This study extends previous research on observational learning in writing. It was our objective to enhance students’ motivation and learning in an academic writing course on research synthesis writing. Participants were 162 first-year college students who had no experience with the writing task. Based on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory we developed two videos. In the first video a manager (prestige model) elaborated on how synthesizing information is important in professional life. In the second video a peer model demonstrated a five-step writing strategy for writing up a research synthesis. We compared two versions of this video. In the explicit-strategy-instruction-video we added visual cues to channel learners’ attention to critical features of the demonstrated task using an acronym in which each letter represented a step of the model’s strategy. In the implicit-strategy-instruction-video these cues were absent. The effects of the videos were tested using a 2x2 factorial between-subjects design with video of the prestige model (yes/no) and type of instructional video (implicit versus explicit strategy instruction) as factors. Four post-test measures were obtained: task value, self-efficacy beliefs, task knowledge and writing performances. Path analyses revealed that the prestige model did not affect students’ task value. Peer-mediated explicit strategy instruction had no effect on self-efficacy, but a strong effect on task knowledge. Task knowledge – in turn – was found to be predictive of writing performance.

This study investigates the move-step structures of Japanese and English introductory chapters of literature Ph.D. theses and perceptions of Ph.D. supervisors in the Japanese and UK higher education contexts. In this study, 51 Japanese and 48 English introductory chapters of literature Ph.D. theses written by first language writers of Japanese or English were collected from three Japanese and three British universities. Genre analysis of 99 introductory chapters was conducted using a revised “Create a Research Space” (CARS) model (Swales, 1990, 2004). Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with seven Japanese supervisors and ten British supervisors. The findings showed that the introductory chapters of literature Ph.D. theses had 13 move-specific steps and five move-independent steps, each of which presented different cyclical patterns, indicating cross-cultural similarities and differences between the two language groups. The perceptions of supervisors varied in terms of the importance and the sequence of individual steps in the introductory chapters. Based on the textual and interview analyses, a discipline-oriented Open-CARS model is proposed for pedagogical purposes of teaching and writing about this genre in Japanese or English in the field of literature and related fields.

One hundred and three (N=103) peer review studies contextualized in L2 composition classrooms and published between 1990 and 2015 were reviewed. To categorize constructs in research studies, this researcher used Lai’s (2010) three Ps dimensions (perceptions, process, and product). Perceptions are the beliefs and attitudes of peer review. Process refers to the learning process or implementation procedures of peer review. Product is the learning outcomes of peer review. A thematic analysis of the studies’ constructs showed that perception studies examined learners’ general perceptions/attitudes, Asian students’ perceptions/attitudes (cultural influences), and learner perceptions of peer feedback in comparison to self and/or computerized feedback. Process studies discussed the effects of training, checklists/rubrics, writer-reviewer relationships, the nature of peer feedback, communicative language, timing of teacher feedback on peer feedback, grouping strategies, as well as communicative medium. Product research, on the other hand, investigated peer feedback adoption rates and ratio of peer-influenced revisions, effects of peer review on writers’ revision quality, effects of peer review on reviewers’ gains, and effects of peer review on writers’ self revision. In light of this review, research gaps are identified and suggestions for future research are offered.

Two long-standing assumptions on which writing centers operate are that individual tutoring helps students’ writing development and that the actual talk of such tutoring enables such development (Bruffee, 1984; Lunsford, 1991; Gillespie & Lerner, 2008; Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2015). Questions, long thought of as one of the most important pedagogical tools, enable writing tutors to tap into students’ knowledge of writing, help them clarify the writing task, advance their thoughts, and advise them indirectly on how to proceed further. Whereas writing center lore has emphasized the importance of questioning in non-directive tutorials, scholars have only recently begun to explore empirically tutors’ actual use of questions more generally in tutorials, the differentiated functions of questions, and the strategic use of questions in tutorial discourse (Thompson & Mackiewicz, 2014).In this study we present an original, empirical scheme for coding question types in writing tutorials derived from 15 writing tutorial sessions in our own corpus of the genre. We apply this functionally oriented scheme to one typical session to show how questions operate locally, how they are distributed across a session, as well as how they achieve both pedagogical and organizational goals within such interactions. The use of questions in this tutorial is compared with question use in 14 other sessions to discover patterns in tutors’ questioning behavior. Our findings provide insight into how tutors’ strategic use of particular question types can empower students to become more active participants in the tutorial.

