In one of my Rhetoric and Composition Course classes, an American professor talked about the major difference between school literacy, rhetorical literacy and threshold concepts which I had not thought about in my more than a decade-long teaching career back in Nepal. On learning the new concept about writing, I developed a strong sense of writing about it and disseminating it through some publishers for, at least, Nepali readers. According to him, “school literacy” is loaded with strict writing conventions and students are forced to emulate traditional writing attributes no matter who the intended recipient of the messaging is. This tendency is found common in summative assessments; it just motivates students to pass an exam. On the other hand, “rhetorical literacy” lays a lot of emphasis on the conveyance of communication to an intended audience in mind. This article aims at explaining how threshold concepts work as a vehicle for narrowing the burgeoning gaps between these two contrasting ideas in the Nepali educational setting.
In the U.S., writing instructors are developing a culture of “recursion,” which challenges the tradition of a linear progression but supports a cyclic method, allowing students to reworking on their earlier stages such as brainstorming, drafting, and revising until students are satisfied with their product to turn in. This is a threshold idea because writing does not end in one sitting. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), U.S, strongly encourages students to keep an audience in mind ahead of writing. Different associations in the U.S are launching orientation programs to empower students to develop the ability to adapt their writing to cater to the specific needs of diverse groups of audiences, purposes and contexts. This tenet of writing effectively for intended readers is being accepted across the U.S.
Some state examinations are still struggling to gauge students’ ability to write for diverse audiences. For example, in Texas, U.S, state-mandated standards expect students to think about their potential audience before writing something. This applies to students right from grade 3 to grade 12. There is a strong need for developing the same culture in Nepal’s classrooms, too. It is still not uncommon to find teachers who grade students’ assignments based on vocabulary, grammar, handwriting, and amount of content, overlooking students’ thinking process and big ideas. In the same vein, English language teachers are judged against the parameters of grammar and vocabulary rather than teachers’ creativity, thinking process and teaching pedagogies.
Cultivate the culture of writing for a specific audience
Know your inner self
The ideology of “learning transfer” reinforces further the importance of encouraging students to adjust their writing to meet the objectives of a particular audience. “Learning transfer” occurs when students succeed in applying the knowledge of a particular context to a new context in life situations. Most educators and policy makers do fail to acknowledge it. Some figures such as Beaufort, Driscoll, Well and Robertson have worked in the field of “learning transfer” and writing contexts. These scholars have preferred “ill-structured problems” to “well-structured problems” in writing classes. The former sounds rigid and expects a certain type of response or quality, curbing students’ different ways of thinking, whereas the latter emphasizes differing ideas and arguments based on evidence and powers of reasoning in a particular case. “Ill-structured problems” allow students to make mistakes but improve on their previous mistakes at a gradual process for effective learning transfer of knowledge.
Needless to say, even in writing classes teachers expect a universal answer like in math, science and technology classes. Imposing several fixed rules deter students from recognizing their writing potential. I do not just blame teachers alone. Parents are also accountable for it. Parents may not want to see their children write several drafts or annotate their assignments. Expecting a clean answer or notebook disrupts the cyclic learning process of writing. Internalizing rigid rules does not help students apply their knowledge in new settings. I have come across several grammar books where the use of “I” is restricted in formal writing. Nonetheless, in They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, celebrated authors Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein Graff, professors at the University of Illinois, argue that it is okay to use the first-person pronoun because grammar and mechanics are not very important. They are only a “hegemonic tool of Western orthodoxy.”
For several years, the idea of writing without considering audiences has been upheld both in the U.S. and Nepal. In the past, educators underscored the value of “autonomous text,” forcing scholars to deduce exact meanings from a given text. Nobody thought about who wrote the text and for whom. Multiple interpretations of a given text were not accepted. Fortunately, recently literacy scholars are raising their voices against it and encouraging writers to think about their intended readers while writing.
In the context of the U.S., scholars have begun to speak and write about the need for a specific audience in high-stakes examinations. Unfortunately, a mismatch between state mandates and assessment types is problematic. In other words, teachers are compelled to follow certain state standards that influence their teaching instruction. During a high-stakes exam, students come across a passage on the question paper without any background to the author of the passage or additional information on the passage. Just to obtain good points, students need to answer most questions that expect fixed answers. For example, U.S. students in one of the STAAR (The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) examinations came across the following essay question “Compose an essay expressing your viewpoint on whether an individual can elect to pursue happiness.” In the same way, SEE students in Nepal were presented with the question “Write an essay giving your views on “Use of cell phone in student life.” These questions leave some questions unanswered in students’ minds. “Who is the intended reader? Should students use diplomatic language, technical language, colloquial language, or layperson’s language? Are students allowed to use the first person pronoun “I”? In the absence of contexts or intended audiences, students feel like shooting without aiming. Therefore, even in the U.S., disparities between state standards and assessments are impeding students’ critical writing caliber and the same is to be taken into account by Nepali educators.
Takeaways for U.S. teachers and Nepali teachers
In Nepal’s university exams students get only one chance to demonstrate their writing skill. Students receive grades or marks based on their final products. Students are deprived of engaging in writing processes. It is better to foster an audience-centric writing culture for a fair judgment of students’ writing quality. Despite being time-consuming, it is a gradual learning process that benefits both students and teachers equally.
As U.S. scholars are endeavoring to break down the gap between state standards and assessment systems to help students improve their writing skills, Nepali educators and policymakers can work more on the differences between school literacy, rhetorical literacy and threshold concepts and start implementing it in classrooms. Even professional writers make a tremendous amount of effort by researching contexts and content before producing a fine piece of writing, expecting a perfect composition in a given certain timeframe is inappropriate. And asking students to write without letting them know about their intended readers is analogous to instructing them to drive a car without destination.
Final words
Some naysayers tend to highlight the difference between these two countries in terms of education systems and language proficiency. Educators can help students transfer their knowledge of a particular context to new situations with the idea of an intended audience through the portfolio teaching. To test how students adapt their writing to cater to different audiences, students should be motivated to build a portfolio of their drafts to be evaluated on how they have made significant improvement in each stage of writing over a certain period of time and only best of their assignments will be graded. When they keep a portfolio, they realize the evolution of their writing and development as a writer who writes for a fixed audience.
