Written Communication Jan 1998

Writing from Primary Documents

KATHLEEN McCARTHY YOUNG ; GAEA LEINHARDT

Abstract

Developing academic literacy involves learning valued content and rhetoric in a discipline. Within history, writing from primary documents to construct an evidenced interpretation of an issue requires students to transform both background and document knowledge, read and interpret historical documents, and manage discourse synthesis. The authors examine the potential of the Advanced Placement Document-Based Question as constructed and presented by an exemplary teacher to engage students in historical reasoning and writing. The authors analyzed how five students responded to four document-based questions over a year, tracing how organization, document use, and citation language indicate the degree to which writers transformed and integrated information in disciplinary ways. Students moved from knowledge telling (listing period and document content as discrete information bits) to knowledge transformation (integrating content as interpreted evidence for an argument). Students had difficulty learning to handle the complex layers of the task. The authors discuss how instruction might mediate this complexity and promote academic literacy.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1998-01-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088398015001002
Open Access
Closed
Topics
literacy studies multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Paz et al. (2023)
    Addressing an Unfulfilled Expectation: Teaching Students With Disabilities to W…
    Written Communication
  2. Nokes et al. (2023)
    Historical Argumentation: Watching Historians and Teaching Youth
    Written Communication
  3. Holdinga et al. (2021)
    The Relationship Between Students’ Writing Process, Text Quality, and Thought P…
    Written Communication
  4. Khuder et al. (2019)
    L2 Writing Task Representation in Test-Like and Non-Test-Like Situations
    Written Communication
  5. Paz et al. (2012)
    Adolescents’ Disciplinary Use of Evidence, Argumentative Strategies, and Organi…
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (14)

  1. STOCKTON (1995)
    Writing in History
    Written Communication
  2. NEWELL (1994)
    The Effects of Written Between-Draft Responses on Students' Writing and Reasoni…
    Written Communication
  3. Herrington et al. (1994)
    Writing, Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines
    College Composition and Communication
  4. ACKERMAN (1993)
    The Promise of Writing to Learn
    Written Communication
  5. Greene (1993)
    The Role of Task in the Development of Academic Thinking through Reading and Wr…
    Research in the Teaching of English
Show all 14 →
  1. PENROSE (1992)
    To Write or Not to Write
    Written Communication
  2. WITTE (1992)
    Context, Text, Intertext
    Written Communication
  3. Ackerman (1991)
    Reading, Writing, and Knowing: The Role of Disciplinary Knowledge in Comprehens…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  4. SPIVEY (1990)
    Transforming Texts
    Written Communication
  5. McGINLEY et al. (1989)
    Traversing the Topical Landscape
    Written Communication
  6. Durst (1987)
    Cognitive and Linguistic Demands of Analytic Writing
    Research in the Teaching of English
  7. Marshall (1987)
    The Effects of Writing on Students’ Understanding of Literary Texts
    Research in the Teaching of English
  8. Newell (1984)
    Learning from Writing in Two Content Areas: A Case Study/Protocol Analysis
    Research in the Teaching of English
  9. Langer (1984)
    The Effects of Available Information on Responses to School Writing Tasks
    Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 18 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.3102/00346543054004577
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  2. Bereiter, C.
    The psychology of written composition
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  3. 10.2307/356095
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  4. 10.2307/376357
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    Reading to write: Exploring a cognitive and social process
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  8. 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1993.tb01041.x
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  13. Perfetti, C. A.
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CrossRef global citation count: 108 View in citation network →

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