Teaching Academic Writing

Resumen. Las revisiones sistemáticas constituyen un género discursivo muy utilizado en Odontología. Pese a su importancia académica y clínica, hasta la fecha no hay estudios al respecto que sirvan de guía a autores y docentes del ámbito de la enseñanza de la lectura y escritura. Este estudio analiza la estructura retórica (secciones y movimientos) de 100 revisiones sistemáticas publicadas en revistas hispanoamericanas de Odontología, disponibles en abierto en la red, de los últimos 10 años. Con un enfoque mixto cualitativo y cuantitativo, siguiendo el enfoque del análisis de género, hallamos que la mayoría de los textos sigue el formato IMRyD modificado: IMRDyC. Cada una de las secciones se estructura siguiendo un patrón claramente definido. Por su frecuencia de ocurrencia (más del 65%), las secciones, los elementos que las integran y su organización pudieran considerarse obligatorios. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones para la enseñanza del género en el ámbito universitario. Palabras clave: Odontología; análisis de género; revisión sistemática; estructura retórica; español. [en] The generic structure of Spanish systematic reviews in Dentistry Abstract. Despite their academic and clinical importance, to date, there are no studies on systematic reviews in dentistry to guide authors and teachers in the field of reading and writing education. This study analyses the rhetorical structure (sections and movements) of 100 systematic reviews published in Spanish-American dental journals, available online, over the last 10 years. With a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, following the gender analysis approach, we found that most of the texts follow the modified IMRyD format IMRDyC. Each of the sections is structured according to a clearly defined pattern. Because of their frequency of occurrence (more than 65%), the sections, the elements that make them up and their organization could be considered mandatory. These results have implications for the teaching of gender in the university environment.

Similarity reports of plagiarism detectors should be approached with caution as they may not be sufficient to support allegations of plagiarism. This study developed a 50-item rubric to simplify and standardize evaluation of academic papers. In the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year, 161 freshmen’s papers at the English Language Teaching Department of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, were assessed using the rubric. Validity and reliability were established. The results indicated citation as a particularly problematic aspect, and indicated that fairer assessment could be achieved by using the rubric along with plagiarism detectors’ similarity results.

This paper examines the use of portfolios as pedagogical tools for
developing academic writing. In particular, it considers the value of multi-drafting, where learners reflect on the learning of a text type as well as focusing on micro and macro aspects. The paper outlines a situated pedagogical approach, where students come to understand their improvement across three portfolio drafts and evaluate their learning reflectively. A multicultural group of 41 learners enrolled in the degree-level course ‘Academic Writing’ at a tertiary institution in New Zealand participated in a study evaluating the portfolio approach to building awareness of their own writing. Focus group interviews provided qualitative data, analysed using a grounded theory approach. Triangulating data came from student reflective memoranda written in response to each drafting process. We conclude that a multi-draft portfolio is an effective assessment tool, not only because it provides a feedback loop but also because it enhances learners’ understanding of writing as a recursive process. This provides them with aspects of academic writing literacy such as self-editing and the insight to reorganise academic texts by applying target genre and discourse knowledge.

Resumo
Este artigo tem como objetivo explicitar as principais propriedades dos planos de texto de quatro artigos científicos produzidos em áreas disciplinares distintas (Ciências vs. Ciências Sociais e Humanas/Humanidades), com vista a uma aplicação ao ensino, no âmbito da promoção da literacia académica e, mais especificamente, da didática dos géneros. Privilegia-se o quadro teórico do Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (Bronckart [1997] 1999, 2010), propostas da escola de língua francesa da Linguística Textual (Adam 2001) e princípios da Didática dos Géneros (Schneuwly e Dolz 2004; Dolz e Gagnon 2008; Dolz 2011). Para tal, foi adotada uma abordagem descendente, partindo do social para os textos e privilegiando uma metodologia de análise qualitativa de cunho descritivo, de acordo com a qual se procedeu à análise comparativa das propriedades de quatro exemplares do género inscritos em diferentes áreas de investigação. Os dados obtidos demonstram a grande flexibilidade do género artigo científico a nível do plano de texto, sendo evidenciadas diversas adaptações em função da área de investigação em que cada texto é produzido.

