Four recently developed computer programs can help students with the composition process. The first, a prewriting program, helps students prepare to write by asking them a series of questions, similar to those an instructor would ask, intended to help them think more deeply about their subject. The second writing program also contains prewriting…

A cognitive approach to the interrelation of writing and reading assumes that production and comprehension of written text depend upon cognitive and affective schemata used in concert by a writer or reader to produce or encode, store, and retrieve text information. Both comprehending and composing are basic, complex, interactive processes with…

Participant-observer and case study research designs were used during the course of a 17-month-long study that sought (1) to determine the influence of sense of audience on the writing processes of eight adolescent boys and (2) to develop and explore effective research procedures that might provide insights into the writing processes and emphasize…

Since attention to the issue of writing assessment is new, research and theory are described as still widely scattered among fields of inquiry and differing perspectives. The integration of available knowledge into a viable framework is recommended to prescribe current practice and determine future research. In a domain-referenced view of…

While close analysis of individual composing processes has been the major accomplishment of recent writing research, this research has not yet sufficiently considered how students develop as learners. The work of William Perry, a developmental psychologist, can contribute to an understanding of that development. Based on an analysis of interviews…

Researchers in many disciplines dislike writing and view it as an additional and unnecessary irritant. Teaching researchers to write for administrators who must make decisions about highly specialized topics, but who lack the specialist's knowledge, means inducing a change in the researchers' perspective. They have to learn that they are writing…

The left hemisphere of the brain is analytic and "particularistic" in orientation--focusing on individual elements within a field and analyzing them sequentially. The right hemisphere of the brain is holistic or relational in processing, and is predisposed to see wholes simultaneously. One of the most prominant features of the EEG is the asymmetry…

The format of the Instruction Dialogue Author Facility (IDAF) computer program has been applied to teaching clause analysis in college writing classes. The IDAF program exercises a great deal of control over a writing student's progression through lessons. Each of the writing lessons consists of one or more exchanges between the instructor and the…

West Chester State College and the intermediate units of Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties joined in 1979 to develop the Pennsylvania Writing Project (PWP) as a National Writing Project site. The William Penn Foundation provided initial funding for the project, and a number of schools and school districts have also contributed funds. Each…

Seeking to involve students more actively in their writing assignments, two teachers developed a group of sequential writing assignments with an interdisciplinary emphasis for students in an advanced writing course. The goal of these writing assignments was to give students who had solved most of their mechanical writing problems a chance to…

A two-part study manipulated structure demands (sequencing ideas, forming sentences, and complying with punctuation/spelling mechanics) in a persuasive writing task to measure the resulting effects on content operations (generating arguments/propositions). In part one of the study, 40 graduate students wrote preliminary and final drafts in one of…

A study examined the relationship between students' linguistic insecurity (writing apprehension) and writing performance. College students in three remedial and two freshman composition classes were administered a test of linguistic insecurity that included pronunciation items and choices of hypercorrect, colloquial, and nonstandard versions of…

In a small informal study of the process of children's writing, three children, aged 9, 10, and 11, were observed as they wrote. Specifically, the study sought to discover how the children approached the task of writing, the manner and extent of their interaction, and the result of this interaction upon their writing. Each child's writing was also…

In contrast to a speech-act theory that is limited by a simple speaker/hearer relationship, a text-act theory of written language allows for the historical or personal context of a writer and reader, both in the written work itself and in the act of reading. This theory can be applied to theme writing, essay examinations, and revision in the…

A study was undertaken to discover clues to the learning processes of college students by exploring a method for locating and analyzing student initiated concerns about writing in student/teacher writing conferences. Four tapes of teacher conferences with two students from the first and last of a semester were analyzed in depth. It was noted that…