To examine the effects of background and personality on the attitudes of developing writers, a study surveyed and interviewed 17 high school students from a 1988 summer school writing class (an in-house Rural Scholars Program sponsored by the Continuing Education Office at Indiana University of Pennsylvania). Students completed a questionnaire…

Explores developmental students' attitudes toward writing as a reflection of their writing performance. Finds that the skills of students with positive attitudes toward writing improved significantly more than did those of students with neutral or negative attitudes. Includes a student writing attitude questionnaire and a questionnaire analysis…

A study explored how students' writing apprehension and self-efficacy beliefs affect their use of teacher comments on first drafts of stories. The driving force behind the study stemmed from an interest in how to provide more effective, relevant feedback to students. The study examined student use of global and local feedback--global feedback is…