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The present study undertook to address two questions: (1) are there any age-relatable relationships between the spoken and written syntax of adolescent students within a mainstream secondary school? (2) are there any relationships associated with the educational attainment of these students? To this end, the study analysed 180 pairs of spoken and written non-narrative texts, eliciting each such pair from students attending a mainstream English secondary school. This bespoke corpus was further designed so as to be balanced across three year groups (Year Seven, Year Eight, Year Nine) and two National Curriculum attainment levels (Level 4, Level 5). Syntactic packaging was chosen as the study’s analytical focus; defined here as comprising how clauses are combined via coordination and subordination. To help ensure a more in-depth analysis, an extended set of measures was employed, ranging from the general (e.g. the number of clauses per t-unit) to the more specific (e.g. the number of non-finite adverbial clauses per t-unit and per clause). So analysed, the study found that adolescent students at the present age and attainment levels can and do differentiate their spoken and written syntax, at least for these texts and these measures. It also found this differentiation to be something that varied according to the particular kind of packaging. Thus, for example, the spoken texts exhibited greater numbers of t-units per t-unit complex, together with a greater prominence of finite adverbial and post-verbal complement clauses. Thus, also, the written texts exhibited a greater overall prominence of non-finite clauses. And, thus, both modalities exhibited similar proportions of relative clauses. Finally, this differentiation was found to be developmentally static, with participants handling their spoken and written syntax for these measures in much the same way, regardless of their age or attainment level. Overall, these findings are interpreted in terms of the participants tapping into the differential production conditions of the two modalities but without necessarily fully exploiting these conditions. Furthermore, when placed in the context of the wider evidence base, the findings point to two general conclusions. Firstly, they indicate students at the present age and attainment levels to be at a stage where their syntactic output is in line with that of more mature discourse. Secondly, they indicate modality to be an aspect of student syntax that is characterised by a potentially high degree of sensitivity to the wider discourse context.

Respons från såväl lärare till elev som från elev till elev kan vara en möjlighet att utveckla elevers skrivande men kan även begränsa elevers skrivande om den inte ges på ett konstruktivt sätt. Vi fann det intressant för vår kommande yrkesroll att ta reda på vad det finns för möjligheter och fallgropar vid kamratrespons. Med det valda problemområdet vill vi fördjupa våra kunskaper i hur elevers skrivutveckling kan påverkas av kamratrespons, det vill säga hur den kan stärka eller hämma elevers skrivutveckling i en pågående skrivprocess. I gymnasieskolans kursplan för svenska 1 är ett av målen för skrivutveckling att elever ska utveckla en språkriktighet, där kamratresponsen utgör en viktig del för skrivutvecklingen (Skolverket, 2011). Till denna kunskapsöversikt har artiklar genom databassökning samlats in. Sedan har vi tillsammans granskat och valt ut relevant material. Vi har noggrant diskuterat varje artikels relevans kopplat till vår frågeställning. Resultatet av valda artiklar visar att responsen ska ges på ett konstruktivt sätt, att den som ger respons måste vara medveten om uppgiftens syfte och att det råder delade meningar om lärarrespons eller kamratrespons är mest effektivt för elevers skrivutveckling. Slutligen kan vi konstatera att dialogen utgör en central del av responsen oavsett för den som tar emot eller ger responsen samt att elever tillsammans kan överkomma uppgifters svårigheter.

<p>Writing is a critical element for many of the second language learners that I’ve encountered in my work as a Swedish teacher. Therefore, on the basis of Jerome Bruners theories of reflec-tion and learning, was the purpose with this study to examine the scaffolded structured reflec-tion conversation as a method for writing development. Bruner says that the knowledge be-comes deeper when we consciously reflect over it (Arfwedson 1992:110 f).</p><p>I have used a qualitative method where I let five students write a text in Swedish on the subject "application for internship". After that I held a conversation with each of the pupils. By asking them questions I wanted them to reflect on their writing process, and the language and content in their written texts. After this I let the students revise the texts, with the invita-tion to use the thoughts from the conversation.</p><p>By this I wanted to examine to which extent the five reflection conversations led to reflec-tion on the students' own writing, as well as on language and content in the texts. I also wanted to examine how the students changed their texts after the conversations and which factors can be interpreted as being significant for the outcome of the conversations.</p><p>The study has shown that the outcome of the scaffolded structured reflection conversa-tions is very much dependent on the students' respective inputs and focus of the talks. The results indicate that a person who enters the conversation with a focus on developing his/her writing in general is generally more inclined to reflect than a student who enters with a strong focus on the individual task. These results also finds support in earlier theories of reflection.</p><p>In accordance with previous research, this study also demonstrated that it is essential that the reflection is based on the individuals’ circumstances and experiences. I had before the conversations constructed a manual with questions, which I used in all conversations. The results show that only those students who during the conversation were within what Vygotskij calls the zone of proximal development, through my questions got the scaffolding that they needed to reflect.</p>

