What can the literacy narrative accounts of EAL students tell us about their transition from high school to university-based academic practices?

The study explores the usefulness of literacy narratives as a tool in academic writing for revealing the perceptions and values EAL students' place on their academic writing identities. The literacy narratives highlight the multiple identities that students bring with them to the act of writing and are shaped by the questions, Who am I? Where am I going? Where do I come from? These questions probe the writers' perceptions of past, present and future academic writer identities and shifts of identity over a period of time and differences between first and third year students. In my analytical approach, I recognise the fact that writing is a social act whereby we say something about ourselves, and use it actively to affirm those values, beliefs and practices which we want to sustain, and to resist those values, beliefs and practices which we do not value (Clark and Ivanic1997).

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Education

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Wroots, Rachel Geraldine

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thesen, Lucia

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7952

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/7952