Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Magister of Education in the Faculty of Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology / The core problematique of this study is to establish a collaborative intervention strategy as a model that could facilitate the design and dissemination of appropriate formative feedback during essay-writing practices with at risk ECP and first-year students.

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Ao término da Educação Básica, espera-se que um indivíduo esteja habilitado a redigir adequadamente em qualquer situação, que saiba interagir com a palavra para a produção escrita nos diversos gêneros textuais em circulação. Embora tais expectativas se realizem em alguns casos, em geral, a realidade vivenciada é diversa: mesmo após completarem os ensinos Fundamental e Médio, muitos sujeitos elaboram textos repletos de desvios, marcas que expõem as muitas dificuldades com a produção escrita, as quais revelam uma língua cindida entre um saber-dizer e um dever-dizer. Questionamentos sobre o que leva a essa cisão motivaram esta pesquisa. Considerando-se a perspectiva sócio-histórica, os conceitos bakhtinianos de gênero, dialogismo e polifonia, bem como preceitos da Lingüísitca Textual, o trabalho consistiu na análise de elementos composicionais da redação dissertativa de vestibular, gênero que desafia estudantes interessados em ingressar no Ensino Superior. Mais especificamente, foram analisados: (a) a norma lingüística, (b) os índices de pessoalidade e (c) a macroarticulação em uma amostra de 374 redações (1% do total) produzidas por candidatos inscritos no Vestibular-2007 promovido pela FUVEST (Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular) São Paulo, Brasil. Foram analisadas, também, algumas relações entre o perfil sócio-histórico dos candidatos e os perfis de escrita verificados nos textos. Depreendeu-se, das observações realizadas, que a excessiva preocupação com o outro, com o molde e com a demonstração do saber-fazer interfere no movimento de exteriorização do discurso: em vez de tentar levar ao texto seu universo e sua idéia, o estudante se propõe à tarefa de levar, para o papel, mundo e idéias presumidos do interlocutor e da interlocução, vivencia um confronto - e não uma negociação - entre um saber-dizer que se esvaece diante de um dever-dizer e cinde a língua. As observações realizadas revelaram, ainda uma escolarização que, no âmbito de sua atuação, parece não promover satisfatoriamente condições para o desenvolvimento de estratégias para o diálogo entre os saberes, parece não promover satisfatoriamente a possibilidade de escrever com autonomia. / After concluding high school, students are expected to be able to write proficiently in any situation. They are supposed to interact with words in order to produce texts in the diverse genres currently circulating. Although some of these expectations are sometimes met, in general, the reality is different. Even after having fulfilled the academic requirements of high school, many students produce texts with several deviations, which signal difficulties with writing. This also reveals a schism between knowing-how-to-say-it and should-say. Questioning the reasons for this schism was the starting point for research. Based on sociohistorical patterns, bakhtinian concepts for genres of discourse, dialogism, and polyphony, as well as the Textual Linguistics precepts, this work consisted in analyzing the elements found in the Writing Essays from students participating in Standardized College Entrance Exams for the public universities in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. This is a genre of text which challenges students who want to enter into a college career. Specifically, the topics analyzed were: (a) proficiency in standard Portuguese , (b) personal input and (c) macroarticulation in a sample of 374 essays (1% of the total) from the entrance exam that was ministered through FUVEST (Foundation for College Entrance Exams), São Paulo, Brazil, from the year 2007. The analysis included also the relationship between the candidates socio-historic profile and the writing patterns found in their work. Through this analysis I could detect an exaggerated concern with the other one, with following a model, and with a concern in demonstrating the knowing-how-to-say-it. These concerns interfere with the movement of the discourse exteriorization: instead of putting in the text their own world view and their own ideas, students try to present a perspective that agrees with a presumed readers world view and ideas foreign to themselves: a confrontation and not an exchange between the knowhow- to-say-it and the should-say that schisms the language. My observations revealed also a schooling process that does not seem to promote satisfactory conditions to develop strategies that foster the dialogue among the diverse facets of knowledge, and does not promote the individuals self-reliance in their own writing.

