Natthakamon Wongsa(Cherlyn)

Raphael Radna

Writing 2

26 November 2023

Reflective Essay: ESL Students Pedagogical Implications– A Virtual Panel Discussion

For this assignment our class transitions from studying an academic article from one

writer to studying academic articles as a discourse community. The intention is to comprehend

the conversation going on between academic articles, then transfer the conversation into a

nonacademic genre of choice while considering the purpose of the conversation and the audience

of the conversation. We indicate the range of the discourse community by reflecting on issues we

have in writing, formulating the issue into a research question, and jump into the conversation in

the field of discourse.

In WP2, the exigence of this assignment stems from an issue that I experience in writing.

As an international student, I undoubtedly have been categorized as an ESL student. I have been

having some difficulty when it comes to writing. I often find myself stuck in between languages

where my writing style has not fully met American writing expectations and it wouldn’t be

considered rhetorically effective in my country’s criteria either. Consequently, the question arose

around cultural influences on the ESL writerly process and whether ESL students are capable of

approaching writing assignments, which led to my final question, “In what way can instructors

accommodate ESL students approaching a writing assignment?” It’s undeniably crucial to find

solutions to address the issue of students being inadequately prepared for writing, especially in
higher academic institutions where writing is a medium for determining student’s understanding

of the material.

Academic writings I used for this assignment are from the CompPile database, a database

specifically for the field of Writing Studies research which is the field of study the class is

focusing on in this assignment. I started with twelve academic articles that potentially answered

my research question. However, with this amount of academic articles, it would be somewhat

challenging to finish reading and annotating them in a limited timeframe of the assignment.

Therefore I felt the need to strategize and adopt the approach suggested by Karen Rosenberg in

her essay, Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Resources. The essay suggests that

in order to understand the conversation as a whole, readers should focus on the information in

the audience of the article, title, abstract, introduction, section headings, conclusion, and main

argument or idea (Rosenberg, 2010, p.213-218). These components contain information that

could project a big picture of the article and determine whether the article contributes to the

research question. The abstract and introduction conclude the article into a short paragraph,

therefore it’s easier to infer the exigence of the article and gain understanding about the article

overall. In other words, the process is to read through the abstract and introduction to identify if

the exigence of the academic article matches with mine. If the article’s introduction or abstract

are not relevant to my topic, I would decide to eliminate the article from my articles’ list. By

using this strategy, it saved me a quite amount of time while eliminating articles that are not

really relevant to my research question. At the end of the day, I ended up with six academic

articles in total that are effectively responding to my research question.

To comprehend the dynamic of these articles, it is necessary to put myself into the

conversation that occurred among these articles. According to Doug Downs and Elizabeth
Wardle, doing research or trying to answer a research inquiry is like joining a party where the

conversation has already been going on (2020, p.55). This is called the “Burkean Parlor.” From

my context, I’m joining the “Burkean Parlor” of ESL students' pedagogical accommodations and

integrating my understanding of the conversation between six academic articles I chose into a set

of conclusions. My burkean parlor is a conversation between researchers from the field of ESL

writing studies talking about ESL students’ performance and pedagogical implications due to

these performances. Ilona Leki suggests that instructors should discuss and bring out strategies

used in writing assignments that ESL students might not realize they possess. The same goes for

Keith Rhodes’s argument where he argues that ESL writing style comes from their intuition

despite instructions given in class. He suggests instructors should provide students with

structural advice and support students’ intuitive thinking towards writing. Related to Rhodes’s

argument, Lena Empadu advocates using oral language, in this context is AAVE, in writing as a

rhetorical act. The persuasiveness of the oral language proves that students have more to give in

terms of their inhibited writing ability as a social function. A. Suresh Canagarajah also supports

this idea in that he argues that ESL students should be able to approach writing with their values

and not be judged by the belief that writing is a rigid construction of words. What is required of

instructors is support for writing encounters. Then, Elif Kemaloglu Er. and Melinda Reichelt join

the burkean parlor for this discussion of pedagogical implications. Elif Kemaloglu Er advice to

include referential questions to pre-writing activity to improve productivity in the classroom.

Melinda Reichelt suggests instructors take differences in students’ backgrounds in writing into

account as students and instructors might not have the same understanding in what the definition

of a good writing is. Therefore she suggests instructors discuss the criteria for good writing with

their students before assigning writings. My main takeaway from this conversation is to provide
support for ESL students to bring out their potential in writing and to be able to communicate

with them to meet certain expectations from the writing class. These takeaways derive from each

panelists emphasize getting to know their students and take students’ backgrounds into

consideration on how the class should be structured accomodating their differences

The genre I chose to present the articles’ conversation is a panel discussion. A panel

discussion usually provides space for experts to discuss a topic given with the audience present

during the discussion which is typically held at scientific, academic, business, or even fan

conventions. The panel discussion format usually includes an introduction, panelists’

presentation, and the ending remark with the moderator's question directed to the panelist

occasionally. The discussion integrates thoughts and discussion between panelists which

eventually become a piece of information that is educational for the audience. Furthermore, I

want to focus my audience on writing instructors of any level because they are the people who

will get the most out of my topic which is ESL classroom pedagogical implications. Takeaways

from my panel discussion is to support ESL students when it comes to strategizing towards their

writing and to clearly provide what is expected from the class. My audience can adopt these

implications integrated from academic articles which will improve writing class for ESL students

as a result. Without a doubt, a panel discussion provides some advantage to reach out to this

audience. Due to panel discussion’s characteristic that it can be held virtually, this convenience

increases my chance of reaching out to my audience and the chance they attend the session due

to flexibility of time and setting. The virtual session can be held through any online platform,

such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, as the host sees fit which would be advertised to people

beforehands the same as in-person panel discussion. Therefore,I decided a panel discussion is a
great pick for this assignment due to panel discussion complementary to a conversational

element of articles and effectiveness in reaching out to the audience of my intention.

