“What I Mean Is…”: The role of dialogic interactions in developing a statement of teaching philosophy

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“What I Mean Is…”: The role of dialogic interactions in developing a statement of teaching philosophy Warren Merkel1 University of Iowa, Lindquist Center, 240 South Madison Street, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA

A R T IC LE I N F O

ABS TRA CT

Keywords: Statement of teaching philosophy Dialogism Written feedback Oral feedback

This case study explores the role of dialogic interactions in a US-based Korean doctoral student’s efforts to write a statement of teaching philosophy (TPS) as part of her employment applications in science education. While previous studies have examined the role of pedagogical strategies and available resources to help students improve their statement, these approaches tend to be dispensed by field experts such as faculty members; few studies have examined methods that can be adopted by a tutor-student dyad in which the tutor must rely on the student’s knowledge and perspectives in order to help the student write and improve the statement. In this study, the participant and I (the researcher) discussed the participant’s concerns regarding her TPS drafts. Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of dialogism was employed to facilitate the participant’s attempts to write her statement. Results showed that dialogic interactions aided the participant in clarifying her thoughts through verbalization and subsequently transferring those thoughts to her writing. The interactions also facilitated the participant’s efforts to infuse her writing with uniqueness or individualism, a key component of the TPS.

1. Introduction As part of the job application process, doctoral program graduates (or near graduates) are required to submit several documents, one of which is the statement of teaching philosophy (TPS). Broadly speaking, the TPS serves to emphasize the applicant’s experience with and commitment to teaching; knowledge of learning models as well as teaching methods and assessment; and application of theory to practice (Eierman, 2008). Other elements include conceptualizations of learning and teaching, goals for students, implementation of a teaching philosophy, and a personal growth plan (Chism, 1998). These statements become increasingly important in higher education, which measures candidates’ work for broad skillsets rather than one core area of expertise (Fitzmaurice & Coughlan, 2007). Several studies have brought to light the challenges that graduate students face in writing the TPS, and in turn have shown that writers can improve their statements by reading models and soliciting feedback from discipline-specific faculty (e.g., Beatty, Leigh, & Lund Dean, 2009; Kearns & Sullivan, 2011; Schönwetter, Sokal, Friesen, & Taylor, 2002). Such advice (i.e., content knowledge, TPS genre knowledge) often stems from experts in the field and is thus representative of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), in which an expert aids a novice in adapting to a new academic environment by participating in a community of practice. Such studies, however, do not consider the role of writing center tutors, who are not necessarily familiar with the coursework of the students they are tutoring (and are thus unfamiliar with the specialized content of their TPS), and – as fellow students –

E-mail address: [email protected]. Present address: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Institutt for lærerutdanning, Gunnerus gate 1, 238, Kalvskinnet, Trondheim 7012, Norway. 1

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2019.100702 Received 28 May 2019; Received in revised form 16 October 2019; Accepted 12 November 2019 1060-3743/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Warren Merkel, Journal of Second Language Writing, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2019.100702

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may lack expertise in writing a TPS themselves. With this context as a backdrop, this study sought to examine, through writing center sessions, the role of dialogic interactions as a means to assist the L2 graduate student-participant write a statement of teaching philosophy. At the time of the study, I (as the researcher and a native-English speaker) had recently completed my PhD in foreign language and ESL education and was working in my first semester as a visiting assistant professor; I was also interim director of a writing center, where I had worked previously for about one year as a tutor. The native-Korean graduate student-participant was in the fifth year of her science education doctoral program and was applying for jobs as she wrote her dissertation. This study thus centered on avenues for the participant to verbalize and crystallize her ideas and transfer them to writing, particularly when the specialized content (science education) and genre knowledge of TPS limited the tutor’s ability to provide the field-specific feedback that an expert can offer. 1.1. Statement of teaching philosophy The statement of teaching philosophy poses a unique quandary for graduate students who seek employment in higher education. On the one hand, the document is short (typically 1–2 pages), and its significance in a hiring committee’s decision-making process of an applicant is open to debate (Montell, 2003a). On the other, the statement is seemingly ubiquitous in job postings, and is thus perceived by applicants to be vital (as are all documents) by dint of its inclusion as a required document in the application. For the applicant, the benefit of writing such a statement is well-documented. Because of the self-reflection involved, the writing process is often deemed more valuable than the product (Beatty et al., 2009). The development of the writer’s identity and conception of self may also ensue (Li & Deng, 2019). The TPS helps to “organize, express, and justify ideas about teaching” (Eierman, 2008, p. 337) and also make implicit perspectives on teaching and student learning explicit (Kaplan, Meizlish, O’Neal, & Wright, 2008). Even if an advertised position does not require a TPS, writing one may help crystalize candidates’ thoughts and thus better prepare them for an interview question pertaining to their teaching (Kearns & Sullivan, 2011). Despite these benefits, myriad challenges accompany the TPS. No standard or correct approach exists for the writer (Boye, 2012); this lack of a standard derives, in part, from the varying expectations across disciplines (Samraj & Monk, 2008; Schönwetter et al., 2002). Applicants thus struggle to make sense of the content and rhetorical moves to include in these statements. Further compounding the issue is the recommendation for the letter to reflect the applicant’s unique individuality (Boye, 2012; Chism, 1998; Coppola, 2002). The TPS is also considered part of an occluded genre, which is representative of academic texts that are inconspicuous to the public and thus pose adversity to students or academics who have minimal exposure to those texts (Swales, 1996). For instance, a graduate student may be able to procure models for writing a research paper (a public genre), but if the student pursues publication of the paper, they may find it difficult to procure models for writing a submission letter or responding to reviewers’ comments (occluded genres). Due to their level of privacy, occluded genres serve a gate-keeping function, one which is vital for students to negotiate should they seek careers in academia (Loudermilk, 2007). Several studies have examined students’ development of a TPS. Schussler et al. (2011), for instance, conducted a study in which graduate students crafted and revised their TPS during a 15-week biological science education course. One factor that transformed the writing experience for students involved receiving feedback from faculty members who had served on search committees; this opportunity served as a catalyst for students to write more meaningfully about their pedagogical beliefs. Other studies have adopted scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) approaches in tandem with exercises to help teachers identify and reflect on their teaching beliefs (Beatty et al., 2009); utilize online resources and recommendations, such as reading extant models (Coppola, 2002); and adopt rubrics (Schönwetter et al., 2002; Kaplan et al., 2008; O’Neal, Meizlish, & Kaplan, 2007) to account for the lack of operational definitions and frameworks in current conceptual models. Despite the importance of these studies, graduate students may face the possibility of receiving scant assistance from faculty or mentors on their TPS (Kearns & Sullivan, 2011). Because the TPS requires an extensive amount of reflection on pedagogy, this lack of assistance can prove problematic, notably for students in science-based graduate programs in which the role of the educator loses priority (Schussler et al., 2011). Further, discipline-specific TPS models can be difficult to procure (Samraj & Monk, 2008). 1.2. The writing center and tutor-tutee dyads One potential solution for students is to turn to a writing center. The pedagogical philosophy of a writing center hinges on the concept of writing as both a discursive process and a social, collaborative act, and whose goal is not to produce better writing but better writers (North, 1984). Affiliated with the educational institutions students attend, writing centers afford students the opportunity to receive help at any stage of the writing process on a variety of projects. During the sessions, the tutor, as a more able peer, brings to the table more experience with academic writing, and an ability to communicate their knowledge to less experienced students through strategies such as scaffolding. The tutor’s experience is counterbalanced by the student’s knowledge of their assignment, subject matter, and course context (Severino & Cogie, 2016). For synchronous, face-to-face tutoring sessions, these strategies are often manifested in tutor-tutee social interactions, which serve as the bedrock of sessions. In recent decades, writing centers have been tasked with providing support for an increasing number of multilingual students. Recent writing center scholarship has thus drawn attention to support for multilingual writers in conjunction with writing center best practices, such as tutors focusing on lower-order versus higher-order writing concerns (Zawacki & Cox, 2011) and the balancing of tutors’ directness and politeness with international students in an effort to avoid communication comprehension issues (Thonus, 2014). Yet writing centers are presented with additional challenges when multilingual students are also graduate students, as tutors 2

