Journal of Second Language Writing

12 (2003) 85102

Looking ahead to more

sociopolitically-oriented case
study research in L2 writing scholarship
(But should it be called post-process?)
Christine Pearson Casanave*
Teachers College, Columbia University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract
In this essay I argue that three familiar areas of inquiry in future L2 writing research need
to be investigated in more sociopolitically-oriented ways: written products, writing
processes, and writer identity, and that qualitative case studies are well suited to explore
the extraordinary diversity of L2 writers and writing contexts from an expanded sociopolitical perspective. However, although substantive changes in how we think about these
areas of inquiry appear to be taking place, some resistance to these changes can be
expected. Finally, I suggest caution in using the label post-process to describe the
substantive changes in how we are beginning to view L2 writing scholarship.
# 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: L2 writing scholarship; Writing research; Post-process; Case-study; Sociopolitical
perspective

Introduction
As I struggled to revise this essay for this special issue of Journal of Second
Language Writing on second language writing in the post-process era, I kept
coming up against obstacles in trying to fit my thinking into some kind of postprocess framework as suggested by Atkinson in the introduction to this issue. I
confess to having been caught up in the excitement and energy of the process
revolution of the early 1980s and to the idea that perhaps a paradigm shift really
*
Present address: 1172 Fourth St., Monterey, CA 93940, USA.
E-mail address: casanave@redshift.com (C.P. Casanave).

1060-3743/03/$ see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(03)00002-X

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C.P. Casanave / Journal of Second Language Writing 12 (2003) 85102

was in the air (Hairston, 1982; Kuhn, 1970; Zamel, 1982). It is also true that the
changes in L1 and L2 composition scholarship since that time described by
Atkinson (this issue) fit well with many aspects of my thinking, reading, and
research interests over the past 10 years. But I have had trouble connecting a
Western intellectual discussion about process and post-process to the realities of
my life in a non-Western country (Japan). For instance, my own students, and the
students of the teachers I work with, usually write in English in order to end up
with a product of some kind that will be evaluated, even if that product is a
reflective journal. Most of the Japanese teachers of high school English that I work
with are still required to teach grammar and translation. If students and teachers
have time, they go through multiple iterations of some kinds of writing, particularly
at the university level (e.g., graduate school applications), but often they do not. In
both L1 and L2, many Japanese students do not revise, do not peer-read, do not get
substantive feedback, and may not see their written work again, especially that
done in Japanese, once it has been turned in. Many students cut and paste from the
Internet. In short, I do not think there has been a process revolution in Japan (or in
many other parts of the world), so am not sure how to talk about what postprocess might mean outside the realm of Western composition scholarship.
Clearly, however, social, political, and cultural issues in L2 writing abound in
my EFL setting, as the above list of realities shows. Moreover, I am a Western
scholar, and in recent years, in spite of continued interest in linguistic and textual
aspects of writing, I and other L2 writing scholars are attending to social and
political aspects of writing that in the past were not considered central either to
writing process research or to textual studies of writing. These expanded interests
parallel those in English language education more generally (e.g., Benesch, 2001;
Canagarajah, 1999; Hall & Eggington, 2000) and certainly reflect the changes in
L1 and L2 writing described by Atkinson (this issue) and Matsuda (this issue).
The changes point to expanded directions and new sets of complex questions for
writing researchers and teachers to consider, whether or not there has been
anything like a process movement in a particular culture. In my case, I am
particularly interested in the ways that qualitative case studies (Stake, 1998) can
be used to explore social and political aspects of local knowledge (Canagarajah,
1993; Geertz, 1983) and local interactions (Casanave, 1995) of particular L2
writers in particular settings. The objects of interest are not new at all and reflect
no preferences for looking more at texts, processes, or writers. All are equally
important. However, the ways that I and others are thinking about them show that
L2 writing scholarship is expanding far beyond the narrow textual and procedural
focuses of the past.
I now take a closer look at three familiar areas of inquiry in L2 writing that I
believe should be explored in ways that continue trends toward situating them in
more complex and nuanced sociopolitical contexts than in the past: the products
or artifacts of writing, writing processes, and writer identities. A review of some
existing studies, in particular case studies, suggests that L2 writing scholarship
does not need to reinvent the wheel, but to ask increasingly difficult, as yet

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unanswered, questions about writing in second and foreign language settings,

ones that are not easily addressed by short-term, broad scope, or text analytic
research. As part of this review, I lay out a number of these questions that deserve
further attention in future research. I conclude the essay by suggesting some
potential areas of resistance to sociopolitically-oriented qualitative case studies
and by urging caution in applying labels such as post-process to the emerging
developments in how we are thinking about L2 writing.

