This article examines how international students navigate feedback from a supervisor while working on a group writing project in a diverse English medium of instruction (EMI) bachelor’s program at a public university in Denmark, where no formalized writing or language support resources are offered in the students’ first year of instruction. Data were collected in qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 11 students who were identified through a survey of a first-year bachelor of arts cohort. Results from the survey showed that despite using a supervision model of education, few students perceived changes in feedback compared to their secondary school experiences, and most did not deploy their own past writing experiences to aid their groups. Three student portraits drawn from the interview pool provide a qualitative, “thick description” of experiences, focusing on feedback. The study ultimately uncovered that student expectations about feedback are intimately related to secondary school experiences regardless of country of origin. In addition, complicated emotions arise as a result of specific misunderstandings about supervisor feedback. The findings highlight the need for more attention to communicating clear expectations about feedback, and the article concludes with recommendations for institutionally led feedback literacy.

Despite the current widespread use of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) feedback, many issues regarding its efficacy still remain unresolved. Recent studies mainly focus on correctly detected errors with a lack of attention on the comprehensiveness of error detection, or error coverage. Error coverage is interesting because little is known about the capacity of AWE systems to fully detect common second language (L2) errors. It is also important to investigate the potential effect of such capacity on student uptake and retention, which are important constructs in fostering L2 writing development. To this end, the present study compared teacher feedback and AWE error coverage in L2 writing classes. The findings suggest that both the AWE system and the teacher demonstrated low error coverage across grammar, usage, and mechanics error categories. However, they indicated differences in the types of errors they identified most frequently. The AWE system flagged more mechanical errors, whereas the teacher provided twice as many corrections for grammar errors, including wrong/missing words, prepositions, and incorrect word forms. While the AWE system performed moderately in flagging articles and comma errors, it struggled with more nuanced grammatical errors, suggesting it may not be a reliable standalone tool for addressing specific needs of L2 learners’ writing challenges. Interestingly, coverage was positively associated with successful uptake, with students utilizing a wider variety of revision acts (i.e., change, add, delete, remove) on AWE errors identified compared to errors not identified. However, error coverage did not correlate with short- or long-term retention of accuracy, implying that retention may result from the interplay of error coverage with other factors. Findings provide implications for writing teachers regarding the employment of AWE systems and for AWE developers regarding the future optimizations of the AWE systems.

Teacher written feedback is a central area of L2 scholarship and writing teacher education yet considerable research has focused on written corrective feedback (WCF) with considerably less attention paid to discourse-level (DLF) teacher written feedback. Our article identifies the gaps in the current teacher written feedback scholarship, explains why these gaps are problematic, and provides detailed recommendations for an agenda that examines teacher DLF and students’ use of this feedback. Our goal is to encourage scholars to explore new avenues of research that better take into account what writing “is” and “does” as well as take into account the linguistically heterogenous reality of 21st century writing classrooms.

This paper explores how Chinese ESL students utilize Generative AI (Gen AI) in their writing processes, focusing on the stages of writing, specific methods of use, and language practices. The study was carried out in an English-medium instruction (EMI) environment at a Sino-American university in China. Data were collected through online surveys with 157 participants and follow-up interviews with nine students. Quantitative analysis of the survey data uncovered general patterns, while analysis of the interview data, using Polio & Freedman’s (2017) coding method to identify themes, provided detailed illustrations. Subsequent analysis indicates that students primarily engage with Gen AI in the early stages of writing for brainstorming to overcome initial hurdles. Information retrieval happens frequently throughout the writing process. However, ethical concerns and academic integrity issues discourage students from directly incorporating AI-generated text into their drafts. Regarding language use, Chinese ESL students make flexible language choices based on task goals, content relevance, and the perceived cultural appropriateness of AI-generated content. Though limited, this paper expounds on how Gen AI is flexibly utilized in ESL writing and aims to inspire future academic research in this emerging area. The assistive role of Gen AI in ESL writing is emphasized, and strategies for its responsible and critical use are proposed.

