Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs

Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland's metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland's metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers' multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities.

Identity Construction in Academic Writing of Student Writers Who Use English as an Additional Language: A Literature Review1

Academic writing is social interaction between writer and reader, during which writers can employ discursive and non-discursive features to construct their identities. However, many student writers who are users of English as an additional language (EAL) may find it challenging to construct their identities in academic writing. Properly constructed identity in academic writing can help EAL student writers develop a stronger sense of self, exercise their agency, and negotiate the academic discourse. Therefore, this paper reviews empirical studies on EAL student writers’ identity construction when they write in English to investigate the features of identities that EAL student writers construct in texts and the factors that influence their identity construction. The findings show that, compared with expert writers and native-English-speaking (NES) counterparts, EAL student writers tend to present a weak authorial identity. Furthermore, EAL student writers tend to be more engaged with texts than with readers and lack commitment to their claims. The identities that EAL student writers construct in academic writing are also interwoven with EAL students’ English proficiency levels, educational experience, disciplinary conventions, genre affordances, and audience awareness. The findings of this literature review can help teachers and educators raise EAL students’ identity awareness and facilitate students in strategically constructing writer identities in academic writing.

Lukiolaisten kirjoittajaidentiteetit ja itsen ymmärtämisen prosessi

Pohdin artikkelissani reflektiivistä kirjoittamista lukion äidinkielen ja kirjallisuuden opetuksessa: tarkastelen, miten reflektio näkyy lukiolaisten omaa kirjoittamista pohtivissa teksteissä. Liitän reflektion kirjoittajaidentiteetteihin, jotka hahmotan jatkuvina itsen ymmärtämisen prosesseina ja joihin ympäristöllä on suuri vaikutus. Käsitykseni taustalla vaikuttaa narratiivisen identiteetin teoria (Ricœur 1991, 1992), joka hahmottaa itsen ymmärtämisen hermeneuttisena kehänä. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu 50:stä lukiolaisen omaa kirjoittamista reflektoivasta tekstistä. Kirjoitelma-aineiston lingvistisen analyysin perusteella reflektio näkyy pohdiskelevissa teksteissä etenkin omien valintojen ymmärtämisenä ja lukijan puoleen kurkottamisena. Kirjoittajat jakavat omaa kokemustaan ja toisaalta asettuvat keskustelemaan vaihtoehtoisten näkemysten kanssa. Upper secondary school students’ writer identities and the process of self-understanding – reflective writing in the teaching of mother tongue and literature Abstract In my article I discuss reflective writing in the teaching of mother tongue and literature at the upper secondary school level. I associate reflection with writer identities, which I perceive as processes of self-understanding, influenced by the environment. This view is based on the theory of narrative identity (Ricœur 1991, 1992), which outlines self-understanding as a hermeneutic circle. The research material consists of 50 reflective texts written by upper secondary school students. According to the linguistic analysis of the texts, reflection is manifested as understanding about personal choices and reaching out to the reader. The writers present their own experiences as shared and, on the other hand, discuss alternative views within their texts. Keywords: writing, reflection, upper secondary school, mother tongue education, writer identity

Exploring Habitus and Writer Identities: An ethnographic study of writer identity construction in the FET Phase at two schools in the Western Cape

Globalisation processes have resulted in increasingly pluralistic societies, a phenomenon with ripple effects in contexts such as universities, which now provide access to heterogeneous student populations with diverse rituals, beliefs, cultures and languages. For this reason, deficit discourses that frame students as underprepared for the demands of tertiary studies are a global phenomenon (Boughey, 2003; Lillis, 2003; Lea & Street, 1998). Furthermore, the different identities, histories and dispositions (Bourdieu, 1990) of students result in hybrid linguistic repertoires, with some repertoires being more powerful than others (Blommaert, 2001; Blommaert, Collins &Slembrouck, 2005; Rampton, 2003). Therefore, having access to the preferred linguistic repertoire - in most cases standard English - is an asset, because this repertoire is more closely aligned than others to tertiary education practices and discourses. As a result, the scholarly community can be daunting for many first-year students whose linguistic identities are not always aligned to institutional values, practices and discourses; students can easily be indexed as under-achieving or incompetent.

The significance of reflective conversations for adolescent writers

Purpose For writing instruction, reflection has been an essential tool. Typically, educators ask students to reflect in a structured written, individual format. Less explored is the role that small and whole group reflective conversations have in fostering students’ understandings about writing. The purpose of this paper is to explore several conversations from a young writers’ camp to examine how three high school students engaged in four different kinds of reflective talk during the writing process. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws from a larger qualitative study about how campers constructed and enacted their writer identities in a two-week young writers’ camp. Five researchers observed, video/audio recorded, engaged in interviews and collected artifacts with 58 campers for ten consecutive days. Qualitative analysis was used to examine how young writers (Grades 9-12) engaged in reflective talk to develop understandings about writing. Findings Data illustrated that students engaged in four types of reflective talk: prospective, reflective-in-action, introspective and retrospective. The paper provides one example for each kind of reflective conversation and provides analysis related to how those conversations shaped campers’ understandings about writing. Originality/value This paper illustrated how adolescent writers used prospective, reflective-in action, introspective and retrospective talk during conversations to tell their stories of learning about writing, a topic less studied in the field. This work offers insight into teaching students how to have such reflective conversations so that they are productive and supportive during writing practices.