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Are We Really Doing This? Performativity, Pragmatism, and Experiential Learning in the Business Writing Classroom

Waldrop, Kelly

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Educational Leadership.
This case study dissertation uses the tenets of pragmatism as defined by Cherryholmes (1999) to examine student writing in a business writing course wherein the curriculum was specifically designed using poststructural performativity theory with the intent of providing the students with a learning experience that would allow them to examine, challenge, and reframe their own identities as students and businesspeople. The study considers the consequences of thinking that resulted from a business writing curriculum that had been redesigned from a structural, case-based model, to a poststructural, experiential learning based model. The case consists of the formal and informal writing done by students taking the course over the four semesters in which the curriculum was used. Each semester, students were placed into groups and were challenged to develop a non-profit business, activist group or student organization that would improve their community. The work done to create those organizations became the subject material for the formal writing assignments the students created in the process of learning to become business writers. Discourse analysis of student writing was conducted as part of the pragmatic process of reflecting on, analyzing, and improving curriculum. The analysis uncovered ways in which various binaries, such as “student/businessperson” and “classroom/real-world,” were challenged within the curriculum, as well as the fluidity of student identity and their access to agency and power. Implications for the construction and improvement of experiential and pragmatic curricula were developed based on these findings.
Thomas Poetter, PhD (Committee Chair)
Kathleen Knight Abowitz, PhD (Committee Member)
Richard Quantz, PhD (Committee Member)
Katharine Ronald, PhD (Committee Member)
92 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Waldrop, K. (2014). Are We Really Doing This? Performativity, Pragmatism, and Experiential Learning in the Business Writing Classroom [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1406805136

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Waldrop, Kelly. Are We Really Doing This? Performativity, Pragmatism, and Experiential Learning in the Business Writing Classroom . 2014. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1406805136.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Waldrop, Kelly. "Are We Really Doing This? Performativity, Pragmatism, and Experiential Learning in the Business Writing Classroom ." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1406805136

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)