While the merits of dialogic talk for supporting students' learning is well documented, the contribution of specific talk moves on learning outcomes remains less understood. This study was conducted to investigate how student-generated talk moves during whole-classroom discussions, as captured by the Low-Inference Discourse Observation tool,…

Converging evidence indicates that argumentative thinking and writing are promoted by peer discourse. Here it is proposed that collaborative writing can serve as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing. Three groups of sixth graders participated in a study that tested this hypothesis. Two of the groups took part in a…

We evaluate how higher- vs. lower-scoring middle-school students differ in their composition processes when writing persuasive essays from source materials. We examined differences on four individual process features--time taken before beginning to write, typing speed, total time spent, and number of words started. Next, we examined differences…

Teaching middle school students with learning disabilities strategies for writing essays that incorporate information from source texts helps prepare them for academic success. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) writing instruction using technology tools implemented by…

With technological advancements, Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) has garnered increasing interest in L2 writing research, significantly enhancing our understanding of AWE tools' practices and efficacy in L2 writing instruction. However, the relationships between feedback types (teacher vs. AWE) and different dimensions of engagement (cognitive…

Writing on-demand, text-based analytical essays is a challenging skill to master. Novice writers, such as the sixth grade US students in this study, may lack background knowledge of how to compose an effective essay, the self-efficacy skills, and the goal setting skills that will help with completing this task in accomplished ways. This sequential…

How better can we prepare students for the roles awaiting them as citizens than by engaging them in addressing challenging issues of the day? We describe our experience as a researcher--practitioner partnership with this objective in a yearlong program involving academically low-performing urban middle schoolers and a student-centered…

This study investigated fourth and fifth graders' metacognitive knowledge about writing and its relationship to writing performance to help identify areas that might be leveraged when designing effective writing instruction. Students' metacognitive knowledge was probed using a 30-minute informative writing prompt requiring students to teach their…

In most assessments of students' argumentive writing and in most research on the topic, students write on topics for which they have no specific prior preparation. We examined development in the argumentive writing urban middle school students did as part of a two-year dialogic-based intervention in which students engaged deeply with a series of…

Morphological skills have previously been found to reliably predict reading skill, including word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, less is known about how morphological skills might contribute to writing skill, aside from its well-documented role in the development of spelling. This correlational study examines whether…

As writing instruction expands beyond the language arts classroom, students with disabilities, English language learners, and others who struggle with writing continue to need support with written expression. A timely practice to support student writing is the use of technology. This study used a quasi-experimental group design to examine the…

Understanding the merits and demerits of new technology and how it may or may not work within traditional pedagogical methods is important. This study, therefore, examined the effects of traditional versus digital peer-editing to understand how digital peer-editing affects student writing achievement in a rural public middle school environment. It…

"Fable Writer" is an online reading, writing and research tool designed to facilitate synchronous, collaborative writing tool that enables learners to read and copy text and images from teacher-curated books and Web-based resources in the "Fable Reader" digital library. The "Fable Writer" project addressed two…

In the summer of 2009, this author devised a Saturday program with an emphasis on writing for publication targeting three students as his nucleus. One of the students, Mariano, was the only one of the three to accept the invitation. This was a strong indication of his passion for writing. Thus, three weeks before school began, the author and…

The current study examines data from students in grades 4-8 who participated in a statewide computer-based benchmark writing assessment that featured automated essay scoring and automated feedback. We examined whether the use of automated feedback was associated with gains in writing quality across revisions to an essay, and with transfer effects…