A comparison of writing tasks in ESL writing and first-year composition courses: A case study of one US university

Abstract

Many international students in American universities are required to take writing courses in English as a second language (ESL) before participating in a mainstream first-year composition (FYC) course. Given that the goal of ESL writing course is to prepare students for FYC course, the connection between ESL and FYC courses is significant. This study investigates the correspondence of two such courses in terms of writing tasks based on the analysis of course syllabi, assignment sheets, and interviews with eight ESL course and 10 FYC instructors as well as 26 international students who are from diverse countries and took both composition courses. The findings suggest that students’ assignments from both courses are all essays in terms of genre, but show differences with regard to the text’s purpose, audience, information source, topic, and rhetorical function. Students are also aware of such similarities and differences, but occasionally demonstrate less sophisticated or inaccurate understanding of the assignments. Pedagogical implications for modifying the writing assignments in ESL courses to fit the expectations of FYC courses are discussed.

Keywords

ESL writing course first-year composition course writing tasks

I Introduction

In most American universities, the first-year composition (FYC) course is mandatory for all undergraduate students, regardless of their discipline or native language, as a partial requirement of general education courses (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2014; Crowley, 1998). This introductory writing course commonly aims to develop students’ rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking and reading abilities, composing processes, and knowledge of communication conventions, while also laying the foundation for students’ writing in future content courses (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2014).

In the case of international students, whose numbers continue to grow in American universities, however, English proficiency is often not high enough for the students to actively participate in or successfully complete the FYC course. Thus, they are required to take additional writing courses in English as a second language (ESL) in preparation. These international students often progress directly from ESL writing courses to a FYC course (Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995). Therefore, the instructional goal of ESL writing courses is ‘transcendent’ (Leki & Carson, 1997, p. 39); it helps students to succeed in another course/context. This trend is well represented in the syllabus of an ESL writing course offered at one university: ‘Students who satisfactorily engage in this course will be prepared to enter English 150 (a FYC course at this institution).’ If this is the case, a strong connection between the two courses is critical. This means, according to the theory of learning transfer, which is said to occur ‘when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts on performance in another context or with other related materials’ (Perkins & Salomon, 1992, p. 6452), ESL and FYC courses should be similar in terms of writing tasks and evaluation criteria in order to maximize the amount of transfer across the two courses for international students taking ESL and then FYC course (James, 2006).

1 ESL vs. FYC courses: Goals and pedagogical concerns

Because ESL and FYC courses are usually designed and developed by practitioners from two different fields, one by scholars and instructors in Applied Linguistics and the other by those in Rhetoric and Communication, different terminology is used, divergent views about language and what constitutes good writing are incorporated, and varied pedagogical concerns and political orientations surface (Costino & Hyon, 2011). ESL writing courses have the overarching goal of improving the academic writing competence of nonnative speakers of English and integrate several specific learning objectives such as understanding the demands of written assignments, using the process of creating multiple drafts and employing feedback to revise and improve the compositions (syllabus of University A), developing critical reading skills to obtain information from academic texts, and identifying and correcting common grammatical and mechanical errors (syllabus of University B). In the case of pre-admission ESL programs, helping students to reach a certain score on the TOEFL or IELTS can be another goal for which students need to learn test-taking strategies as well as general writing skills.

A further way to characterize the goal of an ESL academic writing course comes from a consideration of its relevance to other university courses. Course descriptions or syllabi of such courses state that class activities include analyses of different text types and how they relate to specific disciplines (University C), and articulate that a key course goal is to help the student to develop reading and writing skills needed to participate successfully in academic reading and writing tasks at an American university (University B). In summary, the objectives identified in the syllabi collected from a few universities, which might be representative of other US universities, indicate that the ESL courses aim to help international students get ready for producing written communication in various disciplines.

As for the goal of FYC courses, the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) outcomes statement for first-year composition, which ‘attempts to both represent and regularize writing programs’ priorities for first-year composition’, identifies rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking and reading, and multiple composing processes, and knowledge of convention as critical abilities to learn and develop (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2014). Compared with the objectives in ESL writing courses, the glaring difference is the presence of the FYC course objective of developing rhetorical knowledge, which enables students to analyse purpose, audience, and context of the writing and adapt their own compositions accordingly. This is contrasted with the writing tasks in ESL courses that do not impose these rhetorical situations or the focus on the deductive structure, namely, the five-paragraph essay (Costino & Hyon, 2011). Another difference is that the expectations of conventions are not universal; the FYC course curriculum notes that standards of correctness and appropriateness may differ depending on genre, discipline, and occasion (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2014), whereas the ESL course curriculum discusses ‘common’ grammatical and mechanical errors. Despite the differences in terms of specific knowledge both courses attempt to impart, they share the same desired outcome: preparing students for communication in other disciplines. A part of the WPA outcome statement – ‘this document advises faculty in all disciplines about how to help students build on what they learn in introductory writing courses’ (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2014) – implies that FYC courses are expected to lay the foundation for students’ writing in future content courses.

