Reification of genre-based writing tutoring repertoire of practices in second language dissertation writing

Kristin Terrill

Iowa State University Department of English

Applied Linguistics and Technology

Final oral exam presented on April 10, 2023

Table of Contents

Purpose of Dissertation

To explain how genre-based writing instruction (GBWI) tutoring could support non-native speaker (NNS) dissertation writers

• Describe GBWI in the Center for Communication Excellence (CCE), a communication-supporting center with extensive writing support programming in the Iowa State University Graduate College

•  Explore the impacts of this tutoring on NNS students’ dissertation writing as a foundational step toward recommending tutoring as a resource for these students

Research Questions

Research Question 1. How do CCE Consultants enact Community of Practice (CoP) practices?

a. How do they interact with each other as a community in Mutually Engaging ways?

b. What Joint Enterprise are they accountable for?

c. What constitutes their Shared Repertoire?

Research Question 2. How do CCE Consultants' shared practices translate to their tutoring and their students' uptake as reification of their participation in the CoP?

a. How do the CCE Consultants employ elements of their Shared Repertoire when tutoring during consultations?

b. How do students exhibit uptake after consultations?

Ethnographic Study Findings

Mutual Engagement

Joint Enterprise

Shared Repertoire

Case Studies: Research Question 2 (b): Uptake After Consultations

Putting it All in Perspective

“Yeah, okay. What was what? And, yeah, I was trying to make the connections and yeah. Like an ‘observable variable’ sounds interesting or unexpected because we usually say ‘observed variable’ in statistics. And observable variable is, I think, new to me, so maybe it means something different.” (Case 4, Consultation 3, April 7, 2022)

The Power of Suggestion

“I think what you could do is introduce this idea of [TOPIC], like, a lot of times what we see for transitions like, ‘however, they haven't done this.’* Like, so ‘[FRAMEWORK] has been widely used for understanding teacher knowledge,’ and you could say, howev—you don’t have to literally say, ‘however,’ but that idea of—'however, there's a need for it to, to, to look at,’ or ‘it could be useful for [TOPIC] but hasn't been investigated,’ or that kind of idea of showing what's missing. And then the next part will see how you're going to—how and why—you're going to address that. ” (Case 2, Consultation 3, March 31, 2022)

Beta Reader

“I mean, it's not so important. Maybe your target audience would no problem following along this, because they would be experts in [SPECIALIZATION] and they would be like, ‘of course. Yeah.’ So maybe it's about me being an outsider to this very narrow topic, right? This is [TOPIC] and this is [SPECIALIZATION]. So, out of my scope.” (Case 1, Consultation 1, February 14, 2022)

Equal to the Occasion

“And just ability to talk to a peer, someone who, you know, will not evaluate you, someone who is not your teacher, someone who is not—you don't need to impress. […] So, I still feel like, I cannot ask him the questions that I ask to [CCE Consultant 2]. […] just in general the way I speak with him is way more, like, a safer place, more, um, more comfortable place to be with, uh, to be at, and, uh, I think this is valuable.” (Case 2, Interview, November 30, 2022) 

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