This study was designed to determine (a) whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction and (b) the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the mode of persuasion. Students in two sixth-grade classes in each of two schools (n= 110) were stratified by sex and ability and randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: 1. instruction in a model for persuasion plus writing practice; 2. instruction in a model for persuasion plus reading practice; 3. reading novels and writing book reports plus a single lesson in the persuasion model; 4. reading novels and writing book reports (control group). Instruction was given for ten 45-minute lessons over five weeks. Pretests and posttests each consisted of writing a recall protocol of a persuasive text and writing two persuasive compositions. On the posttest, both the writing and the reading groups (groups 1 and 2) scored significantly higher than the control group on writing quality, on the organization of compositions, on the number of conclusions and text markers used, and on the degree of elaboration of reasons. There were no differences between the control group and other groups on reading recall scores.

This article examines the kinds of instruction that foster student engagement with literature and the effects of such instruction on achievement. First, two general kinds of student engagement are distinguished: “procedural,” which concerns classroom rules and regulations, and “substantive,” which involves sustained commitment to the content and issues of academic study. The article then describes the manifestations of these two forms of engagement, explains how they relate differently to student outcomes, and offers some empirical propositions using data on literature instruction from 58 eighth-grade English classes. The results provide support for three hypotheses: (a) Disengagement adversely affects achievement; (b) Procedural engagement has an attenuated relationship to achievement because its observable indicators conflate procedural and substantive engagement; and (c) Substantive engagement has a strong, positive effect on achievement. Features of substantively engaging instruction include authentic questions, or questions which have no prespecified answers; uptake, or the incorporation of previous answers into subsequent questions; and high-level teacher evaluation, or teacher certification and incorporation of student responses into subsequent discussion. Each of these is noteworthy because they all involve reciprocal interaction and negotiation between students and teachers, which is said to be the hallmark of substantive engagement.

This paper compares the effects of pencil-and-paper and computer-assisted versions of a process/model approach in a college writing program with the effects of a more traditional approach. Three empirical measures are used in the study: a frequency count of linguistic markers of argumentation and comparison/contrast based on previous work by Odell (1977), a measure of the number of arguments, and a measure of their logical integrity. All significant differences favored students in the experimental sections, who used more markers, made more arguments and made stronger arguments. Students in the computer-assisted (CAI) version of the experimental approach used still more markers than students in the pencil-and-paper version, suggesting that the CAI materials may enhance the efficiency of student learning of some formal aspects of reasoning in writing. These results suggest that it may be possible to attain a postprocess paradigm for teaching writing and thinking that transcends the dialectic that places process and product in opposition to each other.

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To explore how writers with extensive experience and learning in an academic discipline used both topical and rhetorical knowledge to construct synthesis essays, 40 graduate students equally representing the two disciplines of psychology and business wrote synthesis essays on either supply-side economics or rehearsal in memory. Half of the writers completed think-aloud protocols, and their composing processes were analyzed for different qualities and frequencies of elaborations and rhetorical awareness and for task representation. Their written products (40 essays) were analyzed for the importance and origin of information and for the quality of key rhetorical moves. Analyses of variance revealed that high-knowledge writers evidenced more local and evaluative elaborations as well as an awareness of rhetorical contexts. They also included more new information in their essays in the top levels of essay organizations. Low-knowledge writers elaborated less but did rely on structural and content-based awareness to compose, factors which also were influenced by specific topics and disciplines, and they included comparable amounts of borrowedimplicit information in their essays. Intercorrelations of process and product features revealed that evaluative elaborations and awareness of rhetorical context corresponded with the presence of new information in essays for all 40 writers, suggesting that prior knowledge of an academic topic may take the form of a complex, situational strategy for composing. The findings confirm the interrelatedness of comprehension and composing processes and illustrate how writers, with varying levels of topic familiarity, use both their knowledge of disciplinary topics and their experience as readers and writers to compose synthesis essays.

The intent of this study was to examine the predictive relations among dimensions of symbolic play (i.e., object and ideational transformations), linguistic verbs, and measures of early literacy (i.e., Concepts of Print, Emergent Reading and Writing). A sample of 12 preschool children (3-1/2-years-of-age) was observed for two years during free play and in a variety of literacy events. Results indicated that use of linguistic verbs predicted Concepts of Print scores. Further, symbolic play and linguistic verbs predicted emergent writing and reading, respectively. Results are discussed in the terms of the separate ontogenies of writing and reading

This study investigatest he abilityo f 48 children at two grades (3, 5) and reading ability levels (good, poor) to write functionally appropriate expository texts. Their texts (96 in all) were examined for appropriateness and complexity of organization; cohesion, including cohesive harmony; and voice. They were also ranked holistically for quality of writing by adult readers. The data were submitted to descriptive and parametric statistics that examined grade and reading level effects and relationships. Results suggest that nearly all these children understood the function and audience for exposition. Reading level was found to be significantly more related than grade level to sophisticated use of cohesion, organization, and a preference for lexical rather than coreferential cohesion devices. Adult rating of writing quality correlated significantly with those texts using more cohesive harmony and complex organization

