A growing body of academic literacies research has enhanced our understanding of university writing as contested, institutionally situated practice with important consequences, particularly for students as they learn to negotiate the writing demands of university study. Less empirical attention has been paid to the practices of subject academics…

Research on academic literacies has predominately focused on writing practices in higher education. To account for writing practices in the digital age, this paper emphasizes the importance of extending the focus of academic literacies beyond writing to include multimodal composition. Drawing on social semiotics, we put forward a framework for…

Expectations for high-level academic writing, especially in the Common Core era, have never been higher. Middle school and high school students are being asked to do close readings of complex texts and then respond in writing using academic discourse. This is a challenging task for many students, but perhaps none as great as for English language…

The Theme is a major aspect of how speakers construct their messages in a way which makes them fit smoothly into the unfolding language event. Thematic choice provides clues as to how English learners organize information and shape their texts. Previous studies reveal that English learners deviated from English native speakers in their thematic…

In this article, Mlynarczyk traces her career-long exploration of the relationship between personal, narrative writing and so-called academic discourse. Believing that both are important for college students, particularly students placed in basic writing or ESL composition, she has come to believe that rather than viewing the two as separate modes…

This qualitative research study examines how 12 undergraduate second-language learners understood the concept of citations in academic writing. The following questions guided this study: What are the participants' beliefs about citing research? How do students conceive the role and function of citations in their writing assignments? How do they…

The teaching of writing, and the teaching of developmental and ESL/EFL writing in particular, has historically given priority to the sentence, often in theory and almost always in practice. The writing approach modeled here simply argues that the paragraph should be given primacy of place in ESL/EFL academic writing instruction. The…

If you want to learn how to shoot a basketball, you begin by carefully observing someone who knows how to shoot a basketball. If you want to be a writer, you begin by carefully observing the work of accomplished writers. Recognizing the importance that modeling plays in the learning process, high school English teacher Kelly Gallagher shares how…

This article shares strategies that educators can use to assist students in meeting the challenges of academic writing more effectively. In order to foreground an understanding of struggling writers, the text begins with a brief review of composition theory and history related to basic writers and identity. It goes on to examine classroom…

Research on expert performance suggests that deliberate practice provides optimal opportunities for expertise development. This study examined whether the provision of computer-based scaffolding (CBS) guiding deliberate practice facilitates students' development of writing expertise. A CBS environment "escribo" was designed to externally…

Summary writing has been considered an important aspect of academic writing. However, writing summaries can be a challenging task for the majority of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Research into teaching summary writing has focused on different processes to teach EFL learners. The present study adopted two methods--keyword and…

Taking an assertive stance toward research being reviewed or reported is a challenging task for second language writers. This aspect of interpersonal meaning is especially difficult to address through direct instruction, as attention to particular grammatical and lexical choices outside of contexts of use is not enough to help students develop the…

A reading-writing initiative began in 2011-12 at the University of Toronto as a partnership between an East Asian Studies (EAS) department and an English Language Learning (ELL) Program. In this institution, students are expected to enter into scholarly discussions in their first year essays, yet many (both native English speakers and non-native…

Post-secondary writing teachers in composition and English as a second language (ESL) writing programs are likely familiar with multi-draft composing. Both composition and ESL writing programs share nearly identical multi-draft models despite the very unique and different cultures of each group. We argue that multi-draft composing as it is…

The writing approach framework provides a comprehensive perspective on college-level academic writing based on the relationship of writers' beliefs and strategies to the quality of written outcomes. However, despite increased demands for more and better writing at the graduate level, little is known about graduate-level writing processes or about…