Research in the Teaching of English - Volume 41, Issue 4, 2007

Despite the general trend to embrace interdisciplinarity in post-secondary education, we remain remarkably unclear concerning what we mean by interdisciplinarity and how it is achieved. Reporting on research conducted in a team-taught interdisciplinary course, I propose a new way of conceptualizing interdisciplinary connections, grounded in Bakhtinian theories of language and cognition. I offer a three-part schema for identifying the discursive disciplinary resources individuals use to make interdisciplinary connections and identify some broad characteristics of writing assignments that appear to invite students to make connections among disciplines. Finally, I argue that reflection on certain types of interdisciplinary connections can be an extremely powerful resource for interdisciplinary as well as disciplinary thinking and learning.

This case study closely examines how John (a former student of mine, age eight, second grade)composed during an informal writing group at school. Using qualitative research methods, I found that John selectively took up conventions, characters, story grammars, themes, and motifs from video games, television, Web pages, and comics.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of formulaic writing such as the five-paragraph theme (FPT) or essay for the purpose of earning high scores on high-stakes writing assessments. This qualitative descriptive study analyzed more than 1000 essays from Delaware Grade 8 and 10 writers, written for a statewide direct-writing assessment.