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This chapter reports on the use of reflective journals as pieces of assessed work in a recently introduced Doctorate of Pharmacy (DPharm) programme at the University of Bradford, UK. The analysis in this chapter examines the challenges that writing a reflective journal has posed for the students on the DPharm programme. There is a broader context for Pharmacy education as a whole, which this chapter also touches on, as the role of reflection in professional development for pharmacists is a relatively new development. The chapter describes the strategy used by the author to develop reflective writing skills in students whose previous academic writing has been in the style of scientific reports. The author identifies four "interim styles" that students have adopted en route to reflective writing, gives examples of these and offers reasons why these styles emerge. Many of the reasons are in the affective domain. The conclusion is that developing reflective writing requires the development of reflective thinking, and is a personal development issue as much as one of writing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mature learning and thinking requires a reflective disposition. Due to the relation of writing in general, and reflective writing in particular, to knowledge production — writing may foster reflective learning and thinking in various academic domains. However, while adults may be either inclined or trained towards writing-to-reflect, children need to be educated to engage in it. The aim of the technique presented in this chapter is to offer a strategic framework for structuring & facilitating reflective writing for school children. It comprises nine writing-to-reflect acts: (1) Coordinating expectations from the learning resource at hand; (2) Relating it to prior knowledge; (3) Detecting & diagnosing difficulties in it; (4) Selecting relevant knowledge; (5) Judging the value of the learning source critically; (6) Deliberating its optional interpretations; (7) Transforming its structure conceptually; (8) Re-contextualizing the newly gained knowledge; (9) Linking: Assessing learning outcomes & creating new learning goals. The learners use these nine ‘reflection stops' as optional writing opportunities. They select one or several of the ‘stops', and start writing about a text they learn from, ‘entering' and ‘re-entering it by performing the reflective acts each selected stop entails. Wide use of this technique from second to seventh grade has shown that the majority of children & teachers may benefit from using it- when it is introduced gradually and exercised flexibly andjudiciously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores whether, how and why non formal writing in science classroom change students thinking disposition, which are perceived as latent tendencies that motivate and direct abilities toward productive thinking. The study is theory-driven, inspired by a constructivist view of learning, new approaches to science literacy, cognitive and social theories of the writing process, and a theory of thinking disposition. Designed as an action research with a comparative group, the study was conducted in four 8th grade science classrooms for almost two years, and includes 97 students. Measurements of students' thinking dispositions were analyzed prior to the study and at the end, following the implementation of writing experiences that allowed the use of four writing genres. The measurement instruments were developed and validated specifically for the study: thinking disposition questionnaire, reflection questionnaire and 14 writing tasks. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis was performed. The findings provide hard evidence that not only do students who write on science subjects after studying a science topic show progress in all five thinking dispositions measured, but a comparable group of students, who did not receive writing assignments, either failed to make significant progress or made less significant progress than the intervention group. The results also demonstrate that improvement in student thinking dispositions was affected by tasks that, although generically representing different types of rhetorical discourse, nevertheless had similar potential to enhance dispositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehending instructional texts often requires the integration of verbal and visual information. Visual information (especially diagrams) can be helpful for relating and integrating pieces of information and can therefore contribute to mental model building. However, they often fail in achieving any contribution to the instructional process, because of a number of factors. In fact, readers often neglect illustrations and rely too much on textual information. Even when they pay attention to pictorial information, learners often obtain the overall meaning of pictures the easiest and fastest way possible, through low-level processing that gives the learner the illusion of having understood. Moreover, graphs used in textbooks may be difficult to understand, because they often assume an information-telling perspective that does not help readers understand a text's most important data and numerical trend. A further problem is that texts and graphs are often placed far apart from each other and therefore require the learner to scan the page in search of a diagram corresponding to a printed sentence. The aim of this investigation is to verify whether the use of two well-known study strategies (writing-to-learn and drawing visual organizers, i.e., graph drawing) can stimulate the integration of a text's propositions with visual information. Forty-two University students were asked to read a newspaper article (containing one written text and six diagrams) and either to prepare a written reformulation of the text or to draw a visual organizer summarizing the textual information. An analysis of the participants' written notes (i.e., an external and controllable product of task instructions) and of their results in a delayed test provided us with information on the usefulness of the two strategies for information integration and for the monitoring of text comprehension. An analysis of overall group main effects revealed significant differences among instructional conditions for total scores and for scores on diagram and integration questions, but not for text questions. The group of students who drew graphs outperformed the others (the writing-to-learn and reading-only groups) on all measures requiring the integration of textual and graphic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the study was to investigate via Writing