2 ESL vs. FYC courses: Writing tasks and evaluation

As far as writing tasks are concerned, the assignments in ESL courses are usually in the form of an isolated-mode paper where students are asked to focus on one or two rhetorical functions. For instance, the assignments in an ESL course at a large Midwestern university include compare/contrast, division/classification, and summary/response essays, while those at University B include analytic and argumentative essays. With regard to the object of inquiry, the assignments ask students to write about general topics that are familiar to students (Leki & Carson, 1997). Also, Costino and Hyon’s (2011) analysis of assignment sheets in ESL courses found that instructions proceed straight to the task – ‘you will write a critique of one of Eric Schlosser’s chapters in Fast Food Nation’ (p. 32) – without mentioning the purpose or audience of the wring task. The assignment sheet further highlights the structure and vocabulary students are encouraged to use and dictates that both positive and negative evaluation of the book should be included, instead of letting students choose what to discuss.

By contrast, FYC course curriculum is against relying on mode-based pedagogy (i.e. a compare/contrast, a persuasive, and a narrative essay) given the complexities of each genre (Costino & Hyon, 2011). Unlike ESL courses, FYC course assignment sheets begin with the purpose and audience of each writing task, not limiting the scope to learning to write. Instead, FYC instructors expect students to use writing as a tool for promoting critical thinking and engaging in debate and intellectual exploration. In terms of organization, five-paragraph essays are disapproved of and rejected, because every topic cannot be divided into and discussed in three aspects with a brief introduction and conclusion at the beginning and end of the essay. Structure should not determine the essay; rather, it should serve a writer’s purpose and consider the needs of the audience.

In evaluation of written assignments, accuracy or truth of content does not matter in ESL courses, because students are not expected to learn and display knowledge in subject matter; instead, linguistic and rhetorical forms, such as grammatical accuracy and the use of topic sentences, are frequently evaluated (Leki & Carson, 1997). Meanwhile, in a comparison of the culture of writing in L1 and L2 university writing programs, Atkinson and Ramanathan (1995) found that a clear and explicit writing style is preferred in ESL writing courses, whereas FYC instructors prefer an inductive structure, as well as implicit and subtle use of language, and seek evidence of students’ critical thinking, insightfulness, forcefulness, cogency, originality, and creativity.

Although a few studies have investigated the differences between ESL and FYC courses (Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995; Braine, 1996; Costino & Hyon, 2011), the amount of this research is minimal compared with the number of studies that have explored the relationship between ESL writing and content courses (e.g. Grossenbacher & Matta, 2011; James, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2014; Leki & Carson, 1994). Also, none of the researchers exclusively focused on the assignments, and Costino and Hyon (2011) examined only one sample assignment from each course, whose genre was only limited to a book review. Furthermore, their investigation of writing tasks was only based on assignment sheets as analysed from the researchers’ point of view and examined without the use of a refined analytic framework.

Thus, in this article, I attempt to compare multiple assignments from ESL and FYC courses in terms of genre, purpose, audience, information source, topic, and rhetorical functions by analysing syllabi and assignment sheets as well as teachers’ and students’ interview data. It is important to investigate how teachers and students envision the assignments because their understanding may be different than my interpretation of the assignments based on the analyses of syllabi and assignment sheets. James (2008), who has intensely researched learning transfer, also stressed that in order for students to take advantage of what was previously learned, more important than the presence of similarities between two contexts is whether a learner can actually perceive such similarities. Therefore, the following research questions are addressed in this study:

What are main similarities and differences between the writing tasks in ESL and FYC courses in terms of genre, purpose, audience, information source, topic, and rhetorical functions as indicated by syllabi, assignment sheets, and instructor interviews?

From the students’ perspective, how similar or different are the assignments from the two courses?

II Methods

1 Setting

This study was conducted at a large Midwestern university in the United States. In this institution, international students are required to submit their scores of English proficiency tests (e.g. TOEFL and IELTS) to be considered for admission. If potential applicants’ test scores do not meet a certain level (a score of 640 or above on the paper-based TOEFL; 270 or above on the computer-based TOEFL; 105 or above on the internet-based TOEFL; or a score of 8.0 or above on the IELTS), the students are required to take the English Placement Test, which is administered on campus at the time of admission. Students who pass the written portion of the test are eligible for taking a first-year composition course (English 150). Otherwise, they are required to take one or two additional ESL writing courses (English 101B, a lower level ESL academic writing course focusing on sentence/paragraph-level writing; English 101C, an upper level ESL academic writing course focusing on essay-level writing in preparation for English 150), depending on their score.

