The space between: pedagogic collaboration between a writing centre and an academic department
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Date
2013
Authors
Mckay, Tracey Morton
Simpson, Zachary
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
The expectations placed on students with respect to appropriate academic writing
may hinder successful participation in Higher Education. Full participation is further
complicated by the fact that each discipline within the University constitutes its own
community of practice, with its own set of literacy practices. While Writing Centres
aim to help students navigate their apprenticeship into these practices, their location
on the periphery of academic activity may undermine these efforts. This article reports
on an intervention aimed at initiating a more integrated approach to the provision
of writing development services. It was undertaken within a qualitative, interpretive
design-based research framework. The results suggest that Writing Centres can add
significant value by leveraging their unique location within universities, that is, in the
spaces between academic disciplines, to assist students to achieve epistemological
access to a discipline. Writing consultants (the focus of this study) need to interact
with different academic discourses. The result is that they engage, to an extent, in
disciplinary ‘boundary-hopping’. We argue that Writing Centres should facilitate
this by fostering a space for engagement between disciplines. The article concludes
by arguing that further research on using the interstices between disciplines as a
resource for developing student academic writing is required.
Description
Keywords
Academic literacy, Writing centre, Teaching intervention, Access, Participation
Citation
Mckay, T. M., & Simpson, Z. (2013). The space between: Pedagogic collaboration between a writing centre and an academic department. Perspectives in Education, 31(4), 27.