Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-160

Title: Writing with Students
Subtitle: New Perspectives on Collaborative Writing in EAP Contexts
Series Title: Bloomsbury Studies in Systemic Functional Linguistics
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-with-students-9781350297708/

Author(s): Lucy Macnaught

Reviewer: Annita Stell

Please write or copy and paste your review of Writing with Students here.

SUMMARY

Macnaught’s book titled, Writing with Students: New Perspectives on Collaborative Writing in EAP context contributes to the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), particularly in Australia, where the project commenced, by examining how classroom interaction supports international students’ academic language development. Aimed towards EAP teachers, researchers and classroom discourse analytics, the book investigates effective support for academic writing development through examining classroom discourse with varying degrees of detail. More specifically, the teacher-student interactions involved during a form of collaborative writing practice known as joint construction are examined to build on the growing literature on collaborative writing and EAP. This book provides valuable insights into how students respond to teacher guidance during joint construction as part of a teaching sequence.

Chapter 1, the introduction, provides a comprehensive overview of research and pedagogical practices in academic writing. Macnaught begins by addressing the growing demand of teaching academic English to international students in general before exploring the complex, evolving nature of academic writing development by introducing an overview of L2 teaching approaches in a table format. Joint construction is introduced and operationalized as a text-based approach to provide a focused lens for examining collaborative writing. The research project is presented in a narrative format, which effectively illustrates how the research focus and questions emerged. Data collection consisted of five transcribed video recordings of classroom talk from different lessons in an Australian tertiary context, with each transcript focused on a different essay question.

Chapter 2, Scaffolding in Writing Development, lays the theoretical groundwork through the scaffolding metaphor and its associated pedagogical practices. Macnaught draws on prior research to classify different types of classroom talk—exploratory, accountable, and productive—before briefly defining metalanguage as “language about language” (p. 46). Finally, key analytical tools for classroom discourse—Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) and Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE)—are introduced, supported by clear tables and detailed explanations. The chapter concludes by returning to the concept of semiotic mediation, which is revisited in later chapters to examine how signs support the development of higher mental functions.

Chapters 3 to 5 focus on examining specific aspects of joint construction from the data. Chapter 3, Student Micro-tasks During Joint Construction, provides examples of what students do in joint construction from three main types of microtasks based on “originate, attend and access.” Chapter 4, Teacher Guidance During Joint Construction, examines what teachers do before and after student activities with a focus on academic word development. Chapter 5, Teacher Organization of Joint Construction Across a Lesson, expands by analyzing how teachers organize joint construction across an entire lesson, from planning to coordinating joint construction. Each chapter contains clear tables with excerpts from the data sets, along with considerations for EAP teachers in the summary.

Chapter 6, Creating Classroom Metalanguage with Students, offers an expansive view of metalanguage by exploring how visual aids and body movement contribute to shared classroom talk about language. The definition for metalanguage is broadened to include the paralinguistic dimension of semiosis. The transcribed video recordings from the data set are further analyzed to illustrate both the affordances and the risks associated with this extended definition.

Chapter 7, Behind the Scenes of Classroom Discourse Analysis, steps back to examine the dataset from a broader social-semiotic perspective. It revisits the theories introduced in Chapter 2 on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and connects them to classroom examples using both SFL and Sydney School Genre-based pedagogy (SFG). Paralanguage and intonation are analyzed to illustrate how teacher talk is strategically guided to support student understanding.

Chapter 8, Further Developing Intermediate Units of Analysis, explores the potential to extend the current unit of analysis by applying SFL's core principles. It reexamines the findings from Chapter 3 to 5 to better understand the role of ranking scales for pedagogic activities with teacher-student interactions, ultimately proposing a more in-depth unit of analysis to generate new insights.

EVALUATION

Macnaught effectively addresses the interests of both researchers and teachers by grounding theoretical insights into practical classroom discourse analysis. The book presents joint construction as a dynamic, multi-dimensional process, including both verbal and non-verbal discourse analysis to offer an extended unit of analysis for understanding joint construction as a specific collaborative activity among teachers and students. While this narrows the broader concept of collaboration to a particular classroom practice, the case studies examined offer a focused and practical lens, drawing on key theoretical influences such as Halliday (1978), Hyland (2022), Hyland and Jiang (2021), and Humphrey and Macnaught (2011).

One of the key strengths is its integration of both verbal and non-verbal discourse analysis at both macro and micro levels across Chapters 3 to 6. This approach deepens both teachers’ and researchers’ understanding of the potential effects of teacher-student talk during joint construction. As a practical resource, the book is thoughtfully designed with diverse readers in mind. Authentic classroom examples, presented through a combination of figures, tables and descriptive text, clearly illustrate how teaching talk can support students’ use of academic language. Macnaught’s use of large table formats is particularly effective for tracking teacher and/or student activities during a shared classroom metalanguage episode; this makes the book especially useful for professional development and/or research design. The summaries at the end of each chapter also serve as practical reference points, offering clear guidance for applying these discourse features in educational and research settings.

One area that could be further developed is the connection between the scaffolding metaphor from SCT and its linguistic realisation via SFL. For teachers or early-career researchers still developing familiarity with these theoretical models, a more detailed explanation of how scaffolding operates in teacher–student talk would help clarify some of the examples shown in the discourse analysis chapters. Prior studies have shown how SFL can be applied through an SCT lens to investigate interaction (e.g., Sembiante et al., 2021); integrating these insights more directly could strengthen the theoretical bridge the book aims to construct.

The book ends with a thoughtful discussion of future research directions, highlighting its contribution for further study. As classroom interaction is viewed as a significant factor in EAP classrooms (Ghajarieh et al., 2019), the call to explore shared metalanguage in joint construction can be extended to various academic writing activities to deepen understanding of academic language development across contexts.

REFERENCES

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. University Park Press.

Hyland, K. (2022). English for specific purposes: What is it and where is it taking us? ESP Today: Journal of English for Specific Purposes at Tertiary Level, 10(2), 202–220.

Hyland, K., & Jiang, F. K. (2021). A bibliometric study of EAP research: Who is doing what, where and when? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 49, 100929.

Humphrey, S., & Macnaught, L. (2016). Functional language instruction and the writing growth of English language learners in the middle years. TESOL Quarterly, 50(4), 792–816.

Ghajarieh, A., Jalali, N., & Mozaheb, M. (2019). Investigation into the classroom talk of Iranian EFL novice vs. experienced teachers. Register Journal, 12(2), 100–125.

Sembiante, S. F., Cavallaro, C. J., & Troyan, F. J. (2021). Language teacher candidates’ SFL development: A sociocultural perspective. Language and Education, 35(5), 479–499.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Annita Stell is an academic in the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on the impact of mediation, self-regulation, and collaboration on second language development.