Writing and resistance

Abstract

Support for writing instruction amongst lecturers in UK Universities is high, but they often prefer it to be provided by dedicated study skills specialists operating outside subject curricula. Yet because of the well-documented problems with the skills approach (where literacy support frequently becomes a generic add-on), American models such as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) make a strong claim that writing stratagems and thinking/theorizing within disciplines are actually intrinsically linked. It is accordingly now a commonplace in such literacy research that writing development needs to be contextualized within the disciplines, and interest in adapting such approaches to the UK context is burgeoning. A recent project at Nottingham Trent University set out to explore the prospects for such an adaption through the piloting of an embedded approach in the Social Theory subject area, but the project ran into a series of resistances that came close to thwarting it entirely. The initial challenge lay in convincing time-poor subject lecturers to engage with the literacy initiative and to find space for it in an already saturated curriculum. Yet it seemed that behind the surface perception that the embedding of literacy development would be onerous, or would squeeze out core subject content, there lay a deeper attitude that such development was both ‘beneath’ subject lecturers and unconnected to the specific concerns of their academic discipline. This reflection piece, co-written by the academic support coordinator championing the initiative and the Social Theory Subject Leader, seeks to understand some of these attitudes, using the work of Sigmund Freud and Theodor W. Adorno to probe various psycho-social aspects of the phenomenon of resistance to the embedding of writing development in a discipline. What emerges is a reflection on practice which arguably reveals a certain complex around the status of teaching as opposed to lecturing, alongside a process of displaced resistance to the managerialist and vocationalizing discourse which is on the ascendency within UK universities.

Beyond deficit: graduate student research-writing pedagogies

“…The cause of the 'problem' is identified as underprepared educational backgrounds, writing in an additional language, or the non-traditional nature of many students who are signing up for graduate school (Haggis 2006;Owler 2010). The response to the 'problem' is varied and most often ranges from academic development support and peer learning (Boud and Lee 2005), English for Academic Purposes (Turner 2012), add-on writing courses , writing groups (Aitchison and Lee 2006;Cuthbert and Spark 2008) and attempts to embed writing practice in disciplinary curricula (Clughen and Connell 2012;Ganobcsik-Williams 2006).…”

“…Graduate writing has received growing attention over the past decade, in part, because of the increasing diversity of student bodies and widening access to universities Clughen and Connell 2012;Starke-Meyerring 2011;Franken 2012). In many of these contexts, writing is seen as 'a problem' in need of fixing.…”

Peer Assisted Study Skills Initiative: Pilot Project

“…Also, Study Skills Lecturers (SSLs) found arranging in-class academic support sessions were a challenge as lecturers needed to complete the required module content within the short teaching time frame. Further, most students did not seek help outside class time as they had full-time jobs, family, and life commitments (Garcia-Melgar, 2021;Clughen and Connell, 2012). All these led to a high number of learners leaving their programmes of study within the first 8 weeks.…”

Can we buffer them? Supporting healthy levels of stress and anxiety in first year international students

“…However, this is not always the case ( Palmquist et al, 2020 ). It can be challenging to convince teaching staff that they have the space in the curriculum, and/or the expertise and time to embed WAC/WID in their programs and courses ( Clughen & Connell, 2011 ). Despite these challenges, many WAC/WID tasks have been implemented and documented over the years, as evidenced by the WAC Clearinghouse, which is “now home to several journals, the CompPile database, and more than 125 scholarly monographs and collections as well as a growing collection of resources for writers, writing instructors and WAC scholars” ( Palmquist et al, 2020 , p. 20).…”