Mind Mapping: Overcoming Problems of Writer Identity and Convention for Academic Writing by Student Collaboration

This article will consider Mind Mapping as an eLearning tool for the enhancement of learning and assessment within the discipline of academic writing. Building on research which relates to the use of Mind Mapping by students of English as a foreign language (EFL), this article will reflect specifically on students taking a module in Applied Writing on a Mature Access Foundation Programme (MAFP), at Institution X. It goes on to explore existing research in order to highlight two key problems student writers have in common: firstly, writer identity and the affective domain of writing and second, the conventions of academic writing. This article concludes that the potential for student collaboration to overcome these problems could be better exploited. It further recommends approaching these problems as clear goals for student collaboration with Mind Mapping as an eLearning tool in order to meet the learning challenge of academic writing.