In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on the interpersonal function of metadiscourse features in academic texts. This means that research on writing in academic contexts began to focus on the rhetorical features, such as interactional metadiscourse, that writers use to present their voice in writing. These developments in academic…

This report fills a major gap in understanding the development of research-based curricula, focusing on college-based higher education (CBHE). Estimates suggest that, in England, somewhere between 8-10% of HE undergraduate students are taught in CBHE. In 2009, 17% of HE students in Scotland were enrolled in CBHE. In Wales this was 15% and in…

Within the New Zealand university context, there has been a dramatic shift in the demographics of doctoral programs. Moving from an elitist educational environment to one that includes a variety of students from different cultures and educational and linguistic backgrounds has meant that "traditional" doctoral study, in which a student…

In 2013 the University of Canberra (UC) initiated a program of peer-assisted academic skills help, the Academic Skills Rovers program, with the goal of providing drop-in peer learning support to students at campus locations where they congregate to study. The Academic Skills Rovers were initially recruited from the teacher education discipline,…

In recent years the field of literacy education and research has seen an increased attention to disciplinary literacy instruction--the teaching of discipline-specific and valued ways of reading, writing, knowing, and communicating knowledge. This article is about disciplinary literacy, specifically disciplinary reading as it is understood by…

This case study reports on the Digital English project, an experimental course in academic writing piloted with international students on a year-long pre-sessional programme. Inspired by Ulmer's (2003) "Mystory" project and Gauntlett's (2007) "Lego" research, the course concerns itself with the students' exploration of self at…

US-based writing fellows programs have traditionally placed writing fellows in upper-division courses to support student writing beyond first-year composition, given that student writing skills become more developed in the context of genre- or discipline-based writing. The author describes a writing fellows program at the American University of…

This article reports on two small-scale international projects, both outcomes of a teaching staff exchange, which seek to exploit the potential afforded by new technologies to enrich L2 learning conditions and learners' experience of using the L2 (in this case English) as a lingua franca. Two undergraduate courses, one for professional and one for…

This dissertation reports on a study investigating the identity of first-year university students as writers. The longitudinal project explored how students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds construct their identities as undergraduates and as academic writers in their first year. The research was qualitative and interpretative, and used…

How much do specialized academic discourse communities matter to undergraduate writers? To what degree should theories of specialized discourses influence the design of undergraduate Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs? At the University of Iowa, where an undergraduate Writing Fellows program engages peer tutors in writing-intensive…

"Integrating Writing, Academic Discourses, and Service Learning: Project Renaissance and School/College Literacy Collaborations" discusses a year-long general education program for first-year students that integrated disciplinary learning with a pen pal project in light of the goals of critical pedagogy and service-learning. The program aimed at…