Writing group facilitation as pedagogy: engineering learning

Claire Aitchison UWS

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• HDR study is different

• HDR students have different needs

– More, more diverse range of genres, more public, more accountable

Why writing groups, why now?

• Changing context -> New demands and expectations of students and student writing (and supervisors and institutions)

• Requiring new ways of working with students

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• Theoretical influences – Communities of practice, Socio-cultural

theories of learning, academic literacies, process writing, genre studies

• Research– Mostly small scale, practitioner-based

research and reflection

• Practice

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Writing groups

• Are “the practice as well as the site of production and exchange of knowledge” (Aitchison and Lee, 2006)

• Reconstitute normal teaching learning practices and hierarchies

• Are safe spaces for learning and error-making

• Normalise writing

• Are collegial and fun!5

The efficacy of writing groups

• Benefit writing quality and quantity (Aitchison,

2009; Cuthbert, Spark, Burke, 2009; Larcombe, McCosker, O’Loughlin, 2007; Lee & Boud, 2003; Murray, 2008)

• Facilitate individual and co-construction of knowledge and skill

• Build scholarly communities

• Build rich research and writing cultures.

• Capacity building

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Learning occurs in writing groups

• In the process of writing for the group

• As peers read and critique that text

• In discussion of that writing amongst group members

• Through planned and spontaneous input from facilitator and peers

• In the subsequent re-drafting of the original text

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Writing groups at UWS

(1) Thesis Writing Circles

‘course’ 24 hours over 9 weeks. Early candidature

(2) Research Writing Circle Continuers

On-going. Mid candidature

(3) Writing for Publication Circle

On-going. Postdocs, ECRs, Academics

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Facilitating learning: Making a productive environment

• Organisational stuff– Room bookings, physical set-up etc etc – Recruitment: advertising and word-of-mouth

• Procedures, practices and norms– Ground rules: negotiable and non-negotiable– New people – before, at first meeting

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Facilitating learning: Robust routines

• Between group meetings – Facilitator

• Follow up email, volunteer’s email, monitoring individuals

– Members• Read and write down critique to return to

owner– Text volunteer

• Circulate text a week beforehand: incl what it is, maturity of text, what feedback wanted

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Facilitating learning: Robust routines

• Routines of practice during the meetings– Start of each session – schedule, etc

– Text volunteer shapes the discussion

Other considerations: when to do break? Responsibilities? Forms of feedback

• Monitor turn-taking, talk time and topic 15

Engineering learning: ‘Just in time’ teaching and learning

• Forward plan for teachable moments

• ‘Seize the teachable moment’ (spontaneous, planned and sometimes lost)

• From the particular -> general ->particular16

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Contextualising the Study: Identifying Themes of Exclusion in Anzac Texts

 

Introduction

In the previous chapter I established my personal interest in this area of research and detailed the theoretical, methodological, textual and structural underpinnings of this thesis. As indicated in the section on ‘chapter structure’, this chapter provides a contextual understanding of the Kokoda Track. This thesis is of the position that in order to understand texts based on the Kokoda Track the Anzac tradition must firstly be examined. For the reason that the Anzac tradition encompasses all Australian involved military actions since WWI (1914) to today (reference). By this definition, I argue that conflicts on the Kokoda Track during WWII are part of the Anzac tradition. This chapter begins by establishing the history and the significance of the Anzac tradition. The remainder of this chapter conceptualises the Kokoda Track in context of the Anzac tradition by exploring what I have identified as themes of exclusion, which form the main arguments in the following chapters.

Engineering learning

In action

• Scaffolding eg joint-texting (dialogic, ZPD)

• Modelling eg feedback

• Summarising feedback

• Reflective journals, free writing etc

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Writing groups:

• Safe places to share the wonder of writing and the joy of working together as a community of learners.