Writing in the Disciplines, Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education

Academic writing for students within higher education is an essential and perennial skill that impacts on both their studies and assessments. With widening participation and a changing educational setting, many students entering higher education do not have the requisite writing skills and this is a source of frustration for disciplinary lecturers and students alike. In addition, it is increasingly common for students to study interdisciplinary subjects that have different writing cultures that are often an anathema to those outside the disciplines.

This book aims to bridge the gap between writing outside and inside the university and student/staff expectations of academic writing by combining theoretical issues in literacy scholarship with empirical evidence from students and staff involved. Crucially, it offers practical activities to enable students to become engaged with writing cultures at university.

It is organised into four sections: introduction, writing cultures, creating supportive writing cultures and conclusion.

• The introduction draws together the contextual and theoretical approaches to literacies (and writing in particular) drawing on the work of leading academic writers and theorists. The movement from the autonomous approach to a social constructivist and multiple literacies approach will be discussed, drawing on empirical examples to highlight the issue of multiple literacies expected of today’s students. It will be argued that all approaches to writing have some value but have to be culturally situated, ie by writing in the disciplines.
• Part two contains three chapters, charting the writing cultures that students encounter throughout their education from school to university and finally in the disciplines. This section will give academics an insight into student literacies prior to university, their expectations and practices of literacies at university and the mismatch between student and staff experiences and expectations. Finally, there is a genre analysis of writing within the disciplines, outlining the particular writing conventions found across university curricula.
• The third section is about creating supportive environments and offers practical advice for engaging students in their writing within their discipline, it will demonstrate teaching practices that have been successful in increasing students’ confidence and ability in writing. It focuses on writing spaces, writing in the virtual environment, understanding disciplinary requirements, alternative forms of writing, and social writing. All chapters draw from empirical evidence of working with students and use case studies to demonstrate activities and approaches.
•  The final section is the conclusion and draws the book together.

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