2 Participants

International students who took English 101C and 150 at the institution and the instructors of those two writing courses participated in the study. Twenty-six international students who were taking English 150 at the time of data collection and had previously taken English 101C agreed to participate in the study. These international students were from diverse countries, with the majority being L1 speakers of Chinese, Korean, and Malaysian. By volunteering to participate, students received proofreading services for their writing assignments given in any class as a compensation for the participation.

Another group of participants included eight English 101C and 10 English 150 instructors. All the English 101C instructors majored/were majoring in Applied Linguistics/TESL; six of them were international TAs, while the other two were an American TA and an American lecturer. In contrast, nine of the English 150 instructors were American TAs/lecturers, whereas one was an international graduate student; they were majoring in or had studied Rhetoric and Professional Communication, Creative Writing, Literature, or TESL/Applied Linguistics.

3 Data

Data collected to examine the correspondence of writing assignments in English 101C and 150 included course syllabi, assignment sheets, interviews with English 150 students who previously took English 101C, and interviews with eight English 101C and 10 English 150 instructors. The course documents from English 101C were collected at the beginning of Fall 2013, and the interviews with this writing course instructors were conducted at the end of the same semester while the participant students were taking English 101C. The course documents from English 150 were collected at the beginning of Spring 2014, while the interview with the participant students and English 150 teachers were carried out in the middle and at the end of the semester, respectively, while the students were taking English 150. For this study, two course syllabi were collected: one from English 101C and the other from English 150, both of which were created by the program coordinator/director. All English 101C instructors were using the same syllabus that had been individually adapted only with minor changes to the due dates of each assignment and daily classroom activities. The types of assignments and their evaluation criteria remained the same. According to the interview data, however, the syllabus created by the director of the FYC program was used in most sections of English 150, but some instructors had designed their own syllabus to meet their students’ needs and interests or to emphasize writing features that were more important, from their perspectives. According to the course syllabi, English 101C includes five major writing assignments while English 150 has six, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Major writing assignments in English 101C and 150.

Course	Major assignments
101C	1. Role model paragraph 2. Critical evaluation of different marriage and family traditions 3. Cultural analysis: Division and classification 4. Summary and response: Discussion of global economics 5. Final exam
150	1. Where I’m from: In-class writing 2. Sharing Experiences: Letter-as-essay and map 3. Exploring a campus program or organization: Public document and profile 4. Understanding campus place or artifact: Report and commentary 5. Designing visual communication: Brochure or poster 6. Portfolio: Revision and reflection

Only four assignment sheets were collected from English 101C instructors, because I decided to exclude the final exam in English 101C from the analysis of writing task characteristics. Students were supposed to finish the exam within 35-40 minutes without consulting an external resource or having sufficient time to plan and revise; the conditions for this task were not comparable to those for other assignments. More importantly, different sections of the English 101C course contained different prompts in order to prevent students from knowing the topic of the final exam in advance. The final exam was not provided to students along with an organized assignment sheet, without which it was impossible to analyse intended characteristics of the writing task.

On the other hand, five assignment sheets were collected from English 150 section instructors. Assignment 5 was also excluded from the analysis, because it asks students to make a poster or brochure in which visual elements play an important role, and essentially requires students to work on the same content as they produced in either Assignment 3 or 4 and with the same purpose and audience in mind. Thus, an analysis of this assignment would not have added new information about students’ application of rhetorical functions. Meanwhile, Assignment 1 was included for the analysis, because the first assignment in English 150 is usually accomplished outside class according to interviews with English 150 teachers, although the syllabus specifies the assignment as in-class writing. Also, given that the topic of this assignment is similar to English 101C’s Assignment 3, it was important to compare how the two courses asked students to approach the same topic.

The data from the student interviews consisted of 26 interview recordings with English 150 students who had previously taken English 101C where they discussed the relationship of the two writing courses when it comes to the nature of writing assignments. Each recording lasted about 10 to 15 minutes. The instructor interview data consisted of eight interview recordings with English 101C instructors and 10 recordings with English 150 instructors. Each recording with the instructors lasted about 20 minutes. Interview protocols for semi-structured interviews with different groups of participants were developed in advance. An interview protocol for English 150 students (Appendix 1) consisted of questions that asked students about their impression of English 150 assignments, challenges in completing English 150 assignments, and similarities/differences between English 101C and 150 writing assignments. Questions on the protocol for interviews with instructors (Appendix 2) included their educational/teaching background, perspectives on quality writing, procedures for students in completing each assignment, and understanding of writing tasks required in their class.

