Improving Communication in the Appalachian Composition Classroom
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Keywords
Composition, Appalachia, Writing
Biography
Kristen LeFevers is a graduate student in the Department of English, where she currently works as a teaching assistant. Her research interests include Appalachian studies and composition and rhetoric. She earned her BA in English at the University of Charleston.
Major
English (MA)
Advisor for this project
Dr. Jana Tigchelaar, Prof. Anna Rollins
Abstract
Many freshmen find the transition to college writing challenging, but composition instructors often assume that most students already possess a basic knowledge of the English language—that with just a few cursory remarks on how to correct errors in their papers, students will automatically realize what they have been doing wrong all along and begin to produce stellar essays. Unfortunately, such a transformation is rarely the case and, for many students coming from Appalachian discourse communities, is even more unlikely. Not only do most of these students graduate high school unprepared for the demands of academic writing at the college level, but many Appalachian students are keenly aware of the stigma that broader American society assigns to how they speak and communicate. Consequently, many Appalachian students bring a great deal of shame into the composition classroom, thus complicating the struggle to learn the conventions of academic writing.
Unlike their instructors, these students have not spent years studying language and literature; therefore, the knowledge that has become second nature to composition instructors is like a foreign language to these students, especially to those students who speak the Appalachian dialect, which can deviate significantly from standard English. In this presentation, I will discuss some steps composition instructors can take to bridge the gap between their implicit knowledge and clear, explicit instruction and to begin integrating Appalachian students into the language of academic discourse, while still honoring the discourse communities from which those students come.
Improving Communication in the Appalachian Composition Classroom
Many freshmen find the transition to college writing challenging, but composition instructors often assume that most students already possess a basic knowledge of the English language—that with just a few cursory remarks on how to correct errors in their papers, students will automatically realize what they have been doing wrong all along and begin to produce stellar essays. Unfortunately, such a transformation is rarely the case and, for many students coming from Appalachian discourse communities, is even more unlikely. Not only do most of these students graduate high school unprepared for the demands of academic writing at the college level, but many Appalachian students are keenly aware of the stigma that broader American society assigns to how they speak and communicate. Consequently, many Appalachian students bring a great deal of shame into the composition classroom, thus complicating the struggle to learn the conventions of academic writing.
Unlike their instructors, these students have not spent years studying language and literature; therefore, the knowledge that has become second nature to composition instructors is like a foreign language to these students, especially to those students who speak the Appalachian dialect, which can deviate significantly from standard English. In this presentation, I will discuss some steps composition instructors can take to bridge the gap between their implicit knowledge and clear, explicit instruction and to begin integrating Appalachian students into the language of academic discourse, while still honoring the discourse communities from which those students come.