Strategies Interviews (WSI) and Writing Think Aloud Procedure (WTAP), the use of writing strategies defined as actions and behaviors used by the writer to solve problems in the writing process. A writer's profile was defined as the average score for each of the four theory-based clusters used: Meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, social strategies and affective strategies. After the participants (352 sixth grade students from Arab and Jewish schools) completed a self-report Likert-type Writing Strategies Questionnaire (WSQ), 31 randomly selected participants were further engaged in an interview (WSI), and in a think aloud procedure (WTAP), regarding writing, and their composition was scored. The findings indicated that the children could be classified through the WSQ, according to one of three profiles of strategy use; a General profile, an Affective profile, and a Social profile. The interviews and the think aloud procedure further validated the profiles and gave in-depth descriptions of the children's' use of writing strategies. The chapter discusses the contribution of qualitative methods to a theoretical understanding of writing as a process, and its implications for education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing a program to teach writing within the science curriculum may not be effective if we do not understand what factors influence success in the writing process. We therefore collected data to create a profile of the characteristics of our incoming undergraduate science students with reference to their prior experiences, attitudes and approaches to writing. Significant correlations were found between the extent of prior experience, positive attitudes and type of approach to writing. Comprehensive prior experience and a positive attitude correlated strongly with subsequent success in the first semester writing program in biology. Students without these characteristics may therefore be entering our program with a clear disadvantage. The data were used to propose changes to the writing program particularly in the areas of preparation, practice and feedback phases of the cycle of learning. These curriculum changes are designed to create a more positive student perception of the teaching and learning context so that students can adapt a more effective approach to writing in the sciences and hence improve the quality of their learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter the design of university courses about writing hypertext is presented. The aim of these courses is to teach students how to write hypertext in a way that supports their knowledge acquisition in the subject matter to be processed. To achieve this objective, reflection on the design of hypertext is used to foster comprehension of the contents. The courses encompass five teaching units to present how to work with the features of hypertext appropriately. The instructional program of the courses was developed by taking theoretical ideas and empirical research about reading and writing traditional texts and hypertexts into account. Each of the units covers one of the aspects, which have to be dealt with during the process of writing hypertext: a) developing a basic understanding for hypertext, b) designing nodes, c) organizing an overall structure, d) considering multiple audience perspectives and e) setting links. The main elements of the instructional program are described in detail. An overview of the theoretical background and some concrete examples from the courses are given for each unit. The discussion shall embed this approach within the field of computer-based teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study, which was conducted within the framework of a more comprehensive one (Segev-Miller, 1997), was to investigate the effect of personal writing on college students' authentic processes of performing a common academic task of writing-from-sources — a literature review — in partial fulfilment of their research requirements. The subjects, 12 elementary education college students, volunteered, at the request of the researcher, to document their performance of the task by means of a process log over an academic year. At the end of the year, the subjects also responded — for the purpose of the present study — to a questionnaire, requiring them to assess the effects of the process log on their writing processes. An analysis of the data obtained from the subjects' responses indicated that conducting the process log facilitated their use of the cognitive intertextual processing and knowledge-transforming strategies of selection, connection and organization of information from the textual sources, which are crucial for the performance of the task. However, the major effect of conducting the process log was to promote the subjects' use of metacognitive strategies, particularly the strategies of self-assessment and self-regulation, which are crucial for significant learning to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the influence of a Writing Academy on the strategy applications, perceptions, and emotions that good readers who are poor writers experience when writing narrative text on-demand. Eleven fifth grade students (12 years old) were identified as good readers who are poor writers based on their academic history of passing the state-required End-Of-Grade Reading Test when they were in the third and fourth grades, but failing the state-required Fourth Grade Narrative Writing Test. Each subject participated in a specially-designed 16 week Writing Academy. Special Needs students who exhibited an identified behavioral or learning disability participated in the class but not in the study. This qualitative study included individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Data for each student consisted of interviews, teacher annotations from conferences, writing portfolio, self-assessment writing, and scores on the Writer Self-Perception Scale. These data were systematically analyzed using the constant comparative method, and classified according to their relationship to two construct categories that emerged (a basic profile of good readers who are poor writers, and the impact of the Writing Academy), and/or to a theme category (strategies, common experiences, and emotions). Results indicate that good readers who are poor writers (a) lack knowledge and application of both prewriting strategies and story grammar schema to plan and generate narrative texts; (b) do not employ self-regulation strategies to evaluate and to revise the texts they compose; (c) are inhibited in their writing by strong, negative emotions coupled with the perception of themselves as poor writers; and (d) benefit from