麻豆视频

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Joel Heng Hartse, Faculty of Education

Project team: Mohsen Moghaddam and Taylor Morphett, research assistants

Timeframe: April 2016 to April 2018

Funding: $5,000  

Program addressed: Foundations of Academic Literacy (FAL)

Final report: View Joel Heng Hartse's final report (PDF)

Description: The Foundations of Academic Literacy (FAL) at 麻豆视频was created as a result of a writing across the curriculum initiative that began in 2006 and a perceived need for a foundational writing course for students who would not be prepared for higher-level writing-intensive courses. Like many first-year courses for novice academic writers, FAL has historically been a de facto 鈥渃ontentless鈥� course in which the focus is on generic writing and language skills rather than a particular area of academic expertise. This approach is common in courses that are commonly described as 鈥渇irst-year composition鈥� and 鈥渂asic writing鈥�. The Writing 麻豆视频 Writing (WAW) approach (Downs & Wardle, 2007, 2011, 2014) advocates a pedagogical shift in writing courses from being solely focused on learning how to write to learning about writing. WAW turns the beginning university writing course into a kind of 鈥渋ntroduction to writing studies鈥�.

For this project, I plan to develop an approach to teaching FAL which maps the priorities of the WAW approach onto the existing requirements for FAL, which include timed, in-class writing assignments. Instead of using texts involving topics of general interest as is current practice in FAL, I hope to explore the ways in which WAW can enhance students鈥� language awareness, knowledge of the situatedness of academic writing practices, and not only procedural knowledge about how to write, but metacognitive and metadiscursive knowledge about academic writing and language. I am also interested in understanding the experiences of instructors who implement this approach.

Questions addressed:

• What are some ways that WAW approaches have been implemented in first year composition, basic writing, and other courses that are similar to FAL?
• How can WAW approaches be adapted for the unique needs of FAL?
• What are students鈥� perceptions of the WAW approach?
• What are instructors鈥� perceptions of the WAW approach?
• (How) does FAL result in metacognitive and metadiscursive knowledge about academic writing and language?

Knowledge sharing:

Heng Hartse, J. (2017, May). Writing about writing with second language writers. Paper presented at the BC TEAL: Teaching of English and Other Language Conference on College Composition and Communication: Cultivating Capacity, Creating Changes, Vancouver, BC.

Heng Hartse, J. (2017, March). Implementing a writing-about-writing approach in a high-stakes foundational writing course. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication: Cultivating Capacity, Creating Change, Portland, OR.

Keywords: writing; writing skills; Writing about writing; first-year writing; academic literacy; composition; language ideology