This paper reviews research on outcomes of writing programmes for students in Years 3 to 13 in England, or grades 2 to 12 in the US. Studies had to meet rigorous standards of research including use of randomised or well-matched control groups, measures independent of the programme developers, researchers, and teachers, and adequate sample size and…

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…

Compares White and African-American basic writers' texts produced during districtwide holistic writing assessments. Shows that White basic writers differ little from African-American basic writers, although African-Americans tend to use a stronger personal voice and drop standard word ending. Concludes that dialect is not the key issue. (MG)

A study examined the effectiveness of a metacognitive intervention that concentrated on eight subprocesses of writing and on executive procedures according to an "Orchestra Model" of text production. Subjects, 90 tenth-grade students, participated in the intervention which lasted for about six months and consisted of about 60 lessons.…

Analyzes think-aloud protocols with native speakers of English learning French or German. Shows that as the writer's experience with the language increases, fluency increases, the average length of strings of words proposed between pauses or revision episodes increases, the number of revision episodes decreases, and more of the words proposed as…

Examines the extent to which asking 20 entry-level and 19 basic-level college writing students to articulate their initial intentions for writing facilitated the identification of 3 kinds of instructional problems students face in moving from intentions to texts. Suggests that students with useful initial intentions write more effective texts than…

A study diagnosed the nature of different text production abilities of Swiss grade 5 and grade 9 students, and of adults, and diagnosed good and poor writers' differences within each of these three age groups. Subjects, 36 in all, were uniformly divided between 11- and 15-year-old students from the Bernese secondary school and high school…

This longitudinal study examined the development of the semantic "strand" (the relationship between drawing and writing, differentiation of literary genres, influence of literature, coherence, and part-whole coordination) of children's writing development over a 5-year period. Subjects, eight girls and nine boys enrolled in a small,…

A study investigated the effect of word processing on the quality of children's writing. Subjects were 32 fifth-graders in a public school in the suburban town of Livingston, New Jersey. One sample had access to computers in their classroom everyday for writing. The other sample group used computers once a week in the lab; their daily writing…

A study examined how college students wrote a critique of a sociology article; which features of written critiques were valued most by professors in the discipline; and whether students' educational level and status predicted the quality of their critiques. Subjects, 32 students enrolled in an upper-level sociology course, read and responded by…

A study assessed the impact of word processing on the writing of junior high school students, experienced in working with computers, for a number of tasks, including writing. Subjects, 111 eighth grade students in four communications arts classes at a Canadian middle-class suburban school, who had been using computers for writing for a year and a…

This action research describes a program for improving writing skills. The targeted population consisted of first and third graders in two middle class communities in the southern suburbs of Chicago. The need for improvement in writing skills was documented through observation checklists, writing samples, and surveys. Data revealed a need for…

As part of the mandate of the Alberta Government's Student Evaluation Branch to monitor changes in student achievement, the Humanities Diploma Examinations Unit compared the written work from 1984 and the 1990 English 30, Social Studies 30, and English 33 Canadian provincial diploma examinations. Full-length essays written by over 30,000 students…

This edition of "NAEPfacts" discusses the frequency with which process-oriented activities are taught in United States schools, and the writing performance of students whose teachers emphasize these activities. Data were drawn from the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Writing, which was administered to a…

A study investigated the organizational processes accessed during the composing process by elementary student writers whose teachers had been instructed by the Project READ/Inquiring School Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh in helping children develop organizational structures. Subjects were 28 fourth-grade students in the experimental…