Investigating needs

The teacher/course developers understanding of needs, was

based on his experiences and observations over years of
teaching English for Arts and Design studies.

The main problem is the gaps in the students knowledge and

understanding caused students to struggle with both the
content and the writing component of the Art Theory course.

Investigating specialist
discourse
The teacher conducted his own investigations and
drew on his previous work examining academic
discourse and communication in visual Arts .
(Hocking, 2004)
The focus of the investigation was on how writers
in visual arts discuss the interaction between
theory and practice.
One of the aims of the ALVC course is to introduce
students to the academic genres of writing to raise
their awareness of acceptable instantions in the eyes
of the members of the visual arts discipline in that
context .

Investigating specialist discourse

Further features of discourse in visual arts and contrasts with the

discourse in sciences include :
1. Poetic, imaginative and playful modes of writing
2. Multi-model nature of discourse, often with visual images used
alongside written text
3. Writing may highlight an emotional response and reflect that the
writers emotions as well as mind are engaged
4. Particular citations may be foregrounded
5. Writing is not judged according the criteria of accessibility and
clarity, the transparent traditional forms of academia so highly
valued in scientific writing
6. The principles of rationality and objectiveness embraced in
scientific writing

Designing the course and

materials
Ending the separation of disciplinary content
and writing
The ALVC course runs over two
semesters
It combines disciplinary subject content (art
theory/history) with a focus on language
features of written discourse in the visual arts
and on the genres that visual arts students read
and write
The ALVC course is thematically organized into
four periods of art history

The principles of designing the course and

materials of ALVC included:

1) Considering students prior textual experiences and

subject knowledge.
2) Focusing on socio-historic practices and beliefs informing
contemporary understanding of the subject.
3) Exploring genres and textual practices to foster students
understanding of socio-historic pratices and beliefs
4) Making disciplinary and institutional expectation for
writing transparent
5) Creating
dialogue
around
identity
and
cultural
differencies . (Hocking and Fieldhouse, 2005)

Responding to Difficulties and

Constraints
Developing ALVC was time
consuming.

Descriptions of discourse in visual arts are

relatively few and far between

The teacher was concerned that students might get

impression that such description are prescriptions that
they should adopt uncritically. This concern created
tension