Novices and Identity

As Geisler (1994) notes in Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise, the sort of expository writing expected as a response to most academic writing assignments positions students as novices (p. 81). Geisler argues that attaining academic literacy has been viewed as a developmental process in which students slowly move toward expertise by being “apprenticed” as students of a discipline through the literacy activity demanded in their coursework. (from Ketter/Hunter article).