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The nature of humans and human interaction has always fascinated me, and due to the extreme complexity of our constantly changing and evolving society, never before has there been such a dire need to understand ourselves and to realize the consequences of our actions on a universal scale; never before has society been so at war and in love with mind-games, which are both disgusting and beautiful at the same time; people have come to depend on the very thing they despise the most. These are themes I am trying to explore in my original play, After Butter. For my Honors in the Major Thesis, I researched and explored the craft of playwriting in an effort to improve my original play, After Butter. As a writer, I wanted to have the experience of creating an original work from concept to public performance. I wanted to do this project because no classes in the theatrical playwriting discipline are offered in my major. My play is a realistic, comedic, modem-day adaptation of our own world. I explore themes such as: the awakening of the consciousness; the interconnectedness of man and nature; genuine strength conquers all; the Axiom of Causality; redemption; the right thing isn't always the easiest; truth never dies; materialism; and, finally, the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which represents an action's consequences. Outside the university setting, I would like to have my play performed by professional theatre companies in an effort to get audiences to connect with the characters and situations so the play becomes important to them on a personal level, therefore priming the play for a future on the big screen.

This dissertation uses a mixed methods design to explore the process of EFL students' writing and peer review, setting up a paradigm of peer compared to self review, with teacher support. The findings that surfaced were identified in themes, with the most overarching theme being that the value of peer review came not from the actual feedback that the peers gave each other, but rather from the collaborative process of peer review. Students who were actively engaged in peer review often did not take the exact advice given, but the process of exchanging feedback followed by face-to-face discussion prompted them to think of new ideas of their own that they incorporated into their revisions. The following findings are related to this major one. (1) Both the writing proficiency of the student writers and the understanding they have of the feedback given have a symbiotic relationship and greatly affect how they apply feedback. In this study, students at higher writing proficiencies tended to include some abstract feedback, but regardless of the students' writing levels, their partners' were able to make revisions at their own level of proficiency. (2) Both peer and self reviewing students made revisions based more on their own inspirations and ownership of ideas rather than on the exact advice exchanged between partners. Often, students developed and incorporated ideas that appeared to be generated from the peer feedback and discussion, pointing to the significance of peer collaboration and discussion in the writing process. (3) Although previous studies have suggested that non-native speakers' tendency to give feedback on grammatical issues as a drawback, the in-depth examination here reveals a more positive perspective. Even when comments, such as regarding grammar, were rated as "incorrect," students were often able to make positive changes, such as rewording or reorganizing. The results brings insights to the impact of abstract feedback for varying proficiency levels, ownership of ideas, internalization of concepts, and interdependence in the collaborative peer review process within a Vygotskian framework of concept development and the ZPD. Implications for research, writing program administrators, and writing instructors are identified.

<p>The main purpose of this study is to take a closer look at how teachers work with writing and to examine some theories on the teaching of writing. Five teachers in two schools are included in order to get an insight in teachers’ practical work with EFL writing. This has been done through classroom observations and interviews. The results show that all teachers seem to use aspects from several theories. The results also show that the teachers’ level of awareness of theories on teaching writing varies</p>

<p>Peer response is a method which is widely used on higher levels of second-language learning in Sweden, such as universities. The approach is not used as much in upper secondary school; and, the aim of this paper is to investigate upper secondary students' opinions of the value of peer response. The aim is also to investigate if the teacher's grading differed between the first version of a text and the final vesrion that had been revised after peer response.</p><p>Research has shown that there seems to be more negotiation of meaning when students are working collaboratively and this can lead to better revisions of written texts, especially in terms of content development. On the other hand, collaborative writing can also create anxiety in some students who therefore dislike peer response. This investigation has shown that students taking part in the investigation are generally positive towards the approach. They also believe that giving and receiving feedback can help them improve their writing. There are, however, a few students who dislike it and want the texts to be read only by the teacher. The investigation has also shown that students mainly focus on formal aspects such as spelling and grammar when giving feedback to each other, whereas content was rarely commented on. Moreover, the results have shown that many of the students' grades improved on the final version compared to the first version. In conclusion, this investigation indicates that peer response could be used as an alternative, or complement, to ordinary teacher-student feedback in upper secondary school.</p>

