Effects of Content Support and Planning Instruction on Discourse Connection in EFL Argumentative Writing

Discourse connection is a challenging aspect of writing in a second language. This study seeks to investigate the effects of two classroom instructions on discourse connection in writing for EFL college students, focusing on their argumentative writing. Three classes were exposed to different pre-task conditions: receiving reading materials that provide content support for the writing, receiving planning instructions on effective outlining, and receiving no resources. The results showed that the instructions helped students attain better overall coherence in writing. However, noticeable differences between the two experimental groups emerged in terms of cohesion features. The reading group was found to employ more lexical cohesion devices in writing than the outline group, which indicated a heightened genre awareness. This inquiry helped us identify the reading group’s alignment with content support materials, particularly the change in stance as a factor that contributes to a higher level of lexical cohesion in writing.

Validation of the Writing Strategies Questionnaire in the Context of Primary Education: A Multidimensional Measurement Model

Research has shown that writers seem to follow different writing strategies to juggle the high cognitive demands of writing. The use of writing strategies seems to be an important cognitive writing-related variable which has an influence on students' writing behavior during writing and, therefore, on the quality of their compositions. Several studies have tried to assess students' writing preferences toward the use of different writing strategies in University or high-school students, while research in primary education is practically non-existent. The present study, therefore, focused on the validation of the Spanish Writing Strategies Questionnaire (WSQ-SP), aimed to measure upper-primary students' preference for the use of different writing strategies, through a multidimensional model. The sample comprised 651 Spanish upper-primary students. Questionnaire data was explored by means of exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analysis. Through exploratory factor analysis four factors were identified, labeled thinking, planning, revising, and monitoring, which represent different writing strategies. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the adequacy of the four-factor model, with a sustainable model composed of the four factors originally identified. Based on the analysis, the final questionnaire was composed of 16 items. According to the results, the Spanish version of the Writing Strategies Questionnaire (WSQ-SP) for upper-primary students has been shown to be a valid and reliable instrument, which can be easily applied in the educational context to explore upper-primary students' writing strategies.

TRAKTEXT: Investigating writing processes using eye-tracking technology

The purpose of this research was to provide a brief review of existing writing research methodologies, describe a new methodology in the investigation of writing, and demonstrate how this new methodology can be used in a pilot study to investigate the use of writing during problem solving. Our new methodology, TRAKTEXT, makes use of eye-tracking technology, which provides continuous measures of processing time, attention, and effort; does not disrupt the writer from the main task; produces data reflecting attentional shifts in periods of time as short as 100 milliseconds; can pinpoint text production or revision at the word level; and provides a more natural way of examining writing behaviors. In our exploratory study, we identified six unique writing behaviors. Results from the pilot study showed that writers who experienced a change in knowledge during problem solving demonstrated different writing behaviors from writers who did not experience a change in knowledge. Although TRAKTEXT provides several advantages over existing writing research methodologies, there are some components of writing (e.g. planning) that must be inferred from processing time and cognitive effort measures. Future iterations of TRAKTEXT may resolve these issues.

Effects of Direct Instruction and Strategy Modeling on Upper-Primary Students' Writing Development

Strategy-focused instruction is one of the most effective approaches to improve writing skills. It aims to teach developing writers strategies that give them executive control over their writing processes. Programs under this kind of instruction tend to have multiple components that include direct instruction, modeling and scaffolded practice. This multi-component nature has two drawbacks: it makes implementation challenging due to the amount of time and training required to perform each stage, and it is difficult to determine the underlying mechanisms that contribute to its effectiveness. To unpack why strategy-focused instruction is effective, we explored the specific effects of two key components: direct teaching of writing strategies and modeling of strategy use. Six classes (133 students) of upper-primary education were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, in which students received instruction aimed at developing effective strategies for planning and drafting, or control group with no strategy instruction: Direct Instruction (N = 46), Modeling (N = 45), and Control (N = 42). Writing performance was assessed before the intervention and immediately after the intervention with two tasks, one collaborative and the other one individual to explore whether differential effects resulted from students writing alone or in pairs. Writing performance was assessed through reader-based and text-based measures of text quality. Results at post-test showed similar improvement in both intervention conditions, relatively to controls, in all measures and in both the collaborative and the individual task. No statistically significant differences were observed between experimental conditions. These findings suggest that both components, direct teaching and modeling, are equally effective in improving writing skills in upper primary students, and these effects are present even after a short training.

Tailoring Multicomponent Writing Interventions: Effects of Coupling Self-Regulation and Transcription Training

Writing proficiency is heavily based on acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. The present study examined the effects of combining transcription training with a self-regulation intervention (self-regulated strategy development [SRSD]) in Grade 2 (ages 7-8). Forty-three students receiving self-regulation plus transcription (SRSD+TR) intervention were compared with 37 students receiving a self-regulation only (SRSD only) intervention and 39 students receiving the standard language arts curriculum. Compared with control instruction, SRSD instruction-with or without transcription training-resulted in more complex plans; longer, better, and more complete stories; and the effects transferred to story written recall. Transcription training produced an incremental effect on students' composing skills. In particular, the SRSD+TR intervention increased handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy for inconsistent words, planning and story completeness, writing fluency, clause length, and burst length. Compared with the SRSD-only intervention, the SRSD+TR intervention was particularly effective in raising the writing quality of poorer writers. This pattern of findings suggests that students benefit from writing instruction coupling self-regulation and transcription training from very early on. This seems to be a promising instructional approach not only to ameliorate all students' writing ability and prevent future writing problems but also to minimize struggling writers' difficulties and support them in mastering writing.

The Study of Professional Writing

In this article, we argue that examining the writing processes of literary authors would enrich and extend empirical research on writing, which is currently grounded in cognitive psychology. In most empirical studies of writing skills, experts are defined as either advanced students or technical writers, neither of whom work within the same constraints or timeframes as literary authors. Including literary authors in psychological accounts of writing, by drawing on the observations of genetic criticism (a linguistic-literary discipline that reconstructs the genesis of an author’s manuscript by collecting and interpreting the notes, drafts, revisions, successive versions, etc.), would add to our knowledge of professional writing. Two issues could then be considered: (a) the way the creative process takes place during writing and (b) the role of memory in the management of writing processes over extended time periods.

The effects of adapting a writing course to students' writing strategies

BACKGROUND

When writing a text, students are required to do several things simultaneously. They have to plan, translate and review, which involve demanding cognitive processes. In order to handle this complexity, writers need to develop a writing strategy. The two most well-defined writing strategies that have been identified, are those of a planning strategy and a revising strategy.

AIMS

To establish whether students will be more competent in managing the complexity of writing when writing instruction is adapted to their habitual writing strategy, thus resulting in better texts.

SAMPLE

113 high school students (10th grade).

METHOD

Students were randomly assigned to either the planning or the revising condition. To identify writing strategies, students completed a questionnaire concerning their planning and revising tendencies. To measure the level of writing skill, students' texts written during pre-test and post-test were analysed.

RESULTS

The effect of instruction based on a planning strategy interacted with the level of planning or revising strategy: the greater the use of such a strategy, the larger the effect on writing skill. In contrast, the effect of instruction based on a revising writing strategy did not interact with the level of planning or revising strategy. Results imply that students with strong tendencies to plan or revise profited from writing instruction based on a planning strategy, while students with a low tendency to plan or revise profited more from instruction based on a revising strategy.

CONCLUSION

Adapting writing instruction to students' level of writing strategy, is an effective approach for learning to write.

Architectures, representations and processes of language production

We present an overview of recent research conducted in the field of language production based on papers presented at the first edition of the International Workshop on Language Production (Marseille, France, September 2004). This article comprises two main parts. In the first part, consisting of three sections, we review the articles that are included in this Special Issue. These three sections deal with three different topics of general interest for models of language production: (A) the general organisational principles of the language production system, (B) several aspects of the lexical selection process and (C) the representations and processes used during syntactic encoding. In the second part, we discuss future directions for research in the field of language production, given the considerable developments that have occurred in recent years.

Eye and Pen: A new device for studying reading during writing

We present a new method for studying reading during writing and the relationships between these two activities. The Eye and Pen device makes a synchronous recording of handwriting and eye movements during written composition. It complements existing online methods by providing a fine-grained description of the visual information fixated during pauses as well as during the actual writing act. This device can contribute to the exploration of several research issues, since it can be used to investigate the role of the text produced so far and the documentary sources displayed in the task environment. The study of the engagement of reading during writing should provide important information about the dynamics of writing processes based on visual information.

Working Memory in Writing: Empirical Evidence From the Dual-Task Technique

The dual-task paradigm recently played a major role in understanding the role of working memory in writing. By reviewing recent findings in this field of research, this article highlights how the use of the dual-task technique allowed studying the processing and short-term storage functions of working memory involved in writing. With respect to processing functions of working memory (namely, attentional and executive functions), studies investigated resource allocation, step-by-step management, and parallel coordination of the writing processes. With respect to short-term storage in working memory, experiments mainly attempted to test Kellogg's (1996) proposals on the relationship between the writing processes and the slave systems of working memory. The dual-task technique proved fruitful in understanding the relationship between writing and working memory because researchers exploited its major advantage, namely, its flexibility.