Writing as sociopolitical artifact

The interest of L2 writing instructors and researchers in written texts never
disappeared, and continues unabated especially in exam-oriented cultures like
Japan and other East Asian cultures apparently bypassed by the process-writing
revolution as well as by genre studies (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Hyland, 2000, this
issue; Hyon, 1996; Johns, 2002; Swales, 1990) and contrastive rhetoric (Connor,
1996, in press). However, written products are increasingly viewed not just as
linguistic artifacts but as socially produced and politically situated (Kress, 1993).
From a social perspective, artifacts such as written texts have been described by
Prior (1998) as material objects fashioned by people that include durable
symbolic forms, like natural languages, mathematics, and specialized disciplinary
discourses that may be inscribed in material objects, but that are also internalized
by and distributed across persons (pp. 3031). From a political perspective,
written artifacts are political documents in the sense that they are produced in
power-infused settings such as classrooms and discourse communities, and are
used to further political as well as intellectual and instructional agendas. In L2
writing scholarship, written artifacts are generally taken to be writing produced by
L2 learners or novice writers, and they have tended to be studied apart from
sociopolitical concerns. However, written artifacts also include the many kinds of
documents that surround and sustain writing activities such as course syllabuses,
writing prompts, and evaluation criteria. We can ask who designed writing
assessment schemes and for what purposes? What kinds of documents or
interlocking systems of documents define L2 writers, lay out assessment criteria,
or describe the kinds of writing that students must do? How do such documents
influence the lives of L2 students in particular ESL or EFL settings? Case studies,
usually thought to be in-depth studies of particular people, can also explore such
sociopolitical aspects of written artifacts. I look briefly at four types of artifacts:
artifacts involved with the evaluation of writing; artifacts within systems of
genres; artifacts that construct knowledge; and artifacts that construct identities.
Artifacts for evaluation
Artifacts for evaluation consist of writing such as individually graded pieces of
writing, collections of writing, essay exams and the associated prompts and

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evaluation criteria, as well as manuscripts submitted for publication by writing

scholars. Such artifacts are produced in a social and political context where writers
and their writings are compared to other writers and their writings, and where
institutional norms, instructor and gatekeeper criteria, feedback, and decisions of
powerful evaluators help determine what success means. Many questions have
already been raised about the political and ethical nature of writing assessment in
both L1 and L2 writing (e.g., Hamp-Lyons, 1991, 2001; White et al., 1996). Future
work in L2 case study research needs to look even more closely at how particular
assessment criteria are developed and at the impact of such criteria on both the
writing and the lives of writers (Flowerdew, 2000; Johns, 1991; Mlynarczyk, 1998).
Artifacts in systems of genres
Artifacts also exist within systems of genres (Bazerman, 1994b; Freadman, 1994)
in which various written products interact in a sociopolitical context. Bazerman, for
example, has investigated the many kinds of documents that writer/inventors need
when they negotiate a patent. In his detailed case study of several key years in the life
of Thomas Edison (Bazerman, 1999), he demonstrates how the construction and
orchestrating of patents and other documents helped turn an idea into technological
reality and forge Edisons reputation as a genius. In another discussion of systems of
genres, more directly applicable to studies of L2 writing, Freadman (1994) points
out the game-like, dialogic nature of writing, where a piece of writing is best seen as
part of an interactive system. In a writing class, for example, an essay, instructor
feedback, and a revision can all be called artifacts or products, but they have
meaning only in relation to each other and to their overall purpose. Similarly,
institutional writing exam policies, exam prompts, and written evaluation criteria
are articulated in written documents that interact to shape what may be a high-stakes
writing activity in the lives of L2 students. Who produces these documents in
particular settings and what factors contribute to decision-making? What forms do
sets of documents take and how do they work together to form a highly influential
genre system in both second and foreign language settings?
Artifacts that construct knowledge
Artifacts can also be seen as written products that contribute to knowledge and
conversations in a field and indeed that construct the facts and experiences
themselves (Bazerman, 1994a; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Fleck, 1935/1979;
Gilbert, 1976; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Kuhn, 1970; Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Myers,
1985). For example Myerss (1985) case study of two biologists preparing grant
proposals demonstrates that a proposal that promises novelty of some sort needs
to be constructed in ways that are acceptable to specific gatekeepers in order to
secure research funds. With a successful document that secures research funds,
knowledge-building projects can proceed, then be represented and disseminated
in subsequent documents. Similarly, in L1 and L2 composition studies, our sense