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should consider not only students’ texts, but also “the degree to which texts are used both as tools for disciplinary enculturation and as the bases for assessing writers’ qualifications to become members of a professional discourse community” (Pemberton, 2018, p. 33). Put another way, writing centers must address the purpose that graduate student writing serves beyond the students’ programs. Due to the increasing international student body at universities, much of the writing center scholarship has focused on interactions between tutors and L2 writers. Studies have examined, for instance, affective aspects of tutor-student interactions (Shvidko, 2018), vocabulary learning (Severino & Deifell, 2011), and lexical issues (Nakamaru, 2010). Study results highlight numerous benefits of social interactions, including aiding students’ development of ideas, understanding of rhetorical modes, and awareness of readership or audience (Ewert, 2009); attending to students’ individual needs (Weissberg, 2006); a clearer idea of students’ writing goals (Goldstein, 2004); and an opportunity for students to exercise agency (Tardy, 2006). Yet several challenges also accompany the interactions, such as linguistic and cultural barriers (Thonus, 2004); tutor dominance (Williams, 2004); and balancing directive and non-directive tutoring in an effort to achieve student learning (Clark, 2001). Several studies pertaining to interactions between tutors and L2 writers have also drawn attention to the dilemma of tutors’ lack of familiarity with the content of their students’ texts. In these interactions, the tutor and student often negotiate meaning as they progress towards a mutual understanding of a text. For example, in a study done some time ago of three ESL undergraduates enrolled in an advanced ESL composition course, Goldstein and Conrad (1990) examined the connection between the discourse of studentteacher writing conferences and students’ subsequent revisions on papers discussed during the conferences. Results showed that students who played a more active role in negotiating meaning with the tutor (e.g., by inquiring about the appropriateness of a particular revision strategy to a text’s content) made more substantial revisions to their drafts. In another study, Williams (2004) examined the connection between writing center sessions and subsequent revisions made by students. Findings showed that students who engaged in longer episodes of negotiation of meaning and participated more actively in sessions were better positioned to make higher-level revisions. In writing center sessions, engaging in dialogic interactions may help to reconcile the tutor’s limited knowledge of the student’s content (Author, 2018). Generally speaking, the fundamental element underpinning Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of dialogism is the idea that a text has no universally-accepted meaning; rather, a text’s meaning is constructed by both a writer and reader. As Bakhtin (1981) noted, Within the arena of almost every utterance an intense interaction and struggle between one’s own and another’s word is being waged, a process in which they oppose or dialogically interanimate each other. The utterance so conceived is a considerably more complex and dynamic organism than it appears when construed simply as a thing that articulates the intention of the person uttering it, which is to see the utterance as a direct, single-voiced vehicle for expression. (pp. 354–355) Tardy (2006) refers to dialogism as the “social mingling of texts” (p. 62). In the context of a writing center dyad, dialogic interactions require the tutor and student to rely on each other’s knowledge and expertise as they engage in the discursive process of constructing meaning of a text. Several studies have examined the effectiveness of dialogic interactions in L2 writing. Weissberg (2006) adopted dialogic interactions to provide scaffolded oral feedback, such as repetition and questioning, to advanced L2 writers on texts such as lab reports and literature reviews; results indicated that scaffolded dialogue helped the graduate student participants with writing issues beyond the sentence level, such as organization and coherence. In examining teacher talk on L2 writing conferences, Ewert (2009) found that successful negotiation in dialogic interactions led to enhanced student participation, and potentially more successful revision. In a more recent study, with the goal of informing training practices for writing tutors, Wingate (2019) examined the nature of dialogic interactions of 10 writing tutoring dyads. Wingate found that although a high degree of tutor dominance still existed, the tutoring sessions that successfully adopted dialogic interactions enabled students to think more deeply about their topics and solve problems without the aid of the tutor. Dialogic interactions may also serve as a conduit for the tutor and student to negotiate instances of miscommunication, and aid the tutor in avoiding appropriation of the student’s writing (Author, 2018). 1.3. The dilemma As multilingual graduate students turn to writing centers for consultation, several challenges ensue. For instance, because writing center tutors tend to be generalists who focus on writing strategies, they may lack the content and genre expertise of faculty members. Given the language-related strengths rather than discipline-specific knowledge of tutors, Brown (2004) questions “…how well equipped the consultants are to help students aspiring to graduate training in other disciplines or professional schools” (p. 243). Although the context of Brown’s article refers to tutors helping undergraduate students write personal statements for graduate school, it can be argued that writing center tutors in graduate programs helping doctoral students write the TPS for job applications would face the same challenges, namely negotiating content and genre of text with which they themselves are not particularly familiar. Swales (1996) seconds this sentiment, noting that newcomers to the field may be hard-pressed to align their writing with the expectations of their targeted audience. With this frame of reference, the purpose of this study was to examine the capacity for dialogic interactions to aid a writing center tutor and a doctoral student-participant in science education in the latter’s efforts to write a TPS. Two guiding questions underpinned this study: 1 In instances where dialogic interactions occurred, how did they aid the graduate L2 writer’s efforts to write her TPS? 2 To which facets of the TPS do the dialogic interactions help draw the attention of the L2 writer? 3

