Writing Instruction

How do students conceptualize writing college admissions essays for anonymous audiences, and how can teachers and admissions personnel develop practices responsive to these conceptualizations? In our study, we sought to understand how students were making sense of their audience and how they sought to engage with that audience during
college admissions essay writing. To do so, we specifically attended to their languaging—how people employ language as actions to build relations with others, including audiences for their writing

I dag foregår det meste kommunikation via digitale medier. Selvom det betyder, at håndskrivningen ikke bliver trænet nær
så meget som før i tiden, har den dog stadig en plads i vores hverdagsskriverier samt i de Fælles Mål for dansk til og med
4. klasse. Det er der flere gode grunde til. I denne artikel vil jeg fremlægge og diskutere forskningsbaserede argumenter for, at undervisning i håndskrivning har plads i skolen. Sidst i artiklen vil jeg give en række anbefalinger til undervisningen i
håndskrivning.

This paper reviews the recent publications and researches on distance education and explores its promise and potential from the student's perspective, the faculty's perspective and the administrator's perspective. Our findings indicate that only the self-motivated and self-disciplined students are most likely to succeed in distance education. Although the majority of the researches conclude that there is no significant difference between distance learning and traditional learning, the conclusion is still open to debate. Faculty support is mixed. The fundamental reason is the lack of faculty involvement in the dominant administrator-centered advocacy. Successful distance education programs need to maintain a high level of faculty involvement. Administrators consider distance education as an important revenue source. In the foreseeable future, however, distance education cannot become a new revenue source, given its timeand labor-intensiveness and the cost of installation ...

Academic writing is becoming a matter of concern for the developing countries where English serves as a second or foreign language because of the significant role it plays in the academic as well as professional life of an individual. Excellence in academic writing and communication is among the top ranked expectations from graduates of all disciplines, Pakistani Higher education Commission has listed Technical and Academic communication as second significant competence (2017). Therefore, there is a dire need of a writing instruction framework that could inculcate communicative competence among Pakistani graduates. A framework that will suppress all challenges and ensure success. The consciously chosen methodology meant to determine the effectiveness of 3-Tiered Evaluation Framework in enhancing students' engagement in writing classes; ensuring their academic success. The study established that the 3-tiered evaluation framework assisted teachers and language learners alike in de...

What Is It "Writing For Pleasure" Teachers Do That Makes The Difference? was a one year research project which investigated how Writing For Pleasure teachers achieve writing teaching which is highly effective (greater than average progress) and also affective (pertaining to positive dispositions and feelings). This research comes at a time where we are seeing profound underachievement in writing coupled with an increase in young people's indifference or dislike for writing. The principal purpose of this research was to identify and describe the kind of writing teaching which constitutes a Writing For Pleasure pedagogy. It was a requirement that the practices of the teachers participating in the research be based on what studies tell us are the most effective writing teaching, associated with high levels of pupil motivation, self-efficacy, agency, self-regulation, volition, writer-identity and pleasure in writing. Teachers were also required to provide evidence of exceptional or above expected academic progress among their pupils. The research investigated the principles employed by the most effective teachers of writing and linked them to the affective domains of Writing For Pleasure. The study employed a mixed method design. It required a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to be gathered. This included empirical data from participant observations, teacher and pupil interviews, viewing pupil assessment data and pupil questionnaires. From a rich literature review, an audit was generated which named fourteen interrelated principles, and their associated practices, which are strongly associated with high levels of student achievement and pleasure in writing. Findings showed that teachers who teach the principles of Writing For Pleasure at a high level of proficiency have classes who feel the greatest enjoyment and satisfaction in writing and in being a writer. Writing For Pleasure teachers attend to self-efficacy, agency and self-regulation in rich combination. Some principles of Writing For Pleasure were not observed at a high level of proficiency by the teachers as a whole data set and so need to be further investigated. The affective domains of motivation and writer-identity were not realised adequately by the pupils as a whole data set and so need to be further investigated. Finally, a Writing For Pleasure pedagogy is a highly effective pedagogy. [Co-published with The Goldsmiths' Company and The University of Sussex. The Goldsmiths' Company also provided funding for the project.]

