Chapter 4: Presentation and Analysis of data
4.1 Introduction
4.3.1 Student A
This student took his participation in the study seriously from the start and provided the most substantial data. All aspects of the questionnaire were completed within the time frames set by me, and he submitted a thoughtful, though relatively short (one and three-quarter page),
literate life history. Arranging an interview with him was simple too, as not only was he more than happy to be interviewed, he is currently studying towards a Masters in Adult Education in the School of Education and Training, and so was regularly in the building. There was a quiet maturity about this student, and it was evident from his participation in the study that he is a committed, concerned and insightful educator.
In terms of my first research question relating to the differences in kinds of writing or genres students engage with outside of the LILT module, Student A's responses on the questionnaire indicate that the only daily writing he does is to note appointments in a diary, and the only
'regular' 'extended' writing (i.e. every 1 or 2 months) he engages with is poetry writing and the creation of comic strips. However, within the full framework of Section A of the
questionnaire ('short' forms of writing), he does indicate that he engages with a range of other factual genres over one or two week periods, limited as some of these might be in terms of their expression. (See section 4.3 of this chapter for composite representations of all the students'writing activities). Significantly, this student indicated that all his writing is done in English. He also described himself as a confident, successful but nervous writer.
When first reading this student's response to Section A, the immediate impression I formed was that his daily 'literacy practices' involved virtually no extended writing. 'Extended writing' in this context, as stated in Chapter 3, is intended to denote those genres which are recognised as demanding patterned structure, organisation and coherence - those which generally take focus sed attention to master and time to complete. However, although entered under the 'not often -less than once a week' column, he does indicate that he makes notes for Bible study classes and writes Union reports from time to time. Furthermore, in his response to question 1 of Section B of the questionnaire (the open-ended questions), he says: "I am often involved in setting tests, exam papers, marking essays for learners, making summaries for learners who often experience shortage of literature works". For any classroom-based
educators, especially those who teach languages, these last literacy practices are very likely to
be almost daily practices. In addition, by the time this interview was held, this student was already engaged in Masters study and writing 15 page assignments.
In total then, and despite the initial impression of a limited engagement with writing, Student A enjoys exposure to, and participates in, a considerable range of writing demands. However, when asked if he thought of himself as a writer before he entered the B.Ed Hons programme, he responded with: "To tell the truth, no." When this question was followed up with one that asked: "Do you think of yourself as a writer nowadays at all?", he replied:
I think of myself as a writer when circumstances force me, say if there's a need to write something [like an assignment], then, but if! don't need to do it, I don't. ... it's like forced kinds of situations. I haven't really started to really do writing as perhaps .. an interest which I need to captivate.
Thus this student makes a clear distinction between 'doing writing' - as a creative act, an 'interest', which entitles one to consider oneself a 'writer', and writing 'under certain
pressures'. The latter kinds of writing appear to barely constitute' writing' - "I haven't really started to do writing" - a startling and fascinating construction of the literacy practices with which he engages.
Student A's LLH reveals that he came from a highly literate home. His parents helped him with homework, as did his friends, for whom he regularly wrote letters. Although he does not say what work his mother did, he does say that: "... my mother, for instance, will ask me to read her speech and then make comments before she could present it", suggesting that she held a prominent enough position in her work context to be called upon to deliver speeches.
When questioned about his secondary school writing experiences, Student A acknowledged that he was fortunate enough to be "in a school where mostly there are very intelligent students ... and good teachers." He was constantly motivated and encouraged to do well.
Reading was foregrounded, as was literary criticism, debates and critical thinking skills across all content subjects. The "leadership as such were people who were also .. who were
encouraging us to go further, rather than relying on the syllabus and things." Student A's diploma years, however, involved a "lot of reproducing", in contrast to the university where
"there was a kind of style, it was very meaningful, where one learnt theory and one was then able to use that theory in a particular situation, and we were also allowed to reflect on your own experiences, so what perhaps we have learnt ..
you could relate to your own real life situation, an authentic situation ..."