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2. Methods 2.1. Participant and researcher backgrounds The research for this study took place at a large public university located in the Midwest of the United States. The participant for the study, Hyunju,2 was a native Korean who had completed both her secondary schooling and undergraduate degree in South Korea. She had come to the United States to enroll in a science education doctoral program, and at the time of the study (fall 2018) was in her fifth year of the program. At that time, she had already passed her comprehensive exams and was writing her dissertation proposal, which centered on immersive learning environments, or how students develop their epistemic orientation of science learning environments through dialogic interactions. Hyunju was also applying for assistant professorship positions. In fall 2018, I was teaching two courses as a visiting assistant professor in the university’s College of Education and was also interim director of the College of Education’s writing center. I am a native-English speaking white male who had recently completed my doctoral degree, in foreign language and ESL education, at the same university in August 2018. I met the participant in spring 2018 when, as a graduate student completing my dissertation, I also worked ten hours per week as a graduate student tutor in the writing center. As interim director of the writing center, I continued to tutor graduate students; it was during this time that the participant agreed to meet me to work on her TPS and other application materials. Another critical facet of my role was my own experience with statements of teaching philosophy. Although at the time of the study I was officially considered faculty, I had never sat on a selection committee or been involved in the hiring process. My knowledge of the TPS was limited to my own job applications (in fall 2017), and was thus distinctly one-sided. This placed both the participant and myself on the “applicant side” of the TPS as an occluded genre. 2.2. Study components and study timetable Hyunju and I met a total of 6 times over the course of 5 weeks in September-October 2018 (see Table 1); the meetings, which totaled about 5 h, ranged from 27−89 min. Our meetings coincided with the general timeframe within which Hyunju was attempting to complete and submit a few applications. The scheduling, timing, and number of meetings were determined by Hyunju. Hyunju would send me excerpts or a draft of her statement of teaching philosophy prior to our meetings, which took place in my office. Because this initial process was not dialogic, the possibility arose of my appropriating her work (Hyland & Hyland, 2006); however, the act of reviewing her writing with the MS Word “Comments” function to provide feedback in the margins (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2005; Ferris, 1997; Hyland, 1998) helped to reduce potential for acts of appropriation. To accomplish this, I did not issue directives noting what or how I felt Hyunju should revise; on the contrary, I offered forth questions for Hyunju to consider. During the meetings, I would display Hyunju’s draft on one of my computer’s two monitors; Hyunju also opened the same file on her laptop in order to make revisions during our discussions. The “Comments” function also served to bring potential errors (or otherwise points of confusion) to Hyunju’s attention. During our meetings, points of discussion included Hyunju’s concerns about the text genre; the process of drafting the letter; specific linguistic concerns; and revisions she made between meetings. During our interactions, I drew attention to vocabulary choices and grammar/syntax issues, as well as core components of the statement of teaching philosophy as documented in the literature, such as striving for individualism (Boye, 2012; Chism, 1998; Coppola, 2002) and grounding one’s statement in the discipline (Kaplan, et al., 2008; Montell, 2003b). Concurrently, Hyunju responded to my questions and concerns about her statement, and clarified for me some of the discipline-specific terminology and concepts she was attempting to incorporate into her writing. The process of the study was twofold. First, during our meetings, I recommended that Hyunju read her files aloud. Though one potential drawback of read-alouds is the L2 writer’s heightened sensitivity to pronunciation (Matsuda & Cox, 2009), Hyunju confirmed she felt comfortable with the process upon learning that the purpose of the read-alouds was to draw attention to facets of her writing. From these read-alouds, our discussions ensued. Second, between meetings, I encouraged Hyunju to read her drafts aloud alone; during subsequent meetings, she inquired about text excerpts she found problematic based on those independent read-alouds. The study was also bookended by pre- and post-study interviews (see Appendix A and B for interview questions). The purpose of the pre-study interview was twofold: first, to determine Hyunju’s concerns with and goals for writing her TPS; and second, to situate these concerns within the greater context of Hyunju’s academic status and background. The purpose of the post-study interview was to ascertain, through reflection, Hyunju’s feelings towards the utilization of dialogic interactions in our study. Both the pre- and poststudy interviews, as well as all in-study meetings, were audio recorded and transcribed. Throughout the study, Hyunju’s drafts were in an embryonic stage – for instance, the drafts were often incomplete, or the fully formed paragraphs, while functioning well independently, did not always cohere as part of a larger text. Consequently, the purpose of our meetings was not to complete the entire lifecycle of a text but to discuss and revise the text excerpts in question that Hyunju was concerned with. 2.3. Data analysis In our meetings, all interactions began with Hyunju reading aloud a text excerpt (e.g., sentence, paragraph). Because the purpose 2

