This article examines how students use and perceive digital writing tools, including chat platforms and generative AI, within academic writing environments. It describes a qualitative study of 15 undergraduate students in guided focus group discussions. In a grounded theory analysis of focus group transcripts, the researchers explored undergraduates’ sense of copresence—their perception of support through both human interaction with both peers and instructors and AI technologies during their writing processes. Findings reveal that students’ trust in both peer feedback and AI assistance plays a crucial role in their writing, shaping their decisions about which tools to use and how they integrate human and AI feedback in the development and revisions of their writing. The study sheds light on students’ nuanced understanding of the affordances and limitations of multimodal chat platforms and generative AI technologies. We conclude by highlighting the need for pedagogical practices that support students’ choice of tools when collaborating in digital spaces. We suggest future research directions that will enable us to better understand how copresence and trust influence students’ writing in these contexts.

This article makes a case for the importance of integrating public writing pedagogy in and beyond second language (L2) writing classrooms. Public writing is defined as a situated, distributed act of engaging public audiences through writing, with various semiotic resources and modalities, to make meaning, connect, and bring about social change. L2 writers practice public writing deliberately or unwittingly, for various personal or political purposes, and within various discursive contexts. However, such practices are underresearched, undertheorized, and underdiscussed in L2 writing classrooms, which could be partially ascribed to the disciplinary disposition of the field L2 writing and to the ethical concerns regarding cultural assimilation. The article begins by contextualizing the definitions of public writing in relation to L2 writing. It then explains why it is important to discuss public writing in an L2 writing classroom and consider public writing a legitimate L2 writing issue while acknowledging the pedagogical resistance. In particular, the article highlights the decolonial potential of practicing public writing in an L2. In the final section, the article offers pedagogical guidelines and a graphic framework concerning the “where” and “how” of teaching public writing in an L2.

This study explores educator attitudes, beliefs, and experiences regarding writing and writing instruction before and after participating in a week-long Summer Institute (SI) facilitated by leaders at one National Writing Project (NWP) site. Throughout the SI, the 12 educators (i.e., instructional coaches and classroom teachers) participated in personal, creative, and professional writing designed to support them as writers and writing instructors. Study participants completed a survey before the SI and at its conclusion, which captured their perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences about writing and writing instruction, as well as the importance of writing in education. Findings demonstrated that many participants viewed themselves as writers prior to the SI with this amount increasing at the conclusion of the SI, and many reported increased writing confidence. There were inconsistencies in the ways participants defined what it means to “be a writer,” and findings suggest that writer identity is influenced by writing confidence and enjoyment, with some participants struggling to navigate the dual identities of writer and writing teacher. Study findings suggest that addressing the writer-teacher identity crisis is crucial for fostering effective writing instruction. Teachers need time, space, and opportunity to immerse themselves in their writing and practice different skills to then apply to their instruction. Buy-in from school districts to provide such opportunities and a willingness to support teacher autonomy will enable teachers to better support students as writers and engage them in meaningful writing instruction for authentic tasks and audiences.

In 1974, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) drafted a statement recognizing students’ right to their own language. However, many writing classes, including those in college, continue to teach Standard English as the only acceptable language in the classroom. In this article, I argue that a critical place-based college composition course can demonstrate to students that nonstandard dialects can coexist in the writing classroom. Drawing on my experiences teaching critical place-based composition courses, I describe the writing assignments that encourage students to reflect on how their “hometowns” have influenced their current identities as well as to critique the commonly held assumptions that marginalized communities, such as Appalachia, matter less than places with more cultural capital. I also demonstrate how the assignments in this class can encourage students to critique the assumption that Standard English is the only acceptable language in the writing classroom. A critical place-based composition course has the potential to increase students’ sense of belonging in college, inspire students to be more culturally aware of the places they find themselves in, and aid in designing a composition curriculum that is more in line with the CCCC's statement recognizing students’ right to their own language.

Multilingual writing is a challenging process that requires adjusting to academic and cultural demands. Studies of multilingual writers acknowledge the need for learners to self-regulate their cognition, affect, and actions as they write. Scholarship in educational psychology emphasizes socially regulated learning, suggesting that the regulation of learning is facilitated or hindered not only by the self but also by others. There is, therefore, a need to examine how developments in educational psychology and multilingual writing inform efforts to promote language learners’ writing skills. This article introduces a theoretical model of self- and socially regulated multilingual writing that can guide empirical research. The narrative literature review method was used to inform the design of the model. The review revealed that self- regulated writing by multilingual writers involves activating background knowledge and motivational beliefs, which then lead to decisions about strategies to employ to accomplish a writing task. The review also identified effective processes of socially regulated writing, including cognitive strategy instruction and formative assessment practices, particularly feedback. Finally, the review surfaced gaps in the literature that could be addressed, including how multilingual writers interpret writing tasks, manage their time and environment, deal with distractions, respond to feedback, seek help, and reflect on their successes and failures.