participating in a structured writing workshop aimed at addressing the above mentioned problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When producing an argumentative text, writers have to solve problems that are specific for that type of text. The nature and severity of these problems, i.e., the specific problem area of argumentation in written discourse, can be characterized with the help of concepts from the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984). It is assumed that during the writing process language users will have to appeal to knowledge and skills corresponding with these concepts in order to overcome problems. In this chapter the role of specific knowledge and skills in writing argumentative texts is indicated. A summary is given of the different stages of writing discursive texts and the specific problems connected with these stages (section 2). On the basis of the results of an assessment study of argumentation skills, it is illustrated to what extent the marked problems occur in secondary school students' writing (section 3). For some of the problems found, writing advice is formulated (section 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composing a summary is a useful tool for expert readers when they read to learn, but naïve readers have to deal with two main difficulties in expository reading and writing: the text organization and the lack of previous knowledge about a specific topic. We presented a didactic sequence designed to help young children (from 3rd grade of elementary school, nine years old) to compose a summary based on the reading of an expository text. The core of the didactic sequence was to ask the children to cross out or take away everything that wasn't necessary from a given text. The didactic strategy helped the children to find the underlying nodes making them evaluate each part of the text (words, paragraphs, clauses, etc) in relation with the whole text. The identification of endophoric, exophoric references, and the previous information they had about the topic, helped them to manage the text structure successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter considers the difficulties of National Tests in writing for children who are learning to write in an additional language. Samples of writing tests undertaken by such children are considered to analyse where their difficulties might lie. While there has been much written about effective teaching of writing for L2 learners, there has been little research into the testing of L2 writing of such pupils. In an international climate of increased accountability in education and the use of league tables of test results as quality indicators, there is a need to consider the problems of testing writing of children in a language which is not their home language. As the government of the United Kingdom increasingly focus any discourse on literacy on falling standards and lack of literacy skills it becomes increasingly important to consider how the measurement of such skills may disadvantage bilingual pupils. The chapter provides a description of National Tests in writing in Scotland, along with the national criteria for assessing children's writing. In Scotland, children between the ages of 5-14 are tested in Functional, Personal and Imaginative writing in English and are assessed as having attained a prescribed level, A-F. It is classroom teachers in Scotland who have the responsibility for deciding when a child will be tested and which test papers, from an annual catalogue, will be used. However, there is currently no guidance available to teachers as to how to consider the needs of the growing number of Scottish pupils who are writing in English as an additional language. Previous research by the author (Smyth, 2000) considered the practices of mainstream teachers as they taught bilingual pupils and reported on the dominant cultural models which informed their practice. Gee (1999) defines cultural models as "everyday people's explanations or theories" which are rooted in the practices of socioculturally defined groups of people. An analysis of the ethnographic data resulting from the research found that the master model, which helped to shape and organise the teachers' beliefs and led to a number of related cultural models was that bilingual pupils need to become monolingual in order to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rich resources of the Internet increasingly call writing faculty to incorporate digital research strategies into source-based writing. Yet, research shows that some students do not have basic competency to use the Internet for academic research. Composition classes can help students to be information literate and know how to effectively find, evaluate, use, communicate and manage both traditional and digital research information that is reliable and valid. Composition teachers can provide guided practice for students who are learning to read and use the Internet in an information literate way. Source-based writing instruction can also alert students to the important difference between the library and the Internet. Lessons in source-based writing can be enhanced by incorporating one of the many widely available, public-domain online-information literacy tutorials that are published by libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a brief review of key results from an earlier study of teachers who taught the same course in both a computer classroom and a traditional classroom, we discuss the results of a follow-up study of teachers who continue to move between these instructional settings and consider how our results have led us to reshape our teaching-training program. We argue that teacher training should be seen as a critical element shaping the complex interplay among teachers‘ knowledge, experiences, and perceptions as they move among classroom settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents a study carried out in four several final year elementary school (for pupils of 10/11 years old) and two college classrooms (12 to 14) during a period of six years and its different theoretical references. The aim was to teach pupils how to write narrative texts while developing motivation for this task. Metacognition was chosen as a tool for learning because it is at the same time: (1) an efficient strategy to manage a task throughout, by the pupils using self-control over their own activity (through the processes of forward planning, autoregulation/monitoring and evaluation) which requires awareness of activity, meta-knowledge of the task and especially a knowledge of the "evaluation criteria" (which describe what is the aim to be achieve) and of the "procedural