While much attention has been paid to the borders between those within and beyond the discipline of composition, the primary goal of this project is to examine the discourses which exist within composition and, subsequently, how these discourses might work to undermine pedagogy and scholarship. I take the position that even those working directly…

College students have difficulty in written communication, despite attempts by universities to place English courses in the "core curriculum." Although many companies indicate that writing is an expected competency, and many companies consider writing when they promote, students still enter the workforce with poor grammar skills. Clear…

Today's students live in a world that has been transformed by technology, and they are often referred to as "digital natives" because their exposure to digital resources begins at birth. The increased exposure to technology has changed the way students respond to instruction and has led to a new need for teachers to integrate…

Although writing is considered one of the most essential foreign language skills, to nurture and develop writing skills among students is challenging. To overcome this, teachers have recently considered benefiting from digital technology. Self-monitoring and self-evaluation, as sub-skills of metacognition, in addition to scaffolding, might be…

Although a great deal of research exists regarding various components of the Writing-Based Practice along with best practice of writing instruction, the research that does exist only examines how writing instruction impacts writing. This research study, however, examined whether there is a potential connection between a writing immersion program,…

Conducting focus groups with target audiences to assess user needs is a critical step in the process of designing and developing a web-based writing environment. This descriptive study examined focus group data gathered to address two questions: First, do data from focus groups affirm and expand our understanding of writing and writing development…

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on writing anxiety alleviation through a pre-test/post-test assessment. 120 EFL learners from a Chinese polytechnic institute were assigned into two groups: one experimental (cooperative writing) and the other comparison (solitary writing). Results revealed that cooperative learning…

Disappointed that the use of the "PEEL" writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted to theorise the…

Learning to write well is a significant outcome of higher education, as confirmed and illustrated in the Written Communication VALUE Rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Scholars agree that writing and thinking are linked. Thinking about this relationship between writing and thinking in the context of…

Reflection has often been considered a powerful tool for students in composition, helping them develop rhetorical awareness and the ability to transfer their knowledge to future writing tasks. However, the methods that promote reflection have often been debated, and students have considered the process both puzzling and difficult. Furthermore, few…

The present study examined the effects of languaging by asking four pairs of Chinese university English as a foreign language (EFL) students to rewrite a story from a different perspective through three stages (composing--comparing- revising). Multiple sources of data were collected, including pair discussions, co-constructed writings, individual…

The objectives of this study were to examine the impact of blended learning in developing English writing performance of first year students and to determine the level of computer attitudes of English language instructors towards using blended learning approach to teach English writing. The research design of the study was quasi-experimental…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) mainstreamed into regular classrooms continues to increase. Curricular writing standards required by the Common Core State Standards require students to write essays analytically in response to text(s). Many English Language Arts (ELA) teachers may worry about effectively delivering essay writing…

Students' ESL writing skills in general are not at a desirable level. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of utilizing the STAD [Student Team Achievement Division] method to enhance descriptive writing skills among students in an international school in Selangor, Malaysia. This study employed an action research design.…

This article reports on a study which examined the effectiveness of a 7-minute writing technique whereby students regularly wrote as much as they could in 7 minutes three times a week for a period of 10 weeks. The study was conducted with four classes of first-year and third-year students at a university in Vietnam. The study looked at the…