The processes of learning and doing writing in macrosocial spaces: understanding how international STEM graduate students deploy spatial repertoires

Abstract

ABSTRACT Analyzing a segment of data from a larger study, this article discusses how international graduate students in the STEM fields deploy macrosocial spatial repertoires as they go about learning and doing graduate-level writing. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach to theme-building analysis of interviews and drawing on relevant scholarship from Applied Linguistics and Writing Studies, it illustrates how the process of learning and doing graduate-level writing required these multilingual students an increasing ability to traverse and engage myriad physical, disciplinary/intellectual, and social and cultural spaces. It concludes by highlighting the benefits of understanding how these students utilize many and expansive spatial repertoires for enhancing writing and communication support for the students.