Effective written feedback is crucial to student learning and fostering writing skills. Responding to student writing is a multi-faceted and complex process which requires a more nuanced understanding in second language writing research. This study explored teachers’ beliefs and practices about written feedback may be influenced by a range of factors. Data were collected from four middle-school English teachers in China via stimulated recall tasks and semi-structured interviews reflecting retrospectivly on how and why teachers gave feedback to student writing. Findings revealed intersections between feedback strategy and learner proficiency level; feedback scope and time constraints and teacher workload; and feedback focus and contextual factors. The implications of these findings in relation to teacher professional development, contextualised teacher education, and the changing landscape of written feedback practices in the age of AI are discussed.

L2 writing, known as a cognitively demanding process, has also been perceived to encompass emotional aspects for L2 writers, as they tend to exhibit various feelings towards teacher feedback on their writing performance. The current study therefore explored EFL Vietnamese students’ emotions toward teacher-written feedback and how their emotions were perceived to impact their engagement and writing performance during the writing process. Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews with the involvement of college Vietnamese students after their essays and teacher feedback were collected. The results showed variations in students’ emotions were found at different rounds of teacher-written feedback, which were perceived by the students to influence their cognitive resources, motivation, and self-regulation of learning. Pedagogical implications are discussed with an emphasis on how to provide or modify teacher written feedback at different stages of the writing process to sustain and promote student engagement with teacher feedback and their writing practice.

Giving feedback to student writing is one of the writing teacher’s most important tasks in the classroom, and there are many forms of feedback that writing teachers can use such as written feedback, teacher-student conferencing, peer feedback or self-assessment. More than these options, the influx of technologies into writing classrooms provides teachers with the use of screencast video feedback when responding to student writing. In this article, two second language writing teachers questioned their feedback practices when responding to students’ texts and implemented feedback innovation by using screencast video feedback in their classrooms with the goal of exploring how their attempts to use video feedback affected their individual practices. The implementation of video feedback opened their eyes as writing teachers because of its multimodality. The combination of aural, visual, textual, and gestural modes was particularly innovative for them because it helps them to envision feedback as a tool for promoting the improvement and learning of writing instead of correcting students’ immediate errors in writing. This article provides ideas and suggestions for writing teachers interested in improving feedback practices with screencast video feedback.

The study explored six ESL university students’ behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement with e-rater feedback on local issues and examined any changes in students’ engagement over two weeks. We explored behavioral engagement through the analysis of screencasts of students’ e-rater usage and writing assignments. We measured cognitive and affective engagement by analyzing students’ comments during the think-aloud protocol and reflection surveys. The findings indicated that the students had varying levels of engagement with the feedback. Behaviorally, all students used a range of revision operations to address errors based on the provided feedback. Cognitively, some students were more engaged than others. Affectively, students experienced both positive and negative reactions toward e-rater feedback. While some students’ engagement with feedback did not change over two weeks, others’ engagement grew more negative. We conclude that e-rater feedback could positively impact students’ accuracy in local aspects of writing if students are actively engaged with the feedback.

This teaching tip presents a strategy for teachers in all grade levels to use interactive portfolios to better document, scaffold, and assess individual multilingual student's writing progress in group writing tasks.

This case study investigates how two English language learners use knowledge co-constructed while collaboratively processing written corrective feedback (WCF) on jointly produced texts. It does so through the lens of sociocultural theory (SCT). This study extends the extant literature by investigating how co-constructed knowledge emerging from their interactions was manifested in subsequent individual writing and speaking tasks which were similar—but not identical—to the original collaborative writing tasks. Data were collected from video recordings of participants’ interactions as they collaboratively processed WCF; individual retrospective interviews, during which participants watched the video recordings and identified what they learned; and observation of individual writing and speaking tasks. Results show that participants were able to use some of the knowledge generated through these interactions when completing writing and speaking tasks individually. Additionally, participants displayed the ability to transform this knowledge to meet the demands of new contexts. This indicates that usage of the knowledge generated while collaboratively processing WCF was not mindless copying, but that participants were able to either internalize, or begin the process of internalizing, this knowledge.

This paper reports on an exploratory multiple-case study conducted to examine 6 French as a foreign language (FFL) learners at a university in Costa Rica and their affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagements with teacher written corrective feedback (WCF). We collected data through students’ writings (drafts and revisions), semistructured interviews, and stimulated recall interviews. We used the students’ writings to examine students’ behavioral engagement, and we used the semistructured and stimulated recall interviews to determine how students engaged cognitively and affectively with WCF. Findings revealed that although most participants initially reported mixed feelings and, at times, negative emotions upon the receipt of WCF, they overcame such feelings and became more positively engaged with the teacher’s WCF. All participants were able to detect the teacher’s WCF intention. However, only half of them reported using certain cognitive or metacognitive strategies when processing feedback. Even if their behavioral engagement was relatively high overall, the students’ affective and cognitive engagement varied.

