ABSTRACT Title of dissertation USING A THEORY OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO TEACH BASIC WRITERS AT A TWO YEAR COLLEGE Andrea Deliece Dardello Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Dissertation directed by Associate Professor Shirley W Logan Department of English Emotional intelligence scholars such as Daniel Goleman Reuven Bar On John Mayer David Caruso and Peter Salovey have all claimed that cognitive ability alone is insufficient to determine an individual s success Each has pointed to emotional intelligence as a skill needed to obtain one s life goals The Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test MSCEIT the only ability based test of emotional intelligence developed by John Mayer Peter Salovey and David Caruso was used to teach basic writers at Howard Community College to recognize understand use and manage emotions to determine if being taught emotional intelligence skills in a fifteenweek semester would improve students emotional intelligence skills and their success in the course Students also kept emotional intelligence journals wherein they recorded their emotions during six stages of the writing process including brainstorming developing a thesis developing an outline writing the first draft receiving feedback and revision Using Alice Brand s glossary of positive and negative emotional vocabulary for writers students identified emotions that aided and stifled their writing process Although this study did not find that teaching emotional intelligence skills in a fifteen week semester significantly increased student s emotional intelligence as determined by the MSCEIT it did find a relationship between students emotional intelligence score students writing skills and their success in the course Students reported emotions throughout the course contribute to a success oriented pedagogy for basic writers USING A THEORY OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO TEACH BASIC WRITERS AT A TWO YEAR COLLEGE Andrea Deliece Dardello Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Advisory Committee Associate Professor Shirley W Logan Chair Professor Jane Donawerth Professor Jeanne Fahnestock Dr Leigh Ryan Associate Professor Wayne Slater Copyright by Andrea Deliece Dardello 2007 ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank everyone who has been instrumental in helping me throughout this eight year endeavor There is a saying that you can tell who your friends are by seeing who awaits you on the other side of the finish line But there are some who have run with me and they are the ones to whom I am especially indebted Dr Shirley Logan I appreciate your constant encouragement and for making the idea of completion a clear and tangible goal I owe a lot to the faculty and staff of Howard Community College Zoe Irvin from the office of Planning Research and Development procured the funding for this project and prioritized it so that I could finish the dissertation in a timely manner Nidhi Srivastava analyzed the data and demonstrated nothing but kindness in my constant requests to simplify the data for non mathematical folks like myself As always my division chair Tara Hart has been enthusiastic and supportive since I first embarked upon this project I would like to thank my mother Mattie Duckworth who has always believed in me and my dreams my sister Dannette who always offered a reprieve from studies with cheerful phone calls throughout the day my husband Darryl who has consistently provided balance encouragement and a safe refuge Finally I would like to thank my students those called basic and developmental Your stories and your lives inspire me to dream hope and become the teacher I ve always wanted to be iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables v List of Figures Chapter 1 vi Emotional Intelligence Theory as an Agent of Passing for Basic Writers 1 Mina Shaughnessy and the Legacy of Basic Writers 9 Basic Writers at Howard Community College 17 Outline of Chapters 19 Conclusion 21 Chapter 2 Emotional Intelligence An Overview 24 Defining Emotional Intelligence 24 Emotional Intelligence in Education 38 Writing Emotions and English Composition 46 Chapter 3 Emotional Intelligence The Absent Presence in Composition Studies 54 Modern Composition An Emotionally Intelligent Field 54 The Presence of Emotional Intelligence in Process Theory 55 The Presence of Emotional Intelligence in Expressionist Theory 60 The Presence of Emotional Intelligence in Social Constructivist Theory 63 Basic Writing an Emotionally Intelligent Field 67 Basic Writers as Cognitively Deficient 67 Transforming the Outsider Status of Basic Writers 69 Valuing what Basic Writers Know 73 Conclusion 75 Chapter 4 Assessment A Lesson in Values 76 A Description of the Research Design 76 Research Site 77 Sample Population 78 Methodology Based on Quantitative Study 81 iv Marginal Homogeneity Test 81 Independent Sample T Test 82 Pearson s Chi Square Based Exact Test 82 One Way Anova 83 Using the MSCEIT Performance Does not Always Lead to Practice 84 The Challenge of Capturing True Emotions in Emotional Intelligence Journals 87 Emotional Intelligence as Authentic Practice in the Writing Classroom 94 Essay Five The Challenge of Assessing Writing in Controlled Settings 98 The Challenge of Reliability and Validity in Holistic Scoring Methods 99 Conclusion 110 Chapter 5 Towards a Pedagogy Informed by Emotional Intelligence Theory 112 Part I Findings Based on Quantitative Analysis 115 Part II Findings Based on Qualitative Analysis 124 Implications for Teaching 132 Two Case Studies 139 Case Study 1 A Look at Writing Skills Based on Four MSCEIT Performance Levels 139 Case Study 2 A Look at How Emotions Influence Writing Skills 158 Daryelle s Emotions Across Assignments 159 Clarissa s Emotions Across Assignments 166 Study Limitations 174 Implications for Basic Writing Scholarship 176 A Definition of Basic Writers Informed by a Success Oriented Pedagogy 178 Conclusion 180 Appendices 183 A 1 Consent forms 184 A 2 Demographic Survey 190 v A 3 Informal and Formal Writing Assignments 192 A 4 Reflective Assignment on the Writing Process 204 A 5 Essay Five 205 A 6 Pre and Post Writing Sample Prompts 208 A 7 Summary of Aiding and Stifling Emotions at Each Stage of the Writing Process 209 A 8 Daryelle s Writing Assignments 211 A 9 Clarissa s Writing Assignments 220 Bibliography 234 vi List of Tables 4 1 4 2 Methodology for Treatment and