Ao término da Educação Básica, espera-se que um indivíduo esteja habilitado a redigir adequadamente em qualquer situação, que saiba interagir com a palavra para a produção escrita nos diversos gêneros textuais em circulação. Embora tais expectativas se realizem em alguns casos, em geral, a realidade vivenciada é diversa: mesmo após completarem os ensinos Fundamental e Médio, muitos sujeitos elaboram textos repletos de desvios, marcas que expõem as muitas dificuldades com a produção escrita, as quais revelam uma língua cindida entre um saber-dizer e um dever-dizer. Questionamentos sobre o que leva a essa cisão motivaram esta pesquisa. Considerando-se a perspectiva sócio-histórica, os conceitos bakhtinianos de gênero, dialogismo e polifonia, bem como preceitos da Lingüísitca Textual, o trabalho consistiu na análise de elementos composicionais da redação dissertativa de vestibular, gênero que desafia estudantes interessados em ingressar no Ensino Superior. Mais especificamente, foram analisados: (a) a norma lingüística, (b) os índices de pessoalidade e (c) a macroarticulação em uma amostra de 374 redações (1% do total) produzidas por candidatos inscritos no Vestibular-2007 promovido pela FUVEST (Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular) São Paulo, Brasil. Foram analisadas, também, algumas relações entre o perfil sócio-histórico dos candidatos e os perfis de escrita verificados nos textos. Depreendeu-se, das observações realizadas, que a excessiva preocupação com o outro, com o molde e com a demonstração do saber-fazer interfere no movimento de exteriorização do discurso: em vez de tentar levar ao texto seu universo e sua idéia, o estudante se propõe à tarefa de levar, para o papel, mundo e idéias presumidos do interlocutor e da interlocução, vivencia um confronto - e não uma negociação - entre um saber-dizer que se esvaece diante de um dever-dizer e cinde a língua. As observações realizadas revelaram, ainda uma escolarização que, no âmbito de sua atuação, parece não promover satisfatoriamente condições para o desenvolvimento de estratégias para o diálogo entre os saberes, parece não promover satisfatoriamente a possibilidade de escrever com autonomia. / After concluding high school, students are expected to be able to write proficiently in any situation. They are supposed to interact with words in order to produce texts in the diverse genres currently circulating. Although some of these expectations are sometimes met, in general, the reality is different. Even after having fulfilled the academic requirements of high school, many students produce texts with several deviations, which signal difficulties with writing. This also reveals a schism between knowing-how-to-say-it and should-say. Questioning the reasons for this schism was the starting point for research. Based on sociohistorical patterns, bakhtinian concepts for genres of discourse, dialogism, and polyphony, as well as the Textual Linguistics precepts, this work consisted in analyzing the elements found in the Writing Essays from students participating in Standardized College Entrance Exams for the public universities in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. This is a genre of text which challenges students who want to enter into a college career. Specifically, the topics analyzed were: (a) proficiency in standard Portuguese , (b) personal input and (c) macroarticulation in a sample of 374 essays (1% of the total) from the entrance exam that was ministered through FUVEST (Foundation for College Entrance Exams), São Paulo, Brazil, from the year 2007. The analysis included also the relationship between the candidates socio-historic profile and the writing patterns found in their work. Through this analysis I could detect an exaggerated concern with the other one, with following a model, and with a concern in demonstrating the knowing-how-to-say-it. These concerns interfere with the movement of the discourse exteriorization: instead of putting in the text their own world view and their own ideas, students try to present a perspective that agrees with a presumed readers world view and ideas foreign to themselves: a confrontation and not an exchange between the knowhow- to-say-it and the should-say that schisms the language. My observations revealed also a schooling process that does not seem to promote satisfactory conditions to develop strategies that foster the dialogue among the diverse facets of knowledge, and does not promote the individuals self-reliance in their own writing.

This diploma thesis deals with the phenomenon of critical essay writing in the context of contemporary Austrian literature as exemplified by the author Robert Menasse. The introductory chapter presents Robert Menasse's life and work. The following chapter deals with Austria's interpretation of, and its struggle to come to terms with, its part in the complicated history of the last century as well as how this is reflected in post-war Austrian literature. The focus of the chapter is the issue of national identity - the development and re- definition of the proposition of Austria as the "first victim" of Nazi Germany - and its reflection in Austrian post-war literature. The key element of the thesis is an analysis of the essay collections, The country without qualities and Explain Austria to me. Through critical analysis of a wide range of topics in his essays - social partnership, the Austrian Independence Treaty, neutrality etc., Menasse presents a comprehensive picture of Austria with all its contradictions.

