The

Genres Of Mgt11a In Winter Quarter 2017 At UC Davis 1

The Genres of Mgt11A in Winter quarter 2017 at UC Davis
By: Chenyu Jiang

Introduction

Mgt11A, management 11A, is an introductory class into accounting. It is offered to students

interested in business, finance, and accounting. This course analyzes collections of accounting
data by looking into the balance sheets, income statements, and statement of cash flows. Students
who study Mgt11A will acquire accounting skills to construct different forms of financial reports
and able to analyze the financial reports of business and companies. My object of this research
paper is to examine the genres used by a certain discourse community.

A discourse community is a group of people sharing the same goals, using its type of language,
acquiring its lexis, and possess its mechanism of operation. In her essay, Amy J. Devitt (2003)
cited lawyers as an example of a discourse community. She explained that lawyers are a group of
people sharing the same goal---to win the lawsuit, using its own type of language---laws,
acquiring its own lexis--- such as "appeal" or their own definition of certain words such as
"might", and possess its own mechanism--- following the legal procedure written in the laws(all
are genres used in this discourse community). According to Anis Barwashi(2003), "genre" is the
language forms that have identifiable and changing roles in interpersonal relations and larger
collective contexts." "Genre" is not only classifying texts (Barwashi, 2003)" anymore, "genre"
is language that unit, organize, and generate the people within a discourse community. "Genre
becomes the site for the exchange of language and social interaction (Barwashi, 2003). Genres
are the essence of a discourse community. Therefore, to fully understand a discourse community,
one must need to analyze and understand its genres.

To be specifically, I will be looking at the genres used by people in Mgt11A and how do they
perform different functions individually and also connect with others to become the effective
teaching method of an accounting course.

Methods

I gathered the syllabus of the Mgt11A, the textbook used by the professor and students, the
PowerPoints in class, the exam papers. I attended the classes and the discussions. Also, I
interviewed two students who are enrolled in and study the Mgt11A. After collecting the
information from books, papers, classes, discussions, and students, I constructed an activity
triangle to analyze how does this course, Mgt11A, function to achieve its goal and illustrated the
relationships between each of the elements that make up the course based on the activity triangle
mentioned in Yrjo Engerstroms(2000) Activity Theory as A Framework for Analyzing and
Redesigning Work. The activity triangle with Genre, the tools used, on the top, Object and
Division of Labor on the right, Subject and Rules on the left, and Community on the middle
bottom, is shown below.
The Genres Of Mgt11a In Winter Quarter 2017 At UC Davis 2

Figure 1. Organization of Mgt11A

Syllabus, Textbook, Exams, and Assignments

On the first day of class, Professor provides a syllabus with listed general information about the
Mgt11A---location and time of office hours, emails of professor and TA, calendar of classes,
class objectives, performance evaluation, and the class and exam policy. This syllabus draws a
clear outline for both the students and the professor of the course on the key points of the course
and how to succeed in the class.

There is a necessary prescription of the online textbook chose and used by the professor. The
textbook contains examples, detailed explanations, and exercises that ensure students to
understand better and able to look back and review the knowledge.

There are two midterms and one final in the quarter for this course. All of the exams are consist
of multiple choices with four different forms that prevent plagiarism. Examinations test at what
extent students understand and able to utilize the taught accounting skills. Students learn better
by knowing their weakness and professor teach better by knowing what to strengthen and
enhance in the class.

There are three types of assignment: LearnSmarts, BTNs, and exercises. LearnSmarts are tasks
that needed to be finished before classes. Its aim is to prepare the students for the class by asking
students to look at the textbooks and complete sixty questions related to the content in the
textbook and the upcoming class. Students are required to hand in one assigned BTN in each
discussion to the TA. BTNs are questions listed in the textbook at the end of every chapter.
BTNs are focused on the analysis of companies' financial reports. Students need to find the
particular financial report of a particular company on www.sec.gov, a real website that listed the
information of actual companies' financial reports that run by United States government.
Different from the BTNs, the regular exercises are focused more on constructing the financial
reports. This type of assignment must be done two times a week after each class.
The Genres Of Mgt11a In Winter Quarter 2017 At UC Davis 3

Classes and Discussions

The classes are two times a week, one and a half hour each time. Students prepare the lessons
before the classes because they are required to do a LearnSmart assignment. Therefore, professor
only summarize and reinforce the most important points in the first thirty minutes of the classes,
then he uses two to three examples to illustrate how to use the information from the textbook to
prepare financial reports or how to analyze the financial reports by calculating ratios, and trends
from the data presented in the financial reports.

