Composition Course Research Articles

A Functional Grammar Approach to Analysing Asian Students’ Writing

This paper compares aspects of Singaporean and PRC students’ writing at the university level while enrolled in the freshman composition courses. These aspects involve instances of nominalization, theme, and use of modals (or their inappropriate usage) at various parts of the essays submitted by these students. These items are measured and reported in percentages as to gain greater insight to the depth of similarities and differences between the two sets of writing. In addition, the author is concerned that idiosyncractic usage of such anomaly in writing impedes comprehension when reading and is hardly audience-centred. It is noteworthy that the writing of Singaporean and Chinese students do produce various interesting similarities and differences, possibly attributable to their sociolinguistic and educational backgrounds. The implications of the results are analysed and discussed, with possible pedagogical solutions suggested in order to overcome difficulties of teaching separate students with different linguistic abilities.

Designing a Problem-Based Learning Intermediate Composition Course

We used Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as a new pedagogy in an intermediate composition course. Our course design was based in constructivist pedagogical practices, which suggest that knowledge is co-created through social interactions. Although professors have much to offer students, students can also learn important lessons through interactions with their peers. PBL makes it easier to implement the social and collaborative aspects of writing. Students began with a traditional teacher-led essay and progressed to subsequent writing assignments representing a variety of genres produced while working in teams. All three problems required students to independently apply student learning outcomes by analysing the writing situation for the concepts of discourse community, genre, and rhetoric. Each assignment was assessed using a rubric aligned with the course student learning outcomes. Students also completed self-assessments after each assignment. PBL allowed students to apply what they were learning in the classroom to contexts beyond the classroom in an immediate and relevant way. This article describes how PBL can enhance the development of an intermediate composition course.

Implementing 21st Century Literacies in First-Year Composition

This case study of the authors’ process of curricular innovation, assessment, and redesign provides guidance to colleagues seeking to implement 21st century literacies into their own objectives for first-year composition courses.

Writing teachers’ perceptions of the presence and needs of second language writers: An institutional case study

First-year composition in U.S. higher education has been a major site of L2 writing research. Despite the historical division between mainstream first-year composition and L2 writing, there has been an increasing interest in integrating insights from L2 writing research into the professional literature in rhetoric and composition and writing program administration. Yet, a majority of composition courses are taught by those who are not specialists in these fields, and their level of awareness is yet to be examined. To investigate writing teachers’ perceptions of the presence and needs of L2 writers, we conducted a perception survey of teachers of both mainstream and L2 sections of first-year composition courses. The findings show that writing teachers do recognize the presence and needs of L2 writers, and more than a few teachers were enthusiastic about working with this student population. At the same time, many teachers—including those who taught L2 writing sections—did not make any special provisions to address the unique needs of L2 writers. The findings also show that teachers’ ability to address L2 writers’ needs were constrained by program policies, lack of common teaching and assessment materials, and professional preparation opportunities. This study suggests the need to better understand the specific needs of teachers in order to address the needs of their students.

Students’ Perceptions of Assignments and Feedback in an Online English Composition Course

Students’ Perceptions of Assignments and Feedback in an Online English Composition Course

Bridging passion and profession: Supporting agency and investment in multilingual university writers

Throughout the last two decades, scholarship discussing learner development and autonomy has expanded from viewing the learner as one who possesses intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to a performer who to varying degrees invests as an agent in the learning process, particularly when able to pursue her or his passions. With this expansion in mind, the authors sought to look back at the trajectory of their experiences in a second language communication and composition course in order to more deeply understand the roles of agency and investment in their own and fellow classmates' learning. As such, this research examines the role of project-based learning activities that attempt to bridge the learners' personal passions and professional interests. Seven student-researchers reported via written narrative how such a bridging approach in the multilingual writing environment supported learner investment and agency. Student responses speak to the need for a stronger sense of connection among their disciplinary studies, personal interests, and even instructors, and highlight the ways in which investment and agency are associated with ideas about learner affect, learner identity, learner autonomy and language acquisition.

Personality Types and Megabytes

This article describes the results of a pilot study to examine the attitudes of university students toward the use of computer mediated communication in their French Conversation and Composition course. Student perceptions are examined in the light of their personality types as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Quantitative and qualitative data validate that both I (introvert) and E (extrovert) personality types generally perceive the use of LAN (local area network) as a beneficial experience.

