Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts
WRITING AND IDENTITIES IN TRANSITION: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUTHORIAL IDENTITY AND EMERGING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN NURSING AND MIDWIFERY UNDERGRADUATES.
Brid Delahunt¹, Ann Everitt Reynolds², Moira Maguire³
¹Dundalk institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland. ²Dundalk institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland. 3 Dundalk institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland.
The development of new, academic identities is a key element of the transition to Higher Education. In the case of students on professional programmes, this is also linked to emerging professional identities. Academic writing plays an important role in this complex and dynamic process of identity construction. Of particular interest in this context is authorial identity, ‘..the sense a writer has of themselves as an author ..’ (Pittam, Elander, Lusher, Fox & Payne, 2009, p. 154) yet little is known about the development of authorial identity in Nursing undergraduates. We draw on eight indepth interviews with students at different stages of their undergraduate Nursing/Midwifery programmes. Students were asked about their academic writing ‘journeys’ and we explored the transitions in which they positioned themselves in relation to their writing, particularly with regard to ‘voice’. In common with other work we found that these academic transitions often challenged existing identities but our participants seemed to actively welcome, rather than resist or reject, new academic identities. Authorial identity was expressed via an absence of the self from academic writing. In the first year this was generally the consequence of not knowing how to be present; however as students progressed through their studies they developed resources that allowed them deliberately remove themselves from their writing.This absence reflected the privileging of their emerging professional identities and we explore the relationship between our participatnts’ authorial and professional identities.
References
Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P. & Payne, N. (2009) ‘Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing .’ Studies in Higher Education, 34( 2), 153170.