1. Dyslexia, Essay-writing and Academic Context
ADSHE Midlands Workshop
Nov. 2014
Christine Carter

2. Outline Connections between essay writing and dyslexia
How do we understand them? How do they relate to the kinds of difficulty we are working with?
Writing as social practice: What do we mean?
Where do students identified as dyslexic fit into this picture?
Implications for how we support writing
Does an emphasis on ‘specialism’ really work in relation to developing writing?

3. Essay-writing as social practice
Ways we write emerge from social and cultural context
Writing as culturally driven as opposed to a set of skills
Less emphasis on cognitive activity and development

4. Essay-writing as social practice
Social practices are the ways we act, speak, write, feel, value, believe in particular settings
Practices are regulated by surrounding discourses
Writers are enabled or constrained differently in different disciplinary discourses

5. Essay-writing as social practice
Disciplinary discourses influence:
How knowledge is constructed
The kind of writing identity that is acceptable
Social relationships (with audience, tutors, disciplinary ways of being, the literature, academic language)
Much of this remains implicit