Important challenges faced by inexperienced academic writers include how to present an appropriate stance when commenting on their own research or on work by others, and how to successfully acknowledge and engage with readers’ needs, queries, and perspectives. This study investigated how well 22 new graduate writers from L1 and L2 backgrounds were able to convey stance and engagement in literature review assignments prepared for a graduate writing course. They claimed little or no prior knowledge in this skill area before taking part in 12–14 hours of instruction and practice where stance and engagement strategies were a core component before submitting reviews of approximately 1000 words. Analysis of post-instruction texts and students’ reflective comments revealed that students’ declarative knowledge had progressed, and that most were able to display an adequate or satisfactory level of proficiency in their writing. Based on these findings, I hypothesize a trajectory of stages of writers’ skill learning of stance and engagement strategies that acknowledges its complexities and the need for extensive practice to develop procedural skill. This proposed pathway makes explicit the fact that learning by novices is likely to progress incrementally, together with advances in their knowledge and self-confidence as academic writers and members of their disciplinary communities.

Teaching Writing in English as a Foreign Language: Teachers’ Cognition Formation and ReformationH. Zhao and L. J. Zhang. Springer Nature, Switzerland (2022).XXII + 178 pp., € 106.99, ISBN: 978-3-030-99991-9

Effective narrative writers create immersive reader experiences through precise linguistic choices. Teachers can support effective linguistic choice-making in young writers through the process of imaginative embodiment, a method of narrative thinking framed by cognitive stylistics concepts and their embodied effects. In this article, I assess the effects of an imaginative embodiment pedagogy on fifth grade writers’ narratives by examining how their linguistic choices contribute to immersion. As part of the study, four Grade 5 teachers attended a training session on imaginative embodiment and applied the approach throughout a nine-week narrative writing unit with 12 students via one-on-one writing conferences. To study the effects of the approach, a linguistic analysis was conducted on student writing completed before and after the writing unit. The analysis was driven by a stylistic checklist that codes grammatical features to embodied effects, as well as an interpretive analysis of these features’ overall effectiveness on immersion. Findings suggested that students’ linguistic choices changed in response to learning the process of imaginative embodiment. Specifically, choices were characterized by their embodied effects, contributing to greater textual immersion. This suggests that teaching imaginative embodiment can improve writers’ narratives by affording them specific strategies for expressing meaning.

Finding the right way to start a new piece of narrative writing often induces anxiety in writers. This paper will discuss beginnings as a problem for both practitioners and instructors, analysing different practices of how writers select a meaningful point in time at which to start a narrative. It will examine beginning as a theoretical problem and explore the importance of intersectionality when considering how writers and instructors conceptualise beginnings. It will then consider beginning as a pedagogical problem, and how much writing prompts, free and automatic writing exercises, and online writing communities, offer differing responses to this issue. Finally, the paper will discuss different ways that narrative beginnings can be conceptualized and approached.

Peer feedback has long been an essential part of a process approach to writing in university EFL classrooms. This study examines how the affordances of peer feedback are shaped by students’ language choice. We interviewed 27 Chinese university students in an English writing course about their experiences giving and receiving oral peer feedback on an initial and revised draft of an essay. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed thematically and triangulated with stimulated recall, transcripts of peer review discussions, and content analyses of learners’ incorporation of feedback across essay drafts to better understand perceptions and actions following from language choice during oral peer review of their L2 writing. Findings show that students incorporated 56 percent of oral peer feedback instances when revising, and almost all of these occurred in students’ first language, Chinese. Participants described the L1 affordances of clarity, efficiency, and pragmatics as important considerations when giving oral feedback on peer writing. Through triangulation of oral peer feedback discussions, change across essay drafts, and student interviews, language choice is shown to be a supportive practice for L2 writers in oral peer feedback. In contrast to previous research that suggests that the L1 is used primarily for solving problems and less frequently for discussion of content, our findings show that students chose to use their L1 for peer review because of the perceived support offered for improving their writing – namely, clarity, efficiency, and pragmatics.

In our information age, written communication has become increasingly important in many professions. As a result, university faculty and administrators need to develop specific curricula and pedagogies that will facilitate the process of equipping students with the required writing knowledge and skills to meet the demands of their workplace environments. In this article, we argue that Writing Across the Professions (WAP) as a curricular model meets that requirement, particularly in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) contexts, which we believe are conducive to fostering writing transfer in university students. WAP foregrounds the importance of writing in workplace contexts and aims to facilitate the transfer of students’ knowledge and practices by focusing on rhetorical genre theory and analysis, discourse community theory and analysis, providing engaged feedback on students’ writing, and inviting students to critically reflect on their previous and current writing knowledge and practices. In this article, we propose four conceptual foundations that university faculty and administrators can utilize to implement WAP programs at their institutions. The first concept is that professional (writing) knowledge and practices are contextual and require lifelong learning; WIL faculty and students thus need to be informed about what is involved in learning to write across professions. Secondly, as the transfer of professional (writing) knowledge and practices goes beyond disciplinary boundaries, both faculty and students need to build contextual awareness. Thirdly, as problem-solving is an integral part of writing in the professions, faculty and students need to engage in critical reflection. Finally, professional (writing) knowledge and practices impact identities and therefore require mentoring. In outlining these shared concepts from WIL and writing transfer research, this article offers examples of how they can inform curricular approaches and pedagogical practices in WAP.

This study presents findings and strategies found to be successful through encouraging reflective thinking about classroom practices related to access, equity, and diversity. We asked, ‘How does classroom practice change when teachers reflect on equitable instruction? Do teachers recognize biased practices in their classroom? How might a teacher’s instruction unknowingly create barriers for students, thus limiting student learning?’ Over the course of one semester, participants worked collaboratively to reflect on equitable classroom practices to affect student voices. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study was conducted through virtual discussions and online platforms. Here, we share reflections that surfaced during the online discussions.

