Abstract:

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs contribute significantly to the academic success of international students at universities in many Western countries. Yet, an emphasis on preparing students to meet the demands of their academic contexts may ignore the valuable cultural resources they bring to the academy. An Academic Literacies (AL) (Lea & Street, 2006) framework offers an integrated approach concerned with the teaching and learning of writing practices that take place across the university, while still affirming students’ linguistic and cultural resources as “legitimate tools” for acquiring writing skills (Lillis & Scott, 2007, p. 13). However, AL has been criticized for lacking real impact on curriculum design and instructional practices because it has yet to be established into a “pedagogically useful framework” for the teaching of academic writing (Tribble, 2015, p. 460).

This study addresses this gap by exploring international undergraduate students’ engagement in an increasingly common academic practice, online discussions. Excerpts are drawn from two online discussion groups, including assignment prompts, news articles, student responses, and comments to one another within the context of a university English as a Second Language (ESL) Composition course in a midwestern research university in the United States. Intertextual analysis (Bazerman, 2004) was used to examine the moves (Harris, 2006) students make in relation to one another as they make connections between texts and act and react to one another. Findings suggest that when students socially interacted within online discussions in response to written texts and brought their perspectives and experiences into relationship with other writers’ ideas, they did not simply emulate disciplinary discourses they learned in class. They drew upon the texts and their own experiences as valuable cultural knowledge to co-construct meaning, which deepened their analysis and facilitated their construction of new academic practices.

Practical suggestions will address how AL can be used as a design frame for teaching new academic writing practices, while deliberately incorporating ways for students to draw upon their cultural resources.

Keywords:

Academic literacies, English as a Second Language, English composition, international students, reading and writing, online discussions, cultural resources.