Writing Across the Graduate Curriculum: A Multi-Institutional Study
In Person; Mar. 7-Mar. 9
Facilitation Team:
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Enrique Paz | Tom McNamara | Jasmine Castillo |
Abstract: This project launches a large-scale, multi-institutional study of graduate student writing development, responding to the increased presence of underrepresented domestic and international students on US campuses.
Using mixed-methods research across multiple institutions, we aim to provide a high-level view of student writing experiences in graduate school to answer the following questions: How do graduate students learn to write, and what kinds of writing assignments do they encounter in coursework? What affective experiences do they report? What resources do they use to support their writing? How do multilingual and BIPOC students navigate programs where racist linguistic ideologies continue to hold sway?
At Watson, our project group will collaborate to hone these research questions, identify methodological approaches best suited to those questions, and plan for future presentations and publications. At the conclusion of the conference, we will deliver a synthesis of our conversations and share our proposed study.
What Draft Deliverable will be Presented at the Conference Showcase? Through the conference collaborations, each of our Inquiry Area Groups will ultimately develop the following regarding graduate student writing and their assigned area of focus:
- A summary of key insights drawn from present scholarship and their collaborative conversation.
- A summary of impact of this area on diverse and underrepresented graduate student writers.
- A summary of ongoing research needs and gaps in this area.
- Research questions that a multi-institutional study of graduate student writing might pursue and that address the above research needs.
- Methods for responding to those research questions.
- Limitations for those methods and challenges for study in this area generally.
Each group will share these outcomes with our project team before the conference ends.The facilitators will synthesize these outcomes into a draft presentation. On Saturday morning, the project team will collaborate to revise this presentation to represent a collaborative vision for a multi-institutional research study of graduate student writing development, our research questions, research design, and future goals. We will share this collaborative vision and proposed study as our deliverable. Immediately following the conference, this material will be used by the project leaders to draft an IRB application and begin data collection upon approval.
Who Should Apply to Participate? We hope to recruit a diverse group of collaborators that bring needful perspective and skills to this study. We are particularly interested in participants
- who have expertise in quantitative research methods and data analysis, in addition to other qualitative researchers who can complement our own experience.
- with international backgrounds who can inform our research design and recruitment of future research participants.
- who represent a variety of institutional types where graduate study is happening. We recognize graduate programs are increasingly located outside of research-intensive universities and seek to consider and capture those perspectives.
- who work in writing-across-the-curriculum programs, centers for writing excellence, writing centers, and other writing support programs that function broadly across curricula and disciplines.
- whose experiences as multilingual and BIPOC graduate students, researchers, writing instructors, and/or WPAs will bring important lived experience to our project’s anti-racist commitments.
What Do Participants Need to Prepare? [Note: The facilitation team will email all materials and instructions once all participants have been selected]
Participants will be asked to complete a short reading list prior to attending the conference. This reading list would function to provide all participants a common base of reference for current and emerging knowledge on graduate student writing and writing development research. Key texts on this list include readings from Assignments across the Curriculum by Dan Melzer, Graduate Writing Across the Curriculum: Identifying, Teaching, and Supporting by Marilee Brooks-Gillies, Elena G. Garcia, Soo Hyon Kim, Katie Manthey, and Trixie G. Smith, and Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers by Shannon Madden, Michele Eodice, Kirsten T. Edwards, and Alexandria Lockett.
What Happens After the Conference? All participants in our conference working group will be invited to continue their participation in two ways: as researchers, collecting data according to the recommendations of the working group and as contributors to the edited collection. Researchers will collect data at their home institutions as well as solicit contributions from targeted institutions. Once the data collection phase is complete, participants will engage in data analysis according to their expertise and their interest in particular research questions. Participants would be welcome to propose (collaborative) chapters for an edited collection based on this research.