4 Data analysis

To investigate the correspondence of writing assignments in English 101C and 150, I first compared course syllabi and assignment sheets to examine each assignment’s requirements and explanation of task characteristics. Comparisons were made in six respects: texts’ genre, purpose, audience, information source, object of inquiry, and rhetorical function. In comparing assignments’ genres, I referred to Nesi and Gardner’s (2012) classification of genre families. Based on the analysis of assessed writing assignments in British universities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, they grouped student writing genres into 13 genre families including critique, essay, explanation, and methodology recount. For comparisons of the five remaining categories, I deferred to descriptions in the assignment sheets. In particular, to analyse rhetorical functions that each writing assignment is supposed to accomplish, I primarily relied on verbs and nouns presented in the assignment sheets, as the language provides clarifying information for determining the rhetorical functions of each essay (e.g. describe role model; compare and contrast two view points; evaluate benefits and drawbacks of each view point). Then, I referred to interview data to identify how teachers and students envision each task. I first transcribed all the interview data verbatim and then coded them to identify how participants understand each assignment in the above six categorizations. I also identified comments that verified or contradicted my analyses of course syllabi and assignment sheets that provided an additional explanation for my initial interpretations.

III Results and discussion

The results of the assignment analysis show a number of differences in the nature of writing tasks in the two courses, although all assignments can be broadly classified as an essay genre (except for the very first assignment in English 101C, which is only a paragraph), which, according to Gardner and Nesi (2013), contains the structure of an introduction, a series of arguments, and a conclusion, and asks students to ‘demonstrate/develop the ability to construct a coherent argument and employ critical thinking skills’ (p. 38). In English 101C, topics for the assignments are familiar to students, as indicated in two student interviews (S 4 and S 20): their role model, marriage, and family tradition in their culture, their ethnic identity, and their hometown city.

In 101C, I can just type out fast something I’ve been doing since high school and college … The second assignment is quite similar with movie review, I know how the format actually goes. Culture and identity, I wrote a similar paper before, the topics are familiar and I have some idea about how to write them. (S 4)

Writing in 101C is more like what I did in China. Not that hard, just English article … In 101C, topic was familiar. (S 20)

Since most assignments in English 101C ask students to discuss themselves and their culture, the student writers do not need to refer to outside sources; instead, students simply write an essay based on their own experiences and thoughts. Even in Assignment 4, on global economics, students are prompted to respond to a news article based on their own opinions and without referring to other news articles or expert opinions.

In terms of audience, assignment sheets indicate that the target readers are their classmates and the course instructor. That is, the writing in English 101C does not extend beyond the classroom context. Instructors and classmates are required to read the essays to give grades and feedback, but it is questionable as to how these assignments can address the needs and interests of the audience. Given that a majority of English 101C students are Chinese, the information in their classmates’ essays may have little value or significance to the readers, because the classmates already know a great deal about the topic. It, therefore, appears that English 101C students learn to write and practice how to structure an essay without really achieving any meaningful purpose for the audience.

On the other hand, the topics of English 150 assignments revolve around the school campus: places, organizations, programs, buildings, and arts on campus. Although students come to campus almost every day, they may lack awareness of their surroundings unless they are deeply involved in some program or organization or do research on a building or piece of art for their own interest. Therefore, to complete the assignments and meet requirements in English 150, students must locate and understand information in public documents, such as websites and brochures, and integrate it into their essays. Furthermore, Assignment 4 in English 150 explicitly asks students to choose a building or piece of art they have observed on campus, but do not know much about, further forcing students to explore their unknown surroundings.

The audiences for English 150 assignments go beyond the classroom context, a fact mentioned not only on the assignment sheets, but also by five English 150 instructors during interviews. In the cases of Assignments 3 and 4, involving topics on a campus organization or program and campus building or art, respectively, the intended audience is the general public or, more specifically, students, faculty, or staff of this institution who might be interested in knowing more about the campus. While emphasizing that their students are writing for a general audience, two English 150 instructors explained what that means; students need to consider how much their audience knows about the topic and provide enough context so that readers can follow what is argued for in the paper.

