2.7 Student Writing and Feedback
2.8.2 Street’s Autonomous and Ideological Models of teaching Literacy
46
As regards this situation, the NLS posits that none of these literacies is to be relegated to the background; consequently, this group discountenances the inferiority/superiority complex of literacies (Bharuthram, 2006). However, since knowledge in HE was earlier described to be cast in writing (Bazerman, 1988), the written form of literacy has been the privileged literacy in the academia (Bengesai, 2012). This, alludes to the notion that literacy is dependent upon the given power structure in which it is being used (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Gee, 1996, 1998, 2002;
Street, 1995) This therefore justifies the academic community‟s choice of privileging the written language. The implication then is that if literacy in HE privileges the „writing culture‟, academia therefore is obliged to give maximum attention to how academic writing is being taught to students who are coming from other „cultural literacies‟ backgrounds. Otherwise, these students may be marginalized, thereby losing their voice and identity in the teaching-learning process. Admittedly, for better understanding of the nature of the teaching of academic writing as a social and situated practice, Street (2003) employs two terms. These terms are; the autonomous model and the ideological model to teaching academic writing. These terms are therefore used as constructs in understanding the nature of the teaching of academic writing within the ALUGS module.
47
2003; Boughey 2000). In such situation, literacy is viewed as remediation for achieving academic success in the HE.
Consequently, literacy is viewed as a tool that is capable of developing people‟s cognitive skills, especially when introduced to the under-prepared students (Street, 1999). The implication of this is that this approach views academic writing as „mental slates‟ (Street, 2003) used in developing students‟ cognitive skills to meet up with the required standard of the HE. Regrettably, this model often ignores the social, cultural and economic conditions which factors were responsible for the so called under-preparedness (Streets, 1996). As a result students are assumed to
“autonomously actualize their potential by making the most use of the opportunities offered them” in such modules (Lange, 2010, p. iv). To the practitioners of such model, academic writing course packs alone are capable of making students acquire the necessary skills deemed appropriate in academic writing. In this manner, academic writing is regarded as a set of skills that once acquired are capable of making students academic writers.
Ensuing from the above, Street (2003) further describes the autonomous model as „asocial‟ as it conceptualizes literacy (academic writing) as a set of unitary skills that can easily be acquired in a universal way. In this regard, the practice of academic writing modules as a decontextualized phenomenon tends to ignore the social factors underpinning the process of effective teaching and learning. Consequentially, students are assumed to acquire academic discourse without any form of assistance from or interaction with their lecturers and tutors (the social persons). If this is the case with this model, what then is the fate of the „deficient students‟ given that academic discourse is a set of skills that can easily be acquired by the „prepared‟ students? Besides, the autonomous view also holds that acquiring academic writing in a particular discipline automatically qualifies one as an academic writer in other disciplines. In essence, the autonomous model positions the acquisition of academic literacy as devoid of social and cultural practices of the context in which it takes place. In this manner, it disregards the role of the society as well as the members of a particular disciplinary community (including tutors, lecturers and even peers) in the acquisition of literacy and disciplinary discourse. It is against this perspective that Street (2003) introduces the ideological model of literacy.
48
In contrast to the autonomous view of literacy, the ideological model conceptualizes literacy as a social practice, “that is always embedded in socially constructed epistemological principles”
(Street, 2003, p. 77). Implied from this view is that literacy is a dynamic phenomenon differing from one context to another, and also from one culture to another (Street, 2003). In the ideological model, acquiring academic writing is embedded in and a product of socio-cultural practices. Hence, literacy is seen as a social practice among the members of a particular community of practice. It follows thus that academic writing cannot be acquired without a productive engagement and interaction with members of the academic world (discipline).
Underpinned in this way, literacy is conceptualized within the ideological model as being contested both in meaning and practices. Consequently, “particular versions of it are always ideological; they are rooted in a particular world-view” (specific discipline) (Street, 2001, p. 8).
Implied from this argument is that the ability to define what an acceptable academic writing within a particular disciplinary community is, resides among its expert members.
Hence, the acquisition of literacy within a given community of practice/specific subject discipline does not necessarily make one an expert in the literacy practices of another community/discipline. The reason being that literacy in this model is socially situated. Literacy therefore in this model means different things to different communities of practices (disciplines), and each community inducts their members in their own way. Barton and Hamilton (2000) therefore argue that literacy is a social practice. Thus, if literacy is viewed as a social practice, literacy practices then “are what people do with literacy” (Barton and Hamilton, 2000, p.7). In this way, academic writing is fathomed to be what people do with literacy (writing). Irrefutably, if academic writing is what people do with literacy- the literacy practice of the social persons in disciplines, these scholars then place emphasis on their involvement (disciplinary experts‟) in the acquisition of the disciplinary discourses (Ibid). The implication therefore is that academic writing according to this model lends the acquisition of its discourse within disciplines to the involvement of the masters and experts of such disciplinary communities.
The present study privileges the ideological perspective of literacy where literacy is conceptualized to be socio-culturally situated. The following are the factors behind such choice.
First, academic literacy is viewed as a social practice emerging from contextual expectations
49
(Kern, 2000; Lea and Street, 2000). In this regard, academic literacy, academic writing in the context of this study, can be acquired in specific socio-cultural contexts, and not in a universal or generic way (Bengesai, 2012). Secondly, at the epistemological stance, the teaching of academic writing as technical skills such as the teaching of grammar, sentence structure, and spelling has been argued to only equip students with the superficial features of academic writing (Johns, 2005; Hyland, 2002a; Bengesai, 2012); but incapable of inducting them into the disciplinary discourses. The argument here is that the ability to write accurately does not necessarily make one an academic writer as what makes an academic writer goes beyond writing correctly, but writing appropriately according to the expectations of the disciplines (Johnson, 1997). Gee‟s (1996) description of secondary Discourse such as academic literacy constitutes my third choice of privileging the ideological model in this study. Understood in this way, the acquisition of academic literacy or Discourse goes beyond linguistic features of literacy but includes the non- language features such as voice, identity, and others (Bengesai, 2010).