Because writing is complex and draws upon so many psychological and cognitive processes, learning to write is even more challenging for students with disabilities than it is for typically developing students. Nonetheless, writing research in the field of education and special education lags behind that of many other academic subjects. The body of…

This study investigated how one type of learner-generated information and content, i.e. inter-group peer online feedback, provided on a wiki writing assignment for an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course, could contribute to student L2 writing. Using a mixed method approach, more than 1000 entries of online peer comments were collected,…

Written corrective feedback has been subject to increasing attention in recent years, in part because of the conceptual controversy surrounding it and in part because of its ubiquitous practice. This study takes a meta-analytic approach to synthesizing extant empirical research, including 21 primary studies. Guiding the analysis are two questions:…

In the L2 writing literature, there has been a rich history of scholarship in theory, research and practice since the 1960s. Two of the most prominent L2 writing approaches are process and portfolio pedagogy. The former approach promotes the use of diverse writing strategies (e.g. pre-writing) to enhance student writers' expression and fluency.…

For more than a decade now, a great deal of research has been done on the topic of written corrective feedback (CF) in SLA and second language (L2) writing. Nonetheless, what those research efforts really have shown as well as the possible implications for practice remain in dispute. Although L2 writing and SLA researchers often examine similar…

Transforming Writing is a two-year action research project which aims to develop a model for the teaching and learning of writing that more fully incorporates a focus on embedded formative assessment. In the first year of the project, the 12 participating schools developed a model of writing underpinned by Talk for Writing, an approach developed…

We compared 56 eighth-grade students who, 28 months previously, had received instruction in strategies for planning and revising their writing, with 21 students of similar academic ability from the same school who had not experienced the intervention. Both groups wrote an expository essay whilst logging their writing activities and completed…

Building on Sheen's (2007) study of the effects of written corrective feedback (CF) on the acquisition of English articles, this article investigated whether direct focused CF, direct unfocused CF and writing practice alone produced differential effects on the accurate use of grammatical forms by adult ESL learners. Using six intact adult ESL…

Indicates that using highlighters to mark errors produced a 76% class improvement in removing comma errors and a 95.5% improvement in removing apostrophe errors. Outlines two teaching procedures, to be followed before introducing this tool to the class, that enable students to remove errors at this effective rate. (JD)

Reports results of a study indicating that increasing computer time from one and a half hours to three hours per week did not improve the quality of students' newswriting, and suggesting that departments with small capital budgets need not necessarily invest huge amounts in computer terminals for every student. (HTH)

Based on recent findings in writing research, this document offers the following recommendations on how teachers can improve the writing skills of their students: (1) spend time on activities that require real writing rather than short answers and fill-in-the-blank exercises; (2) have students spend more time putting their thoughts on paper in a…

Summarizing the wealth of recent research on sentence combining as an effective method of teaching students to tighten and vary their written sentences, this booklet explains how and why sentence combining works. The first half of the booklet provides background information on sentence combining, exploring the basis for the claim that sentence…

Surveys more than 100 "authorities"--writing researchers or officials of the National Writing Project--to determine what they believe teachers should be doing in the writing classroom. (FL)

Describes a drama-based language arts unit taught to a fifth grade class. Provides empirical evidence that drama as a strategy of instruction embedded within a writing/language arts unit helps students improve their writing. Suggests continued research and development of drama as a strategy of instruction. (PM)

Examines nine of the most widely accepted tenants of composition theory to derive approaches for teaching business communication. Discusses grammar, correcting, positive feedback, evaluation and written comments, quality versus quantity, self-evaluation, reading, planning and prewriting, and active involvement. (SR)