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of what a field is about is constructed by the discourse used to describe it, as

Matsuda (this issue) has pointed out in his discoursal history of the process
movement. Questions for future L2 writing research need to ask to what extent a
field constructed by scholarly people in public discourse accords with ways its
practitioners construct and practice it, particularly in non-Western EFL settings.
Similarly, how are gatekeeping criteria in our scholarly journals developed and
what is the role of particular criteria in shaping what kinds of documents are
admitted to a fields sanctioned body of knowledge?
Artifacts that construct identities
Artifacts construct identities as well. I refer here to particular cases of identity
construction in which a document itself contributes to the identity construction of
people other than the writers of those documents. In this sense, a written artifact is
especially powerful, in that it has consequences for peoples lives. Studies such as
McCarthys evaluations of the DSM IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders in psychiatry) (McCarthy, 1991; McCarthy & Gerring, 1994)
and those by Ravotas and Berkenkotter (1998), McDermott (1993), and Mehan
(1993) show how peoples identities are constructed through the labels afforded
by psychological manuals and school counseling reports. Kubota (1999, 2001)
argues that artifacts in the form of published literature in education and applied
linguistics construct discursive identities of Self and Other that unintentionally
stereotype cultural and racial groups by means of descriptions and labels. Not
only is such application of labels inherently social, it is also insidiously political in
that the recipients of labeled identities tend to be the less powerful interactants
(psychologically disturbed people, children, students, minorities, cultural
others) who thus have little say in how they are represented in official
documents and published academic literature. Detailed case studies of specific
documents and the factors contributing to how they are constructed and then used
can help us understand the interactive nature of document construction, and the
political relationships among writers, readers, and users of documents.
Viewed from this social and political perspective, written products can be
considered artifacts in which language has the power to construct facts and
identities, contribute to change, and shape our society (Ivanic & Camps, 2001).
Focused case studies in L2 writing research in the coming years should look in
depth at a limited number of documents and the conditions in which they are
produced to explore a number of questions pertinent to L2 writers in second and
foreign language settings: What is the history of how a particular L2 writing
assessment instrument develops at an institution? What factors end up taking
precedence and who makes such decisions? How are specific writing prompts
developed, and what is their effect on particular individuals in an educational
setting? In an L2 writing class, how do writing prompts, course syllabuses,
students drafts, written feedback, and response to feedback work together as a
system of genres? In the literature on L2 writing, how are particular facts and

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knowledge discoursally constructed, and to what effect on the many different

actors in the L2 writing field? How do specific documents construct the identities
of L2 writers of different kinds and what and whose political agendas are fulfilled
by labels and descriptions of L2 writers in particular settings?

