Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / This study focused on 12th grade Chilean students' ability to produce locally coherent academic texts and on the cognitive basis that underlies this ability. Participants were Chilean students from the city of Santiago, who attended urban public schools, belonged to a low socioeconomic group, and had obtained average scores on the national literacy assessment (SIMCE). All the students in the study wrote argumentative texts in response to a writing prompt and answered a test of recognition of incoherent sequences. A sub sample wrote a second argumentative text while thinking aloud and, immediately after, they had a semi structured interview with the researcher in which the relationship between the ideas included in their texts was discussed. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in order to analyze local coherence in students' written products, and the relation between these products and students' ability to recognize, explain and self-regulate local coherence during writing. Students who recognized most incoherent sequences were more able to explain local coherence relations, tended to self-regulate writing, and produced texts that were mostly coherent and that exhibited an incipient command of the resources associated to coherent academic writing. Students who recognized none or few incoherent sequences had trouble explaining local coherence relations, did not self-regulate writing, and produced texts that were mostly coherent but that exhibited poor command of the resources associated to coherence in academic writing. In addition, the majority of students in the high recognition group recalled some kind of instruction on local coherence, while the majority of students in the low recognition group could not remember receiving such instruction. Findings suggest that having command of the resources typical of oral language coherence suffices for composing mostly coherent texts, although such writing does not resemble the academic structures. Specifically, contents are not transformed by virtue of logical operators that could reflect a more analytical or critical thinking. It is suggested that being able to use local coherence resources typical of academic writing is associated to having specific knowledge and a self regulated behavior during the writing process.