A panel discussion is relatively more formal than a podcast where colloquial words are

allowed and each guest speaker is welcomed to add on to any conversation at any time. The

panel discussion takes place in a professional environment, thus it requires some formality

approaching the conversation. Also, the conversation between the moderator and panelists

follows the agenda of the day in which each panelist will be asked to present their findings or

opinions. Thus it is also the role of the moderator to act as a glue to this ongoing conversation.

For the process of transferring the connections between articles into a panel discussion, I

decided to break the panel discussion into four sessions: introduction, second session about

panelists’ findings and pedagogical implications, third session to continue with additional

pedagogical implications from remaining panelists, and summary along with closing remarks.

The moderator functions each session by directing questions to panelists to connect the

conversation together.

For the first session, the introduction, I use this space to introduce the organization

responsible for the panel discussion, panelists, and the agenda of the day. The organization

reflects the main point of the discussion, which is “Center for Research on

English-as-a-second-language Writers,” as the conversation involves around ESL students.

Therefore, I think it will appear more credible to indicate an organization, which is fabricated,

holding the panel discussion in order to attract the audience of interest. Additionally, I make up

the name and the title of the moderator, which is Emma Smith, Chief Director of the Center for

Research on English-as-a-second-language Writers. This made-up name and title hold its

significance in making the panel discussion more life-like in that the moderator has a humanoid
name and her role in the organization. At the end of the day, the purpose of the first session is

mainly for welcoming the audience, introducing the guest panelist, and going through the agenda

of the day. An important element to note about this session is that it is the moderator’s role to

introduce backgrounds of panelists, which follow the convention of a panel discussion and is

distinctive from podcasts’ convention. The point is to imply the reason behind choosing each

panelist to the panel discussion. For example, one of the researchers, Ilona Leki, is invited to talk

in this panel discussion because she is Director of ESL and a Professor of English at University

of Tennessee and she has her works in publishing books about ESL students. Therefore, the

purpose is to appeal to the audience that guest panelists are significant to the field of the topic

held in the panel discussion.

The second session, introduced in the first session, dedicates for the first four panelists to

introduce their research findings on the topic of ESL students’ writing ability and, at the end of

the session, discuss their findings' pedagogical implications. I decided to have panelists talk

about their research findings instead of jumping into pedagogical implications in a writing

classroom. Their findings appear to be an effective rhetoric to the implications in terms of how

each panelist derives their implications or from what experience they think best to address the

issue in a certain way. For example, Ilona Leki conducts research on how ESL students are doing

in writing class. The results show that ESL students are capable of developing strategies towards

unfamiliar writing tasks, but only after they fail in their first try. According to this, the researcher

suggests instructors support this by discussing with students before assignments on strategies to

use approaching assignments. These pedagogical implications to discuss with ESL students

before the assignments will be easier to digest for the audience as they know that ESL students
are better at strategizing for the second try but not the first try. Therefore the panel discussion

will be more rhetorically effective to include research findings.

The third session is to include another two panelists to the discussion. The reason why I

decided not to include them in the second session is due to their findings not contributing to the

first topic of discussion, which is ESL students’ writing ability. Their findings resonate more

with pedagogical implications for writing class. Thus I decided to have the conversation in the

second session talking about ESL students’ writing ability first then transition to pedagogical

implication at the end to incorporate with the beginning of the third session. Even though

panelists participating in this session do not have a chance to participate in the second session,

they are extremely valuable contributions to the big topic of this panel discussion, which is

pedagogical implications. This is also the reason behind my decision having the first four

panelists present their research findings in a non conversational way so the audience will not be

confused with what is the main conversation of the panel discussion, which is the pedagogical

implications. By having first four panelists only talk through their findings and not mention each

other, the audience will perceive their presentations as crucial information emphasizing and

contributing to the next session of pedagogical implications. Ultimately, the third session serves

its purpose in wrapping up the conversation of all panelists. Lastly, in the fourth session or the

summary, the moderator concludes the conversation of all sessions and offers takeaways for the

audience, then ends with a thank you speech.

Overall, this essay exists to clarify and certify rhetorical moves I implemented in my

genre translation. The purpose of this assignment is to understand academic articles as an

ongoing conversation, as well as being able to put myself in the conversation between them. That

being said, it is to walk into the party of ongoing conversation and get a grasp of the
conversation. Furthermore, my takeaway from this assignment is to learn to understand academic

articles as a conversation and to integrate understandings derived from academic articles into my

research paper. It is also crucial to keep in mind that these understandings are merely a part of a

conversation at a certain timeframe and are subject to change if newcomers join the conversation

to disprove them. These skills will be valuable for me in the upcoming future of college when I

will be bombarded with peer-reviewed articles and it is crucial for me to have the ability to

comprehend dynamics between academic articles as I am pursuing excellence in a higher

academic institution.
 References

Wardle, E. & Downs, D. (2020). Writing about Writing, University of California Santa Barbara

(4th ed.) Macmillan Higher Education.

https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781319423360

Rosenberg, K. (2010). Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources. In Writing

spaces: Readings on writing, Volume 2 (pp. 210–220). WAC Clearinghouse.