Writing as sociopolitical process

In recent years, we have become more interested than in the past in how the
cognitive, expressive, and linguistic aspects of writing processes are embedded in
social and political contexts of writing, and how all these aspects of writing interact
to get writing accomplished. How do writers sociopolitical purposes and the
sociopolitical contexts in which they write influence their strategies and processes
for writing? Several examples from published case studies show the potential of L2
writing research to explore these connections: preparing for an English competency essay exam, writing academic papers, and writing articles for publication.
Learning to pass an English competency essay exam
We know from existing case studies (e.g., Johns, 1991) that college level English
competency exams can determine whether a student graduates, regardless of his or
her grades in subject matter courses. This is high-stakes writing at its most
contested, and hence deserves ongoing attention by L2 writing scholars, not just
who focus on student writers, but also who look closely at the cadre of interacting
actors within specific settings. What attitudes and strategies are taken by students,
writing instructors, administrators, and evaluators who are involved in a particular
competency exam system in a particular setting? How do particular exam requirements determine how students prepare and how teachers design class activities?
For example, in one study (Mlynarczyk, 1998), we learn of five students who
were preparing for a crucial freshman English competency exam. This exam took
the form of a final exam in the authors writing class, where journal writing was
used to help the students sort through their problems and strategies. Mlynarczyk
documented how students revised in-class practice essays in preparing for this
high-stakes exam. However, their revising processes resembled only distantly the
creative, re-thinking processes described in the process-writing literature. Lan, for
example, a student from China, stated in her journal that she would review all her
mistakes, correct them all, and ... copy the correct form of each of them for at
least five time so that I can remember them ... (p. 137). She also planned to
continue writing in her journal so as to improve her speed, and to practice writing
essays within a strict 45-min time period. With encouragement from Mlynarczyk,
Lan and the other students continued working on the dreaded exam, which they
did in very pragmatic ways, memorizing vocabulary and spellings of troublesome
words and correcting grammar mistakes. Outside the supportive environment of
the authors class, at least one student, Roberto, suspected after failing the exam

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the first time that they look at your nationality and if you are Colombian theyll
fail you no matter what (p. 72).
This example shows how the social and political realities of a questionably just
institutional requirement influence students writing processes and attitudes
toward assessment types of writing tasks and toward different writing environments in a school context. Mlynarczyks L2 writers adopted very pragmatic
writing processes designed to solve a particular power-infused writing problem.
Although they followed some of the typical process-writing precepts in their
journals as they openly expressed their fears and strategies, their goal in
Mlynarczyks class was neither self-discovery nor discovery of ideas for further
development in their writing. It was to learn how to pass an essay exam.
We are left with other questions, however, that future case studies can explore.
These questions are especially relevant for students and teachers in countries like
Japan: What is a teachers role in setting up and perpetuating or resisting certain
exam requirements? Do teachers in particular settings have the power to influence
how exams are made or to choose how to help students develop strategies for
passing competency exams? Where do students beliefs come from about the
fairness (or lack thereof) of exams, and how do their beliefs influence their
strategies for preparing for them? How do particular exam formats influence
students writing processes and which students are advantaged or disadvantaged
by particular formats?
Academic papers
Social and political factors surface not only as students prepare for competency
exams, but also as they write course papers in their undergraduate and graduate
classes. In studies such as Spacks (1997) 3-year case study of Yuko, Sternglasss
(1997) longitudinal study of diverse college writers, and Lekis (1999, 2001)
study of Jan we note how the extralinguistic complexities of the students lives
and the sociopolitical contexts in which they were writing influence the processes
by which writing gets done. An example of a book-length literacy autobiography
(a sort of self-case study) shows how writing course papers can be viewed as a
sociopolitical process.
In Victor Villanuevas (1993) literacy autobiography, Bootstraps, we learn
about some of the processes by which Villanueva, an L1 academic of color (his
label) attempted to meet the expectations of his university professors, powerful
figures who controlled his future. Having grown up in love with language but
never having envisioned himself as university material, he was shocked and
perplexed at critical comments on his first papers. Determined to figure out the
game, Villanueva calls his strategy of learning how to write in the university
Professorial Discourse Analysis:
Professorial Discourse Analysis became a standard practice: go to the library; see
what the courses professor had published; try to discern a pattern to her writing;

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try to mimic the pattern. Some would begin with anecdotes. Some would have no
personal pronouns. Some would cite others research. Some would cite different
literary works to make assertions about one literary work. Whatever they did, I
would do too. (Villanueva, 1993, p. 71)

