Teaching Literacy: Understanding Writers and Writing

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Being a successful writer is educationally critical: writing is key to communication, learning and thinking, and educational assessment. Yet many students struggle to reach their full potential as writers. This short course draws on interdisciplinary understandings of writing to develop your knowledge of writing, being a writer and teaching writing.

This course is suited to:

This short course is suitable for teachers of writing or anyone looking to develop their skills as a writer. It will allow you to critically examine writing in an educational context, and in doing so will equip you with valuable reflective, analytical, presentation and study skills;: skills which are highly prized in a wide range of professional settings.

What will I learn?

The aim of this short course is to develop your understanding of writing, what it means to be a writer and the ways in which writing can be taught. Through inter-disciplinary teaching, you will look at writing as a cognitive process, a social practice, and as linguistic mastery, and explore questions such as ‘what do we know about the writing process and how we write?’ and ‘is there a role for grammar in the teaching of writing?’.

You will reflect on the relationship between educational theory, research, policy and practice at the same time as examining your own understanding of current issues and debates within the sphere of education. Regular opportunities for writing, and asynchronous discussion will enrich your learning by encouraging you to explore the contextual perspectives of other students on the course.

Learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a critical understanding of theoretical models of the writing process
• Critically evaluate different disciplinary perspectives of writing and the teaching of writing
• Demonstrate a critical understanding of the craft of writing and what it means to be a writer
• Consider and critically reflect on ideas concerning the relationship between educational theory, research, policy and practice
• Critically reflect upon and evaluate your own understanding of current issues and debates in education and those of others
• Synthesise and organise ideas to present an argument
• Present ideas and engage in critical reflective debate
• Undertake both directed and independent study to recognise, justify and analyse key ideas in the literature and relate these to research, theory, policy and practice

How is the module assessed?

For this course, you should expect to engage in structured learning activities for 10-15 hours per week on average, plus additional time spent on self-directed learning (such as further reading or preparing for assessments).

The taught course can be completed in 12 weeks, with the final submission at the beginning of week 10. Engagement in activities is required until Week 12. Marking and feedback are provided after this, in line with University policy.

Module staff

Entry Requirements

We will consider applicants with a 2:2 Honours degree with 53% or above, or who are coming from a different academic background (that is equivalent to degree level) but who also have relevant work experience.

English language requirements

International students need to show they have the required level of English language to study this course.

The required test scores for this course fall under Profile B2.