This study contributes to research into genre innovation and scholarship exploring how Indigenous epistemes are disrupting dominant discourses of the academy. Using a case study approach, we investigated 31 research articles produced by Mäori scholars and published in the journal <em>AlterNative</em> between 2006 and 2018. We looked for linguistic features associated with self-positioning and self-identification. We found heightened ambiguous uses of “we”; a prevalence of verbs associated with personal (as opposed to discursive) uses of “I/we”; personal storytelling; and a privileging (...) of Elders’ contributions to the existing state of knowledge. We argue these features reflect and reinforce Indigenous scholars’ social relations with particular communities of practice within and outside of the academy. They are also in keeping with Indigenous knowledge-making practices, protocols, and languages, and signal sites of negotiation and innovation in the research article. We present the implications for rhetorical genre studies and for teaching academic genres. (shrink)

Literary studies are often seen as a discipline without method. Research articles in literature do not have method sections, nor do they list what type of evidence has been included in a particular project or by what procedures primary material was analyzed. Because of implicitness of questions of method and research design, writing in literary studies is difficult to teach and often relies on students' abilities to infer their own strategies for reading and writing. I analyze a textual corpus of (...) recent research articles from Canadian Literature and Studies in Canadian Literature in order to clarify typical discursive patterns that are used when discussing methods of literary scholarship. On the basis of these findings, we can ask: How can teaching in literary studies be adjusted in order to demystify the methodological practices of the discipline? (shrink)

Students enrolled in asynchronous online courses explore much of the subject matter through computer-mediated discussion. In this context, students must often negotiate complex factors such as the course content, the assignment goals, their audience, disciplinary expectations, and the writing process. Writing Centres offer students support services to help them succeed in these text-heavy courses. Typically, students come to Writing Centres in person for help with their critical reading and writing assignments; however, increasingly, tutors are asked to participate in online settings (...) to assist student learning. A question associated with online tutoring practices is whether students improve their writing skills when they are given the opportunity to get feedback from a tutor and from peers. How can a cooperative, collaborative pedagogical approach to computer-mediated tutoring support students and improve teaching? This paper examines a pedagogical exploration where one tutor interacted asynchronously with students by posting weekly writing activities. Students were asked to respond individually and collaboratively to each activity. I argue that when a tutor in an online course provides feedback, the collaboration creates a new online ecology of reflection and collaboration that may benefit students in their growth as writers. This exploration can be a useful writing pedagogy that can assist instructors by making stronger connections between students’ writing knowledge and writing practices. (shrink)

Genre has long been used by Writing Studies ethnographers as a theoretical orientation and analytical tool to bridge text and context. This article describes how genre-based ethnographies as methodology might get taken up at the level of method. Drawing on a genre-based ethnographic study as an example and guide, this article presents a process of data collection that builds ethnographic sites from genre by emergently identifying chains of data sources and collection techniques emanating from starting genres. Applying a genre orientation (...) at the level of method centers inquiry on writing and mitigates the need to define site boundaries. By articulating how a genre orientation might shape ethnography at the level of method, this article encourages a stronger articulation between research methodologies and methods across the field of Writing Studies. Further, this article can be used as a guide for researchers conducting genre-based ethnographies. (shrink)