Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
CONSTRUCTING WRITERS’ IDENTITIES THROUGH CRITICAL REFLECTIONS
Fengming Chi
National Chung Cheng University, ChiaYi, Taiwan
The process of learning academic writing could generate identity conflicts. However, while such conflicts can lead to new forms of participation in academic practice, and new relations among community members, the inability to claim ownership of writing that may arise from this could cause resistance and even nonparticipation. Using Ivanič’s (1998) three aspects of writer identities as an analytical framework, the autobiographical self, discoursal self, and selfasauthor, this proposed presentation reports how a Taiwanese EFL (EnglishasaForeignLanguage) freshman student, Lynn, applied critical reflections to negotiate her writer identities from a submissive toward an inquiry self. This presentation particularly focuses on Lynn’s tensions and struggles that arose as she engaged in responding to different revision tasks with teacher comments, online peer feedback, and the authorchair. Lynn’s journal responses, and oral interviews with Lynn and her peers, were used as the major sources for data discussion, while Lynn’s written texts were used for data verification. The findings indicate that learning academic writing, for Lynn, means not only negotiating unfamiliar vocabulary, rhetoric, and writing conventions, but also acquiring new sociocultural norms. Lynn’s inability to negotiate ownership of her writing first caused her defensiveness and even resistance. However, as she was able to experience peer feedback via the authorchair as a resource and opportunity for sociocultural inquiry, she was empowered to exchange experiences, knowledge, and judgments with community members. Some pedagogical implications generated from Lynn’s case are also addressed.