Drawing on surveys and interviews with college writing instructors and students at a public university in the United States, this mixed methods study revealed that in many cases instructors adopted translingual orientations, whereas students were committed to norms in their views of writing across differences. Students’ orientations to language as stable and discrete revealed the perseverance of monolingualism and standard language ideologies in college writing classrooms. The results established that writing programs should go beyond merely accepting linguistic diversity and incorporate language rights into the curriculum to demonstrate openness to pedagogies of difference. Writing instructors should embrace translingual pedagogies and practices not just to challenge students’ mainstream ideological positions but also to facilitate inclusive learning environments that celebrate linguistic diversity.

In this study, I draw upon ethnographic methods to explore three multilingual international students’ first-semester linguistic functioning in their college writing classrooms and beyond. Through the lens of superdiversity (), I investigate participants’ experiences beyond their shared membership as Chinese international students and unpack within-group variabilities in relation to their language and literacy backgrounds. The findings indicate that multilingual international students’ varying high school experiences are likely to position them at different acculturative stages for overseas studies; it is crucial to understand their superdiversity beyond the traditional paradigms of supporting “ELLs.” The findings illustrate that superdiversity plays an important role in complicating our understandings of multilingualism and multilingual student support in American higher education. I argue that recognizing and understanding superdiversity is important for both multilingual international students and their teachers. All college educators across the disciplines must go beyond simply acknowledging the existence of superdiversity. Instead, they must explicitly teach it to combat the zero point of English (). This article outlines hands-on pedagogical activities to facilitate new arrivers’ smooth linguistic transition in college and achieve linguistic empowerment by debunking monolinguistic assumptions.

Since the publication of Wendy Bishop’s Released into Language (1990), the disciplinary boundaries of composition and creative writing have been in question. More recently, as Douglas Hesse’s “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies” (2010) suggests, creative writing has been assumed to exist as a subdiscipline of composition despite efforts during the past decade to develop a new discipline, Creative Writing Studies. The research reported on and analyzed here argues for creative writing’s disciplinary status by using Toulmin’s (1972) definition of disciplinarity as a basis for claiming writers’ aesthetic documents as data and reporting those data in an aesthetic form. In our study, 57 students in first-year composition were asked to write a creative piece concerning how they came to the present place in their lives. Students produced 57 artifacts, including 55 poems, one script, and one visual narrative. These data were subsequently represented in fiction—that is, we used a novel to present our findings in an effort to assert the differences between the ways findings might be rendered in composition as opposed to creative writing. This paper examines what each subject area views as evidence and how that evidence might be most profitably analyzed and discussed in an aesthetic document. We suggest that the process of writing the novel is a method, a mode of analysis, with the novel itself as the articulation of the researchers’ analysis of the original data. Using this method, we studied creative writing aesthetically as creative writing and offer a justification for doing so.

Students in first-year composition (FYC) courses are expected to control the mechanics, vocabulary, style, and grammatical accuracy of their writing. Yet language development support, particularly that of grammar instruction in US FYC courses, has largely disappeared in recent decades, due in part to suppositions that students implicitly know grammar. This assumption is problematic given the increasing number of multilingual writers enrolling in US schools with observed needs for explicit language instruction. The present study explores whether first- and second-language writers of English perceived a need for language instruction and whether they wanted or expected it. Students from 12 sections of FYC were asked in surveys and interviews about their prior language learning experiences and current self-perceived language needs and then were asked to complete one of two self-directed language development projects (LDPs): an online, self-selected grammar and usage study project or journal entries focusing on vocabulary/style in texts they had read. Student work was collected, analyzed, and supplemented with students’ end-of-term observations and preferences about self-directed LDPs. Our findings reveal that students overwhelmingly wanted and expected language instruction and were largely positive about both types of LDPs, but they felt that language instruction should be offered in multiple delivery methods beyond just self-study. With these findings in mind, we offer pedagogical suggestions for addressing the perceived and real needs for language development of linguistically diverse FYC students.

English educators are contending with the proliferation of mobile devices in students’ lives, and with the imminent integration of mobile devices into classrooms. Concurrently, literacy researchers using social semiotic theories of multimodality to investigate adolescents’ digital composing have focused on screens, paying scant attention to the bodies moving with them. Responding to recent critiques of multimodality that have centered on a lack of attention to embodiment and affect, this article leverages the concept of real virtualities to avoid artificially bifurcating screen and body, and to contribute a beginning theorization of the embodied experience of composing with mobile devices, which includes feeling-histories, affective atmospheres, and the felt experience of time. The data analyzed in this article come from a 12-week enrichment course in which five adolescents composed digital narratives with iPods. The overarching analysis describes all literacy practices with mobile devices in the course, and the microanalysis, using multimodal interaction analysis, compares two students with contrasting histories of mobile device use. Findings show these students’ literacies as more body-centered than techno-centered, and evince tensions between institutionalized learning environments and adolescents’ affective, cultural histories of being mobile while engaged in literacy. Further, findings describe how the feeling of tools and semiotic material influenced the trajectories of students’ bodies and narratives. Theories of digital composition should continue expanding to account for connections between mobility and affect, and the pedagogical importance of motility. The changing nature of literacy in the milieu of mobile computing compels researchers to consider the role of the moving, feeling body in literacy with more scrutiny.

The purpose of the present study is to examine concurrent and predictive evidence used in the validation of ACCUPLACER, a purchased test used to place first-year students into writing courses at an urban, public research university devoted to science and technology education. Concurrent evidence was determined by correlations between ACCUPLACER scores and scores on two other tests designed to measure writing ability: the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test and the SAT Writing Section. Predictive evidence was determined by coefficients of determination between ACCUPLACER scores and end-of-semester performance measures. A longitudinal study was also conducted to investigate the grade history of students placed into first-year writing by established and new methods. When analyzed in terms of gender and ethnicity impact, ACCUPLACER failed to achieve statistically significant prediction rates for student performance. The study reveals some limits of placement testing and the problems related to it.

In this article, I consider how subjectivities are composed and assessed within the boundaries of a career-focused portfolio program. First, by examining how portfolio composition is taught in senior English courses, I identify the qualities of the subject position students are called to occupy. Next, I present discourse analyses of portfolio materials composed by two students of different class backgrounds. More specifically, I explore how these students draw upon and adapt different resources to promote themselves as different kinds of subjects-in-worlds. As these disparate performances are assessed according to their coherence with certain class values, I argue, the program rates certain lives more favorably than others.

This teacher-researcher study explored the manner in which students created video compositions in a secondary English language arts media studies program. The study found that video composition is a complex, recursive process that allows for sequential multimodal representation of thoughts and ideas. Four areas are addressed: video allows for the expansion of compositional choices, demonstrates the verisimilitude of students’ initial concept to videotaped image, highlights the visuality in students’ re-presentations of ideas, and provides research methodological considerations.

This study was conducted to obtain empirical data to inform policy decisions about exempting incoming students from a first-year composition (FYC) course on the basis of Advanced Placement (AP) English exam scores.

The inquiry posed two basic research questions: a) Could changes in student writing be tied to conferencing, and b) Could the status of the student (weaker or stronger student, native or non-native speaker) or the type of writing course (general freshman composition or specialized genre-specific course) be tied to any systematic differences in the conferencing process or its outcome? This study tracked the discourses generated by 4 teachers around a set of their teacher-student writing conferences. They collected copies of first drafts, tapes of their conferences, and copies of subsequent drafts from one stronger and one weaker student, for a total of 8 students and 32 texts. All students revised their papers in ways indicating that the conference had had an effect on their revision process. The findings indicate that what is ostensibly the “same” treatment does not generate the same response from all students. They also indicate that the divergent backgrounds students bring to instructional events have a structuring effect that cannot be dismissed solely as teacher bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Current scholarship indicates that most writing students read and make use of teachers’ written comments on their drafts and find some types of comments more helpful than others. But the research is unclear about which comments students find most useful and why. This article presents the results of a survey of 142 first- year college writing students’ perceptions about teacher comments on a writing sample. A 40-item questionnaire was used to investigate students’ reactions to three variables of teacher response: focus, specificity, and mode. The survey found that these college students seemed equally interested in getting responses on global matters of content, purpose, and organization as on local matters of sentence structure, wording, and correctness, but were wary of negative comments about ideas they had already expressed in their text. It also found that these students favored detailed commentary with specific and elaborated comments, but they did not like comments that sought to control their writing or that failed to provide helpful criticism for improving the writing. They most preferred comments that provided employed open questions, or included explanations that guided revision.