Palavras-chave: Plano de texto; Artigo científico; Géneros académicos; Ensino dos géneros

Abstract
This paper’s goal is to describe the text plans’ main properties of four research articles produced within different areas (Sciences vs. Social and Human Sciences/Humanities), in order to apply the results in genre teaching, within the fields of academic literacy and genre pedagogy. The adopted theoretical framework includes Sociodiscursive Interactionism main assumptions (Bronckart [1997] 1999, 2010), French language school Text Linguistics’ proposals (Adam 2001), and Genre Didactic main principles (Schneuwly e Dolz 2004; Dolz e Gagnon 2008; Dolz 2011). A top-down approach was adopted, including a qualitative-descriptive analysis. It focused on four texts of the genre research article, which were produced within different disciplinary areas. Analyzed data show a significant flexibility of the research articles’ text plans. Several adaptations were identified, which seem to be due to the research field within which each text was produced, namely to their typical discourse practices.

Key-words: Text plan; Research article; Academic genres; Genre teaching

This dissertation project examines patterns of stance in essays written by high- and low-performing students in two upper-level undergraduate courses, one in political theory and the other in economics. It employs methods of linguistic discourse analysis, drawing largely on Appraisal Theory (a subset of Systemic Functional Linguistics), in combination with methods from corpus linguistics and theoretical insights from rhetorical genre studies. It examines how recurring patterns of stance in students' essays correspond to the goals and assessment criteria for writing in the courses, as revealed through interviews with the instructors and analysis of selected course material. Through this robust set of analytic approaches, the study aims to make explicit patterns of stance in student writing that correlate with high- and low-graded essays and with the disciplinary contexts. The broader aim is to render explicit patterns of interpersonal meanings constructed in students' texts that construe such abstract qualities as critical reasoning, complexity and nuance in argumentation, and control of the discourse—features identified by the instructors as valued in student writing. The study contributes to the field of composition and rhetoric by pinpointing discursive resources that enable some student writers to construct more discipline-congruent styles of argumentation than others. Specific findings show that, while the two essay assignments require different ways of using language to construct valued stances, the high-performing writers in both contexts more consistently construct a "novice academic" stance while the low-performing writers more consistently construct a "student" stance. The former is marked by the rhetorical qualities of contrastiveness, dialogic control, critical distance, and discoursal alignment, or assimilation of the disciplinary discourse. In contrast, the “student” stance is marked by frequent personalizing moves, repeated references to the classroom discourse, and comparatively infrequent use of discursive resources that construe the rhetorical qualities listed above. These findings have implications for instruction in writing in the disciplines (WID) contexts, specifically in terms of how instructors can refine their metalanguage about writing for discussing stance with students explicitly and in detail.

The European Writing Survey (EUWRIT), both the student and faculty versions, reflects the need to systematically gather data on student writing in various institutional and disciplinary contexts. The final version of the survey (status January
2015) includes questions on: personal and demographic data, general questions on writing in the study programme, writing process and feedback, text genres and writing practices, self-evaluation (students) and appreciation (faculty) of the writing skills, conceptions of “good writing”, study competences and writing support. EUWRIT is the result of a long testing and implementation process, which started in 2006. The range of projects in which the survey has been implemented is broad and includes assessment of writing skills in study programmes
(Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich; Economics, Journalism and Health at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences), investigations of different stages of student development (Translation Studies at Zurich University of Applied Sciences); comparisons of writing cultures (universities of teacher education in the French, German, and Italian parts of Switzerland); assessments of writing cultures in certain  disciplines at different universities (Spain); studies of the writing cultures of a single university (University of Constance, Germany); and comparisons of the genres in different Eastern Europe countries (Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine). The report gives a synthesis of the construction principles of the EUWRIT questionnaire and presents some of the results from the aforementioned studies.

Writing is key to assessment in university contexts and hence students need to be empowered to effectively function in subject-specific writing environments. In this regard, it is important that students take charge of their own writing development. Hence, the concept of self-direct writing is relevant in this context. The aim of this article is to explore students' perceptions and practice of self-directed writing and to thereby also evaluate the use of an open-ended questionnaire, an existing self-directed learning questionnaire and student essays as sources of self-directedness in terms of writing. Through these surveys and document analysis diverse, but complementing, results could be drawn. The responses in this study reflect the importance of scaffolding and support provided externally (through lecturers, writing laboratories, facilitators and peers) as well as internally (through reading and continuous writing). Although self-directedness was not very prominently mentioned by the students in the open-ended questionnaire, evidence of a move towards self-directedness in writing was observed. Furthermore, the results of the self-rating scale of self-directed learning showed that most of these respondents regarded themselves as self-directed learners. The document analysis of the essays showed improvement from the first year to the third year. It is also clear that self-directed writing can only be achieved through the facilitation of writing about topics of students' choosing, promotion of metacognitive strategies around writing as well as adequate peer and lecturer support, feedback and assessment.