This qualitative case study explores the experience of three first-year English language arts educators within a small community of practice designed to provide personal and professional support for beginning teachers. The participants engaged in a 6-week session where weekly meetings focused on participant experiences and English language arts pedagogy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper describes a fieldwork program and companion tool, The Teaching of Writing Framework, that college-based teacher educators and teachers from the Hudson Valley Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project, developed over a three-year period. Central to the fieldwork program is an apprenticeship that allows future teachers to assist mentor teachers in a summer enrichment program for adolescent writers. The apprenticeship, coupled with reflective writing and mediated by the framework, allows future teachers to practice, identify, and reflect on writing instruction in which writing functions as a tool for learning and humanization.

Three U.S. writing project teachers from Louisiana, Missouri, and North Dakota reflect on their experiences with the National Writing Project’s writing marathon and discuss their collaboration to design, implement, and study a virtual writing marathon during the coronavirus pandemic. Interspersed with teachers’ writing from the marathon, the piece explains the features of the design and ends with four primary conclusions: 1) Writing should be at the center of our pedagogy, 2) A writing marathon can and should be adapted for online spaces, 3) Virtual writing marathons have lasting value, and 4) The success of the Virtual Writing Marathon rests on National Writing Project infrastructure and culture.

This qualitative study explores how writing is conceptualised by teachers within the context of the primary National Curriculum and statutory writing assessment in England. The 10 participating teachers were drawn from nine primary schools and were interviewed about writing and writing assessment in year 6. Ivanic’s discourses of writing were used as the basis of a thematic analysis framework, which focussed on teachers’ perspectives and opinions. Findings showed that reference to the creative and skills discourses were most dominant within the teachers’ viewpoints; however, they also showed alignment to other discourses. Many of the teachers’ views were at odds with the National Curriculum and statutory writing assessment and this is discussed in relation to the tensions and conflict this created in pedagogy, attitudes, and assessment.

This study explores teacher perspectives and beliefs on writing instruction in the Swedish Language Introduction Program (LI) through interviews with six teachers in Swedish as a second language. The study was guided by the following research questions: How do the teachers construct the students discursively, including the students’ educational background and prior knowledge? How do the teachers frame writing instruction, as evident by their discourses? LI is an upper secondary school program framed for newly arrived students, 15 to 18 years old, who need to qualify for mainstream programs by attaining the goals of compulsory school year 9. The study is framed within theory on second language writing instruction and teachers’ beliefs. The teachers’ discourses of writing instruction were analyzed against theory on second language writing instruction, genre pedagogy, and practices of care, and related to the teachers’ discursive constructions of the group of students as vulnerable and heterogeneous. All teachers exploited genre pedagogy, with its emancipatory aims, to enable access to the genres of schooling. The teachers’ expressed aims were directed toward long-term goals, such as employability and democratic participation. The teachers were firmly based in both theory and experience, which the demanding context seemed to require. In spite of indisputable challenges, the teachers conveyed a sense of belief in the possibilities of teaching.

This paper reconsiders the common use of mind maps as only a brainstorming tool that occurs before writing. The paper contemplates how mind mapping can be a useful pedagogical strategy throughout the writing process, not just at the beginning. The metacognitive benefits of mind mapping can support writers at all stages of their writing. Mind mapping can make their thinking overt and allow writers to make new connections throughout their revisions. The paper draws on an intrinsic case study (Stake, 2005) of sixteen first-year writing students who used mind maps at the beginning of their research papers and again as they grappled with feedback to re-design their drafts for submission. Students reported that, while the initial mind map had limited benefits on their writing, the second mind map acted as a vehicle for them to make connections between their draft, their feedback, and their next steps as writers. This second map offered a liminal space in which students could dwell with their feedback, make their thinking visible, and strategize how they could implement that feedback to make their writing stronger. The paper offers a new look at how teachers can use mind mapping to enhance students’ writing processes.

This article draws on Toulmin’s model of argumentation to propose a way of engaging with controversial topics in ways that require not only the assertion of a point of view, but attentive listening to contrasting beliefs. Given the paucity of models of respectful listening in public discourse, school becomes a place where teachers can provide opportunities for contentious discussions to be conducted through civic discourse. The article begins with an outline of Toulmin’s model, with an emphasis on warranting examples so that they serve as evidence for a claim, and engages with opposing viewpoints for a reasoned rebuttal and synthesis. The article then suggests that the topic of school dress codes would be a fruitful topic of student inquiry and argumentation, given the ideological basis of a dress code and the many differences of opinion surrounding them. Such instruction is illustrated through a method that relies on inductive reasoning and discussion as the basis for generating ideas in argumentative writing. The article concludes with a view of writing pedagogy that promotes responsible argumentation in light of critical responses that lead to a synthesis and extension of learning.

