ABSTRACT
This study investigated the context for writing in two college chemical engineering classes, viewing each as a disciplinary community. The study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods: a survey of all students and professors participating in these classes, open-ended and discourse-based interviews with ten students and two teachers, observation of classes, and analysis of claims and warrants used in students’ written reports. The findings indicate that these two courses represented distinct communities where different issues were addressed, different lines of reasoning used, different writer and audience roles assumed, and different social purposes served by writing. These findings show the function that writing can serve in introducing students not only to the intellectual activities of a discipline, but also to the social roles and purposes of various disciplinary communities. The findings also show some of the problems that arose in specific classroom contexts when professors gave students mixed messages as to the audience for writing and when no issue was perceived for writing.
