ABSTRACT
In 1994 the Institute of Education established CAPLITS—the Centre for Academic and Professional Literacy Studies. The Centre represented the formalisation and consolidation of initiatives in teaching and research, which had been developed since 1984. Gunther Kress’ perspectives on literacy and learning informed the work of the Centre at its inception and have continued to influence the thinking of those of us in the UK and beyond who are fascinated by “home” and “international” students’ (and teachers’) encounters with academic reading and writing. In this paper I will attempt to show how Kress’ focus on multimodal semiosis might be deployed in the development of a differently-focused way of thinking about reading, with specific reference to the teacher’s reading of student writing within the current contexts of higher education in UK.