This study examines links between essay quality and text elaboration and text cohesion. For this study, 35 students wrote two essays (on two different prompts) and for each, were given 15 minutes to elaborate on their original text. An expert in discourse comprehension then modified the original and elaborated essays to increase cohesion, resulting in a 2 (prompt) x 2 (original content, elaborated content) x 2 (original cohesion, improved cohesion) design. Expert raters scored the essays for overall quality and text coherence. In terms of overall essay quality, increasing text content (i.e., elaboration) and improving cohesion both led to significant gains in expert judgments of writing quality, and a combination of both elaboration and improved cohesion led to increased scores over increased cohesion alone. Judgments of text coherence were increased by improved cohesion (but not elaboration); and a combination of both elaboration and improved cohesion led to higher human ratings of coherence in comparison to the original and elaborated versions. The results have important implications for writing theories, writing success, writing pedagogy, and standardized testing.

It has been established that in the Netherlands, as in other countries, a majority of students do not attain the desired level of writing skills at the end of elementary school. Time devoted to writing is limited, and only a minority of schools succeed in effectively teaching writing. An improvement in the way writing is taught in elementary school is clearly required. In order to identify effective instructional practices we conducted a meta-analysis of writing intervention studies aimed at grade 4 to 6 in a regular school setting. Average effect sizes were calculated for ten intervention categories: strategy instruction, text structure instruction, pre-writing activities, peer assistance, grammar instruction, feedback, evaluation, process approach, goal setting, and revision. Five of these categories yielded statistically significant results. Pairwise comparison of these categories revealed that goal setting (ES = 2.03) is the most effective intervention to improve students’ writing performance, followed by strategy instruction (ES = .96), text structure instruction (ES = .76), peer assistance (ES = .59), and feedback (ES = .88) respectively. Further research is needed to examine how these interventions can be implemented effectively in classrooms to improve elementary students’ writing performance.

This study aims at gaining more insight in effective writing instruction to promote historical reasoning. In an experimental study, two types of instructions were compared; a general writing instruction and a discipline-based writing instruction. In addition, the effects of these instructions for students with a different initial writing ability were explored. Participants were 42 students (11th-grade), who followed a unit on the development of Dutch democracy and had to write an argumentative letter in which they argued the historical significance of a self-selected event or person. Students received a short writing instruction, based on the principle of learning from text models, in two versions: a general writing instruction or a discipline-based writing instruction. Analyses focused on historical reasoning and global text quality. Results showed a positive effect of discipline-based instruction on the quality of historical reasoning, but no effects were found on text quality. No differences were observed for good and weak writers. A pre- and post knowledge test showed improvement of students' knowledge, but no differences between conditions were found. The outcomes add to earlier studies that found positive effects of discipline-based writing instruction and provide teachers with directions for designing discipline-based writing instructions based on learning from text-models.

Research on writing to learn is conceptually rich and pedagogically important. This special issue contributes to our growing knowledge about the variables that mediate and moderate the effects of writing on learning. One group of studies addresses individual writing; it adds to the growing evidence for the effects of several moderators, including cognitive, metacognitive, and personal utility prompts in journal writing (Wäschle et al.); and discipline-specific prompts for argument writing (Van Drie et al.). The individual-level studies also suggest moderator roles for discipline-general strategies of argumentation (Smirnova); and open-ended informational writing assignments (Wilcox et al.). Additionally, the Wäschle et al. study provides the strongest evidence for a specific sequence of mediation: Prompted journal writing to comprehension to interest to critical reflection. The second set of articles focusses on collaborative writing (Corcelles & Castelló; Ortoleva and Bétrancourt). It suggests moderating roles for discipline-specific analytic strategies, and peer interaction; and suggests mediating roles for exploratory discourse and group regulation. Further experimental research on collaborative writing is needed to conclusively test hypotheses about specific mediator and moderator variables. The studies in this special issue, like many recent studies, are incommensurable with some influential theories of writing to learn. Rather, individual and collaborative studies converge to suggest that writing to learn may be conceptualized as a guided process of cognition and self-regulation.

Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the ways writing may engage adolescents in higher levels of epistemic complexity (i.e., postulating causes, reasons and other relations or theories related to scientific phenomena), yet in secondary science classrooms, writing has primarily been used for assessing students' content knowledge. Embedded in a larger national study of secondary writing in the United States, this study investigated the qualities of science writing samples collected from 33 adolescents attending schools identified for exemplary writing performance. We asked: How is epistemic complexity reflected in adolescents' writing?; How does the level of epistemic complexity differ by adolescents' language background, grade level, and school context?; What is the nature of the relationship of types of writing and higher or lower levels of epistemic complexity? We found the majority of writing adolescents produced did not show evidence of high levels of epistemic complexity. Notable exceptions were reading reflections and lab reports. Implications for adolescent science writing instruction are discussed in light of higher standards for disciplinary writing in secondary schools.

Although handwriting is typically taught during early childhood and keyboarding may not be taught explicitly, both may be relevant to writing development in the later grades. Thus, Study 1 investigated automatic production of the ordered alphabet from memory for manuscript (unjoined), cursive (joined), and keyboard letter modes (alphabet 15 sec) and their relationships with each other and spelling and composing in typically developing writers in grades 4 to 7 (<i>N</i> = 113). Study 2 compared students with dysgraphia (impaired handwriting, <i>n</i>=27), dyslexia (impaired word spelling, <i>n</i>=40), or oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) (impaired syntax composing, <i>n</i>=11) or controls without specific writing disabilities (<i>n</i>=10) in grades 4 to 9 (<i>N</i>=88) on the same alphabet 15 modes, manner of copying (best or fast), spelling, and sentence composing. In Study 1, sequential multilevel model regressions of predictor alphabet 15 letter production/selection modes on spelling and composition outcomes, measured annually from grade 4 to grade 7 (ages 9 to 13 years), showed that only the cursive mode <i>uniquely</i>, positively, and consistently predicted both spelling and composing in each grade. For composing, in grade 4 manuscript mode was positively predictive and in grades 5-7 keyboard selection was. In Study 2 all letter production modes correlated with each other and one's best and fast sentence copying, spelling, and timed sentence composing. The groups with specific writing disabilities differed from control group on alphabet 15 manuscript mode, copy fast, and timed sentence composing. The dysgraphia and dyslexia groups differed on copying sentences in one's best handwriting, with the dysgraphia group scoring lower. The educational and theoretical significance of the findings are discussed for multiple modes and manners of letter production/selection of the alphabet that support spelling and composing beyond the early grades in students with and without specific writing disabilities.

This study examined 164 freshman undergraduates' epistemological and writing beliefs, and rhetorical writing performance, in a first-year writing course. Students completed epistemological and writing belief scales early and late in the semester. In addition, their end of semester rhetorical writing assignment was collected. Correlational analyses indicated significant relationships between students' epistemological and writing beliefs across a 16-week semester. Results of MANOVA show a significant shift in students' epistemological beliefs regarding fast learning and certain knowledge across the semester, as well as significant changes in their view of writing as a product and writing's purpose to avoid disagreement. Correlational analyses link students' writing beliefs to their rhetorical writing performance. The study includes a discussion of qualitative features of students' writing relative to their writing beliefs.