Discussions are one time a week, forty minutes each time. In a discussion, there will be a
teaching assistant, TA, who is also a student, who have taken the Mgt11A before, with a better
understanding and knowledge of the Mgt11A than the students currently enrolled in the class.
Each TA has their style of teaching; some will focus more on guiding students to think and argue
about the questions provided by the professor, some will focus more on answering the questions
and explaining the solutions to the students. All in all, the discussions provide the opportunities
to solve issues and understand the accounting techniques and lexis with help from TA and other
students.

Interviews

I interviewed two students, Shizhang Han and Yin Liang when we were doing the homework of
Mgt11A together. I asked about how does the genres, homework, discussions, textbooks, exams,
and blackboard writings, work and supplement the classes, and what are their opinions toward
them. They (Han, S. Liang, Y. personal communication, March 4, 2017) said that at the
beginning, they could not stop complaining about the workload of the assignments, specifically
the LearnSmart, each one would take nearly one to three hours to complete. They said that to
finish the LearnSmart, they need to read the textbooks thoroughly first, which is about thirty to
fifty pages. However, there was something "horrible" of the LearnSmart: it will add one more
question if one filled the wrong answer to a question. Therefore, a student will need to do a total
of seventy questions if he/she choose ten wrong answers (the original amount of problems is
sixty). Shizhang and Yin could not understand why would not the professor be like other
teachers--- giving lectures to students during each class. They argue that the meaning of taking
the classes is to save time to understand the knowledge without looking through the books inch
by inch whereas doing LearnSmart not only is time-wasting but also make lectures unnecessary.
Nevertheless, their attitudes turned 180 degrees completely after attending a few lectures. They
said that because they have already prepared for the classes, professor could point out the key
points and explaining examples quickly and efficiently without the chances that students get
confused about the basic ideas. Moreover, they showed their admiration of the functions of
different genres professor used. According to Yin, None of the assignments, examinations,
lectures, and other components of this course are unnecessary. They are designed to help
students to improve and understand different accounting techniques. First, read textbooks
before class and do the LearnSmart allows professor to emphasize the main points in the classes
without explaining every details and concept to students, which will cost lots of time. Then,
watch Professor analyzes and construct the examples of financial reports in the classes ensure
students fully understanding of the accounting knowledge required to build financial reports by
The Genres Of Mgt11a In Winter Quarter 2017 At UC Davis 4

doing the homework. Moreover, use the concepts learned from textbook and classes, students
practice their ability to examine companies financial reports by doing the BTNs themselves.
Also, questions asked in the discussions double-checked students understandings of concepts.
At last, the exams provide feedbacks for both students and professor on how to learn and how to
teach. Thus, students can learn how to construct and analyze the financial reports separately,
with no neglect.

Final

It appeared that the genres used in the Mgt11A are complementary. Each one has its function to
exercise and test different knowledge learned and applied in this course. Lectures are designed to
emphasize the most important points by analyzing few complex questions which are difficult for
students to do them alone; LearnSmarts are intended to eliminate the possibility of students not
understanding what professor says in the lectures; discussions are designed to have students
working together to solving any issues with understandings by doing some definition questions;
assignments are designed to have students to practice and remember the process of building
financial forms; exam papers are designed to find the loopholes in the knowledge and give
feedbacks of pedagogical quality to professor.

The genres used in Mgt11a appeared to be highly efficient from my point of view. On the one
hand, they are distinct in functions, helping students to learn separate skills; on the other hand,
they are connecting to each other by sharing the same goal, helping students to learn accounting
competencies in a most product approach. Overall, they frame an excellent managerial and
educational template for accounting and financial courses. This method can also be applied to
science courses with various aspects needed to study, such as a physics course that requires
students to analyze phenomena happened and post-lab reports. Teachers who want to improve
their teaching modules can adapt this template from Mgt11A in Winter quarter 2017 at UC
Davis.
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Reference

Bawarshi, A. Devitt, A. J. Reiff, M. J. (May 2003). "Materiality and genre in the study of
discourse communities, " College English, 65: 5.

Engestrom, Y.(2000). Activity theory as a framework for analyzing and redesigning work.
Ergonomics 43:7. Retrieved from JSTOR

Swales, J. (2011). The concept of the discourse community, In E. Wardle and D. Downs (Eds.).
Writing about writing (pp. 466-473). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins. Retrieved
from https://eng1301-knous.wikispaces.com/file/view/Swales-11.pdf