Developing disciplinary literacy is an emerging priority for secondary teachers as they prepare students for college, career, and civic life. One way to develop and assess disciplinary literacy in history is through source-based argument writing (SBAW) with multiple sources. SBAW requires students to synthesize information across texts and use…

Collaborative discussion-supported writing (CDSW) provides opportunities for students to develop arguments and counterarguments through peer communications with a goal to promote a high-quality argumentative essay. Cognitive scaffoldings can be used to facilitate students' collaborative discussions. However, there is a lack of investigation on the…

Dialogical argumentation practice contributes positively to argumentative writing skills. Specifically, deliberative dialogues are effective in promoting argument and counterargument integration in students' essays. However, the potential of dialogic activities may be increased if they are combined with instructional practices. The primary…

Although competent argumentative writing is important for academic success and daily life, it is difficult to teach, especially in middle schools where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). Previous research has indicated that extensive reading or writing improves the descriptive writing skills of EFL students. However, it is not certain…

This article provides a replication study of the National Writing Project's College, Career, & Community Writers Program (C3WP), which was found to be effective at improving student writing quality in two prior studies. C3WP is designed to improve students' source-based argument writing through intensive teacher professional development,…

The stagnation of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Writing scores demonstrates the need for research-based instruction that improves writing for all students, especially English learners. In this article, we synthesize the literature on effective instructional practices for this diverse group of learners and describe how these…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of choice-making and intensified self-statement instruction on persuasive writing performance using an iPad after receiving instruction in self-regulated strategy development through a reversal design with a student with autism and comorbid mental health diagnoses in a residential treatment…

The present study aims to evaluate the effects of an argumentative writing strategy (POW+TREE) on four struggling ninth graders' ability to produce persuasive texts regarding their point of view on different questions. I applied a multiple-baseline design to evaluate outcomes across participants. The results indicate the intervention helped…

Historical reasoning, as a disciplinary literacy, aims to develop higher-order thinking in addition to depth of historical knowledge beyond the textbook and memorization of facts. It teaches students to use information across multiple sources to contextualize and corroborate historical accounts, constructing an informed yet critical interpretation…

To investigate whether a creative writing unit in upper secondary education would improve students' creative as well as argumentative text quality and to examine whether it would change students' writing behavior, we tested a creative writing unit based on encouraging writing in flow by using divergent thinking tasks. Four classes (Grade 10)…

The genre of persuasive writing requires writers to independently probe their long-term memory to generate pertinent ideas that support their opinion on a given topic. However, many students with high-incidence disabilities struggle with the complex synergy of tasks involved in writing, and in particular generating ideas. A qualitatively dominant…

Writing can be a challenging task for many students. This study offered 10 ninth-grade students (8 females, 2 males) with visual impairments located in the Western United States the opportunity to learn a mnemonic strategy for argumentative-essay writing called ARGUE: Analyze data; Review keywords and create sentences; Generate a plan; Use your…

Teaching middle school students with learning disabilities strategies for writing essays that incorporate information from source texts helps prepare them for academic success. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) writing instruction using technology tools implemented by…

The benefits of writing strategy feedback are well established. This study examined the extent to which adding spelling and grammar checkers support writing and revision in comparison to providing writing strategy feedback alone. High school students (n = 119) wrote and revised six persuasive essays in Writing Pal, an automated writing evaluation…

Feedback is a cultural tool through which English teachers can facilitate secondary students' evaluative expertise in their writing development. While there is increased concern to use feedback to enhance learning at all educational levels, there is currently little empirical knowledge of how secondary teachers of English design feedback for…