"Student Perceptions of Writing Instruction: Twitter as a Tool for Pedagogical Growth"

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About the Authors

Sarah Lonelodge is a PhD candidate in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program at Oklahoma State University. She also serves as an assistant director of the first-year composition program and as president of OSU’s chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America. Her research interests include composition pedagogy and religious rhetoric.

Katie Rieger is a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program and is an Assistant Professor of English at Benedictine College. Her research interests include student-centered pedagogy; educational technology for distance learning; writing center studies; and the intersection of intercultural communication and technical writing pedagogy.

Contents

Introduction and Literature Review

Research Design and Methodology

Participants and Ethical Considerations

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Findings/Discussion

Pedagogical Implications

Conclusion

Works Cited

Pedagogical Implications

Several implications are apparent from our study of students’ public tweets. First, it is clear that students are using Twitter to air frustrations, publish proud moments, express anger about practices they deem unfair, and communicate with a larger community of student writers and others throughout the writing process. Thus, we argue that Twitter offers a unique perspective on students, instructors, and formal writing assignments. However, we do not advocate for infringing upon privacy or anonymity in any way. While we suggest that general, broad analyses of organic, public tweets as a method for research provides an opportunity to identify the issues and acknowledge the successes of students and instructors, we also insist that researchers follow ethical guidelines and that individual instructors or institutions do not seek out public, organic tweets of their own students for research purposes.

Second, in analyzing tweets, we identified a clear connection between the instructor and students’ writing beyond the proximity of our selected keywords. These findings suggest several pedagogical implications for writing assignments and instruction that are applicable to any course that employs writing as a learning method. With this goal in mind, we pinpoint several concrete pedagogical practices that may improve students’ learning, writing, and classroom experiences.

Pedagogical Applications

Our study suggests that successful writing assignments necessitates purposeful instruction, and we have identified four overarching implications. In the following sections, we draw upon the work of scholars in composition and WAC/WID to discuss each of these implications.

1. Teach writing as a process with balanced scaffolding and topics that students care about

Teaching writing as a process rather than a product is commonly considered a best practice in composition pedagogy and is an important consideration for WAC/WID pedagogy as well. While reviewing the history of the “process movement” in composition studies is not our goal here, the conception of writing as a linear (i.e. plan, draft, revise) process likely remains apparent in many classrooms, including those in English departments. However, as Irene L. Clark (2003) writes, “The problem with this linear view of writing...is that it does not reflect what writers actually do” (p. 8). Instead, drawing upon a basic conception of post-process theory, many compositionists argue (see Russell, 1999, for example) that “there are many writing processes…[and]...that some writing activities can be performed mechanistically, whereas others cannot” (p. 21). Similarly, the “Statement of WAC Principles and Practices” (2014) indicates that process is an essential aspect of teaching high-stakes/graded writing: “The writing process is long and complex, with the writer revising in response to developing ideas, reader feedback, and a deeper understanding of the rhetorical situation” (p. 5).  Based on our analysis of student tweets, however, the nuances of teaching writing as a process may require further discussion and training. Particularly, at the front-end of the writing process, students preferred specific instruction (“professor divided what she wants per page,” “taught us how to bullshit an essay to make it longer,” “‘Writing a synthesis essay is like having sex’”) on the how of writing essays. While these tweets occasionally indicated possible problematic teaching strategies, students appreciated writing-focused discussions/activities that were directly applicable to the assignment. Frustrations were also apparent (“can you explain the prompts more,” “And finally on week 7, after we have submitted 5 essays, my writing professor teaches us how to write an essay”, and “Who would've known writing a 3 page essay on something your professor hasn't taught could be so difficult ”) when instruction was ineffective, minimal, and/or poorly sequenced. Incorporating careful scaffolding is an important pedagogical consideration, as students find well-sequenced and well-scaffolded writing-intensive courses more effective (Leggette & Homeyer, 2015).

On the other hand, too much structure in teaching writing as a process created frustration: “My English professor is trying to force me to write my body paragraphs before writing my intro. Last I checked it's my essay.” We suggest, therefore, that instructors balance structured activities at the front-end of the process with the students’ agency as writers. Allowing students to choose whether to outline, freewrite, or create maps as they get control of their topics; involving students in discussions of what counts as credible research in the discipline; and, among others, students drafting based on their needs as writers rather than the requirements of the instructor are possible strategies. Additionally, many tweets indicated that a category of topics with relatively open selection was preferable, such as “about a disease” or “on a how to” and others indicated that topics could be proposed, such as “Told my professor I'm writing my essay about weed” and “I'm writing an essay about the time I got high as fuck and lost in [city] with friends and my professor approved of it.” Topic categories allow instructors to maintain control of student writing, scaffold more effectively due to the similarity of genres, and may increase the care that students have for the assignment. Lois Ablin (2008), for instance, discusses course-specific topics that hold a deeper interest for students when the assignment connects their writing to future career goals.