Given the rise in business and technical writing (BTW) courses in writing programs and English departments, there is a need to develop not only a pedagogy for BTW but one that considers BTW’s institutional context. Context is a problematic focus for pedagogy, as we have seen in recent scholarship on student writing, theory of genre, and transferability of skills to other academic disciplines. That scholarship views the uncertain and unclear contexts of academic composition courses and their genres as preventing the full student understanding of genre that is needed for students to develop transferable writing skills. The continuation of that scholarship into BTW regards the instruction of BTW, as inside academia rather than within the workplace, as suffering from similar concerns with context. Rather than viewing BTW as downstream from or supplemental to composition instruction, this article argues that we should examine the genres of BTW as unique in their contingency to the writing process and yet just as able to pursue the goals of composition instruction and liberal arts education as first-year composition (FYC) courses. By focusing on the reader of BTW genres as determinant in the contingency of the writing situation, we see BTW as less problematic than FYC in its support of key composition goals such as the creation of original arguments and effective management of supporting materials. The awareness of readership and argumentation allows for a pedagogy supportive of contingent and part-time faculty as well as full-time composition faculty regardless of their respective professional experience.

Significant research has been conducted in the past several decades on best practices in providing feedback to students’ writing. Over the past two decades, feedback methods have evolved as writing classes have transitioned from face-to-face traditional classrooms to online classrooms and as technology has advanced. Written feedback has moved from handwritten notes in the margins of a paper to typed feedback using commenting tools. Audio feedback has gone from the cassette tape to the MP3 file. One of the most recent trends in feedback to students’ writing is in video form using screencasting technology. Video feedback through screencasting is especially beneficial in the technical writing classroom, where students often need to see the problems in their document. Students often benefit from seeing why they need more white space, why their graphics are not clear, why their alignment is off, why their instructions are not precise for their audience, why their numbered steps are not developed correctly, and why a host of other design principles could be improved. Moreover, video feedback through screencasting technology is becoming more popular in the workplace. Exposing students in technical writing classes to screencasting feedback has the potential not only to improve their writing but also to enhance their readiness for the workplace.

The idea that engineers are graduating without the necessary communication skills, specifically written communication, is not new. In the past 25 years, changes have been made both in accreditation requirements and in engineering program curriculums to work to improve students’ writing skills and make their writing better align with the needs of industry, and research is emerging that considers industry standards and how those standards can be applied to the classroom. One challenge is that the characteristics of quality writing are not always the same for the industry and the classroom, which can create problems for new graduates entering the workforce. This article looks at how effective writing is defined by both academics and professional engineers. Drawing on a study by Cunningham & Stewart (2012), which researched the criteria professional engineers consider essential in effective writing, this article provides the results of a survey of instructors of introductory professional and technical writing classes. The survey was designed to determine the characteristics the instructors use when grading writing assignments. The results are then compared to the characteristics of quality writing as identified by the engineers. In addition, the article reviews assessment rubrics to identify criteria used when evaluating writing and compares these criteria to the qualities of effective writing as determined by the Analytic Writing Continuum, part of the National Writing Project. After determining gaps between industry and academics, the article considers ways to bridge those gaps, including working with professional engineers to obtain sample documents, increasing reading and evaluation of engineering documents in professional and technical writing classes, and using interdisciplinary approaches to course design and instruction.

This reflection focuses on teaching writing online for the first-year students in the Academic English course at the Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT), Uzbekistan. Academic English is a core course for all incoming first-year students and aims to develop students’ proficiency in listening, reading, and writing skills. A great emphasis is placed on the development of writing skills, and students are required to write at least four summaries, two essays, and one reflection during the twelve weeks of the first semester. A new challenging component in the autumn 2020 semester was teaching writing online, due to the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The classroom writing processes were examined through the lens of the Self- and Socially-Regulated Multilingual Writing model (Akhmedjanova, 2020), which revealed prevalence of socially-regulated rather than self-regulated writing practices. Also, teachers instructed students to use revision strategies more than planning and formulating writing strategies. A cursory examination of students’ reflections suggested that many students struggled with the environment and time management skills. Future revisions to the Academic English course should include explicit teaching of planning and formulating writing strategies along with planning and time management skills.

This article explores illuminative evaluation as a method to reflectively assess a pilot implementation of an intercultural-competence-focused first-year writing curriculum at a US large public university. The goal of this curriculum is to promote integration of diverse student populations on our university campus, while developing all students’ intercultural competence and writing skills. In this article, we present practitioner reflections on classroom experiences and collaborative design of our approach to data analysis. These reflections show how an illuminative, context-rich approach to an early phase of a writing pedagogy research project shapes a holistic curricular evaluation. Illuminative evaluation drew our attention to the interaction between teaching and curriculum evaluation as well as to how this approach promotes an invitational and exploratory approach to teacher research.

Previous research has shown that teachers’ knowledge of a functional metalanguage plays a central role in supporting students’ writing development. However, only a few of these studies have focused on primary school teachers and their use of metalanguage in various text types. The aim of this study was to investigate how primary school teachers talk about young students’ (ages 7–9) narrative and informational texts before and after taking part in professional development workshops presenting different language resources and accompanying metalanguage. These resources represent a broader view of language than the more formal tradition offered to primary school teachers in Sweden. The results showed that after participating in the workshops, the teachers had broadened their repertoires concerning what aspects they talk about and how they talk about them; that is, their talks became more text-specific and extensive, and they used a formal metalanguage to a greater extent. These results are discussed in relation to the tradition of writing instruction used in primary grades in Sweden and the teachers’ pathways to broadening their repertoire of metalanguage. Also discussed is the potential a broader language view in early grades may have in supporting students’ writing development throughout their school years.

