Kathryn Strom

Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Doctoral Level Writing offers an accessible, practical, hands-on guide to developing the skills needed to successfully write a doctoral dissertation or thesis. This textbook-workbook hybrid can be used both as a program/course text and as a supplement for individual doctoral students in education and related social science and humanities fields.

The book is built on three main ideas. First, writing is fundamentally connected to issues of social justice. Doctoral-level writing is part of the “language of power” in academia, which builds on the linguistic patterns of the dominant culture and serves as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, writing is genre-based. This means that doctoral level writing is a particular way of using language, or a specific genre, with distinct rules and structures that can be taught. And third, writing can be scaffolded. Approaching writing as a pedagogical act that supports readers’ understanding through purposeful scaffolding is not just a way to successfully complete a doctoral dissertation—it is a way to make academic writing more accessible in general.

In its first chapter, Scaffolding the Language of Power provides a general framework for the rules of the doctoral “language of power.” Chapter two offers an in-depth look at organization and scaffolding as key features of academic writing at the doctoral level, with discussions and activities to practice drafting supportive headings, chunking text, creating road maps and topic sentences, and strategically linking sections, paragraphs, and sentences through transitions and connector phrases. Chapter three provides lessons and exercises to develop argumentation, evidence use, synthesis skills, and academic voice. The remaining six chapters address each major task of the dissertation, including the problem statement, literature review, theoretical framework, methodology, findings, and discussion. Each of these chapters explicitly teaches the purposes and elements of its specific dissertation task, guiding students through warm-ups, annotated examples with elaborated explanations of writing moves, and carefully sequenced activities. Ultimately, these pedagogical features support students to build out the pieces of their doctoral dissertations or theses, chapter by chapter.

This book is appropriate for any course on academic writing in EdD or PhD programs. It is also useful for courses that teach how to write a problem statement, literature review, and/or theoretical framework. Additional courses include: Qualitative Research; Qualitative Practicum/pilot study courses; and Dissertation seminar and support courses.