This study investigated and analyzed the prevalence and presence of indirectness markers in Korean and Persian English Essays. The researchers analyzed the prevalence of the indirectness markers as a set of politeness strategies employed by the Korean and Persian university bound students in their English compositions. Furthermore, the researchers espoused the Politeness Strategies Theory proposed by Brown and Levinson as framework in the analysis of the indirectness markers in the texts. In the analysis of the English essays, it was found out that there were seven (7) categories of indirectness markers evident in the essays. The Persian English writers displayed a noticeable evidence of repetition and vagueness and ambiguity in their essays while the Korean counterparts on point-of-view distancing. The presence of these indirectness markers in their writing are attributed to socio-cultural factors, such as Persians have the tendency to be literary in their writing while the Koreans, prose-oriented resulting to lengthy descriptive accounts and indirectness. The results and findings of the study could be beneficial to English writing pedagogy in an English as Second Language (ESL) context.

Undergraduate social work education in England requires the completion of the necessary academic credits for an honours degree, alongside the demonstration of the necessary standards and competencies associated with a professional award. This requires a challenging and diverse programme of study. However, the skills necessary for successful academic enquiry complement
those required for effective practice. In particular, academic writing skills support effective professional communication and research skills allow for evidence-based practice. This paper
describes the development of academic skills within a new undergraduate social work programme at a UK university, designed to meet the needs of a diverse and atypical student cohort. Having recognised the flaws in the early delivery of the programme, a revised curriculum has placed the development of academic research and writing skills at its core.

Expressing an authorial stance in contextually valued ways may be
especially challenging for English as a Second Language (L2) writers (in addition, certainly, to many L1 writers), as the subtle ways that writers in the disciplines go about evaluating evidence and positioning the reader toward their views are largely tacit and therefore not often made explicit to students. In response to this problem, this chapter discusses ways that writing specialists can assist faculty in the disciplines to become explicitly aware of stance expressions in their students’ writing. Drawing on analysis of student writing in two disciplinary contexts (political theory and economics) as well as interviews with the course instructors, I offer examples of stance features that appear to be valued in these two contexts even though they run below the instructors’ fully conscious awareness. I then discuss ways that disciplinary faculty can be assisted to identify these features explicitly. The larger goal of this chapter is to argue for a way of reading students’ disciplinary writing that is sensitive to the details of stance-taking and to the language related problems that many students experience when writing in the disciplines.

This study investigates conceptions first-year cadets at a US senior military college bring to general education writing courses, often termed first-year composition (FYC). Using a mixed methods research design, we received survey responses from 122 cadets and conducted semi-structured in-person interviews with four first-year cadets. Our data suggest cadets stress orality, credibility, and clarity when writing for FYC. These conceptions are largely influenced by the cadet's interest and immersion in the Army yet are also strongly influenced by their brief introduction to college-level writing within this compulsory class. We conclude by arguing for two specific avenues of future research into gleaning students' conceptions of courses, specifically arguing both for exploring how conceptions all students bring to the classroom impact moments of transfer and for engaging all students in course design. 1 INTRODUCTION This mixed methods study reports findings on first-year cadets' conceptions of general education first-year composition courses (FYC) at the University of North Georgia, one of six senior military colleges in the United States. 2 We believe a close data-driven analysis of first-year cadets' conceptions of FYC and how to best teach this student population based on these conceptions is critically important to our colleagues across various disciplines for two connected reasons. First, through national and local initiatives our colleagues in US institutions will see more veterans enroll in higher education, particularly in general education course like FYC. Veterans are at the end of a military career, and cadets, through the US Army Cadet Command, are preparing to embark on a military career; however, both approach writing through codified Army standards of what constitutes good writing. Understanding cadets' conceptions of writing may help our colleagues who work closely with veterans. Therefore, this understanding of cadets is important even if faculty are not teaching cadets. Second, these enrollment numbers will and are climbing at the same time as writing studies scholars question the efficacy of FYC as a general education course (Crowley, 1998; Wardle, 2009). In terms of types of SoTL inquiries, our project is a " what is " type of project (Hutchings, 2000) with the goal of better describing how first-year cadets conceptualize FYC writing. In Chick's (2014) language, we are " seeking understanding by bypassing assumptions, making visible what previously wasn't. " Our central question shows what we aim to make visible: to what extent does a first-year cadet's immersion into the Corps of Cadets influence how they understand and approach writing for FYC,

