Working With Academic Literacies: Case Studies Towards Transformative Practice

Edited by Theresa Lillis, Kathy Harrington, Mary R. Lea, and Sally Mitchell
Copy edited by Don Donahue. Designed by Tara Rieser and Mike Palmquist.

Cover The editors and contributors to this collection explore what it means to adopt an "academic literacies" approach in policy and pedagogy. Transformative practice is illustrated through case studies and critical commentaries from teacher-researchers working in a range of higher education contexts—from undergraduate to postgraduate levels, across disciplines, and spanning geopolitical regions including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cataluña, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Key questions addressed include: How can a wider range of semiotic resources and technologies fruitfully serve academic meaning and knowledge making? What kinds of writing spaces do we need and how can these be facilitated? How can theory and practice from "Academic Literacies" be used to open up debate about writing pedagogy at institutional and policy levels?

About the Editors

Theresa Lillis is Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics at The Open University, UK. Her main research area is writing- student writing in higher education, scholarly writing for publication, professional social work writing and writing in grassroots political activity. She has authored and co-authored a number of books, including The Sociolinguistics of Writing (2013), Academic Writing in a Global Context (with Mary Jane Curry, 2010) and Student Writing: Access Regulation, Desire (2001).

Kathy Harrington is Principal Lecturer in Educational Development at London Metropolitan University and Visiting Lecturer at the Tavistock Centre, London. Previously she was Academic Lead - Students as Partners, Higher Education Academy, and from 2005-2010 Director of Write Now, a cross-institutional initiative developing writing and assessment practice within disciplines (http://www.writenow.ac.uk). She is co-author (with Mick Healey and Abbi Flint) of Engagement through Partnership: Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (2014).

Mary Lea is an Honorary Associate Reader in Academic and Digital Literacies at the Open University, UK. She has researched and published widely in the field of academic literacies. Her more recent work is concerned with the relationship of the digital to knowledge making practices in the university across academic and professional domains. A recent co-edited volume, with Robin Goodfellow, Literacy in the Digital University: Critical Perspectives on Learning, Scholarship and Technology (2013) considers this emerging area of study.

Sally Mitchell is Head of Learning Development at Queen Mary University of London, where in the early 2000s she established "Thinking Writing," a strand of development activity to support academic staff in exploring the uses of writing in their disciplines and their teaching (http://www.thinkingwriting.qmul.ac.uk). She is particularly interested in the ways in which writing development is thought about and positioned institutionally and in questions of who is responsible for students' learning through language.

Publication Information: Lillis, Theresa, Kathy Harrington, Mary R. Lea, & Sally Mitchell. (2015). Working With Academic Literacies: Case Studies Towards Transformative Practice. Perspectives on Writing. Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/lillis/

Web Publication Date: June 15, 2015.
Print Publication Date: November 6, 2015.

Contact Information:
Theresa Lillis: theresa.lillis@open.ac.uk
Kathy Harrington: k.harrington@londonmet.ac.uk
Mary R. Lea: mary.lea@open.ac.uk
Sally Mitchell: s.mitchell@qmul.ac.uk

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