The process of acquainting himself with and imitating his professors writings
is clearly a linguistic strategy, but one deeply embedded in social and political
realities of university level writing. Villanuevas professors were people who had
real power over him. It was in his interest to find ways as quickly as possible to
understand and meet their expectations, and modeling his own writing on theirs
made sense at the time. His own experimentation with unconventional writing in
the form of the multivocalic literacy autobiography from which this anecdote was
taken would come later, once he had completed a PhD and gained recognition as a
composition scholar.
In L2 writing settings, especially in EFL contexts, precisely how do students
prepare course papers, in both L1 and L2? What cultural and institutional factors,
for example, influence the extent to which students use mimetic composing
processes, as did Villanueva, or cut-and-paste strategies from the Internet (Bloch,
2001) and other kinds of textual borrowing (Buranen, 1999; Buranen & Roy,
1999; Pennycook, 1996)? What attitudes towards different kinds of composing
strategies, including textual borrowing, are held by particular institutions and
instructors in students L1 and L2 settings?
Writing for publication
The sociopolitical nature of writing for publication, and in particular the
processes by which academic and research writers work to bring pieces of writing
to print, has been documented by a number of scholars in L1 and L2 writing. We
know from case studies by Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), Blakeslee (1997),
Flowerdew (2000), Gosden (1996), and Myers (1985), as well as from my own work
(e.g., Casanave, 1998, 2002), that novice and established scholars alike, working in
first and second languages, negotiate pieces of writing into print or into acceptance
by granting agencies through sometimes extended and difficult interactions with
peer readers, mentors, reviewers, journal editors, and granting agency evaluators.
As Hyland (1996, 1998, 2000) has documented, these social and political negotiations require that writers situate their work within academic and research communities by skillfully using a wide array of linguistic resources to effect politeness,
humility and modesty, authority, persuasiveness, and confidence. These sometimes
contradictory stances need to be negotiated for each piece of writing in relation to
other actors and institutional expectations in the writers fields, and case studies are
especially well-suited to exploring these negotiations.
For example, in her case study of situated writing among physicists, Blakeslee
(1997) was interested in learning how newcomers found their way into the
community of published scholars by means of their engaged activities with

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mentors. Blakeslees case study participant was Djamal Bouzida, a sixth year
doctoral student from Algeria whose L1 was French and whose strong L2 was
English. He and the main professor, Swendsen, were coauthoring an article on
computer simulations in physics, drafts of which were written by Bouzida and
responded to by Swendsen over a period of many months. Blakeslee attended
many of the regular meetings between Bouzida and Swendsen, analyzed drafts,
and interviewed the participants. Rather than smooth mentoring processes
between a professor and student of disciplinary writing, the writing process that
Blakeslee observed was complicated by a number of social and political factors
throughout the interactions. Bouzida, for example, resisted letting go of familiar
skills (such as his tendency to report technical information in great detail) in order
to meet new rhetorical challenges demanded by this particular task. Swendsen, for
his part, was either unable or unwilling to provide Bouzida with explicit guidance
in how to reshape the drafts in ways more suited for the specific disciplinary
community they were writing for. As a result, Bouzida could not accurately
interpret the implicit feedback he got from Swendsen, so often did not follow
through on the suggestions. Finally, the potential for Bouzida to develop authorial
control was undermined when Swendsen, in frustration at Bouzidas inability to
revise in expected ways, appropriated Bouzidas draft, without resistance from
Bouzida. In taking control of the draft, Blakeslee tells us, Swendsen constrained
Bouzida from acting autonomously and from exercising his authority over the
revision process (Blakeslee, 1997, p. 155). The negotiating over the writing was
deeply social, in other words, but unlike what might be expected in a situated and
apprenticeship approach to how writing gets done (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in this
case, authority was not transferred to or shared with the novice writer. Bouzidas
writing processes can neither be described nor explained adequately without our
integrating the information about how the social interactions took place and how
the power relationships played themselves out in these interactions.
More in-depth case studies are needed of individual L2 writers, including
literacy biographies and autobiographies in L2 writing scholarship (e.g., Belcher
& Connor, 2001; Casanave & Vandrick, in press) that examine writing processes
from a sociopolitical perspective. Such studies can ask: Who are the key actors
and what are their relationships? How do particular actors, their relationships, and
their culturally infused expectations about writing influence the ways that writing
gets done? Do particular grading, assessment, or gatekeeping systems encourage
or discourage imitative, collaborative, or exploratory processes by student and
novice professional writers? What institutional constraints are operating that
likewise influence different aspects of writing processes?

