Although composing has long been recognised as recursive, so far there have been few studies on the temporal dimension of writing processes. This is regrettable given that one might expect the predominance of certain processes at different stages of writing at the expense of others and/or differences among writers with respect to the duration and…

This exploratory study, undertaken from a socio-cognitive perspective, aims to investigate the effects of intensive preparatory high school training in L1 and/or L2 essay writing for university entrance exams. The analysis focuses on the task response and structural features in L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) essays written by first-year Japanese…

Previous research has shown that corrective feedback on an assignment helps learners reduce their errors on that assignment during the revision process. Does this finding constitute evidence that learning resulted from the feedback? Differing answers play an important role in the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of error correction,…

In contrast to the traditional cognitive view of writing strategies, this study explores English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing strategy use within the Activity Theory framework, adding to the growing body of writing strategy research and sociocultural research on writing and second language acquisition (SLA). Drawing on data…

The ability to construct supported arguments in English is important for academic success in educational contexts where English is the language of instruction and student assessment is mediated through the academic essay. Starting from the hypothesis that students schooled in an English-medium education system do engage in friendly argument in…

The authors describe the professional development of L1 and L2 teachers from a comprehensive theoretical perspective that focuses on literacy as a critical social practice, the construction of student/teacher knowledge, and institutional forces that support and/or constrain the academic literacy development of L2 students in the United States. The…

While plagiarism is often viewed in terms of ethical binaries, scholars in composition studies have recognized plagiarism as part of literacy practices governing identity construction. In this light, what is at stake is how writers construct identity by positioning stance-claims according to the standards of respective discourse communities. For…

This study addresses the response of social science and engineering science faculty to a naturally occurring sample of second language writing. Using a matched-guise protocol, faculty participants were led to believe that the one-page essay was produced by an international student whose first language was either Chinese or Spanish. The faculty…

Using a case study approach, we explored the role of the teacher-student relationship in how a teacher made written comments on students' writing and in how students responded to these comments in revision. The focal participants were one non-native teacher of English and two of the students enrolled in her six-week composition course in a Korean…

The study examines whether writers from shared cultural backgrounds display common writing patterns in their texts and whether these patterns differ while writing in L1 versus L2. The study explored the presence and bidirectional transfer of rhetorical patterns in eighteen Turkish participants' writing in relation to previous writing instructional…

This study investigates the reactions of students in two Hong Kong secondary classrooms to their teachers' feedback, focusing particularly on the factors that might have influenced their reactions. Student data from questionnaires, checklists and protocols were triangulated with teacher data from interviews, classroom observations and feedback…

Much of the writing research on generation 1.5 students has focused on college students in educational contexts, especially either freshman composition or college ESL writing classes. Relatively little is known about them in K-12 settings, especially high-school students, despite their growing presence in these settings. In addition, there is a…

The debate continues between those who believe in giving corrective feedback to students to improve their written accuracy and those who do not. Indeed, the results of the many experimental studies on written corrective feedback carried out over the last 20 years have been so contradictory that second language teachers looking to support their…

Many have noted the increasing concentration of gatekeeping power in the hands of mainstream English-only journals and made compelling cases for the need to bring more off-networked, multilingual voices into the global research conversation. Despite the hurdles that often face under-resourced off-network scholars, a number of them do find their…

Responding to student writing is one of the most challenging aspects of the writing instructor's job, and it is certainly the most time-consuming. Preparing future teachers to respond to L2 writing thus becomes an important aspect of any pre-service training course. In this paper, the author describes her own approach to training writing…