Efficient coordination of the different writing processes is central to producing good-quality texts, and is a fundamental component of writing skill. In this article, I propose a general theoretical framework for considering how writing processes are coordinated, in which writing processes are concurrently activated with more or less overlap between processes depending on their working memory demands, and with the flow of information cascading from central to peripheral levels of processing. To support this view, I review studies that investigated effects of handwriting skills on concurrent activation of higher order processes, and research on word production that explored how information cascades between levels of processing in the writing system. I argue that a parallel and cascading model makes it possible to combine different findings in a common integrated framework and thus constitutes a heuristic for further understanding coordination of the different levels of processing involved in writing.

Abstract: In this paper, I report the effects of explicitly teaching five technical genres to English first-language students enrolled in a multi-major technical writing course. Previous experimental research has demonstrated the efficacy of explicitly teaching academic writing to English first-language adults, but no comparable study on technical writing exists. I used a mixed-method approach to examine these effects, including a control-group quasi-experimental design and a qualitative analysis to more fully describe the 534 texts produced by 316 student writers. Results indicated the genre participants constructed texts demonstrating a significantly greater awareness to audience, purpose, structure, design, style, and editing than participants taught through more traditional approaches. Within the technical genres, participants demonstrated greater awareness to audience, purpose, and editing in the job materials text type than with correspondence or procedures text types.

This study of 29 teachers from four states in the US investigated teachers' orientations towards writing and the influences on their beliefs. Through interviews about writing instruction, the researchers found significant differences between teachers in high and low-income schools. While teachers in high-income schools valued rhetorical style, developing voice, and reading-writing connections, teachers in low-income schools focused on grammar, mechanics and sentence structure. Teachers in high-income schools appear to be exercising more choice in curricular materials and valuing quality of writing beyond grammar and mechanics, whereas teachers in low-income schools are using specific curriculum mandated by the districts. Influences on teachers' orientations included school context, programs and materials, and assessments. The study raises concerns that students in low-income schools are missing out on authentic, challenging, and meaningful writing opportunities since the focus is on skills-based instruction. The findings point to the need for teachers to provide all students with opportunities to develop rhetorical style, voice, and reading-writing connections in addition to grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure.

Peer review is a family of instructional techniques. Historically, these have been employed in writing and many other educational domains. Modern computer technologies facilitate the use of peer review, which is especially relevant to educational settings where it is not practical to administer peer review manually. The use of computer support for peer review has shed light on many important scientific questions, some of which we summarize. These findings set the context for the papers in this special issue, which demonstrate how computer support for peer review enables research on peer review itself and on its pedagogical significance.

The object of this research is a learning method that uses email correspondence to promote the development of narrative writing skills in year 4 and year 5 students. Focusing on the written production of episodes of adventure novels and peer review, this learning method was applied to four classes in the Paris region over a 1-year period. The classes were paired in such a way that some students were required to read and analyze texts produced by correspondents (advice givers) while others carried out revisions using peer advice and suggestions (advice receivers). To describe the dynamics of writing, revision and learning, a qualitative analysis of the texts and suggestions given or received by the student partners is carried out. A statistical analysis comparing the texts produced by students in both groups is used to corroborate the findings of the initial analysis. Students showed an increasing awareness and consideration of the key characteristics of the practiced genre, resulting in an improvement of the quality of the texts in the course of the revision process and throughout the year. The texts produced by the advice givers improved more than the texts produced by the advice receivers. The findings are attributed to greater self-reflection and successive reformulations fostered by the elaboration of advice and suggestions.

This paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine the language used in the teaching and learning of writing in a composition program in a public university in the United States. The objective was to identify metaphors and metonymies employed to construct an official standpoint of writing and the teaching of writing within the program, to identify the ideological position of the views conveyed in the documents and to analyze how this perspective is passed down hierarchically from the official documents to those actually developed and used by the instructors in the classrooms. The metaphors and metonymies used in the documents construct writing as an important commodity and college writing as more valuable than writing in other places. Metaphors and metonymies stood out as important semiotic devices for instructors to stay within a given pedagogical and educational perspective in ways that may normally be largely unnoticed by them.