Writers and their identities

In future L2 writing scholarship, interest in writer identity will likely grow, both
in the identities of novice L2 writers and in those of authors of published work on

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L2 writing. Writers are social and political beings who are participating in
complex literate activities (Casanave, 1998; Hirvela & Belcher, 2001; Prior,
1998, 2002) and who have lives and histories that impinge upon their writing
practices. Their identities are multiple and shifting, and some are represented in
their writing, or as Ivanic (1995, 1998) would say, are constructed by different
discourse types. Questions of interest to L2 writing concern how L2 writers
construct a sense of identity or presence in their writing, and what their beliefs are
about the concept of identity in writing.
As she learned from her case studies of adult L1 writers, Ivanic (1998) found that
novice writers tend to have problems creating an authorial presence or identity in
their writing, partly because they have little actual authority and partly because they
lack awareness and control of the features of their discourse that can be used to
shape an authorial identity. In addition to her case studies of mature undergraduate
writers, her studies of L2 graduate students are good examples of how writers learn
to represent themselves in different ways in their writing and to become aware of
how writing positions them socially and politically in school contexts (Ivanic ,
1998; Ivanic & Camps, 2001; Ivanic & Simpson, 1992). A rarer kind of case study
is that by Canagarajah (2001), who described how Viji, a mature Sri Lankan
graduate student, established unconventional agency and authority in her thesis
writing against the advice of some professors to follow conventions. In this study
Canagarajah began exploring an instance of successful resistance to mainstream
academic writing by a student whose personal identity as a practicing Christian
played a strong and contested role in how she constructed her academic identity.
Published authors also need to choose how to represent themselves in their
texts. It is particularly interesting to learn how accomplished L2 writers construct
their textual identities and view the social and political negotiations needed to
establish their credibility as writers and researchers (Belcher & Connor, 2001;
Casanave & Vandrick, in press). Kubotas (in press) exploration of herself as a
developing academic writer, for example, shows how interactions with more
powerful journal editors and reviewers worked to both construct and undermine
her sense of identity (original voice) in her first published writings. Published
writers also construct identities in their writing in relation to the identities of the
Other about whom they are writing (Denzin, 1998). As Denzin (1998, p. 319)
reminds us, Representation . . . is always self-presentation. That is, the Others
presence is directly connected to the writers self-presence in the text. The Other
who is presented in the text is always a version of the researchers self.
Questions (many already asked, but as yet unanswered) about ways that
particular L2 writers construct discoursal selves, and indeed how they conceptualize the construct of discoursal identity itself, will provide fuel for many future
studies. What does it mean to have an identity in writing, both L1 and L2? Is the
concept of discoursal identity itself (e.g., Ivanic , 1994, 1998) a concept imposed by
researchers on individual writers or one that has meaning to L2 writers themselves?
What decisions do L2 writers make about how to represent themselves in
their writing? What beliefs about the construct of identity influence their decisions

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(if this is even a meaningful construct for them)? What kinds of changes in identity
does a writer experience over time, and what kinds of linguistic, social, political,
and cultural factors appear to influence those changes? In what ways can novice L2
writers be helped to develop agency and authority in their writing in the short time
spans ordinarily covered by L2 writing instruction? How do institutional conventions influence identity construction and to what extent do writers accommodate or
resist these conventions? What are the political implications of particular authorinformant identity relationships in published L2 writing research?

Potential pockets of resistance to sociopolitically-oriented case study

research
This review of a number of case studies that address some of the social and
political aspects of writing demonstrates that L2 writing research in the future can
evolve logically from work that has already been done. However, there are a
number of reasons not to become complacent. L2 writing scholarship that
commits itself to a sociopolitical vision is an unfinished project. Areas of
resistance remain, as do unresolved and contested questions about the goals
and methods best suited to studies of L2 writing.
First, although it may seem uncontroversial to expand our already established
use of case study research in L2 writing, in fact there is nothing inherent in case
study research that will lead magically to an expanded sociopolitical vision of L2
writing. Case studies lend themselves to detailed and descriptive but apolitical
story telling, and thus may suit a pragmatic, but not a sociopolitical approach by
researchers. In fact, a sociopolitical approach to case study research asks
questions that will aggravate proponents of the pragmatic agenda of much L2
writing research and instruction, particularly in English for academic purposes
(EAP) (Santos, 1992, 2001). Perhaps more than the L1 writing field, the L2
writing field is understandably very focused on textual production, and as
numerous scholars have pointed out, there continues to be a very pragmatist
goal in L2 writing (Benesch, 2001; Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Horowitz, 1986;
Santos, 1992, 2001). In addition, some scholars, such as Swales (1998, p. 193),
may feel that local and contextualized descriptions should precede judgments
about power, ideology, and indoctrination.
However, the pragmatist or descriptivist agendas do not preclude our looking at
writers and at the documents they produce or that influence them as facets of
sociopolitical phenomena, as Benesch (1993) noted some years ago. Indeed, case
study research can help us understand how the goals of L2 writing can be
pragmatic while not being politically neutral. A more difficult choice in future L2
writing research will be, in addition to situating studies of L2 writing in more
ideologically sensitive ways, whether more researchers and teachers of L2 writing
should adopt a critical literacy position that advocates resistance and change
(Benesch, 2001; Canagarajah, 1993). Even if we do not follow a strong critical