Resumen. Este artículo constituye una parte de la investigación desarrollada en la Universidad de Los Andes, Núcleo Táchira, sobre la producción de textos escritos en el ámbito universitario. Específicamente se presenta una sección de los resultados vinculados con el objetivo específico: percibir las concepciones de los profesores en torno a la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de los géneros discursivos académicos y laborales vinculados con la carrera de Educación, mención Básica Integral. La investigación se inscribe en el paradigma cualitativo; se utiliza como método la teoría fundamentada para analizar la información obtenida a través de entrevistas en profundidad efectuadas a diez docentes de la citada carrera. El artículo expone un segmento de los resultados obtenidos en la categoría Caracterización de los actores, subcategoría Perfil del estudiante, en la que se manifiesta que los déficits en la producción textual de los alumnos pueden deberse a la falta de formación del profesorado en los procesos de lectura y escritura dentro de sus disciplinas, por lo cual se evidencia la necesidad de atender institucionalmente este requerimiento. Palabras clave: alfabetización académica, concepciones docentes, teoría fundamentada.
Abstract teachers' concePtions to aPProach the university student Profile This article presents part of a research project about the production of written texts at college level at the Universidad de Los Andes, Núcleo Táchira. Results described are those specific to the objective " To identify teachers' conceptions regarding the teaching and learning of academic and labor discourse genre comprised in the program: Education, major Elementary Education ". The research follows the qualitative paradigm. Grounded theory is used to analyze the information gathered through in-depth interviews. Results are presented for the category: Defining the actors, subcategory: Student profile. They show that the deficits on students' text production can be due to the lack of teacher formation about the literacy processes within their fields of study, from which the need of institutional assistance becomes evident. Résumé aPProche du Profil de l'étudiant universitaire selon les concePtions Professorales Cet article constitue une partie des recherches développées par l'Université des Andes dans son centre de l'état de Táchira, sur les textes produit en milieu universitaire. Spécifiquement il y est présenté une section des résultats en relation avec les objectifs spécifiques de cette recherche : percevoir les différentes appro-ches qu'ont les professeurs quand à l'enseignement et l'apprentissage des genres discursifs, académique et de travail qui soit en relation avec la formation pédagogique, niveau études général. Cette investigation s'inscrit dans un paradigme qualitatif ; en utilisant la méthode de la théorie fondamentale pour analyser l'information obtenue à travers des entretiens réalisés en profondeur à une dizaine de professeur du niveau mentionné. L'article expose une partie des résultats obtenus en premier lieu dans la catégorie caractérisa-tion des acteurs, et en deuxième lieu dans la catégorie profil de l'étudiant, où peuvent être observés que les déficits quand à production écrite de la part des élèves peut être du au manque de formations des pro-fesseurs quand au processus de lecture et d'écriture dans leurs différentes disciplines, raison pour laquelle il devient évident qu'il existe une nécessité de s'occuper institutionnellement de ses besoins.

En este artículo presentamos un avance de la investigación “La producción de textos escritos en el ámbito universitario: los géneros discursivos académicos y laborales”, llevada a cabo en la carrera de Educación, mención Básica Integral, de la Universidad de Los Andes, Núcleo Universitario Dr. Pedro Rincón Gutiérrez. Específicamente, comentaremos parte de los resultados respecto a uno de los objetivos específicos, consistente en precisar los géneros
discursivos de carácter académico que necesitan aprender a escribir los estudiantes de la mencionada carrera. Para tal fin, se efectuó una investigación
de campo en la que se aplicaron dos cuestionarios: uno dirigido a los profesores y otro a los alumnos, en los que se indagaba en torno a los textos académicos y profesionales que comúnmente se leen y se redactan dentro de la carrera. Los fundamentos teóricos que sustentaron este estudio son la alfabetización académica y los géneros discursivos. Los resultados indican escasa variedad de textos académicos que los profesores solicitan leer en las distintas unidades curriculares de la carrera, por lo que se hace necesario trazar estrategias y políticas lingüísticas institucionales para ayudar a los estudiantes a no ser solo repetidores de contenidos, sino impulsarlos a acercarse, incorporarse y entender su contexto académico y profesional.

 Competence in academic writing in college is a challenging as well as an engaging task for many college students. Argumentative writing and acknowledging the counterargument is one of modes that is introduced in freshman classes; however, college students approach writing with a certain mindset. Learning to write in different modes could be exciting when taught utilizing a film or a documentary. Using a documentary, such as Devil's Playground, writing professors not only initiate interest in culture learning and cultural understanding but also motivate students to use argumentation to foster critical thinking as well as cultural understanding.