Recent decades have seen a shift regarding ideas of and approaches to literacy. One example is that the individual-psychological perspective focusing primarily on specific writing skills that used to be predominant has been extended and complemented by functional, social semiotic, and sociocultural perspectives where the interaction between the individual's use of language resources and the social, cultural, and historical contexts is in focus (e.g., Furthermore, issues of writing instruction and research have, in recent years, received far more attention than before, which can be noted by the publication of handbooks of writing research (MacArthur et al., 2016), writing development (Beard et al., 2009), writing instruction (Graham et al., 2019), and reviews of writing research

Despite the growing prominence of writing in both educational contexts and society at large, research-based knowledge about the development of writing remains lacking, particularly regarding the developmental trajectories that students pass through as they encounter and grapple with the complex system of more formal writing during their primary years of school. This article presents a study that examined writing development in Danish primary grade students (ages 6 to 8) from a linguistic perspective to identify developmental patterns in students’ writing skills during these years. In the study, we applied a multidimensional analytical framework based on a text-oriented model of writing, for the coding of a large number of digitalised student texts (N=803). Subsequently, we analysed the coding results using statistical Rasch theory. Through this procedure, we were able to identify developmental patterns in the students’ writing in the form of different proficiency groups along four textual dimensions and to describe a number of linguistic levels for each dimension. Furthermore, the article discusses didactic potentials and limits from using proficiency groups when teaching writing in primary grades.

Scandinavian writing research forms a relatively new field, with an increased number of studies conducted in the last two decades. In this qualitative synthesis review of 87 peer reviewed journal articles from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden published between 2010 and 2020, the aim was to outline the landscape of current educational writing research from the region. The sample included research articles published in both Scandinavian and international journals. Our analysis focused on the articles’ research approaches and main themes regarding the object of investigation. The main themes identified were Writing Instruction, Writing Assessment, and Students’ Text. We found a predominance of studies conducted in the context of language arts/first language (L1) education, concerning either disciplinary or general aspects of writing. We also found a predominance of approaches based on either sociocultural or social semiotic theory. Furthermore, a majority of the reviewed studies were explorative and small-scale, and, for the Writing Assessment studies in particular, directed at the secondary stages of school. The results suggest a call for future studies focusing on writing interventions and studies deploying a wide range of methodological approaches, as well as studies based on inter-Scandinavian collaborations across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Although infographics have been used for educational purposes, their specific use for teaching process-based writing in undergraduate writing courses is not documented in the literature. When integrating infographics into a process-based writing instructional approach, they may offer students multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression – universal design for learning principles. We examined one undergraduate writing course that integrated infographics into a process-based writing approach to understand student experiences and uses of this multimodal communication form. Results show that infographics have unique benefits and challenges to supporting student writing. Results also reveal that students used their infographics for revising, transferring, and rethinking the content of their subsequent, text-only research papers. This work has implications for college composition pedagogy.

Culture in second language (L2) writing has been researched extensively, though mostly under the purview of contrastive rhetoric and focused on text and contrastive genre analysis (Connor, 1996, 2004, 2008; Kaplan, 2005). Research has also focused on problematizing culture in reference to L2 writing (Atkinson, 1999, 2003; Kubota, 1999). These foci indicate reader-instructor rather than student perspectives: how L2 writers themselves perceive cultural impacts on writing. This study undertakes to fill this gap, investigating L2 student perceptions of such impacts. Study participants (n = 36), students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course at a Canadian university, took part in semistructured interviews and reflective writing. Data analysis identified six broad categories of cultural factors affecting student writing: (1) organizational structure as a fixed method; (2) supporting and writing arguments; (3) creating a stronger voice in writing; (4) adjusting to a new academic culture; (5) understanding clarity in academic writing in English; and (6) developing content: quality versus quantity. Findings underscore student perceptions of a monolithic, essentialist view of culture in academic writing. This is an important consideration when designing a student-centred L2 writing pedagogy that addresses student needs. Based on the findings, the article further explores implications for L2 writing instruction.

This pedagogical reflection describes the interactions within, and effectiveness of, an instructional approach for writing – the teaching/learning cycle (TLC). The instruction takes place in a northwestern, midsized city of Russia in a secondary school specializing in English with a 10th grade/form group who self-selected into a strand for the sciences (i.e., students take additional courses in the sciences versus the arts). The reflection combines Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and concept of molar activity with TLC to demonstrate how various systems influence the teacher and students in a secondary-schooling context. The TLC approach assisted the Russian-speaking students in the improvement of English persuasive writing. The molar, or propelling, interactions in the writing lessons demonstrate a fluidity of knowledge across the systems of the ecology. The study may be of use to teachers instructing writing in English and to comparative education scholars who focus on classroom interaction to inform their work on culture.

