Learning the Trade: A Social Apprenticeship Model for Gaining Writing Expertise

Taking a social constructionist point of view and drawing on the work in cognitive psychologyon situated cognition and expert performances, this study reports on a segment
of an ethnography of writing in a workplace setting that reveals the interconnections of
discourse community goals, writers' roles, and the socialization process for writers new
to a given discourse community. Specifically, the data reveal 15 different writing roles
assumed by members of the discourse community that depict a continuum from novice to
expert writing behaviors. Writing roles were defined in relation to both the importance to
community goals of the text to be written and to the amount of context-specific writing
knowledge required to accomplish the task. The study applies the notion of legitimate
peripheral participation in a discourse community and creates a framework for conceptualizing
a social apprenticeship in writing either in school or nonschool settings.