As integrated writing tasks in large-scale and classroom-based writing assessments have risen in popularity, research studies have increasingly concentrated on providing validity evidence. Given the fact that most of these studies focus on adult second language learners rather than younger ones, this study examined the relationship between written…

Practitioners working closely with second language (L2) writers in the US recognize at least two types of L2 students: international (IL2) and Generation 1.5 (G1.5) students. Some argue that specific differences in each group's writing performance are evident (cf. Harklau, 2003; Reid, 2006); however, investigations into observable and measurable…

It is said that one important aspect of education is the production of coherent discourse (Halliday and Hasan, 1985). This is the speaker's or the writer's ability to organize relevant meanings in relation to each other, and this in turn requires the establishment of "chain interaction"--relations between components of a message--in a text. The…