Negotiation between professional peers: Critical strategy for a reading and writing program at the University Level

Abstract

The following paper focuses on the description and exemplification of a strategy which is the core of the Academic Reading and Writing Program (PROLEA, for its acronym in Spanish) conducted at the Universidad de Flores (UFLO), in Argentina: the "negotiation between professional peers" or "negotiation between teaching partners". The Programs pedagogic design is based on the Sydney School's developments in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The negotiation between peers comprises the work between a professor on academic and professional literacies, who is a member of the Program, and the professors of each of the specific subjects involved. In order to successfully implement the SFL pedagogic proposal at this educational level, the realization of the negotiation between professional peers is necessary. This negotiation entails a series of agreements between the professors involved about the teaching of the curricula contents through reading and writing tasks. First in this paper, the negotiation between peers is characterized, and its function and value in the Program are highlighted; second, two scenarios of application are presented in order to show this strategy's contribution as well as its difficulties and the way of resolution of the problems found.