Names of power and the acquisition of academic literacy

Abstract

Creating lectures, tutorials and classes that are playful as well as serious remains a challenge in the South African language education field. This article indicates how student names, both given and self-created, can be used to provoke important and meaningful writing by students in tertiary and late secondary levels. It can also be used to create a research project, without losing the personal narrative commitment of the student. There is direct instruction on how to create the project as well as theoretical background. This work continues to explore the possibility of a democratic, narrative pedagogy, wherein lived experience and academic discourse can interact to strengthen each other.

Keywords: narrative pedagogy, learner-centered, names, academic literacy, democratic, writing as discovery

Journal for Language Teaching Vol. 39(1) 2005: 99-112