The present study evaluated the effects of a combined form of written corrective feedback (WCF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy. The combined WCF consisted of unfocused error-code WCF and focused metalinguistic explanation. Different forms of WCF were administered to two groups of Japanese EFL students in two consecutive years, and the effects of the feedback were compared based on the number of grammatical errors that the students made before and after receiving feedback. The original version (single combined WCF) provided metalinguistic explanation only once for each of eight target grammatical forms, whereas the intensive version (repeated combined WCF) provided metalinguistic explanation repeatedly. The results showed that combined WCF facilitated the students’ accurate use of the target forms overall, and repeated combined WCF was more effective than single combined WCF, but its efficacy weakened over time. Repeated combined WCF had a positive effect on students’ accurate use of verb tense and the avoidance of informal usage; single combined WCF had a significant effect only on verb tense. Repeated combined WCF also served to reduce the total number of errors, including errors for which no metalinguistic explanation was given, implying that coded WCF had its own contribution to the students’ writing accuracy.

Writing classrooms focused on summative assessment are likely to lack formative feedback components that contribute to more motivated, confident, and autonomous writers, notes Icy Lee (2017), author of Classroom Writing Assessment and Feedback in L2 School Contexts. Ranging from $66.02 (Kindle) to $69.49– $102.24 (hardcopy), this 157-page work presents a strong case for school second-language (L2) writing education to shift away from traditional, score-based assessment. Though Lee targets L2 writing teachers and teacher trainers, she also appeals to researchers of L2 writing. Ten chapters provide thorough theoretical and research-based justification for a student-centered, learning-oriented feedback and assessment system and also provide practical suggestions for implementation. These chapters begin with the purpose, theory, and practice of L2 writing assessment and then explores various types of assessment and feedback, as well as the use of portfolios for assessment. The text concludes with chapters on technology in L2 writing assessment and classroom assessment literacy for L2 writing teachers. As a whole, the research-based guidance that Lee offers encourages writing teachers and educators to implement assessment, so it can “bring improvement to student learning and is supported by self-, peer-, and teacher-feedback” (p. 5).

This article describes a qualitative inquiry into the peer review experience of second-language (L2) international students enrolled in a mainstream first-year writing (FYW) course at a private university in the eastern United States. Data collection involved semistructured interviews with 10 L2 students at three points during the semester they were enrolled in the FYW course. Three themes were identified through inductive data analysis: (a) perception of self, (b) perception of peers, and (c) perception of process. A discussion of the findings highlights the complex ways these themes overlap to deepen our understanding of peer review as a meaningful socioacademic activity in multilingual classroom settings.

Peer review is frequently used in both first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) writing courses to help students develop reading and writing skills and foster interaction and collaboration. To maximize these benefits in the L2 classroom, instructors should train their students to provide feedback to their peers (Lam, 2010; Rahimi, 2013; Rollinson, 2005). However, sufficient training and practice can require considerable class time. In this teaching article, we detail how we used a flipped learning approach to prepare undergraduate international students to conduct peer review in a university-level English as a Second Language reading and writing course. First, we discuss how we used flipped learning in four course sections in the Fall 2018 semester to structure peer review training both in and out of the classroom. Then, we reflect on the benefits and considerations concerning how to implement flipped learning for peer review and conclude with suggestions for future research.

