Writing is a critical skill that is considered important for employment, further education, civic participation, health, and personal fulfillment. For example, a substantial percentage of nearly all jobs that non-college graduates possess, require some type of writing. Workers are increasingly required to use their writing skills for memos,…

Writing is a critical skill that is considered important for employment, further education, civic participation, health, and personal fulfillment. For example, a substantial percent of nearly all jobs that non-college graduates possess require some type of writing. Workers are increasingly required to use their writing skills for memos, reports,…

This qualitative study investigated the influence of Metawriting, or "writing about writing," on fifth-grade students' knowledge of writing and proficiency in composing informative essays. Using a Think-TalkWrite model, students explored their existing writing knowledge and experiences, analyzed their essays using genre-specific tools,…

This article is an expanded version of my presentation to Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association for the Career Achievement Award for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education in 2019. It provides an overview of research conducted by colleagues and I that examined the following four topics: (a)…

Student writing outcomes in the U.S. are dismal, and this has been an area of concern for decades, yet schools and teachers are not implementing evidence-based practices (EBP) in writing instruction. Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is an EBP in writing yet the administrator's role in implementing EBPs in writing has not been studied.…

Self-regulating strategy development (SRSD) writing instruction is an evidence-based approach that has been shown to increase students' writing performance and knowledge of writing. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether early elementary students' story writing performance and knowledge of writing would change following 5 weeks of…

The present study evaluated the effects of web-based training on Spanish pre-service and in-service teacher knowledge and implicit beliefs on learning to write. A sample of pre-service teachers and in-service teachers from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Spain participated in the online course. Findings suggest that teachers may improve…

What aspects of writing are doctoral students metacognitive about when they write research articles for publication? Contributing to the recent conversation about metacognition in genre pedagogy, this study adopts a qualitative approach to illustrate what students have in common, across disciplines and levels of expertise, and the dynamic…

The effect of writing strategy instruction on three middle school students' narrative writing performance in actual classrooms was investigated. The results indicated that the writing strategy instruction improved writing performance of students with and without disabilities, as well as students who were English language learners when provided…

We investigated writing performance and knowledge of writing before and after a persuasive writing intervention for ethnically diverse elementary school students in a low socio-economic community in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ). We used a one-group pre-post design. The participants (n = 24) were year 5 and 6 students (ages 9-11) from the same…

This study investigated fourth and fifth graders' metacognitive knowledge about writing and its relationship to writing performance to help identify areas that might be leveraged when designing effective writing instruction. Students' metacognitive knowledge was probed using a 30-minute informative writing prompt requiring students to teach their…

In this quasi-experimental study, 608 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students explored 5 historical investigations. In the experimental condition, teachers used a cognitive apprenticeship model to teach students historical reading and writing strategies. Comparison teachers used the same materials to deliver a business-as-usual form of…

This article argues for a conceptualization of school writing that emphasizes how cognitive and sociocultural factors interact. In academic, professional, and affinity-based communities, an emphasis on standards of quality drives the adoption of such practices as revision and peer and expert review. In school, everyday writing practices center…

This article analyzes literature on university-workplace partnerships and professional writing pedagogy to suggest best practices for workplace mentors to mentor new employees and their writing. The article suggests that new employees often experience cultural confusion due to (a) the transfer of education-based writing strategies and (b) the…

Eight eighth-grade students identified as having emotional and/or behavioral disabilities participated in a multiple-baseline design study to assess the effects of teaching persuasive writing and applying writing in the civics content area. After baseline data were collected, two intervention phases were implemented. An instructional phase on…