A pseudonym. 4

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Table 1 Meeting times and dates. Meeting

Time

Date

1 2 3 4 5 6

27:15 78:39 34:47 54:49 48:38 50:44

September 17, 2018 September 21, 2018 September 24, 2018 October 5, 2018 October 19, 2018 October 22, 2018

of the study was to determine the potential role of our interactions in Hyunju’s efforts to write and revise her TPS, I attempted to categorize the scenarios in which dialogic interactions without scaffolding were employed. To accomplish this, I employed open, axial, and selective coding (see Fig. 1). Open coding entailed locating instances in which Hyunju’s reading of text excerpts was coupled with interactions. Axial coding involved identifying interactions in which I employed cognitive scaffolding (e.g., offering a clue regarding a grammar mistake); these were disregarded because they were not dialogic. Once I had identified instances in our interactions in which I had not employed scaffolding, I adopted selective coding by dividing those instances into one of two categories regarding my need for further understanding. The first category pertained to interactions in which my questions and our negotiations led to Hyunju maintaining the original meaning she had attempted to express in her draft, but revising her text to clarify that meaning. For instance, in an early draft, Hyunju had written the following sentence: “They discussed about explaining abstract geometric ideas to young students using familiar materials”; through our interaction, she would clarify the text by deleting “about explaining.” The second category pertained to interactions in which my questions and our negotiations led to Hyunju altering her meaning orally, and then revising her text to express that new meaning. For instance, in one of our interactions we discussed the following sentence: “The students are independent learners who actively construct knowledge through social interactions and that enables them to be aware of the importance of diversity”; through our negotiation, Hyunju would restructure the focus of her sentence to highlight her active role (via first-person “I”) in assisting students increase this awareness. I considered these interactions to be dialogic because of the presence of both 1) joint construction of meaning; and 2) the discursive nature that accompanied those constructions. 3. Results and discussion Despite my experience working in a writing center and my position as interim director of a writing center, I did not have – as a recent PhD graduate – extensive knowledge of the TPS genre. My participant, similarly, did not have readily available access to faculty to help her write her TPS. And though she understood the basic premise of the TPS, she grappled with the vagueness of the content, which stood in stark contrast to the coursework papers and articles she had written during her doctoral program. As she noted in our pre-study interview, I gathered some ideas from my advisor and friends [for the TPS], but everyone has their own style, so it’s hard to find my own style. I don’t know what I can put in the TPS, maybe it’s a kind of personal thing, but it’s hard to make myself attractive in terms of the job market. I’m not really worried about grammar. To this end, the purpose of examining dialogic interactions in this study was to determine their potential in helping the tutor and tutee co-construct knowledge within the context of the aforementioned circumstances. In this section, I discuss two major themes: 1) Hyunju’s crystallization of her thoughts and transference of those thoughts to writing; and 2) the establishment of an avenue through which Hyunju’s individuality or uniqueness could emerge. 3.1. Crystallization of thoughts, transference of thoughts to writing The first finding of this study centers on Hyunju’s increased awareness of and capacity to elucidate her thoughts and transfer them

