29 April 2020
The Invisible Process of Drafting Made Visible: Modelling and Joint Construction in Higher Education
Gail Forey
In recent years, a tremendous amount of research has been carried out in the area of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Much of the EAP research focuses on analyzing research papers or students’ output as a model for students to write. Limited research has been carried out in the Higher Education (HE) classroom that investigates classroom interaction where the teacher explicitly scaffolds and apprentices students into writing advanced academic texts. Grounded within systemic functional linguistic research, in this paper I outline a curriculum map of common genres found in education and a pedagogic model, the Teaching and Learning Cycle (TLC) that can be used to support advanced academic literacy. The TLC has been influential in Australian, British and USA primary and secondary schools (Forey 2020; Gebhard 2019; Humphrey 2017; Rose & Martin 2012). I discuss how the TLC can be applied in the HE classroom to support writing and the student’s feedback on engaging in joint construction.
This paper focuses on written argumentative assessment tasks and joint construction. Through a focus on classroom interaction, I discuss how the teacher supports learners and prepares them for success when writing an assignment. Drawing on data collected from a Hong Kong and British university, I discuss how the four stages of the TLC, namely (i) setting the context, (ii) modeling and deconstruction and (iii) joint construction, can pave the way for successful (iv) independent construction. The data involves video observations of joint construction in the HE classroom, as well as interviews and questionnaire feedback responses from the students. The findings shed light on classroom interaction, and illustrate how the invisible process of drafting can be made visible and used to support writing. The practical application of the TLC in the HE classroom, can help develop academic writing and act as a model to illustrate and inform advances in HE pedagogy.
References
Forey, G. (2020) A whole school approach to SFL metalanguage and the explicit teaching of language for curriculum learning. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Vol. 44.
Gebhard, M. (2019). Teaching and researching ELL’s disciplinary literacies: Systemic functional linguistics in action in the context of U.S. School reform. NY: Routledge.
Humphrey, S. (2017). Academic literacies in the middle years: A framework for enhancing teacher knowledge & student achievement. New York: Routledge.
Rose, D. & Martin, J.R. (2012) Learning to Write/Reading to Learn: Genre, Knowledge and Pedagogy in the Sydney School: Scaffolding Democracy in Literacy Classrooms. London: Equinox.