Usually for 150, I would say you are talking to a general audience. It’s an open audience. So anybody everybody could be reading this. So what assumptions can’t we make, what assumptions can we make, what does the general public know about your topic, and what do they not know, so you have to consider things like media, is my topic something commonly understood, if not, what does that mean. (I 20, English 150)

One of the first lessons that I teach every semester have imagined audience no matter what you say, you need your imagined audience for your presentation or for paper you have this imaginary reader, so imagine the reader they know nothing about you as a person, they don’t even know you are in college, inform them of everything they need to know before you try to build on that, so that’s context. (I 22, English 150)

It is also worth mentioning that one English 150 instructor was making a new attempt to give her students a more concrete way to conceptualize an audience other than the instructor and classmates by asking students to post all the assignments on blogs.

This is something that I struggled with throughout my 150 and 250 teaching, trying to get them to see the audience, besides me, or besides peers, so one of the ways to address that this semester is through blogs. So some of them chose to use the privacy setting so that it’s not available to the public, but I still ask them to pretend there is and consider a broader audience, that could include anyone. (I 25, English 150)

Meanwhile, some assignments have a more real, specific audience. For instance, Assignment 2 requires students to choose a younger relative, a family member, or a friend who is off campus and to write a letter to this person to share their experiences regarding a place on campus. Another good example of an intended specific audience involves an assignment not included in the programmatic curriculum that was designed by Instructor 25. Her students wrote a proposal about The Casey Land, an existent place in the local community and close to campus. The instructor explained in the interview that by inviting the committee members of the land to class while students were making presentations based on what they wrote about The Casey Land, she wanted to raise students’ awareness that their work is relevant to a real audience.

Currently my students are working on Casey project. They are currently working on proposal for Casey land, I’m actually inviting the members of the committee and they are sitting during the presentation, and they know that the work they are doing might get shared with real audience. (I 25, English 150)

By including these explicit requirements, such assignments push students to consider the audience’s needs and interests when they decide what and how to write. Given an authentic, specific audience, the purpose of English 150 assignments goes beyond simply learning to write to share experiences and inform readers. In addition, considering that students get to know more about the campus or the community by carrying out these assignments, the assignments also carry the purpose of writing to learn, a goal clearly stated in the assignment sheet: ‘This assignment asks you to deepen your understanding of the history, importance, and appropriateness of a building or piece of art on the campus.’

The assignments in the two courses exhibit differences in terms of rhetorical functions as well. In Table 2 below, the required rhetorical functions for each assignment are outlined, along with verbs and nouns, which show what students need to accomplish more specifically. These verbs and nouns are presented here, because they provide clarifying information for determining the rhetorical functions of each essay. Most of those verbs and nouns were directly copied from the assignment sheets, but some verbs were changed after discussion with the course instructors and the program coordinator to clarify the intention of the assignment. For example, English 101C assignment sheets use discuss quite often, but this verb simply means ‘to talk or write about’ (Collins online dictionary, n.d.), a definition which is too generic. Thus, I found more specific and relevant words, such as describe to represent ‘to give a written or spoken report of how something is done or of what someone or something is like’ (Cambridge online dictionary, n.d.) and illustrate to mean ‘to make clear by giving or by serving as an example or instance’ (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, n.d.).

Table 2.

Rhetorical functions in each assignment.

Course	Major assignments	Rhetorical functions	Verbs and nouns in the assignment sheets (original wording if adapted)
English 101C	MA1	Description illustration	Describe (discuss) role model, characteristics Illustrate actions, attitudes, behaviors by providing specific examples and details
	MA2	Comparisonevaluation	Compare and contrast two view pointsEvaluate benefits and drawbacks of each view pointExpress your opinion and explain why you feel that way
	MA3	ClassificationdescriptionIllustrationanalysis	Divide ethnic identity, hometown city, daily activities of a person into different partsDescribe component partsIllustrate (explain) component partsAnalyse the relationship between parts and the whole: only applies to Topic 2
	MA4	Summarizationevaluation	Summarize (explain) main points of the article, causes and effects of an economic situationEvaluate (discuss; agree; disagree) author’s points, discuss your own thoughts on what those reasons are
English 150	MA1	Descriptionexplanation	Describe a place briefly yet specificallyExplain (discuss) its significance and influence
	MA2	Descriptionexplanationanalysis	Depict and describe part of campus visuallyExplain (describe; show) its significance and influenceAnalyse its relevance to the school history or mission
	MA3	Descriptionanalysis	Describe the people, practices, and mission of program/organizationAnalyse (describe) its connection to the school history and mission
	MA4	Descriptionanalysisinterpretationevaluation	Describe a building/art and its parts in sufficient detailAnalyse how the parts of the subject interact with each other and how it strengthens the school missionInterpret designers/architects’ intended message/meaningDo you think this artwork/building is good or bad? Justify your opinions
	MA6	Descriptionillustrationexplanation	Describe additions made to the piece/portions you chose to deleteIllustrate (highlight) examples of these additionsExplain benefits of the changes

