Are we encouraging patchwriting? Reconsidering the role of the pedagogical context in ESL student writers’ transgressive intertextuality

Research has increasingly pointed to a range of cognitive and social reasons behind ESL students’ transgressive textual appropriation, defined as students’ source use that contravenes acceptable borrowing practices. However, one aspect that has received little attention is the role of the immediate pedagogical context in this type of textual appropriation by students. Drawing on the social literacies perspective (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanič, 2000), the theory of symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991), and Bakhtin’s theory of language (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986), we argue that some of the routine pedagogical practices that faculty engage in are implicated in students’ transgressive intertextuality in two important ways. At one level, these practices place symbolic legitimacy demands on these students which they can not meet. At another, they position the students as writers without authority and reinforce the rhetorical context as school – rather than professional – writing, thus emphasizing reproduction of authority over its production. These practices ultimately contribute to the production of undervalued texts by students which are characterized by localized as well as global patchwriting. We will end the discussion with some suggestions for educational practice vis-à-vis ESL student patchwriting.