Essentially, the instructor should guide the students’ writing process and topic selection as a component of the course content and as a teaching tool rather than incorporating strict requirements for writing phases or topics and expecting students to complete the process without instruction or solely from previous instruction.

2. Establish clear assignment parameters and rationales, including a rhetorical context

Similarly, writing assignments should balance structure and agency. For example, the student who tweeted “Psychology professor wants us to write an essay but it can't be an opinion report, creative writing, argument etc. Lady wtf do you want! ” clearly had an issue with the assignment prompt and/or the professor’s explanation of it. While it is unclear if the student was perhaps distracted or misread the prompt, the methods this instructor used did not effectively communicate expectations. An effective method for balancing may be similar to those discussed by Bean (2011), who indicates that a writing assignment should be an interactive, meaning-constructing task with clear explanations of expectations (p. 97). In line with Bean, several tweets showed appreciation for clear yet open explanations: “Writing an essay and the professor said to have fun with it. So I could either write a regular paper, or I can make a funny one #decisions.” Although a decision was being pondered, the student felt that they had the agency to decide based on their grasp of what was allowed and/or expected.

Similarly, tweets indicated a desire or need for rationales regarding writing assignment parameters. When an instructor had overlooked this step, tweets showed frustration. For example, “not allowed to use ‘big’ words bc my professor is doubting my writing skills um” and “My professor got us writing a essay with no adjectives ... the dumbest shit I've ever heard,” might indicate that students were not provided with rationales or did not fully understand them. Developing students’ adherence to assignment parameters is an important task and should not be considered automatic. In Stefan Perun’s (2015) discussion of developmental writers in a community college, for example, students were often unfamiliar with college-level teaching practices, such as revising and adhering to assignment criteria as provided by the instructor. Instead, they expected to quickly complete assignments and receive passing grades.

As an additional step, we argue that writing assignments with clear parameters for rhetorical contexts or options for potential rhetorical contexts may help alleviate issues with professors as the only audience. Whether students showed a clear desire to impress or to not offend their instructors, they clearly felt that the instructor’s individual characteristics (“rude Native American professor”), personality (“strict hard ass professor”), or beliefs (“my professor is a liberal new mother”; “Trump supporting professor”) influenced what students believed they should say or could not say in their writing, thus limiting their learning and expression of ideas. As Bean (2011) states, “When designating formal writing assignments, instructors should consider how variations in the rhetorical context--purpose, audience, genre--can create significant differences in students’ writing and thinking processes as well as in their final products” (p. 93). Bean also provides examples of rhetorical contexts such as nursing students writing hypothetical grant proposals for a hospital or an argument to a hospital review board (p. 92). With effective rhetorical context, the professor’s identity may be diminished as a factor in the students’ writing process.

In addition to rhetorical context, we highlight here the importance of a teaching persona. The idea of “performing neutrality” (Kopelson, 2003) is considered an important strategy for writing pedagogy that could help to quell this fear in students’ thinking about writing assignments. Within this strategy, professors maintain personal neutrality in the classroom in order to foster open-minded thinking and student-centered learning.

3. Acknowledge students’ time and effort

Of at least equal importance to creating effective writing assignments is grading them. A number of tweets indicated students’ perspectives on grading and/or feedback from instructors and several mentioned grades and/or actual comments, including “impressed,” “very nice and relevant things,” “absolutely loved it,” “clear writing style,” “thanks for writing this,” and several that mentioned the professor’s advice to publish or enter a writing contest. Positive feedback was typically met with positive reactions from students and general indications of pride and confidence, despite these vague comments. While these results are not surprising, they do indicate the significance of instructors corroborating students’ writing skill. Larry Beason (1993) notes that “positive feedback does not always result in better final drafts, but it plays a vital role in helping student writers recognize their strengths and gain confidence” (p. 411). Conversely, negatively charged tweets were also broad but often interpreted instructor comments/feedback rather than quoting: “my writing is 'too colloquial,’” “she basically told me i was a pos and suck @ writing ,” “professor doesn't appreciate my talent,” “professor…didn’t like [my] writing,” and “professor tells you it's not a good enough topic” among others. Interestingly, several of the negative feedback tweets indicated that the student felt that comments were related to the professor’s personal view of the student, whereas very few of the positive comments evoked this kind of correlation.