Liminal Spaces and Research Identity

This article argues that prevailing approaches to research instruction in introductory composition courses, as represented in print and digital instructional materials, reflect outdated theoretical views and may damage students’ researcher identity. Teaching research as a closed, linear, universal process prevents students from leaving the liminal space of the composition classroom.

Rethinking First Year English as First Year Writing Across the Curriculum

David Russell famously used the metaphor of ball handling in sports activities to demonstrate how composition courses oversimplify ideals of writing. To try to teach students to improve their writing by taking a GWSI [General Writing Skills Instruction] course, Russell wrote, something like trying to teach people to improve their ping-pong, jacks, volleyball, basketball, field hockey, and so on by attending a course in general ball using (58). As Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle have also argued, thinking about writing as a general or basic skill often results in forms of writing-instruction that reifies features of writing, such as syntax, mechanics, and process. Downs and Wardle argue, It is often assumed that ‘skills’ or moves such as taking a position, building arguments, developing paragraphs, and writing clear and forceful sentences are ‘general writing skills’ that transfer across all situations (579). The reality, according to Downs and Wardle, is that even if some elements of writing are shared across disciplines, these elements vary radically across disciplines, and therefore can only meaningfully be taught within a discipline (579).

골프코스의 이종잔디 조성과 혼입 현황

한국잔디로 조성된 국내 골프코스에서 한지형잔디의 사용증가로 이종잔디의 혼입이 증가하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 전국 50곳의 골프코스들을 조사하여 이종잔디 식재와 혼입 현황을 파악하였다. 조사한 골프코스들 중에서 이종잔디가 1 종류 이상 혼입된 곳은 47곳으로 나타났으므로, 이종잔디의 혼입 문제는 전국 거의 모든 골프코스에서 발생하는 것으로 사료되었다. 이종잔디의 혼입은 한국잔디에서 크리핑벤트그래스와 켄터키블루그래스의 혼입 가능성이 있는 37곳 중 각각 25곳과 33곳, 켄터키블루그래스에서 크리핑벤트그래스의 혼입 가능성이 있는 47곳 중 43곳에서 발생하였다. 한편, 이종잔디의 혼입(한국잔디에 크리핑벤트그래스의 혼입, 한국잔디에 켄터키블루그래스의 혼입, 또는 켄터키블루그래스에 크리핑벤트그래스의 혼입)이 발생한 골프클럽 중 한 종류의 혼입이 나타난 곳은 14곳, 두 종류가 나타난 곳은 12곳, 세 종류 모두가 나타난 곳은 21곳이었다. The majority of turfgrass composition of golf courses are zoysiagrass, and mingle with cool-season turfgrasses have been increased. As result of mingling the species, invading problem has been raised. In this study, 50 golf courses nationwide were surveyed of grass composition and invading problem with hetero-species of turfgrasses. Among the courses, 47 golf courses have invading problem with more than one species at least. The invading problem has been issued most of golf course in nationwide. Thirty-seven courses composited with zoysiagrass; at 25 courses showed creeping bentgrass invading and at 33 courses were invaded by kentucky bluegrass. Among 47 kentucky bluegrass composition courses, 43 courses had creeping bentgrass invading problem. Invading problem within the grass species (creeping bentgrass in zoysiagrass, kentucky bluegrass in zoysiagrass, creeping bentgrass in kentucky bluegrass); 14, 12, and 21 courses were detected single species, two species, and three species invading problem, respectively.

Public Internet Forums: Can They Enhance Argumentative Writing Skills of Second Language Learners?

AbstractImproving university students’ writing skills is always a challenge. In a third‐year French composition course, the researchers introduced the use of public Internet discussion forums to see if that would help achieve the argumentative writing skills goals that were set for this study. The results show that participation in the forums had a positive influence on students’ argumentative skills. The forums forced them to choose a topic, read about it, obtain different points of view, and develop their own, therefore entering a community of practice where language accuracy was important. Students felt that it was beneficial to their intercultural competence and that it had a positive impact on their confidence to use their second language because they were able to interact with native speakers.

