Writing task variants can increase test security in high-stakes essay assessments by substantially increasing the pool of available writing stimuli and by making the specific writing task less predictable. A given prompt (parent) may be used as the basis for one or more different variants. Six variant types based on argument essay prompts from a…

Informed by a sociocultural perspective on second language teacher education, the present qualitative study investigates three preservice teachers' (PSTs) writing instruction during the English as an Additional Language (EAL) practicum in Australian secondary schools in relation to the multidimensional context of the practicum and the PSTs'…

Graduate teaching assistants (TAs) and the general education yet discipline-specific courses they often teach occupy a complex peripheral position in the university. This qualitative comparative case study investigated disciplinary TAs' identities and pedagogical strategies as they taught writing courses linked with disciplinary lecture courses at…

This article discusses the successes and vulnerabilities associated with combining the pedagogical methods of Theater, Composition, and Community Literacy in the Composition classroom. It examines how the ideas of Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed" and Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" can be combined to support…

The use of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) especially the Internet has been a common practice in education. However, research studies show that the Internet has not been frequently used in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) writing, especially in the Indonesian context. This study aimed to find out whether or…

This study compares learners' writing in an impromptu, timed writing (ITW) exam and in a process-based, timed writing (PBTW) exam to investigate the differences between these two types of assessments. A secondary objective of this study is to examine the test takers' attitudes towards the two exams. Forty participants taking ESL writing classes…

For almost 40 years, the Minute Paper has been a quick and easy means of learning assessment, both in the college classroom and in library instruction. More recently, the use of social media, particularly selfies, has gained popularity by connecting with students through the technology with which they are most familiar. This article makes the case…

Peer feedback is widely used in second and foreign language writing contexts. While second language (L2) proficiency is likely to be an important factor in determining peers' ability to give and utilize feedback, its contribution has been relatively under-researched. In the present study, 54 undergraduates in a foreign language writing context…

This case study investigates how an ESL teacher's activity of self-directed journal writing can facilitate learning and function as a mediational tool for teacher professional development. The participant for this study is a native English speaker who taught an ESL freshman writing course in an American university. Since he had little time to…

The development of local wisdom based sensitizing reading material is aimed at penetrating one of the imperishable gaps between authentic and non-authentic reading materials dispute in an EFL teaching context. Promoting EFL learners' needs for the first semester students of English department at university level, who rarely or even never have a…

This multiple case study investigated how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing and teacher evaluation system based in part on CCSS assessments might be influencing writing instruction in elementary schools. The sample included nine schools: Six achieved above-predicted performance on English Language Arts (ELA) as well as prior ELA…

The authors conducted a multiple-baseline study to investigate the effects of a computer-based graphic organizer (CBGO) with embedded self-regulated learning strategies on the quantity and quality of persuasive essay writing by students with high-incidence disabilities. Ten seventh- and eighth-grade students with learning disabilities, emotional…

The current study set out to compare the effect of traditional and non-traditional instructional treatments; i.e. explicit, implicit, task-based and no-instruction approaches on students' abilities to learn how to write classified ads. 72 junior students who have all taken a course in Reading Journalistic Texts at the Payame-Noor University…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often struggle to be effective writers. Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is one approach to writing instruction that has demonstrated success for students with EBD. However, there is little research exploring its utility to teach writing to students with EBD in social studies. The…

Dual-language learner (DLL) children typically learn to write while still learning English, with vocabulary appearing to be a particularly vulnerable domain. This study investigates how a reduced English lexicon impacts English writing in DLL children. Participants were 100 Spanish-speaking DLLs and 100 of their monolingual classmates in first…