Date of Award

9-16-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Rhetoric and Writing

First Advisor

Michael Kleine

Abstract

Teaching writing is about more than just the writing itself. It's about effective communication between students and teachers, which should create a positive and productive writing environment. However, within conversations, challenges of authority are likely to occur. This project discusses the pitfalls of communication between teaching assistants and students in the first-year-writing classroom. These pitfalls are defined as discourse violations, and are further explained and analyzed using concepts of language theory. Case studies of discourse violation scenarios are presented for discussion. Each scenario illustrates various types of discourse violations, and creates an awareness of the need for classroom management. Ultimately, the scenarios lead to a discussion of management strategies and teaching identities that teaching assistants can use for pedagogical improvement: preparing effective course materials, developing teaching goals, and discovering teaching identities.

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