The present study compared the rhetorical strategies for argumentative writing in Chinese and English composition textbooks. The textbooks were selected based on four criteria. The results of the study revealed that there are similarities and differences in Chinese and English argumentative writing. Both Chinese and English agree upon the function…

This study examined the relationship between teacher written feedback and change in the disciplinary writing of tertiary students in their final year of undergraduate study. The student texts and teacher written feedback examined arose naturally out of a third year disciplinary-based unit in which each student submitted a text three times over the…

Writing courses are increasingly popular in higher education. This paper presents a pedagogic approach that combines theory and practice, in an accessible way, to help students appreciate the interrelation of styles and contexts, and develop skills for writing in a range of genres. The approach is characterised as "adaptive application".…

The issue of school failure at the 9th grade level is of great concern to educators. In this study, the author examined the use of cognitive, affective, and metacognitive questioning strategies in a 9th grade world history class as a means to increase student engagement and academic success. Through the use of structured journal questions over a…

The paper first describes a web-based essay critiquing system developed by the authors using latent semantic analysis (LSA), an automatic text analysis technique, to provide students with immediate feedback on content and organisation for revision whenever there is an internet connection. It reports on its effectiveness in enhancing adult EFL…

This paper focuses on the analysis of certain didactic resources that proliferated on the fringes of schooling during the second half of the nineteenth century in Mexico. The first of these is a method that, according to its author, made it possible to teach a pupil how to read in only six lessons, dated 1830; the second is a writing method from…

Scholars in rhetoric and composition have explored political issues of identity and language for some time; however, we have only begun to develop an understanding of why the identity politics of Native scholars are so different from other scholars of color and whites. Native scholars take considerable risks in composing identities--they can face…

This article presents work undertaken with a class of Scottish Primary Six children (aged 10) to investigate the use of interactive whiteboard technology and interactive talking books in whole-class writing lessons. The paper reports on a research project with three aims: to investigate how the use of an interactive whiteboard to reflect on the…

Extending S. Graham and K. R. Harris's (2003) self-regulated strategy development model, this study examined whether self-regulation procedures would increase the effectiveness of a writing strategies training designed to improve 4th graders' (N = 113) composition skills. Students who were taught composition strategies in conjunction with…

The under-achievement of boys in the language components of standardised tests, together with a perception of boys as having negative attitudes towards the English curriculum, has led to boys being positioned as struggling writers. This article reflects critically on this construction, drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council…

We compared 56 eighth-grade students who, 28 months previously, had received instruction in strategies for planning and revising their writing, with 21 students of similar academic ability from the same school who had not experienced the intervention. Both groups wrote an expository essay whilst logging their writing activities and completed…

More empirical studies are needed that evaluate interventions to improve the academic functioning of students with Asperger syndrome (AS). The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the use of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction (Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991) with an adolescent with AS. A…

When, why, and how clinicians decide to write about clients are ethical concerns. There are risks and potential clinical ramifications as well as responsibilities for how these decisions are made. On the basis of 141 interviews with psychoanalysts who have published in 3 major national and international psychoanalytic journals, the author explores…

This article reports on a descriptive and exploratory study of near-beginner learners of French in English secondary schools, their cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and their general approaches to writing. There is virtually no research on foreign language writing at this level, conceived in this study as including the copying of words and…

There appears to be little research on the standard of post-16 students' writing and how it can be improved. In respect of such students, the focus of teaching professionals seems to be on content rather than on the writing process; arguably this leads to weaknesses in written expression. This article examines some current research and follows one…