The situated achievements of novices learning academic writing as a cultural curriculum

 
 
 
 

The situated achievements of novices learning academic writing as a cultural curriculum

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Title: The situated achievements of novices learning academic writing as a cultural curriculum
Author: Macbeth, Karen P.
Description: Few studies on teaching and learning academic writing consider the tacit assumptions that underlie its conventions (e.g., evidence, argument, plagiarism) or how novices learn them. The prevailing view is that academic writing can be taught explicitly, but for novices it constitutes a curriculum of arcane objects that only make sense to cultural members because they are indexical to unspoken judgments. While we might agree that all curricula are cultural in these ways, how they are has been largely untouched in the literature. The purpose of this study is to show how the conventions of academic writing are cultural by examining the pedagogical practices and competencies that students and teachers must negotiate in order to recognize, assess, and use them. The study draws on a corpus of materials from an intermediate class in basic academic writing for ESL students for an academic quarter. Analysis was informed by readings in naturalistic inquiry in sociology, anthropology, ethnomethodology, and education and focuses on the practical actions of students as they follow their instructions and make sense of their assignments. The study corpus includes videotapes of class sessions, audiotapes of tutorials, and students' written work. The researcher was the instructor of the class. Findings suggest that far from being a one-way transmission of explicit knowledge or skills, learning academic conventions involves on-going, methodic, interpretive work. Furthermore, a paradox emerges wherein learners are required to know already what they are attempting to learn as a condition of making sense of their instruction in how to do it. The paradox gets worked out through a formal curriculum of models, and a learning curriculum of tutorials, where students learn to recognize and practice the unspoken judgments of academic writing. Contrary to prevailing views that academic writing conventions can be taught as a set of skills, this study shows that skills seldom show themselves until a curriculum of judgment is in place.
Permanent Link: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1101244159
http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/7821
Date: 2004

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