Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book details the individual academics themselves engaged in teaching in universities. It describes a wider landscape of existing research in relation to student writing, higher education teaching and learning and work on the role of language in higher education. The book focuses on the lived experience of working with students' texts. It explores the key role of assessment and sets out its dominance as a framework which affects the nature of participants' engagement at all levels. The book also focuses on the role of academic and teacher identities, tracing both how these are shaped by and shape the practices in which participants engaged where student writing was concerned. It explains the distribution of academic labour involved in working with student writing and writers, making connections between allocation of responsibilities around writing and the notion of 'outsourcing'.