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Persuasive/argumentativew riting is an importanta nd difficult mode of discourse for student writers. It is particularly problematic for non-native speakers, who often bring both linguistic and rhetorical deficits to the task of persuasion in English. This study analyzed 60 persuasive texts by university freshman composition students, half of whom were native speakers and half of whom were non-native speakers of English for 33 quantitative, topical structure, and rhetorical variables. The results showed clear differences between the essays of native and non-native speakers. These results and their implications for second language composition instruction are discussed.

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.

Research and theory in composition is divided regarding the role of audience awareness more generally, social cognition in writing. One position holds that social cognition is central to all composing processes, though the nature of social cognitive activity differs depending on such factors as the function of discourse (e.g., expository or persuasive) and the determinateness of the audience (e.g., a known individual or a generalized other). Another position, in contrast, regards social cognition as coming into play only in manifestly persuasive writing; for most school and literary uses of writing, writers are guided more by genre conventions than by anticipating audience responses. Thirtyfive college freshmen of heterogenous writing abilities wrote a typical academic essay and also a persuasive appeal directed toward a specific readership. They also completed a battery of four social cognitive assessments. Results indicated that the social cognitive assessments predicted 26 percent of the variance in judged quality of the persuasive writings. The most powerful single predictor was the degree to which participants were able to recognize and reconcile divergent traits in others. Quality ratings of the expository essays were more adequately predicted by composition length, though multiple regression indicated an additional contribution attributable to social cognitive ability. Results tend to confirm the position that social cognition is most important in persuasive writing, but do not support a strong disclaimer of the role of audience awareness in nonsuasive discourse. The notion of audience awareness commands a central position in composition theory, research, and instruction. (See recent reviews by Ede, 1984; Kroll, 1984; Rubin, 1984b). Proficient writers attend to the broad rhetorical dimensions including audience of their writing task, while nonproficient writers show a compulsive attention to matters of surface correctness (Flower & Hayes, 1980; Perl, 1979. While current research shows some of the ways in which good writers attend to matters of audience through specific discourse features (Rafoth, 1985; Rubin & Pliche, 1979), there is conThis research was supported by a grant from the University of Cieorgia Research Foundation to the first author. The authors express appreciation to John O'Looney for assistance in data analysis. Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 20, No. 1, February 1986

This study investigated the relationships among features of textual cohesion, as identified by Halliday and Hasan (1976), and primarytrait assessments of writing quality and coherence, with manuscript length held statistically constant. A random sample of 493 persuasive papers written by 17-year-olds during the 1978-79 National Assessment of Educational Progress writing evaluation were analyzed. The results of the analyses indicate that general coherence is an important element of writing quality and that the lexical cohesive features of synonym, hyponym, and collocation are important elements of writing quality and general coherence in manuscripts of the same length. When Alexander Bain (1867) first categorized prose discourse into four discourse modes, he stipulated that quality in each mode consisted of the elements of unity, mass (later known as emphasis), and coherence. Conners (1981) notes that Bain's ideas greatly influenced composition instruction in this country until 1950 but have waned since then, giving way to conceptualizations of written discourse that place increased emphasis on the contexts for writing (e.g., Kinneavy, 1971) and the processes that writers use to produce writing within varying contexts (e.g., Flower & Hayes, 1980). Clearly, these emphases now permeate all levels of practice and theory. Yet Bain's notion of coherence still holds sway, as Bamberg (1983) points out: Coherence is generally accepted as a 'sine qua non' in written discourse. Oddly, little research has been conducted to determine the relationship between writing quality and coherence, an important relationship because coherence is often used to identify the strengths and weaknesses in student writing. For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 1980a) hypothesized that the apparent drop in the writing abilities of 13and 17-year-olds between the first national writing assessment (196970) and the second (1974-75) was due in part to a drop in the number of coherent paragraphs. However, at that time NAEP had no way of empirically determining whether this assertion was accurate. In an effort to determine if coherence in student writing was indeed declining, NAEP (1980a) constructed a primary-trait coherence measure (referred to as a cohesion measure by NAEP) for use in the third national writing assessment (1978-79). Scores on this measure were shown to have the same degree of reliability as scores on primary-trait measures of writing quality. What differed was the focus of the assessment. The primary-trait Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 19, No. 3, October 1985