criteria" (which describe how one can manage to write narrative texts)., and (2) a good way to develop motivation, throughout the development of self-concept, the knowledge of oneself as a learner, the feeling of self-efficacy and internal locus of control. This study is a ‘design' study: after trying out a first model, it was tested and review as many times as necessary for its fit (feasibility for teachers, fitting the national program, stimulating motivation for teachers and students, etc.). The model is theoretically validated, and empirically tested and reviewed, using questionnaires, interviews and student outcomes, during a period of five years. We think that: (1) this metacognitive learning needs several conditions we explain and describe; (2) using metacognitive strategy will be really possible for pupils if they can construct themselves the two types of criteria, and (3) one of the main condition is that this work can't be done by the pupils alone, they must be help systematically to do it by the teacher. So we had to define this sort of help (i.e. what she has to aim and how) by the reference to the notion of mediation and tutoring. After an account of the research — theoretical references, work hypothesis, action plan and conditions of implementation, modalities and content of evaluation — we present the different steps we carried out after six years of practising in several forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a design experiment, it was investigated whether explicit instructional support enables youngsters to articulate, organize and apply their content knowledge when writing a coherent informative text about a well-known topic. Participants were 36 eighth graders, divided in three levels according to their language competency, and spread over one experimental group (E) and two control groups (C). They all received an identical assignment: writing an informative text about ‘my school'. In all conditions the initial text was written without any instructional support. In control group 1 (C1) all participants wrote the text individually, sitting together in a classroom with the researcher watching them. Control group 2 (C2) and the experimental group (E), however, performed the task in one single (C2) or a series (E) of individual writing sessions. Instructional support offered in a series of individual writing sessions, was provided for the experimental group only. It aimed at improving the initial text about ‘my school'. Participants were coached in improving and organizing content knowledge about that topic in a coherent informative text in line with the criteria (concerning content and structure) fixed by the researcher. The writing performance was assessed for (a) the initial text (C1, C2, E), (b) the final text of the individual writing sessions (E) and (c) a transfer text about a different topic written by all participants (E, C). From the empirical data, it is evidenced that the final text of the experimental group met the criteria very well. Their achievement clearly differentiated along language skill: high level pupils performed better than low level ones. As to the transfer text the results showed only a significant condition effect on text structure. This study revealed some problems novices experience with meeting the criteria and which require additional support. One important finding is that novices experience difficulties with the transformation of experiential reality in concepts, the identification of the right term and the construction of this ‘abstracted reality' in a transparent text. ‘Abstracting' is nevertheless crucial to construct and communicate meaning in a coherent informative text. The discussion highlights some salient findings and it outlines future research needed to offer some realistic recommendations for the teaching of writing. Attention is paid to the further translation of instructional support, exclusively validated in individual settings, into real, ecological classroom-settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter I examine how a group of primary school children used sources of information in individual research projects on the subject of alternative energy. The chapter focuses on some of the strategies adopted by the children to make use of reference sources, in both book and electronic formats, and the ensuing transformations of source material, both verbal and visual, observed in the children's work. The study proposes that working with sources involves the project writer, here envisaged as a "text-maker", in a range of semiotic and inter-textual relations with other texts. These material relations, it is suggested, cannot be fully understood by a view of research which emphasises the extraction and re-use of "information" as content detached from textual form. Moreover, the traditional distinction between "copying" and "your own words" obscures these inter-textual relations and, consequently, a full picture of children's learning activity as composers of research genres. Instead, an understanding of how children both borrow material from existing texts and, at the same time, re-contextualise and innovate as a result of new communication may prove more helpful. The study points to the value of extended research projects in early literacy education, especially given the importance of independent research skills in later years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For those working on writing, genre can be a suitable framework for stressing the complex web of relationships between the reader in a personal, idiosyncratic role and the socio-cultural conventions, which involve both text and reader. The concept of genre — with all its wide and heterogeneous background — may prove to be fertile when working on reading and writing with different learning populations, in order to discuss and understand literary, linguistic and cultural topics as integral forces. In this chapter, I would like to relate to some theoretical ideas about reading and writing and their influence on the organization of a writing workshop. I will emphasize the idea of genre as a "framework" for meaning construction and simultaneously as an analytical tool. I shall focus my discussion on writing within a generic framework as a way of clarifying the reader's role and deepening his/her awareness of the genre's constraints and its role in enabling personal innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the benefit of teaching writing in a combination with teaching oral presentation. For two successive years, two different classes were taught writing and presentation individually and in groups. The classes worked with three interdisciplinary projects in addition to their