This paper examines a unique reflective writing assignment used in an undergraduate social work course on human sexuality. We ask what new understandings reflective writing mediates (Vygotsky, 1978) regarding sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender relations—oft-neglected topics within pre-professional academic programs. One goal for this assignment was to mediate future social workers' abilities to differentiate between thoughts and feelings, and we evaluate the degree to which students did so in their writing. By adapting Hatton and Smith's (1994) framework for analyzing reflective writing, we also distinguish between descriptive and dialogical reflection, identifying and analyzing examples of both within the students' writing. Findings suggest that students engaged primarily in descriptive reflection, but also engaged in some dialogical reflection. We argue that both are useful but that the latter mediates deeper and more useful learning. We present recommendations for enhancing reflective writing assignment design in pre-professional academic programs.

Girls are more likely to outperform boys in the development of writing skills. This study considered gender differences in language and working memory skills as a possible explanation for the differential rates of progress. Sixty-seven children (31 males and 36 females) (M age 57.30 months) participated. Qualitative differences in writing progress were examined using a writing assessment scale from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). Quantitative measures of writing: number of words, diversity of words, number of phrases/sentences and grammatical complexity of the phrases/sentences were also analysed. The children were also assessed on tasks measuring their language production and comprehension skills and the visuo-spatial, phonological, and central executive components of working memory. The results indicated that the boys were more likely to perform significantly less well than the girls on all measures of writing except the grammatical complexity of sentences. Initially, no significant differences were found on any of the measures of language ability. Further, no significant differences were found between the genders on the capacity and efficiency of their working memory functioning. However, hierarchical regressions revealed that the individual differences in gender and language ability, more specifically spoken language comprehension, predicted performance on the EYFSP writing scale. This finding accords well with the literature that suggests that language skills can mediate the variance in boys' and girls' writing ability.

This article maps the diverse theoretical disciplines that inform writing research and in particular, how these disciplines have researched the relationship between writing and gender. This is presented against the background of a changing theoretical landscape in research in gender. In particular, it will consider the paradigm shift from discourses of difference and disadvantage to discourses of diversity. Research on writing has not always acknowledged this changing lens, and gender research rarely focuses on writing. The aim therefore is to map out these different approaches, explore how they have impacted writing classrooms and to add to the call for a reconfiguring of gender in writing research as a complex and diverse category rather than as a fixed and essential characteristic we each possess.

This study examines the potential for computational tools and human raters to classify paragraphs based on positioning. In this study, a corpus of 182 paragraphs was collected from student, argumentative essays. The paragraphs selected were initial, middle, and final paragraphs and their positioning related to introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs. The paragraphs were analyzed by the computational tool Coh-Metrix on a variety of linguistic features with correlates to textual cohesion and lexical sophistication and then modeled using statistical techniques. The paragraphs were also classified by human raters based on paragraph positioning. The performance of the reported model was well above chance and reported an accuracy of classification that was similar to human judgments of paragraph type (66% accuracy for human versus 65% accuracy for our model). The model’s accuracy increased when longer paragraphs that provided more linguistic coverage and paragraphs judged by human raters to be of higher quality were examined. The findings support the notions that paragraph types contain specific linguistic features that allow them to be distinguished from one another. The finding reported in this study should prove beneficial in classroom writing instruction and in automated writing assessment.

Adaptive help seeking and self-efficacy have been examined extensively over the last 20 years, but few studies have investigated their role in writing center tutoring, which has become an important component of process-oriented writing instruction. Using data collected over an 8-year period, this study analyzes the effect of writing self-efficacy (assessed using established self-efficacy scales) and help-seeking behavior (measured by frequency of writing center visitation) on writing performance as measured by composition grades. Participants were 671 undergraduates, approximately half of whom were international students for whom English was a second or third language. Data analyses showed an inverse correlation between self-efficacy and help-seeking behavior. In addition, high levels of help-seeking behavior resulted in better performance in composition classes, especially for the ESL participants; indeed, this behavior was the strongest predictor of success.