Error correction for English language learners’ (ELL) writing has long been debated in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Some researchers say that marking all errors in students’ papers with written corrective feedback (WCF) is not manageable, while others think it is manageable. This study examines the manageability of the innovative dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF) strategy, which has a more comprehensive approach to error feedback, and asks what factors influence the manageability of the strategy (including how long marking sessions take on average) and what suggestions experienced teachers who use DWCF have. The strategy has shown to be highly effective in previous studies, but its manageability has been questionable. A qualitative analysis of the manageability of DWCF was conducted via interviews of experienced teachers that have used DWCF and the authors’ experiences and reflections using the strategy. The results indicate that this strategy can be manageable with some possible adaptions while avoiding common pitfalls.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the resources for responding to grammatical issues in student writing that are available to writing teachers. The study analyzes two sets of data: (a) the position statements issued by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and the National Council of Teachers of English, and (b) the best-selling writing-teacher preparation materials. The results are discussed through the theoretical lens of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) in order to portray how the field of composition studies—as a community of practice— models responding to linguistically diverse students, whether L1, L2, or international students. The results show that the expectations set by position statements are not met by writing-teacher preparation materials. Thus, teachers are lacking resources to know how to respond to students’ grammar rhetorically in the context of writing. Based on these findings, I discuss implications for responding practices and propose future avenues for research on preparing teachers to respond to student writing.

Previous research has established the importance of giving and receiving feedback in students’ writing development. In the present paper, I investigate a less widely studied approach to providing feedback—the small group writing conference, which is attended by a number of students (usually four) and led by the teacher to discuss student drafts. Adapting a framework outlined in a previous study (Ching, 2014), I analyzed the interactions or relationships at work in two group conferences in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context. Findings revealed that the instructor was involved in four-fifths of all interactions, suggesting that the instructor played a prominent role in the two conferences. In contrast, interactions among student participants were limited, while the reader–writer interactions tended to be unidirectional and mediated by the instructor. It is argued that the teacher– student relationship in the small group conference can be usefully conceptualized as a continuum with teacher authority and student autonomy at the two ends and that there may be an interactive relationship between the two forces. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

This study explores the perceptions of first-year composition (FYC) students toward written teacher feedback and compares the preferences of L1 English and international ESL writers. We used an online questionnaire to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The first part of the questionnaire consists of 43 Likert items regarding teacher feedback in the context of a selected argumentative essay, and the second part consists of two open-ended questions regarding students’ opinions on teacher feedback. A total of 345 FYC students participated in the study. Our results show that both L1 and ESL writers prefer feedback that offers directions for improvement rather than general comments regarding errors in the writing, that both groups have an aversion to comments that offer no suggestions, that ESL writers are more enthusiastic about sentence-level feedback than L1 writers, and that terms like “constructive criticism” are largely absent from the lexicon of ESL writers. More broadly, L1 writers are more oriented toward how instructors provide feedback while the ESL writers are more oriented toward the text itself. Ultimately, these findings are meant to help FYC instructors work in classrooms that contain both L1 and ESL writers.

Given that feedback from different sources is combined to ripple through the entire revision process, it is important to create a space where students can understand and interact with different modes of feedback in order to work through it. However, pedagogy for the use of multiple feedback sources from a practitioner’s perspective has been rare. To address this paucity of attention, this teaching article suggests a feedback-rich framework to help students grow as independent writers who can navigate the various interactional spaces for their writing and presents a narrative example of a feedback-rich environment for an ESL first-year composition class. Teacher observations of student performance indicate that the emphasis on multiple forms of feedback and reflection helped the students become more analytical about their revisions, more active in writing conferences, more willing to solicit feedback, and thus more engaged with revision.

Welcome to the first issue of the fifth volume year of the Journal of Response to Writing. We are excited to bring you two feature articles and one focused on teaching. Together, these articles span the three major domains we aim to cover: native language, second/additional language, and foreign language writing response. Additionally, the set of articles takes up issues of students’ feedback perceptions and provisions of feedback that can facilitate better student writing.

This study reports on a pedagogical intervention in Spanish second language writing classes designed to shift learners’ attention away from lower-order concerns (e.g., morphosyntax) and toward higher-order concerns (e.g., content, tone, organization of ideas) through the support of a Spanish writing fellow (tutor) who worked with the 300-level college participants. Those in the treatment group, but not those in the control group, were required to meet with the tutor. Multivariate analyses revealed that (a) learners in both groups improved in their writing from the graded rough drafts to the final versions, and (b) some gains were observed in the treatment group (suggesting some advantage), but, overall, learners still struggled to shift their attention away from lower-order concerns. These results are discussed in light of several write-to-learn and learn-to-write approaches to writing instruction, sociocultural theory, and research on anxiety in language learning.

