Research on academic socialization has predominately focused on the L2 educational experiences of international students. While FL research has increasingly emphasized “multiliteracies” and “intercultural learning,” literacy in an FL continues to be understood as the use of new words and grammar combined with familiar reading and writing practices. This paper highlights the potential to socialize FL learners to literacy practices from the target culture without the need to send them abroad. It reports on an upper-division French literature course that was designed to socialize students at a U.S. university to two French academic genres, the explication de texte and commentaire composé. The insights from the pedagogical interventions are not language-specific; instead, they can inform FL instruction more broadly by encouraging critical reflection on what is—and can be—entailed by literacy in additional languages.
The full paper has been submitted for publication.