This article reviews the recent complex and somewhatc onfusing evidence on writing-to-learn and discusses why this lack of clarity exists. It then draws on the field of cognitive psychology to offer a way to reconceptualize how researchers might approach the study of the impact of writing on learning. This reconceptualization involves a modification in both how researchers select writing tasks and conditions in writing-to-learni nvestigationsa nd how they assess the possible knowledge changes due to writing. In the selection of writing tasks and conditions, it is suggested that researchers draw on theories of knowledge change to guide their selections. Four basic theoretical mechanisms potentially related to knowledge change due to writing are discussed. In the measurement of knowledge change, it is argued that writing may more likely influence structural than reproductive aspects of knowledge. Five methods for assessing structural changes in knowledge due to writing are considered.

This study investigated the relationships between five junior high school teachers’ personal approaches to literature and their teaching of literature. Each teacher was interviewed eight times and observed while teaching literature eight times. Data comprised of field notes, transcriptions of audiotapes, and a variety of written artifacts were used to prepare individual case studies. The case studies revealed that the teachers’ personal approaches to literature included an emphasis on vicarious involvement. The case studies further revealed that the teachers’ use of the knowledge present in their personal approaches to literature is limited by a “school” approach to literature which consists of a focus on comprehension and the learning of literary terms and concepts and which is supported by state-mandated achievement tests. The conclusions suggest that pedagogically useful knowledge exists in these five teachers’ personal approaches to literature but that institutional constraints and the teachers’ lack of a theoretical framework for literary studies prevent it from being utilized.

This study explores audience awareness of writers as they compose for contrasting audiences. Experienced writers—all of them writing instructors at large public universities―composed aloud for two audiences which differed along the dimension of authority: incoming freshmen and a faculty committee. Protocols were analyzed for patterns of writing activities among all writers and for individual writers. Among all writers, two clear patterns emerged. Writers analyzed the faculty audience less frequently than the freshman audience, but they evaluated their text and writing goals more frequently when addressing the faculty. For individual writers, strong “interpretive frameworks” emerged, unique ways in which writersi nterpreted audiences and writing tasks, foregrounding quite different elements of the rhetorical situation. At times, interpretive frameworks overrode differences between the two audiences presented in the writing tasks; that is, writers attributed the same characteristics to both audiences despite the difference in these audiences’ social status within the university structure.

Arguing that current research has fragmented educators’ vision of both written language and development, this article aims to contribute to a more integrative vision, one that preserves the integrity of written language as a symbol system. Based on a critical consideration of literature both on written language growth and on the role of symbols in human experience, the article suggests five principles that would seem to characterize written language development: the establishment of equivalences, exploration and orchestration of the system, reliance on shifting relationships of form and function, differentiation and integration of symbolic functions, and participation in social dialogue. These principles highlight the dialectical relationship between function and form, between child construction and adult guidance. The articulated vision of development differs in fundamental ways from most current viewpoints, as it does not consider written language as simply an extension of the child’s oral language but as the evolution of a distinct symbolic option with links to the child’s entire symbolic repertoire. The implications of this viewpoint for both sociopolitical and pedagogical issues of literacy construction in early schooling are discussed.

This study investigates the impact of task definition on students’ revising strategies. Our primary aim was to determine if freshman students could revise globally if instructed to do so and if those global revisions would result in improved texts. We asked two groups of freshmen to revise a text provided by the experimenters; one group was given eight minutes of instruction on how to revise globally, and the other was simply asked to make the text better. The texts written by students who received the instruction were judged both to be of significantly better quality and to have included significantly more global revision. Further, the improvement appears to affect the treated population generally rather than just a small part of that population.

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The study examined the relationship between cohesion and coherence in children's writing and whether this relationship varied with story content, quality of writing, and grade level. Findings from this study, which used a unidimensional, linguistic, text-based measure of coherence (Hasan's [1984] cohesive harmony index), were compared to the results of an earlier study, which used a multidimensional, holistic rating of coherence. Two stories written by each of 27 third graders and 22 sixth graders were scored for 11 cohesion variables, coherence, and quality. Main conclusions of the present study were: (a) there was evidence of a relationship between cohesion and coherence; (b) the relationship varied according to text content; (c) the relationship did not vary according to quality of writing; and (d) the relationship did not vary according to the students' grade level. Additionally, in the first study, developmental effects were found for cohesion, coherence, and quality. When compared to findings from the earlier study, both similarities and disparities were noted.

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