Designing writing groups to support postgraduate students’ academic writing: a case study from a South African university
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66267 , vital:28926 , https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1238775
- Description: publisher version , This paper reports on a writing group pilot programme implemented at a South African university. Drawing on literature, anonymous student evaluations and facilitator observations, it discusses the use of writing groups for supporting postgraduate academic writing practices. Developed within a broader postgraduate academic writing support programme, the paper discusses a case study of two pilot writing groups: a multidisciplinary long-term group and a disciplinary short-term ‘writing-intensive’ group. The findings indicate that the overall experience of the writing group was a positive one, with each group presenting varied ‘success’ aspects as well as challenges. Insights gleaned may contribute to our understanding of how these groups can be utilised to support postgraduate students and how different kinds of groups can be developed to serve particular student needs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the inclusion of a disciplinary expert, which proved particularly useful in this pilot.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66267 , vital:28926 , https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1238775
- Description: publisher version , This paper reports on a writing group pilot programme implemented at a South African university. Drawing on literature, anonymous student evaluations and facilitator observations, it discusses the use of writing groups for supporting postgraduate academic writing practices. Developed within a broader postgraduate academic writing support programme, the paper discusses a case study of two pilot writing groups: a multidisciplinary long-term group and a disciplinary short-term ‘writing-intensive’ group. The findings indicate that the overall experience of the writing group was a positive one, with each group presenting varied ‘success’ aspects as well as challenges. Insights gleaned may contribute to our understanding of how these groups can be utilised to support postgraduate students and how different kinds of groups can be developed to serve particular student needs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the inclusion of a disciplinary expert, which proved particularly useful in this pilot.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2018
Writing groups as transformative spaces
- Wilmot, Kirstin, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:44576 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1450361"
- Description: Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to supporting students took the form of add-on, ‘deficit-model’ approaches which understood poor student retention and success rates as emerging from students’ lack of neutral literacy ‘skills’. Recent initiatives have begun to adopt more socio-cultural understandings of literacy that seek to challenge traditional power structures and cultivate horizontal peer-orientated spaces for learning with a focus on practice rather than on product. Writing groups, as spaces for academic writing development, embrace this orientation and are argued to provide a transformative framework that foregrounds proactive student learning and experience, while still accommodating disciplinary learning through peer engagement. Drawing on the successful implementation of such forms of support at a research-intensive university, this paper argues that writing groups can play a critical role in both personal (student) transformation and broader curriculum transformation. Data include anonymous questionnaires and surveys with participants and coordinators of the writing groups. An inductive, constant comparative analysis indicated that students feel empowered in this space to develop not only their writing practices but also their transforming identities as scholars. Writing groups were found to provide ‘safe spaces’ where academic practices can be made explicit and where they can be challenged. The paper therefore argues that writing groups can play a small but key role in broader transformation efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:44576 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1450361"
- Description: Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to supporting students took the form of add-on, ‘deficit-model’ approaches which understood poor student retention and success rates as emerging from students’ lack of neutral literacy ‘skills’. Recent initiatives have begun to adopt more socio-cultural understandings of literacy that seek to challenge traditional power structures and cultivate horizontal peer-orientated spaces for learning with a focus on practice rather than on product. Writing groups, as spaces for academic writing development, embrace this orientation and are argued to provide a transformative framework that foregrounds proactive student learning and experience, while still accommodating disciplinary learning through peer engagement. Drawing on the successful implementation of such forms of support at a research-intensive university, this paper argues that writing groups can play a critical role in both personal (student) transformation and broader curriculum transformation. Data include anonymous questionnaires and surveys with participants and coordinators of the writing groups. An inductive, constant comparative analysis indicated that students feel empowered in this space to develop not only their writing practices but also their transforming identities as scholars. Writing groups were found to provide ‘safe spaces’ where academic practices can be made explicit and where they can be challenged. The paper therefore argues that writing groups can play a small but key role in broader transformation efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
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