Using Hirvela’s Reading/Writing Connections as a Tool for the Evaluation of Academic Writing Courses

John Harper

doi:10.4236/ojml.2021.113032

Abstract

This article reports on a study aimed at the implementation of a tool for the evaluation of academic writing courses for second language writers (L2 writers). Specifically, the main principles of the text Connecting Reading and Writing in Second Language Instruction (Hirvela, 2016) are implemented in the evaluation of a previously designed academic writing course in the English Language Center (ELC) of Shantou University (STU), a key provincial university located in Guangdong Province, China. The study is first contextualized within the larger framework of course evaluation and is placed within the realm of narrow, formative assessments. Afterwards, the core principles of Hirvela’s work are identified. These principles are applied in step-by-step fashion to the chosen academic writing course, with successes and lack of successes of the course being acknowledged. The paper then concludes by providing an overall picture of the usefulness of Hirvela’s principles in evaluating academic writing courses. The significance of institutional and cultural environments is emphasized.

Highlights

In the well-known academic writing text They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Graff and Birkenstein (2018) makes the following comment: “If it weren’t for other people and our need to challenge, agree with, or otherwise respond to them, there would be no need to respond to them at all” (p. 4)
The main principles of the text Connecting Reading and Writing in Second Language Instruction (Hirvela, 2016) are implemented in the evaluation of a previously designed academic writing course in the English Language Center (ELC) of Shantou University (STU), a key provincial university located in Guangdong Province, China
Given the significance of reading/writing connections for success in L2 academic writing, this paper presents a study in which the main principles of Hirvela’s (2016) second edition of Connecting Reading and Writing in Second Language Instruction are considered as a tool for evaluating academic writing courses intended for second language writers (L2 writers)

Summary

Introduction

In the well-known academic writing text They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Graff and Birkenstein (2018) makes the following comment: “If it weren’t for other people and our need to challenge, agree with, or otherwise respond to them, there would be no need to respond to them at all” (p. 4). Student writers need to be constantly in dialogue with other texts in order to produce their own academically relevant texts. This dialogue requires a clear understanding of other texts, an application of those texts to the particular writing task, and a transformation of those texts in such a way as to allow the writer him/herself to engage in his/her own process of meaning-making (see Wette, 2010). Such a “joint effort” calls for an ability to produce “text-responsible prose” in a manner acceptable to the academic community outside of the learners’ particular writing classes As Gu and Brooks (2008) point out, this effort requires “a conceptual understanding of knowledge construction and conventions in the dominant academic community” (p. 338, italics as in original)

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