Browsing by Author "Gerrard H"

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    Skills for Citizenship? Writing Instruction and Civic Dispositions in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (WAC Clearinghouse, 30/09/2019) Gerrard H
    : This article offers an overview of a first-year writing course in Aotearoa New Zealand, Tū Kupu: Writing and Inquiry, which forms part of a core Bachelor of Arts (BA) curriculum with “citizenship” as a key theme. I situate the course in the context of the tertiary sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the social and political contexts for teaching here, analysing how these contexts deeply inform the sense of “the civic” that we engage in writing instruction. In particular, I account for neoliberal trends in higher education and the complexities of citizenship, including the multiple and sometimes competing kinds of belonging, participation, and publics we invoke when we name citizenship as a teaching focus, and the role of writing in their enactment. My broadest claim is that this set of complexities is a useful one to illuminate the multifaceted work of writing instruction in this country. In addition, in three sections, this article works through some of the institutional and policy demands on writing instruction, the competing accounts of citizenship that we might engage, and how our assignments, text choices, and workshop pedagogy model civic engagement and frame writing in terms of inquiry and collectivity, amid shifting frames and hierarchies of belonging, and questions about the role of the university.
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    The use of personal experience as a strategy for critical reading and writing
    (Queensland University of Technology, 19/07/2018) Kahu E; Gerrard H
    Increasingly it is recognised that universities are preparing students for an uncertain future. Accordingly, key graduate attributes of Massey University’s redeveloped Bachelor of Arts degree are critical readin g and writing skills and engaged citizenship. The authors teach two large first-year courses in these topics. Student engagement is critical in these courses because the student cohort is diverse, the courses are compulsory, and the topics are developmental. Some of the assessments have been designed to engage students with the use of personal experience as a strategy for critical reading and writin g. While not without its challenges, this approach has proven to be effective: emotionally engagin g students and enabling them to critically reflect on themselves and the world around them through the development of connected skills and dispositions in critical reading and writing.