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theses

This study explores the phenomenon of “style-shifting,” characterized by students’ belief in their ability to readily adapt their writing style to suit the expectations, even idiosyncrasies, of a teacher. Specifically, it analyzes how English majors negotiate assigned papers as highly local rhetorical sites. Understanding to what extent style-shifting occurs reveals how students respond to teachers’ cues and instructional strategies, as well as how individual educational experiences combine to form concepts of disciplinary discourse as a whole. Writing studies scholarship predominantly ignores the role that style plays in the individuated and piecemeal character of learning disciplinary discourses. This study draws from the literature in several fields to understand the various theoretical approaches to “style” and writing pedagogy, as well as how and why students gain disciplinary expertise. Through interviews with literature professors and upper-level undergraduate English majors, as well as textual analysis of papers produced in their classrooms, the study uses a grounded theory methodology to examine the complex rhetorical network of teachers, students, and texts. Broadly, it finds that students do not enact the style shifts they imagine, revealing a burgeoning, but unconscious, awareness of disciplinary discourse conventions. The study constructs a bridge between scholarship on style pedagogy and writing in the disciplines, demonstrating that style can be a generative tool for understanding how students develop disciplinarity.

ETD_8161

M.A.

Includes bibliographical references

by Brynn Kairis

doi:10.7282/T35H7K1Z

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.