A significant percentage of students who attend secondary schools in the United States do not acquire the basic writing skills required to gain admission to four-year colleges and universities. In the present study, participants were 41 low-income, multi-ethnic 12th-grade students, 19 of whom received instruction on specific genre features for writing college admission essays. The other 22 12th-grade students formed the comparison group and received instruction as usual in their regular English class (mostly on literary analysis). The students who received instruction on genre features of the college admission essay scored higher on a rubric-based rating of the pre and post test essay writing and on writing self-efficacy surveys associated with the genre. Findings yielded from this study point to the merit of using a features-based genre instructional approach to teaching college admission essays to low-income, multi-ethnic high school students.

In the United States, composition researchers have consistently depicted First-Year Composition (FYC) teachers' responses to students' faith-based writing in terms of a conflict narrative. According to Goodburn (1998), Lindholm (2000), Perkins (2001), and Vander Lei and Fitzgerald (2007), FYC teachers hold strict secular expectations and reject the religious identity and expression of their fundamentalist Christian students. This study explores this conflict narrative by analyzing how 24 FYC teachers in the Midwestern United States describe their own religious identities as well as those of their institutions and respond to two faith-based student texts. The study results challenge simplistic depictions of the conflict narrative. The religious affiliations of the FYC teachers coincide with national averages and neither relate to how teachers described the religious environment of their institutions nor the grades the teachers gave the faith-based texts. Furthermore, rhetorical variables such as genre and audience awareness affect teachers' responses to faith-based writing. Composition researchers, this study concludes, need to complicate how they depict situations in which students express their religious identity within secular post-secondary institutions.

This article reports on the use of the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus as a source for developing test items for the Grammar and English Usage section of the Warwick English Language (WELT) test in 2007. A key feature of this newly designed multiple choice grammar test was its use of student-generated writing. The extracts used for the re-designed test were derived directly from the BAWE corpus, as opposed to text books, published sources or indeed, simulated extracts of academic writing devised by test developers, which had been the case previously. The rationale for using the BAWE corpus for language test design is outlined, with a particular focus on the attributes of the students’ writing within the corpus, and the inclusion of both first and second language writing. The challenges involved in developing grammar test items based on BAWE corpus data are also presented. While the procedures set out in the paper were undertaken within a specifically British higher education setting, it is hoped that the research will be of interest to test developers and/or researchers in writing skills in other academic settings worldwide.

This research examines the use of concordancing to create materials for teaching about the role of reporting verbs in academic papers. The appropriate use of reporting verbs is crucial both in establishing the writer’s own claims and situating these claims within previously published research. The paper uses a sample of articles from Science, a leading journal in the scientific community, to create two small corpora. Based on the frequency ranking of 27 examples of reporting verbs, a sample of 540 sentences was chosen for more careful analysis. For each reporting verb in this sample, a randomized sample of sentences was drawn. In addition, a third corpus was created from student papers to compare the student use of reporting verbs to that of published writers. Each sentence in the randomized sample was coded into six possible categories that were based on syntactic form and rhetorical purpose. An analysis of these categories is presented in the second part of this paper. The results of this research were used to design a database of sentences that could be used to create teaching materials for an academic writing course and also be accessed through the Internet (Bloch, 2009).

A particular application of corpus analysis, automated essay scoring (AES) can reveal much about students’ writing skills. In this article we present research undertaken at Educational Testing Service (ETS) as part of its ongoing commitment to developing effective AES systems. AES systems have certain advantages. They can: (a) produce scores similar to those assigned trained human raters, (b) provide a single consistent metric for scoring, and (c) automate linguistic analyses. However, to understand student writing, we may need to look beyond the final essay in various ways, to consider both the process and the product. By broadening our definition of corpora, to capture the dynamics of written composition, it may become possible to identify profiles of writing behavior.

