Learning to mean as a symbolic and social process: The story of ESL writers

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Abstract
Learning to communicate within the school environment is a complex process. As students interact with the meaning system of the school, interpretive issues and institutional constraints affect both the teaching and learning that take place. “Progressive” pedagogies, such as process writing, that encourage individual expression and exploration, often fail to acknowledge the social context in which this process occurs. In the case of process writing, the implicitness of the approach is particularly challenging for nonmainstream students whose notions of appropriate rhetorical forms and discourse strategies are incompatible with those of the school. In this article, I describe the composing processes of two ESL writers whose teacher was an espouser of the process approach. The case studies highlight the conflicts which emerge for students and teachers alike, as they attempt to negotiate meaning in the absence of shared social knowledge and conventions of language use in an educational setting.

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