Initial and concurrent planning in solutions to well-structured problems

Two experiments are reported, which consider planning behaviour in the context of a well-structured problem. One question in the problem-solving literature is to what extent planning a solution to a problem takes place before attempting that problem and whether this takes precedence over planning while solving a problem, hereafter referred to as concurrent planning. An additional question is whether the adoption of one mode of planning confers a performance advantage and under what circumstances one strategy is adopted in preference to others. The studies reported here set out to investigate the effects on performance of adopting different modes of planning and whether there is any relationship between the adoption of different strategic approaches and problem-solving performance. The results of these studies suggest that initial planning can enhance problem-solving performance, but only when problems remain relatively simple. As problem complexity increases the effects of initial planning appear to have little or no effect upon performance. In conclusion it is suggested that strategy use depends upon the interactions between individual preference for a given strategy, problem complexity, and the stage that one has reached in the development of a solution to a problem.

Concurrent activation of high- and low-level production processes in written composition

Writing a text requires the coordination of multiple high-level composition processes in working memory, including planning, language generation, and reviewing, in addition to low-level motor transcription. Here, interference in reaction time (RT) for detecting auditory probes was used to measure the attentional demands of (1) copying in longhand a prepared text (transcription), (2) composing a text and pausing handwriting for longer than 250 msec (composition), and (3) composing and currently handwriting (transcription + composition). Greater interference in the transcription + composition condition than in the transcription condition implies that high-level processes are activated concurrently with motor execution, resulting in higher attentional demands. This difference was observed for adults who wrote in standard cursive, but not for children and not for adults who used an unpracticed uppercase script. Greater interference in the composition condition than in the transcription condition implies that high-level processes demand more attention than do motor processes. This difference was observed only when adults wrote with a practiced script. With motor execution being relatively automatic, adults were able to attend fully to the high-level processes required in mature, effective composition. One reason that children fail to engage in such high-level processes is that motor processes deplete available attention.

Long-term working memory in text production

In reading and other high-level cognitive tasks, Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) proposed that the limited capacity of short-term working memory (STWM) is supplemented by long- term working memory (LTWM) for individuals with a high degree of domain-specific knowledge. In Experiment 1, college students (N = 80) wrote persuasive and narrative texts concerning baseball; domain-specific knowledge about baseball and verbal ability was assessed. The results showed that verbal ability and domain-specific knowledge independently affected writing skill, supporting the view that literacy depends on both knowledge sources and refuting one argument raised in support of the LTWM hypothesis. Experiment 2 (N = 42) replicated this outcome and tested the prediction that a high degree of domain-specific knowledge would lessen interference on a secondary task. The data supported the interference prediction, offering evidence that LTWM plays a role in the production of text.

SCRIPTKELL: a tool for measuring cognitive effort and time processing in writing and other complex cognitive activities

We present SCRIPTKELL, a computer-assisted experimental tool that makes it possible to measure the time and cognitive effort allocated to the subprocesses of writing and other cognitive activities. SCRIPTKELL was designed to easily use and modulate Kellogg's (1986) triple-task procedure, which consists of a combination of three tasks: a writing task (or another task), a reaction time task (auditory signal detection), and a directed retrospection task (after each signal detection during writing). We demonstrate how this tool can be used to address several novel empirical and theoretical issues. In sum, SCRIPTKELL should facilitate the flexible realization of experimental designs and the investigation of critical issues concerning the functional characteristics of complex cognitive activities.

Is writing as difficult as it seems?

Experiment 1 assessed the time and effort allocated to writing subprocesses while generating written and verbal protocols over 10 weekly writing sessions. Within a 40-min session, planning time consumed about 45% in the first 5 min, but stabilized at near 30% thereafter. Generating text initially consumed 40% of the writers' time, peaked at 50% midway, and then declined to its original level. The time spent revising and reviewing was negligible early in writing sessions, but increased substantially late in the sessions. The highest and lowest quality documents could be differentiated on the basis of the amount of time the writers devoted to revising and to the magnitude of their RTs in a secondary interference task. Writers showed consistent, distinctive patterns of transitional probabilities between writing subprocesses both within and across sessions, yielding quantitative representations of their writing styles. In Experiment 2, writers overestimated the amount of time they devote to revising and overestimated the amount of effort they allocate to planning and text generation. Their estimations did not improve after 10 weeks of composing. A time-and-effort-based analysis of writing is proposed to account for these data.