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literacy perspective, future L2 research still needs to explore ways that L2 writing
done by particular people in particular settings reflects and is influenced by
unequal power relations and complex social interactions among many kinds of
interested actors.
The second area of potential resistance to case studies with a sociopolitical
orientation concerns debates that still surface in educational research about the
value of qualitative case study research and whether it can be considered scientific
(Anfara et al., 2002; Donmoyer, 1990; Eisner & Peshkin, 1990; Erickson &
Gutierrez, 2002; Feuer et al., 2002; Miller et al., 1998). Many complexities and
abstractions concerning the social, political, and cultural issues in L2 writing cannot
be investigated in conventional scientific ways, such as the nature of social
interactions in writing, issues of power relationships among actors and their
purposes for writing, and the meaning and role of culture (Atkinson, 1999, and
this issue; Hall & Eggington, 2000). Wishing to look carefully at multiple and
complex influences on particular writers and writing contexts but lacking clear
conceptualizations of such abstractions, researchers may find it difficult to conduct,
interpret, and disseminate research in ways that satisfy the desires of some
educational researchers for clarity of cause and effect. In these conservative political
times, researchers may likewise find it difficult to get non-traditional research
funded (Slavin, 2002). It is also not yet clear how standards that are proposed for
evaluating qualitative research (e.g., Anfara et al., 2002) might apply to such case
studies, given that interpretation itself is a political practice (Denzin, 1998). Case
studies, moreover, focus on individuals and single settings, leaving us with what
some believe to be a generalizability issue. Questions about generalizability in
qualitative and case study research have been addressed in some depth (e.g., Becker,
1990; Davis, 1995; Donmoyer, 1990; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). However, there is
lingering suspicion about whether research that uses qualitative techniques to
inquire deeply into individual diversity rather than into broader patterns of human
behavior can be considered scientific (Anfara et al., 2002; Miller et al., 1998;
Slavin, 2002). We know that case studies can promote strong connections with
readers of such studies by providing levels of detail and descriptive authenticity of
L2 writers not possible in studies with broader scope. However, if L2 writing
scholarship in the future sees itself as a subset of educational research, we will have
to continue working to establish the legitimacy of such work with dissertation
committees, journal editors, and funding agencies (Miller et al., 1998).
Finally, L2 writing scholarship will need to wrestle with the politics of
representation in published writing. An expanded vision of L2 writing in coming
years needs to see not only the topics of research as socially and politically
situated, but also the very act of writing as a political act of representation, an
issue that continues to be debated in educational literature (Tierney, 2002a). Given
the very pragmatic agenda of much L2 writing scholarship, such a posture might
face resistance. However, a more insistently self-reflexive look at the politics of
writing is essential, particularly in case study research, which tends to present
detailed accounts of linguistically and culturally diverse people, processes,

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97

institutions, and documents in which researcher-authors are deeply implicated.

How should L2 writing scholars represent and position themselves in relation to
specific members of different groups (e.g., Rosaldo, 1987, 1989/1993) and to the
documents and institutions they describe? As Kubota (1999, 2001) has pointed
out, our discursive constructions of self and other have political consequences.
Our identities as writers do as well. A choice to include ourselves openly as actors
in a study, or to remove ourselves altogether from sight is a political choice
(Denzin, 1998). Likewise, writing itself is political in that it has consequences for
peoples lives. As Tierney (2002b, p. 429) puts it, Words have meaning; authors
have power. In order for writing to get its points across, he continues, writers
need to know how to place themselves in their texts.
In short, in order to address the many questions in L2 writing scholarship that
concern the power-infused relationships and interactions among people, documents, and institutions, case studies are particularly well-suited. Given the general
acceptance of case study research in L2 writing scholarship, complacency is
tempting. However, the sociopolitical perspective described in this essay and in
the other articles in this special issue will require intentionality, self-reflexivity,
and forays into areas fraught with unresolved issues. In the last section of my
discussion, I ask whether this kind of expanded L2 writing scholarship needs to be
labeled, and if so, whether the post-process label is fitting.

