WRITING IN TEACHER EDUCATION

EXTENDING TUTOR-STUDENT DIALOGUE, UNDERSTANDING

AND PRACTICES IN ACADEMIC WRITING

Rachel StubleyUniversity of South Wales &

Lancaster University

MY STARTING POINTS A constructivist approach to teacher education(student) teachers’ professional development involves personal meaning-making and transformation

academic writing practices therefore need to accommodate: student writer identities/practices (e.g. Ivanic et al 2009, Brice Heath 1983)

student writer “desires for meaning making ... [which] converge with and diverge from essayist literacy practice” (Lillis 2001:162)

dialogic practices between tutors and students (Lillis 2001)

A social practice approach to academic writingmoves away from a ‘study skills’ approach (Lea & Street 1998, 2006)

recognises academic writing as a set of genre conventions that are culturally constructed and dynamic, and can be contested (Clarke & Ivanic 1997)

WRITING IN TEACHER EDUCATION: RESEARCH Qs

Themes Student perspectives

Tutor perspectives

the value of academic writing in teacherprofessional development

feelings/beliefs about the value of academic writing for their own professional development

feelings/beliefs about the value of academic writing for teachers’ professional development

links and/or disconnects between writing inside and outside the academy

student experiences as writers outside university; what they can or do bring to their university courses

tutor and student practices

student teacher experiences, challenges, concerns

expectations for ‘good writing’, including language and/or genre conventions

WRITING IN TEACHER EDUCATION: ACTIVITIES

student interviews,

focus groups ...

tutor focus group

s

TUTOR FOCUS GROUPSname ag

erole prior work

backgroundStella 60s Visiting Lecturer

adult literacycivil servant, adult ed tutor, adult ed consultant

Trudy 50s Visiting Lecturer adult numeracy

lab chemist, adult ed tutor/ manager, FE teacher trainer

Laura 50s Visiting Lecturer adult numeracy

banking, adult ed tutor, FE lecturer

Bronwen

50s Senior Lecturer post-compulsory education

FE lecturer

Alan 60s Senior Lecturer post-compulsory education

accountant, FE lecturer & manager

Anne 50s Senior Lecturer post-compulsory education (adult numeracy)

secondary maths teacher, FE lecturer

TUTORS: BROAD AGREEMENT

Engaging in professional roles and hierarchies

I think it’s all to do with professional image ... They are role models aren’t they, for their own students. And they should be able to erm achieve a particular standard in terms of their written work... Bronwen

Yes I think it improves a lot of their confidence... Student R has more confidence about speaking to colleagues - doing presentations with colleagues - now no longer feels that he’s the unqualified, ‘unable to write’ person sat in the corner of the staffroom Alan

... we need to support people and bring them on, because we’re looking at people who are going to be out teaching and possibly over the long-term, managing other teachers, and they need to be able to communicate in writing at a certain level Stella

TUTORS: DIVERGING PERSPECTIVES Valuing/developing individual (writing) identities

recently I had a case study that used the phrase ‘Darren’s mum’ and I just left it... years ago [...] I would have corrected that to ‘Darren’s mother’ ... but I think it is also about respecting how the writer – and not try to put them into my image Stella

I also think it’s an identity thing as well [...] starting to feel that they’re able to engage with a kind of discourse and a community that they - certainly for some of the people coming on Cert Ed from vocational routes erm that they might never have imagined Anne

Rachel: [a tutor] said I can see that it’s good I just think it would be BETTER, more analytical and more convincing [if it used traditional/formal 3rd person style] I said - but this is about her [the student’s] PRACTICE - I wanted her to OWN it and to BE there in the middle of it

Bronwen: but there we are - it’s it’s - you know - it’s what YOU WANT

TUTORS: PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC TENSIONS Academic writing is excluding/irrelevant ...there are probably some people who would be very good teachers who actually find that process incredibly difficult [...] and it’s kind of a barrier then, if they’re having to write it formally Laura

...you could have some people who are EXCELLENT at academic writing but then are APPALLING teachers and then you’ve got people who might be very good teachers but are not so good at academic... Trudy

As an ex-FE manager ... you don’t want someone who can write a treatise about building a wall, and then can’t get his students to build a wall Alan

Academic writing doesn’t need to be excluding I think we we create artificial barriers like ‘[gasps] this is academic writing it’s so scary I can’t do it’ Stella

... they’re able to talk about it ... and yet when they then try to communicate it in the report - they write this kind of WEIRD prose you know ... I don’t know - EMBELLISHED weirdness Anne

WRITING TUTORIALSstudent

age

background tutorial context

Elizabeth Cert Ed ESOL

40s

HND in business; worked in industry; recently returned from teaching English in China; working as hourly paid ESOL tutor in off-site FE provision

1. review of ‘bare pass’ assignment

2. discussion of draft ‘case study’ prior to hand in

WynnePGCE Adult Lit/Comms

50s

worked in hospitality industry; 7 years ago undertook MBA then moved into FE teaching; now working as salaried essential skills tutor

1. review of ‘bare pass’ assignment

2. discussion of voluntarily redrafted assignment

ELIZABETH’S WRITING TUTORIAL Rachel ... and that’s another KEY thing I think for academic writing - it’s

it’s you – you know - MANIPULATING the literature as YOU want – not letting it -

Elizabeth dominate me - Rachel not letting it domi- ABSOLUTELY that’s EXACTLY it yeah – well done – GOOD

Elizabeth - yeah – I WASN’T sure if I was - if I was - ALLOWED to do that (yeah) or whether it needed to be hard evidence that – THIS is the quote I’m referring to –

Rachel so which WHICH bits did you ENJOY the most – which bits did you enjoy writing the most?