Peer Review Comments Provided by High- and Low-Proficiency L2 Learners: A Comparative Study

This study explored the variations in peer review comments provided by L2 writers of high and low proficiencies. Two sampling procedures were used. First, convenience sampling was used to locate a college essay composition course as the setting of the study. Second, purposeful sampling was used to identify high- and low-performing writers as the subjects, from whom the peer review comments were collected and analyzed. An instruction-learning cycle on argumentative essay writing was conducted for 4 weeks. Each student was subsequently provided with the same sample argumentative essay and a peer review form to conduct the review. The rubrics on the review form included introduction, support for position, sequence, refutation, conclusion, voice, and grammar and spelling. Content analysis was conducted to compare the manner in which the comments varied among students of different writing proficiency levels. The results indicate that, although identifying problems was the dominant comment type of both high- and low-performing writers, high-performing writers tended to provide more details when explaining the identified problems and offering suggestions for revisions. The findings are discussed regarding the implications to peer review training.

From Form to Meaning: Freshman Composition and the Long Sixties, 1957–1974 by David Fleming (review)

David Fleming. From Form to Meaning: Freshman Composition and the Long Sixties, 1957-1974. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. 273 pp. As I started reading From Form to Meaning, a book discussing in great detail the ups and downs of one course at one U.S. university during one decade, I kept asking myself why instructors of first-year English courses at Canadian colleges and universities today would find this text useful. After all, Freshman Composition is widespread in the United States but few Canadian institutions require all their students to take such a course. In addition, the cultural contexts and historical events that have influenced courses offered today at U.S. institutions differ greatly from those that have influenced the creation and development of courses at Canadian institutions. Why, then, should everyone involved in the teaching of writing and literature to postsecondary students read this book? First, because it is a captivating historical account of an era punctuated by momentous events whose effects have spread farther than one state or one country. Second, because learning about what has happened at other institutions may help reformulate and clarify what has happened and is still happening at our own institutions. Third, and most importantly, because the conversations that were taking place at the University of Wisconsin (uw) during the long sixties are still taking place today ... in our own institutions. The discussions presented in From Form to Meaning revolve around a number of topics and questions that are familiar to anyone involved in higher education. For example, is the literacy level of younger generations declining? Are high school teachers responsible for not getting their students ready to meet the demands of higher education? What is the responsibility of the university as a whole and of individual departments in teaching students to think, write, speak, and read well? Should first-year students all take the same universally required course to ensure some homogeneity amongst students at the same institution? Should first-year English courses focus content (for example, literature) or form (for example, grammar and style)? How do we decide who needs remedial help and who does not? How do you support a student population that is increasingly diverse in socio-cultural and educational backgrounds and needs? Who should teach undergraduate courses and how should these people be trained, supervised, and evaluated? How can graduate teaching assistants (tas) juggle with being at the same time instructors and students themselves? How can tenure-track and tenured professors focus the pressures of research and publication while still remaining involved in undergraduate education? These are some of the many critical and often-controversial questions heatedly discussed at the uw in the sixties, but, as Fleming explains, his is a study done on the assumption that the example (the 'case') is in some way typical of a broader phenomenon (21). For his case study, Fleming thoroughly investigated hundreds of documents (such as department meeting minutes, memos, newspaper articles) and other voices (including a number of tas) to tell this story--a truly impressive accomplishment (at times it reads like a mystery novel). These many voices show how the unsteady times in U.S. history (the launch of the Sputnik, the Vietnam war) and the history of the University of Wisconsin itself (riots, bombings, strikes) were the perfect background for a profound pedagogical revolution that ultimately led to the elimination of the Freshman Composition course, English 102, in 1969 and for the next twenty-five years. The book starts with a discussion about the concerns of Harvard faculty regarding the literacy levels of their incoming students and the first Freshman Composition course that was created there in the 1870s in response to these concerns. …

Learner–Corpus Interaction: A Locus of Microgenesis in Corpus-assisted L2 Writing

This paper examines the processes through which learners interact with a corpus system and microgenetic development emerges from the interaction. The corpus system described in this paper is capable of retrieving highly relevant textual examples tailored to individual needs. Data were collected from an undergraduate ESL composition course in North America for one semester while students interacted with the system. Using exploratory techniques that triangulate on real-time screen recordings, corpus queries, and oral/written reflections, this paper documents these interactions as evidencing each learner’s efforts to resolve issues by retrieving, evaluating, and appropriating the corpus search results. The findings show that the learner’s achievements depend both on their ability to interpret and exploit the search results and on the corpus system’s ability to respond to the learner’s particular needs. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that corpus-based research should focus on maximizing the learner’s developmental potential by developing more advanced corpus systems and enhancing the learner’s textual awareness and analytical ability.

Talking Back to the Regents

Upon entering college composition courses, students often report a dislike for writing. Because researchers report that writing anxiety may be linked to high-stakes writing exams, a study of graduates of New York high schools was conducted to investigate whether the state's Regents Comprehensive Examination in English shapes attitudes or assumptions about writing. For this study, first-year writing students responded to a prompt that asked them to reconstruct an essay they wrote for the exam, as well as their feelings before, during, and after writing the essay. Evidence suggests that most students strongly dislike taking the exam. Preparing for and responding to it may impart lessons contradictory to objectives of many first-year writing programs. Most students report critical engagement with the test question but suppress critical commentary in their official responses so as to please the imagined graders, whom most students conflate with the specific audience posited by the question. The study indicates that open-form, experimental writing about standardized writing exams at the outset of the semester may help students transform resistance to writing from a general feeling to an attitude associated with a particular memory and, thus, may help clear the air for the work of college-level writing.

Revision and Collapse

Revision and Collapse David LeGault (bio) I am writing from my third-floor cubicle at the University of Minnesota. A few yards away, the din of renovation overwhelms the building’s corridors while several classrooms are gutted and remodeled. The chemical smell of latex paint seeps under my office door, curved chunks of ductwork lie scattered across scratched linoleum. Staccato bursts from power tools chip away at the plaster, grinding walls into a fine dust that leaves the floors slick and matted. The false ceiling tiles have all been removed, exposing a true apex much higher than expected, wires and plumbing twisting from room to room—and truth be told, I prefer this transitional geometry to the textured grays and blunt fluorescent lighting that normally fill the space. Construction is everywhere. In the past month I have missed buses because of detoured routes, have woken to the sounds of jackhammers tearing up the street outside my bedroom window, have watched bearded men in neon vests flip signs from Stop to Slow to Stop again. A mile from my desk sits the newly constructed Saint Anthony Falls Bridge, across the Mississippi River, replacing the stretch of highway that collapsed under the weight of rush hour traffic roughly two years ago. Since then, all local bridges have been evaluated for structural integrity, and as a result, the main bridge across my campus, the same bridge where poet John Berryman jumped to his death, has been partially closed for preventative maintenance. This has caused an influx of human traffic jams, and vaguely repressed anxiety whenever I walk across the expanse, wondering how long it would last without repair if we let nature take it back into churning waters below. I find myself trapped between love and trepidation—a need for silence against the affecting sounds of revision, [End Page 109] the fascination with process, with progress, with transitioning from now to something new, recursive. I try to envision a time with no construction. Stagnation. A world where we can have everything at once, uninterrupted, without the glimmer of failure. I am writing while sprawled across my couch, having had far too much to drink, doing whatever I can to delay creating a syllabus for my freshman composition course. The course is remarkably unstructured compared to the college’s other offerings, taught by graduate students who, like myself, don’t necessarily feel prepared to educate uninterested students a few years our junior. Teachers living week-to-week in an incongruity of authority and ignorance, and as a result the subject and theme of each section vary significantly. But instead of finalizing a syllabus or even choosing a textbook, I find myself downing 40 ounces of La Fin du Monde, meaning “The End of the World,” a fitting name for the Unibrou’s high alcohol content that occasionally destroys me , in front of my laptop, repeatedly clicking the “Random article” link on Wikipedia. I spend entirely too much time here, amending articles, studying the unique dynamics of the Wikipedia Community, consuming it. Here I must admit that I use Wikipedia and YouTube as substantial (if not primary) sources for most of my own projects, including all forthcoming information regarding collapsing bridges, CNN transcripts, and various other failings of infrastructure. This, I suppose, constitutes an entirely different set of implications than those found in the academic five-paragraph bullshit I’m trying to teach my students to forget. As a frequent Wikipedia saboteur editor, I spend a lot of time considering the methods of vandalism corrupting the site: blanked articles, embedded links to improper sources, pornography, the excessive use of profanity that plagues an otherwise credible source of information. Although most of this content is easily found and eliminated (avoided by those in search of “verifiable data”), the new trend among vandals consists of full-blown manipulation. These false revisionists are creating third-party websites and self-published books full of false information that meet and often exceed the necessary Wikipedia qualifications for what’s considered verifiable, meaning it exists outside of the digital world, exists as hard copy and artifact. This vandalism causes the line between truth and fiction to become irrevocably blurred. One [End...

