Composition research consistently demonstrates that the social context of writing determines the majority of conventions any writer must observe. Still, most universities organize the required first-year composition course as if there were an intuitive set of general writing "skills" usable across academic and work-world settings. In College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort reports on a longitudinal study comparing one student’s experience in FYC, in history, in engineering, and in his post-college writing. Her data illuminate the struggle of college students to transfer what they learn about "general writing" from one context to another. Her findings suggest ultimately not that we must abolish FYC, but that we must go beyond even genre theory in reconceiving it. Accordingly, Beaufort would argue that the FYC course should abandon its hope to teach a sort of general academic discourse, and instead should systematically teach strategies of responding to contextual elements that impinge on the writing situation. Her data urge attention to issues of learning transfer, and to developmentally sound linkages in writing instruction within and across disciplines. Beaufort advocates special attention to discourse community theory, for its power to help students perceive and understand the context of writing. "Her call for rethinking approaches to first-year writing is bold and challenging, and I found myself recognizing many of the problems she mentions with current first-year writing practices in my own writing program." —Susan Miller-Cochran,  College Composition and Communication COLLEGE WRITING AND BEYOND A New Framework for University Writing Instruction By ANNE BEAUFORT UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 2007 Utah State University Press All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-87421-659-2 Contents Acknowledgments...............................................................................1List of Tables and Figures....................................................................31 The Question of University Writing Instruction.............................................52 The Dilemmas of Freshman Writing...........................................................283 Freshman Writing and First Year History Courses............................................594 Learning To Write History..................................................................695 Switching Gears: From History Writing to Engineering.......................................1066 New Directions for University Writing Instruction..........................................142Epilogue: Ten Years Later.....................................................................159Appendix A: From Research to Practice: Some Ideas for Writing Instruction.....................177Appendix B: Samples of Tim's Essays...........................................................207Appendix C: The Research Methodology..........................................................215Notes.........................................................................................223References....................................................................................230Index.........................................................................................240 Chapter One THE QUESTION OF UNIVERSITY WRITING INSTRUCTION Anne: What's your sense of yourself as a writer now, compared to four years ago? Tim: Uh, well, shoot. Four years ago I would have said, you know, I've got ... I don't know ... Four years ago, before taking classes here, I would have said, well that's not really writing ... realizing that ... it's not like a particular genre that qualifies as writing. Okay, now you can use style or you pay attention to this, but it's like, you know, whenever you scribble something down, I mean anytime you sit down at the keyboard then that's writing. Even if it's one, two, three, four ... -Tim, senior year of college Anne: Do think you grew as a writer? Tim: In college? Oh yeah, yeah. Anne: How? Tim: Well, I grew to enjoy it and I think I enjoyed it because I was set free, and in being set free I think I found that I had some skill at it ... I had occasions that were handed to me (laughs). Write! Well, might as well make this fun. -Tim, two years after college This book has two stories to tell: the story of Tim's somewhat limited growth as a writer (from this researcher's perspective) between the time he started a freshman writing class at a major US university until two years after he had graduated from school; and second, more argument than story, a case for a re-conceptualization of writing instruction at the post-secondary level. In an earlier ethnography, I examined the struggles of four writers to acclimatize themselves to the demands of writing in college and then in the workplace. Out of that work came a beginning articulation of the nature of writing exp