Stance is a growing focus of academic writing research and an important aspect of writing development in higher education. Research on student writing to date has explored stance across different levels, language backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused on stance features across genres. This article explores stance marker use between…

Increased attention to genre in writing studies has brought a proliferation of new terms and concepts for capturing the complexity of writers' knowledge about genres, including genre knowledge, genre awareness, recontextualization, conditional knowledge, and metacognition. Definitions of these concepts have at times conflicted, and their…

In what ways do students understand and document literacies within out-of-school communities in their school-sponsored writings? How can community literacy sites and public perceptions of community disrepair stimulate students to create written responses on the politics of place? These questions are at the heart of this article's investigation…

This article describes a cognitive argumentation schema for written arguments and presents three empirical studies on the "myside" bias--the tendency to ignore or exclude evidence against one's position. Study 1 examined the consequences of conceding, rebutting, and denying other-side information. Rebuttal led to higher ratings of…

Addresses the argument that private writing is not really private. Explores the role of empirical evidence. Offers arguments that acknowledge private writing as different from public or social writing. Discusses methods of researching private writing. (CR)

Offers a case study of a child who used school writing activities to perform rather than simply to communicate. Finds that, although the child's language resources contributed greatly to his success with written language, they did not always fit comfortably into the writing workshop used in his classroom. (PRA)

Investigates the effect on postsecondary students of the belief that writing ability is a gift. Finds that higher levels of belief in giftedness correlate with higher levels of writing apprehension, lower self-assessments of writing ability, and lower levels of confidence. Suggests that the belief in giftedness may have deleterious effects on…

Outlines the emergence of the field of composition studies as a scholarly research discipline in the 1970s. Argues that the development of composition studies is part of a broader intellectual history affecting linguistics and literary studies. Describes the common themes shared by these different fields of study. (HB)

Demonstrates that two fifth-grade avid writers differentiated between flow experiences and non-flow experiences associated with writing, and describes flow experiences in terms similar to those reported in studies in adolescents and adults. Shows that flow experiences occurred when students controlled important aspects of writing, such as…

Indicates that, on the first task, both the dyadic rewriting group and the individual writing group significantly outperformed the individual rewriting group on a communication score. Finds that the ordering of means on this measure (from highest to lowest) was individual rewriters, dyadic rewriters, then writing individuals. (JD)

Reviews a survey of members of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English concerning their use of grading scales in the evaluation of freshman writing. Concludes that the theoretical interest in the scales is apparently not matched by their use by teachers. (FL)

Elementary school students evaluated compositions that had been written by peers, then discussed the factors upon which their rankings were based. Results indicate that the bases for evaluation fall into four categories: feelings aroused by text, responses to surface features, responses to text as understood, and responses to craftsmanship. (FL)

Considers four issues that arise from work on origin and evolution of writing: (1) the functions of writing, (2) influence of writing and writing systems on the writer, (3) role of writing topic on writing, and (4) writing and the decontextualization of knowledge. Also considers the implications of these issues for research on and the teaching of…

Endorses recent arguments for more study of writing that shapes and directs the production of material artifacts and for considering writing as one semiotic mode among others. Considers a case of "nonwritten" symbolic production, architectural design, for what it may suggest for the study and teaching of writing. (TB)

Contrasts the monitoring strategies secondary students employ in analytic and summary writing about reading. Finds that both high- and average-ability student writers employ a wide range of metacognitive strategies in writing, and that students vary those strategies both across writing tasks and at different points within the writing process. (MS)