An important drawback of peer response in L2 writing classes is a reluctance to be sufficiently critical of a classmate’s writing, particularly with students from cultures that value group harmony. Anonymization of peer response is commonly proposed as a means of overcoming this problem. The current action research project examined the effect of anonymizing the peer response process on the number of proposed revisions made by students from eight undergraduate writing classes at a private university in Tokyo. It also examined the students’ attitudes towards the peer response process. The findings revealed that the anonymization of the process had significant impact on the less proficient students’ propensity to recommend revision; however, this was not the case for students of a higher proficiency level. Students at both levels felt more comfortable with the peer response process when it was anonymized. The pedagogical implications of anonymizing the peer response process are discussed.

We are thrilled to introduce and welcome you to our fourth volume year of Journal of Response to Writing. This is the seventh installment of the journal, and we are encouraged by JRW’s growing readership and increasing dissemination of scholarship internationally. As we continue to offer a shared venue for practitioners and researchers of English composition, second language writing, foreign language writing, and writing center studies, we hope that you will kindly share this open-access, online resource with your colleagues and students who are interested in issues of response to writing. In this issue, we are pleased to introduce a range of fascinating articles that offers important insight into response practices across multiple formats, programs, and student backgrounds. In our first article “Peer Reviews and Graduate Writers: Engagements with Language and Disciplinary Differences While Responding to Writing,” Kate Mangelsdorf and Todd Ruecker examine the efficacy and potential of graduate L2 peer review sessions. This under-researched area of inquiry is meaningful given the assumptions many teachers and graduate students share that feedback on graduate-level writing is best provided by content experts with native language proficiency. This study followed 12 graduate students (nine L2 writers) over a 16-week peer review course to examine the impact of language background and discipline on peer review interactions. From their investigation, the authors argue that “students’ attitudes toward language difference. . .played a greater role in making successful peer reviews than students’ categorization as L1 or L2 students.” Manglesdorf and Ruecker further arranged students in peer review groups by similar disciplines, yet they still found that differences in education level (M.A. vs. Ph.D.) could interfere with helpful peer reviews. Nevertheless, the authors indicate that regardless of linguistic or disciplinary differences, all graduate writers can increase their r

This in-house inquiry explores the response practices of a group of L2 writing teachers in our specific program to gain a better understanding of these teachers’ feedback practices and to bring about purposeful change within our local context. Data consist of 4,313 electronic feedback (e-feedback) items given by six writing teachers to 36 L2 students on six writing tasks in a first-year writing course for international students. Using Ene and Upton’s (2014) e-feedback framework, each feedback instance was coded for feedback target, directness, explicitness, charge, and location. Although some variations exist, results show that these teachers overwhelmingly focused on form across writing tasks. Findings also show that the e-feedback was primarily corrective, direct, explicit, and within-text. Following a discussion of our programmatic response to this internal investigation, we conclude by arguing that programs can establish philosophies of response grounded in their specific context based on examination of local practices.

We are pleased to share with you our latest issue of the Journal of Response to Writing. Although not intentionally planned, this issue’s three feature articles all explore the affective dimensions of response, considering both learners’ and instructors’ views on aspects of response practice. The authors point out that just as important as examining what happens when responding is knowing how the people involved experience response. We are pleased to welcome back JRW’s founding editor, Dana Ferris, whose article “‘They Say I Have a Lot to Learn’: How Teacher Feedback Influences Advanced University Students’ Views of Writing” presents the findings from a large-scale longitudinal study investigating how upper division undergraduate students remember the feedback they received from previous teachers. Ferris surveyed 8,500 students across five years to find out how their affective perceptions of teacher feedback corresponded to their views on writing. With both qualitative and quantitative data, Ferris argues that students who report having received more negative feedback also have less positive feelings about writing in general. Multilingual writers in particular remember more critical feedback and find less enjoyment in writing overall. Ferris suggests that these findings should be a reminder to teachers to pay attention to how they respond to students’ texts, as instructor comments can have a lasting impact on learners’ feelings about writing for academic purposes.