Much of academic writing research is conducted with academics and with postgraduate students in the United States, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia. There is less published research on how undergraduate students reflect on their writing activities in Singapore. Little is known about what challenges these students face in writing academic papers, in particular, the discussion of results section of their first academic paper written in their first year of study. The present study fills this gap by investigating Singaporean undergraduates to uncover their perception of difficulties in writing their first research papers in a compulsory academic writing course offered by a teacher training institute. In-depth interviews were conducted to the four undergraduate students. Results found that, with regard to undergraduates’ perceptions of writing the discussions section, the main problems were selection of content, organization of content, demonstration of appropriate stance, grammar, and choice of words. Additionally, based on the instructor’s comments on the students’ term papers, results revealed that there were mismatches between the writing instructor’s professional understanding and students’ understanding of their own difficulties. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications pertaining to ways to improve the teaching of undergraduate student teachers’ discussion of results not only in Singapore, but also in similar contexts outside Asia.

The choice of materials available to teachers is almost infinite, ranging from YouTube clips to research articles, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on the role that they are required to play in the instructional process and on the extent they relate to the learning needs of students.  This chapter will consider both these issues and then go on to discuss using textbook and inter-net materials and ways to develop materials.

This chapter discusses the role of instructional materials in the writing class, describing the steps in selecting, modifying and supplementing published materials, in finding and using texts, and in designing and evaluating writing materials. I begin by discussing the role of materials to model, scaffold, provide information and to stimulate. Teachers may also get ideas from materials and, in many contexts, they may be the only opportunities students have to study target texts. I go on to explore how teachers might select materials from the options available, ways of modifying textbooks for particular learners, and using the internet as a source of writing materials. I conclude by reviewing how teachers might design suitable materials and use them in the classroom.

Writing skills hold a significant place in education; requiring years of schooling and proper training to be achieved by students. Urdu and English, regardless of being the medium of Pakistani education system and writing in these languages is inevitable, students go through troubles in developing a coherent piece of writing in either of the languages. There is a general perception that in Pakistan writing pedagogy devalues students’ creative and communicative abilities by means of memorization and over dependence on teachers and books. This study explored teaching strategies used by language teachers (Urdu and English) at secondary level in developing writing skills of students. Using survey design twelve in-service language teachers of Urdu and English in semi-government schools were interviewed. The semi- structured and open ended interviews were scheduled with individual teachers and lasted for about 30 minutes regarding their writing instruction strategies. The recorded data were transcribed and thematically analyzed and divided into sub-themes, such as; types of strategies teachers follow, common strategies used by English and Urdu teachers, pedagogical strategies specific to Urdu and English teachers, language teachers’ understanding and knowledge of writing pedagogy. The results revealed that Urdu and English language teachers are equally unaware of effective and standard strategies for developing writing skills of their students. Their writing instruction indicated lack of conscious planning for different stages of the writing instruction, absence of authentic writing tasks, and insufficient writing practice for learners. The study concludes with pedagogical recommendations that would be based on strategic and systematic writing instruction that caters to
learners’ needs.

Students have asked me to make this sheet about writing academic paragraphs available. If you want to use this instruction sheet in your classes, you have permission. You do not need to contact me for permission.

Central to work at the university is the empirical method, which is the art of using credible evidence to clarify and justify claims you make. This paragraph assignment has been designed to train students in the art of using the empirical method for defending and supporting claims about a literary work. What I ask you to do in this paragraph is something you should do regularly in your writing and thinking about literature. For your benefit, I have identified five essential parts of the academic paragraph. Topic sentence: This sentence should make a point that is not obvious and that needs support, or evidence, to be convincing.

This book provides a unique reference and comprehensive overview of the issues pertinent to conceptualizing, measuring, researching and nurturing writing motivation. It covers these theoretical, practical and research issues by drawing on the literature related to the eight main constructs of writing motivation: writing apprehension, attitude, anxiety, self-efficacy, self-concept, learning goals, perceived value of writing and motivational regulation. Specifically, the book covers the historical research developments of the field, the measures of the main writing motivation constructs, correlates and sources of writing motivation, and profiles of motivated and demotivated writers. The book also describes the types of the instructional research of writing motivation, provides pedagogical guidelines and procedures for motivating students to write, and presents suggestions for advancing writing motivation research, measurement and pedagogy.  Detailed, up-to-date, and with a glossary which includes definitions of the main terms used in the six chapters, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of language education, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics and educational psychology.


Table of contents
Chapter 1: Writing motivation research: historical developments and conceptualisations of the constructs
Writing Motivation: Definition and importance
Motivational constructs researched in writing studies: Historical roots and developments
Defining writing motivation constructs
Chapter 2: Measuring writing motivation
Measures of attitudinal/dispositional constructs
Measures of situational constructs
Measures of writing ability belief constructs
Measures of writing learning goal constructs
Measurers of writing motivation sources
The qualitative approach to assessing writers’ motivation
Guidelines for developing and validating writing motivation measures
Chapter 3: Profiling motivated and demotivated writers
The role of personal variables in writing motivation
Performance, belief and behaviour correlates of writing motivation
Learning and instructional practices as sources of writing motivation
Characteristics of demotivated and motivated writers
Chapter 4: Instructional research of writing motivation
Technology-supported instruction
Strategy instruction
Feedback instructional treatments
Genre-based instruction
Task interest-based instruction
Therapeutic training
Chapter 5: Motivating students to write: Some research-driven guidelines
Nurturing and fostering students’ writing motivational perceptions, beliefs and goals
Using appropriate teaching materials and writing tasks
Meeting students’ language and writing performance needs
Integrating technological tools into writing instruction
Optimizing teacher feedback
Orchestrating peer assessment activities
Chapter 6: Advancing writing motivation measurement, research and pedagogy
Strengthening the conceptualisations and operationalisations of writing motivation constructs
Researching writing motivation correlates and sources
Developing writing motivation instructional research
Promoting effective writing motivation instructional practices

Glossary

Table of Contents 1
CHAPTER ONE 3
EXPOSITORY WRITING 3
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Main Characteristics and Features of Expository Writing 5
1.3 Why to Teach Expository Writing? 6
1.4 Guidelines for Writing Expository Essays 7
definition| example| compare and contrast|  cause and effect | classification | process analysis 12
1.5 Examples of Expository Writing 14
1.6 Real Samples 19
Mosharafa 29
1.7 Reflections and Ideas for Workshops 36
CHAPTER TWO 38
ACADEMIC WRITING 38
2.1 Introduction 38
2.2 Academic Document Types 39
2.3 Features of Academic Writing 40
2.4 The Process of Academic Writing: Writing an Academic Essay 48
2.5 Real Samples 54
2.6 Reflections and Ideas for Workshops 66
CHAPTER THREE: FUNCTIONAL-PRAGMATIC WRITING 68
3.1 Introduction 68
3.2 Why and How Do We Write Functionally and Pragmatically? 69
3.3 Types of Functional-Pragmatic Writing Products 72
3.4 What Are the Key Requirements of Functional Writing? 73
CHAPTER FOUR 76
FUNCTIONAL-WRITING PRODUCTS 76
4.1 Introduction 76
4.2 Letters/E-mails (Formal and Informal) 77
4.3 Reports 84
4.4 Diary Entries 87
4.5 Memorandum (memo) 92
4.6 Note Taking 96
4.7 Curriculum Vitae (CV) 100
4.8 Written Explanations 102

This paper having an overview of the history of ESL/EFL writing assessment, tries to explore in to the different waves of
its development. Then, taking into account the direct and indirect methods of writing assessment, it elucidates the emergence period of ‘Portfolio Assessment’following the requirements of the educational environment in adjusting the assessment methods with the real needs of ESL/EFL writers. Furthermore, Portfolio Assessment as the innovative process oriented approach to writing assessment is contrasted with the other product & process oriented tools in order to come up with the advantages of it over the other tools. Finally, there is a brief account of the merits of analytic assessment of ESL/EFL writing in the form of portfolios in comparison with the holistic approach to assessment that totally focuses on the requirements of the learners in ESL/EFL contexts to learn better and to be evaluated fairly and authentically.

