DESIGNING & Teaching for Writing Transfer
Workshop 1 / 3
--Michael Rifenburg
*some material taken from Yancey et al's July 2016 CWPA workshop
What is Transfer?
Thorndike & Woodworth (1900s). Both psychologists
direction application / mimicry of tasks = identical element theory
...
Perkins & Salomon (1990s)
expansive vocabulary of binaries
near v far
low-road v high road
negative v positive
...
big take-home points for P & S
"Education can be designed to honor these conditions and achieve transfer"
--from "Transfer of Learning." In International Handbook of Educational Research. 1994.
...
National Research Council's How People Learn
prior knowledge
all "new learning involves transfer based on previous learning" (53).
transfer as dynamic process--not end product
learner agency and decision-making
A Pause
What stands out to you in this brief transfer research trajectory we covered?
How might the concept of negative transfer change how you work with learners (not just the students in your class)?
Where do you think writing researchers are going to take these ideas?
Writing transfer
about a decade of work
Does not "cross contexts" Yancey, Robertson, Taczak
Faculty & transfer
Wardle (2007)
Students & Transfer
Bergmann & Zepernick (2007)
But
Elon University Research Seminar Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer
2011-2013
45 international researchers
drafted statement on transfer and designing conditions and contexts for explicitly teaching for transfer
Elon Statement
At the close
It's hard
It's messy
It's fluid
but
It's necessary & possible
Next
What does transfer look like in a writing class?
Big points
You will write again for work / school. Everyone writes.
BUT every job / major writes a little differently.
So how can a general class like this prepare you for future writing, for transfer of learning?
An answer: key terms
Our key terms
audience
genre
rhetorical situations
exigence
knowledge
discourse community
context
reflection