But should sociopolitically-oriented case studies in L2 writing research

be labeled post-process?
In reviewing some sociopolitically-oriented case study research, I have provided some examples of how qualitative case studies can embrace changes in how
writing scholars have been thinking about and reporting on written products,
writing processes, and writer identity. These changes fit well with what Atkinson
(this issue) depicts as post-process issues in writing. Researchers attend more than
in the past to what writing is and does, to the purposes and politics of writing, to
the relationships, intentions, and identities of multiple actors including researchers themselves, and to the ways that linguistic and procedural aspects of writing
serve local and broader social, cultural, and political purposes. The pragmatic
agenda of much L2 writing research and instruction notwithstanding, work by a
number of scholars (e.g., Benesch, 2001; Canagarajah, 1999; Clark & Ivanic ,
1997; Fairclough, 1989, 1992; Gee, 1990; Kubota, 1998, 1999; Norton, 2000;
Pennycook, 1994; Street, 1995) reminds us that how we use and teach writing
cannot be separated from the social, political, and ideological purposes that
language serves (Hall & Eggington, 2000). Areas of resistance and unresolved
debate suggest that the L2 writing field can look forward to healthy intellectual
exchanges for many years to come.
However, in spite of the substantive changes in how we are thinking about
L2 writing and the interactions among its pragmatic, social, and ideological

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dimensions, I am uncomfortable using a new label to describe how we think

about, research, and teach writing. Knowing that the notion of post-process
has not been fully developed, yet refers to many substantive and complex
changes in our thinking (Atkinson, this issue; Matsuda, this issue; Trimbur,
1994), I wonder if we are jumping the gun by using the label. Labels, as we
know from the history of process approaches in L1 and L2 writing tend to
simplify and reify complexities, lead to bandwagon effects in research and
teaching, and limit our vision of what factors influence how and why people
write in a first or second language. Moreover, as influential as the notion of a
process revolution has been in highlighting the need to consider how, not just
what, people write, process-oriented research and instruction in composition
studies may have been talked about more than practiced (Applebee, 1986;
Faigley, 1992; Matsuda, this issue). This has certainly been the case outside the
communities of Western scholarship in L1 and L2 writing such as Japan, where
students and teachers alike continue to be concerned primarily with written
products for purposes of evaluation.
My suggestion is, therefore, that for now we avoid applying a label to depict the
changes that are taking place in our thinking, and instead develop clearer
descriptions of how these changes apply to L2 writing, both in Western and
non-Western settings. Basic to our discussions, as my review of some research has
suggested, should be the issue of the inherent tension in L2 writing research
between the pragmatic focus on language and rhetorical forms on the one hand
and attention to the less text-based aspects of L2 writing, such as ways that L2
writing, like all writing, is situated in social, political, and cultural contexts. We
are indeed looking ahead to an era (that may or may not become labeled postprocess) in which attention to linguistic and cognitive processes and even
interest in the products of writing have become embedded in local, institutional,
and disciplinary contexts, and where people, their goals and institutional policies,
and their relationships matter as much as do grammar and syntax, drafting and
revising. It is especially important for L2 writing scholars to continue expanding
their interests into these areas in that our field is fundamentally a political one.
Linguistic minorities learn to write in mainstream contexts and linguistic majorities (e.g., Japanese in Japan) learn to become literate in a language, English, that
dominates world Internet communication, commerce, scholarly publication, and
cross-cultural political negotiation. We cannot therefore escape the sociopolitical
implications of our work. Lets examine these complexities first, and then decide
if we need a label to describe the era we are entering.

Acknowledgments
I thank Dwight Atkinson, David Shea, and the editors of JSLW for their very
constructive and supportive comments on earlier drafts of this essay, even when
my views differed from theirs.

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99

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