Also, several terms appearing in Table 2 should now be clarified prior to further discussion of the results. I used explain to suggest giving reasons or justifying, not to mean describing or giving details, because those meanings are already covered by describe and illustrate. Next, analyse denotes ‘breaking material into its constituent parts and determining how the parts are related to each other or to an overall structure’ (Mayer, 2002, p. 230). If an essay only breaks or divides an idea into different parts without discussing the parts’ relationship, it is considered classification. Finally, evaluate is used to signify expressing writers’ opinions, such as (dis)agreement and (dis)preference, and explaining reasons for the opinions.

As can be seen in Table 2, description is required in completing assignments in both classes, appearing to form the basis in a discussion of ideas and usually being interwoven with other rhetorical functions. However, English 101C and 150 assignments require different levels of description from students. English 150 assignment sheets explicitly ask for vivid and specific descriptions, which international students are not usually capable of integrating well, as indicated in the interview data.

The thing is I’m so familiar with my students’ writing. When I’m grading, something strikes me strange, I check … So I caught someone cheating on Assignment 4. Student used two paragraphs from the source describing the art, sure enough he had not provided works cited page, but I found the source. But his explanation was that its description was difficult. And he didn’t have the vocabulary to do it. So he didn’t mean to cheat but he didn’t know how to do the correct way. (I 19, English 150)

Because providing detailed descriptions are so challenging for some international students due to their limited linguistic resources, the assignment that requires vivid descriptions even led her student to plagiarism. Other observed differences in the assignments include a more intense focus on illustration (giving examples) in English 101C assignments. Also, comparison and classification tasks are unique to English 101C assignments. These distinctions do not mean that students never use these rhetorical functions in English 150 writing, but rather that these functions are not used predominantly or consistently throughout the whole paper nor are directly evaluated in English 150. In contrast, English 150 assignments concentrate more on having students explain why something is significant or analyse how something is relevant or connected to the school’s mission and history. In addition, only in Assignment 4 in English 150 does the instructor require an interpretation of an architect’s or an artist’s intended meaning behind a building or a piece of art. Finally, since English 150 assignments normally require some degree of research, summarizing and paraphrasing is essential, although these functions are not shown in Table 2. If international students do not pay close attention to some rhetorical functions newly emphasized in English 150, such as explanation and analysis, their essays may end up as mere factual descriptions. It is also possible that students recognize the newly introduced rhetorical functions, but realize they do not have enough language to express them, as this was not material covered in English 101C.

Thus far, correspondence of writing tasks in English 101C and 150 have been discussed based on course syllabi, assignment sheets, and instructor interviews. Such discussions of similarities and differences in the assignments deserve attention, due to their impact on how writing is evaluated and how well learning transfer occurs. As James (2008) suggests, however, students may not perceive similarities or differences in the same ways as instructors or researchers do, and what really matters in learning transfer is students’ own perceptions. With this consideration in mind, during the interview, English 150 students, who had previously taken English 101C, were also asked to compare the writing assignments in the two courses. Only two similarities in assignments were cited out of the 26 interviews: the overall organization required for essays (mentioned by five students) and the use of sources (only for Assignment 4, in the case of English 101C) (mentioned by two students).

Although assignment topics were different in 101C and 150, writing wise, they were similar. Introduction, body, and conclusion. (S 6)

Both 101C and 150 require structure like thesis statement, topics sentence, and conclusion. (S 9)

In 150, at first, we were asked to write a letter about our campus to somebody in our home country. I remember it was different than 101C because I knew how to start, I need to have a thesis, supporting ideas, how to organize essay. When I first started 101, I didn’t know how to start an essay, how I’m going to introduce what I’m going to say to my reader at the beginning. So it was easier to start in 150. (S 3)

101C and 150 were same in that both courses require both your own opinion and source citation. (S 12)

By contrast, many more comments centered on the courses’ differences. The students made comparisons in all the six respects discussed earlier (genre, purpose, audience, information source, topic, rhetorical functions), although discussion on each comparison point was sometimes not thorough enough or was sparked by only a few people. In terms of assignment topic, nine interviewees pointed out that English 150 assignments are all about the school campus and are related to each other topically, while English 101C assignments are about the students themselves or their cultures.

