Written corrective feedback (WCF) has been widely deployed in teaching second language (L2) writing skills, partly because it is generally perceived to promote and consolidate learning. Whilst a burgeoning body of literature affirms its virtues pertaining to fostering L2 learners' writing performance, which method of correction could yield the…

Over the past 20 years, claims about how and why student writing can serve learning have changed markedly. This has been partly due to new technologies displacing writing as a predominant resource for learning, prompting new sense-making practices and shifts in how these changes are theorized. Learners now routinely collaborate to generate,…

Relates one participant's impressions of an international conference on writing that was held in May 1979 at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Notes the differences between American and British writing research. (RL)

Presents a personal selection of recent research on writing and learning that provides a coherent view of children as active, intentional learners. (RL)

How learning is understood in everyday schooling and conceptualized in research varies a great deal, as does the way in which writing is used for enhancing learning. This paper reviews recent research conducted mainly in Europe, North America, and Australia to outline what kind of challenges research is facing at the moment. The paper begins with…

Outlines two hypotheses about the reasons for obscurity in expository writing and notes that neither accounts for the general results of an exploratory study of the writing of postgraduates nor for the individual cases presented. Argues that a crucial factor is a person's implicit model of expository writing. (FL)

This review focuses on the development of writing research informed by a Vygotskian perspective. A methodological environment to aid the instruction of writing is presented. The review reveals the need to conduct research in developing students' inner voice, to lower the cognitive drain created during writing, and to understand how helpful the…

Teaching about reading and writing should be flip sides of the same coin. Writing reinforces and develops skills traditionally thought of as reading skills. (PP)

The personal journal is a combination of class notebook and diary, a repository of entries which are recorded on a regular basis, are ungraded, and which remain confidential. As an instructional tool, the journal is virtually limitless. Studies have demonstrated the practical applications of journal writing for educators in the following areas:…

Addressing the issue of how people come to gain knowledge in the field of composition, this book is concerned with modes of inquiry--the whole series of steps an inquirer follows in making a contribution to a field of knowledge, and with methodological communities--groups of inquirers more or less united by their allegiance to one such mode of…

Summarizes the results of research on oral and written language processes and lists problems with computer software that does not reflect that research. (AEA)

Although English teachers have implicitly been aware of the functions of writing, they may not always have explored the ways writing can be used to enhance learning: learning of content, of skills, and of self. Arthur Applebee noted that English teachers were most likely to stress personal and imaginative experiences in their writing assignments,…

Scholars from varied disciplines--first language (L1) acquisition, second language (L2) acquisition, composition research, and cognitive psychology--have found a high level of permeability in their search for more effective classroom models of writing instruction. Among the most influential work in this area has been Stephen Krashen's theory of L2…

A study explored students' dynamic use of various forms of reading and writing to learn. In investigating the relationship between learner initiative, literacy, and the ability to conduct a critical inquiry of a topic of study, seven college undergraduates were asked to direct their own reading and writing engagements enroute to composing a…

An overview is provided of the limited body of research on the transfer of learning between reading and writing in mature adults. First, the paper traces the development of models portraying generalization between reading and writing, beginning with a discussion of audio-lingual theory, which hypothesizes that language is learned through a…