Beyond ‘write-talk-revise-(repeat)’: Using narrative to understand one multilingual student's interactions around writing

What our students tell us: Perceptions of three multilingual students on their academic writing in first year

“…The sentiments expressed by Laura here echo those of the graduate student Victoria in Pomerantz and Kearney (2012), who was "continuously grappling with her understanding(s) of writing and identity . .…”

“…In the Journal of Second Language Writing, a number of authors have recently chosen to frame student writers as "multilingual" rather than as "L2." The concept of the multilingual writer is used by Pomerantz and Kearney (2012) to make the point that-like Victoria, the Chinese graduate student in their study-multilingual students have at their disposal multiple resources for thinking about their writing experiences and potentially multiple ways of modelling what is "good" writing. The concept is central also to Kobayashi and Rinnert's (2013) study of Natsu, a Japanese "multicompetent" writer.…”

“…Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed by the researchers, and analysed for key themes and issues related to academic writing and its development (see Leki, 2007;Pomerantz & Kearney, 2012 for a similar approach). Writing tasks were also analysed for salient themes and cross-referenced with interview data.…”

Narrative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics Research

“…We also find four main conceptions of narrative, which serve as points of reference for the practice of narrative inquiry in applied linguistics: The canonical story as described, for example, by Labov (1972): an account of experience consisting of an abstract, orientation, complicating action, resolution, evaluation, and codaLife histories and autobiographies, or, in the context of research on narrative identity, the ways in which people make sense of their lives through the activity of storytelling (e.g., Brockmeier & Carbaugh, 2001)Grand narratives (Lyotard, 1984) or the larger, culturewide ideologies that shape the themes and discourse of particular narratives (Tannen, 2008)Narratives-in-interaction or more fragmentary accounts of experience in everyday talk, often called small stories (Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008) Because narrative inquiry in applied linguistics works with a range of narrative texts, its coherence as a field of inquiry lies less in its concern with particular text-types and more in its focus on the activity of storytelling. As Pomerantz and Kearney (2012) put it, applications of narrative theory in applied linguistics are wide ranging, but they “share a similar philosophical foundation by appealing to the primordial meaning-making functions of narrative” (p. 224). Making a similar point, Barkhuizen (2013) used the term “narrative knowledging” (p. 4) to denote “making sense of an experience through narrating, analyzing narratives, reporting narrative research, and consuming research findings” (p. 4).…”

Confronting MA students’ and seminar teachers’ diverse agendas concerning academic literacy development through an EAP writing course

“…Also, with a growing number of students undertaking other language studies in parallel with English studies, there are more and more multilingual students. As suggested by Pomerantz and Kearney (2012), these students have at their disposal access to multiple ways of modelling what is good writing; in other words, writing experiences and proficiency across more than two languages shape their perceptions of themselves as writers and their writing habits (p. 222). For the above reasons, the challenge for an EAP teacher is in the need to cater simultaneously for very diverse needs.…”