An Analysis of Responses to Language Variation on Student Papers

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Social Justice and Equity in Classroom Practices

Abstract

The purpose of this study was thus to investigate how different priorities for language instruction, such as teaching dominant conventions and teaching linguistic flexibility, are realized in responding to student writing. I used qualitative content analysis to systematically describe responses to linguistic features on student papers from three writing instructors. I conducted an interview with each participant to serve as a preliminary dataset. Results demonstrated that instructor comments emphasized correcting linguistic features consistent with standard language ideologies and that participant interviews and shared course objectives presented linguistic features as more variable than did comments. These results suggest the need to incorporate specific models of commenting strategies into existing sociolinguistic variationist models of writing at the curricular and instructional level.

Author

• Hannah Franz, Virginia Commonwealth University