| This dissertation investigates the role of explicit RGS pedagogy in an Intermediate Composition course for aiding in students development of genre awareness in their genre-based writing. I argue that students acquire genre awareness when provided with discipline specific, genre and assignment-based instructor feedback, ongoing moments for revision, and reflective writing. From this perspective, the project demonstrates how explicit pedagogy in the form of genre-based instructor feedback, scaffolded assignments, and ongoing moments of revisions provides students with the possibility to develop disciplinary genre awareness in their writing. First, I provided a review of RGS literature in order to argue that a hybrid of both explicit and implicit pedagogy best provides students with an understanding of genre as both social and structural. Secondly, I examine my own pedagogical practices in order to determine if my own teaching practices in fact employ a hybrid RGS pedagogy. Third, I analyzed, coded, and counted my own instructor feedback in order to discover if my feedback was genre and assignment-based and focused upon disciplinary genre awareness. Fourth, I analyzed, coded, and counted students' revisions to determine if students' revisions responded to my feedback and demonstrated growing disciplinary genre awareness. Fifth, I utilized an independent evaluator in order to find if students' revisions were viewed as positive or negative. Sixth, I analyzed, coded, and counted students' end-of-the-semester reflective writing in order to ascertain if students' showcased genre awareness in their reflective writing. My studies validated my hybrid pedagogical practices and suggested that explicit, genre-based, disciplinary RGS pedagogy leads to students development of genre awareness in their writing. |
