Now, what?: A Look Back at Friday’s IEI Presentation

I’d like to ruminate on the following quotation from Textual Carnivals before returning to it later—Miller declares:

Thus institutional boundaries between human and not quite human, which composition first drew, have been rebuilt between two kinds of composition students, the not quite and the even less suitable, with the latter group in some measure imagined to be hopelessly ‘low.’ These administrative practices […] define composition as a particular kind of universal test, a task to be got out of the way. (86) 

Let’s backtrack a bit before we discuss the quotation above. On Friday afternoon, the Writing Program had a workshop called “Transitioning from the IEI to FYC” (re-watch it here or below). Faculty from Ball State’s Intensive English Institute (IEI), Professor Nidia Flis and Dr. Susan Luo, discussed how the IEI works with international students and how they transition from the IEI to first-year writing. Dr. Luo and Professor Flis have conducted a few studies where they observed English 103 classrooms, interviewed English 103 instructors, and also interviewed the former IEI students who were now in 103. Using their experiences as faculty as well as their studies, they not only presented about how they prepare students in the IEI, but also how we, as instructors, can better help and empathize with these international students. Overall, I gained a lot of insight into the IEI and international students in FYC. I thought their presentation was extremely valuable. What I’m about to discuss is not a judgment upon either FYC at Ball State, nor the IEI, but rather a presentation of some of my observations and the questions that they generated for me. 

Here are my three observations I’d like to discuss:

• Within their presentation, they discussed that the FYC classroom gives the international students much more time to revise compared to the IEI, as they give timed writing, which typically only generates 4 paragraphs (20:56). 
• Moreover, during the Q&A, Yusi Chen asked about what types of writing the IEI taught, and they replied that they covered four types of writing in level 2: process, definition, argument, and narration (49:34-50:15). In level 3, they cover comparison and contrast (50:26). In level 5 and 6 is argumentation with sources they provide (50:26-51:19). They also discussed how they don’t currently use rhetorical terms (55:13).
•  In their closing remarks, one of their main suggestions for us as FYC instructors was to stress grammar instruction in very contextual ways of using it (42:27-44:10). Related, in the Q&A, there was also a question about “Will focusing on grammar give the misconception that good grammar equals good writing [for both international and native students]?” (51:20), which didn’t get answered because we transitioned into a different question.

As we discussed in class when we read essays by Connors, Ohmann and Crowley, the modes may not be dominant, but they’re still very commonplace in FYC. We can see that the modes of writing are extremely dominant in the IEI, and these are the modes that they are expected to write in through their timed writing. These writings in the IEI, as of now, are not explicitly rhetorical in nature either, but that may change as we further our commonplaces with them and visa versa. Finally, grammar is a main focus for the IEI, as these students are learning the norms of Standard Academic Written English.

This makes me wonder: should we mitigate the practices of timed writing towards a longer writing process? If so, how? Also, how does this mode-focused instruction in the IEI transfer to FYC at BSU? What is the implication for IEI students when they focus on modes in their writing? Finally, to restate the question, will focusing on grammar give the misconception that good grammar equals good writing? Then, returning to the excerpt from Miller that I began this post with, where are we drawing these “institutional boundaries” for international students? Are the “administrative practices” they undergo just some kind of “universal test”?

If I’m being honest, I am in a gray area and have unformed opinions about what both the immersion language learning and FYC (in general, not necessarily at BSU) mean for multilingual writers and/or international students. What I do know is that that universities profit greatly off of international students attending their schools, and this “universal test” may be one where they’re designed to have to stay longer. This longer stay can be for a plethora of reasons, such as the dissonance between FYC and immersive language experiences and their actual academic goals, or that FYC that may not be designed with empathy and understanding for multilingual writers. In summation, I have a lot of observations and questions based on Miller, Crowley, Ohmann, Connors, and the presentation, but not a lot of idea of where to begin or what to think about it.