Fig. 1. Two avenues of dialogic interactions. 5

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to writing. As a reminder, Hyunju chose to write about immersive learning environments in her TPS. Below, Interaction #1 begins with Hyunju reading aloud a text excerpt of her choice, followed by discussion (this format was typical of our interactions). Interaction #1. Hyunju: As a teacher,3 I developed adaptive teaching expertise through teaching diverse students in different countries, such as South Korea and the United States, and in different grade from elementary to post-secondary level. Researcher: Did you teach in several different grades in elementary school and several different levels in post-secondary? Hyunju: No. Only fifth grade in elementary, and then mostly secondary, like pre-service teachers. Researcher: Well you don’t mention the pre-service teachers here. Do you want to? Hyunju: I think it’s better to. This interaction served as both a sounding board through which Hyunju could learn about my struggles with the text (e.g., at which levels she developed her adaptive teaching skills) as well as a support mechanism through which she could flesh out content and bring to light richer detail of her text (e.g., mention of pre-service teachers). Based on this interaction, I encouraged Hyunju to incorporate her vocalization into her revised text. In her revision, Hyunju wrote: “As a teacher, I have developed adaptive teaching expertise through teaching diverse students in South Korea and the United States, from elementary and secondary students to pre-service university students.” Though Hyunju altered only a few words, the interaction prompted her to distill her thoughts and provide the type of detail a reader would seek about her teaching experience. In other instances, after reading a sentence or paragraph, Hyunju – unsolicited – would raise a concern. The ensuing interaction provides insight into my gaining a clearer understanding of the meaning Hyunju wanted to convey: Interaction #2. Hyunju: I will continue practicing my teaching philosophy to increase a consensus on the value of learning science by empowering learners to take ownership of learning. So I think there’s so many doubts in the one sentence because I want to say how I’m doing in the classroom, and then how that is meaningful to the society. So “increase a consensus on the value of learning science” is kind of… Researcher: Kind of what? Hyunju: I don’t know, it’s too far… Researcher: What do you mean by “far”? Hyunju: Because everyone knows if I kind of practice my adaptive teaching expertise, it will be helpful to society. So everyone will agree that the teaching is meaningful, so I’m not sure if I need to mention that part in the sentence, or… Researcher: Alright. And what do you mean by “increase of consensus”? Do you mean… Hyunju: An increase, like uh, get more agreement of the people or students that learning science is meaningful. Researcher: So get more agreement from the students, or the parents? Who is part of this consensus? Hyunju: At the beginning, I thought kind of two groups of people, like students and their parents, but I feel like it’s better to focus on students. In her final draft, Hyunju would revise the first sentence in Interaction #2 to “I will continue practicing my teaching philosophy to help students become independent learners and understand the value of learning science.” In another interaction, Hyunju described an activity she designed and taught in a public school science class to demonstrate immersive learning environments. In the activity, students likened technical science terminology to everyday items (e.g. cherry tomato nucleus, spaghetti noodle Golgi apparatus). Interaction #3. Hyunju: This activity enabled my students to overcome challenges from understanding intangible existence of cell organelles and unfamiliar scientific names. Researcher: What do you mean [by intangible existence]? Hyunju: Because the cell, the concept of cell organelle, students have never seen before… in biology we put so many images in the textbook, but that kind of image not even familiar to students, so it’s hard for them to engage in the concept. Researcher: So an intangible existence, does this mean you can’t see cell organelles, even under a microscope? You can only imagine them? Hyunju: No, you can see organelles through microscope, but it’s hard to experience in the classroom to students. In secondary level, we can only see cells. Actually, it’s the cell wall or cell membrane, but cell organelle is really for fancy technology. It’s really for scientists, it’s not for basic level… Researcher: Oh, so your students really can’t see it, right? Hyunju: Yeah. But maybe not “intangible”… Researcher: Yeah, it is tangible. I think you’re getting there. It’s not intangible existence, but what is it that you’re trying to do here? Hyunju: My goal of this activity is that I wish my students use these kinds of scientific terms, like nucleus and endoplasmic reticulum in their daily life, or they really understand the meaning of that term. So I want them to interact with the scientific term

3

Italicized text represents text that Hyunju read aloud. 6

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and then some kind of object in their daily life. In Interaction #3, Hyunju’s vocalization engendered more everyday language, enabling her not only to clarify her intended meaning of “intangible existence” but also to articulate the purpose behind the activity. Ultimately, Hyunju chose to forego the inclusion of “intangible existence” altogether in her final draft and instead highlight the importance for students to connect scientific concepts to everyday items. In her revision, she wrote, “This activity connected my students to scientific terms with real-life objects. They smoothly explained their cell organelle models using both scientific and everyday language.” One overarching theme that emerged as Hyunju utilized our interactions to help her clarify her thinking relates to writer-based prose and reader-based prose. Flower (1979) noted that writer-based prose is endemic to academic writing, defining it as “an undertransformed mode of verbal expression” that reflects the writer’s process and whose roots can be tied to a failure to “transform private thought into a public, reader-based expression” (p. 19). While writer-based prose is directed solely at the writer, reader-based prose reflects a deliberate effort not only to express thought, but to transform it as part of a larger effort to connect with the reader. As evidenced in Interaction #1, for instance, I sought more information about the contexts in which Hyunju developed her adaptive teaching expertise. Yet dialogic interaction illuminated that this lack of clarity was distinctly one-sided – Hyunju possessed all the necessary information to elaborate on these contexts, but she expressed it in a manner that presumed her readership was privy to the same information when it was not. Similarly, in Interaction #2, dialogic interaction afforded Hyunju the opportunity to better illustrate the intended recipients of her teaching philosophy. Finally, in Interaction #3, dialogic interaction aided Hyunju, through the explanation of a teaching activity, in elucidating her experiences with and perspectives on science education. By comparison, in text excerpts of her TPS unaccompanied by dialogic interactions, Hyunju’s heavy reliance on ambiguous terminology (e.g, “intangible existence”) and wording (“increase a consensus on”) camouflaged her true intentions; these are clear examples of undeveloped private thought. Hyunju’s early drafts of her TPS tended to reflect writer-based prose, but her read-alouds of those text drafts – and our ensuing interactions – acted as a conduit through which she could distinguish writer-based prose from reader-based prose and, in turn, begin to make appropriate adjustments to her writing. In our post-interview study, as she discussed her feelings about the role of dialogic interaction in revising her TPS, Hyunju alluded to the notion of an increased awareness of her readership: “I kind of learned how to have a talk with myself and to think about who I was writing for,” she said. “Before I just wrote for me.” Her response also suggests a more acute awareness of needing to “adopt interactional and evaluative positions, anticipating readers’ expectations and responses to participate in a virtual dialogue with them” (Hyland, 2004, p. 6). Fig. 2 illustrates this concept; in the visual, dialogic interactions act as a link between writer- and reader-based prose, specifically a support mechanism that aids the writer in moving from one to the other. Though writing helps students make connections between points of knowledge (Paul & Elder, 2005), dialogic interactions play a pivotal role in the writer’s developing awareness that a text must also convey to the reader that those points have been connected. Flower (1979) considers writer-based prose to be a “half-way place,” a stage in the composing process in which meaningful thoughts have begun to cohere for the writer but have yet to be fully articulated (p. 37). In this study, dialogic interaction served to bridge this “half-way place” – for Hyunju, our interactions functioned as a vocalized form of reader-based prose that helped to create a shared context between student and tutor, or writer and reader. As Hyunju and I constructed knowledge through dialogic interaction, Hyunju better positioned herself to address several key components of the TPS, namely to convey concepts and ideas (e.g., development of adaptive teaching skills; connecting scientific and everyday language) more properly in the context of a science education classroom. As Hyunju began to crystallize her thoughts through Interaction #2, for instance – as she revised “increase a consensus on the value of learning science” – her writing began to address one of the core facets of the TPS, namely an exposition of what effective teaching epitomizes (Schönwetter et al., 2002). Similarly, as a likely consequence of our dialogic interaction, Hyunju revised her TPS by fusing key concepts in science education with her pedagogical beliefs (e.g., discussing an activity in which students relate scientific terms and real-life objects). Hyunju thus provided her TPS the “specificity, disciplinary context, and rich, illustrative examples” a TPS requires (O’Neal et al., 2007, p. 4). Our dialogic interactions also afforded Hyunju an opportunity to engage in self-reflection, a vital component in the production of the TPS and one that students often lack (Schussler et al., 2011). In discussing (during our post-study interview) her thoughts on dialogic interaction, Hyunju alluded to the notion of self-reflection, stating, “Once I finished my draft, and then I started reading again, I kind of ask my question, I literally just say, I make sounds, ‘Do you really need this sentence?’ or ‘Do you think that expresses your ideas?’ And then once I hear my question, I think again about why I put the sentence and what the sentence means and then I try to mention my intentions.” In other words, Hyunju’s independent reflection seemed to emanate from her efforts to reenact the struggles she and I encountered during the study’s meetings. The focus of Hyunju’s questions to herself, regarding the use of wellwritten, clear language and avoidance of boilerplate language and buzzwords, is underscored in TPS studies that offer forth rubrics, exercises, or guidelines (e.g. Beatty et al., 2009; Boye, 2012; Goodyear & Allchin, 1998; Kaplan et al., 2008; Kearns & Sullivan, 2011;