Elizabeth PROBABLY the ... bit that ISN’T the most IMPORTANT [chuckles] – the front bit -

Rachel oh it is it’s VERY important – no it is imp- Elizabeth Now funnily enough ... when I wrote THAT paragraph [points to a paragraph tutor has praised] I thought that was the paragraph you would change ...

Rachel why? Elizabeth because I started the sentence with NOT [laughs]

WYNNE’S WRITING TUTORIAL Rachel And er you – I’m not asking you (no) to redraft this at all (no no) but for the FUTURE (yeah okay) reference (yeah) cause it’s a CLASSIC thing that people do -

Wynne - and I will do that a lot Rachel yeah - so that’s lovely - Wynne ‘cause I will tag it on ... so if I’m DOING something I’ll say – THEN I’ll use that – and then I’ll put the quote afterwards (yeah) because I I’ll feel like saying [loudly] ‘SEE - THAT BACKS up what I’m going to do-’

Rachel - and you can find a way of slightly more formally saying ‘see!’ (yes yes) THAT’S what’s needed -

Wynne Oh yes that’s erm and of course that was exactly (lovely) EXACTLY it and it it was just so fitting I thought (yeah ... yeah) ... because that’s EXACTLY what what we did (yeah) what was the writer – it it was EVERYTHING

Rachel Yeah that’s super Wynne Okay right okay Rachel So - it’s it’s the PERFECT quote but – there’s a BIT more work to be done [chuckles]

DISCOURSE FEATURESElizabeth’s tutorial Wynne’s tutorial

unequal share of the floortutor uses initiation-reply-evaluationextended pausesstudent shares vulnerabilities (current and historic)student defers to tutor judgement

equal share of the floor interruption and overlapstudent critiques assignmentstudent states own goals/practicesambiguous or dispreferred student responses to tutor challenges

shared featurestutor asks more questions than students (in number and different types)extended discussion of use of literature (including referencing styles)tutor ‘personalises’ assessment: ‘my problem here is...’ ‘it’s more fun for me to read’ ‘I’ve got an issue with the word therefore’tutor talks passionately about writers finding their own voice

STUDENT ‘WRITING LIVES’ INTERVIEWSStudent teacher

Examples of writing outside university

Emma30sCert Ed ESOL

Handwritten letters to a friend in prison/secure hospitalMemories of writing as a teenagers: poems and pen friends in the UK (met through summer camps as teenager)Increasing number of work emails as she progresses at workProducing zines with a feminist collective of friends

Elizabeth40s Cert Ed ESOL

Friend in France: ‘proper letters with pens and paper’QA officer in medical services company writing procedures for employees and other documentation‘Chit chat’ on social media and via textsJournalism course

Wynne50sPGCE Literacy

Illustrated life story for long-lost cousins (collaboration with sister)Formal reports as Internal Verifier in teaching roleAvid reader, member of book club (writes occasional reviews and to make arrangements)

WHAT NEXT...?Develop findings from tutorial datadiscuss analysis and findings with Wynne and Elizabethdevelop/sustain a participatory research ethic and a ‘feminist ethic of care’ (Tracy 2013:56)Extend writing lives investigationmore interviews – develop more creative ways of eliciting/ representing student teachers’ ideas?include student teachers’ writing lives across all domains, including current teaching work and universitystudent focus groups – supportive, sharing challenges

REFERENCES BRICE HEATH, S. (1994) What no bedtime story means In MAYBIN, J. (ed) Language and Literacy in Social Practice Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters/Open University

CLARK, R. & IVANIC, R. (1997) The Politics of Writing London: Routledge IVANIC, I. EDWARDS, R. BARTON, D. MARTIN-JONES, M. FOWLER, Z., HUGHES, B., MANNION, G., MILLER, K., SATCHWELL, C. & SMITH J. (2009) Improving learning in college: rethinking literacies across the curriculum London: Routledge

LEA, M. R., & STREET, B. V. (1998) Student Writing in Higher Education: an academic literacies approach in Studies in Higher Education 23, 2 pp. 157 - 172

LEA, M. R. & STREET, B. V. (2006) The “Academic Literacies” Model: Theory and Applications In Theory into Practice 45, 4 pp 368 – 377

LILLIS, T. (2001) Student Writing: Access, Regulation, Desire London: Routledge

TRACY, S.J. (2013) Qualitative Research Methods Chichester, W. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell