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Academic Writing Instruction for Creole-Influenced Students
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the book reveals that these misconceptions about writing have been evident at UWI, Mona since the institution’s earliest years. They manifest in the perpetuation of a certain tacit assumption that writing is a natural process that does not require academics to consistently articulate their knowledge of disciplinary writing strategies. The book also shows that this assumption parallels colonial administrators’ determination that Jamaican-Creole speakers should naturally learn English to advance in society. These faulty assumptions are deeply ingrained in the education system, to the extent that faculty and other stakeholders seem to disregard, or be unaware of the recursive nature of writing and students’ writing development.
Given continued complaints about weaknesses in university students’ writing and generally weak performance in communication in English at all educational levels, the book invites academics and administrators at UWI and in other universities, and policy-makers in education in Jamaica and elsewhere, to reflect on how Creole-influenced students do language, what academic writing is, how it is learned, what an academic community is, and who gets admitted into it and how. As the first full-length book to examine the history of writing instruction and attitudes to it in the Creole-influenced Jamaican higher education context, the work will also be of use to teachers, teachers-in-training, scholars and graduate students in applied linguistics, (English) language education, literacy, and composition or writing studies who (will) work with Jamaican and other Creole-influenced students, as well as general readers with interest in international trends in postsecondary education or concerns about university students’ writing or how writing works.
While the work focuses on the teaching (or lack thereof) of academic writing, it also provides insight into curricular history, programme history, institutional history and political history. Milson-Whyte proposes that changed attitudes to academic writing and its development are likely to be followed by differences in provisions for this development as, well as improvements in students’ writing. Should readers engage with the sociological aspects of language learning and written literacy development as the book proposes, the society could realise, among other benefits:
• Positive changes in the terminology used to talk about language and writing
• An “officialised” and widely disseminated language policy that would reflect these changes
• Differentiated writing instruction that would involve early screening to determine the extent of “creole influence” in students’ language repertoire – to sort students thereby – to move them progressively to the target language
• (Sequenced) writing courses at all levels of a degree/ diploma programme, and instruction in writing included in professional development programmes in work places/spaces.
Everyone stands to benefit when stakeholders engage more productively with language and writing because effective, purposeful writing necessitates engagement of critical thinking skills. Students who (are made to) understand the value of writing to creation and dissemination of knowledge are likely to translate into employees and employers who engage writing in the effective development and promotion of goods and services.
Recognition of the book’s contribution to cross-cultural research into writing development has led to Milson-Whyte’s being invited to serve on a committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) – the CCCC Committee on Globalisation of Postsecondary Writing Instruction and Research – from 2015-2018. The CCCC is the world’s largest professional organisation for researching and teaching writing. Regionally and locally, the work anticipates collaborative efforts between writing and other content faculty, between and across educational institutions, between writing faculty and personnel who manage education nationally, and between writing faculty and personnel charged with professional development in the public and private sectors.
Recognising Outstanding Researchers 2016