The critical nexus: Linked practices in reading, thinking and writing to develop discourse competency

Abstract

Informed by a conviction that writing is thinking, this paper presents a model for developing student writing within disciplinary curriculum by linking writing practice explicitly to reading non-fiction and critical thinking as co-constructive practices of disciplinary discourse. The challenge of developing students’ written communication is here focalised through reading and enacted through formative exercises that emphasise writing as a discursive practice and iterative process. This pedagogy aims to reveal to students the conventions and codes of disciplinary discourse through shared reading and writing exercises that focus on reading comprehension. Rather than an empirical study, I offer a practitioner’s perspective informed by several years of reflective practice and training in the approaches associated with Writing Across the Curriculum. The goal of describing this pedagogy is to demonstrate how writing practice and development can be integrated with existing curriculum without displacing subject content. The example here is drawn from a First Year subject in Screen & Media Studies located within a School of Humanities & Creative Arts.