Some proposals for teaching analytical writing : a principled, holistic, pedagogic approach

Johnston, Brenda Helen May (1998) Some proposals for teaching analytical writing : a principled, holistic, pedagogic approach. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

In this study, I taught academic writing to a class of first year undergraduate students at the American University in Cairo, and English-medium university, according to a teaching programme based on the initial version of the theoretical framework I offer in this thesis. I traced the responses of five students over the course of a semester through the medium of five in-depth case studies. I based the case studies on a qualitative analysis of: their pre-writing notes; various essay drafts; transcripts of individual conferences and interviews with the students; and products of various research exercises. As I worked to and fro between my theoretical understandings and the data during the analysis process, my theoretical understandings developed into a more advanced theoretical framework which is presented here at length. The framework I propose is not intended as a definitive prescription, but instead represents the stage to which my theoretical understandings have currently developed. Other researchers and teachers may wish to modify and develop the framework further.

The particular contributions of this study are: the development of a theoretical framework to conceptualise and guide the teaching and learning of academic writing; the links made between theory and practice in the operationalisation of teaching principles; and the in-depth longitudinal studies of students' writing in response to a teaching programme in an action research context.

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