This study examines the relationship between students’ memories of teacher feedback and these students’ writing and attitudes toward and enjoyment of writing. More than 8,500 survey responses were collected from advanced undergraduate students in a large university writing program. A question about the characteristics of teacher feedback received by student respondents was examined both quantitatively and qualitatively. Second, responses to a different survey question about students’ attitudes toward writing were statistically compared with their reported memories of teacher feedback. Responses to the teacher feedback and writing attitudes questions from different student subgroups (analyzed by first language backgrounds and by when they matriculated at the university) were also compared statistically. Results showed that students had a wide range of reactions, some positive and some negative, to teacher feedback. There also was a strong relationship between their self-reported enjoyment of writing and how they have experienced teacher feedback. Further, it was clear that multilingual students expressed more negative attitudes toward writing in general and reported less positive experiences with teacher feedback. The study suggests that students attend to and have a range of reactions to teacher feedback and that teachers should be self-reflective and sensitive about their response practices, particularly when responding to multilingual students about language issues.

In this project, I investigated student perceptions of dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF), a specific method of providing accuracy feedback, in developmental writing classes for multilingual students. Via a quasi-experimental design using treatment and control sections of a developmental writing program’s three levels, I collected and contrasted survey data from a total of 145 students. I then interviewed three students (one international and two generation 1.5) representing a range of perceptions of DWCF. Participants generally appreciated and valued DWCF, especially as a complement to a grammar textbook, and students of classes that used DWCF reported higher scores on most survey items, such as quality of grammar feedback and general class instruction. I also present students’ pedagogical suggestions for better integration of DWCF in writing classes.

This qualitative study reports on teachers’ (formative) feedback practices in writing instruction. Observations and interviews were used to collect data from 10 upper-secondary school teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classes in Norway. The findings indicate that while the teachers attempt to comply with the requirements of the national curriculum regarding formative assessment, and acknowledge the pivotal role of feedback in that pedagogy, the dominant tendency is still to deliver feedback to a finished text. As such, there is limited use of feedback for that text and no resubmission of the text for new assessment, while feedforward is reduced to the correction of language mistakes, which does not foster writing development except for language accuracy. The limited use of formative feedback suggests the need for more systematic professional development of the teachers.

Studies that have reported delayed positive effects for written corrective feedback (WCF) have typically targeted the use of articles for first- and subsequent- mention functions, using narrowly focused corrections that lack ecological validity. Not much is known about how different grammatical features react to mid-focused and unfocused WCF options, which enjoy more ecological validity. This study investigates the delayed effect of different types of WCF on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ accurate use of three features of English grammar (articles, infinitive, and unreal conditional). Four groups of participants (N = 77) were treated with different feedback options (mid-focused corrections, unfocused corrections, unfocused corrections plus revision, and no corrective feedback). WCF did not produce lasting accuracy gains, nor did it help corrected students outperform uncorrected students on a delayed posttest.

Peer response is one of the most important activities in writing classrooms because it provides a sense of audience to students. At the same time, students also receive feedback for revision. Asking L2 writers to use their L1s in providing feedback to their L1-speaking peers helps them gain confidence in peer response activities, which in turn gives them self-confidence in their writing proficiency. In this small-scale pilot project, L2 students were asked to reflect on their use of L1s providing both oral and written feedback. They reported that students felt they could express their feedback in a more meaningful way. The article concludes with pedagogical implications in teaching writing in both ESL and EFL contexts.

Written corrective feedback (WCF) has been increasingly attracting researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) as well as second language (L2) writing practitioners. Bitchener and Storch, two renowned WCF researchers, define WCF as “a written response to a linguistic error that has been made in the writing of a text by an L2 learner” (p. 1). This increasing interest in WCF is understandable because the implementation of WCF is time-consuming as well as pedagogically imperative. However, it is widely known that learners keep making the same error, and thus teachers’ efforts do not pay off easily. Therefore, with the increasing number of published research, it is beneficial to review studies about WCF to synthesize findings and identify issues to guide future research. To this end, Written Corrective Feedback for L2 Development comprehensively reviews WCF studies, especially those conducted under cognitive and sociocultural perspectives, the two major driving forces in this domain.