El artículo presenta un estudio cualitativo sobre las distintas concepciones que tiene un grupo de profesores de la carrera de Educación, mención Básica Integral, de la Universidad de Los Andes-Núcleo Táchira, en torno a las estrategias de enseñanza de la lengua escrita que utilizan en sus clases. Con base en el concepto de alfabetización académica y en las concepciones docentes, se utilizó el método teoría fundamentada para analizar las entrevistas efectuadas a diez docentes de la carrera. La investigación permitió advertir que las concepciones reflejadas en las estrategias didácticas se relacionan con una enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura como aprestamiento de habilidades, el cual dista de los postulados actuales de la alfabetización académica. Estos resultados reflejan la necesidad de fomentar la formación del profesorado en este ámbito, para lograr una efectiva y necesaria mediación en los procesos de comprensión y producción de textos en la universidad.
Palabras clave: Alfabetización académica, concepciones docentes, estrategias de enseñanza, actividades didácticas

Despite its multiple benefits, writing has always been a problematic issue for business English trainers and their students, due to several aspects, among which the most significant ones are the fact that it is more time-consuming -therefore more difficult to integrate in the structure of face-to-face encounters -and less dynamic and interactive than other types of activities. This article focuses on analyzing the results of a questionnaire completed by students at the Faculty of Commerce from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies regarding their opinion on the usefulness of business writing skills, their views on tasks designed to develop these skills, as well as their suggestions of activities that might increase their interest in enhancing their business writing competences.

This thesis reports an exploratory and contrastive corpus study examining two phenomena in postgraduate academic writing: expressing commitment/detachment and signalling authorial presence in dissertations. More specifically, the overall purpose of the study is to investigate how postgraduate academic writers from particular contexts build their academic stance and voice by employing a range of linguistic items that could be identified as hedges, boosters and authorial references.

Argument construction is an important aspect of academic writing. Although literature presents a number of theoretical and pedagogical models of argument, research is lacking into authentic argument construction in expert writing. Moreover, it is not clear how disciplinary variation affects the construction of argument. Therefore, this paper analyses argument in four disciplines – philosophy, literature, chemistry, and computational science. The results show a degree of variation among disciplines. Three models of argument have been found, called here premise-based argument (found in philosophy and literature), hypothesis-based argument (found in computational science and to a lesser degree in literature) and exposition-based argument (in chemistry). These models differ from the theoretical and/or pedagogical models proposed in the literature, suggesting that EAP students might be asked to produce arguments very different from arguments encountered in the reading in their discipline. Given the disciplinary variation observed, the paper supports applying English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) as well as English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) approach to teaching argument construction.

In this chapter, we explore how writing has been taught in the domain of art history in Russia. We draw on academic liter-acy theory and work from two major premises: a) writing is a type of social practice and b) writing is closely linked with the knowledge-making practices in a discipline. We employed semi-structured interviews to explore how participants were taught to write in the discipline and how they have taught their students to write. The results of our study indicate that mento-ring and discovery learning were the main teaching approaches and that writing was seen as purely instrumental, a skill that one acquired naturally from experience. The interview data indicates that the participants were reinventing their writing and that the major tensions in that process were closely linked to: 1) access to resources in the process of researching and producing a text, and 2) traditions of knowledge-making globally and in the particular geopolitical and socio-historic context of Russia. The findings indicate that research on the writing for publication practices of art historians has been challenging because this knowledge domain is marked by varying interpretative epistemologies with-in national, cultural, and or geopolitical contexts.

Poetic diction is very important to understand a writer's literary style, and this unique poetic diction separates it from prose. The writer's selection of graphic words and other stylistic devices not only affect the reader's attitude but also convey his feelings toward the literary work. The researcher chose the Invocation [the opening lines: l-26] from Paradise Lost Book-1 for many reasons. These reasons are the outstanding status of Paradise Lost in English literature, its complex narrative ingenuity, its grand style, its religious theme, its graphological, phonological, grammatical, lexical and semantic features, and the use of these features collectively to enhance the religious theme of this epic poem that is the relationship of man and God. This research tried to explore different levels of stylistic deviations, Milton's lexical choices from the Bible and the Quran, his religious and historical references. It focused on analyzing the unique stylistic features of the Invocation, levels of deviation, lexical choices and features through Milton's literary work, the King James Bible Online (1611) and the Corpus of the Quran for deeper understanding of this outstanding narration and the religious theme.