schedule and integrated IT in written as well as oral work. To measure and to improve the results the criteria of the four dimensions of a text were used and an extra dimension was added with special reference to oral presentation. The examination forms were oral group presentation and the writing of an individual essay with a preceding group work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter describes a classroom intervention working with 16 pupils in 5th grade Primary Education (11 year olds). The objective was to ascertain whether written argumentative abilities could actually be improved through teaching, to investigate what this improvement consisted of and to analyse the relationship between production and comprehension of this type of text. Two classes were involved: one was the experimental class and the other, of the same educational level and from the same school, served as the control class. The pedagogic intervention was carried out over several one-hour sessions. Different procedures were used: direct instruction, modelling, participative learning and microinstruction, basically. The pupils were also given a series of six help-cards, which showed them the steps they had to take as they progressed towards autonomous text writing. Both a pre-test and a post-test were carried out, and these included a test of text production and another of comprehension, both based on an argumentative text. Statistical analyses relating to the production test reveal a significant difference between the experimental class and the control class in the post-test, and also between the pre-test and the post-test of the experimental class. From a qualitative point of view, the principal achievement of this group was the construction of counterarguments, which were totally lacking in the control group. However, although the results concerning the relationship between production and comprehension were significant, they are not so clear. Some of the implications of these results are looked at in greater detail in the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date writing has not received sufficient attention at the primary level in Hong Kong albeit numerous initiatives in the current curriculum reform launched in 2001. Typically writing is taught based on a prescribed textbook in Hong Kong primary schools. The traditional approach to teaching writing is mechanical and rigid. Learners are forced to follow a prescribed pattern to write. The content is standard and banal. Language-wise it is far from being rich because everybody uses the same vocabulary and sentence structure. In terms of teaching methodology it is not in line with the current approach of integrating various skills as advocated in Communicative Language Teaching. This chapter reports an action research conducted in a Primary 5 English classroom. The research question is how to make an English writing class interesting and stimulating. An entirely new method is adopted. Stories are used as the teaching materials, and integrated skills of listening, speaking and writing are adopted. Qualitative research methods are employed. The following methods are used to collect data: pre- and post- interviews with the students, pre- and post- interviews with the teacher, journals written by the teacher, class observation reports written by the researcher, the stories written by the students. The findings of this study affirm the belief that using an integrative-narrative method is an effective way to teach L2 writing in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of our contribution is to expound the relationship between philosophy and argumentation. We propose to circumscribe the effects of philosophical oral teaching/learning on the writing abilities of young pupils. The central hypothesis is that the original, moral, social or cultural values discussed in philosophical oral workshops develop the capacity to better generate ideas, because philosophical practice produces more complex thinking than ordinary co-operative conversation. Within this frame-work, the activity of argumentation focuses on ensuring that young writers can transfer their oral abilities to manage the process of negotiation when writing. A study conducted during a two-year period with four experimental groups supports our presentation. The results illustrate the positive transfer between philosophical activity and predisposition to write argumentatively. The conceptualisation process was quantitatively improved as soon as children reached the age of seven. Hence, philosophical dialogue with its complex characteristics should be considered as focus of activities in teaching and learning to write. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen several centralising initiatives in the English education system, including statutory curriculum content and assessment arrangements and regular school inspections. The chapter briefly sets this centralisation in its historical context. The latest initiative, the National Literacy Strategy, has encouraged greater use of teaching objectives, dedicated literacy teaching time and increased use of shared and guided teaching approaches. However, a recent increase in reading standards has not been matched by a similar rise in writing attainment. A recent report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate has highlighted some recurring weaknesses in the teaching of writing in English primary schools: an over-reliance on duplicated worksheets and stimuli for writing; an inappropriate balance between reading and writing; and insufficient transfer of skills learned in literacy lessons to work in other subjects. Research studies are identified that will inform practice and help to address these weaknesses. These studies include research into composing processes; meta-analyses of effective teaching approaches; and genre theory, particularly in relation to non-fiction texts. The chapter ends with a discussion of the possible role of grammatical reference in the teaching of writing and the need for more classroom-based studies of children's writing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents and discusses a method, peer-based intervention (PBI), in which conscious reflection of key-stroke logged writing sessions is used to improve written composition. Multiple writing opportunities are used together with discussion and observation of the writer's own and a peer's text. The method entails the theoretical assumption that the release of cognitive resources in working memory helps writers to focus the attention towards deeper structures of the text under construction as well as towards the writing process per se and thus assist in raising writers' metacognitive