Terrie Cole
Terri Cole graduated from Rhode Island College in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a minor in creative writing. She is 26 years old and currently teaches English at an all girls’ middle school in South Korea. Her academic interests are in composition and rhetoric studies, education and ESL. Her future plans are to apply to graduate school after teaching and traveling.
Contents
Introduction</p
Methods
A Framework for Studying
Writing in Nursing
Change of Shift and Genre
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Works Cited
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A Framework for Studying Enculturation
Anson and Forsberg study the transitional stages that six university students make in their process of enculturation into an internship workplace discourse community. The cycle of transition that they articulate is constructive as a framework for my research and can be usefully applied to other writers entering new discourse communities and undergoing a process of transition. Here is a brief outline of this cycle as defined by Anson and Forsberg (2009):
- Expectation: “The writer builds a vision, that is, a social construct, of him or herself working and writing in a new professional setting. Often the picture is idealized, [although] the [employee] may express some apprehension about applying his or her knowledge to a new situation” (p. 208). Because Lena does not identify herself as a writer, we can say that Lena builds a vision for herself working in a new professional setting but does not imagine writing in one. In fact, writing, in her expectation process, was not something to which she had really given thought.
- Disorientation: “As the individual tries to determine a role in the organization, he or she becomes disoriented, and this in turn can lead to intense frustration and a sense of failure. The characteristics of disorientation may take several forms. Some [employees] undergo a period of alienated independence, a sense of having to do things all their own, of being expected to know already how or when it is appropriate, to ask information” (p. 208). I would like to add to this category that Lena undergoes a sense of frustration which I classify into two subcategories: negotiating priorities (Lena struggles in prioritizing her written and physical tasks) and negotiating audience(Lena’s unfamiliarity with her co-workers, i.e. her audience, affects the way she gives reports).
- Transition and Resolution: “As the writer begins to establish a role and forms new knowledge for adaption, he or she may begin to take on greater initiative, understanding what is expected and forming new self-concepts. This initiative usually leads to rewards and responsibilities, culminating in a resolution of previous frustration and often of conflict as well. The individual finally integrates experience and reflects on the intellectual changes afforded by writing in the new context” (p. 208). Lena recognizes and takes initiative to socially adapt within her workplace community.
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