High school-to-college writing transition : student perspectives in Lebanon

Abstract

Many students face great difficulty making the transition from high school to university and the issue of accountability is at the forefront. U.S. researchers in the field of writing studies have given the issue its due; however, the matter has yet to be explored within the Lebanese setting, a task that this study took upon itself. Rather than taking the usual approaches of either eliciting opinions and prescriptions of teachers, or comparing the institutions and their methods, this study explored the perspectives of those most affected by the issue: the students themselves. By means of four qualitative case studies of first-year AUB students, the study looked at the experiences and perceptions of students on the high school-to-college writing classroom shift in Lebanon. By means of student interviews and the collection of students’ writing documents from both high school and college, it focused on whether or not the students perceived a transition during this period as first-year college writing students, if and to what extent they felt high schools and universities collaborate in terms of communicating to help students make a smooth writing transition, and finally, their opinions on what, if anything could have been done in their high school writing classrooms to help them achieve a greater level of ease in their current writing setting. Results showed that the case study students, for the most part, felt prepared for their college writing courses, but confirmed the existence of a transition, in one way or another. The question of whether the students believe in the occurrence of cross-institutional communication brought mixed results, with each student viewing the matter on the basis of their own academic experience. Differences were found between the two institutions’ writing classrooms in terms of setting, comments types, and instructor priorities. All of the students mentioned some form of improvement and seemed to possess personal interest in their writing after completing their first colleg