Teaching Academic Literacies in international relations: towards a pedagogy of practice

Academic Literacies elucidates how undergraduate students with diverse skillsets can effectively engage with socially constructed and discipline-specific knowledge(s) through writing. Over the last two decades, language specialists and education researchers have developed a robust, student-focused epistemology. However, it remains unclear how lecturers understand and teach Academic Literacies in their courses. This article shifts the focus by exploring how we – a teaching team in International Relations at a Swedish university – translated the knowledge claims and ideological commitments of Academic Literacies into an applied pedagogy. We employ collaborative, reflective practice to investigate how we progressively integrated Academic Literacies in an introductory, bachelor's level course from 2010–2019. Specifically, we illustrate how we used formative feedback, peer assessment, and reflective journaling to teach International Relations through academic writing. We conclude with a discussion of the best practices and unresolved challenges of our evolving pedagogical design.