A case study approach was adopted for this study. Four Taiwanese students enrolled in the writing program for international students at The University of Arizona were interviewed individually about (1) how they acquired the code of written English and what their L2 writing assumptions were upon entering The University of Arizona; and (2) what writing difficulties they experienced in a university writing program for international students and what their L2 writing assumptions were after completing a university writing program for international students. Findings from this research indicated that the four Taiwanese students did not have sufficient comprehensible input from pleasure reading or other voluntary, extracurricular sources. They acquired the code of written language from reading, participating in varied classroom activities such as small-group and whole-class discussions, peer review, teacher-student conferences, writing texts to different audiences for various purposes, analyzing model essays, practicing sentence combinations, and formal instruction in the composing process. Their writing difficulties could be summarized as follows: (1) not making good use of classroom activities to reshape ideas in terms of readers' expectations and their own writing intentions; (2) lack of experience to develop necessary reading and writing skills; (3) inadequate knowledge of the composing process; (4) inadequate syntax, vocabulary, or mechanics to express themselves in L2; (5) being influenced by their L1 rhetorical convention; (6) no intrinsic motivation to integrate with the target language, culture, or society; and (7) low expectations of success related to negative or weak teacher-student relationships. This research both reinforces and expands Krashen's (1984) model of second language acquisition and writing, showing the critical role of comprehensible input, the significance of natural acquisition over direct teaching of grammar rules and error correction, and the presence of an "affective" filter which is socially and culturally mediated, as well as cognitively and linguistically based.

<p>This study has been prompted by the negative remarks that lecturers make concerning the academic performance of students and the number of years they spend at the Eastern Cape Technikon before completing their diplomas. The aim of this study was to identify the kinds of strategies that English Second Language (ESL) students use to cope with English language writing tasks.</p> <p><br /> Academic writing requires a conscious effort and much practice in composing, developing, and analyzing ideas. Black students at tertiary institutions in South Africa face additional difficulty, especially when they have to deal with writing in English which is an unfamiliar language to them. This presents them with social and cognitive challenges related to second language acquisition. Since the black students do not often consider the social contexts in which L2 academic writing takes place, models of L1 writing instruction and research on composing processes are often found wanting in their L2 writing pedagogy. In this study, I argue that language proficiency and competence is the cornerstone of the ability to write in the L2 in a fundamental way. L2 writing instructors should take into account both strategy development and language skill development when working with black students. This is critical in South Africa considering the apartheid legacy and the deprived social conditions under which black students often live and acquire their education. Therefore, using critical discourse analysis and aspects of systemic functional linguistics, this study explores errors in written cohesion and coherence in relation to L2 writing strategies used by black students at the Eastern Cape Technikon. The study focuses on errors in the form of cohesive devices of referring expressions using topic development used by students. The aim was to explore the strategies used by black students to write coherent academic texts. Further, the study intends to scrutinize the grammatical devices of reference, through analyzing the forms of cohesive devices and theme development. A focus on the writing process as a pedagogical tool enables me to explore the relationship between the quality of students‟ academic writing and coping strategies used, and come up with a model of L2 writing (coping) strategies for academic writing at the Eastern Cape Technikon. I investigate the L2 writing process adopted by competent and non-competent black students in the process of producing coherent academic texts by comparing strategies that the two groups of students adopt.</p>

Student affairs professionals work directly with university students in various programs that provide services to these students. From these experiences, they collect daily valuable insights about how to serve students successfully. Yet, in general, they are not publishing about their work even though dissemination of such knowledge through publication could positively impact programs and services across many institutions. My dissertation explored what happens when mid-level student affairs professionals pursue scholarly writing during a structured program intended to help participants produce manuscripts for publication. In working with five professionals in student services at a large urban institution in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, I learned about participants' identities as scholars as well as which writing strategies they found effective. I worked with participants using case study and action research methodologies and used writing coaching as an intervention to support the tenets of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as defined by Self-Determination Theory. Participants viewed strategies that created a habit of practice that fostered writing to be the most effective. Participants varied in how they viewed themselves professionally along the scholar-practitioner continuum. Leadership can create environments to foster scholarship among student affairs professionals. I give recommendations not only for senior student affairs officers but also for graduate programs in higher education as well as national student affairs organizations to promote research and writing in the profession. Lastly, I share recommendations for further research.

Research questions addressed whether (1) the instruction was effective, (2) performance on persuasive tasks differed by grade level following instruction, (3) performance on persuasive tasks differed by Piagetian developmental level following instruction, and (4) whether performance differed between monolingual and bilingual subjects. Students wrote four persuasive compositions for assessment, two before instruction was administered and two after instruction. Knudson's holistic scoring rubric was used to evaluate essays for overall quality. Other measures of writing were evaluated including the number of words students used in their writing, the number of reasons included in the essay, the number of reasons per hundred words, and whether the paper had a conclusion or not. Further, the number of elaborations used in the paper was determined, as well as the number of elaborations per hundred words, and the ratio of the number of words used in elaborations compared with the total number of words in the composition.

Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome are entering institutions of higher education at an increasing rate. However, they may not be prepared to meet the academic and social demands of the postsecondary environment. Although studies have evaluated the impact of academic and social interventions for children and adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome, little research has been conducted on the college population. The current study utilized a multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of a writing learning strategy on the writing performance of three college students with Asperger’s Syndrome. Results indicated that the quality of the writing performance improved following strategy instruction. In addition, participants were able to generalize the use of the strategy to content specific writing tasks. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-04-20T12:45:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Aparecida dos Santos.pdf: 5171251 bytes, checksum: 6fa3753e3c794320913c58ca21402196 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-20T12:45:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Aparecida dos Santos.pdf: 5171251 bytes, checksum: 6fa3753e3c794320913c58ca21402196 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-15 / This dissertation aims to find out how young and adult education students use cohesive elements in rewriting. Based on this general objective, we established as specific objectives: 1) to verify the extent to which the cohesive elements contribute to the coherence in the rewritten texts and 2) to propose rewriting activities for the analysis of the referential and sequential cohesion records that contributed to the textual coherence. The research was applied to 43 students of elementary school, which comprises the complementary stages (in the past, 5th and 6th grades) and the final stages (in the past, 7th and 8th grades) of a municipal school in the south zone of São Paulo city. In order to develop the research, we selected the short story Adivinha, adivinhão, by Luís da Câmara Cascudo, as motivational text to rewriting to verify how referential and sequential cohesion occur, and to distinguish the linguistic strategies used to form the desired logical-semantic relationships, which contribute to the coherence of the texts produced by the students. We provided copies of the text and asked the students to read them and re-read as many times as needed for comprehension and then rewrite the story as closely as the original text. After this activity, we began the analysis. Our theoretical foundations are based on Beaugrande's (1997) text concept and on the concepts of cohesion and coherence defined by Koch (2010), Halliday & Hassan (1976), Antunes (2005), Beaugrande & Dressler (1981) and Koch & Travaglia (2004). The results obtained in the analysis of the rewritten texts indicate that the referential and sequential strategies used by the students are restricted and repetitive, but do not compromise the semantic and pragmatic coherence, so necessary to the interpretability of the text / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo geral averiguar como os alunos da educação de jovens e adultos utilizam os elementos coesivos na reescrita de textos. Com base nesse objetivo geral, estabelecemos os seguintes objetivos específicos: 1) verificar em que medida os elementos coesivos contribuem para a coerência nos textos reescritos e 2) propor atividades de reescrita para a análise dos expedientes de coesão referencial e sequencial que contribuem para a coerência textual. A pesquisa foi aplicada a 43 alunos do Ensino Fundamental II, que compreende as etapas complementares (antigas 5ª e 6ª séries) e as etapas finais (antigas 7ª e 8ª séries), de uma escola municipal da zona sul da cidade de São Paulo. Para procedermos à pesquisa, selecionamos o conto Adivinha, adivinhão, de Luís da Câmara Cascudo, como texto motivador da reescrita para verificação de como ocorrem a coesão referencial e sequencial, de modo a distinguir as estratégias linguísticas usadas para formar as relações lógico-semânticas pretendidas que contribuem para a coerência dos textos produzidos pelos estudantes. Entregamos cópias do texto e solicitamos que os alunos as lessem e relessem quantas vezes fossem necessárias à compreensão para, então, procederem à reescrita da história da forma mais próxima do texto original. Após essa atividade, iniciamos a análise. Temos como fundamentação teórica Halliday e Hassan (1976), Beaugrande (1997), Beaugrande e Dressler (1981), Koch (2010), Antunes (2005) e Koch e Travaglia (2004). Os resultados obtidos por meio da análise dos textos reescritos indicam que as estratégias referenciais e sequenciais utilizadas pelos alunos são restritas e repetitivas, mas não comprometem a coerência semântica e pragmática, tão necessárias à interpretabilidade do texto