Fig. 2. The role of dialogic interactions in helping the writer transition from writer- to reader-based prose. 7

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O’Neal et al., 2007; Schussler et al., 2011; Schönwetter et al., 2002). Hyunju was thus able to reframe her TPS to highlight her pedagogical philosophy and methods rather than simply namecheck key terms in her discipline without contextualizing them in a teaching context. 3.2. Striving for uniqueness Dialogic interactions also aided Hyunju in creating an avenue through which her individuality could emerge; in the TPS, individuality most closely aligns with the concept of voice. While older definitions of voice have been associated with style or an element of writing unique to the individual (Matsuda, 2015), more recent conceptions (within the realm of academic writing) are socially situated, taking into account the manifestation of voice as it relates to discourse and genre, and serve as an extension of the Bakhtinian notion of texts being infused with the multivoicedness of other texts (Tardy, 2012). Voice therefore pertains to the choices an academic writer makes. Voice, however, can also pertain to the reader, who constructs an impression of an author by reading their text (Matsuda & Tardy, 2007; Matsuda, 2001; Tardy, 2012). It is this latter point that receives focus in this study; however, the focus is not on my construction of an image representative of the author (since these traits were already known to me), but rather my perception of the intentional or unintentional elements of discursive and non-discursive linguistic features (Matsuda, 2001) that Hyunju injected into her final TPS draft, and the role that dialogic interaction played in raising her awareness of the revisions she would ultimately make. In her TPS, Hyunju wrote about “immersive learning environments,” a concept at the heart of both her dissertation, and by extension, her TPS, which summarized core components of her dissertation. In an early draft, she wrote the following: “As a teacher, I aim to create immersive learning environments where students develop their intellectual resources including scientific literacy and epistemology through engaging in learning practices. Argumentation is a key learning practice in my class to develop scientific knowledge as well as thinking skills. While conducting scientific investigation, students negotiate ideas to build valid argument based on claims and evidence. Students are independent learners who actively construct knowledge through social interactions, and that enables them to be aware of the importance of diversity.” I found this excerpt to be ordinary, as Hyunju chronicled general facets of scientific investigation rather than consolidate them with her teaching philosophy. Below, I ask her about the immersive learning environments she is espousing: Interaction #4. Researcher: Ok. And is immersive learning environment, is this a pretty common thing, or is this a very technical, lesser-known issue? Hyunju: I’d like to say it’s part of argument-based inquiry in science education. It’s really general term, so everyone just talk about argument-based inquiry, but I realize that many teachers misunderstand the argument-based inquiry because they think argument-based inquiry is just specific cookbook style, like instructional description… they didn’t really understand the purpose of argument-based inquiry. They really tried to get some superficial level of argument-based inquiry. So that’s why I put “immersive” in front of “learning environment” because I feel like teachers need to understand how students develop their ideas through argumentation. I don’t know, it’s kind of from the general term, but I want to make some special meaning. Researcher: Ok. So you said it’s scientific-based inquiry, and you’re saying some teachers misinterpret that or don’t use it quite correctly? Hyunju: Not at all. Their way of learning is memorizing scientific terms. And they feel like they learn something, but actually it doesn’t touch their thinking skills… they just increase their memorization for some terms. It’s not really about conceptual understanding. Researcher: The students, or the teachers? Hyunju: The teachers, as well. When they learn in their pre-service education or professional development workshop, teachers really want to memorize something instead of deeply understand the fundamental role of science education. I really want to push teachers to understand how, why science education or science learning is important in terms of developing teaching skills. Researcher: I have a question… The idea that you feel a lot of teachers, and then by connection their students, they don’t quite learn how to conduct scientific-based inquiry in a proper way. They do it only superficially. They memorize terms, or definitions of terms, but they don’t have good conceptual understandings, they don’t dig deeper. Do you explain that in your writing? Hyunju: I will. But not yet, not really. In the example above, dialogic interaction functioned as a conduit through which Hyunju began by simply defining immersive learning environments but then transitioned to a discussion where she laments how teachers do their students a disservice by not developing a deep understanding of how these environments play out in the classroom. Hyunju seems to address this tension in her final draft, as she describes how she, as a teacher, created a lesson in which students learned about the concept of living and nonliving by examining radishes she had brought to class. Through the anecdote, Hyunju illustrates how she embraced the practical application of an immersive learning environment in the classroom. A few excerpts are included: “Students generated questions and searched for the answers to the questions they developed. Students utilized non-scientific language to explain the concept of ‘living’ to their peers and persuade others by providing claims and evidence. In addition to verbal interactions, students wrote a letter to younger siblings to instruct them about the concept of living and non-living… Through this class, students practice how to utilize knowledge to solve problems by translating academic language to everyday 8

