Inspired by Rebecca Oxford's thought-provoking reflections on language learning strategies, and particularly her orchestra metaphor on how the strategies work together, I conducted a study that seeks to understand how non-native writers employ, configure, sequence and combine individual writing strategies when creating a text in the target…

In this article, we share what we learned about undergraduates' struggles in writing quality summaries, comparison texts, and argumentative essays that were components of a unique course, Learning How to Learn. This course was designed to address core psychological issues that impede optimal learning for students from all majors, many of whom are…

The purpose of this study was to explore the topic selection tendencies of university students among a given topic list and to reveal what reasons students had in deciding on the topic to write about. The study was designed as a case study. 37 students studying at a state university in Konya Province, Turkey were determined as a study group. The…

Research on integrated writing tasks is increasing, while there is a paucity of empirical findings on graph-based writing, as one type of these tasks. The present study purports to examine the contribution of L2 writing anxiety to university students' graph writing performance and the strategies they employ for these tasks. The participants of…

Purpose: This study draws on genre theory to analyze the linguistic and discursive presentation of the self in successful US college application essays. Research Methods: We used qualitative discourse analysis informed by the systemic functional linguistic concepts of field, tenor, and mode to analyze 20 sample application essays identified as…

The authors of this study examined a virtually delivered multimedia expository writing strategy via a single case multiple-baseline across participants design with three college students enrolled in a postsecondary program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Participants responded to expository essay prompts at the…

Using a mixed-methods, multi-institutional design of general education writing courses at four institutions, this study examined genre as a key factor for understanding and promoting writing development. It thus aims to provide empirical validation of decades of theoretical work on and qualitative studies of genre and the nature of genre…

Characterized by specific and rigid boundaries of institutional practices and expectations in the academy, student writing is a synergistic literacy practice where students are required to construct generically diverse texts by yoking concepts with appropriate linguistic resources. This empirical study involving 196 first-year ESL students at a…

Argumentative writing is a genre of writing that is considered difficult by EFL students at the university level. This study aimed to investigate problems faced by EFL students in writing an argumentative essay and to explain their strategies to overcome the problems. The participants of this study were ten fifth-semester students of the 2023-2024…

This article, based on Andrea Walsh's teaching experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), focuses on a strategy to inspire students to approach the revision process proactively with imagination and critical insight: envisioning essays as documentary films. It first looks at some central tasks of revision and then explores the…

This study investigated the effects of using IELTS model essays in conjunction with noticing as a feedback instrument on Vietnamese undergraduates' IELTS Task 2 writing performance. To investigate this, a quasi-experimental design was undertaken. The control group used the course textbook and received traditional writing feedback (i.e. direct,…

Positioned within our field's work on supporting transfer of writing-related knowledge through careful course design, this article describes the development of a pedagogical intervention designed to help students identify knowledge gaps and pose questions about rhetoric and genre. Below, I tell the story of a 2012 teacher research study that…

Making writing less scary for students and focusing on the messy, recursive nature of writing helps students use the writing process to bring forth the thoughts that might otherwise not find their way into essays. Students who revisit their writing also revisit their thinking and are empowered to cultivate and articulate that thinking in clearer…

Current writing support tools tend to focus on assessing final or intermediate products, rather than the writing process. However, sensing technologies, such as keystroke logging, can enable provision of automated feedback during, and on aspects of, the writing process. Despite this potential, little is known about the critical indicators that can…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum based on self-regulated strategy instruction in college developmental writing courses. Prior research that had found large effects on the writing quality for essays without sources was extended to include strategies for critical reading and note-taking, writing summary response…