Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Committee Chair

Laura Brady

Committee Member

Sarah Morris

Committee Member

Nathalie Singh-Corcoran

Committee Member

Audra Slocum

Abstract

This dissertation explores the use of place-based pedagogy as a tool for teaching for transfer in a college composition class in West Virginia. Although existing composition scholarship indicates that themed classes (such as a place-based class) are unlikely to facilitate transfer among the students, this is mostly due to instructors of themed classes not explicitly teaching for transfer. The literature suggests that the most effective way to facilitate transfer is to encourage students to reflect on how what they learned in one situation is similar to and different from what they need to learn in another situation. The aim of this dissertation is to explore how a transfer-focused, place-based composition course can help students from marginalized communities more easily enculturate into academia. My research focuses on four sections of first-year composition taught by two experienced instructors who each used a place-based theme. In addition to surveying the students about their perceived connections with Appalachia and the region surrounding West Virginia University, I conducted thematic analysis of seven Appalachian students’ narrative projects to look for evidence of Appalachian rhetoric and references to Appalachian literacies. I also conducted thematic analysis on these seven students' final reflections to determine whether and how students have transferred what they learned in their courses to their self-perceptions as writers. I discovered that students generally do not identify as Appalachian (even if they have grown up in the region), because of negative connotations associated with Appalachia. Although all seven of the narrative projects in the study contained evidence of Appalachian rhetoric (such as quilt organization and lack of a traditional thesis statement) as well as references to place-based literacies, the students are largely unaware of the influence and value of their home rhetorics, believing instead that their own habits and conventions are simply signs of being bad or unskilled writers. The study has pedagogical and theoretical implications related to teaching for transfer. I conclude that place-based classes need to promote transfer explicitly by incorporating threshold concepts of writing into the place-based material, as well as by having students reflect on how the literacies and rhetorics valued in their home communities are similar to and different from the literacies and rhetorics valued in the composition course and in their respective disciplines.

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