Language patterns in secondary and postsecondary student writing

Abstract

For as long as new college students have written English, they have done so badly. Or so, at least, is the headline story from 19th century Harvard reports to 21st century coverage. These claims keep us firmly in a language regulation paradigm focused on error, rather than a language exploration paradigm focused on knowledge and analysis: We hear a lot of complaints about what student writers can’t do, but we don’t learn much about what characterizes secondary and postsecondary writing. To do something different, this study uses DocuScope’s language cluster tool and two corpora (of incoming student Dirscted Self Placement writing and upper-level student writing, to three ends: (1) to illustrate language exploration as a productive (and fun!) orientation toward student writing at different levels, (2) to connect abstracted claims – alleged reasons that “new college students can’t write” – to rhetorical patterns in actual students’ writing, and (3) to use empirical writing data to debunk myths about college writing development. Ultimately, the study shows significant rhetorical differences between secondary and postsecondary writing that are linked to the different assignment tasks at each level. It also shows how we can use DocuScope language clusters to support students’ metacognitive awareness of secondary and postsecondary writing practices