Reading critically involves examining the language choices authors make to "get the job done" -- in other words, to communicate effectively in specific ways with particular audiences. Not all students in middle and high school intuit this type of reading and may experience challenges when they go to write for academic purposes. Their…

This article describes the Mentored Multigenre Project, a virtual writing collaboration experience between high school writers and teacher candidates. Our goal was to create an authentic opportunity for our high school students to receive writing feedback from virtual writing mentors, while also creating an opportunity for our teacher candidates…

In this research report, we present an empirical argument for the use of a contributory scoring approach for the 2-essay writing assessment of the analytical writing section of the "GRE"® test in which human and machine scores are combined for score creation at the task and section levels. The approach was designed to replace a currently…

This paper examines the effects of attended and unattended demonstratives on text processing, comprehension, and writing quality in two studies. In the first study, participants (n = 45) read 64 mini-stories in a self-paced reading task and identified the main referent in the clauses. The sentences varied in the type of demonstratives (i.e., this,…

Though Linda Adler-Kassner and Peggy O'Neill claim that ethical writing assessment models "must be designed and built collaboratively, with careful attention to the values and passions of all involved, through a process that provides access to all," college students have not typically been included in scholarly conversations about…

Writing is a critical tool for developing thinking and communicating ideas. However, only about a third of students across grades 4, 8 and 12 meet standards for proficient writing (NCES, 2011). While writing generally has long been a neglected area of curricula, this is especially the case with argument writing. The proposed presentation describes…

This study examined the effects of integrated feedback on students' writing achievement. Then, it further investigated the attitude of student towards the implementation of integrated feedback on writing. Twenty students from one class were used as a sample group (intact group) to participate in this study. So the convenience sampling was used to…

Health promotional campaign as the practice of encouraging people to improve health has increased over the last decades in response to various health problems. This paper highlights strategies used by students to develop persuasive promotional campaign posters regarding the dengue health problem. Communication and media studies students were…

The present study investigates integrated writing assessment performances with regard to the linguistic features of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Given the increasing presence of integrated tasks in large-scale and classroom assessments, validity evidence is needed for the claim that their scores reflect targeted language abilities.…

Writing from source text is critical for developing college-and-career readiness because it is required in advanced academic environments and many vocations. Scenario-based assessment (SBA) represents one approach to measuring this ability. In such assessment, the scenario presents an issue that the student is to read and write about. Before…

Enhancing the quality of education has been placed high in the national policy agenda in Azerbaijan in recent years. Education policy makers are interested in developing quality curriculum for secondary education, implementing teacher development programs and creating a better learning environment. This study outlines one of the most significant…

The mastery of the writing skills is crucial, not only among the school children, but also to everyone. The use of Cooperative Learning (hereafter, CL) has become increasingly popular in recent years as pedagogy trends worldwide. It has shifted from teacher-centred to learner-centred methods. Among the methods endorsed in teaching writing is the…

The use of relative pronouns is an intriguing topic for learners and teachers. The past two decades have witnessed exponential growth in research on the use of relative pronouns. However, little attention has been given to relativizer omission among nonnative speakers in writing. This research examined the distribution of zero relativizers and the…

This empirical study attempts to examine the use of cohesive devices in the written discourse of EFL undergraduate students and seeks to find how the use of incorrect and repetitive cohesive ties affects the effectiveness of academic writing. Halliday and Hasan's (1976) list of cohesive devices was employed to analyze the cohesion in the…

We examined the effects of a professional development (PD) system designed to support teachers' use of data-based instruction (DBI) to improve early writing outcomes for children with intensive needs. The PD system, called "DBI-TLC," provided tools for early writing assessment and intervention, learning modules including face-to-face…