The editors and contributors to this collection explore what it means to adopt an “academic literacies” approach in policy and pedagogy. Transformative practice is illustrated through case studies and critical commentaries from teacher-researchers working in a range of higher education contexts—from undergraduate to postgraduate levels, across disciplines, and spanning geopolitical regions including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cataluña, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Negotiating Academic Literacies: Teaching and Learning Across Languages and Cultures is a cross-over volume in the literature between first and second language/literacy. This anthology of articles brings together different voices from a range of publications and fields and unites them in pursuit of an understanding of how academic ways of knowing are acquired. The editors preface the collection of readings with a conceptual framework that reconsiders the current debate about the nature of academic literacies. In this volume, the term academic literacies denotes multiple approaches to knowledge, including reading and writing critically. College classrooms have become sites where a number of languages and cultures intersect. This is the case not only for students who are in the process of acquiring English, but for all learners who find themselves in an academic situation that exposes them to a new set of expectations. This book is a contribution to the effort to discover ways of supporting learning across languages and cultures--and to transform views about what it means to teach and learn, to read and write, and to think and know. Unique to this volume is the inclusion of the perspectives of writers as well as those of teachers and researchers. Furthermore, the contributors reveal their own struggles and accomplishments as they themselves have attempted to negotiate academic literacies. The chronological ordering of articles provides a historical perspective, demonstrating ways in which issues related to teaching and learning across cultures have been addressed over time. The readings have consistency in terms of quality, depth, and passion; they raise important philosophical questions even as they consider practical classroom applications. The editors provide a series of questions that enable the reader to engage in a generative and exciting process of reflection and inquiry. This book is both a reference for teachers who work or plan to work with diverse learners, and a text for graduate-level courses, primarily in bilingual and ESL studies, composition studies, English education, and literacy studies.
This edited book brings together an international cast of contributors to examine how academic literacy is learned and mastered in different tertiary education settings around the world. Bringing to the fore the value of qualitative enquiry through ethnographic methods, the authors illustrate in-depth descriptions of genre knowledge and academic literacy development in first and second language writing. All of the data presented in the chapters are original, as well as innovative in the field in terms of content and scope, and thought-provoking regarding theoretical, methodological and educational approaches. The contributions are also representative of both novice and advanced academic writing experiences, providing further insights into different stages of academic literacy development throughout the career-span of a researcher. Set against the backdrop of internationalisation trends in Higher Education and the pressure on multilingual academics to publish their research outcomes in English, this volume will be of use to academics and practitioners interested in the fields of Languages for Academic Purposes, Applied Linguistics, Literacy Skills, Genre Analysis and Acquisition and Language Education.
The Common Core State Standards require schools to include writing in a variety of genres across the disciplines. Engaging Students in Academic Literacies provides specific information to plan and carry out genre-based writing instruction in English for K-5 students within various content areas. Informed by systemic functional linguistics—a theory of language IN USE in particular ways for particular audiences and social purposes—it guides teachers in developing students’ ability to construct texts using structural and linguistic features of the written language. This approach to teaching writing and academic language is effective in addressing the persistent achievement gap between ELLs and "mainstream" students, especially in the context of current reforms in the U.S. Transforming systemic functional linguistics and genre theory into concrete classroom tools for designing, implementing, and reflecting on instruction and providing essential scaffolding for teachers to build their own knowledge of its essential elements applied to teaching, the text includes strategies for apprenticing students to writing in all genres, features of elementary students’ writing, and examples of practice.
The professional learning framework this book presents is designed to support teachers’ understandings of how language functions in their academic disciplines. This framework—a 4 x 4 metalinguistic toolkit—is informed by systemic functional linguistic theory and international educational research on academic and disciplinary literacies. The book shows and explains how teachers have applied specific 4 x 4 toolkits with students in middle school classrooms across a range of subjects for curriculum literacy instruction, assessment and feedback, resulting in substantial growth for their students in high-stakes national tests of literacy, as well as writing assessments in a number of subjects. In its focus on disciplinary literacies in diverse sociocultural settings, Academic Literacies in the Middle Years responds to contemporary international curricula for English language and literacy and the need for a strong evidence base for professional learning design.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of approaches to academic literacy instruction and their underpinning theories, as well as a synthesis of the debate on academic literacy over the past 20 years. The author argues that the main existing instructional models are inadequate to cater for diverse student populations, and proposes an inclusive practice approach which encourages institutional initiatives that make academic literacy instruction an integrated and accredited part of the curriculum. The book aims to raise awareness of existing innovative literacy pedagogies and argues for the transformation of academic literacy instruction in all universities with diverse student populations.
Academic literacy - prepare to learn is different from traditional courses in that it is task-based: it requires of language learners who are developing their academic literacy to do authentic academic tasks and to solve real academic problems.
This text explores fundamental issues relating to student literacies and instructor roles and practices within academic contexts. It offers a brief history of literacy theories and argues for "socioliterate" approaches to teaching and learning in which texts are viewed as primarily socially constructed. Central to socioliteracy, the concepts "genre" and "discourse community," are presented in detail. The author argues for roles for literacy practitioners in which they and their students conduct research and are involved in joint pedagogical endeavors. The final chapters are devoted to outlining how the views presented can be applied to a variety of classroom texts. Core curricular design principles are outlined, and three types of portfolio-based academic literacy classrooms are described.
This book analyses the development of academic literacy in low-proficiency users of English in the Middle East. It highlights the challenges faced by students entering undergraduate education in the region, and the strategies used by teachers to overcome them. The author focuses on a large-scale undergraduate teacher programme run in Oman by the University of Leeds, providing clear pointers both for future research and effective practice. He also explores the implications of his findings for countries beyond the Gulf Cooperation Council, demonstrating how international participation in UK HE could be much wider. This book will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in academic literacies and English for Academic Purposes.
