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The study was conducted in a classroom that used a process approach to literacy. Ten case studies examined the ability of 6th grade Hispanic bilingual students to construct meaning in dialogue journals and literature logs in first and second language. Journals and literature logs were coded and analyzed for language code (L1/L2), topic, codeswitching, sensitivity to audience, writer’s voice, spelling, and grammatical structures. Findings indicate that students were more effective in constructing meaning in dialogue journals than in literature logs. Success in the journals revealed positive self-images while failure with literature logs evoked poor self-concepts. Findings also suggest that implementation of process approaches can pose its own set of instructional problems that need to be addressed, especially when effectiveness is judged in terms of the particular students involved. For example, although the students in this study were able to write in English before having complete control of the language, their development of complex ideas and the construction of meaning suffered considerably. The length and quality of the writing also degenerated when the topic was imposed, when students found no relevance in the literacy activity, and when they were not assisted in contextualizing writing tasks in their own terms. Overall, mere exposure to standard writing conventions did not improve the students’ use of them. The practice of implementing popular instructional programs without incorporating appropriate social, cultural, and linguistic adaptations appears to be ineffective with L2 learners.

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.

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.

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In this study, the effects of writing ability and mode of discourse of cognitive capacity engagement were investigated. Sixty-three college freshmen of varying writing abilities (basic, average, and honors) were randomly assigned to experimental treatments (descriptive writing, narrative writing, and persuasive writing). Using the secondary task method, it was found that writing ability differentially affects cognitive capacity engagement across modes. For example, honors writers were least engaged when writing descriptive essays but were most engaged when writing persuasive essays whereas average writers were most engaged when writing descriptive essays but were least engaged when writing narrative essays. Analytic quality scores and engagement were related and results were interpreted in the context of schema theory to estimate the learning potential of a given mode of discourse. Also, engagement and syntactic complexity treasures were related. It was found that as words per clause increased, engagement also increased; whereas, as clauses per T-unit increased, engagement decreased.

The aim of this study was to describe the development of audience-adapted writing skills between the end of elementary school and the beginning of college. Students in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11, and college freshmen, were given the task of rewriting a linguistically complex story for a young reader. Analyses of rewritten stories showed significant, agerelated decreases in mean lexical and syntactic complexity, as well as significant increases in mean reading ease. Further analyses of the alteration of difficult lexical items and rewriting of the moral of the story suggested a shift from extensive use of “word-oriented” strategies in the lower grades to increasing use of a “meaning-oriented” approach in the higher grades.

This study examined cultural and instructional influences on the comprehension of figurative language by elementary school children in Harlem, New York. Specifically, it examined children’s exposure to and participation in the creative, verbal street game called “sounding” or “playing the dozens,” and it studied the effects of a program of creative writing instruction provided by visiting writers. The results indicate that the special instruction tended to improve the figurative language comprehension of the children. Also, those children who frequently engaged in sounding comprehended figurative language better than those who did not. This latter effect could not be accounted for by differences in general language ability. The results are taken as support for a “language experience” view of the development of figurative language comprehension in preference to any strong form of a “cognitive constraints” view.

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During 1919-80, a team of eight teachers and eight researchers at the Center for Research in Writing, working collaboratively, derived a grounded description of the unique and characteristic qualities of writing instruction in the classrooms of the eight teachers. This description was developed through the procedure of progressive coding, which is a method for the continuous analysis of a phenomenon. Progressive coding consists of systematically and repetitively comparing the description of a behavior with the actual behavior and then refining the description to make it conform to the behavior as perceived by the participants. The description of writing instruction in these classes, coupled with an analysis of the institutional context in which the instruction took place, has called into question some common assumptions about writing instruction and the present institutional ways of supporting it. During 1979-80, a team of teachers and researchers at the Center for Research in Writing derived a grounded description of the unique and characteristic qualities of writing instruction in eight elementary school classrooms.1 This description features the teachers' perceptions of the instruction in which they engaged. Framed in an institutional context, it calls into question some of the common assumptions about writing instruction and the present conventional ways of supporting it. Most of the findings of this study resulted from two characteristics of its inquiry, one of which made the other possible. The inquiry was collaborative: the teachers were participants - not subjects, but colleagues of the researchers on the team. And the inquiry was progressive: we engaged in ongoing data analysis, coding information as we gathered it and evaluating our description of behavior by stages. This procedure for evolving a grounded description has particular consequence for writing instruction, since it provides a controlled means of generalizing information beyond the limits of this study; it can be used in framing questions raised by the findings it has already generated and in forming hypotheses about writing instruction for further testing.

