Writing is a core staple of academic and discipline-specific discourses. Students, therefore, having entered the university, are required to demonstrate a minimum proficiency in academic writing as well as the potential to build upon effective academic discourse. Academic writing is thus vital to students' academic access, performance, and success. Writing Centres play an important role in supporting students in the successful completion of their academic journeys through integrated writing support. The study discusses how peer tutors at the selected University of Technology Writing Centre adapted their pedagogical practices during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift from face-to-face, physical location to blended support meant that peer tutors needed to reconceptualise strategies on how they strive to provide a learning environment that enhances students' academic writing experiences. Tutors' experiences during hybrid consultations and their reflections in written reports are used to explore the pertinent challenges and opportunities for Writing Centres. Adopting a reflective approach, the study interrogates the need for the development of innovative techniques that enhance substantive remote tutoring experiences and academic writing development. The study adopted the academic literacies model as the underpinning theoretical framework. Data from this case study indicates that tutors reflect on pedagogical practices as well as blended learning environments when engaging with students. This study concludes that Writing Centres need to devise hybrid support strategies that are responsive to students' needs for tutors to effectively support all students.

An important role in socialising first-year students into universities is initiating them into different conventions of academic writing. Support programmes, such as writing centres, have been established in several South African universities to help students with this objective and the broader issue of academic literacy. The assumption is that such interventions bridge the articulation gap between basic and higher education phases and expedite academic success. This article draws from a larger PhD study that explored nursing students’ experiences of developing their academic writing skills at the writing centre. The focus of this article is on understanding first-year nursing students’ experiences of learning academic writing through the integrated writing interventions of language and discipline practices at a writing centre based at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). These students were regarded as relevant because their curriculum incorporates a more structured academic writing component with the writing centre. The study adopted the Academic Literacies Model (ALM), which fosters a social view of academic writing and advocates for integrated support to the teaching and learning of academic writing. Guided by the qualitative constructivist paradigm, phenomenography was adopted as a research methodology. Data were analysed according to phenomenographic categories. Whilst the study uncovered various factors influencing the development of academic writing amongst the target population, there was a clear need for shifting from interdisciplinary (at least two disciplines) to a transdisciplinary (more than two disciplines) academic literacy approach to students’ learning experiences. As such, the article recommends the intentional inclusion of various stakeholders (writing centre practitioners, discipline lecturers, clinical and academic support staff) to mitigate students’ writing challenges and develop sustainable and relevant academic literacy practices.

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