Searching for the yet unknown: Writing and dancing as incantatory practices

As two ballet dancers and university educators, we began this collaborative research with a shared belief in ballet and writing as liberatory practices and a desire to confront pedagogies that rely on intimidation. Both we and our students have experienced ballet and writing classes that rely on audit-and-surveillance, and we sought to foster individuality, value differences, and cultivate agency through multimodal approaches in our ballet technique, history, and dance studies courses. During the spring semester of 2021, the history and dance studies courses were online and asynchronous; the ballet classes met in a ‘hybrid’ model: classes were held in person, with students given the option to take class via Zoom either synchronously or asynchronously. Through interviews and analysis, we found praxes that ignite curiosity and motivation by drawing from definitions of writing and dancing as incantatory practices. Notably, this is the first research that takes a capacious view of ‘ballet pedagogy’ to include history, writing, technique, and dance studies courses. Ultimately, we hope these findings support exploratory and multimodal teaching, reinforce connections among language, empowerment, and pedagogy, encourage students and educators to collaboratively challenge current practices, and motivate administrators to rethink university structures that replicate the audit-and-surveillance practices of certain ballet and writing pedagogies.

How Do I Cook an Impact Factor Article If You Do Not Show Me What the Ingredients Are?

Doctoral studies in the Czech Republic are highly individualized with little coursework outside the supervisor/supervisee dyad, and the PhD students are mandated to publish prior to the dissertation defense. This mandate is troublesome because writing development has been on the fringes of the Czech education culture. In addition, the publications often must be in English, and many doctoral students struggle with English. In this exploratory study, we examined how this mandate translates into practice, how doctoral students learn to meet the requirements and how university administrators/supervisors perceive doctoral writing development. To answer our questions, we interviewed 7 university administrators/dissertation supervisors and 7 doctoral students from various backgrounds and universities, looking for diverse views on the issue. Our analysis confirmed the formal status of supervisors as the key doctoral writing literacy brokers. While the supervisors acknowledged their role, they also tended to view doctoral writing as a matter of self-study and funding, thus indirectly emphasising the publication outcomes. In contrast, doctoral students called for structured support of their writing processes. We propose a systemic approach to introduce writing pedagogies into the Czech discourse. With this study we hope to contribute to research on doctoral writing for publication of EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in Central Europe.

Academic Literacy for Deaf Postsecondary Students through Integrated Reading and Writing Instruction

Based on theoretical findings from the literature on the integration of reading and writing pedagogies used with hearing postsecondary students to advance academic literacy, this article offers a model of instruction for achieving academic literacy in developmental and freshman composition courses composed of deaf students. Academic literacy is viewed as the product of acts of composing in reading and writing which best transpire through reciprocal rather than separate reading and writing activities. Pedagogical practices based on theoretical findings and teacher experience are presented as a model of instruction, exemplified as artifacts in online supplementary materials and juxtaposed with practices used with hearing students. Differences between the practices are seen in accommodations for students who learn visually, the amount of guidance provided and more opportunities for extensive practice.

Indigenous Girls Write, Right!? Unsettling Urban Literacies with Indigenous Writing Pedagogies

This article begins with the fundamental premise that Indigenous adolescent girls are writers. Indigenous adolescent girls speak and write in multitudes of voices, yet their physical and literary presence is often unaccounted in educational research and writing. Guided by the theoretical insights of Chicana Feminist Epistemology and Tribal Critical Race Theory this paper illuminates how Indigenous Writing Pedagogies (IWP) emerged to acknowledge land and gendered relationships in urban schools. The author presents implications for Indigenous notions of literacies and relationships that can be elevated by educators working in and out of urban school spaces.

Reflective writing pedagogies in action: a qualitative systematic review

Objectives Reflective practice is a core value of nursing education and emphasizes the self as a source of learning. Writing and reflection are often viewed as inseparable. The goal of this qualitative meta-study is to explore the mechanisms writing stimulates to promote learning transformation for nursing students in both clinical and classroom contexts. Methods A literature search using the CINHAL, Medline, ERIC, and Academic Search Complete databases, using systematic methods, identified 26 papers and dissertations which gathered narrative data from nursing students in pre- and post-registration undergraduate courses. Results Three themes were found describing: 1) Evolving through time and space to reflect; 2) Surfacing and absorbing; and 3) Trust, judgement, and social desirability in the feedback process. Conclusions Transformative learning is promoted through forming a bond with faculty during the writing process to normalize emotions, create critical self-awareness, and providing a safe, non-judgemental space to reflect on their practice and their learning.