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the relationship between second language (L2) writing development and the ways we can help growing populations of L2 writers successfully integrate within academic communities. Much of this interest stems from increasingly diverse local populations and the continued internationalization of higher education. This dissertation explored the implications for curriculum resulting from this growing presence of L2 writers in academic content areas. To achieve this goal, this research reports on an eight-month longitudinal ethnographic case study of five international Japanese undergraduate students at a large Canadian university. Focusing on the central role of writing in university courses as the dominant mode of knowledge construction and dissemination, as well as student assessment, the study documents focal students’ and focal instructors’ perspectives of the various factors affecting their writing in ‘regular’ content courses, with particular attention paid to the impact of feedback practices and their role in both the short-term and long-term development of students’ skills and their investments in different types of writing. Drawing on a language socialization framework, data analysis focused on expectations and practices with respect to feedback, and explored the impact of these practices on conveying both explicit and implicit norms linked to students’ access to, and successful participation in, their chosen content areas. Drawing on both students’ and instructors’ perspectives of this literacy event and discourse analysis of relevant documents, findings offer unique insights into the role of feedback practices not only for students’ writing development but also in indexing complex negotiations of positions, identities, and institutional forces. The dissertation concludes by highlighting the need to play closer attention to the multidimensional functions of feedback practices in order to understand their power to shape the socialization trajectories of L2 writers and universities’ responses to multilingual students who no longer fit traditional profiles.

Process writing research began with adult writers, eventually expanding to include school age children and more recently, emergent writers. Research at the early childhood level has often been directed at specific aspects of writing development rather than an examination of process writing development. This study used pre-existing writing samples to examine writing development in kindergarten and first grade over the course of the school year following the district-wide implementation of a writing process based intervention. The intervention utilized a writing workshop approach to teach the writing process with the addition of two elements: picture plans were used to support emergent writers’ prewriting plans, and teachers focused on a single teaching point to target writing instruction. Beginning and end of year samples from 138 kindergarten and 106 first-grade students from three elementary schools in a medium-sized, public school district in the southwestern United States were used for this study, yielding a total of 488 samples. The samples were scored to investigate the change over time on four outcome measures: quantity of words produced, attributes of prewriting picture plan, evelopmental level, and handwriting. In addition, the impact of fidelity to the intervention features was explored in relation to the four outcome measures. Fidelity to implementation was scored on each of the 10 separate aspects of the intervention: student choice for topics, reading-writing connections, prewriting, peer conferencing, teacher conferences, minilessons, revision, editing, publishing, and modeling. Overall, the study found that the greatest change over time in kindergarten and first grade was in the developmental level. There were also large effects for quantity of words produced and handwriting. A regression analysis was conducted to determine which aspects of the intervention feature were most critical to early writing development. Student choice had a significant positive association with all four dependent measures. Minilessons had a significant association with developmental level and handwriting; other significant positive associations included revision with quantity of words produced, and editing with planning. The findings suggest these features of writing workshops should be included in interventions designed to foster early writing development.

This dissertation research investigated the role of online discussion in students’ experience in an academic writing class. As an intervention study, I implemented 20-minute-long online discussions at the end of every class period over a semester as part of required class activities and measured students’ subsequent timed writings and their first and final essays to trace some possible influence from online discussion to their writing development. Topics for online discussions were organized according to course objectives and the day’s lesson, with students developing subtopics reflecting their own interest according to the evolution of each discussion. These topics included theoretical concepts on academic writing as well as orthographical, lexical, grammar, and discourse-related inquiries. Participants included 10 treatment and 12 control students registered in two sections of a rhetoric and composition course designated for non-native English speaking students at a private university. This course was not an ESL class, but was part of the regular composition course offerings, except that it was restricted to international students specifically. Data sources included the treatment group’s 26 online discussion transcripts, 12 sets of timed writings, individual interviews, field notes, two types of essays, and surveys. The control group contributed essays, one set of timed writing taken in the middle of the semester, survey responses, five class recordings, and an instructor interview. Data analysis was performed by using a mixed method approach. Results from online discussion transcripts revealed that treatment students made use of online discussions for their learning, shown through types and characteristics of language-, content-, and writing-related episodes and the semester-long changes and pattern in such talk. Interviews and survey data showed students’ positive learning experiences and changes in their perception toward computer-mediated learning experiences over the semester. In terms of students’ writing, the treatment group made significant improvement in their timed writings over the semester and also outperformed the control group in essay writing significantly, in five of seven categories on a writing rubric. The most significant finding from this study was the improvement of treatment students’ writing scores over the semester. This study suggests the possible value of incorporating computer-mediated instruction in writing instruction as well as future research ideas that bridge research on traditional L2 writing and technology-enriched language learning. / text