In response to increasing interest in Vygotskian sociocultural theory in second-language learning (Lantolf and Thorne, 2006; Swain, Kinnear, and Steinman, 2015) and the call for understanding language-learning processes in relation to contexts surrounding individuals (e.g., Polio and Williams, 2009; Ferris and Hedgcock, 2014), this study adopts a sociocultural approach – more specifically, an activity theory (Leont’ev, 1981) framework – to explore an undergraduate student’s approach to L2 writing in a preparatory writing course. Using a single case study design (Duff, 2014), I investigated how a student from China learned to write academic papers that met the academic norms in an English as a second language (ESL) writing class in an American university. Specifically, I analyzed how his writing activity aligned with his instructor’s proposed approach to a writing task. Through the analysis of course materials, the participant’s written work, observations, email communications, and interviews, I tracked how his agency (Bhowmik, 2016; Casanave, 2012; Lee, 2008; Saenkhum, 2016) as a writer developed over his first semester in the ESL program. Findings indicate that while the participant did not follow the operations assigned by the instructor, he acted strategically to accomplish selected parts of his writing assignments. His mediated actions were driven by his goals and motives that were understood from within his social and cultural environments, and interacted with each other in a dynamic and constructive manner. Overall, the study underscores the need for flexible approaches to writing instruction and the usefulness of employing activity theory as a framework in studying L2 writing processes.

The recent focus on threshold concepts in writing studies indicates the field’s growing commitment to engaging writing-based threshold concepts in the daily work of teaching and learning to facilitate writing transfer. However, although there is growing evidence of robust scholarly work in this area, research on the pedagogical importance of these concepts to the writing development and tutoring of L2 students is still in its nascent stages. To address this gap, this paper first presents findings from a research study that aims to understand how writing centre tutors addressed the needs of L2 students in tutoring sessions and the extent to which threshold-oriented language appeared in the content of the conference summaries. After discussing the findings, the paper proposes a threshold concept-based framework for tutoring L2 writers involving two established concepts: ‘writers’ histories, processes, and identities vary’ and ‘writing is informed by prior experiences.’ In addition, a new model of the conference summary as a reflective tool to promote writing transfer is presented along with a discussion of emergent writing centre-oriented concepts that reimagine the role of the tutor as an ‘expert-outsider’ and the L2 student as ‘informed novice.’

Research conceptualization is challenging for doctoral and master’s writers, particularly multilingual students engaging in thesis writing or writing for publication. In doctoral and master’s student writing, research conceptualization appears in three genres: problem statements, research proposals and introduction sections or chapters. Swale’s (1990; Feak and Swales, 2011) CARS model is most often used to analyze conceptualization in these genres. While very useful as an analytical tool, the CARS model does not translate well to pedagogy. I argue that Merriam’s (2009) problem/purpose statement and questions (PPS&Q) format provides a flexible and accessible technique to make the process of research conceptualization visible and to help students focus their research throughout the writing process. Navigating problem formulation and gap spotting requires highly complex literacies and Merriam’s method allows students to begin simply and build complexity. While genre visibility provides a way for doctoral and master’s students to access high-level literacies demands, it can also be formulaic and constraining and needs to be taught with critical awareness.

While social work educators have explored strategies to improve literacy development among their students, many educators continue to strive for a better integration of effective reading and writing skills. This article presents the findings of a survey that used qualitative research methods to assess the outcomes of a doctorate in social work program that employed a specialist in composition. Doctorate in social work students reported on the skill of ‘close reading’ as it related to their own writing, practice, university teaching, and field supervision. Data analysis reveals that these students had not previously learned the close reading skills necessary for strong writing skills. This article extends support for a full integration of close reading as a way to improve writing, clinical mental health practice, and critical thinking skills.

This action research study began with classroom observations of a learning cycle informed English as a Foreign Language writing class (referred to as the first learning context) for the purposes of creating a general how-to guide for implementing a learning cycle within a writing course. The guide was then implemented in a writing skills class in a different educational context (referred to as the second learning context). A learning cycle was introduced to help learners become more accustomed to peer-editing, giving peer feedback, performing self-assessments and being more critical of their own work. It was found that the learning cycle functioned very differently in the second learning context and not entirely as intended, despite modifications that were made to account for differences between the two learning contexts. Teacher reflections revealed that differences between the reasons for using a learning cycle, assumptions about the similarities between learning contexts (the two courses and their content), decisions regarding changes to the second contexts’ learning materials, differences in student population and other unforeseen differences affected how the learning cycle operated. Critical interactions with sample performance writing texts, the provision or collaborative development of assessment criteria and feedback prompts for peer-editing, materials which support reflection on each task and at the end of the course, and additional class time spent on reflective discussion are all identified as key components of a learning cycle when used in an EFL writing class. The reflections also revealed that learning cycles can have utility when applied to contexts vastly different to those from where they were developed. Recommendations and suggested supporting resources for teachers interested in implementing learning cycles within their own contexts are provided.

The purpose of this study was to explore writing in sixth-grade textbooks in Japan and the affordances of contemporary everyday texts to be used alongside textbooks as mentor texts for writing. Mentor texts are often used in writing instruction; however, their affordances have not been well-researched. Considering that Japanese teachers modify textbook lessons with other materials, we sought out everyday adult and children’s texts found in newsstands, bookstores, convenience stores, internet sources, and libraries that shared some features with textbook genres of writing. Textbook lessons and everyday texts were analyzed using concepts from social semiotics to discover their organization, producer, user, design, layout and multimodal elements. The affordances of textbook lessons and everyday texts functioning as material resources are developed in this paper through three focal genres, poetry, informative, and persuasive writing.

