Natasha Artemeva

From Page to Stage: How Theories of Genre and Situated Learning Help Introduce Engineering Students to Discipline-Specific Communication

This article describes a discipline‐specific communication course for engineering students offered by a Canadian university. The pedagogy of this course is based on North American theories of genre...

Toward a unified social theory of genre learning

This article discusses the development of a unified social theory of genre learning based on the integration of rhetorical genre studies, activity theory, and the situated learning perspective. The article proposes that these three theoretical perspectives are compatible and complementary, and it illustrates applications of a unified framework to a study of genre learning by novice engineers. The author draws examples from a longitudinal qualitative study of a group of novice engineers who developed their professional genre knowledge through both academic and workplace experiences. These examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework for the study of professional genre learning.

The writing consultant as cultural interpreter: Bridging cultural perspectives on the genre of the periodic engineering report

The periodic engineering report can become a source of conflict and frustration when North American engineers collaborate with colleagues abroad. To overcome such difficulties, technical companies may hire writing consultants, who then take on the additional role of cultural interpreters, helping the partners bridge differences in both the practice of engineering and the language and culture of each country. As such a writing consultant, I worked with a Canadian engineering company, its Russian contractors, and a Russian translator to analyze the sources of difficulties in their reports. The language of the reports was English, but differences in tone as well as reader expectations about organization, format, and appropriate content caused misunderstandings among the collaborators. Contrastive rhetorical analysis helped to identify problems in both the conception of the report as a document and the translation of particular text.

“Just the Boys Playing on Computers” An Activity Theory Analysis of Differences in the Cultures of Two Engineering Firms

When we began this study, we expected to explore the ways in which engineering student interns become acculturated into the ways professional engineers communicate in the workplace, and we intended to use genre theory to illuminate this process of student initiation into the profession. However, as most researchers know, what we learn in the end is not necessarily what we expect to study in the beginning. That is particularly true for researchers involved in naturalistic studies, especially those that take place over a lengthy period of time. During the course of our investigation, we found ourselves led down unexpected paths: Our subjects behaved in ways we had not anticipated; their behaviors led us to rethink and expand our theoretical constructs, and together the behavior and the theory led us to broader insights about the cultures that we had not intended to explore. To be specific, by the end of the study, we extended and modified our theoretical framework, which was initially based on genre

A Time to Speak, a Time to Act A Rhetorical Genre Analysis of a Novice Engineer’s Calculated Risk Taking

This article discusses a longitudinal case study of a novice engineer who has successfully challenged a workplace genre. The study shows that a combination of the novice’s family background, a university engineering communication course, and workplace experiences helped him achieve success. It also provides evidence that, even though genres may differ from workplace to workplace, experienced professionals do recognize and accept superior communication practices imported from elsewhere. Thus, best practices may be taught apart from local contexts. The case study allows technical communication instructors and researchers to refine current understanding of what mastering genres means and indicates directions for the development of new pedagogies.

The writing's on the board: The global and the local in teaching undergraduate mathematics through chalk talk

This article reports on an international study of the teaching of undergraduate mathematics in seven countries. Informed by rhetorical genre theory, activity theory, and the notion of Communities of Practice, this study explores a pedagogical genre at play in university mathematics lecture classrooms. The genre is mediational in that it is a tool employed in the activity of teaching. The data consist of audio/video-recorded lectures, observational notes, semistructured interviews, and written artifacts collected from 50 participants who differed in linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds; teaching experience; and languages of instruction. The study suggests that chalk talk, namely, writing out a mathematical narrative on the board while talking aloud, is the central pedagogical genre of the undergraduate mathematics lecture classroom. Pervasive pedagogical genres, like chalk talk, which develop within global disciplinary communities of practice, appear to override local differences across contexts of instruction. Better understanding these genres may lead to new insights regarding academic literacies and teaching.

Awareness Versus Production: Probing Students’ Antecedent Genre Knowledge:

This article explores the role of students’ prior, or antecedent, genre knowledge in relation to their developing disciplinary genre competence by drawing on an illustrative example of an engineering genre-competence assessment. The initial outcomes of this diagnostic assessment suggest that students’ ability to successfully identify and characterize rhetorical and textual features of a genre does not guarantee their successful writing performance in the genre. Although previous active participation in genre production (writing) seems to have a defining influence on students’ ability to write in the genre, such participation appears to be a necessary but insufficient precondition for genre-competence development. The authors discuss the usefulness of probing student antecedent genre knowledge early in communication courses as a potential source for macrolevel curriculum decisions and microlevel pedagogical adjustments in course design, and they propose directions for future research.

The cinematic art of teaching university mathematics: chalk talk as embodied practice

Abstract This article explores the multimodal nature of teaching university mathematics in international contexts. It focuses on the ‘cinematic’ art of teaching, applying a multimodal approach in the analysis of the pedagogical genre of ‘chalk talk’ as embodied disciplinary practice. The research draws on rhetorical genre studies and theories of situated learning and communities of practice. The data considered for the study consist of audio/video recorded lectures, observational notes, and semi-structured interviews collected from 50 participants teaching in 7 countries. Participants differ in linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, teaching experience, and languages they use for instruction. The study suggests that a multimodal treatment of chalk talk as an embodied disciplinary pedagogical practice of teaching mathematics in the undergraduate lecture classroom allows researchers to further uncover the complexity of this genre. Better understanding the embodied pedagogical practices of the international mathematics CoP may lead to new insights regarding disciplinary-specific pedagogies.

Mitigating Risk: The Impact of a Diagnostic Assessment Procedure on the First-Year Experience in Engineering

The global movement of students, the linguistic and cultural diversity of university classrooms, and mounting concerns about retention and program completion have prompted the increased use of post-entry diagnostic assessment, which identifies students at risk and provides them with early academic support. In this chapter we report on a multistage-evaluation mixed methods study, now in its sixth year, which is evaluating the impact of a diagnostic assessment procedure on the first-year experience, student engagement, achievement, and retention in an undergraduate engineering program. The diagnostic assessment procedure and concomitant student support are analyzed through the lens of Activity Theory, which views socio-cultural object-oriented human activity as mediated through the use of tools, both symbolic (e.g., language) and material (e.g., computers, pens). Changes in Activity Systems and their interrelationships are of central interest. In this chapter we report on changes resulting from modifications to the diagnostic assessment procedure that have increased its impact on the first-year experience by: (1) applying a disciplinary (rather than generic) assessment approach which was fine grained enough to trigger actionable academic support; (2) embedding the diagnostic assessment procedure within a required first-year engineering course, which increased the numbers of students who voluntarily sought support; and (3) paying increased attention to the development of social connections, which play an important role in student retention and success.

Perceptions of Prior Genre Knowledge: A Case of Incipient Biliterate Writers in the EAP Classroom

In 2011, Nowacek raised the question, ‘Why and how do students connect learning from one domain with learning in another domain, and how can teachers facilitate such connections?’ (p. 3). This chapter takes a step towards answering her question by reporting on a case study of students’ perceptions of such a connection between learning to write in one domain and language, and learning to write in another domain and language. Specifically, we discuss English language learners’ (ELLs’) perceptions of the role (if any) that their prior experience with, and knowledge of, written genres plays in learning academic genres at a Canadian university. We review two approaches to genre research and pedagogy, report on a small-scale case study, and discuss its possible implications for future research and pedagogy.