Different. In 101C, we wrote about our life experience. In 150, all assignments are about place. Our campus. We need to search some information on internet and collect info from library. It’s like research about school. (S 19)

In 101C, we wrote based on what we want to talk about. In 150, we write about campus. (S 6)

In 101C, assignments are about culture and identity. I wrote a similar paper before, the topics are familiar, and I have some idea about how to write them. (S 4)

In terms of topic, in 150, each assignment is more related to each other, but for 101C, they are all individual. (S 17)

Two of the nine interviewees felt that English 101C topics are more familiar and more interesting, whereas English 150 topics are difficult and not exciting.

In 150, we focus on searching a lot of scholarly source. 150 is not about personal experience or opinion. 101C is much more interesting. (S 10)

150 topics are tough. Art pieces, building on the campus. I didn’t even know what that building is, not interested in that, when I found some information about it, so difficult to me. History, what something stands for … not interesting. (S 11)

One student discussed the differences in assignments in terms of purpose. Given that all the assignments are about the campus, Student 11 thought that the purpose of writing in English 150 was write to learn, especially learning about the school, not just learn to write.

[English] 150 seem to put more emphasis on school than on writing. Because freshmen don’t know much about school, the school wants us to take 150 as a chance to learn about school, look at the good side of school rather than improving students’ writing skill. (S 11)

In addition, five students believed that the kinds of writing they accomplish in the two courses are different. Two of them classified all the writing tasks in English 101C as essays, and even said that all required assignments follow the same pattern in terms of flow and organization.

In 101C we have fixed things to do like thesis, describe three main points, transition words like first, second, third, and repeat the thesis in conclusion. (S 5)

For 101C you can just directly write thesis, say it at the last sentence in the first paragraph, the first sentence of each paragraph should be topic sentence, first sentence of conclusion is restatement of thesis, second sentence is your further thoughts or your view, and third or fourth sentence should conclude whole article. Stick to this formula, I was not confused. (S 9)

Both student quotes above suggest there is a sort of template that can be followed in all the assignments in English 101C. Two students also said that the English 101C’s assignments are similar to what they completed in high school or college in their home country, while one interviewee even compared the English 101C assignments with writing required of the TOEFL exam.

In 101C, I can just type out fast something I’ve been doing since high school and college. (S 4)

101C doesn’t have description, expressing emotion; it was simply about compare/contrast, analysis essay. It was simple and TOEFL like writing. (S 11)

On the contrary, two students thought that English 150 assignments incorporate all different kinds of papers. For example, although all the English 150 assignments (except for Assignment 5) belong to the essay genre, according to Nesi and Gardner (2012)’s classification, Student 16 considered them to be different genres, which is contrasted with his definitions of all the English 101C assignments as essays:

To me, 101C assignments are all like argumentative essay. Give your opinion, main idea in each paragraph, and supporting points, all the assignments in 101C have the same pattern. But, all the 150 assignments are different in terms of genre/type. (S 16)

Furthermore, although none of the five students used the term ‘rhetorical functions’, 10 students compared the assignments in both courses along those lines. They distinguished that English 150 assignments require detailed, vivid descriptions of a certain place, organization, building, or piece of art on campus, and an in-depth analysis of their significance on campus, as exemplified in the following interview excerpts.

[English] 150, a lot of detailed descriptions of visual, analysis about art/building, brochure is like design. (S 1)

In 101C, find three points, write about it, length requirement pretty short, the discussion is at surface level. But 150, assignments pretty long, ask to find a deep significance of the points, add some my view, let the reader know more information. (S 9)

[English] 150 is higher level. Title of English 150 is critical thinking and communication, that is very different from 101C. In 150, I spend more time on critical thinking for analysis. I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t remember much about 101C, but in 150 for example, I’m writing about this fountain, have to write about its significance, like it can make our campus more beautiful, stands for different way of life and culture. (S 2)

Information sources were also points of distinction in the assignments; 10 students remarked that English 101C assignments are mostly based on their personal experiences and opinions, as opposed to requiring research, whereas English 150 assignments are based on secondary sources, yet require students’ own reflections, analyses, and interpretations, as opposed to reporting facts.

In 101C, we write based on our opinions and emotions. But in 150, we should do more research, go to website and search so many things. (S 8)

Actually I didn’t put that much effort on assignments in 101C. In 101C they just give you a topic, you expand your paper around this topic. In 150, you need to do some research, you need to gain some knowledge about sculpture, visit the sculpture. (S 13)

In the requirement of research, 12 interviewees identified the necessity for citation as the most glaring difference between English 101C and 150 assignments.

