Building Genre Knowledge. Christine Tardy
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of algorithms.
Though he wrote a great deal of email—both in English and Chinese—Paul initially told me that he did not like writing very much:
Because I think reason is I was forced to do so. Writing letters is different. Letters, you are willing to write letters to your friends. Letters is, I think fine, but some formal document is not. (September 3, 2002)
He also described feeling more comfortable with workplace writing than academic writing. He particularly preferred programming documentation (a common form of writing at work), which he described as “very natural” and following a basic format.
After two years of graduate school, Paul felt that his writing had changed, though he found it difficult to identify what the changes were beyond increased confidence. He felt his English-language writing had had been influenced by readings, homework assignments, instructors, collaborative writing, and oral interactions. Despite these influences, however, Paul felt a strong ownership of his writing, and credited his very early days of literacy as contributing most significantly to his current writing style.
Paul’s enrollment in WCGS was recommended by his advisor, but Paul felt that it would be helpful to him, especially when writing his thesis. Within the first few weeks of the semester, he explained that he was more accustomed to informal writing than academic writing, and he described his goals for WCGS as learning to format papers and writing them in a way that was “comfortable” for academics.
John
In his rapid, American-style speech, John, a second-year master’s student with black hair and small, rectangular glasses, described to me his unique linguistic identity during our first meeting. Twenty-five years of age at the start of my research, John was born in the United States, where he spent his first several years and one year of graduate school. He had spent the rest of his life in South Korea, his parents’ home country, where he attended middle school, high school, and undergraduate schooling:
I think I have two first languages, so basically when I was born and for the first years before preschool, Korean was predominant language, because I would also speak in Korean with my parents. And then after preschool, I spent more time with my peers and spend more time speaking English, so I basically forgot all of my Korean. And then I moved back to Korea. When I moved back to Korea, I didn’t have any command of the Korean language. (September 4, 2002)
Out of necessity, John learned Korean quickly. Even after several years living in South Korea, John still felt most comfortable communicating in English. The chance to use English, paired with his feeling that the top electrical engineering schools were located in the U.S., led John to apply to several U.S. graduate programs to continue his education.
John had always been interested in science, but engineering was not in fact his first love:
Well, I was interested in physics. Because when I was a little boy, my, like, dream was to get a Nobel Prize . . . in physics. Because I always loved reading science-related books, or science fiction, fantasy book, even just non-fiction books about science. So, I was just fascinated with physics. And then, after moving to Korea—it’s a pretty funny reason—but the college that I wanted to apply to didn’t have a physics course separately, but they just lumped all the sciences together. I didn’t really like that idea so I chose a different field, which is the closest to physics that I could find, and that was electrical engineering. (September 4, 2002)
Like Paul, John’s father was in the field that John himself eventually entered. From the time he began studying in the field of electrical engineering, John’s interests had changed from robotics to semi-conductor devices to his current interest in biomedical engineering—more specifically, bio-micro-electrical-mechanical systems, or “bioMEMS.” John spoke about his work with passion and intensity:
I really enjoy helping people. I mean helping people in a direct way. Like, for example, if I were to earn money and become somebody like Bill Gates and then finance all of these things, I probably wouldn’t be that happy because that’d be too indirect for me. But if I developed a robotic leg—which I was very interested in robotic prosthesis when I applied to Midwest University—so that I could change somebody’s life, even if I didn’t know that person personally, I know that the research I did would directly affect somebody in a good way. (September 4, 2002)
At the start of my study, John’s goal was to enter a PhD program after completing of his master’s degree, and eventually to go on to start his own company. Based on his brief experience in corporate culture prior to his master’s degree, John felt that he would be happier starting his own company “where it’s more free, and I have associates in that company who agree with what I think” (September 4, 2002). During the first four months of my study, however, John modified these long-term goals. At the end of WCGS, and after submitting applications to five doctoral programs in bioMEMS, John began leaning more toward an academic career, feeling that it would allow him more time for family and other interests.
In our first interview, John told me that he enjoyed writing and that, from elementary school on, it had come fairly naturally to him:
A lot of my friends suffered through writing, like don’t know what to write, but- I don’t know about my form or anything, but usually I just [gestures a whirlwind] go through it, and after recomposing what I wrote, pretty satisfied with what I wrote. (September 4, 2002)
Despite his relative confidence in his writing, John felt that he was somewhat limited to only one “tone of voice,” making it difficult to change the style of his writing for different contexts or genres. John, like Paul, felt that his writing style was rooted in his very early writing experiences:
I think it was the people who influenced my writing, who developed my style of writing. Because it was developed when I was young, and it’s more due to my reading and the guidance of other people, so I think it was a lot of the English teachers from first through fourth or fifth grade, because they did a lot of creative writing classes, so I think it’s different how you learn writing. I mean, your style differs. (May 3, 2003)
While he felt that his early English teachers had influenced his writing in general, John believed that his formal writing had also been influenced by his father, who had taught him how to think like a scientist from very early on.
As a native speaker of both English and Korean, John experienced many differences when writing in the two languages. He felt he was able to write faster in English, but found it difficult to “switch modes” when writing in one language and having a thought in another language. When he first learned to write in Korean—after having already become literate in English—it was initially awkward for him. Over time, however, John felt that “in Korean it started following my English style” (May 3, 2003). John explained that now it was easier for him to write about something in the language through which he had learned the content. He thus tended to use Korean more often for expressing personal experiences, but English for engineering-related work. Because he had chosen the non-thesis track in his master’s program, John did not have a close advisor and did not conduct any independent research outside of his disciplinary courses. All of his writing during my study was tied either to coursework or to his applications for doctoral study.
WCGS was John’s first writing class in English (beyond his early school years), though he had had some writing instruction in Korean. Despite his very strong English language skills, John was required to take the course because of his score on the Test of Writing English (TWE). Before enrolling in WCGS, John had hoped to improve his English grammar through the course; however, during the summer before WCGS, he reviewed grammar on his own. When WCGS began in the fall, John’s new goal was to link the assignments to the writing he would already be doing during the semester, such as his graduate school applications. He also told me that, while he was fairly comfortable with writing in English already, “there will probably be some topics that I’m not familiar with” (September 4, 2002). Despite his high level of English proficiency—much higher than most of the other course participants—John approached the course requirement positively and with clear goals.
Chatri
Chatri, a native of Thailand and in his early 30s, showed an