In Study 2, I further refined these scales and created an additional measure of commentary mediation, reflecting, in part, socio-emotional-regulation aspects of the writing interaction process. Across both Hong Kong and Beijing, these three measures of literate mediation, print mediation, and commentary mediation, were examined in relation to cognitive/metalinguistic awareness skills and Chinese reading and writing skills in three groups of children and their mothers. These groups included 63 Hong Kong third year kindergartners, 43 Beijing third year kindergartners, and 49 Beijing first graders. Results of Study 2 showed that mothers of kindergarten children tended to use lower level mediation strategies, such as stroke and component segmentation, and allowed less autonomy during the joint writing process. In contrast, mothers of first graders tended to use higher level mediation strategies, such as character level mediation, and allowed more autonomy, during this process. Results of the commentary mediation analyses demonstrated that Hong Kong mothers offered more negative than positive responses compared to Beijing mothers, particularly for kindergartners. In addition, the literate mediation and print mediation scale scores were significantly correlated with Chinese reading and writing in both Hong Kong and Beijing K3 children, but not in Beijing first graders. Scores on the literate mediation scale explained 11% to 25% unique variance in literacy skills in Beijing K3 children and reading skills in Hong Kong K3 children, even with maternal education, nonverbal reasoning, visual skills and metalinguistic awareness statistically controlled. In Hong Kong K3 children, children's orthographic awareness partially mediated the relation between literate mediation and Chinese word reading. Of all commentary mediation measures included, only the process mediation measure, focused on specific comments toward children's effort or strategies, was found to be uniquely associated with Chinese word reading and writing in Hong Kong K3 children and significantly related to Chinese word reading in Beijing K3 children with children's age, nonverbal reasoning and maternal education statistically controlled. Study 3 extended and tested the maternal mediation measure to Pinyin writing in Beijing K3 children. Maternal Pinyin mediation was uniquely associated with Chinese word reading even apart from children's general cognitive skills, maternal education, and phonological awareness. / The present research was among the first attempts to analyze the nature of maternal mediation of writing in Chinese and its association with literacy skills. The findings highlight the importance of maternal mediation of writing in preschool children's independent literacy development in Chinese across Hong Kong and Beijing. / This dissertation consisted of three studies investigating the nature of maternal mediation of writing among kindergarten and first grade children and their mothers across the two prominent Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Beijing and further examined the associations of maternal mediation of writing with cognitive /metalinguistic abilities and literacy skills in Chinese cross-culturally. In Study 1, two scales of literate mediation and print mediation based on mother-child writing interactions were created and refined. These scales, developed following work on Hebrew by Aram and Levin (2001; 2004), were modified and tested among 67 Hong Kong mother-child dyads from three grade levels---second year kindergarten, third year kindergarten, and first grade. The results showed that mothers' use of lower-level memorization strategies tended to be negatively associated with their children's reading skills, whereas mothers' higher level analytic scaffolding strategies were positively correlated with reading skills, even with age, grade level, nonverbal reasoning, and maternal education statistically controlled. / Lin, Dan. / Adviser: Catherine McBride-Chang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-11, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-163). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese; some appendices include Chinese characters.

Wang Junju. / "April 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 296-316). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-12-11T11:12:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabiana Parra De Lazzari.pdf: 14318760 bytes, checksum: 8450b4824e159725f46d37926f5654ab (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-11T11:12:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabiana Parra De Lazzari.pdf: 14318760 bytes, checksum: 8450b4824e159725f46d37926f5654ab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-11-30 / The purpose of this study is to profile the proposals of text production from the Brazilian vestibulares (university entrance exams) that are considerably pursued/competitive, in order to provide teachers the conditions for a more complete pedagogical orientation regarding the productions of texts to be performed by candidates in these vestibulares. It is also the objective of this study to investigate whether these identity characteristics are consistent with the context of the candidates in each one of the vestibulares here studied and to assess if such identity characteristics allow a comprehensive and complete evaluation of the candidates. The corpus of the present study includes the vestibulares between the years of 2012 and 2015 for admissions into the Universidade de São Paulo (prepared by the Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular), the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (prepared by the Fundação para o Vestibular da Unesp), and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (prepared by the Comissão Permanente para os Vestibulares). The method for our analyses is based on the triad Descriptions-Comparisons-Weighting. The reference for the analyses is Textual Linguistics. We also make use of theoretical contributions from studies of Rhetoric and New Rhetoric / Este estudo tem como objetivo traçar o perfil das propostas de redação de vestibulares brasileiros bastante procurados/concorridos, a fim de se proverem docentes de condições para uma mais completa orientação pedagógica acerca das produções textuais a serem realizadas por candidatos, nesses vestibulares. Também é objetivo deste estudo analisar se características identitárias delineadas são condizentes com o contexto encontrado pelo candidato, em cada um dos vestibulares por nós estudados e ponderar se tais características identitárias permitem que o candidato seja avaliado de maneira ampla. O corpus do presente estudo é formado pelas provas de redação aplicadas entre os anos de 2012 e 2015, nos vestibulares para ingresso na Universidade de São Paulo (vestibular realizado pela Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular), na Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (vestibular realizado pela Fundação para o Vestibular da Unesp) e na Universidade Estadual de Campinas (vestibular realizado pela Comissão Permanente para os Vestibulares). A metodologia de nossas análises embasa-se na tríade Descrições-Comparações-Ponderações. O referencial para as análises é a Linguística Textual. Também nos valemos de aportes teóricos advindos de estudos da Retórica e da Nova Retórica

This case study explored the revision strategies of four Malaysian native speakers of English when they composed aloud while writing an argumentative essay. Think aloud verbal protocols were analysed using the grounded theory approach in conjunction with written texts. The findings suggest that contextual factors influenced classroom practices. The contextual factors included a teacher who was not provided with adequate training, administrative policies which did not provide support for the development of writers based on their abilities, writing instruction which viewed revision as a process of error correction and public assessment practices which were non-transparent. These classroom practices influenced the participants� beliefs about revision. These beliefs affected the quality of their essays as judged by Malaysian public examiners. Additionally, the findings suggest a mismatch between classroom instruction and public examination. Suggestions are made to address these concerns by considering the theoretical underpinnings of the cognitive process, socio-cultural and community of practice models of writing and learning. These include instruction on revision strategies, considering alternative assessment practices, providing formative feedback, ability streaming, focussing on critical reading skills and providing adequate support to the teacher.