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Rhetorical Embodied Performance in/as Writing Instruction: Practicing Identity and Lived Experience in TA Education

Moreland, Kelly A
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555331063154356

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD.
This dissertation explores how a group of first-year graduate teaching associates (TAs) at Bowling Green State university (BGSU) accounts for embodied performance in teaching first-year writing (FYW). Guided by a feminist community-based teacher-research methodology, I conducted a mixed-methods case study of BGSU’s Fall 2017 composition practicum course, ENG 6020: Composition Instructors’ Workshop, in order to understand how TAs performed embodiment as they taught for the first time locally, and for some, for the first time overall, in BGSU’s FYW program, General Studies Writing. By analyzing TAs’ teaching portfolio documents, including teaching philosophy statements, performance narratives (a video-recording of the TA teaching plus a written reflection), and observation memos, plus individual interview conversations with four TAs, I hoped to learn how first-year TAs representing a range of English sub-disciplines and experience levels demonstrated embodiment and performance, as well as teacherly identity construction, in their teaching portfolios. Through this study I concluded that my TA co-researchers practice what I term rhetorical embodied performance in their FYW instruction—they perform their bodies so as to construct themselves as the teacher. Moreover, I identify three modes through which the TAs demonstrate rhetorical embodied performance in their teaching: embodied engagement, embodied authority, and embodied reflection; and I explore how each of my co-researchers individually cultivates their teaching identity by referencing their rhetorical embodied performance in their teaching philosophy documents. I use this analysis to propose a pedagogy of rhetorical embodied performance for TA education, which would contribute to scholarly conversations in rhetoric and writing surrounding the theoretical and practical divide in TA preparation and development. Therefore, this dissertation project contributes to disciplinary conversations on the intersections of teacher preparation/development and identity, bringing embodiment and performance to the discussion and prompting further conversation on how writing program administrators (WPAs) might juxtapose approaches to teacher preparation and development with an enhanced understanding of how teachers represent and learn from their embodied performance of teaching writing.
Lee Nickoson, PhD (Advisor)
Daniel Bommarito, PhD (Committee Member)
Sue Wood, PhD (Committee Member)
Radhika Gajjala, PhD (Other)
234 p.
Composition; Pedagogy; Rhetoric; Teacher Education
TA education; composition practicum; writing teacher education; TA preparation; TA development; teacher development; embodiment; performance; writing teacher development; teacher training; composition; composition pedagogy; writing pedagogy; identity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Moreland, K. A. (2019). Rhetorical Embodied Performance in/as Writing Instruction: Practicing Identity and Lived Experience in TA Education [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555331063154356

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Moreland, Kelly. Rhetorical Embodied Performance in/as Writing Instruction: Practicing Identity and Lived Experience in TA Education. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555331063154356.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Moreland, Kelly. "Rhetorical Embodied Performance in/as Writing Instruction: Practicing Identity and Lived Experience in TA Education." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555331063154356

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1555331063154356
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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.