Critical Building Blocks: Mandatory Prerequisite Registration Systems and Student Success

Many colleges and universities require prerequisites prior to enrollment in introductory composition courses; however, enforcement of prerequisites is not consistent across institutions. In this study, we examine the impact of an automated, mandatory prerequisite enforcement system on students and advisors at a public comprehensive university. Results indicate that prerequisite systems are positively associated with student outcomes including improved GPAs and retention rates; furthermore, while functioning similarly to prescriptive advising, prerequisite systems can also facilitate developmental advising relationships between students and academic advisors.

An Unexpected Resonance: Exploring Gender through Victorian Literature in the Middle East

An Unexpected Resonance:Exploring Gender through Victorian Literature in the Middle East Elyssa Warkentin (bio) In 2007, the University of Calgary opened a nursing branch campus in Doha, Qatar, offering the first accredited bachelor of nursing program in the country. Qatar is a tiny Islamic state on the Persian Gulf; the progressive educational policies of its hereditary emir have made it a leader in the fields of higher education and research in the Middle East. As the new nursing program matured, it became apparent that students both desired and required a breadth of educational opportunities parallel to their Canadian counterparts. In 2009, I was hired to teach literature “option” courses to ucq’s nursing students (“option” faculty members from other disciplines were also hired). I arrived in the middle of a sweltering Doha summer with significant professional trepidation and more questions than anyone already on the ground was able to answer. I work in the areas of Victorian studies and gender theory. How, I wondered, could I interest my students in a time period and a literature so far removed from their own experiences and their chosen discipline? How could I approach gender issues in my classroom while respecting local taboos surrounding public discussions of gender and sexuality? Should I even try? How could I teach British literature in the Middle East, given the dangerous historical context of Orientalism and imperialism? And perhaps most basically, how could I convince students from a rich oral culture—many of whom had never studied English literature before, nor even read an English novel—the value of reading itself? My task, it seemed, was large. I spent my first semester orienting myself, teaching general composition courses, and getting to know the students, while simultaneously considering and discarding endless ideas for themes for my first literature course the following semester. In the end, I alighted upon the idea of a nursing-in-literature course. The subject matter, I hoped, would appeal to our nursing students and since the professionalization of nursing occurred during the Victorian period, I would have a chance to teach some of the texts I love. Happily, I compiled a course book packed with text excerpts of every Victorian nurse I could think of (Dickens’s Mrs. Gamp is a favourite), as well as more contemporary examples. The course should start, I thought, with a unit on Florence Nightingale, the reformer of Victorian practices and undisputed mother of modern nursing—though I greatly feared that beginning the course with what I considered to be rather dry historical texts would put the students off. Our students are largely Arabic speakers with varying degrees of fluency in English, and I expected mid-Victorian medical diction to challenge and perhaps frustrate them. [End Page 9] As it turned out, I need not have worried. I had hoped that students might be mildly interested in Nightingale’s then-revolutionary belief in evidence-based nursing practice, or her writings on power relations between doctors and nurses. To my great surprise, however, students responded immediately and viscerally to Nightingale’s life story, and her 1859 nursing textbook Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not was the unquestioned favourite of the entire semester. “Florence,” as they called her with affectionate familiarity, resonated profoundly with my students in ways that often surprised me. The discussions taught me much about my students’ lives—and also about a text I thought I had thoroughly understood. And fascinatingly, for me, our discussions about Nightingale’s life opened a safe space in the classroom for consideration of gender issues to which I, as a Western authority figure, might never otherwise have had access. We began our Nightingale unit with a lecture on the historical and social context of the Victorian era and then moved on to read excerpts from several biographies. Students read about Nightingale’s life-long desire for education and her career ambition, as well as the dismay of her family when she announced her intention of becoming a nurse. In one biography, Gamaliel Bradford writes, She had the battle with family prejudice which so many ardent reformers have to go through. Public nursing? The idea was horrible...

