{"id":394,"date":"2023-06-19T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-19T08:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/daretotransform\/?p=394"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:35:12","slug":"developing-academic-literacies-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/learning-matters\/2023\/06\/19\/developing-academic-literacies-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing academic literacies – part one"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Post written by Susan Robbins: Senior Lecturer in English Language (Sussex Centre for Language Studies)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Embedding study skills, it is argued, helps students make the important link between the conventions of academic writing, the contested nature of knowledge, and the way writers use theory and evidence to argue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What to do about study skills?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

What do we mean when we talk about study skills? Current approaches position study skills as a \u2018fix\u2019 to a wide range of difficulties experienced by students, and study skills support is presented as a panacea for resolving the issues presented by educational expansion. Viewed this way, they are little more than \u2018a remedy as a placebo, providing confidence and emotional “sticking plasters” to students without treating the much more complex cause of their difficulties’ (Bond, 2020<\/a>). If we instead view skills as situated, contextualised and discipline specific socio-cultural practices which therefore cannot be decontextualised from the process of learning and the subject matter being taught (Wingate, 2006<\/a>), then the way that we teach study skill\u2019s has to shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critical thinking, for example, is an essential part of any student\u2019s mental equipment and is often positioned as a \u201821st<\/sup> century skill\u2019. Critical thinking is not a skill, however (Willingham, 2008<\/a>). There is not a set of critical thinking skills that can be acquired and deployed regardless of context. Without anchoring these skills in domain-specific contexts such an approach may have little value. Similarly, students can only \u2018be critical\u2019 in their writing in relation to the subject area they are studying, and with an understanding of the way knowledge is communicated in their discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers have attempted to capture the complexity of the skillset required to \u2018communicate competently in an academic discourse community\u2019 (Maldoni, 2017, <\/a>p.104) using the term \u2018academic literacies\u2019. Rather than focussing on technical or generic skills and acculturated behaviour norms, an academic literacies approach looks at academic development as situated social practices at the level of epistemology and identity, and in particular at academic writing as having multiple, contested meanings, discourses, power relations and authority (Lea & Street, 1998<\/a>). Students are making decisions about their writing in a context which is marked by hierarchies of power and authority (Webster, 2021<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The academic literacy support continuum: \u2018bolt-on\u2019 to embedded<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

At the generic end of this continuum are academic skills workshops and generic online materials, while activities at the embedded-literacy end include collaborations with departmental staff to offer targeted activities to improve students\u2019 academic literacy skills. In between, discipline-specific online materials and individual 1:1 consultations bridge the gap by addressing the concerns of specific disciplines and specific assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Generic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Skills module \u2018bolted on\u2019 to a programme<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n