Academic development in writing composition: Beyond the limitations of a functionalist and pragmatic curriculum

Abstract

The focus of this article is two-fold. The s briefly report on an inquiry into student writing in a two-year Education masters programme and argue for an integrated perspective on the development of scholarship as it interfaces with academic writing. Their thesis on South African students, who use the medium of teaching and learning English as an additional (second or third) language, and who have not been able to attend university on a full-time basis before, need more than language and writing proficiency for successful writing composition (and scholarship development) in their academic careers. They also need critical socialisation, in which they are afforded the opportunity to develop multiple academic literacies and a personal academic identity that values inquiry. A premise of the argument is that this process cannot be facilitated incidentally in the typical functionalist and pragmatic curriculum of the `busy university'.


(Journal for Language Teching: 2002 36(1-2): 82-90)