Implicit writing beliefs and their relation to writing quality

Writers have beliefs that may influence engagement during writing and consequently effect writing quality. Students completed a writing beliefs inventory that identified transmissional and transactional beliefs. Transmissional beliefs reflect limited cognitive and affective engagement during writing whereas transactional beliefs reflect higher engagement. Relations between writing beliefs and writing quality were examined with a different group of students. ANOVA results indicated that students with low transactional beliefs scored low on organization and overall writing quality and students with high transactional beliefs scored high on idea-content development, organization, voice, sentence fluency, conventions, and overall writing quality. Results indicate that individuals hold implicit writing beliefs that can be measured and that relate in stable and predictable ways to writing quality.     

Learning science through writing: associations with prior conceptions of writing and perceptions of a writing program

Students in a large undergraduate biology course were expected to write a scientific report as a key part of their course design. This study investigates the quality of learning arising from the writing experience and how it relates to the quality of students’ preconceptions of learning through writing and their perceptions of their writing program that led to their report. Closed‐ended questionnaires investigating student conceptions and perceptions of writing, and approaches to writing, were completed by 121 students. Significant associations were found amongst qualitatively different prior and post conceptions of writing, approaches to writing and achievement. The results of the analyses suggest that the effective support of student experiences of writing reports requires teachers to be aware of the type of conceptions that students bring to their course and the perceptions they hold about the purpose of the writing program in which they are engaged.     

Collaborative writing practices and writing support technologies

This article explores some relationships between collaborative writing practices and writing support technologies. It attempts to illustrate the range of ways in which technologies are used. It examines the relationships of particular technologies and practices with how the writers view the process in which they are engaged. The implications of the findings for thinking about the role of computers in supporting writing, and facilitating collaborative writing in particular, are discussed.     

合作写作--元认知支持应用于作文教学的尝试

英国学者Fiona Yarrow和Keith J.Topping创立的配对写作模式,是一种非常灵活的结构性合作写作体系,它以整合元认知和社会互动的方法支持学生的写作发展。其中,带有元认知支持的配对写作流程图,不仅能有效地提高学生的写作成绩,而且能激发写作兴趣,增强自信心及自我效能感,培养协作精神。因此,该研究具有较高的理论意义和实践价值,是一项极具创新的作文教改实验,值得我们研究与借鉴。     

Widening access to writing support: beliefs about the writing process are key

Abstract

Universities’ performance indicators for scholarly outputs depend on academics having productive and sustainable writing behaviours. Research shows that writing programmes can increase research output, but less is known about which writing processes are productive. A project was initiated at a university which widened access to writing support to include staff who were not included in these performance targets, but who might be in the future. Following a writing for publication workshop, 36 academics were offered a place at a structured writing retreat. The evaluation aimed to increase our understanding of participants’ perceptions of their writing skills and processes before and after the retreat using a transactional model. We found that participants’ perceptions of their writing abilities were greater than their perceptions of their ability to employ effective writing practices. Both scores improved after the retreat. This finding confirms that a structured writing retreat provides an environment and structure for academics to practise effective writing. It enhances self-belief in the processes and skills required to produce output. Widening access to writing support for academics is essential for success in performance-based systems. Writing support must provide opportunities for academics to develop strong performance beliefs by practising writing skills and productive and sustainable writing processes.     

Negotiating the challenge of collaborative writing: learning from one writing group's mutiny

With continuing pressure to publish or perish, interventions such as writing groups are increasingly part of the academic landscape. In this paper, we discuss our writing group's experiment with collaborative writing, which came unstuck as simmering concerns led to a mutiny within the group. The mutiny provided insights into tensions that are inevitably present in writing groups and collaborative writing exercises but are seldom written about. We explore these tensions via a collaborative autoethnography, drawing on published literature on writing groups and collaborative writing. The mutiny revealed three key dynamics. Experienced voices can have an important role to play but these voices need to be moderated so that other voices might be recognised and valued. Pleasure and productivity are two necessary components for sustaining writing groups and writing collaborations. Finally, hierarchies in the academic context are inescapable but they can be renegotiated so that more enabling power relations can be generated.     

论文学与作意识

本地一种真正的学写作意识,即以真正学的眼光来看待学。使学写作不仅培养能力与技巧,同时成为审美教育的重要组成部分,学写作意识的核心有两个,民创造,与实用写作意识相区别,可具体归纳为四个主要方面,与实用写作的生意识不同,学写作是反规范性意识,与实用写作的认同性意识不同,学写作是超越性意识,与实用和的内容性意识不同,学写作是形式性意识,与衫和的语言工具性意识不同,学写作是语言本体性写     

Effects of writing beliefs and planning on writing performance

White and Bruning (2005) distinguished two sets of writing beliefs: transactional and transmissional beliefs. In this paper we analyse their beliefs scale and suggest two hypotheses about how such beliefs relate to writing performance. The single-process hypothesis treats the beliefs as different amounts of engagement, whereas the dual-process hypothesis claims that the beliefs represent different types of engagement. We then describe the results of an experiment with 84 university students as participants that assessed the relationship between writing beliefs, different forms of pre-planning and different aspects of writing performance. Our results support the dual-process hypothesis, and suggest that transactional beliefs are about the preference for a top-down strategy or a bottom-up strategy, while transmissional beliefs are about the content that is written about. These beliefs interact in their effects on text quality, the amount and type of revision carried out, and the extent to which writers develop their understanding. They also moderate the effectiveness of outlining as a strategy.     

Relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, and writing performance: effects of grade, sex, and ability

A convenience sample of 618 children and adolescents in grades 4 through 10, excluding grade 8, were asked to complete a writing motivation and activity scale and to provide a timed narrative writing sample to permit an examination of the relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, writing performance, and the student characteristics of grade, sex, and teacher judgment of writing ability. Female students and older students wrote qualitatively better fictional stories, as did students with higher levels of writing ability based on teacher judgment. With respect to writing activity, more frequent writing in and out of school was reported by girls, better writers, and younger students. In a path analysis, grade and sex directly influenced writing activity, while sex, teacher judgment of writing ability, and writing activity directly influenced some aspects of writing motivation. Overall, teacher judgment of writing ability, grade level, and motivational beliefs each exerted a significant direct positive influence on narrative quality, whereas performance goals exerted a significant direct negative impact on quality.     

“写作”辨义

写作历来被认为是“经国之大业,不朽之盛事”。在现代社会,更成为一个人必须具有的素质。从写作学的现代观念出发,对写作概念进行溯源,并描述它嬗变的轨迹,梳理“写作”的各种不同称谓,弄清现代“写作学”和传统“章观”、“作论”之间的联系与区别,对写作学的发展具有重要意义。     

Dynamics of mirror writing compared to conventional writing in typical preliterate children

In left-to-right writing cultures, spontaneous mirror writing of letters and digits in preliterate children appears more frequently on left-than right-facing characters. A compelling theory drawn on neuropsychological evidence of mirror generalization suggests that children resort to a right-orienting/writing rule when learning to write. The aim of the present study was to conceptually replicate and specify recent findings (Fischer, 2017a) on the predominant contribution of writing directionality to mirror writing in preliterate children. A training study was designed to compare on-line production of conventional versus mirror writing of 4-to-5 year-old French children (n?=?30). Over a 4-week period, children were taught to write from memory words and digits. During a subsequent writing-from-memory task, a spatial constraint (Cornell, 1985) was imposed to elicit paired conventional and mirror writing of the words/digits. Spatial and kinematic data were recorded through the use of a digital pen. The results indicate a main contribution of writing directionality to letter and digit reversals. Furthermore, kinematic equivalence between conventional and mirror writing supports the neurological mirror generalization process in children. Overall, these results constitute a further illustration that the manifestation of mirror writing in typically developing children is culture-bound.     

Genres of high-stakes writing assessments and the construct of writing competence

High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of secondary education. In this paper we conduct an exploratory analysis of the genre demands of high-stakes writing assessments from three states – California, Texas, and New York – with the aim of discerning, comparing, and evaluating the role that genre knowledge plays in the construct of writing competence measured by these assessments. Our method of inquiry includes both task analysis of the prompts and genre analysis of high-scoring benchmark papers written in response to these prompts. For the analysis of benchmark papers we employed both structural analysis and quantitative counts of key linguistic features to characterize the genres represented in these assessment tasks. Our results suggest a lack of alignment between the genres of the benchmark papers designated as exemplary and the genre demands of the prompts to which they were written. Exceptions to this pattern were most common on the New York assessments, which contextualize writing tasks in tests of subject–matter knowledge. Findings from our exploratory analysis lead us to argue for greater consistency and clarity of expectations in the design of high-stakes writing exams, and for the design of writing tasks that adequately represent the demands of discipline-specific forms of written discourse.     

The structural relationship between writing attitude and writing achievement in first and third grade students

This study tested three models of the structural relationship between the writing achievement of primary grade students and their attitude towards writing (defined here as an affective disposition involving how the act of writing makes the author feel, ranging from happy to unhappy). The three models tested were: (a) writing attitude influences writing achievement in a unidirectional manner, (b) writing achievement influences writing attitude in a unidirectional manner, and (c) the effects of writing attitude and achievement are bidirectional and reciprocal. The model that best fit the data was based on the assumption that writing attitude influences writing achievement. In addition, the direct path between attitude and achievement in this model was statistically significant. Although third grade students were better writers than first grade students, there was no statistical difference in younger and older students’ attitude towards writing. In addition, girls were more positive about writing than boys, but there was no statistical difference in their writing achievement related to gender. This research extends models based on the cognitive and language processes of writing to include the role of attitude, which is an affective component of motivation.     