The main purpose of this study is to take a closer look at how teachers work with writing and to examine some theories on the teaching of writing. Five teachers in two schools are included in order to get an insight in teachers’ practical work with EFL writing. This has been done through classroom observations and interviews. The results show that all teachers seem to use aspects from several theories. The results also show that the teachers’ level of awareness of theories on teaching writing varies

Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 323 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Peer response in which students work together in dyads or small groups to critique and provide feedback on one another's writing is compatible with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching and process approaches to the teaching of writing. Computer-mediated communication has been considered a viable tool for both the teaching of languages and the teaching of writing. There is, however, scant information on how computer-mediated peer response functions in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation investigated how college Spanish learners provided feedback to their peers and the impact of feedback on revision. It also examined the factors that influenced how students wrote their comments, and how they perceived the use of computers for peer response. Case study methodology was used to collect and analyze data from two writing tasks performed as part of a semester-long course. / ABSTRACT: Data sources consisted of written feedback, first and second drafts, interview transcripts, learning journals from 12 participants and the teacher-researcher field notes. Analysis of data indicated that peer response is a complex event, influenced by a variety of contextual factors. Results also indicated that the participants used feedback depending on their needs. Students used reacting, advising and announcing language functions when providing feedback, and focused mostly on content. The revisions made by the participants contradicted the idea that peer feedback directly influences revision; more than half of the revisions made by the participants originated in the writers themselves and not in the suggestions given by their peers. Analysis of the revisions made, based on peers' suggestions indicated that the impact of peer response was strong on the length of the essays, limited on their language below the clause level, and weak on the essays' communicative purpose. / ABSTRACT: The participants' language proficiency and the characteristics of the writing task were perceived by the participants as factors that influenced how they wrote feedback for their peers. Finally, although the students considered that using the word processing language tools allowed them to learn about language and focus on content, the role of technology was perceived as supplementary to oral peer response / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Peer response is a method which is widely used on higher levels of second-language learning in Sweden, such as universities. The approach is not used as much in upper secondary school; and, the aim of this paper is to investigate upper secondary students' opinions of the value of peer response. The aim is also to investigate if the teacher's grading differed between the first version of a text and the final vesrion that had been revised after peer response. Research has shown that there seems to be more negotiation of meaning when students are working collaboratively and this can lead to better revisions of written texts, especially in terms of content development. On the other hand, collaborative writing can also create anxiety in some students who therefore dislike peer response. This investigation has shown that students taking part in the investigation are generally positive towards the approach. They also believe that giving and receiving feedback can help them improve their writing. There are, however, a few students who dislike it and want the texts to be read only by the teacher. The investigation has also shown that students mainly focus on formal aspects such as spelling and grammar when giving feedback to each other, whereas content was rarely commented on. Moreover, the results have shown that many of the students' grades improved on the final version compared to the first version. In conclusion, this investigation indicates that peer response could be used as an alternative, or complement, to ordinary teacher-student feedback in upper secondary school.

