Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
English
Advisor
Mark McBeth
Committee Members
Amy Wan
Jessica Yood
Subject Categories
Rhetoric and Composition
Keywords
Feedback, Responding to Student Writing, Thematic Content Analysis, Composition and Rhetoric
Abstract
This dissertation applies content analysis, both quantitative and thematic, to publications exploring feedback on student writing by analyzing two corpora of texts published from 2000 to 2019: a systematic sample of 114 articles from 5 journals and excerpts from 5 guides for new instructors. For the journals’ corpus, the most significant emergent themes included error; affect, both instructors’ and students’; and technology. In the guides’ corpus, this study focused on guides’ assumptions about their audiences and discussed the “cycle of correction”—a pattern where guides have focused on cultivating and reinforcing core field values about feedback established between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Relying primarily on discourse theory, this dissertation identifies stagnation, marginalization, and specialization as defining characteristics of the corpora studied. In short, the discourse surrounding feedback on student writing has become stagnant as authors increasingly focus on the same, narrow set of topics and themes in increasingly specific detail, discussing these topics in hyper-specialized discursive spaces with limited innovation. Coupled with the “cycle of correction” discussed above, this dissertation depicts a relatively static discourse facing a dynamic writing and feedback environment.
Recommended Citation
Greco, Robert A., "Back to the Margins: The Re-Marginalization of Feedback Research in Composition and Rhetoric" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6141
