TWO APPROACHES TO CONTEXTUALISING WRITING SUPPORT WITHIN THE DISCIPLINES: PROJECT LISA

Writing in and across Disciplines

TWO APPROACHES TO CONTEXTUALISING WRITING SUPPORT WITHIN THE DISCIPLINES: PROJECT LISA (LEARNING IN SPECIALISED AREAS) AND DIALOGIC LECTURE ANALYSIS

Lisa Maria Clughen

Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England

As a writing is a prime form of communication through which the disciplines interact, it is constructed, as many strands of writing support emphasise (see Clughen and Hardy 2012, Deane and O’Neill 2011, Ganobscik­Williams 2006), according to the specific needs of the wider disciplinary culture, and this, in itself, contains an array of writing conventions and expectations. Given the multiplicity of practices involved in disciplinary writing, ensuring that writing support is discipline, indeed subject or even module­appropriate is a core challenge for writing tutors and can seem an unending, confusing task. This paper discusses two ways in which a certain degree of clarity over disciplinary requirements can be attained through collaboration with subject tutors and with student writers themselves. Both methods address the time­poor context in which subject tutors operate and which may prevent widespread, long­term dialogue about localised writing concerns. First, it describes Project LISA (Learning in Specialised Areas), ​ an ongoing initiative since 2002 in the School of Arts and Humanities in Nottingham Trent university, England. Through project LISA, the writing support co­ordinator has been able to gain information on writing conventions across the whole of the School by asking tutors to respond to questions about their expectations in a way that has secured a very high response rate. The second technique describes how ‘dialogic lecture analysis’ (Clughen and Connell 2012: 123­141), whereby writing tutors and students enter into debate over subject lectures, offers a dynamic, ecologically valid approach to gauging and demonstrating local writing practices and discourse conventions.

References

Clughen, L. and Connell, M. (2012) ‘Using Dialogic Lecture Analysis to Clarify Disciplinary Requirements for Writing’. in ​ Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education​ . ed. by Clughen, L. and Hardy, C. Bingley: Emerald, 123­141

Clughen, L. and Hardy, C. (eds.) (2012) ​ Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education​ . Bingley: Emerald Deane, M., and O’Neill, P. (eds.) (2011) ​ Writing in the Disciplines.​ London: Palgrave Macmillan Ganobscik­Williams, L. (ed.) (2006) ​ Teaching Academic Writing in UK Higher Education​ . Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan