Writing is considered the most arduous academic task in school. Many students struggle with motivating themselves to engage in text production due to the enormous cognitive load it requires. In this pilot study, we used a simple electronic device that emits silent vibration signals at programmed intervals to help five sixth graders to stay focused…

The present research examined the extent to which the initial approach to a research-writing course by STEM and non-STEM second-language learners may entail the contribution of different dispositions to course performance and ultimately be responsible for dissimilar outcomes. Individual differences in dispositions and behavior were assessed during…

Science writing, such as lab reports, allows students to form a meaningful understanding of scientific concepts. However, students often view scientific writing as unimportant and utilize surface level approaches when completing writing assignments. The current study implemented three experimental interventions (directly-communicated,…

In many of our courses, particularly laboratory courses, students are expected to engage in scientific writing. Despite various efforts by other courses and library resources, as instructors we are often faced with the frustration of student plagiarism and related writing problems. Here, we describe a simple Writing in Your Own Voice intervention…

Students who receive instruction in discipline-specific communication perform better in introductory and upper-level STEM courses. In this study, researchers investigate how writing center intervention can aid STEM faculty in revising assignment rubrics and conveying to students the discourse conventions and expectations for writing tasks. The…

Peer learning is often used in classrooms to help and support knowledge and skill acquisition. One form of peer learning, peer assessment, involves the quantitative (i.e., peer ratings) or qualitative (i.e., peer feedback) evaluation of a learner's performance by another learner among students. While we might be concerned about the quality of the…

This article affords insights into the interdependence between writing and critical translation to inform implementations of antiracist and translingual writing pedagogies. Promoting linguistic and social justice for multilingual writers, it presents a writing assignment design that focuses on critical translation across asymmetrical power…

This article focuses on contemporary research on first-generation college students bringing to light pedagogical interventions that can be used in the classroom to help engage and retain these students. The pedagogical interventions focus on reflective and personal writing in the classroom, creating safe spaces, and opening up opportunities for…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of sustained practice with argumentation on the quality of students' written arguments. Participants consisted of 37 students; 22 males and 15 females enrolled in a 6th grade middle school classroom. Students completed six argumentation tasks but only four of them were considered for data…

Recent research supports the benefit of students' construction of relevance through writing about the connection of content to their life. However, most such research defines relevance narrowly as utility value--perceived instrumentality of the content to the student's career goals. Furthermore, the scope of phenomenological and conceptual…

The critical importance of second language (L2) input, output, and interaction in TESOL notwithstanding, the decision between immersive (L2-English only) versus nonimmersive approaches is considered "the most fundamental question facing second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, language teachers, and policymakers" (Macaro, 2014, p.…

This article describes an innovative pedagogical technique for multimodal composition courses: the use of storyboarding as an invention tool across multiple composition platforms. Student response data and our textual analysis of their multimodal texts over a two-year period reveal some challenges when new media projects are taught alongside…

Many university undergraduates consider writing assignments an overwhelming requirement. Traditional instructions rarely provide students with clear directions of how to use the Internet to search for authentic material and complete a task. The aim of this study was to scaffold the competence of EFL university students in writing an informative…

Understanding academic vocabulary is essential to student success in school. Use of academic vocabulary words in writing is considered one of the strongest measures of how well a reader understands a given word. In theory, willingness to use academic vocabulary in writing indicates the complexity of acquiring representations of the word's…

This case study started when I noticed that my ESL (English as a Second Language) students from all over the world had a hard time not only adjusting their writing/textual production to the language but also to the organizational structures of the paragraph I was presenting to them in my intermediate writing class. Considering that my students…