It’s exciting to already be introducing the first issue of our second volume year of this new journal! We’ve been receiving positive feedback on volume 1 and great contributions for this and upcoming issues. In this issue, we present two research articles and two teaching articles. In the first piece, “Papers are Never Finished, Just Abandoned: The Role of Written Teacher Comments in the Revision Process.” M. Sidury Christiansen and Joel Bloch examine the delicate dynamics occurring between teachers’ written comments and subsequent revisions. Their study follows four students receiving written comments from one teacher over a series of three papers and two revisions per paper. The four students were postgraduate science or engineering students, all international students taking an ESL writing course at a university in the U.S. The teacher feedback took the form of marginal comments using the Microsoft Word® Comments tool as well as an add-on set of macros allowing the teacher to standardize commonly made comments (and customize them as needed).

This article introduces the idea of grammar agreements as a way to offer a more “finely tuned approach” to grammar feedback in the L2 classroom (Ferris, Liu, Sinha, & Senna, p. 307). These agreements offer students options for how the teacher will respond to writing done in their first-year composition classes. The authors offer suggestions for both why grammar agreements are a useful tool in the L2 writing classroom (and possibly beyond) and how to implement grammar agreements effectively.

This issue completes the second volume year of JRW. It is hard to believe how quickly the two years have gone by, and we are gratified with the excellent work that authors have shared with us and with the positive response from readers. This issue has five papers—two research articles, two teaching articles, and a book review—which notably discuss response topics from a broad range of pedagogical contexts. With the publication of Magda Tigchelaar’s article, “The Impact of Peer Review on Writing Development in French as a Foreign Language,” we are happy to extend our discussions of response to writing to the teaching of languages other than English. Comparing the effects of peer review and self-review over a semester, Tigchelaar found that student writers were more likely to attend to/apply suggestions from their own self-reviews than they were to incorporate suggestions from their peers. She also found that peers were more likely to emphasize global concerns such as organization, and self-reviewers were more interested in fine-tuning at the sentence level and across sentences (cohesion). In particular, the study argues for a meaningful and increased role for guided self-feedback in writing instruction: “Learning how to review one’s own texts may require more time and training, but this initial investment may plant the seeds for more effective development of autonomous writers.”

The present study investigates learners’ participation in the activities of providing self and peer review in the context of a foreign language classroom to determine which feedback type contributes to greater gains in writing development. The study also investigates whether there are target areas of improvement that are more accessible to self-assessment compared with aspects that are better identified from an outsider’s perspective. Three intact classes of intermediate-level French learners (n = 44) were assigned to one of three conditions: peer review, self-review, and a no-review comparison group. Each group produced four texts over the course of the semester in the following ways: the peer review and self-review groups wrote drafts, provided reviews, and revised their drafts, while the comparison group completed each assignment in one draft. The texts were coded and scored by two raters to determine whether any groups improved significantly over the course of the semester, whether the revisions showed improvements over the drafts, what effect the feedback had on the final text, and which aspects the feedback targeted. Results indicate that none of the groups improved their scores significantly over time, but both treatment groups provided feedback resulting in improved scores. The peer group gave more feedback that was ignored or not useful, while self-reviewers gave more comments that resulted in positive changes. The peer group provided more organization-focused comments and compliments, while the self group focused more on structure and cohesion. Results are discussed in terms of autonomy (Benson, 2001), perspectives on writing development (Manchón, 2012), and foreign language writing instruction.

A substantial body of research has demonstrated the important role of providing feedback in students’ writing development. Among the various feedback methods, the teacher-student writing conference has often been rated by learners as the most beneficial to writing development, but research on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ perceptions of writing conferences is scant. Aiming to investigate students’ experiences and attitudes towards writing conferences, this study collected data through questionnaires and individual interviews with 34 EFL students from 2 college English writing classes. Findings suggested that the students held high expectations and gave high ratings on the helpfulness and success of the conferences that they experienced. Affectively, the questionnaire results indicated a generally positive experience, but the interviews revealed that attending conferences provoked anxiety in some learners. Most significantly, the study found that although students did not openly reject setting and leading the agenda, most were not enthusiastic about taking on the responsibility of establishing the direction of the conference.

This study presents a piloted second language (L2) writing tutor (L2WT) internship program as a way to provide supplemental, sustained writing fellow- style support to L2 writers and classroom teachers in multilingual firstyear composition (FYC) courses in a large U.S. university within the span of one semester. The major facet of the internship program was the tutors’ response to student writing in a one-to-one context for each major essay assignment. The presence and needs of second language writing students in the writing classroom have been clearly articulated in relevant research, but what is less known is how to devise successful methods of support that are both helpful and economical. The author provides evidence that students in L2WT-mediated classes earned higher grades and that the L2WT internship program was perceived as valuable for all parties involved: L2 writers, L2 writing teachers, and the tutors themselves. Additionally, the for-credit internship is a cost-effective option for writing programs without the funding to implement a large-scale writing fellows program. Implications for future offerings of the fellow-style internship, as well as suggestions for how to implement this program in additional contexts, are provided.

