This Lancaster Literacy Research Centre event will be a talk from Soledad Montes Sánchez, titled Transitions in students writing: what do we know from theory and research?

Abstract:

Life-course transitions –such as the one from school to university– involve dynamic processes of change in terms of context, identity, learning, among others. This type of transitions has been widely studied from educational research and sociology of education. Within those fields, some authors have depicted transitions as fixed turning points from one stage to another within a linear progression (Burnett, 2007; Krause, 2005; Kift, 2009) while others emphasize how subjects are on a permanent state of becoming transforming dynamically their own identities (Colley, 2007; Hughes, 2002; Quinn, 2010; Nordquist, 2017). Within this debate, in this talk I will explore the contribution of the “writing through the lifespan” (Dippre & Phillips, 2020; Stornaiovolo et al. 2017; Tusting et al. 2018) approach to the concept of transition as a multi-level process. I will also show that when it comes to transition from school to university most studies has relied on narrowing conceptualization of transitions and has tended to focus almost exclusively in the “first year experience” rather than developing longitudinal inquiries of this issue.

Event schedule:

11:00am - Welcomes & introductions (please enter the meeting with your 'real' name as your display name, and your camera switched on, to allow us to all put faces to each others' names)

11:05 - Presentation from Speaker Name(s) (please turn your camera off and mute your microphone during the presentation)

11:40 - Discussion (please use the raise hand feature on Teams to indicate you would like to have a turn speaking and once asked to speak by an event facilitator, please un-mute your microphone and turn your camera on)

Presenter bio:

Soledad is currently studying her PhD in Linguistics at Lancaster University. Her thesis focusses on writing practices during the transition from school to university in students from disadvantageous contexts in Latin America. She has designed and implemented writing programs in two Chilean Universities and has studied academic literacies and genres in higher education. She is secretary and founding member of the Latin American Association for Writing Studies in Higher Education and Professional Contexts (ALES). His research interests are linked to Writing across the Curriculum and through the Lifespan and the mediation of technology in writing development. She co-edited the Handbook "Speak, Persuade, Learn: Handbook for Oral Communication in Academic Contexts" (2019) [Original Title: Hablar, persuadir y aprender: Manual para la Comunicación Oral Académica].