Evidence from real-time logs shows that learning about composing can and does happen in on-line courses where synchronous conferencing is a central feature. Students can be witnessed checking their understanding of an idea, verifying their grasp of a task, trying out ideas on each other, offering drafts for comment, expressing their re-thinking of those drafts, and so on. But it is also my thesis that teachers in on-line exchanges with students have to activate their pedagogy in dynamic conversation for education to happen. Our course used strategies with synchronous conferencing as the primary instrument of transaction in order to best affect the pace and direction of learning.

Composition courses, English as a Second Language courses, Business and Technical Communication, among others, are often delivered through both asynchronous and synchronous learning environments and methodologies. Many face-to-face and online course comparison studies have been conducted; however, few studies on writing courses directly compare online and traditional versions of the same course. This study allowed the researcher to determine student attitudes about writing courses and compared the effectiveness of two delivery methods by looking at student learning outcomes and perceived course achievement.

Writing is one of the most important skills in English language teaching. Yet, the writing skill is not always easy for both teachers and learners. For teachers, writing instruction usually poses difficulties at the level of implementation as well as learners' involvement. As for learners, the production of coherent and meaningful pieces of writing can be problematic due to lack of linguistic competence, writing mechanisms and a learning context. The aim of the present paper is to remediate the aforementioned difficulties that both teachers and learners encounter through a writing activity. This writing activity is a qualitative research method as it is a descriptive case study which demonstrates how technology enhances the different stages of the process writing activity. It has been found that the use of technology reinforces the implementation of the process based approach to writing. This facilitates writing instruction and offers new opportunities for both teachers and learners. Besides, this writing activity adheres to the following pedagogical theories: cognitive constructivism, social constructivism and Behaviourism which are in favor of knowledge construction, collaboration, associative learning and reinforcement. The recommendation part explains that technology is not only limited to the writing skill and refers to some examples of web 2.0 tools that can be used for the teaching of English as a foreign language. Another recommendation refers to the last stage of the process writing activity, publishing, which must benefit from available online services in order to gain wider access and communication. Key Words: English as a foreign language, learning theories, process based approach to writing, technology, writing instruction

Vocabulary is an important aspect of language learning, but how to teach it has not been fully developed and vocabulary items are often taught separately from skills to express oneself. In this paper, I discuss how vocabulary should be taught so that learners with limited knowledge can eventually work on productive tasks by themselves. To relate different types of verbs to different text types, the understanding of which is generally considered critical in writing instruction, pedagogical grammar models derived from Cognitive Linguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics are presented with teaching implications.

The use of WebQuests and the Internet might be the right vehicle to motivate and lead to better English language acquisition. The present study was conducted to find out whether there were significant differences between EFL students who were taught using WebQuest writing instruction, and those taught using traditional in-class writing instruction. The participants were 52 Saudi male students in their second year of English language department in the college of languages at King Saud University. The participants were assigned into two groups: experimental and control groups. Before the treatment, both groups were given a pretest and a post test six weeks later. The experimental group received WebQuest writing instruction whereas the control group conducted the traditional writing instruction.
Results of T-test (Independent Samples Test) and a within group two paired samples T-test were reported. The findings indicated that the writing performance of students who were taught using WebQuest writing instruction, the experimental group, was better than students who were taught using the traditional writing instruction, the control group, in terms of length, vocabulary and grammar. The results indicated that students in the experimental group improved their writing performance significantly more than those in the control group. The present study recommends that using WebQuest Writing instruction can result in better performance.

This article appeared in 76.3 of College English.

