Reading Response #9

Carolina Gonzalez

Text
McCarthy, Lucille P. A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the
Curriculum. Research in the Teaching of English 21.3 (1987): 233-65

Summary
In the article A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the
Curriculum the author, Lucille P. McCarthy, offers information about how a college student,
Dave Garrison, grows and manages across his studies. McCarthy details how the students
behavior changes or remained persistent throughout the different contexts and disciplines
expected of different courses. Using observation, interviews, composing-aloud protocols, and
text analysis, McCarthy evaluates the performance of the student, as seen in the Data Collection
Record table provided in the article. The author concludes that success of a student is affected by
the lack of and unorganized social aspects of classroom contexts for writing, as well as clearly
stated requirements and instructions.

Claim
A
n idea that would be most beneficial to students outside of this class would be the idea and
act of adjusting to different social and academic settings.
Acting upon this idea will aid other students to better understand the different
contextual writings in different classes.

Data
...some people write well in one setting (e.g., at home alone) and not very well in
another (e.g., on a timed exam), or that some people write well in one genre (e.g., poetry)
but not very well in another genre (e.g., a literacy criticism essay) (McCarthy 230).
... the classroom learning environment includes not only the teacher and the student, but
also the subject matter structure, the social task structure, the actual enacted task, and the
sequence of actions involved in the task (McCarthy 233).

Connection
For many students, it is difficult to adjust to and complete certain writings from different
courses due to the fact that environment of one class is conflciting from another. An idea that
would be most beneficial to students outside of this class would be the idea and act of adjusting
to different social and academic settings.
Acting upon this idea will aid other students to better understand the different contextual
writings in different classes. In the following quote McCarthy explains in a generality how some
people write distinctly in one context compared to another. ...some people write well in one
setting (e.g., at home alone) and not very well in another (e.g., on a timed exam), or that some
people write well in one genre (e.g., poetry) but not very well in another genre (e.g., a literacy
criticism essay) (McCarthy 230). What McCarthy just explained here is social context. Social
context has a strong influence towards how fine or poorly one can write depending on the area or
surroundings one is in. It has not to due with ones knowledge, but how well one can adapt to
that surrounding and context. In the next quote McCarthy lists the different key structures and
importance of holding those structures in a learning environment, ... the classroom learning
environment includes not only the teacher and the student, but also the subject matter structure,
the social task structure, the actual enacted task, and the sequence of actions involved in the task
(McCarthy 233). In many classrooms, students may not be provided with enough instructional
supports to aid them as they develop their writing. In order for a student to succeed and become
accustomed to the structure of writing expected in a certain class, they must be provided with the
structures McCarthy listed. A learning environment is not only about a student and teacher
relationship, but about the environment a student is writing in.

Vocabulary
1. Tacit; understood or implied without being stated; ... both explicit and tacit
2. Foster; e ncourage or promote the development of something, typically something
regarded as good; ... the social factors in classrooms that foster particular writing
behaviors
3. Pseudonyms; a fictitious name, especially one used by an author; ... I use pseudonyms
for the teachers.