandin g of the structure ofgenres and the grammar oftechnicality' (202). Without this theyareunableto produce writing that would be 'respected' bygatekeepers of thediscipline.