Writing in Geography Lessons—An Unreflected Routine?

Abstract

Writing is an integral part of everyday school life and is a relevant didactic tool in geography lessons. Nevertheless, there is still little research on the topic of writing in geography lessons. The study aims to investigate the attitudes towards writing and school practice of geography teachers by analysing qualitative guided interviews. It will reflect on the extent to which teachers ascribe meanings and didactic significance to this language action and implement it in their geography lessons. Teachers see writing in particular as a function of performance assessment and material evaluation and less as a means of subject-specific learning. In addition, the integration of writing tasks in geography lessons is a challenge for them. Research and university teaching should support teachers in cultivating a didactically justified approach to writing tasks and raise awareness among them to the diverse functions of writing.

“It’s Easy to Put Oneself in the Shoes of Others.” Results of a School Study in Geography Lessons on Working with Authentic Personal Narratives in Comparison to Factual Texts

“…This can be understood as a call to not only reserve creative writing for language teaching, but also to integrate it into subject teaching more frequently. Research on the importance of writing in geography lessons has shown that there are still clear deficits in this direction [ 50 ].…”

“…126-142), [28] (pp. [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. Perspectivity raises awareness of the perspective-bound nature of any perception of the world, including one's own.…”

Effect of Feedback and Strategy Training on Undergraduate Students’ Writing Ability

“…When one's own voice takes on the persona of an authority figure, the expected personal viewpoints in secondary school are traded for the ability to include authoritative others in a multi-perspective.Students must provide critical analyses of other academics' works when absorbing their ideas, both independently and in relation to other relevant materials.As beginners, many students are unaware that they are expected to assert authority in their papers; hence, they regard their assignment as a collection of objective and impersonal opinions from others. It is not without good reason that the term "academic writing" is not used to describe the writing that students perform in secondary schools but rather is limited to defining the writing performed at universities and beyond [7][8][9].…”