awareness of writing. The chapter reports on a study of Swedish 13-year-olds composing descriptive and argumentative texts in their first language (L1), with and without PBI. The texts were graded and all revisions undertaken during the writing process were analysed according to their impact on the text product. Further, text quality and frequency of revisions were tested statistically in order to delimit the impact of the PBI treatment. The results indicate that the method was generally successful for low L1 ability writers, while high L1 ability writers benefited from the treatment in the argumentative assignments. The treatment further raised writers' awareness of contents features involved in writing by increased frequency of text-based revisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter offers a theoretical and empirical comparison of ‘learning by doing' and learning-by observation, applied to the field of reading and writing. Participants are fifteen-year old high school students, who followed one of a series of experimental courses on composition and/or comprehension of argumentative text. The effect study focuses on observational learning, as opposed to a more traditional ‘learning by doing' pedagogy. In two experimental groups, students (15 y.) observed either writing or reading activities performed by age-group students. Observations were made by means of authentic videotape recordings. It was the observer's task to compare and evaluate the activities of the observed students. These two instructional programs were compared with two more conventional (control) programs in which participants learned to read or write by applying theory in exercises. Intra-modal learning as well as inter-modal transfer results were assessed for both writing and reading. Results show that this type of observational learning was more effective than ‘learning by doing'. Learning effects for the observation groups surpassed the results for the matching ‘learning by doing' groups. Moreover, learning to write by observation appeared to be more efficient since the experimental writing subjects more readily transferred their increased writer's knowledge to reading tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can young writers enhance the quality of their texts by observing real readers trying to comprehend them? What do these writers learn from such observations? In this chapter the authors suggest that writing instruction can be made more effective by making communication failures and successes observable. To a certain extent, writers are blind to the communicative failures in their texts since they have all the prior knowledge to fill in the gaps. On-line observation of readers may help them in detecting these gaps, and in learning to repair or avoid them. An experiment is carried out in which four groups of students write an instructional text and receive different types of feedback for revision: self-evaluation, reader observation, reader observation with written comments from the reader, and reader observation of an unknown text. Effects are assessed on revision quality and on learning (knowledge of criteria for successful communication). Results show that all three observation conditions were more effective than the self-evaluation condition, and that observation supported by written comments was most effective with respect to both text quality and learning. Moreover, the readers who formulated these comments outscored the other readers on writing a first version of a similar text; they also could recall more criteria for successful writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter takes as its starting point a 10-year-project in the upper secondary school in the north of Sweden, called "The Garden Of Thought", which involved students in creative writing such as poetry, as part of the ordinary school curriculum. One of the main questions was whether the students accept creative work of this kind as part of their schoolwork, since a poem can be highly personal, involving love and the deepest feelings. A recent study of mother tongue teaching in Sweden shows that students mainly practise what the author calls "internal schools genres", i.e. genres that are constructed for the purpose of the school alone (Nyström, 2000). It also shows that many students write in their free time. Students outside the boundaries of the school use more creative genres, such as poetry and song lyrics. It is suggested that creative writing activities should be a part of the ordinary school curriculum. The question I pose in this chapter is, thus, how do young people themselves feel about these forms of creative writing in school? Are they prepared to break down existing borders between their schooling and their private lives? In my study it is evident that writing poetry could become a common part of mother-tongue teaching. At the same time there are evident differences between writing in the privacy of home and in the public space of school. Students, it seems, develop a range of strategies to deal with this dualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments are reported, which are aimed at verifying a main prediction: since the monitoring of the processes that are necessary for correctly maintaining or restoring text local coherence is a significant feature of both text comprehension and writing, educational treatment can improve this type of monitoring in writing. The treatment works directly on reading comprehension and/or on the writing revision phase that consists in detecting incorrect text gaps. The independent variables in Exp.l were three educational sessions that focused on text gaps requiring inference from both prior knowledge and previous text information in order to restore coherence. In Exp.2 as many sessions focused on a revision task concerning peers' written texts containing impossible-to-bridge gaps. The common dependent variable was a local coherence measure applied to written texts produced by participants (18 approximately-12-yr-old children) These experimental participants were matched, based on their writing pre-tests scores, with 18 controls of the same age, and they outperformed the controls on the written post-test. In Exp.2 a writing revision post-test was also used, where experimentals again outperformed controls, but no correlation between the two dependent measures was found. New hypotheses were drawn from this datum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present investigation tested the effectiveness of an educational project aimed at improving the ability to take the addressee's stance into account and to apply it to the planning of argumentative discourse and text. This aim is