"The accounts of six multilingual writers that follow show how writing across languages and locations in the world fosters what might be thought of as rhetorical attunement: an ear for, or a tuning toward, difference or multiplicity. Rhetorical attunement is a literate understanding that assumes multiplicity and invites the negotiation of meaning across difference. By virtue of their daily experience with language variety, the writers in this study are tuned toward the communicative predicaments of multilingual interaction. Predicaments are idiosyncratic and ordinary moments in which rhetorical strategies are practiced but also created. This essay moves through these moments, exploring writing activities that reveal the negotiated, flexible quality of language, and showing that multilingual writers are not aware of this quality a priori, but come to know—become rhetorically attuned over a lifetime of communicating across difference."

With academic writing now viewed as an important part of English language instruction, research studies have seen an increased emphasis on the question of how innovations in writing instruction impact students' writing outputs. Using the method of qualitative metasynthesis, this study provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of 60 empirical studies published during the period of 2005-2016 that examine this question. Several constructs pertaining to the domain of innovations in writing instruction from primary, secondary, and higher education have been identified. Based on this research review, we explicate the impetus of, lessons learned from, and future directions of innovations in writing instruction in China.

This paper describes the basic elements necessary to help students develop the ability to use writing to express their ideas.  Include here are the basics of the writing process, writing workshop, interventions for generating ideas, and three types of writing lesson plans.  This is appropriate for teachers from 1st grade the 12th grade.

Academic writing is becoming a matter of concern for the developing countries where English serves as a second or foreign language because of the significant role it plays in the academic as well as professional life of an individual. Excellence in academic writing and communication is among the top ranked expectations from graduates of all disciplines, Pakistani Higher education Commission has listed Technical and Academic communication as second significant competence (2017). Therefore, there is a dire need of a writing instruction framework that could inculcate communicative competence among Pakistani graduates. A framework that will suppress all challenges and ensure success. The consciously chosen methodology meant to determine the effectiveness of 3-Tiered Evaluation Framework in enhancing students' engagement in writing classes; ensuring their academic success. The study established that the 3-tiered evaluation framework assisted teachers and language learners alike in dealing with language related problems including; large class size, writing in second/foreign language, absence of corrective feedback, students' passivity and high dependence on easily available notes. The 3-TEF ensured active involvement of students in writing tasks facilitated through collaboration and systematic critical reflection, which ultimately improved students' writing engagement and achievements. Besides, interpersonal skills, negotiation, critical thinking, autonomous learning, team work, collaboration, and confidence development, surfaced as by-products of the 3-TEF.

Writing is key to assessment in university contexts and hence students need to be empowered to effectively function in subject-specific writing environments. In this regard, it is important that students take charge of their own writing development. Hence, the concept of self-direct writing is relevant in this context. The aim of this article is to explore students' perceptions and practice of self-directed writing and to thereby also evaluate the use of an open-ended questionnaire, an existing self-directed learning questionnaire and student essays as sources of self-directedness in terms of writing. Through these surveys and document analysis diverse, but complementing, results could be drawn. The responses in this study reflect the importance of scaffolding and support provided externally (through lecturers, writing laboratories, facilitators and peers) as well as internally (through reading and continuous writing). Although self-directedness was not very prominently mentioned by the students in the open-ended questionnaire, evidence of a move towards self-directedness in writing was observed. Furthermore, the results of the self-rating scale of self-directed learning showed that most of these respondents regarded themselves as self-directed learners. The document analysis of the essays showed improvement from the first year to the third year. It is also clear that self-directed writing can only be achieved through the facilitation of writing about topics of students' choosing, promotion of metacognitive strategies around writing as well as adequate peer and lecturer support, feedback and assessment.

The aim of this study was to find out the relationship between use of discourse connectors and cohesion of writing in the writing samples of Malaysian school students. Thirty samples from each educational level (Form 4; Form 5; College; N=30) were chosen randomly from the Malaysian Corpus of Students’ Argumentative Writing. To assess the quality of the essays, two experienced raters, who were PhD holders in ELT, were asked to use ESL Composition Profile (Jacob’s et al., 1981). Although the rubric checks for five components, including content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics, in order to address to the purpose of the study only “Organization” marks were taken in to account since it is an only component which measures cohesion of an essay. The reliability test result showed that inter-rater reliability was very high (was 0.90). The
analyses indicated that there was a very weak negative correlation, but insignificant, between writing quality and the frequency of the use of the DCs in the writing of Malaysian ESL students. The findings of the study will also be discussed in detail.

