Risky writing: working with a heteroglossic pedagogy to deepen pre-service teachers’ learning
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Date
2016
Authors
Mendelowitz, Belinda
Dixon, Kerryn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
This article explores how course design and assessment in a first
year pre-service teacher education course for English students can
be imbued with academic depth and rigour in ways that enable
students to take intellectual and textual risks. We argue for a
conceptualisation of risky writing in which we open up student critical
engagement with sociolinguistic issues by juxtaposing academic
and creative genres in curriculum course material and assessment.
Academic writing in its current form is problematised and questions
are raised about the extent to which academic courses provide
students with an apprenticeship into compliance, conformity and
silence. We present the possibilities of using a heteroglossic
pedagogy (Blackledge & Creese, 2014) for learning, teaching and
writing. The principles underpinning the course (linguistic diversity
as a resource, the value of lived experience and the interrelation
of epistemological access and academic rigour) constitute a
heteroglossic pedagogy. We illustrate these principles using two
examples, one from student performance during the course and
the second from independent writing for an assignment. Together,
the two data snapshots illustrate the pedagogic possibilities of fluid
movements between distantiation and appropriation using flexible
genres, which ultimately facilitate deeper student engagement and
understanding of disciplinary knowledge. The two data snapshots
are not “mere descriptions or anecdotes” detached from principles
(Slonimsky & Shalem, 2004: 92). They facilitate academic depth
and rigour because of the carefully staged moves between the
strange and the familiar in a context that encourages students to
take creative and intellectual risks.
Description
Keywords
Heteroglossia, Heteroglossic pedagogy, Academic writing, Risk, Critical engagement, Creative genres, Distantiation, Appropriation
Citation
Mendelowitz, B., & Dixon, K. (2016). Risky writing: working with a heteroglossic pedagogy to deepen pre-service teachers' learning. Perspectives in Education, 34(1), 120-134.