Scaffolding genre knowledge and metacognition: insights from an L2 doctoral research writing course
Journal article, 2018

This study investigates how genre knowledge and metacognition can be scaffolded in a genre-based course for doctoral students engaged in writing research articles. We argue that current definitions of genre knowledge development encompass the development of metacognition, and thus adopt an inter-disciplinary approach to illustrate how metacognition—specifically metacognitive knowledge—can be scaffolded in the genre classroom. We developed two tasks for this purpose. In the first, students were asked to describe their writing context and genres. For the second task, at the end of the course, students submitted a visual conceptualization of the research genres in their specific scientific community. This visualization was accompanied by an account of students’ observations about genre, and a reflection on how these insights could be applied to their ongoing writing situation. Students were also interviewed two to six months after the course to explore how they reported using genre knowledge in their writing. Results showed that the metacognitive tasks elicited an integrated view of genre and encouraged students’ conceptualization of this knowledge as a tool for writing. In interviews, students reported using facets of genre knowledge metacognitively in their writing, by describing how they engage with reader expectations, conventions, variation, and the possibility of strategic deliberate choices.

academic writing

metacognitive knowledge

task

genre pedagogy

EAP

Author

Raffaella Negretti

Chalmers, Communication and Learning in Science, Language and Communication

Lisa McGrath

Sheffield Hallam University

Journal of Second Language Writing

1060-3743 (ISSN)

Vol. 40 June 2018 12-31

Subject Categories

Learning

General Language Studies and Linguistics

Applied Psychology

Pedagogical Work

Specific Languages

Learning and teaching

Pedagogical work

DOI

10.1016/j.jslw.2017.12.002

More information

Latest update

3/22/2021