Students' interpretations of their academic writing tasks has been a central concern in the cognitive-based writing research due to the prominent role such decision-making plays in determining students' subsequent thinking and composing strategies and ultimately in shaping their textual quality. Without a comprehensive understanding of how L2…

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)

Reviews cognitive research on writing, focusing on differences between expert and novice writers. Discusses a study of verbal comments made during writing by four developmental and four college-level writers. Indicates that college-level writers expressed more context-based knowledge and more positive self-evaluations than developmental writers.…

Noting that the new literary and rhetorical theories are concerned with revealing the constructive nature of productive and interpretive processes, this paper examines the cognitive processes in reading and writing which make them constructive and intentional acts, and how reader and writer "negotiate" meaning in light of context, reader…

This study is the seventh in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This part of the study examines whether students could make more significant revisions in their writing if they were merely prompted to examine and…

Second in the series "Reading-to-Write: Exploring a Cognitive and Social Process," this report looks at the different ways students represent reading-to-write tasks to themselves, analyzes the resulting divergence in their writing goals and strategies, and recommends teaching task representation as an interpretive process that continues…