This qualitative study examines academic support practices and students’ experiences and perspectives in a graduate nursing education program that has, for many years, emphasized research and writing by requiring aspiring nurse practitioners to pursue publication in peer-reviewed clinical research journals. In collaboration with faculty, practitioner researchers from the university’s postsecondary learning center developed and facilitated group workshops and provided students with individual consultations on research processes and manuscript development. The researchers wrote field notes and researcher memos, administered workshop evaluations, and interviewed seven participants to better understand students’ writer identities and whether writing for the discipline of nursing with the support of peers, faculty, and learning instructors led to any changes in both their individual and collective sense of disciplinary identity. More broadly, this study interrogated the role of a postsecondary learning center employing an academic literacies pedagogical approach (Lea and Street, 1998; Lillis and Scott, 2007) in working with faculty to support students’ writing for a specific discipline. Findings suggest that graduate nursing students felt anxiety and uncertainty about claiming disciplinary expertise and competence as writers. This affective experience made it difficult for students to align their understandings of nursing as a discipline, rooted in their field experiences as professionals, with a more academic conceptualization that they believed to be represented by the research and writing practices required for the assignment. By engaging with the learning center as a third space (Gutiérrez, 2008), the students explored these challenges and experimented with writing practices, directions for their research, and the conceptualization of their profession as they modified their understanding of what was possible for scholarly writing and research in nursing as a discipline and what they could contribute individually as emerging scholars. This study has implications for teaching academic writing practices in nursing contexts, as well as other academic disciplines and for forming generative collaborations between postsecondary learning centers and subject experts.

Using a multidisciplinary approach to social justice teaching, this article explores the often invisible impact of double consciousness on adult English language learners in the United States and provides examples of classroom practice that invite students to reflect on its effects. The experience of double consciousness is examined as it relates to English language learner identities. A Critical Language Awareness (CLA) framework and identity-conscious teaching practices are explored to encourage student participation and reflection. This approach, demonstrated through examples used in writing classes, encourages the exploration of identity in the face of oppression by interrogating social constructions and fiction and nonfiction stories containing connected themes. Three classroom lessons and consequent writing are analyzed with a critical discourse lens to examine student responses and reflections on language and identity. Student writing demonstrates that encouraging English language classes to interrogate the language of institutionalized inequity and identity formation can illuminate potential influences of double consciousness, which can empower students to think critically about their identities and choose whether to take steps to mediate the ways in which they could be affected by double consciousness.

The term resistance has been an evolving concept in literacy and composition studies. While much has been studied in terms of student resistance in high schools, first-year composition classrooms, and in university writing centers, little is known about how resistance occurs in afterschool tutoring programs between volunteer writing tutors and their tutees. Using an ethnographic case study approach, this paper examines how three adult volunteer writing tutors made sense of resistance in working with their adolescent tutees in an urban tutoring program. The findings showed that tutor attitudes, values, and reactions shaped their experience of resistance in a variety of ways including a) misreading tutee signals of engagement; b) masking expectations of cultural and linguistic compliance within a discourse of resistance; and c) embracing resistance as a bridge to tutor growth. The author uses these findings to inform current conceptions of student resistance and compliance and to provide implication for volunteer tutor training.

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of Halliday’s Sydney School genrebased approach in teaching Chinese written composition to South Asian ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. Chinese language, with its heightened status in Hong Kong, holds a key for South Asians with low socio-economic status to obtain upward mobility (Shum, Gao, Tsung, and Ki, 2011). However, South Asian ethnic minority students, as a disadvantaged group of second language learners, lack sufficient parental and institutional support in Chinese language learning. The genrebased pedagogy derived from Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) was applied in this study to improve Chinese language performance of South Asian ethnic minority students for a better chance to participate in mainstream society. The SFL approach is primarily concerned with language choice in social situations and has been widely applied in sociolinguistics (Hyland, 2007, 2012). Its latest model in language teaching methodology, the ’Reading to Learn, Learning to Write’ (R2L) pedagogy, is a genre-based teaching strategy which is designed to guide students to experience different levels of language through extensive classroom reading and writing activities with selected texts. The current study is intended to extend the approach to teaching and learning Chinese as a second language. The employment of genre-based pedagogy aims to support South Asian students with their learning of Chinese written composition in the senior secondary curriculum. The Chinese teachers involved were first provided with appropriate training in the genre-based approach to language teaching focusing on the genres of Narration and Explanation. Research data were collected while the teachers began to use theand Explanation. Research data were collected while the teachers began to use the and Explanation. Research data were collected while the teachers began to use the genre-based teaching approach, by means of pre- and post-tests after and before genre instruction. Text analysis based on SFL was then employed to analyze the students’ written composition in both pre- and post-tests in order to understand the effectiveness of the genre-based pedagogy in teaching Chinese as a second language. The finding shows that the students at the high, medium, and low levels improved both in the construction of schematic structure and the variation of lexicogrammatical choices from the whole-text, sentence and word levels respectively in their writing performance. Hopefully, the findings will help curriculum development and teacher education for teaching Chinese as a second language to non-Chinese speaking students in Hong Kong and beyond.

In this paper, we investigated a model of academic development based upon a recurring residential academic writing retreat combining individual writing times, workshops, work-in-progress groups and one-on-one consultations with shared meals and informal gatherings in a natural environment. Using a case study research approach, we analysed data accumulated from seven annual residential writing retreats for education scholars. Participants included 39 academics, administrative staff, senior doctoral students and community partners from multiple institutions. We found evidence that the retreats enhanced participants’ knowledge of writing and publishing processes, advanced their academic careers, built scholarly capacity at their institutions and strengthened writing pedagogy. The data indicated that the presence of writing and writers at the residential academic writing retreats generated presents (i.e., gifts) for the participants. The presence of writing time, writing goals and writing activities in the company of other writers were key to the retreat pedagogy. Participants appreciated gifts of time and physical space and described giving and receiving peer feedback and emotional support as forms of gift exchange within the community. The resulting writing strategies, competencies and identities provided the gift of sustainability. The analysis confirmed that this ongoing, immersive, cross-institutional, cross-rank, institutionally funded model of academic development was effective and responsive to the needs of individual scholars.