In Fall Semester, 1981, randomly selected students taking freshman composition at Colorado State University wrote essays using word-processing equipment and a computer programmed with DICTION, SUGGEST, STYLE, and SPELL, programs developed by Bell Laboratories. Studies at Bell Laboratories have shown that technical writers using these programs not only edit more thoroughly but also learn to edit on their own. This study tests for similar improvement in college writing and editing skills and also measures effects of computer assistance on attitudes toward writing. Our tests suggest that textual analysis with computers intrigues college writers and speeds learning of editing skills by offering immediate, reliable, and consistent attention to surface features of their prose. Most freshmen writers have had little practice editing their own written work so little that wordy expressions, faulty diction, and spelling errors increasingly mar even their most careful composition. Bedeviled by these and other problems of young writers, we began exploring ways of using word-processing technology and computers to help students analyze and edit their own writing before handing it in for marking. While we were preparing a computerized diction list, reports reached us about Bell Laboratories' extraordinary editing software Writer's Workbench (Macdonald, 1980; Cherry, 1981, 1982; Cherry & Vesterman, 1981; Frase, et al., 1981; Macdonald, et al., 1982). Discovering our parallel interests, Colorado State University and Bell Laboratories began discussions leading to a research exchange permitting CSU to test and adapt Writer's Workbench for teaching composition. During these negotiations, CSU leased the three Workbench programs then available. In Fall Semester, 1981, randomly selected students taking freshman composition wrote essays using word-processing equipment and a computer programmed with DICTION, SUGGEST, and STYLE. Also included in the test was SPELL, Bell Laboratories' spelling checker distributed with the computer we used for the experiment. Studies at Bell Laboratories (Gingrich, et al., 1981) have shown that technical writers using Writer's Workbench not only edit more thoroughly but also learn to edit on their own. What might the effect be on college writers? Few would doubt the value of students correcting their own spellResearch in the Teaching of English, Vol. 17, No. 3, October 1983

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The decision to select one academic major over others is important for those enrolled in programs of higher education. Each of the approximately eleven million full-time college students currently involved in degree programs have made or will make such decisions. Future students, presently of high school age or even younger, will face the same issue at a later date. While such choices are made in some systematic fashion by students, the various psychological components involved are not well specified. Research which has explored academic choice-making typically falls back on schemes devised by scholars interested in occupational or vocational decision-making (Crites, 1969; Holland, 1966). Those models generally suggest the individual will select an occupation which he or she perceives can maximize available rewards and minimize associated negative consequences. Many suggest as well that optimal satisfaction with an occupation derives from a close psychological fit between individual characteristics and the inherent requirements of the job. Working within such frameworks scholars have found a number of personality variables predictive of major choice in the academic setting (Goldschmid, 1967; Morrow, 1971). Individual differences such as cognitive style (Osipow, 1969), flexibility (Sherrick, Davenport, & Colina, 1971), impulsiveness (Kipnis, Lane, & Berger, 1967), and achievement motivation (Isaacson, 1964; Malone, 1969; Wish & Hasazi, 1973) have been successfully utilized as discriminators of students' choice-making. An inherent requirement of any college major is a certain amount of writing. Beyond basic, across-the-board requirements, academic majors obviously vary in the amount demanded. Journalism or English majors might expect to write more in their collegiate career than Physics or Mathematics majors. And beyond classroom requirements, the particular academic area chosen foreshadows future vocational opportunities themselves differing in writing demands (Daly & Shamo, 1976). Given that academic majors differ in the amount of writing required, we might expect individual differences directly related to writing to play an important role in making decisions about majors. More specifically, an individual's level of writing apprehension should predict his or her evaluation and choice of majors given some specified or expected level of required writing.

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