Esta experiencia educativa nace a raíz de la aplicación de un proyecto de innovación
docente (PIE19-128) que tiene como objetivo principal mejorar la destreza escrita en
lengua inglesa de los estudiantes del Grado de Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad de
Málaga. Habiendo detectado carencias en este sentido en el alumnado de primer año y
coordinando el trabajo con los asistentes de conversación del programa Fullbright, se
interviene en la asignatura de Inglés Instrumental (I) de la siguiente forma: haciendo
sesiones específicas de inglés académico de forma presencial y online, fomentando tareas
digitales relacionadas con el mundo real para la mejora de la escritura académica y
creando un modelo docente de “mini talleres de escritura” (presenciales y virtuales),
donde el alumnado corrige sus tareas escritas, recibe retroalimentación y resuelve dudas
relacionadas con la escritura académica. Se observa que este método facilita la
elaboración y corrección de tareas escritas en gran medida y mejora la motivación y la
destreza de los estudiantes. Se propone trabajar en la creación de un writing center (centro
de escritura) permanente para poder realizar esta tarea a gran escala y de forma
continuada.

"A Performance Study of Editing Process in ESL Undergraduate
Writing"
Raashid Nehal
Unpublished MPhil Awarded in 1995,Aligarh Muslim University

This study investigates how basic writers locate and  correct errors under two conditions: with feedback and without feedback. It analyses the editing performance under
different conditions, on different tasks. The focus of the
study is on the editing process of written work of second
language undergraduates to see whether functional variables
affect the editing process.

Research shows that students write better academic essays if the instructor facilitates a process of preparation that allows for purposeful peer discussion. Drawing on screenwriting pedagogy, this article proposes a workshop model that lets students express their essay's structural elements as single sentences, which allows for effective peer and large-group feedback throughout the research, draft, and revision process. Sharing such elements on a digital workspace creates a sense of audience that motivates better work. Students can also apply insights from this model to other writing formats and oral presentations, which widens the utility of undergraduate writing classes. Particularly for inexperienced instructors, such as teaching assistants, this approach can offer useful step-by-step guidance for turning crowded classrooms or online sessions into workshops with small-group dynamics more commonly found in graduate writing seminars.

This article documents the academic writing course design process for advanced Chinese learners aiming to pursue postgraduate degrees in business-related fields at their respective target universities in the UK. Four holders of BA degrees in the social sciences from second tier universities in Beijing were tested, surveyed and observed in detail to design a non-terminal twenty-hour pre-sessional writing course (ten two-hour sessions) to assist in their preparation for postgraduate study. All students held offers from Russell Group universities in the UK and had covered the IELTS requirement (6.5-7.0) for admission there prior to signing up for the EAP course discussed in this paper. The aim of the course is to enhance the students' academic skills and improve their performance in the following year when they attend UK universities. The course design process is informed by two sets of principles, incorporating both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. The former is framed within an understanding of EAP as academic, rather than language training. The latter is based on needs analysis of student-specific weaknesses explored through the use of a questionnaire, a diagnostic writing test and in-class observations. Both perspectives feed into the course goals and objectives which serve as a basis for the course rationale. Aiming to bridge the gap between Chinese undergraduate and UK postgraduate study, the course combines textbooks with authentic materials and formative with summative assessment. Reflections on major constraints and limitations are provided throughout the process. This documented case of academic writing course design aims to reveal challenges faced by EAP practitioners working with UK and Chinese institutions, and to present a middle ground approach to resolving tensions between top-down and bottom-up pressures in the context of course design for advanced Chinese graduates.

The main objective of this study was to assess the prevailing alignment of EAP in EFL writing courses vis-à-vis the development of academic writing skills of students in public universities in ANRS. The study used a descriptive survey method that involves quantitative and qualitative methods. Questionnaire, syllabus and materials survey and focus-group discussions were used to gather the necessary data for the study. The English Language and Literature instructors who were delivering common writing courses in the target universities were the key participants. Sixty-eight instructors were opted through comprehensive sampling for the questionnaire. Thus, descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were employed in analyzing the quantitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed and reported thematically. The overall findings of the study showed that there existed a comparable horizontal (cross-department) distribution pattern of common writing courses among the three universities; all learners in taking the common course 'Basic Writing Skills' in each university learnt with the same syllabus and material regardless of their fields of study. And so, there was poor alignment of writing courses with the target students' mainstream discipline (i.e., learning and discourse) both in terms of content and genre.

