Academic Literacies – theorising pedagogy
WHAT DOES ACADEMIC LITERACIES DO FOR US? PEDAGOGISING THEORY AND THEORISING PEDAGOGY
1 2 3 4 5 6 Fiona English , Weronika Fernando , Kärt Rummel , Saima Sherazi , Peter Thomas , Jackie Tuck
1
UCL Institute of Education, London, UK Queen Mary University, London, UK 3 Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia 4 Queen Mary University, London, UK 5 Middlesex University, London, UK 6 Open University, Milton Keynes, UK 2
Academic literacies has sometimes been thought of more as offering theoretical and critical insights rather than practical applications for writing at university. In other words, it is sometimes viewed as being more about research than teaching. In this symposium we want to challenge this view by showing how academic literacies as a field both shapes and has been (and continues to be) shaped by teachers working with students and their texts so as to understand the different practices and experiences that writing at university entails. We argue, as has been pointed out by Lillis and Scott that academic literacies is ‘a field which is constituted by teacherresearchers’ (2007:22). Drawing on our different experiences in the field and following its strongly ethnographic tradition, the symposium offers personal stories from members of the Language in Higher Education Research Group (LIHERG) about what academic literacies has done for us. Three short presentations based on researchpractice in three different contexts will each offer a different perspective on the generative and dynamic relationship between pedagogy and theory within an aclits approach (See individual abstracts below). These will be threaded together by Fiona English reflecting on how academic literacies has afforded her a theoretical home during her long involvement in literacies work with different institutional identities and in different institutional settings. This will be followed by a discussion from the floor based around the following questions: Who is academic literacies for (we practitioners, we researchers, our students, our disciplinary colleagues)? What can an academic literacies lens help us to do? Kart Rummel and Saima Sherazi as discussants will then offer their own final reflections on the session. Presentation Abstracts: Weronika Fernando In the UK higher education research in the area of academic literacy has problematised focus on students’ ‘problem’ with their ability to respond to academic writing requirements in their chosen disciplines (e.g. Lillis, 2002; English, 2011). My talk adds to the discussion by offering a critical account of institutional writing support as enacted in writing classrooms. Using Academic Literacies theoretical stance (Lea and Street 1998) and employing ethnographic methods of data collection and analysis (Bloome et al. 2004), I explore whether support available to students sufficiently prepares them for the demands of disciplinary writing. I discuss two “telling cases” (Mitchell 1984) of classroom enactment: 1) on how to write an essay, and 2) on how to write an exam answer. Microethnographic data analysis of these cases provide evidence of pedagogic tensions that underpin the writing classes. The institutional support seems limited to surface text features and is characterised by the instrumental use of subject content which does not allow students for the engagement with the meaning making in their academic disciplines. These findings suggest that the problem of student writing is situated less in the students’ inability and more in currently available models of institutional support. The study challenges current pedagogic practices and shows how Academic Literacies can contribute to pedagogic and institutional change.
Peter Thomas This presentation will contribute a personal reflection to the symposium, on the ways in which my developing understanding of Ac Lits has enabled me as an academic. The presentation will focus on the position I adopt in relation to lecturers with whom I collaborate on embedded academic writing and language interventions. In particular, it will reflect on discussions which form part of the preparation for taught embedded sessions, and on how an Ac Lits lens enables me to identify and occupy the position of insider/outsider in relation to my colleagues during these discussions. The presentation will draw on data from reflective metadiscussions, held with my collaboratorcolleagues about our preparatory discussions. It will consider these data with particular refere nce to Lillis’s work on Bakhtin’s notion of dialogueasideal (Lillis 2003) and Jacobs’s work on collaboration (Jacobs 2010). The presentation will attempt to unpack some of the ways in which the amalgamation of questions, priorities, theories and more that I have acquired since encountering Ac Lits has theorised (and empowered) my pedagogy. Jackie Tuck Within the larger framework of a symposium, this individual presentation is based on a study which “theorizes pedagogy”, using an academic literacies lens to explore the perspectives and practices of academic teachers working with student writing in the disciplines (see e.g. Tuck forthcoming). Here, I focus on an analysis of “what’s going on” in a series of pedagogic encounters, captured through audiorecordings and participant observation, in the light of other data such as participant interviews and institutional and assessment documents. I then go on to explore the implications for “pedagogizing theory”, arguing that the dynamic relationship between aclitsinformed theory and pedagogy, grounded in ethnographicallygenerated insights, is key to its combination of criticality and hope (Bozalek et al eds. 2014), and so to transformative outcomes for students, teachers and institutions.
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Tuck, Jackie (forthcoming) ‘That.ain’t going to get you a professorship’: discourses of writing and the positioning of academics’ work with student writers in UK higher education. Studies in Higher Education . Preview available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.999320