This study explores invented spelling in Arabic. Since spelling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is taught through dictation and composition, this study explores and compares spelling inventions that occur in students' writing in each context. Samples of dictation and composition were collected from three sixth grade classrooms taught by UAE teachers. In addition, this study aimed to investigate what sixth grade students in the (UAE) know about Arabic spelling. A number of features were examined to explore the participants' knowledge and use of certain Arabic spelling rules. Spelling inventions were categorized into three linguistic levels for analysis: 1) phonological level, 2) grammatical level, and 3) orthographic level to answer three of the research question. The findings of student's spelling inventions in their compositions were compared to those found in dictation. Interviews were also conducted to supplement written samples, and to study what sixth grade students report that they do when Arabic standard spelling in unknown. In practice, this study will serve Arabic teachers in the Arabic world as a resource in teaching, evaluating, and understanding invented spelling. Students' invented spellings must be seen as opportunities to contribute actively to their own learning. By combining an understanding of invented spelling with formal spelling instruction, teachers will develop more effective spelling instructions. Findings included: sixth grade students' spelling inventions that occurred in dictations reflected the phonological level primarily; writing compositions drew students' attention to meaning making rather than writing every word accurately; students wrote spontaneously and used their knowledge of information, poems, Koran and Hadith in their compositions. When standard spelling in unknown, students reported that they have many strategies to overcome spelling difficulties such as sounding out, asking for help, visualization, etc. However, they do not advise other students who have spelling difficulties to use the same techniques they use in the same order.

Writing is a critical element for many of the second language learners that I’ve encountered in my work as a Swedish teacher. Therefore, on the basis of Jerome Bruners theories of reflec-tion and learning, was the purpose with this study to examine the scaffolded structured reflec-tion conversation as a method for writing development. Bruner says that the knowledge be-comes deeper when we consciously reflect over it (Arfwedson 1992:110 f). I have used a qualitative method where I let five students write a text in Swedish on the subject "application for internship". After that I held a conversation with each of the pupils. By asking them questions I wanted them to reflect on their writing process, and the language and content in their written texts. After this I let the students revise the texts, with the invita-tion to use the thoughts from the conversation. By this I wanted to examine to which extent the five reflection conversations led to reflec-tion on the students' own writing, as well as on language and content in the texts. I also wanted to examine how the students changed their texts after the conversations and which factors can be interpreted as being significant for the outcome of the conversations. The study has shown that the outcome of the scaffolded structured reflection conversa-tions is very much dependent on the students' respective inputs and focus of the talks. The results indicate that a person who enters the conversation with a focus on developing his/her writing in general is generally more inclined to reflect than a student who enters with a strong focus on the individual task. These results also finds support in earlier theories of reflection. In accordance with previous research, this study also demonstrated that it is essential that the reflection is based on the individuals’ circumstances and experiences. I had before the conversations constructed a manual with questions, which I used in all conversations. The results show that only those students who during the conversation were within what Vygotskij calls the zone of proximal development, through my questions got the scaffolding that they needed to reflect.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the relationship between second language (L2) writing development and the ways we can help growing populations of L2 writers successfully integrate within academic communities. Much of this interest stems from increasingly diverse local populations and the continued internationalization of higher education. This dissertation explored the implications for curriculum resulting from this growing presence of L2 writers in academic content areas. To achieve this goal, this research reports on an eight-month longitudinal ethnographic case study of five international Japanese undergraduate students at a large Canadian university. Focusing on the central role of writing in university courses as the dominant mode of knowledge construction and dissemination, as well as student assessment, the study documents focal students’ and focal instructors’ perspectives of the various factors affecting their writing in ‘regular’ content courses, with particular attention paid to the impact of feedback practices and their role in both the short-term and long-term development of students’ skills and their investments in different types of writing. Drawing on a language socialization framework, data analysis focused on expectations and practices with respect to feedback, and explored the impact of these practices on conveying both explicit and implicit norms linked to students’ access to, and successful participation in, their chosen content areas. Drawing on both students’ and instructors’ perspectives of this literacy event and discourse analysis of relevant documents, findings offer unique insights into the role of feedback practices not only for students’ writing development but also in indexing complex negotiations of positions, identities, and institutional forces. The dissertation concludes by highlighting the need to play closer attention to the multidimensional functions of feedback practices in order to understand their power to shape the socialization trajectories of L2 writers and universities’ responses to multilingual students who no longer fit traditional profiles.