We examined the contributions of English proficiency, genre, and the use of textual sources to adolescent writing. The sample included 1819 native English speakers and language minority students from 127 seventh- and eighth-grade classes in an urban school district. Students were randomly assigned one of three source-based essay prompts…

Effective academic writing is accessible to readers because writers follow shared conventions for organization and signal their stance on particular topics; however, few specifics are known about how middle graders might develop knowledge of and use these academic language forms and functions to signal their organization and stance in persuasive…