Language enables communication among human beings and according to Vygotskian theory it performs two important functions. First, it performs an interpersonal function. Subsequently, when language is internalized, besides promoting interaction, it guides people in the construction of their thoughts and becomes the basis for the emergence of conscience, having an intrapersonal function. In this context, mastering a considerable amount of words in a target language may contribute to a clear communication among the interlocutors and may be one of the resources to acquire the ability of writing good texts. In this sense, we have done a research with students of the course of Languages Portuguese/Spanish in order to verify to what extent a framework approach, among which we have opted for process-writing, has contributed for lexical acquisition of Spanish as a foreign language through textual productions. The main theoretical base was the Holistic Theory of Activity (RICHTER, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008), so all the theoretical and methodological foundation adopted to analyze the corpus proceeded from this base. The corpus is composed by answers to a questionnaire and by texts produced by the students through process-writing, by White & Arndt (1991). The results obtained through the corpus analysis led us to conclude that there was an expansion of lexical items in the students texts and that they related this expansion to process-writing. During all this process, we observed that the students were at the same time expanding their vocabulary and then improving their writing as they noticed what was happening to them in each stage, i.e., the difficulties they had, the resources they sought and the strategies they used made them reflect on what may occur with their future students and then help these in their Zone of Proximal Development. In this view, the students not only wrote texts but also obtained grants to become mediators of this process. / A linguagem possibilita a comunicação entre os seres humanos e, segundo a teoria Vygotskyana, ela exerce duas funções importantes. Em um primeiro momento, ela exerce uma função interpessoal. Posteriormente, quando a linguagem é internalizada, além de promover a interação humana, ela passa a guiar as pessoas na construção de seus próprios pensamentos, torna-se a base para o surgimento da consciência, tendo uma função intrapessoal. Nesse contexto, dominar um número considerável do léxico de uma língua-alvo pode contribuir para uma comunicação clara entre interlocutores, bem como ser um dos recursos para adquirir a capacidade de escrever bons textos. Nesse sentido, realizamos uma pesquisa com acadêmicos do curso de Letras Português/Espanhol com o intuito de verificar em que medida uma metodologia de enquadramento, dentre as quais, optamos pelo Process Writing, contribuiu para a aquisição do léxico do Espanhol como Língua Estrangeira em produções textuais de acadêmicos. A principal base teórica foi a Teoria Holística da Atividade (RICHTER, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008), por isso todo o referencial teórico e a metodologia adotada para a análise do corpus partiram desse princípio. O corpus é composto pelas respostas a questionários e pelos textos produzidos pelos acadêmicos, gerados por meio da escrita-processo, o Process Writing de White & Arndt (1991). Os resultados obtidos através da análise do corpus nos levaram à conclusão de que houve um aumento em ítens lexicais nos textos dos acadêmicos e que estes estavam relacionando esse aumento na aquisição do léxico à escrita-processo. Desse modo, no decorrer de todo esse processo, verificamos que os acadêmicos, ao mesmo tempo em que estavam ampliando o léxico e melhorando, portanto, a escrita, percebiam o que acontecia com eles em cada etapa, ou seja, as dificuldades que sentiam, os recursos que buscavam e as estratégias utilizadas. Assim, essa consciência por parte dos acadêmicos, fê-los refletir, na prática, o que posteriormente pode ocorrer com seus futuros alunos e assim ajudá-los na Zona de Desenvolvimento Proximal. Nessa concepção, os acadêmicos não apenas produziram textos, mas obtiveram subsídios para tornarem-se mediadores desse processo.

Throughout our teacher training program, we have noticed that students struggle to see the reason with writing task designs that are short and concludes upon the end of the lesson. Therefore, this degree project aims to gain an insight to whether the methods used in process writing and its various concepts can be used efficiently within schools to assist students in reaching higher grades and have higher rates of academic success, as well as discover the impacts of motivation tied in with the use of these specific task designs. This paper will firstly introduce an overview of the different theories and concepts that are tied to process writing, such as feedback, rubrics use. In prior studies made, researchers have found that academic success is influenced by the use of strategies that correlate to the methods in process writing, and also describes how this impact is made. Secondly, this degree project is based on interviews made with three active 7-9 English teachers and 15 students (in years 8-9) in the southern of Sweden to research the possibility of motivation being affected in any way through the use of these task designs that, according to researchers, will lead the students to higher rates of academic success. The major conclusions of this study are that (I) students and teachers feel that it is useful to utilize the different key concepts tied to process writing in order to gain proficiency in the English language, (II) teachers often use at least one, if not more, of the methods included in process writing, and feel that they have an impact on student learning within the subject, (III) students feel that their motivation can be impacted through the use of these strategies, and be affected differently based on teacher instruction, (IV) many of the schools that were visited have grade-oriented students that can affect student motivation to learn, and the reasons for learning, (V) in addition to how well the students feel engaged to work with a task depending on their interests. (VI) Lastly, it also has an impact at what stage the teacher decides to assess their students, while working with process writing tasks.