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language. Students develop ownership of learning through argumentation and translation.” In a similar interaction (below), Hyunju responds to a syntactic concern of mine: Interaction #5. Hyunju: In sum, teaching enables me to be a creative science educator who unceasingly improves pedagogical knowledge and skills to be adaptive. Interactions with diverse students allow me to engage in ‘teach-to-learn’ as I experience diverse classroom settings more, I increase adaptive teaching competence more. Hmm…as I experience diverse classroom settings more, I increase adaptive teaching competence more… I’m not sure whether this sounds ok. To me, it’s kind of I don’t know, not really clear. Researcher: I’m confused by the structure. So you first start with “Interactions with diverse students allow me to engage in ‘teachto-learn’…” So that’s one idea… I kind of feel like “Interactions with diverse students allow me to engage in ‘teach-to-learn’ as I experience diverse classroom settings more” but then you keep going… “I increase adaptive teaching competence more…” I feel there’s too many ideas here. Or, either this is two sentences, or you need to connect these ideas better. Hyunju: I need to connect these ideas. But I think I use so many words here. Researcher: Maybe what you want to say is good, but you need to change your wording. I don’t know. What do you want to say here? Hyunju: I just want to say that my diverse students experience, like um, mainly learn, I learn more whenever I teach. Kind of like I improve more whenever I interact with diverse students, you know? In this interaction, what began as a discussion about the muddled wording (“as I experience diverse classroom settings more, I increase adaptive teaching competence more”) of a run-on sentence shifted to Hyunju more aptly asserting how her teaching benefits from a diverse student body. In the final draft of her TPS, Hyunju would implement – almost verbatim – the wording that emanated from dialogic interaction. She wrote: “In sum, teaching enables me to be a creative science educator who unceasingly improves pedagogical knowledge and skills. I learn more when I interact with diverse students: I have improved my teaching expertise through ‘teach-to-learn.’” In considering Interactions #4 and #5, one point that merits discussion is the challenge of injecting voice into academic writing. In our pre-study interview, for instance, Hyunju noted she felt her voice had been compromised in writing her TPS by her conceptions of what academic writing entailed: People who read my journal article said it’s really interesting, that in the journal article, I put my thinking or my argument… And then I thought in the statement for the job application, I also put my thoughts, I think still it’s me… But when [people] read job application material, they said, “I cannot see you in your statement.” So I was really confused, because I feel like, oh, this sentence is still me, but why do they feel there’s nothing about me. And then I realized, oh, there’s a lack of story. And my passion, or my enthusiasm… not the emotional, but some kind of, how can I say, putting more of my, I don’t know, history? That was kind of missing in my application materials. In sum, in an effort to promote herself and demonstrate uniqueness, Hyunju struggled to transition from the “author-evacuated” prose (Geertz, 1988, as cited in Hyland, 2002) she had created through four years of writing in doctoral coursework, articles, and her dissertation proposal, to establishing a voice in her TPS that fused the main thrust of her dissertation and her pedagogical beliefs about science education. She continued: It’s been a really hard time to me to switch my voice to write job applications. [Academic writing is] really hiding my voice. I really trained to write that kind of writing through four years in the coursework and in the journal article, so I feel like, oh, that’s going to be my typical English writing. Oh, this is the perfect form of English writing. Yet, as evidenced through Interactions #4 and #5, dialogic interaction served as a means for her voice to emerge. Interaction #4 seemed to aid Hyunju in recognizing the gap between simply defining an immersive learning environment and strategically situating such an environment in her teaching philosophy as an expression of how she envisions herself as a teacher. In a similar fashion, in Interaction #5, dialogic interactions facilitated Hyunju’s efforts to counter a more academic-sounding text with a clear description (“I improve more whenever I interact with diverse students”) that touched upon her pedagogical philosophy. Matsuda (2001) noted that L2 students – namely those who hail from backgrounds of different rhetorical traditions – may struggle to reconcile their background with the Western tradition of individualism in autobiographical accounts, but may gradually begin to recognize these differences with increased exposure. In this sense, dialogic interaction seemed to act as a bridge for Hyunju, one that provided me access to her thoughts, which in turn aided her in conceptualizing some of the indefiniteness of her writing (Bowden, 1995). 4. Conclusion Previous studies, in an effort to ease the burden of writing a TPS for students, have undertaken a wide variety of approaches, from categorizing key elements of the TPS to providing tips or exercises. Yet many students face the reality of not having access to consistent or detailed feedback as they write and revise their TPS. To this end, few studies have explored how students can progress through drafts of their TPS when they cannot turn to faculty mentors for assistance. Accordingly, the origins of this study formed from 9