Golden times of writing: the creative compliance of writing journals

This paper examines the history, rationale, uses and abuses of writing journals in primary classrooms. We argue that writing journals form part of a pedagogy derived from an understanding of how children can be motivated to express themselves, independently of teachers. Moreover, they demonstrate the power of welcoming children's home cultures into the classroom. However, we also wish to argue that the use of writing journals is part of the teaching profession's ‘creative compliance’ that can still contribute to the marginalisation of effective educational practice. We document how, in some schools in England, writing journals have been reduced to token gestures towards creativity and independence and in effect collude with and support what is increasingly becoming a pedagogical hegemony.     

妇女写作与女性主义

在英国文学史上，妇女写作已成为传统。本文对传统的妇女写作与当代女性主义作家的作品进行话语对比分析，试图说明当代女性主义已把笔触延伸到意识形态手段的性质和效用，延伸到社会及文化语境这些更具普遍意义的问题之上；指出当代女性主义作家大胆地向传统文学评论中的双性同体美学提出挑战，并试图改变和颠覆西方文化领域中人们早已习以为常的以男性家长制意识形态为基础的思维定势，向传统的性别角色定型观念发起前所未有的冲击。     

Distributed writing as a lens for examining writing as embodied practice

The author argues for a reinvigorated focus on writing “as material, corporeal action” and proposes a framework of “distributed writing” through which to enact this focus. This framework highlights writing’s simultaneously material and embodied nature and can help scholars further examine and understand interactions among tools, artifacts, and writing bodies. Continuing to study writing “as material, corporeal action” is necessary as 21st century tools for writing continue to change.     

The mediation of technology in ESL writing and its implications for writing assessment

The present study investigated the influence of word processing on the writing of students of English as a second language (ESL) and on writing assessment as well. Twenty-one adult Mandarin–Chinese speakers with advanced English proficiency living in Toronto participated in the study. Each participant wrote two comparable writing tasks under exam-type conditions—one on a Macintosh computer that traced and recorded their writing and revision processes and the other written with pen. Think-aloud protocols were also recorded. It was found that participants paid more attention to higher order thinking activities while evaluating their written texts in the computer session, that they revised significantly more at most levels on the computer, and that their computer-generated essays received higher scores in argumentation than the hand-written ones, suggesting that educators should seriously consider the impact of computers on writing assessment.     

Students' use of writing strategies and their English writing achievements in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of students' use of writing strategies in light of their English writing achievements in Taiwan. This research used a cognitive approach to examine the process of writing. Forty student writers (including 20 low and 20 high achievers) in Taiwan participated in this study. Strategies used for writing by high and low achievers as revealed by a concurrent think-aloud protocol and immediate retrospective interviews with students were investigated, analysed, and compared. Results indicated that compared to low-achieving student writers, high-achieving student writers were more aware of and focused more on formulating their position statement in planning, generating text, and revising and editing their text, such as changing the meaning and fixing grammatical and spelling errors during their review. The findings are discussed in light of writing strategies and implications for writing pedagogy and teacher education.     

Do students' beliefs about writing relate to their writing self-efficacy,apprehension, and performance?

This study tested a model in which beliefs about writing, writing self-efficacy, and writing apprehension predict writing performance. The Beliefs About Writing Survey, the Writing Self-Efficacy Index, and the modified Writing Apprehension Test were administered to 738 undergraduates to predict their grade on a class paper. In a hierarchical regression, beliefs about writing predicted variance in writing scores beyond that accounted for by writing self-efficacy and apprehension. Audience Orientation, a new belief associated with expert practice, was the strongest positive predictor of the students' grade. Transmission, a belief in relying on material published by authorities, was the leading negative predictor. Writing self-efficacy predicted performance, albeit modestly. The traditional measure of writing apprehension (anxiety about being critiqued) was not significant, but Apprehension About Grammar, a new construct, significantly and negatively predicted performance. These results support the possibility that beliefs about writing could be a leverage point for teaching students to write.     

Emergent writing forms in Spanish

The purpose of this work was to study the variationsin children's early writing forms in Spanish and therelationship among different writing forms,phonological awareness and the demands of the writingtasks. A group of kindergarten children was assessedin: a) the ability to match initial sounds in words,b) the ability to segment words in phonemes, c) theknowledge of sound-letter correspondences, and d) theperformance on tasks presenting different cognitivedemands: word writing and text writing. Results showthat children produced a wide range of forms in bothtasks, being the forms used for word writing moreelaborated than the forms used for text writing. Theseresults suggest that in the process of writingacquisition, children move back and forth across formsof writing. The analysis of the relationship betweenthe writing forms and phonological awareness resultedin the identification of the different mechanismschildren might be using to write, from an unanalyticapproach to print to an analytic phonologicalmechanism. The pattern of variation observed in thechildren's performance when writing words and textsseems to reflect the interplay among different typesand levels of knowledge- knowledge about print, thephonological structure of words, sound-lettercorrespondences- and the cognitive demands of thetasks.