derived from the assumption that the ability to make argumentation suitable to the addressee's stance (Perelman & Olbrecht-Tyteca, 1958) is an important condition for conceiving effective claims, arguments and counter-arguments and for expressing them both in oral discourse and in written compositions. The educational methodology adopted can be characterised as a route from oral to written expression of argumentation (Lumbelli & Camagni, 1993). In 9 experimental sessions 30 high school students (a) first discussed upon topics selected by themselves, observed and evaluated their own transcribed utterances (b) were presented with a problem-solving situation, in which they were given the task to detect the most effective route to make a hypothetical addressee change his/her point of view into an opposite one, (c) were presented with a special kind of modelling in which there was the experimenter who talked aloud while reading a few argumentative texts which had been in advance evaluated as significant instances of argumentation and counterargumentation. The argumentative competence was assessed by a test specially tapping the ability to take the addressee's point of view into account in the choice of the best argumentation (among four ones) and by the evaluation of written compositions according to categories based on the same criterion. 30 students matched on both these argumentative ability tests worked as control group. Experimental students significantly outperformed the control ones as to their sensitivity to audience's needs and their ability to adjust the arguments and counter-arguments to the addressee's stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I reintroduce and discuss imitation as a tool for the learning and teaching of writing. I begin with some overall reflections on teaching and learning. Then, I focus more closely on imitation as a dimension in teaching and learning, arguing for its use. In this connection I refer to theoretical treatment of imitation, mostly in Piaget's work. Thus prepared I then describe how imitation can be used meaningfully as a tool for the learning and teaching of writing, without contradicting modem pedagogical principles like motivation toward self-activity and creativity. Finally, I present some reflections on the writing process which are not derived from the traditional coding metaphor for writing and reading texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter investigates the writing process in narratives by Greek deaf students in two different conditions: a) translation from Sign Language into written Greek from video stimuli and b) direct composition in written Greek from picture stimuli. Following language assessments, the deaf students were divided into three language groups according to their differing abilities in Greek Sign Language and Greek. Two parameters were manipulated: language skills and source material used for writing. The study aims to answer the questions: a) How do the different groups make use of the source material (which students benefit from the use of sign language?) b) Which material produces better written texts? Four qualitative analyses have been undertaken on the texts: amount/type of information given, organisation of information, grammatical characteristics of the text, and error analysis. The results show that the use of sign language in the writing process has positive effects only on specific groups and on specific aspects of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter explores how a secondary English teacher working with students aged 14-15 enabled them to use their popular cultural practices as a resource for writing. The chapter provides examples of conventional classroom situations in which this teacher created a space for students to bring their own semiotic resources to bear on the curriculum. It argues the need for English teachers to become sensitised to the complex literacy practices in which their students engage outside school and to the ways these practices are bound up with their social relationships and sense of identity. The discussion chalenges conventional understandings of ‘reading, ' ‘writing', ‘speaking' and ‘listening' as components of the English curriculum, arguing that a more contemporary understanding of literacy must take into account the multi-modal practices in which students engage in beyond school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially, only the final product of the writing process (e.g., a document) was presented on the Web. More recently, however, attempts have been made to utilize the shared space for collaborative aspects of writing, such as revision and reviewing. The revision stage of the writing process has to deal with a new element: digital annotations. This chapter presents a longitudinal study in a graduate writing course in which is observed how third-party reviewers produced 276 digital annotations while using the DHS, a Web-based annotation system. We mainly focus on the form of the digital comments and the needs experienced by third-party reviewers when communicating annotations that would lead to a change in the original text. Our study showed that reviewers devise their own strategies to link their comments with the text that may have implications for design. It also revealed the need for the original text to be displayed and readily available for editing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of the teaching-learning process is closely linked to the level of adjustment between teacher help on the one hand and the process of constructing meanings by the pupils on the other. To attain this level of adjustment the teacher has to use communicative strategies that evolve throughout the pupils' schooling. These strategies also define the teaching style that we studied for two consecutive school years in a Spanish classroom with three to five year old pupils, To be able to analyse the information obtained, we created a multidimensional analysis system which allows us to describe both the quantitative and qualitative evolution of the constructivist teaching style in the literacy progress. Quantitatively, through the percentage variations of teacher participation compared to her pupils, and qualitatively through directivity, understanding this to be the level of information given by the teacher which gives the pupils a greater or lesser degree of freedom when managing their own learning process. Likewise, we have been able to observe how the teacher's and pupils' interactive strategies evolve together in the process through which the latter start to gain greater autonomy in resolving group-writing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter concerns a