Milano, 6 -7 maggio 2019 Casa del Manzoni -Via Gerolamo Morone, 1 Sala Malliani -Via Festa del Perdono, 7 A cura di Michela Dota, Giuseppe Polimeni e Massimo Prada 6 MAGGIO CASA DEL MANZONI Via Gerolamo Morone, 1 ORE 13:30 -SALUTI Claudia Berra, Direttrice del Dipartimento di Studi letterari, filologici e linguistici Massimo Prada, Presidente del CALCIF, Coordinatore del CRC Skribotablo ORE 14: 00 -INTERVENTI DEL POMERIGGIO Presiede Claudia Berra Michele Cortelazzo, Da una pluriennale esperienza di insegnamento della scrittura a studenti universitari. Il ruolo della motivazione e del tipo di testo. Matteo Viale, Insegnamento della scrittura e tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione: esperienze didattiche tra scuola e università. Alessio Ricci, Scrivere la relazione di tirocinio all'Università. Fabio Ruggiano, Le due facce del laboratorio di scrittura per il recupero degli OFA: osservatorio sulle debolezze degli studenti, esperimento di didattica dell'italiano. Laura Pinnavaia, Insegnando la scrittura accademica inglese per mezzo dei corpora linguistici. Marina Brambilla, Valentina Crestani, Scrivere il genere in tedesco e in italiano come L2? 7 MAGGIO SALA MALLIANI -UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Via Festa del Perdono, 7 ORE 09: 30 -INTERVENTI DEL MATTINO Presiede Bruno Falcetto Fabio Rossi, Per una tipologia dell'errore sulla base di elaborati scritti in lingua italiana di studenti L1 e L2. Clara Bulfoni, L'approccio alla stesura di tesi degli studenti cinesi a Mediazione. Carla Marello, Alina Masla, Dialoghi brevi scritti in italiano L2 e in russo L2: l'ellissi del dato come guida sintattico-pragmatica. Giuliana Fiorentino, Scrivere come pratica sociale: riassumere per capire e per studiare. Francesca Gatta, Scrivere per pensare, scrivere per comunicare. Riflessioni sulla didattica della scrittura a margine di un'esperienza nella laurea magistrale per traduttori specializzati. Eugenio Salvatore, L'approccio induttivo nell'insegnamento universitario della scrittura: prassi didattica e nuovi contesti d'insegnamento/apprendimento. Michele Daloiso, La composizione del testo scritto in lingua straniera da parte di apprendenti con DSA: riflessioni in prospettiva edulinguistica. ORE 14: 30 -INTERVENTI DEL POMERIGGIO Presiede Clara Bulfoni Margaret Rose, Un laboratorio teatrale per studenti della Statale e ragazzi reclusi del Beccaria; un esempio di scrittura collettiva. Laboratorio condotto da C.Cavecchi, M.Rose e Giuseppe Scutellà. Sibylle Orlandi, Benoît Monginot, Scrittura vincolata, scrittura esperienziale: un percorso creativo in lingua straniera. Daniele D'Aguanno, Claudia Tarallo, L'italiano scritto accademico: percorsi didattici e correzioni. Silvia Demartini, Dalle tecniche di scrittura alla scrittura tecnica. Esperienze dai corsi di comunicazione e scrittura per studenti di corsi di laurea scientifici. Giuseppe Sergio, Pubblicità maestra: il potenziale linguistico e culturale della pubblicità nella didattica dell'italiano L2. Giuseppe Polimeni, Eleonora Salvadori, Un progetto europeo per la scrittura: IRIS (Erasmus Plus). Massimo Prada, Michela Dota, Una esperienza di didattica "verticale" della scrittura: il PON Monticello.

This paper outlines the development of the “Reader Engagement framework”, a tool for helping emerging writers understand what might keep readers reading – or stop readers from reading – a text. The Reader Engagement framework has been under development for the past five years, primarily in the context of undergraduate English proficiency classes at a large university in Flanders. Using the principles of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2014), a preliminary framework was sketched using as data the margin comments of one reader who noted points of engagement or disengagement while reading student texts. Additional rounds of data collection included the engagement perceptions of student-readers, as well as those of teacher-readers from various disciplines. Thus far 1087 readers have been consulted, and the categories in the framework seem to be largely saturated. Though further refinement is necessary, the framework has been found successful as a teaching tool, and as an assessment and feedback tool. It also seems to have potential for offering writers a new way of conceptualising writing.

Beginning in 1984 as an annual conference event, TED-a nonprofit organization based on forging new connections among technology, entertainment, and design-started as an invitationonly affair and then grew to have an online presence in the 2000s. At that time TED.com launched an audio and video podcast series that made possible "a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers." People now share their favorite TED talks online via social networks and use them to enhance motivational training sessions with groups of employees or students. The organization, whose goal is "to make great ideas accessible and to spark conversation," has gained an international audience with the talks also featured in over 100 languages ("About"). These talks, always eighteen minutes or shorter, claim to highlight some of the major thinkers of our time and make their central arguments short and portable to the public.