One of my key purposes in the interviews, was to find out what understanding these students had of what constitutes' academic discourse', the' kind of style' associated with academia, given that it is in reality an often illusive and variously defined concept. (See the discussion in Chapter 3.) What emerged was that all the students recognise that there is an animal called 'academic writing', with quite specific characteristics of its own, that sets it apart from other kinds of writing. Student A was able to articulate his understanding of it particularly well, and I would like to quote him at length.
In response to the question, 'What is academic writing?', he said:
With academic writing, the way I understand it .. one is .. we are given say a topic and .. they ... having been given that topic, one must analyse it and then urn, you've got to sort of strategise and see what approach you are going to use, and you've got to sort of now plan, and think of what resources you need .. articles .. and what have you, and put them together and sort of map your ..
your .. the whole essay, knowing what is the .. what is relevant, what is needed, where you've got to display your understanding. But then with academic writing, what there is like ..um .. there is a format that needs to be followed.
You can't just write ..
[What is that format?]
I mean even the type of language, for example, you can't just say .. this will happen before you have put say the evidence, you sort of put an argument and make some .. you don't quickly arrive .. you are not judgemental or make a decision. You've got to first introduce the topic showing that you understand and .. for example, the idea of one idea per paragraph, eh .. you must show that .. I mean it is reflected in either paragraph to the previous one and urn .. there should be a pattern right through, which need to be followed .. which the reader is got to follow .. shouldn't take for granted that the reader .. I mean .. knows what you are writing about in a way .. try to be convincing, persuade and .. and .. use words like modality .. that there's a genre ..
Later on in the interview, he added the following:
... because another crucial thing in academic writing is being aware that urn some situations you got to make some quotations, I've got to write
bibliography, got to write to .. to .. referencing in the correct way ...
Thus, Student A has a very sure grasp of some of the dominant features of a generic understanding of academic discourse. The question to ask of course, is how he came to 'know' these and which of these literacy practices constituted linguistic capital (in the Bourdieun sense) once he entered the university.
If we cast our minds back over Student A's experiences, we can say that his schooling
experiences do appear to have been positive and motivating and may have engendered an early competence in aspects of writing in formal contexts. His diploma years, however, certainly did not. Given that at the time the research was conducted, he was 42, there are many years
unaccounted for in terms of possible academic discourse development. I would like to suggest that there were probably no conscious or explicit teaching and learning experiences in these intervening years that had academic literacy as their primary goal. Rather, via a slow and possibly uneven process of immersion in a range of educational and personal contexts, his literacy experiences equipped him with enough schemata to make the transition to the
formalised demands of academic writing a relatively obvious and painless one. If I am indeed right about this, then I would say that this process, together with what I perceived to be a healthy measure of self esteem and confidence, are the key factors which contributed to his sound understanding of the demands of academic writing and his experience of them as
completely unintimidating. In fact, more than being unintimidating, they stimulated and excited him enough to make him pursue Masters studies. Furthermore, since according to the data, he writes only in English, his command of the language is extensive and sophisticated, something which comes across in the interview transcription quite clearly.
Thus, it would seem safe to say that he did not enter the REd Hons programme and the LILT module with a high degree of relevant' linguistic capital', but influenced by a very high degree of' Self capital' , reinforced as it constantly was by the leadership position accorded him in his REd Hons contact groups, his construction of his experience is one of success and growth.
Primary school teachers particularly "would come up with no, this one is too much, can you help us .. they will know you that you come from high school, so they rely much to tap your experience ...". Most significantly of all - and this issue will be revisited in Chapter 5 - he did not fail any assignments or examinations, thus there was no reason in his view, to perceive
himself as inadequate or a failure.
In summing up a response to the two (amended) research questions with regard to Student A therefore, I believe that though there are differences between the writing experiences he engages with outside of the LILT module and those demanded of him within it, he
nevertheless has engaged with, and continues to engage with a sufficient number of varied writing experiences to have contributed to a relatively smooth assimilation of the generic demands of academic discourse. In addition, there appears to be no evidence that irrelevant or minimal academic literacy experiencesprior to his entry to the university, have impacted negatively on his performance - if 'performance' is measured by his results. As indicated earlier, without samples of his writing, it is not possible to know whether his knowledge of what constitutes academic discourse was realised in practise in such a way that his lecturers too would describe him as academically literate.