Locating the unexplored spaces between pedagogy, identity and text

What connections do trainee literacy teachers make between the literacies they do as trainees and the literacies they teach as professionals: an exploration of the dis/connections between academic experience and pedagogic construction. 


OK - so this is a rather clumsy opening. But it is just an opening. 


I realise that I am entering a crowded terrain - there are years of writing and research about academic literacy, non-traditional students and literacy as social practice. So what I need to explore is what is distinct abut this contribution. 


Well - in part - I want to draw on the connection between literacies in two quite distinct spaces: as experience and as pedagogy. I am secondly writing within the context of teacher education - with an indirect role to play in supporting student writing. 


I want to disrupt this notion of traditional / non-traditional student arguing that it has normative overtones and in any case for CPPD has little resonance. 


The problem and solution to student writing is constructed as 'textual'. There is little question about the contexts, participants and practices associated with the production of texts. 


So part of the discussion might raise the extent to which the essay - as meaning making - is a preferred device in HE but it is privileged without any inherent claim to superiority in terms of its capacity to develop pedagogy. 


This is a good moment for me to explore and be creative with my methodology. I like visual methods - a digital camera. Naturally occurring data. 


Tutor-researcher exploring students experiences of meaning making in academic writing. I this I seek to move beyond the idea of the essay as a neutral means of conveying propositional information, as distinct from a means of solidifying particular kinds of social relationships. 


I need to write this up as a concrete and well thought through proposal and perhaps to draw on an exchange between myself and students to contextualise the discussion. 


OK - so the idea is there. 


I now need to read the get background and contemporary context for this discussion. And to record a discussion with my students. In reality - I will open with this next year.