Academic literacies and student learning: how can we improve our understanding of student writing?

Transcription

1 Academic literacies and student learning: how can we improve our understanding of student writing? Mary R. Lea Open University, UK

2 Your challenges What are the problems that you face in supporting student writers? Make a note of 3 examples

3 What is an academic literacies approach? Background and emergence of the field in1990s (new literacy studies; critical applied linguistics; US composition and rhetoric studies) Writing as contextual social practice Relationship between student writing and student learning Significance of literacies as opposed to literacy

4 Lea & Street (1998) Ethnographic perspective Student and their teachers understanding of writing tasks Gaps between these Institutional approach Development of student writing heuristic -3 models

5 Study skills concern with surface features and structure of text. Premise: once these are mastered they are transferable unproblematically from context to context Academic socialisation- acculturation into subject and disciplinary writing with focus on features of written genres Premise: each subject/ discipline has its own way of writing and once students are introduced to this they can reproduce it in their own writing Academic literacies complexity of literacy (writing and reading) practices at level of epistemology; student negotiation of writing requirements of different courses/teachers/departments. Significance of students own experiences and knowledge of writing and language across, and outside, the curriculum, including learning how to negotiate new communicative repertoires, modes of meaning making and identity. Premise: Writing is concerned with issues of epistemology, meaning making and identity, which are always layered over and weaved through skills based and socialization approaches

6 What are the implications for practice of taking (combining ) each of these approaches? The example of genre - Study Skills Study skills can be identified through prescriptive attention to the formal linguistic features of genre conventions in generic models of academic writing, for example, you should never use the first person, use the passive voice, you should not use contractions in academic writing. Could also include crude organising structures of the text. E.g essays are structured through an introduction, main body and conclusion.

7 What are the implications for practice of taking (combining ) each of these approaches? The example of genre : Academic Socialisation Academic socialisation is about acculturation into a discipline through learning disciplinary writing conventions. E.g Writing an academic argument in English, Film Studies, Computer Science, Graphic Design looks like this. Academic socialisation could involve disciplinary specialists working with students to help them understand how to recognize specific disciplinary or subject based genres such as, for example, what integrating theory and practice in social work course writing might look like Tendency towards teaching one way/ one genre

8 What are the implications for practice of taking (combining ) each of these approaches? The example of genre :Academic Literaesci Academic literacies approach reveals how genres create knowledge in particular ways - what genres do Make visible to students and their lecturers how genres shape knowledge Develop a language of description for subject specialists I know a good assignment when I see it but I cannot tell someone how to do it Key words or Analysing the Title Giving and receiving feedback and the

9 Key words approach Key words: discuss, explain, compare/contrast, describe, analyse, illustrate, evaluate, outline, critically examine, critique. Lock students into a language they are already unfamiliar with.they need to engage in a process of translation and get beyond the key words: Key words are about academic socialization. Assume students can understand what lies behind these terms. Analysing the title helps them engage with the terms and get to grips with what is being asked.

10 Analysing the title/rubric of an assignment Ask students to: Consider what they think the assignment is asking them to do in their own words What do they already know about the subject matter of the assignment? What do they need to know to complete this assignment successfully? How does this assignment differ from/ is similar to other assignments they are working on/have worked on? How will they choose their resources and reading for this assignment?

11 A heuristic for supporting approaches to academic literacy Academic literacies as heuristic or teaching academic literacy What do we mean by epistemological approach? Concerned with values, beliefs around writing, what presuppositions are made by subjects and disciplines, how do people develop arguments, what what counts as evidence for academics, what counts as evidence for student writers? What does academic literacies offer? Helps us see beyond individual encounters? Takes account of broader institutional perspective and implications of this when we are thinking of supporting student writers. Takes account of issues of identity- by this I mean what textual practices people bring to the academy and how we might be able to harness these, maybe as a transitional space

12 I m a teachers it s not my role to do basic language work Ac literacies as an institutional perspective all language work is epistemological. It is about the different ways in which knowledge is constructed, what counts, who decides what is valued and why. Language and literacy are central to the workings of the university. Writing plays a particularly dominant role in the university and it is central to assessment. We may have our own insecurities about anything to do with academic writing. It is a struggle at all levels of the academy. Academic work means constantly engaging in different writing practices. Constantly engaging in different genres and trying to write oneself into these.

13 Digital literacies Students now engaging in digital literacy practices technology is implicated in textual practice. Subtle changes in both academics and students practices. Institutions are also using technologies in ways which fundamentally change how students may understand academic practice. The case of plagiarism and the use of specialist plagiarism detection software. Plagiarism has been translated into a question of allowable percentages. The technology has resulted in a disconnect between disciplinary writing practice and the assessment of student work. Difficult to have discussions around using sources when technology dominates in this way.

14 What are the implications for your practice? Return to original question and the difficulties you listed. How might the approaches offered by study skills/ academic socialisation/ academic literacies help you to address the problems you identified at the beginning of the session. How might integrating features of all three approaches help you tackle the issues you face? What would you need to do? What institutional constraints would you meet in integrating an academic literacies perspective?