Multilingual Undergraduates' Perceptions of Their Academic Literacy Experiences

Abstract

This project builds upon the foundation of previous ethnographic work on academic literacies in order to gain a clearer picture of current university students in the US. Foundational ethnographic work in academic writing and academic literacy development has shown that learning to navigate university discourses can be a complex process that is unique for each person (Beaufort, 2007; Casanave, 2002; Chiseri-Strater, 1991; Leki, 2007; Prior, 1998; Spack, 1997). These studies have revealed the dependence of academic writing expectations on context and the extension of “literacy” beyond the mere acts of reading and writing, but they have not sought to simultaneously examine the experiences of international and domestic students. In the decades since much of this work was carried out, the landscape of higher education, in the US and elsewhere, has shifted and academia has recently seen the emergence of a conversation about better understanding the experiences of our students, both domestic and international (Goldrick-Rab & Stommel, 2018). To better understand students’ perceptions of their writing and academic experiences, this project followed three international and two domestic undergraduates over the course of a year to two and a half years. Through monthly interviews and analysis of participants’ writing samples, I identified the range of academic literacies encountered by participants and explored one participant’s situated writing practices more specifically through analysis of individual assignments. Findings highlight the complex network of literacies, both within and beyond academia, that students learn to navigate. This project’s simultaneous exploration of domestic and international student experiences provides new perspectives on the diversity and development process of both groups and offers a counter to the deficit view of non-traditional populations.