Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

Reflects on three major issues that confronted researchers conducting a comparative study of achievement in written composition as they attempt to measure performance in writing across many languages and cultures. Concludes that most assessments of writing simply measure perceived drafting quality, which is a highly subjective judgment. (MG)

Compares the traditional method of composition grading, marginal comments, with a more recent technique, comments on cassette tape. (HOD)

Compares how proficient and nonproficient college freshman writers adapt their persuasive essays for a particular audience and occasion, noting that good writers take greater advantage of audience information than poor writers. (HOD)

Reports on a study that compared the potential validity, reliability, and costs of several direct and indirect measures of writing. (HOD)

Presents the results of an investigation of the cognitive and grammatical activities carried out by beginning and advanced college students during pauses in their writing. (HOD)

Reports on the findings of a study that examined the persuasive written texts of 60 university first-year composition students, half of whom were native speakers of English and half of whom were nonnative English speakers. Considers 33 variables between the 2 subgroups. Finds clear differences. Discusses results and implications for…

A study was conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between problem discovery and the assessed originality of the written product, and to determine whether problem-solving behavior is observable in student writers. Results indicated a relationship between problem finding and the originality of the product. (HOD)

Examines how school writing tasks (notetaking, answering study questions, and essay writing) interact with three measures of learning (recall, concept application, and gain in passage-specific knowledge). (HOD)

Describes the revision strategies of basic and competent twelfth-grade writers as they wrote for their teachers and their peers. (HOD)

The test scores of college freshmen given both a multiple choice test and an essay test of writing skills were compared to assess the validity of a multiple choice test compared with an essay test. (HOD)

Examines the relationship between syntactic complexity and quality ratings of narrative and argumentative writing of students in grades 6, 10, and 12. (HOD)

Compares the written production of 12 sixth grade English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students on 3 teacher-assigned tasks with their writing to the teacher in dialogue journals. Finds that the quantity and maturity of the dialogue journal writing was at least equivalent to the assigned writing on all measures. (RS)

Investigates the effects of writing ability and mode of discourse on cognitive capacity engagement across three stages of the composing process, noting that writing ability differentially affected cognitive capacity engagement across discourse modes when using the secondary-task method. (HOD)

Contrasts the revising patterns of junior high school students when they used a word processor and pens and paper. Concludes that those who used a word processing program added more words to the ends of their texts and corrected more errors, but did not make more global text revisions than when they used a pen. (HOD)