by: Amanda Rioux

For one of the reading summaries I selected an article entitled “Invisible Transfer: An Unexpected Finding in the Pursuit of Transfer” (Scheiber). I found the concept  interesting:  the author wishes to know if the idea of transfer (i.e.: taking skills learned in one area and applying them to another) appears in business students. While many topics on the study of transfer exits, very few specifically study business majors.

As Scheiber writes, “very few studies have followed possible instances of transfer specifically focusing on business majors” (Scheiber 466). I find this interesting:  Business Communication requires use of rhetorical awareness in writing, so  limited studies of how business majors transfer outside writing skills into their business-related courses, or vice versa, seems odd. The article feels relevant and applicable to the courses I am teaching, and made me curious about my own students. While I cannot judge if students transfer ENL 265 concepts to other courses, I can get a sense of what skills are being transferred into the class.

Scheiber calls the transference of skills from one area of study to another an “invisible” process meaning students do not consciously realize it when they apply transferred knowledge. Additionally, the process which is invisible “to both themselves and their writing instructors” (482). This sounds contradictory when applied to my students; many of them, in their Justification Memos, mention not only the skills they have acquired in the course, but previous knowledge about how to structure essays, when explaining their rhetorical choices.

Several freshman struggle with using specific skills gained in this course when writing because they contradict essay-writing skills taught in high school. This registered with a quote from the reading in which Scheiber writes “students often feel that each writing situation is completely different, which makes it difficult for them to transfer learning from one situation to the next” (465). That appears to explain how so many students find difficulty in writing documents for this class; teachers drill writing formulaic essays in a pre-determined pattern into them during their high school years.

One of the roadblocks I come across quite frequently (this includes last semester as well) concerns the difficulty many students—the majority of them freshmen, but not limited just to freshman—find writing documents for this course. They learn an essay-writing formula which tells them an essay requires only five paragraphs to be complete: An opening paragraph, two body ones, and a concluding paragraph. Feeling as though they must adhere to this pattern, I find documents that include rather large, multi-topic paragraphs. As a result of learning, over and over, about this five-paragraph structure, they cram as many topics as needed into single paragraphs to avoid deviating from the pattern.

A few students incorrectly believe sticking to a single topic per paragraph in this course means they can only write about two topics in their papers. More than once I have heard a student mention how trying to comprehend the key concepts being taught in this class means having to “un-learn” everything learned in high school. I try to reiterate that there is value in what they have been previously taught, but they can deviate from that structure. The skills they learn in this course, such as tone and style, and rhetorical awareness, can help them learn how to deviate from formulaic essay patterns successfully.

In the study of student transfer, Schieber notes how “students may be using rhetorical strategies from their disciplinary courses and bringing them to other courses” (466).  I do see this process in students who are further along in their education (i.e.: juniors and seniors). English students tend to deviate more effectively from the five-paragraph formula, and prove more apt at using tone, style, and active voice in their writing. If there is any “invisible” transfer, it might be in the students who are nursing/biology/chemistry, etc., majors,. I see them using a lot of APA style in their assignments, even though we use MLA for this course.  I believe they are doing so without really thinking, as using APA for the majority of the classes in their discipline tends to feel natural to them.

There isn’t really much I can say definitively about students transferring knowledge from previous classes/current disciplines into ENL 265, but I am able to find some instances. Obviously these are all anecdotal, and specific to a small handful of students, so it can never represent all of them. However, I can continue to further assess student writing for possible transference of knowledge from outside classes, and try to get a better idea of how this process works.

~Amanda