This study investigated how computer agents' language style affects summary writing in an Intelligent Tutoring System, called CSAL AutoTutor. Participants interacted with two computer agents in one of three language styles: (1) a "formal" language style, (2) an "informal" language style, and (3) a "mixed" language…

In successful writing development, English as a foreign language (EFL) learners not only need to acquire grammatical complexity (GC) features but also know when and how to use them flexibly across communicative contexts, known as register flexibility. The present study, guided by the sociocultural theory of language learning, examines descriptive…

This study investigated how computer agents' language style affects summary writing in an Intelligent Tutoring System, called CSAL AutoTutor. Participants interacted with two computer agents in one of three language styles: (1) a "formal" language style; (2) an "informal" language style; and (3) a "mixed" language…

Purpose: Unlike formalist and functional approaches to literacy and teaching writing, a languaging theory approach centers on the dynamic and interpersonal nature of writing. The purpose of this study was to determine students' ability to engage in explicit reflection about their languaging actions in response to their personal narrative writing…

This essay explores the intersection between writing studies and civic engagement through the action projects developed in E465: Prison Literature and Writing. Such literacy activism creates immediate opportunities for advanced undergraduates to more fully understand the work of literacy in contested spaces like jail and extends a call to action…

Explores some of the possibilities of writing that the author realized from working with women writers and describes how, as a result of this work, she has revised her thinking about writing and the teaching of writing. (RS)

A writing center course designed for adult learners offers features that will work in either a credit or a noncredit course. The classroom provides an informal setting and contains a variety of workbooks and audio visual materials, indexed for easy student reference. Sample paragraphs and essays illustrating different composition formats are kept…

Twelve studies relating writing apprehension to a variety of measures of self-esteem and personality are summarized in this paper. The findings reported indicate that apprehension is inversely related to self-esteem, marginally related to some personality measures (alienation, tolerance for ambiguity), inversely associated with mathematics…

Papers in this collection represent different aspects of current research into writing in a second language. Papers deal with: (1) backtracking in writing the second language; (2) developmental relationships in the acquisition of English syntax; (3) models of adult second language writing instruction; (4) and second language writing subprocesses.…

Reviews writing instruction for adult nonnative speakers of English, and discusses problems encountered over the past quarter century. Five issues are addressed, including the topics of writing, the issue of "real" writing, the nature of the academic discourse community, contrastive rhetoric, and responding to writing. (116 references) (VWL)

There are many teaching positions for writing instructors outside the classroom, such as continuing education programs for business and professional people. Instructors interested in tapping this market should watch for opportunities and not overlook small or unusual jobs. They should also clarify their goals, start small, and remember the…

One way to help basic writers become more effective writers is to encourage them to consider and write about what they do in writing--the problems they face and the satisfactions they glean. Using a scheme that involves using a hierarchy of stages of abstraction in discourse, students can be led to development of their writing skills. One such…

The theoretical roots of sentence combining as a pedagogical strategy are discussed in this paper, along with recent studies of the development of written syntactic maturity. The paper examines several major sentence combining studies in detail and briefly summarizes additional relevant literature. The instructional implications of sentence…

Because the Texas Department of Human Resources (DHR) was demanding writing competency from its employees, and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) had a supply of competent writers in the form of undergraduate and graduate English majors, UTSA established a writing laboratory at the DHR. A three-credit course was developed to briefly…

Proposing the theory that adult basic writers can learn to write better if they are taught to understand the mental processes that writing requires, this paper presents a brief teaching guide for systematic instruction in these processes. The paper first examines how ideas develop and then outlines the mental processes in rhetoric. Discussions of…