The document proposes that university teachers can become regular academic writers through participating in writing groups. Writing groups involve small groups of teachers providing feedback on each other's writing and serve to promote autonomy, connectedness, and growth as scholar-writers. The document advocates for a practitioner-research approach to evaluate the effectiveness of writing groups at helping teachers develop their academic identities and increase their scholarly writing and publications.

1. Teachers as academic writers:
the use of writing groups
Professor Graham Badley
Anglia Ruskin University
Chelmsford, UK
December 2007

2. A research question:
How can university teachers become scholars
who write and publish regularly?
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3. A proposed solution:
 set up writing groups for those who wish to
become scholar-writers
 use a practitioner-research approach to
evaluate writing groups as a way of helping
teachers become scholar-writers
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4. Writing groups…
 are small groups of teachers who write and
read one another’s texts
 provide critical and supportive feedback
 promote growth as scholar-writers
 encourage autonomy and connectedness
 may be tutor-guided yet non-authoritarian
 are self-critical communities of practitioner-
inquirers
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5. Ten reasons for joining a writing group:
 promoting self-development and self-refinement
 supporting teachers as academic writers
 helping teachers develop their academic identities
 helping academics improve and increase their written output
 developing an incremental and not a bingeing approach to
writing
 getting each one’s writing reviewed by other group members
 overcoming fear and anxiety about scholarly writing
 forming part of an institutional strategy to help create a culture of
research and scholarly writing in the department or institution
 demystifying the processes of writing and getting published
 increasing enjoyment and satisfaction in academic writing
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6. Practitioner-research
on writing groups involves:
 teachers critiquing both their own texts and
those provided on academic writing
 both emic (insider) and etic (outsider)
perspectives
 a continuous, cyclical process of ‘coming to
know’ and of improving practice
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7. Practitioner-research
uses cycles of:
 planning to write academic texts
 acting (writing the texts)
 observing (reading) the texts produced
 critically reflecting on the texts produced and
on the process of writing itself
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8. Practitioner-research
on writing groups should create:
 a learning community
 a community of (writing) practice
 educational literacy
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9. Writing groups as learning
communities should encourage:
 a safe democratic setting for sharing ideas
 engagement with the writing process
 growth as scholar-writers
 organisational change (towards a culture of
scholarship and writing)
 critical and supportive feedback about one
another’s writing
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10. Writing groups as communities of
practice should help provide:
 a theoretical framework of critical
conversation about ‘a joint enterprise’
(Wenger, 1998)
 dialectical tension between action (writing)
and reflection (critique)
 insights into ‘a shared repertoire’ (Wenger, 1998)
 ‘mutual engagement’ (Wenger, 1998) and ‘a sharing
of the culture’ (Bruner, 2002)
 growth into (identities as) scholar-writers
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11. Writing groups should create
educational literacy through:
 helping university teachers become more
critical readers of all educational texts
 helping teachers become critical writers of
their own texts
 helping teachers become more self-critical
about their own educational practice
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12. Writing groups may become problematic:
 when group loyalty exerts pressure to
conform to core beliefs and values
 when groups limit individual autonomy
 when group leaders or factions seek power
and control over others
 when the rhetoric of community replaces
actual criticism, dissent and scepticism
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13. Writing groups appear to help
develop scholar-writers by:
 striking a balance between autonomy and
connectedness (Bruner, 2002)
 increasing teachers’ autonomy (ability and
freedom) to write as they see it
 using connectedness (community and
mutuality) to grow and ‘keep becoming’ as
scholar-writers (Miller, 1988)
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14. Post-(presentation) script 1
 Becoming scholar-writers means becoming
educationally literate, creating our own individual
and social worlds, and taking the reality of
democracy seriously
(Brookfield in Scott, 2000: 17)
 Reflective scepticism for educationally literate
scholar-writers is a strategy for denying textual
coercion and a continual process of making and
remaking themselves
(Scott, 2000: 127)
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15. Post- (presentation) script 2
 all reading and writing, all inquiry, contribute to an
edifying philosophy, the point of which is ‘to keep the
conversation going rather than to find objective
truth’ (Rorty quoted in Scott, 2000)
 edifying philosophy resists all attempts to close off
conversation by freezing-over particular descriptions
of the world as if they were the final word. This
freezing-over would lead to the dehumanization of
human beings (based on Rorty in Scott, 2000)
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16. Using writing groups: some references
 Bruner, J. (1986) Actual minds, possible worlds
London: Harvard University Press
 Bruner, J. (2002) Making stories: law, literature and life
London: Harvard University Press
 Jarvis, P. (1999) The practitioner-researcher: developing theory from practice
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
 Gere, A.R. (1987) Writing groups: history, theory and implications
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press
 Lee, A. & Boud, D. Writing groups, change and academic identity:
(2003) research development and local practice
Studies in Higher Education, Vol 28 No 2: 187-200
 Miller, A. (1987) Timebends: a life
London: Methuen
 Murray, R. (2005) Writing for academic journals
Maidenhead: Open University Press
 Scott, D. (2000): Reading educational research and policy
London: RoutledgeFalmer
 Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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