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LRDG Seminar Series

Date: 13 March 2007 Time: 1.00 pm

The Institutionalization of a Critical Approach to Teaching Writing in One American UniversityPat Mayes, University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeIn the US, institutions of higher education have the task of teaching literacy skills (and, in particular, writing) to all incoming students who are not assessed as "proficient." As a result, most universities have well-developed writing programs which are either housed in English Departments or function as separate entities. These writing programs have developed a set of highly institutionalized practices for placing, teaching, assessing, and promoting students. In this talk, I will examine what happens when a "critical pedagogy" approach, which is supposed to foster the ideas and creativity of individual students, is implemented as a "one-size-fits-all" solution to the teaching of critical reading and writing. In order to show the mismatch between what might be thought of as the ideal critical pedagogy curriculum and the case I examined, I'll present examples drawn from interviews with teachers, verbal interaction between teachers and students, and written assignments constructed by the teachers.Date: Week 9: 13 March 2007 Time: 12.50 - 2pm Venue: MR2, IAS Building.

Event website: http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk

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