study aimed at determining the effects of peer interactions on the regulation processes involved in narrative writing. The research is carried out in three sixth-grade classrooms (age 11-12 years) which have followed an instructional sequence designed to optimize processes of metacognitive regulation during narrative text production. The effects of two experimental conditions — (1) individual production, (2) dyadic production involving collaborative planning and revision of a joint text composed of individually drafted episodes — are compared with respect to the revisions introduced between the initial draft and the final text. Transfer effects from dyadic text production to subsequent individual text production are also analyzed. Relevant findings show that although more revisions are carried out during dyadic collaboration, this effect shows no transfer; on the other hand, the different types of revision observed under each condition do show significant transfer to individual production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing instruction faces the challenge of elaborating a theory of writing in school contexts through the observation and analysis of how cognitive benefits of written language are reached. Different perspectives on the concept "context", considered in studies on written composition, are integrated in a model of context interaction that becomes the theoretical basis to the research. The relationship among four contexts within the collaborative composition process of an explanatory text are explored: the context of the writer, gathering the experience and knowledge on written language and written language use formerly acquired by the writer; the context of reception or social context of written language use; the context of the task, where the composition process develops; and the context of teaching and learning writing. Eleven-year-olds try to explain to eight-year-old readers the laws of light reflection through a kaleidoscope. Data analysis is carried out in a multiple case study in natural settings applied to verbal interactions among the participants in five collaborative writing groups. The parameters observed refer to: a) characteristics of the composition process, aiming to find out any general procedures in the processes followed by different groups; b) explicit references to readers, aiming to establish the influence of the context of reception; c) explicit utterances including references to the second person pronoun, to follow the presence of the different contexts involved in the process, d) reformulations of the text being written, known as "attempted text", aiming to observe the writers' consideration of the different contexts participating in the composition process. The results show the relevance of the context of reception in the writers' representation of the task and of the text, and acknowledge the presence of multiple contexts dynamically interacting in the context of the task. The study concludes that group work enhances knowledge building on discursive situations, on language, and on writing composition strategies, and argues for the importance of designing instructional sequences that allow the negotiation of explicit learning goals and the monitoring and control of one's own learning and writing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents a didactic sequence aimed at introducing punctuation in the second grade. The teacher worked with 21 boys and girls (7 and 8 years of age). Based on Olson and Kamawar (2002) and Ferreiro and Pontecorvo (1996), we assumed that the use of punctuation would be enhanced through the writing of texts that required the students to delimit boundaries between quoted speech and narrative text. Jokes were chosen as target texts. The didactic sequence included the production of three drafts that were revised with the teacher and other students in collaborative tasks, as well as exercises specially designed to facilitate the distinction between direct and indirect speech and the inclusion of hyphens for quoted speech, capital letters and other punctuation marks. The first drafts show an almost total lack of punctuation. In second drafts, children can differentiate direct speech through the use of punctuation and through lexicalization. Final drafts include a more conventional use of hyphens, and the use of other punctuation devices to delimit clauses and sentences. The findings are related to the theoretical framework and suggestions for educators are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although writing has its own set of characteristics and its psycholinguistic processing follows different patterns, it cannot be seen in isolation from oral language or reading. Indeed, it can be said that oral and written language nourish each other, and this interaction should be borne in mind when they are practised. A first step towards dealing with writing in a meaningful way is proposed here through a language method (Girolami-Boulinier, 1984) and three reading techniques (indirect, semi-direct and silent direct) (Girolami-Boulinier, 1993; Girolami-Boulinier & Cohen-Rak, 1985). The language method trains learners to immediately identify the semantic groups of sentences they hear and produce, as well as the nature and function of the head words — "mots-centres" according to Girolami-Boulinier (Girolami-Boulinier, 1987: 38) — of sentence elements. The logical organisation that the proposed language method implies should also be taken into account. The reading techniques improve speaking and prevent writing errors which have to do with language misunderstandings and misuses, with misperceptions at the level of speaking and listening, and with lack of attention. This approach will benefit orthography in its broadest sense, from mere decoding to language mastery, punctuation and style. Furthermore, it prepares learners to exercise and cultivate the different writing practices required by today's society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter focuses on effective learning and teaching to write in kindergarten, considering L1. The research is part of a larger program that aims at exploring the relationship between learning to write and learning to read in the classroom, from kindergarten to grade two, where spelling becomes autonomous (children from 4 to 8 years old; see Rieben & Saada-Robert, 1997; Saada-Robert & Balslev, 2001). The actual results focus on the impact of emergent writing practices on the awareness of the alphabetic principle in a comprehensive way. They point out the benefit of teaching writing simultaneously with reading, from the very beginning of school culture acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]