Laboratory techniques for materials science and materials engineering education. From the discipline "Introdução aos Materiais" (Introduction to Materials) lectured at the Department of Ceramics and Glass Engineering of University of Aveiro, Portugal. Includes guidelines for laboratory report writing. In Portuguese.

Three groups of EFL freshman students were concurrently enrolled in a grammar and a writing course. One group was taught the grammar and writing courses by the same instructor; the other two groups were taught grammar and writing by two different instructors using the same textbook but different instructional and assessment techniques. The study aims to find out which group made higher gains in grammatical knowledge and writing skill development. It also aimed to find out the effects of instructor qualifications, assessment, and pedagogical variables on students' grammatical competence and writing skill development. Comparisons of the grammar and writing post-tests showed significant differences between the three groups in the writing and grammar post-test mean scores. There were strong correlations between the grammar and writing post-test scores. Performance of the Group that received a combination of writing and grammar instruction by the same instructor (Instructor A) was the highest. The relationship between grammar and writing instruction seems to be reciprocal: writing instruction affects grammatical competence and grammatical knowledge affects writing skill development. Better achievements were made when both courses were taught by the same instructor as she can make the right connections between what is taught in both courses, which specific structures and skills should be emphasized. The instructors' qualifications, pedagogical system, educational and professional experience, the integration of online instruction, the type of error correction and instant feedback given to the students and the formative assessment technique used were significantly more effective than writing/grammar instruction that depended on the textbook alone. These variables proved to be important for enhancing the grammatical knowledge and writing quality of unskilled, low ability EFL students and resulted in a significant improvement in their grammar and writing post-test scores.

There has been a growth in students with dyslexia attending university. These students commonly rate writing as one of their greatest problem areas. Our research set out to describe the effects of dyslexia on the writing skills of students compared to
age-matched peers and a spelling-skill-matched group. Generally, the texts of the students with dyslexia were poorer than age controls but not poorer than the spelling- skill controls. However, there were no major differences in “higher order” skills
such as ideas and organization with the chronological age controls, only in “lower order” transcription skills such as spelling and handwriting fluency. The students with dyslexia made more spelling errors in their essays than one would predict given their
dictated spelling skills.

The present study attempted to investigate the impact of electronic portfolio assessment on performance of Iranian EFL learners' writing. To do so, 30 advanced EFL learners who participated in a TOEFL preparation course were selected as the participants of the study. After administrating a truncated version of TOEFL proficiency test, they were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. The experimental group was given a treatment including electronic portfolio assessment, while the control group was given a placebo. To collect the required data, two instruments (a writing pre-test and a writing post-test) were administered to both groups during the experimentation. Subsequently, the learners' scores were collected and the results were statistically analyzed. Inter-rater reliability, matched t-test, and independent t-test were calculated. The findings revealed that the participants of the experimental group outperformed those of the control group and thus it was concluded that electronic portfolio assessment can improve the writing ability and can be considered as a motivating assessment strategy.

Teaching EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World addresses a range of issues related to researching and teaching EFL writing in different countries in the Arab World including Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen. Both theoretically and practically grounded, chapters within discuss the different contexts in which EFL writing is taught, from primary school to university. The book sheds light on how EFL writing is learned and taught at each educational stage, exposing the different challenges encountered in the teaching and learning. The focus on EFL writing in the Arab World makes this a unique and long overdue contribution to the field of research around EFL writing and will be an invaluable resource for researchers, curriculum designers and students.

Citation:
Ahmed, A. & Abouabdelkader, H. (2016). Teaching EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World: Realities & Challenges, 1st edition, Palgrave Macmillan, UK.