We argue that instructors assigning any type of writing develop clear and informed feedback and grading practices that are shared with students at the beginning of the writing process. As Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater (1993) writes,

Students resent not understanding the grading process being used. If they end up with a C when they felt that all along they had been doing above-average work...they become angry. And rightly so. Students feel manipulated and co-opted by teachers who refuse to reveal their grading process or who cover their own anxieties by suggesting that grades are not an important part of the course. (p. 179)

A number of scholars have conducted studies that work toward the development of assessment criteria (see Thaiss & Zawacki, 1997; Haswell & McLeod, 1997; Broad, 2003, for example) specifically in WAC programs. While our analysis of tweets cannot provide significant insight into the best practices due to the minimal nature of tweets, we argue that, from students’ perspectives, best practices for assessment are crucial conversations, and we argue that these conversations should occur in and between WAC programs and FYC programs more often. Creating outcomes-based assessment practices that are clearly outlined for students may help instructors leave fewer broad comments and less vague feedback--whether positive or negative--in an effort to acknowledge the time and effort that students spend on writing assignments.

4. Consider students’ perspectives and experiences

Finally, we argue that students’ needs and learning capacities as novice writers should be carefully considered as instructors develop and teach writing assignments. An underlying component of this suggestion lies in student experiences with writing. For example, high schools that emphasize college admissions may focus on SAT preparation such as timed writing, five-paragraph essays, and incorporating detail rather than research practices. Matthew J.X. Malady (2013), citing interviews with Anne Ruggles Gere and Les Perelman, writes:

College professors . . . expect their students to be able to demonstrate evidence-based argument in their writing. This involves reading and synthesizing materials that offer multiple perspectives, and writing something that shows students are able to navigate through conflicting positions to come up with a nuanced argument. For those trained in the five-paragraph, non-fact-based writing style that is rewarded on the SAT, shifting gears can be extremely challenging. “The SAT does [students] no favors,” Gere says, “because it gives them a diminished view of what writing is by treating it as something that can be done once, quickly, and that it doesn’t require any basis in fact.” (p. 3)

With this conception of student experiences in mind, we argue that instructors should consider students’ unfamiliarity with writing processes, including time management, managing stress, planning, thinking processes, research, and so on.

One of the more prominent issues raised in students’ tweets was moving due dates and/or not collecting essays on the day assigned. While, anecdotally, instructors may believe that the majority of students will be pleased when given more time, tweets indicated that this was not always accurate: “i stayed up until 7 am last night writing a 10 page essay that my professor didnt even collect today hahahahahahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahah”; “Omfg I stayed up all night writing this fucking essay and the professor just decided in class to push it back to Tuesday omfg ”; “IVE WASTED SO MUCH TIME TODAY WRITING THIS ESSAY AND MY PROFESSOR EMAILED THE CLASS TO SAY ITS NOT DUE UNTIL FRIDAY RAGE.” Several tweets suggested that students felt angry when due dates were extended on or just before the deadline and implied that time management was the chief issue. Essentially, when students prioritized essay writing over other demands, they reacted negatively to deadline changes, often because they had lost sleep or time for other courses. While students typically appreciate extensions in the days leading up to the due date, instructors should consider that college students may often struggle with time management and balancing their coursework.

Similarly, other scheduling issues appeared in several tweets. Students wrote negatively about assignments due immediately following school breaks (“My professor gave us an essay assignment due the Monday after break so I guess I'll be spending break writing 2,000-3,000 words”), overlapping writing assignments (“my english professor talking about “we writing a essay” bitch I’m still on the first essay.”; “writing professor: *gives us ANOTHER essay on top of the freshman essay* me: ‘welcome to your tape’”), and scheduling writing assignments immediately following a due date (“Damn we just turned in our essay last night and our freakin professor just gave us another  writing project ugh ”). These tweets indicate that students appreciate breaks and that they felt overwhelmed by multiple writing projects conducted simultaneously. Due to the nature of writing as a higher-order process that requires significant time and effort, instructors could reduce students’ stress levels by scheduling around school holidays and separating writing assignments to allow for decompression.

We also suggest that instructors discuss writing in a way that contributes to learning and supports students’ abilities as novice writers. Many tweets, for example, indicated that instructors may not address students as people who are learning to write/writing to learn: “my professor assigned an eight page essay and then was like, ‘this is a remarkably short amount of writing’ LOL”; “my professor just told our class that a 10 page paper is a ‘short essay’ like exCUSE ME YOU ARENT THE ONE WRITING IT”; “i know my professor said this essay isn't hard but... it's HARD!!!! and this is coming from  someone who loves writing essays!! [photo of crying girl].” These and other tweets suggest that students are not familiar with lengths of college-level essays and are uncomfortable with the complexities of writing. Instructors who wish to support their students might consider that many high school students have not written essays longer than five paragraphs; thus, moving into a college writing environment in which eight or more pages is considered short and easy directly conflicts with their experiences.