The impact of L2 writing instructional approaches on student writing motivation and engagement

While previous research has investigated the effectiveness of various second language (L2) writing instructional approaches upon students’ writing performance, whether and how the instructional approaches relate to students’ writing motivation and engagement remains largely unexplored. This study used the adapted Motivation and Engagement Scale for University/College students and investigated how the three L2 writing instructional approaches (i.e. product-, process-, and genre-oriented) were associated with L2 students’ writing motivation and engagement. A sample of 1,190 students from 35 universities in China participated in the study. Results show that the product-oriented approach induced both adaptive and maladaptive motivation and engagement whereas the process-oriented approach led to student engagement in writing with limited impact on motivation. The genre-oriented approach emerged as the one that best promoted students’ adaptive motivation and engagement in L2 writing. The findings shed light on the motivational potentials of various L2 writing pedagogies and provided insights for how students’ writing motivation and engagement can be promoted with relevant L2 writing instructional approaches.

Writing through theoretical frameworks in the doctoral classroom

Purpose Many doctoral students apply theoretical frameworks to writing assignments as part of their academic coursework and, later, in the practice of analyzing and reporting research. However, students often struggle to effectively apply theoretical frameworks to their writing processes. Thus, as one way of contributing to the writing pedagogies of doctoral-level instructors, the purpose of this study is to explore doctoral students’ learning experiences with analyzing and reporting organizational data using theoretical frameworks. Design/methodology/approach This study examines the perspectives of 29 doctoral students through analytical papers and reflections, letters and interviews. Findings Five themes within the context of current literature on writing were identified. These included students experiencing discomfort, even fear, about writing; students needing to write and receive honest feedback to learn how to write; the need for an instructional process that moves from conceptual to detailed instructions; understanding that writing has conceptual and skills implications that cannot be achieved in a single class; and the analytical writing process contributes to an understanding of the complexity of holding a doctoral degree. Practical implications The findings demonstrate the importance of helping doctoral students gain confidence and improve writing with theoretical frameworks, which can be accomplished with structured formats, through repetition and from instructor feedback. Originality/value This study offers unique insights into the challenges that doctoral students face when writing through theoretical frameworks and how instructors can interact with and potentially improve students’ writing skills and abilities.

Experimental Ethnography: Performativity, Movement, Mediation

The article discusses the ways the method of videowalk is learned in the context of the seminar “Anthropology of the Senses” with a special emphasis on sound studies and how it is theoretically introduced as a performative, intersensorial and embodied ethnographic practice. It explores the potentialities offered by the recent convergences between anthropology and contemporary artistic (audiovisual) production inspired by the “ethnographic turn” in experimental representations of the urban public space. Videowalk is used as a method inviting students to produce cultural knowledge by questioning conventional logocentric (reading and writing) pedagogies and to experiment with reflexive, improvisational, emplaced and affective mediations of urban life and its changing everydayness. It is a method concerned with the intersections of theoretical knowledge with knowing-in-action , a method privileging the synaesthetic authoring of the public space, its meshworked trajectories and stories.

Third Space Creative Pedagogies: Developing a Model of Shared CPDL for Teachers and Artists to Support Reading and Writing in the Primary Curricula of England and Wales

Zip Zap is a Creative Social Enterprise, which offers an author/illustrator- led Continuing Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) programme to develop teacher knowledge, confidence and skills in delivering creative writing and illustration activities, and a Festival of artist-led activities for school pupils. It is one of a number of initiatives that UK schools can buy into. This paper draws on an evaluation of Zip Zap’s CPDL programme and Festival across two UK sites, with two quite different creative learning contexts – Wales and England, to explore issues affecting the pedagogies at work in the space where teachers and creative practitioners elide. An analysis of findings from teacher/pupil/parent/creative practitioner interviews and observations of classroom teaching and CPDL sessions highlighted a number of key issues in relation to pedagogies of creative writing. These are: the teachers’ lack of confidence in creative writing pedagogies, a lack of shared approaches to teaching creative writing, and the potential for shared creative pedagogies. We propose a theoretical framework based on Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of the third space that offers a framework for professional learning that enables collaboration between teachers and creative practitioners, and the emergence of shared, creative pedagogies that would nurture pupils’ creative writing.