Genre Theory/ October 28, 2009

Although process approaches have contributed to the improvement in student writing in classrooms and still have worth pursuing in today’s writing classroom, there are some aspects that attract critical responses from researchers and practitioners. Among them are the fact that process models “disempower teachers and cast them in the role of well-meaning bystanders” (p. 19). Process approaches emphasize self-discovery of knowledge, individualism, learner-centered, and implicit learning, which renders teachers to become a facilitator or collaborator. But we cannot rule out a strong possibility that ESL students who are educated in totally different cultures might be disadvantaged in the process classroom.

Teachers in the process classroom expect students to “glean knowledge [about appropriate forms] from unanalyzed samples of expert writing” without explicit explanations, and from “growing experience of repetition” (Hyland, 2003, p. 19). But if an international student enters a masters program, they are expected to write different genres of writing in different major courses over a period of 3 or 4 semesters. Given that they had no access to literacy practices that are dominant in the US academic settings before starting the program, the overall coursework might not be long and repetitive enough for them to ‘glean’ the knowledge they need. Some students might have written a critical review of a research article only once over the course of the whole graduate years.

Teachers need to be flexible enough to be sensitive to and suit students’ needs. Teachers can give clear guidelines about their writing assignments and explicit instructions on genres that students are expected to write “when necessary,” rather than simply waiting them to discover the knowledge they need by themselves. But I don’t mean that teachers have to provide explicit instruction all the time and go back to the teacher-centered classroom. They don’t have to choose one. Rather, teachers can alternate their roles on a great timing; sometimes facilitators, other times explicit instruction giver. So, it is imperative for teachers to decide when and how to give explicit instruction.

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 17-29.