The trend towards using English as an academic lingua franca has undoubtedly increased the awareness of a need for specific EAP writing instruction and inroads into researching student writing have been made. However, systematic improvements for a theory-informed teaching practice still require more detailed knowledge of the current state of student academic writing, which also takes into account local practices and requirements. Extended genre analysis provides such a means of researching student writing in specific settings. This is an innovative methodology which expands on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) genre analysis (cf. Bhatia, 1993, 2004; Swales, 1990, 2004) to systematically integrate corpus linguistic tools into the analysis and to take into account the special status of student genres. A special advantage of this methodology is that it can be applied easily and successfully to small-scale purpose-built corpora.This paper presents an application of extended genre analysis to a corpus of 55 student paper conclusions produced by non-native speakers in the initial phase of their studies. Findings suggest systematic differences in structure between student and expert genres, as well as a more complex set of differences in lexico-grammar, and especially the use of formulaic language, between research articles and non-native student papers. The implications of these findings as well as of the proposed methodology of corpus-based genre analysis for teaching practice are also discussed.

The present longitudinal study aims to explore possible syntactic complexity differences between oral and written story retellings produced by Spanish speaking children at the end of the 1st and 2nd grades of primary education. It is assumed that differences between oral and written modalities can be found due in part to the cognitive demands of low level writing skills. Indeed, it has been observed that written texts produced by children are shorter and of lower quality than oral ones (Berninger, et al., , 1992; Berninger &amp; Swanson,1994). However, how the transcription skills might constrain the syntactic complexity of children's written texts is not well established.The children (N=163) that participated in this study were attending three different schools located in Córdoba Province, Argentina. The children were examined at the end of the 1st and 2nd year of primary education. The oral and written retellings were analyzed using Length, T- unit number and Syntactic Complexity Index (SCI) (Hunt, 1965; 1970). The analysis of children's productions showed differences between grades and modalities. The differences between modalities were found in text Length and T-unit, but not in SCI. These results suggest that transcription skills do not affect syntactic performance. Nevertheless, a more detailed analysis revealed differences between groups. Possible restrictions of the original text on children's performance were also observed. The implications and the scope of the SCI and units used for the analysis are furthered discussed.

In order to include more writing assignments in large classrooms, some instructors have been utilizing peer review. However, many instructors are hesitant to use peer review because they are uncertain of whether students are capable of providing reliable and valid ratings and comments. Previous research has shown that students are in fact capable of rating their peers papers reliably and with the same accuracy as instructors. On the other hand, relatively little research has focused on the quality of students' comments. This study is a first in-depth analysis of students' comments in comparison with a writing instructor's and a content instructor's comments. Over 1400 comment segments, which were provided by undergraduates, a writing instructor, and a content instructor, were coded for the presence of 29 different feedback features. Overall, our results support the use of peer review: students' comments seem to be fairly similar to instructors' comments. Based on the main differences between students and the two types of instructors, we draw implications for training students and instructors on providing feedback. Specifically, students should be trained to focus on content issues, while content instructors should be encouraged to provide more solutions and explanations.

Writing skills typically develop over a course of more than two decades as a child matures and learns the craft of composition through late adolescence and into early adulthood. The novice writer progresses from a stage of knowledge-telling to a stage of knowledge-transforming characteristic of adult writers. Professional writers advance further to an expert stage of knowledge-crafting in which representations of the author's planned content, the text itself, and the prospective reader's interpretation of the text are routinely manipulated in working memory.

This paper gives an analytic description of why and how an instructional writing program on the improvement of cross-genre writing skills in German secondary grade level has been designed and implemented. From a diagnostic research phase, and according to theoretical expectations, coherence management and perspective taking proved to be ability components that substantially contribute to text quality across different genres. To train these two abilities in a didactical setting, two 11-unit writing courses were analogously constructed and administered in 5th and 9th grades. There were 12 intervention classes and 12 control classes in each grade, forming 48 classes with 1.145 participants. The decisions that lead to the design of the intervention study and the corresponding didactical settings are explained and justified in detail, and the developed self-learning materials are described in terms of their assumed learning potentials and the underlying didactical principles. Based on the obtained empirical experiences, the intervention is critically evaluated with respect to good intervention research and its proper description.