The employment of genre-based pedagogy and Task-Based Language Teaching in second language education is representative of a paradigmatic shift towards a focus on meaning-making. Despite this shift, second language acquisition (SLA) research continues to predominantly rely on complexity, accuracy, and fluency metrics to assess learner production…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of two comprehensive argumentative writing interventions--Text Structure Instruction (TSI) and Text Structure Revision Instruction (TSRI)--on the eighth-grade students' ability to compose convincing essays that include structural elements of argumentative discourse. Both treatment groups…

Argues for the teaching of "visible features of written texts," or document design, in composition classes. Concludes that educators must teach students how to see their own texts through the eyes of the readers they hope to attract, converse with, and persuade. (SC)

Notes new Internet writing environments differ significantly from print forms: they allow texts to evolve--to change their purpose and audience over time. Suggests they allow for new forms of collaboration--texts organize themselves without an omniscient editor shaping them. Concludes that, as a profession, composition instructors need to…

A literature review traced a major theoretical shift in the understanding of how people read--from the passive reader who receives and decodes information to the strategic reader who actively chooses what, when, and how to read, reads interpretively, and interprets a text (such as a newspaper article) as an organized structure. The result is a…

This book guides students through the entire writing process--prewriting, writing, and rewriting--developing an easy-to-use, step-by-step technique for writing the types of documents they will encounter on the job. It engages students in the writing process and encourages hands-on application as well as discussions about ethics, audience…

Despite accompanying drawbacks, the Internet information system known as Gopher presents a rich variety of potential benefits to writing pedagogies and to educational administrators. Writing teachers need to overcome tendencies to think of exploration of the Internet information resources as something to be uncritically adopted and as something to…

Examines fifth- and sixth-grade students' metacognitive knowledge about the processes of writing narrative and expository texts. Finds that creating a communicative context enhances students' awareness of audience and purpose, as well as their understanding of different aspects of the writing process. (MG)

While young children's problem-solving models are not as elaborate as those of older students, they share an important belief, namely, that writing and reading are fundamentally purposeful acts of communication. Focusing on the interpretation of process, in particular on writing and reading as forms of problem-solving that are shaped by…