Browsing by Subject "writing"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    How do we play the genre game in preparing students at the advanced undergraduate level for research writing?
    (Taylor & Francis, 2011) Paxton, Moragh
    The study described in this article sets out to understand the barriers and affordances to successful completion of the short research thesis required in many advanced undergraduate courses or Honours programmes. In the study, the genre features of students' research projects and the criteria used to assess them were analysed and both students and supervisors were interviewed. The article focuses on one particular student from the case study and the findings provide in-depth insights into the complexities of genre acquisition in one particular department at a South African university, where writing and knowledge of the genre are often not taught, but must be acquired through a form of apprenticeship. The article concludes by raising some questions about how research genres can best be mediated in developmental contexts, where the teaching of writing may not be valued.
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    Politics Tests and Quizzes - Comprehensions
    (2014-12-01) Tonkin, Caitlin
    A series of comprehension questions (6 in total), which aim to test the reading and writing ability of students.
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    Politics Writing Centre
    (2012-11) Eaton, Liberty; Freeman, Laura; Heard, Pasqua; Matlhaga, Tshimologo; Mulaudzi, Masana
    The lesson plans can be divided into roughly four-five categories: parts of speech, sentence structure, punctuation and rules surrounding the English language: 1. The parts of speech section is designed to help students refine their understanding of nouns, adjectives, adverbs and the basic parts of speech that create sentences. These ground rules are essential for understanding how to create sentences, which is the next section, sentence structure. These lesson plans are tailored to teach students how to write sentences and include exercises to help students apply what they have learned. 2. Within sentence structure students will be taught how to write complex and compound sentences that are often characteristic of academic writing. In addition, they will be taught how to vary sentence styles in order to avoid tedious writing that is difficult to read. 3. Punctuation is important for students who use it incorrectly and includes a series of lesson plans on commas, semi-colons and apostrophes. Often, students make errors when using this punctuation because they do not understand the rules that govern their use. These lesson plans address this issue. 4. The lesson plans on the rules when writing in English cover topics such as the difference between you’re and your or how to write in active and passive voice. 5. Lastly, the comprehension lesson plan aims to bring together all of the above to test the student’s understanding. Despite their relationship to one another, lesson plans are designed to be able to stand alone. This means that if a student only struggles with using comas, then that can be the only lesson the consultant uses. Once a consultant has identified the different challenges faced by a student, they are meant to create a collection of the lesson plans that best address that student’s needs. Where appropriate, lessons have been numerically organised according to a logical flow, e.g. the lesson plan on types sentences comes before the lesson on fragments. This ordering is merely a suggestion of how you might order the lessons. The Centre is meant to be a ‘fluid’ organization that adapts its teaching material to what students need when it comes to learning English. This is the great advantage of the one-on-one consultations. This series of lesson plans aims to help students who struggle with certain aspects of language and grammar. They have been developed with the Political Studies department at UCT and, as such, contain examples and illustrations from within the field. The nature of the plans means that they can, however, be adapted and used much more widely. The plans should be used selectively to suit the needs of the individual students. The plans are designed for one-on-one or small group consultations.
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    Risk in Postgraduate writing: voice discourse and edgework
    (University of the Western Cape, 2013) Thesen, Lucia
    This paper brings writing into the contested space of research and knowledge-making in South Africa. An often hidden dimension of research is that it has to find expression in a written product, increasingly in English. This creates challenges for both students, who have developed writing identities in other domains, disciplines and languages, and also supervisors and journal editors who are gatekeepers for the making of new knowledge. In a competitive and uncertain climate where discourses of risk management play an increasingly important part, people tend to play it safe when it comes to writing, conforming to a narrow image of scientific writing. This has consequences for knowledge-making as students often set aside the experiences, allegiances and styles they have developed along the way. Drawing on data from an international publishing project on risk in academic writing, the paper explores dilemmas around the process of research writing. These instances make the contradictions and tensions faced by writers and gatekeepers central, highlighting the importance of voice and risk. Both voice and risk are explored experientially and theoretically, with the emphasis on the potentials of risk. The concept of risk, not as risk management, but as risk-taking, offers new ways of thinking about writing that brings the decisions that writers and readers make to the fore. A focus on risk has the potential to offer new understandings about the changing landscapes in which writers and readers weigh up their options against notions of what is 'normal'. Finally I suggest edgework as a productive concept that can take work on risk forward in both research and pedagogy.