“English can be both amusing and treacherous,” notes Ben Rafoth, coeditor of ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Together with coeditor Shanti Bruce and dozens of other English, composition, and English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers and academics, this book presents the enjoyment and obstacles that tutors and tutees face. The 16 chapters cover a variety of ESL students: international, Generation 1.5, graduates of U.S. high schools, and professionals. In addition, this guide “also discusses differences in tutoring styles in various settings—for instance, with undergrads, peers, grad students, and instructors— as well as variations” also lays out differences in tutoring styles in various settings by undergrads, peers, grad students, and instructors, as well as variations in writing centers across the United States and at foreign universities

This article presents three case studies that closely examine various types of interactions taking place in writing center tutorials involving newly arrived pre-matriculated ESL writers. By learning what strategies tutors commonly use and how successfully the ESL writers negotiate their goals for the visit and the form and meaning of their text through this sample, this study aims to help identify what characterizes successful tutorials and what unique challenges English language learners might face when interacting with tutors. Results from these case studies show that it is not how many corrections tutors make or suggest for the students’ papers, but how much the tutors engage their tutees in a meaningful dialogue that brings satisfaction to the ESL students. Findings also suggest that deliberate efforts should be made to equip ESL writers with necessary metalanguage to communicate their goals for their visit.

This study addresses several challenges in written corrective feedback (WCF) research. First, scholars have expressed concerns that although studies of focused WCF may benefit some classrooms and may help advance second language acquisition theory, they may not represent ecologically valid methods where comprehensive feedback may be more appropriate. Second, many focused WCF studies only report on learner performance within a narrow list of linguistic features, making it impossible for others to determine any secondary benefits or detriments of the treatment. Finally, many research studies of WCF have been of limited duration, making it difficult to identify longer-term effects of various WCF methods. Therefore, this study is an attempt to address these issues by examining the effects of dynamic WCF over a 30-week period. In addition to analyzing linguistic accuracy, this study examined the effects of dynamic WCF on rhetorical appropriateness, fluency, complexity, and vocabulary development over a 30- week period. While improvements in linguistic accuracy were observed for the treatment group when compared to a control group, no other differences were found. Implications for pedagogy and future research are discussed.

Research has shown that in order to facilitate the development of students’ writing, teachers need to cultivate principles of effective feedback. However, revision is a joint process, and for the maximum effectiveness of this process, there should be more than just a giver-receiver relationship with the teacher giving the information and the student receiving it. Instead, students should be actively involved in the revision process by reflecting on and analyzing their own writing and meaningfully responding to teacher feedback. This teaching article describes a technique—Letter to the Reviewer—that facilitates collaboration between the teacher and the student. A Letter to the Reviewer is a memo that students attach to each draft, in which they provide a short reflective note to their reviewer by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their draft and ask for specific feedback on certain elements of the draft. The technique was implemented in two first-year composition classes for multilingual writers in a large university in the Midwest. Teacher observations of student work and students’ self-reports on this technique demonstrated that the letters helped students approach their own writing more analytically, ask the teacher and peers for focused feedback, engage in the collaborative revision process, provide more specific feedback on their classmates’ writing, prepare for writing conferences, and recognize the connection between classroom instruction and their own writing.

In a conversation with an editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing, the question was asked, “What is the most popular topic of submitted manuscripts to the Journal?” The response was as decisive as it was quick, “That’s easy. Feedback or response to writing is by far the most commonly submitted topic.” That brief exchange triggered a number of questions that needed answers. First and foremost among those questions is, if response to writing is such a popular topic, might there be a need within our profession for another venue for such scholarship? Though the Journal of Second Language Writing is extraordinary at disseminating the highest quality research on broad aspects of second language writing, space within its pages is limited. Therefore, we determined to investigate whether there is indeed a need for another venue for quality scholarship on response to writing for international dissemination.