ABSTRACT
The recent incursion of academic writing practices into the virtual domains of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has excited considerable interest among scholars of literacy, communication, and writing instruction. In particular, the increasing use of text-based asynchronous virtual learning networks (ALNs)—better known as computer conferences or electronic discussion forums-in higher education classrooms has inspired numerous studies of their potential affordances for effective collaborative learning (see review by Luppicini, 2007). Purportedly more promising are the advantages of “blended learning” environments that combine face-toface with computer-mediated interactions to extend participatory learning beyond the spatio-temporal constraints of either traditional classroom instruction or fully virtual distance learning (see, e.g., Bonk & Graham, 2006; Garrison & Vaughan, 2007). Drawing on computer conference data from a ten-week graduate-level blended learning seminar that the authors co-taught in the winter of 2007, this study examines the extent to which the socially productive effects of computer conferencing are reflected in the discursive properties of online academic writing (cf. Aviv, 2000; Coffin & Hewings, 2005; Heckman & Annabi, 2005; Potter, 2008). Employing discourse-analytic techniques, this exploratory study describes and analyzes students’ online discussions to reveal the rhetorical operations of social academic writing-a “doublevoiced” genre of communal discourse incorporating both cognitive and socio-affective functions. The contributions and implications of these findings for further academic literacies research are discussed in the conclusion.
