This annotated bibliography contains 32 citations of journal articles, book chapters, and books that focus on the teaching of writing in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classrooms. (MDM)

This study examined the writing development of two language minority students over 3 school years, in particular, students' writing samples in the form of dialogue journals. Analyses focus on the function of content features (pragmatics) in their writing, the development of mechanical control (surface features), and the change in content over…

A study at Hong Kong University explored the use of the word processor as a writing tool in enhancing a process approach to writing instruction and the effect it has on writing performance, student attitudes to writing and revising, and the process by which students revise their scripts. A comparative analysis was done on a control group of 13…

Using the right hemisphere of the brain in evaluating student writing means consciously and consistently incorporating its emotional, intuitive, and holistic functions with the more analytical functions of the logical "left" hemisphere when considering, judging, and directing improvement in student writing. Research seems to suggest that…

A study analyzed some of the characteristics of junior high students' oral communication behavior that accompanied the assignment, production, and evaluation of a writing task. It involved fieldwork in three junior high school English classes--first in a six-month pilot study and then in a year-long period of observation. Through direct…

Two case histories, one in a business and one in an academic setting, demonstrated the potential for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching technical communication. Cooperation between a writer with little understanding of computer software and technicians lacking sophisticated writing skills resulted in concise, effective, and easy to…

The product of a two-year study investigating the literacy behavior of nine kindergarten students and their classmates, this report first explains the impetus and the theoretical foundations for the investigation and describes its subjects and setting. It then presents the methodology and the data collected from several related studies: (1)…

To examine the relationship between student writer and audience, five volunteers from a college freshman composition class were asked to think aloud on tape as they revised three out-of-class drafts of a paper. The subjects gave one protocol after getting feedback on an early draft from their own writing group, another after a student-teacher…

Designed to use recent research on revision activities and personal error analysis, a classroom study compared grades on papers written by students with and without specific instruction and practice in revising and proofreading techniques. Detailed statistical analyses of two writing assignments revealed no significant difference in grade…

A study examined the transition from dependent writing (dictation) to independent writing for 40 first grade students. Specifically, the study investigated (1) how, in terms of common quantitative language units (mean words per t-unit, mean number of dependent clauses, words per maze, mean number of dependent clauses per t-unit, and length in…

College freshman composition courses are often taught on the assumption that students need little or no help in reading, with the result that reading materials are only used as models of writing. However, research such as a 1978 study at the University of Minnesota wherein freshmen scored significantly lower in reading skills than did freshmen 50…

Researchers of writing ability have often applied the developmental schemes of William Perry, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget in describing basic writers. As a result, some researchers have concluded that basic writers think well below the formal-operations or true concept-formation stage of cognitive development. To investigate the theory that…

Specifically intended to address the teaching of spelling, this description of an elementary school program in Australia deals with many of the pedagogical problems that arise in whole language classrooms, and suggests ways for teachers to integrate a process approach to spelling with process writing to create a total language program. Following…

To evaluate composition programs based on peer feedback, a study compared the improvement in written composition skills of two sets of eighth grade students in 11 classes at eight Dutch schools. The control group was enrolled in teacher feedback programs, the experimental group was enrolled in peer feedback programs. Students wrote a discursive…

A practicum was conducted to develop critical thinking and improve expression through creative written language utilizing precision teaching as an evaluation of student performance. Six students (grades second through sixth) with low idea generation and few organization skills were trained by three teachers and a teacher advisor using…