Anatomists provide the foundation for learning pathophysiology.

The need for interdisciplinary graduate training programs which prepare students to conceptualize the application of their research in clinical settings continues to grow. Though several programs have been cultivated to address this need, demand still outweighs supply. The following describes a curriculum developed with the intent of incorporating medical knowledge into a PhD graduate training program. Development of this Molecular Medicine program by the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute "Med into Grad" initiative. The core curriculum of this program begins with a foundation in Human Physiology and Disease course in which anatomy faculty introduce students to a basic overview of gross anatomy structure and function. This course is followed by five fundamental basic science courses, a composite course focusing on principles of clinical and translation research, a course on laboratory techniques and three, 12-week research rotations. In the second year of the program, students begin their dissertation research, complete their qualifying examination, and partake in an individually tailored Clinical Experience course. Interdisciplinary graduate programs like this provide another venue for faculty in anatomical sciences to help aspiring translational scientists relate basic science knowledge to human pathophysiology and health.

Des hommes et des dieux by Xavier Beauvois

The third edition underwent several revisions, one of which is the replacement of the explication de texte with the commentaire composé in order to better reflect pedagogical trends in France. The increased clarity with which the commentaire composé is presented, including titled subsections, may well facilitate students’ comprehension of the sample text and their ability to construct a similar analysis. Another change to content in the third edition is a new text on ecology as the sample dissertation text. The relevance of this topic in both American and European societies will hopefully increase students’ interest and participation as they progress through one of the more difficult chapters of the book. A final update worth noting is the mention of E-mail practices in the correspondence chapter. Addressing E-mail usage is an essential addition to this chapter, as many students’ initial questions about correspondence concern such practices. However, the information is minimal, and sample E-mails would be useful and interesting counterpoints to the sample letters. Tâches d’encre lends itself to a variety of teaching contexts and would offer valuable structure to a traditional composition course, a course fusing composition , grammar and/or culture, or a writing workshop that centers on peer-review and editing. The wide variety of genres covered provides variety as well as an indepth presentation of writing in French; the presence of sample texts and ample relevant vocabulary inspires confidence in intermediate students in need of guided practice, and the focus on providing students with the tools to improve their own writing is conducive to a student-centered classroom. Ohio State University Elizabeth Bishop Film edited by Michèle Bissière BEAUVOIS, XAVIER, réal. Des hommes et des dieux. Int. Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin. Armada, 2010. When Xavier Beauvois’s Des hommes et des dieux came out in France in fall 2010, it met with unexpected box-office success. Playing for weeks in both art and popular theaters, French film critics had only praise for the film, which took the Grand Prix du jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and won a César for best picture in February 2011. Des hommes et des dieux is a film about eight Catholic monks who live an extremely austere life in a mountain monastery of Algeria, serving God and the people of the small Islamic community there. Clocking in at two hours, the documentary-style film moves at a very slow pace, methodically recording the monks’ day-to-day activities which involve much chanting and prayer, presented almost always in their entirety, studying religious texts (one of the monks reads, writes and speaks Arabic and has a deep appreciation of the Koran), providing free medical care to the local inhabitants, and working the land and selling the fruits of their labor at the market. They are also integrated into the rituals of Islam, as they participate in local religious ceremonies and celebrations in the village. But an ominous tone is set from beginning of the film when the monks are in conference with some local Muslim men frightened by the murders of a favorite imam and an eighteen year-old girl who was not wearing a 612 FRENCH REVIEW 85.3 hijab. “We don’t know who is killing who,” they lament. Shortly thereafter in one of the film’s few violent scenes, men empty out of cars at a construction site shooting and slitting the throats of Croatian immigrant workers. When the authorities bring the news of the slaughter to the monastery, they strongly encourage the monks to accept their armed protection. Though visibly shaken, the monks refuse the offer. For the rest of the film, we follow each monk in his struggle to decide whether to stay or to leave the monastery. Ultimately, all decide to stay and all but two are killed, beheaded presumably by a terrorist group. Based on the true story of the Tibhirine monks who were abducted and murdered in Algeria in 1996 as the civil war was raging there, the film is not about really about the then current political situation in Algeria in which Algerian citizens could not be sure if Islamist fundamentalists or...