Critical hope: Interplay of brief academic literacy workshops and individual consultations in the Clemente program

Abstract

The Clemente Australia program (Clemente) aims to disrupt cycles of inequity and social injustice by providing access to university education for individuals facing complex life challenges. Central to this program is facilitating the students’ academic journey by offering academic literacy resources to navigate their educational journeys. In this paper, we examine the interplay between a series of brief academic literacy workshops, introduced as an initiative, and subsequent individual academic literacy consultations within the Clemente program. Drawing on an autobiographical approach, we, the academic literacy advisor and the program site coordinator, share our narratives, discuss our lived experiences, what we learned, what we observed and the possibilities and challenges we encountered. From the critical perspectives on emotion and academic literacy theories, we then reflect on the extent to which offering brief workshops (BWSs) to Clemente students impacts their approach towards and engagement in individual consultations (ICs). Our findings suggest that offering these BWSs not only facilitates the process of ICs, and student involvement, but also the development of “critical hope” (Zembylas, 2013), leading to a more inclusive and accessible academic context with possibilities for “critical engagement” (Janks, 2012, p. 159).