Procedural Rhetoric: An Alternative to Traditional Academic Writing Programs

Abstract

Abstract-A host of movements have been performed to broaden English language learners' writing scholarship. A major rethink of L2 writing materials is what syllabus designers should pursue in some collegiate contexts; all the more so because writing is considered as a scholarly skill for English language learners to do academic assignments and manifest their academic attainments in different academic areas. Having this in mind, the present study explored the implications of new English writing course syllabuses designed based on procedural rhetoric, which made English majors significantly outperform conventional syllabuses users in terms of content, vocabulary, and language use. The achieved results ensured that university writing courses can bring about more accomplishments when a multi-faceted program aligned with contemporary concerns of academic writing is adopted.Index Terms-argumentation, discourse community, genre, procedural rhetoric, writing program I. REVIEW OF LITERATUREMost curricular decisions and innovations, most examination of texts, most exploration of writing strategies and difficulties have been allotted to North America inasmuch as it enjoys a variety of writing backgrounds and embraces state of the art concerns in teaching and learning writing skills (Cumming, 2009). Casanave (2009) notes that this western orientation of writing studies may cause an uncritical application of findings in other EFL contexts or marginalization of their writing curricula, hence a wide range of writing concerns in terms of teaching and learning. This marginalization has made Vanmaele and Lowyck (2005) see the writing performance of novice writers uninformative on the grounds that they find themselves confronted by 'the transformation of experiential reality in concepts, the identification of the right term and the construction of this 'abstracted reality' in a transparent text" (p. 393). Along with the fact that the role of teachers' knowledge to afford student writers instructional support should be emphasized, the development of a state-of-the-art curriculum which its constructive roots are formed in other courses such as grammar or reading is the basic measure that should be taken by curriculum developers. What seems clear, as Johnson and Roen (1989) believe, is that the organization of language materials is done through the interaction of policy-based and cultural concerns, and redressing the balance between them is a strategy that works for the purpose of improving the quality of writing as to new pedagogical movements.Micciche (2004) asserts that teaching grammar and teaching writing are currently considered separate enterprises in English language curricula and grammar is viewed as "not empowering but disempowering, not rhetorical but decontextualized, not progressive but remedial" (p.718). This orientation naturally can affect the writing performance of language learners negatively. Having carefully investigated 42 articles authored on EFL college writing in Journal of Second Language Writing and 11 stud...

English Grammar Awareness Facilitates L2 Learners’ Writing

“…The different concepts of phrases and clauses -noun, adverbial, adjectival, prepositional and verb phrases as well as noun, adverbial, and adjectival clauses -have to be at the writer's finger tips as the knowledge to arrange words in sentences (by exploiting all these phrases and clauses) assists the writers to find their own writing style. Kiasi & Alavi (2016) in their research found that the experimental group -which are equipped with grammar and syntactic skills (passive, modals, adverbial, adjective phrase and so forth) performed better in writing in comparison to the control group which did not get such treatment. The skill of organizing phrases and clauses can give impact to the writinghelp in shaping the paragraph more systematically -that provides ease of reading to the readers.…”

“…Wrong use of these verb components leads to misinterpretation of content. Lacking of verbs knowledge decreases one's ability to express their thoughts (Kiasi, & Alavi, 2016). With the twelve common tenses that all English users should know, L2 learners especially can benefit from it as tenses help writers to organize their content more efficiently with appropriate time frame planned.…”