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    The role of expository writing in mathematical problem solving
    (Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2016-04) Craig, Tracy S
    Mathematical problem-solving is notoriously difficult to teach in a standard university mathematics classroom. The project on which this article reports aimed to investigate the effect of the writing of explanatory strategies in the context of mathematical problem solving on problem-solving behaviour. This article serves to describe the effectiveness of using writing as a tool for deeper engagement with mathematical problems. Students’ claims about, and tutor observations of, problem-solving behaviour were analysed through the lens of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Examples of enhanced problem-solving behaviour are presented as well as reports from student interviews that writing “forces” deeper engagement. The analysis of students’ work and reflections indicated that writing about problem-solving processes potentially resulted in a cognitive perturbation when students were forced to confront their incomplete understanding (and hence their unstable knowledge structures) and therefore had to achieve a deeper level of understanding in order to adequately describe the solution process.
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    Skills development lectures
    (2012-09) Freeman, Laura; Goodman, Rachel; Marchant, Michael; Nkomo, Mandisi; Wirtjes, Sylvia; Lekalake, Rorisang Nikiwe.
    The lectures have been designed in such a way that one lecture is given per week. The lectures track the progression of the course and the skills that need to be refined. As such, the lectures are sensitive to coursework submissions and provide guidance within that context. The lectures are presented most commonly by the postgraduate team of tutors. This enables students to ask questions more freely. The lectures aim to be interactive – with tutors roaming the lecture space and encouraging participation (be it through questions, class or group exercises). This lecture series is aimed to help undergraduate students (in particular, those in senior years of study) to navigate through the academic challenges they face. The series focuses on more sophisticated forms of reading and research. It also aims to assist students in writing longer and more complex pieces. The series offers both theoretical/conceptual and practical guidance. The lecture series programme is as follows: 1. Concept, theory, case: seeks to differentiate between areas of analysis, and instil an understanding of concepts and theories as contested, changing, and often part of wider debate; 2. Building an argument: encourages students to think about their writing more critically and to form strategies for improving their argumentation; 3. Finding Your Academic Voice: this lecture aims to show students how they can source more effectively. It goes on to discuss how students can evaluate sources and the importance of not losing their own voice/argumentation in their writing; 4. Acting on Feedback: discusses how students can discern the meaning of feedback and respond accordingly; 5. The Merit of Methodology: touches on approaches to research and the need to consider methodology when developing research questions; 6. Writing a Research Proposal: discusses the use of a research proposal as well as the practicalities of putting one together; 7. Research Essay: Research, Think, Write: emphasises the need to plan and research before writing; 8. Research Essay: Structure, Argumentation, Originality and Etiquette: discusses the challenges and pressures of writing a longer academic piece; 9. Tests and Exams: revision and exam tips.
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    Writers Researching: Fact and Fiction
    (2014-09-29) Irwin, Ron; Moffett, Helen; Beukes, Lauren; Makholwa, Angela; Dowling, Finuala
    What is the relationship between research and the writing process and between historical ‘truth’ and fictional ‘truth’? Are there boundaries which should not be crossed? In this course writers will talk about the research that resulted in their recent novels. Ron Irwin, author of Flat Water Tuesday, will discuss how he researched people, places and real events and the challenges associated with turning the events of one’s own life into a novel. Helen Moffett, one of the trio behind the Girl Walk In series, will explain how she and her co-authors research and write erotica novels, providing insight into collaboration, champagne and condoms. Award-winning Lauren Beukes will describe how she ‘kinks’ reality in relation to the real-world research that informed The Shining Girls and Zoo City. Angela Makholwa will explore the process of writing the criminal mind, including interviews with a serial killer for Red Ink, and research about women who killed their husbands for Black Widow Society. Readers always assume that everything that happened in your book happened to you, complains Finuala Dowling, so what’s the point of trudging uphill for five hours in search of one sentence? Referring to both Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart and her latest manuscript, The Fetch, she discusses the price of authenticity.