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a context approximating a tutor-tutee dyad of a writing center. Specifically, this study examined the role of dialogic interactions in aiding both a graduate student, who was unfamiliar with the TPS genre and did not have access to available faculty to receive feedback on her drafts; and a visiting assistant professor who, while an experienced tutor knowledgeable in writing center best practices, lacked expertise in the field of science education as well as the TPS genre. In investigating the potential effects of dialogic interactions, I identified two main themes from the findings. First, our dialogic interactions served as a channel for Hyunju, through verbalization, to crystallize her thoughts and transfer that clarity to her writing. These steps towards writerly autonomy become particularly important in writing center dyads, which may impede students’ writing progress in instances when the tutor lacks subject-area expertise (Mackiewicz, 2004). Hyland (2004) notes that written texts represent the “acting out of a dialogue” (p. 22). In this regard, our dialogic interactions provided the stage upon which Hyunju could experiment with her drafts. Similarly, Wallace (1994) asserted that “asking students to verbalize their intentions for writing makes at least some of their goals – and the thinking that underlies those goals – available for observation and negotiation” (p. 214). In this study, our interactions did indeed aid Hyunju in making her goals available for observation and negotiation, but they went one step further as well, helping Hyunju to seemingly assert (or reassert) the perspectives she wanted to convey in her writing. Hyunju’s increased awareness of – and in turn, conveyance of – these perspectives engendered the study’s second theme, namely the emergence of Hyunju’s voice in her writing. As Hyunju began to recognize her individuality through our interactions, she was able to more fluidly transfer her voice to her writing and consequently avert some of the rhetorical hazards commonly associated with the TPS, such as the use of jargon and vague prose. These findings highlight the value of dialogic interactions in the process of both drafting and revising a TPS. First, owing to the nature of a dyad in which the tutor is not well-versed in the genre or content of the student’s writing, the tutor begins to assume a more peripheral role, namely one of consultancy or readership, as the tension that derives from the joint construction of meaning in dialogic interaction enables the writer to play a more active role in clarifying the intended meaning behind a text and the direction it should take. Second, as this peripheral role forms, the tutee bears an increased responsibility to clarify their thoughts and connect with their readership. To this end, dialogic interactions play a pivotal role in helping a writer to bring more precision and articulation to their writing, especially in the embryonic stages of drafting. Third, these findings have implications for the arduous transition from voiceless academic prose to a genre in which the writer’s voice is placed at the fore. Particularly for occluded genres of this nature, as the tutee’s voice begins to emerge, the tutee is less likely to depend on the tutor for feedback or advice; rather, the tutee utilizes the dialogic interactions facilitated by the tutor to look inward for the discovery of ideas that the tutor wishes to see in the written text. Kearns and Sullivan (2011) affirm that a collaborative writing process can positively impact both the content and the readability of a writer’s TPS. Yet dialogic interactions, in arguably a behind-the-scenes role, render speaking critical to the process as well. It is also worth noting that graduate students will likely encounter other occluded genres, such as grant applications and responses to reviewers (Swales, 1996); other examples, such as personal statements and diversity statements, may vary based on discipline- or institution-specific norms. Though it is highly unlikely that graduate students, particularly multilingual graduate students, will have a firm understanding of how to engage with these occluded genres, it is equally unrealistic to expect writing center tutors, as graduate students themselves, to be familiar with them. In short, writing center tutors and multilingual graduate students possess specialized fields of knowledge, and more often than not these fields will differ. In these situations, tutors must consider the tutees’ knowledge as a vital resource, one that not only educates the tutor on content but serves to empower the tutee as they strive to improve their writing. Dialogic interaction thus has the potential to aid writing tutoring dyads to construct meaning of texts in scenarios involving these genres. Several limitations to the study also deserve focus. First, though several facets of our relationship likely affected its hierarchical status (e.g., my being visiting faculty, Hyunju being a graduate student; English as my L1, English as Hyunju’s L2), other facets likely affected the positive results of the study. For instance, my relationship with Hyunju was already established, as I had become acquainted with Hyunju in the academic year prior to the semester in which the study took place, when I was a graduate student/ writing tutor. However, this type of relationship has become increasingly common in writing center dyads, particularly when both the tutor and tutee are students, and when the relationship is strengthened over several semesters’ or even years’ worth of appointments. Second, the length of the study was short and the number of appointments few; still, this scenario accurately reflected the primary application period (i.e. fall) and the tight turn-around time that graduate students face as they juggle applications with dissertation writing, graduate assistantships, and other duties. This reality notwithstanding, richer data would likely have been procured from a longer study, one in which more time and structure had been allotted to the participant’s writing rather than being wholly at the mercy of the constraints of the participant’s schedule. A third limitation of this study – and one that offers valuable potential for future research – is the narrow scope this study entailed by not examining Hyunju’s entire TPS writing process, from start to finish. While this reflected her lived reality of a graduate student (i.e., her application deadlines could not be adjusted to fit our meetings), richer data would likely be gleaned from a study that investigated the utilization of dialogic interactions more holistically, beginning with the formation of outlines and early drafts. Though the verbalization of ideas would need to undergo significant changes to register and syntax as they transferred to writing, the documentation of these ideas initially through speech rather than writing (or as a complement to writing) may help to create a more solid foundation for the TPS itself.

Funding This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 10

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Declaration of Competing Interest None. Appendix A. Pre-study Interview Questions 1. 2. 3. 4.

What What What What

were your concerns about writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy (STP)? were your concerns about filling out job applications? linguistic concerns did you have with the STP? were your goals in our meetings?

Appendix B. Post-study Interview Questions 1. 2. 3. 4.

How did the dialogic interactions aid you in writing your STP? How did the dialogic interactions aid you in revising your STP? Did the dialogic interactions create any tensions or challenges for you? Moving forward, how might the dialogic interactions affect your writing habits?

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