Session Information
31 SES 13, Research on Writing and Academic Language
Paper Session
Contribution
In recent years there has been widespread concern in relation to poor training of students when they start a bachelor programme. This concern has focused on the ways of reading and writing that students have acquired at Secondary Education (Granado, 2014). To this initial situation must be added the students’ difficulty in acquiring academic literacy in order to succeed in a bachelor programme (Read and Stierer, 2000).
Teaching and learning processes in Higher Education face an educational challenge in order to respond to students’ needs in a context in which various semiotic systems coexist. In turn, they require information literacy, digital, media and academic literacy. Addressing academic literacy implies, according to Lea and Street (1998; 2006) three distinct concepts: a model study skills (study skills model), a model of academic socialization (academic socialization model) and finally, a model of academic literacy (academic literacy model).
On the one hand, the ‘study skill model’ refers to the abilities of students to transfer their knowledge about reading and writing from one context to another. That is, this approach examines whether students are able to adapt to new models and genres and assimilate it into their knowledge. It is, therefore, a single and cognitive ability of student literacy. On the other hand, the ‘academic socialization’ is focused on learning processes of the prototypical genres and discourses in a particular field of knowledge. In this sense, students must learn new ways of listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking in a particular subject. Finally, ‘academic literacy’ is related to the development of academic socialization and curriculum development and educational practices. Both are important in order to address specific needs of students in an academic context. Academic literacy is a process of situated literacy that requires some particular learning strategies; however they are not naturally acquired but associated to a particular academic context.
The analysis of study skills and academic socialization from an ethnographic perspective of communication has led us to the new literacy studies (Barton, 2007; Gee, 1996; Street, 2003). This sociocultural perspective on the processes of literacy is part of a broader analysis of readers’ and writers’ habits and their interaction with other processes such as digital literacy, informational or multimodal teaching-learning (Boscolo, 2007; Ivanič, 1998). In this perspective, literacy has a heterogeneous use and it is in a situated context (Lea, 2004a; 2004b; 2013). We wonder if, faced with new academic requirements, students have changed their habits of reading and writing at university.
The objectives of this research were:
a) Reviewing students’ reading and writing habits that characterize academic literacy.
b) Predicting academic literacy traits from students’ reading and writing habits.
c) Analyzing academic literacy differences in students enrolled in several Spanish universities.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: An introduction to the ecology of written language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boscolo, P.; Arfé, B. y Quarisa, M. (2007). Improving the quality of students’ academic writing: an intervention study. Studies in Higher Education, 32(4), 419-438. Colomer, T. y Munita, F. (2013). La experiencia lectora de los alumnos de Magisterio: nuevos desafíos para la formación docente. Lenguaje y Textos, 38, 37-44. Gee, J. (1996) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology and Discourses. Critical Perspectives on Literacy and Education. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press. Granado, C. (2014). Teachers as readers: a study of the reading habits of future teachers. Cultura y Educación, 26(1), 44-70. Guzmán-Simón, F. y García-Jiménez, E. (2014). Los hábitos lectoescritores en los alumnos universitarios. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado (REIFOP), en prensa. Ivani, R. (1998). Writing and Identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lea, M. (2004a). Academic literacies: A pedagogy for course design. Studies in Higher Education, 29(6), 739-756. Lea, M. (2004b). New literacy studies, ICTs and learning in higher education. I. Snyder and C. Beavis (eds.), Doing literacy online: teaching, learning and playing in an electronic world. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press. Lea, M. (2012). New Genres in the Academy: Issues of practices, meaning making and identity. (pp. 93-109). M. Castelló y C. Donahue (ed.). University Writing: Selves and Texts in Academic Societies. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Lea, M. (2013). Reclaiming literacies: competing textual practices in a digital higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(1), 106-118. Lea, M. y Stierer, B. (2000). Student Writing in Higher Education: new contexts. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lea, M. y Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172. Lea, M. y Street, B. (2006). The “Academic literacies” Model: Theory and Applications. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 368-377. Mateos, M. y Solé, I. (2012). Undergraduate Students’ Conceptions and Beliefs about Academic Writing (pp. 53-67). M. Castelló y C. Donahue (ed.). University Writing: Selves and Texts in Academic Societies. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Scardamalia, M. y Bereiter, C. (1992). Dos modelos explicativos de los procesos de composición escrita. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 58, 43-64. Street, B. (2003). What’s ‘New’ in New Literacy Studies? Critical approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE), 2(5), 77-102.
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