The present article is of twofold aim. First, it undertakes a situation analysis through investigating students' level of motivation and academic writing proficiency along with exploring teachers' perceptions and experience with blended learning. The study, hence, hypothesizes that teachers do not fully conceive and adequately use blended learning to improve students' academic writing performance and motivation. Second, it introduces the philosophy and methodology of blended learning in academic writing for undergraduate students, and hypothesizes that blended learning in academic writing would improve students' motivation and academic writing performance. To test the hypotheses, questionnaires and composition tests were conducted, along with suggesting some guidelines for designing blended learning courses for language practitioners.

English language learning and teaching, as any educational process, is penetrated by several
dynamic concepts which are in a state of constant flux, dialogue, tension, and
complementarity. One of such concepts is that of authenticity, the main theme of the 42nd
FAAPI Conference and the contributions included here.
It is not within the scope of this introduction to provide a definition of authenticity
because, even though definitions are necessary, it would be reductive to do so. Instead, we
attempt here to indicate some roads which the concept invites us to explore in relation to our
professional practices inscribed in larger situated contexts.

The "Study Skills Webinar Series " was funded, conceptualised, and produced by the Research Development Unit at Thammasat University's Faculty of Liberal Arts. Each short webinar can be viewed by following the YouTube link, and the PDF provides a short summary of its contents.

Academic writing at the C2 level, according to the Common European Framework of Reference, experiences a fundamental change of focus from the lower-order concerns in writing, to the notion of communicative aspect of discourse and towards the higher-order concerns in writing. This study explores the degree of communicative competence in L2 writing that these students exhibit.

Conference: Fourth Biennial Conference on Threshold Concepts: From personal practice to communities of practice, At Trinity College, Dublin, 2012

The workshop will first report and comment on the outcomes of preliminary explorations into the application of threshold concepts theory undertaken in collaboration with learners and subject lecturers at a large central London university. In particular, the outcomes of one pilot case study will be used to illustrate how these collaborations might inform approaches to developing student writing, as well as engaging learners with threshold concepts in potentially generative ways.

Participants in the workshop will then be encouraged to undertake a number of activities that mirror these explorations. At various points in the workshop, I will describe approaches that seek to encourage learners and subject lecturers to use text analysis to investigate not only the language features of threshold concepts and ways of thinking in their disciplines, but also the associated transformations in discourse that arise from threshold concept understanding (Land and Meyer, 2003; 2005). The purpose of this approach is threefold: to facilitate conceptual, paradigmatic change in learners; to develop their ability to engage with, and participate in, disciplinary discourses; and to inform Threshold Concept research and practice.

The language features of discourse shifts associated with threshold concepts acquisition appear under-researched outside of the discourse analysis proposed in Land and Meyer’s 2003 paper (p.4). Similarly, the undertaking of literacy development practices through the lens of threshold concepts is under-reported. Threshold Concepts as a field of enquiry and practice might therefore be successfully informed by text and discourse analysis methods developed in the fields of Applied Linguistics, Academic Literacies and Academic Writing. Importantly, the possibility that learners might acquire threshold concept understanding through certain methods of discourse or text analysis (as vehicles for learning) remains under-researched. The implications for pedagogic practice and perspectives on developing student writing will be concurrent themes of the workshop.

'Threshold concept literacy’: helping learners develop writing skills and acquire threshold concept understanding through examining associated transformations in discourse. - ResearchGate. Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/259991626_'Threshold_concept_literacy_helping_learners_develop_writing_skills_and_acquire_threshold_concept_understanding_through_examining_associated_transformations_in_discourse [accessed Oct 3, 2015].

Students must be able to recognize, evaluate, organize, and identify the best sources of information.  More so, students must be able develop research techniques to locate the sources that will yield the best reliable information.  This is often about information literacy within the discipline of higher education research and leadership.

This presentation -- the first in the panel -- describes and accounts for the theoretical approach to care of the subjective self located within a literal prison.  I describe the case study of critical pedagogy as informed by critical theory, particularly through a deployment of the Foucauldian concept of “Care of the Self” joined with a Freirean conscientização.  That such literal liberation can only be figuratively realized for the inmate serving a life, or near-to-life sentence is a poignant underscoring of what is also true for many within carceral contexts: that liberation (literal or metaphorical) is figured, scripted, the writing of a subject with limited but actual agency to care for a configured self within disciplinary or constraining forces.  About half of the presentation is given to description of the Associates of Arts program in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and the risks and rewards of conducting such an exploratory phenomenological study will be a significant element of the presentation.