The current study examined the relationships among self-regulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and EFL learners’ performance in argumentative writing. We collected data through two questionnaires (i.e., Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ); Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI)), and an argumentative writing task administered to 250 Iranian graduate students of TEFL in 11 universities across Iran. Using LISREL version 8.8, we ran structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the hypothesized relationships. The results revealed that although the SEM enjoyed a good fit on the hypothesized relationships among selfregulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and argumentative writing, the significant influence of metacognitive awareness and self-regulated learning on students’ argumentative writing performance could not be postulated. Finally, the pedagogical implications for writing instruction and research are discussed.

Writing about environmental and sustainability issues has grown in popularity, especially in lower-division writing courses. Yet, for teachers and writing program administrators, what are the benefits and drawbacks in asking students to interact with place-based discourses? How does implementing an ecocomposition curriculum and sustainability topics in first-year composition affect students’ writing outcomes? This article discusses a two-year, case study at a comprehensive research university of an experimental course-design model involving 1,421 students and 63 teachers. Students engaged with the university’s sustainability theme in Composition I, as well as other courses. This article includes a description of Composition I’s framework and its assessment practices, and raters measure the writing outcomes for the class’s major essay, a literature review. Overall, teachers utilizing ecocomposition practices presented students with a cohesive, relevant curriculum and assisted them in developing and organizing the literature review; writing and thinking about diverse spaces related to their experiences, majors, and futures; and forging and documenting campus and local ties, including through community-based learning. The study’s results have implications for teaching ecocomposition and sustainability themes in first-year composition.

This article identifies how a cohort of preservice teachers educated during the No Child Left Behind Era thought about the teaching of writing when they entered a secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teacher preparation program. Most participants shared the beliefs that: (1) writing was primarily the demonstration of specific skills, often on a standardized test; (2) alternatives to the five-paragraph essay would be extra, with formulaic writing central to instruction; (3) teachers had little role in student writing development beyond assigning writing; (4) feedback on writing should be ‘objective’ and tied to a grade; and (5) the purpose of ELA is primarily to teach literature. Authors believe identifying preservice teachers’ beliefs about writing and the role of the writing teacher at the beginning of a program can help teacher educators design experiences to expand students’ notions of literacy and of writing instruction.

In response to current trends in Composition as well as the challenges of langauging and pedagogy in the global reality, this qualitative classroom-based action research study was designed to gain a better understanding of strategies, practices, and competences exhibited by students of various linguistic and cultural backgrounds when composing, reading, and responding to the narratives of their peers in a multi- lingual composition class. In a focused presentation of a single student case study, the manuscript conceptualizes ‘effective’ writing in global contexts, outlines successful strategies to gain the ‘buy-in’ from culturally and linguistically diverse audiences when composing transnationally and translingually. The study concludes by suggesting ways and strategies to transform ‘traditional’ peer response assignments to engage global rhetorics and transnational frameworks for the sake of all students and their success communicating across languages, rhetorics, borders, and modes.

Writing is a skill which is actively taught in both first (L1) and foreign language (FL) classrooms, yet surprisingly few cross-curricular links are made. This paper, aimed at both practitioners and researchers, presents a framework for designing and implementing a strategy-based, cross-curricular approach to writing pedagogy in schools. It first considers the factors which should be taken into account when designing such an intervention in both L1 and FL classrooms. It then outlines the key steps in the implementation of such a programme of strategy-based instruction. To exemplify this, the paper reports on data throughout from an empirical study involving a classroom intervention of explicit strategy-based instruction which was delivered first in the German FL classroom, and later also in the English classroom of a Year 9 (age 13–14) class in a secondary school in England. The aim was to help students to develop their writing strategies and to encourage transfer between languages. Findings suggest that while a programme of strategy-based instruction can improve strategy use and attainment in writing within a particular language context, effects are most powerful when there is collaboration between L1 and FL teachers. Evidence therefore calls for a multilingual approach to writing pedagogy.  <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons Licence" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute knowledge on children’s narrative writing from a pedagogical perspective. Through analyses of nine- to ten-year-old students’ narrative writing, aspects that are critical to discern in order to write narratives with a well-developed plot are formulated. The theoretical framework is narratology theories and Variation Theory. Narratology provides a conceptual framework for describing narrative writing, while Variation Theory offers a pedagogical perspective. A total of 80 narratives written by students have been analyzed, and five qualitatively different approaches to writing were seen. Narrative writing can be approached as describing events, solving a problem, creating action, making jokes and composing a narrative. A comparison between these approaches revealed five aspects that are critical for children to discern in order to develop the ability to write narratives: the discernment of a reader, the function of a narrative, the narrative structure, coherence, and duration. These aspects can be discerned in a more or less powerful way. The study contributes to the field by offering teachers guidance in what aspects are critical to address when teaching narrative writing in school.