In 150, we need to do a lot of research, need to write about campus although I don’t know about it. So, citation is a must, more academic. (S 1)

In 101C we don’t really focus on citation. We do citation, but it’s not that critical. But now everything you write, we need citation. Regarding citation, paraphrasing is difficult because you need to avoid plagiarism. Second it’s really hard to cite source. I forget about it a lot. When I write a paper, I think it’s my own thing. I don’t write this sentence and cite source. Instead write them all and get the source. But I will probably change that because it’s not a good habit. (S 14)

While mentioning the requirement of citations in English 150 assignments, Student 1 associated these essays as being more academic, and Student 14 highlighted a few challenges in incorporating citations, such as paraphrasing, and not having developed the habit of referencing.

Dissimilarities in audience were noted by two students, too. Students usually write for an instructor or do not consider audience at all in English 101C, whereas they have a clear audience in mind in English 150.

In 150, we have clear audience for each assignment, but in 101C, just write for professor. In 150, the first step is choose purpose and audience. Audience can be students, staff, visitors. And depending on the audience, I change the content a bit. But in my case, the audience is always students. (S 19)

In 150, it [audience] was mainly her [instructor] because my blog was private. But I made it public later, so it became general public. For 101C, I wrote for my instructor. (S 15)

The English 150 class that Student 18 took followed the curriculum given by the department, so all the assignments were about the campus. This is why he conceptualized the audience for his writing as students, staff, and visitors who might be interested in the school. On the other hand, the course section that Student 18 took included special assignments designed by the instructor and, more importantly, involved writing in a blog, with the intended audience being the general public, due to the nature of the medium.

IV Conclusions

This study examined the correspondence of writing tasks in ESL writing and FYC courses and, based on analyses of course syllabi, assignment sheets, and instructor interviews, found that ESL and FYC course assignments required all essays in terms of genre (except for the very first assignment in the ESL course), but showed differences with regard to purpose, audience, information source, topic, and rhetorical functions. Student interview data suggested that students were also aware of such similarities and differences, but they paid more attention to differences than similarities. Although students occasionally demonstrated less sophisticated or inaccurate understanding of the assignments, the interview data were valuable in that they revealed what distinctions and commonalities are frequently noted by students as well as how they impact students’ writing processes.

One question that could be raised in terms of comparing the two writing courses in the present study is that the ESL course (English 101C) had a relatively rigid organization (i.e. all the instructors were using the same syllabus and assignments; the instructors are from the same educational background: Applied Linguistics/TESL) whereas the FYC course (English 150) had a much looser structure (i.e. some instructors were using different assignments than others; the instructors specialized in different fields including Rhetoric and Professional Communication, Creative Writing, Literature, and TESL/Applied Linguistics). However, because I conducted the research in a naturalistic classroom context with an aim of observing the two writing courses as they are in the institution under investigation, even different levels of flexibility and congruity between the courses could be captured as a result of the study, and therefore, no attempt was made to control such variables.

Although this study was conducted in the context of one university, findings of the study are expected to have relevance beyond this particular institution. As the number of international students coming to the USA for higher education is continuously increasing, American universities try to provide them substantial support. One such effort is to offer ESL courses so that these students can overcome language barriers and better participate in mainstream courses. Furthermore, most international students take academic writing courses in their home country even before coming to the USA. Given that these ESL/EFL academic writing courses are designed in a more or less similar way and share many common aspects with English 101C, the results of the present study have implications for them as well. To further ensure the possibility of generalizing the findings of the current study, which was undertaken only in one US university, a broader future study might be carried out to survey writing program administrators for both ESL and FYC courses at a range of institutions, paired with collecting syllabi and assignments. This might provide a more grounded sense of what goes on in different writing programs.

Based on the findings of this study, I put forward recommendations for the instructors and program coordinators of ESL writing courses. They could make efforts (e.g. conduct research) to identify what kinds of writing are required in FYC courses. This would help in the discernment of changes that should be made in the curriculum or teaching practices. I would suggest undergraduate ESL course assignments (1) require research and incorporation of source materials, (2) ask for demonstration of knowledge and understanding gained from readings, (3) demand rhetorical functions, such as specific, vivid description, explanation, interpretation, evaluation, and summary, and (4) target real, specific audiences outside the classroom. This way, the assignments in the writing courses would become more similar, and therefore, undergraduate ESL courses are expected to better accomplish their objective of helping international students get ready for producing written communication in other university courses. By similarity, I do not mean that the two courses should be perfectly same or mirror each other because what they learn in one course can be translated into more general, abstract principles in order to be used in another course according to the theory of learning transfer. Still, however, it is recommended that the two instructional contexts should be similar enough to allow commonly abstracted principles.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Interview questions for students.

Appendix 2

Interview questions for instructors.

Authors’ note

Jooyoung Lee is now affiliated with Pearson as a Senior Test Development Analyst.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jooyoung Lee

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