Teachers who are trained in a fiveweek intensive writing project can improve students' composition skills better than teachers who are not trained to teach writing. That is the finding of an evaluation of the Gateway Writing Project, an inservice program involving eight suburban school districts in St. Louis County, Missouri, and funded by ESEA IV-G The program focuses on training secondary English, language arts, and elementary teachers, identified by their districts, in a five-week summer institute to improve students' composition skills. These trained teachers return to their school districts to teach other teachers the following school year. An evaluation of the project's impact on junior high and middle school students measured students' growth in writing and changes in teacher attitudes. The evaluation revealed the program had a significant impact on changing teachers' attitudes toward writing and on the writing performance of junior high and middle school students. By the completion of the five-week institute, participants demonstrated increased knowledge about research in the teaching of writing, about various approaches to the teaching of writing, and about the evaluation of writing. Each participant read selections by Moffett, Macrorie, Elbow, Britton, Cooper, O'Hare, Diederich, and Shaughnessy from a bibliography prepared for the institute. All participants kept a reading journal of their reactions to these authors and their ideas. Each participant also wrote several papers, then selected one paper for publication. All participants belonged to an editing group which met at least twice a week to read rough drafts of writing assignments. Two methods of evaluation of writing were taught: an holistic scoring approach and an error analysis technique. Approximately one-third of the summer institute was used for the participants to take a turn in presenting an effective teaching of writing approach which was supported either by research or review of the literature and developed through an appropriate writing assignment with printed materials suitable for the junior high/middle school students.

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The teaching of basic composition courses is oriented toward not only improving skills but also toward favorably affecting the student's orientation about writing; skills alone are insufficient unless one also has a predisposition toward using those skills. The recently emerging concept of writing (Daly & Miller, 1975a) appears to have a major relationship to both skill achievement and attitude toward writing. Writing apprehension is defined as a specific case of general communication apprehension one's anxiety or fear about communicating in real or imagined communication situations (Daly & Miller, 1975a). Such apprehension is said to outweigh individual projections of possible gains from the communication situation (Phillips, 1968). These apprehensions toward communicating appear to lead to a number of deleterious effects in various environments. For example, in oral communication situations, individuals who are highly apprehensive communicate less (Wells & Lashbrook, 1970), disclose less (Hamilton, 1972), and achieve less socially (McCroskey & Sheahan, 1977), academically (McCroskey & Daly, 1976; McCroskey & Andersen, 1976; Smythe & Powers, 1978), and occupationally (Daly & McCroskey, 1975), than do individuals who are low in apprehension. Furthermore, individuals who are highly apprehensive in written communication use fewer words, statements, ly words, commas, and delimiting punctuation (Daly, 1977, in press), and less intense language (Daly & Miller, 1975c), and their is rated lower in quality (Daly, 1978; Book, 1976). Book (1976) suggests further major differences in structure, language use, and amounts of information conveyed between high and low apprehensives. Composition teachers develop significantly less positive expectancies of high apprehensive students than of low apprehensive students. Occupations with low requirements are more desirable to high apprehensives than those with high requirements (Daly & Shamo, 1976). In addition, high apprehensives have lower success expectations of themselves in classes than low apprehensives, perceive themselves to have been less successful in previous oriented classes, and are less likely to take advanced courses demanding writing. (Daly & Miller, 1975b). Given such an abundance of clearly defined negative effects for the high apprehensive students, attention must be drawn toward possible allevia-

Of the three segments of the English curriculum, language, literature, and composition, the stepchild seems to be composition. Few English teachers are likely to prefer teaching composition to literature, and composition seems to be most often neglected (Squire and Applebee, 1968) . Of the thirty-six English teachers who participated in the study reported here, only four preferred to teach composition. Since both the teaching and the evaluation of writing are so often frustrating experiences and the results of hours and even years of instruction so often unrewarding when the end product is considered; it is not difficult to sympathize with English teachers' preference for teaching literature instead of composition. At the same time, English teachers have complained of the general lack of research in the area of composition, such insufficiency making their task even more difficult and frustrating because of their need for specific evidence that might corroborate their practices, provide new insights, or give them direction for new or different approaches to the teaching and evaluation of writing. Attempts to measure the effectiveness of instruction in composition or the quality of the writing produced thereby are more often discouraging than rewarding because of the subjective nature of the task, the many variables involved,

Writing teachers are aware that they need much more information about what actually takes place with students' writing in colleges and universities, both to understand the complaints voiced about writing and to conceive what to do about them. Inquiry has focussed on writing courses themselves, yet it also seems important to know about students' larger school environment. After all, though other faculty cannot become writing teachers, perhaps their influence is as great as that which writing courses exert. What are the influences on, and performance of, writing in other disciplines?

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