<p>The aim of this paper was to investigate if students could become more proficient in their grammatical skills through feedback by underlining. The focus is on the problems students have with verbs when they learn English as a foreign language. 16 students from two different classes participated in the investigation. Eight of the students were interviewed on two occasions. They were shown essays they had written during the fall term of 2005. The teacher had underlined the errors they had made. During the interviews the students were asked to correct and explain the errors. The other eight students served as a control group since it could be suspected that the interviews might have an impact on the students’ performance.</p><p>The results of this paper show that the students who were interviewed were able to correct most of the errors that had been underlined. The students in this group also seemed to improve more than the control group, but the results of this investigation are inconclusive, since the total number of errors made was fairly small. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much the students improved their proficiency in English grammar.</p>

Submitted by GISLENE APARECIDA DA SILVA BARBOSA null (barbosagislene@gmail.com) on 2017-06-06T01:44:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_GisleneBarbosa_SD_EL_Aprend_Prod_Texto.pdf: 3491761 bytes, checksum: 8058c8bc93d64d2b1786d022efce2506 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luiz Galeffi (luizgaleffi@gmail.com) on 2017-06-06T17:21:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 barbosa_gas_dr_prud.pdf: 3491761 bytes, checksum: 8058c8bc93d64d2b1786d022efce2506 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-06T17:21:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 barbosa_gas_dr_prud.pdf: 3491761 bytes, checksum: 8058c8bc93d64d2b1786d022efce2506 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-28 / Outra / Esta pesquisa, vinculada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia de Presidente Prudente, na linha “Processos formativos, ensino e aprendizagem”, e fomentada pela Secretaria Estadual de Educação de São Paulo, tem por objetivo geral investigar a contribuição dos procedimentos pedagógicos Sequência Didática (do grupo genebrino) e Estratégias de Leitura (de influência norte-americana) para a aprendizagem da produção de texto. O problema da pesquisa consiste em avaliar como a junção de ambos os procedimentos favorece a aprendizagem de produção textual do gênero conto por alunos de educação básica, cuja dificuldade com a língua escrita evidencia-se em avaliações externas e em atividades escolares. Os objetivos específicos da pesquisa são: investigar se o domínio do aluno acerca do contexto de produção do gênero textual conto se amplia após o trabalho com os procedimentos pedagógicos Sequência Didática e Estratégias de Leitura; demonstrar como o desenvolvimento de uma Sequência Didática articulado a Estratégias de Leitura colabora para que os alunos desenvolvam conteúdos para o conto; evidenciar de que maneira Estratégias de Leitura ajudam os alunos na ampliação de saberes sobre o planejamento da estrutura do conto e analisar como uma Sequência Didática proporciona aos alunos domínio sobre a linguagem do conto. O procedimento metodológico é a pesquisa-ação, que visa transformar a realidade e produzir conhecimentos relativos a essas transformações. Nesse sentido, a investigação ocorreu na prática docente da pesquisadora, em 66 aulas de Língua Portuguesa (33 encontros), com uma turma composta por 26 alunos de 6º ano do ensino fundamental, em uma escola pública estadual da cidade de Presidente Prudente. A partir das etapas da Sequência Didática – apresentação da situação; produção inicial; módulos; produção final – foram realizadas aulas de produção de texto, a partir de um projeto de escrita de contos para publicação em uma coletânea. Partindo da produção inicial, foi constatada a dificuldade dos alunos com os quatro níveis principais de ação do sujeito na produção textual: ter clareza do destinatário do texto, da finalidade do texto e da própria posição como autor em relação ao gênero textual em foco; elaborar conteúdos que atendam à especificidade do gênero; planejar o texto para atender à estrutura convencional do gênero; escolher a linguagem adequada para realizar o texto. A partir disso, foram construídas e desenvolvidas atividades modulares de intervenção em cada uma das dificuldades encontradas. Considerando que a leitura é um processo de produção de sentidos e que não pode haver produção textual sem a compreensão de textos, as atividades modulares contaram com as Estratégias de Leitura, para que fosse ampliada a interação dos estudantes com o gênero textual conto, favorecendo a alimentação de conteúdos dos textos a serem escritos, bem como o alargamento dos saberes acerca do contexto de produção, da forma e da linguagem no texto. Por último, os alunos revisaram e reescreveram o conto, capitalizando as aquisições construídas durante as atividades aplicadas. Os resultados mostram que na produção final houve avanço dos conhecimentos da turma em todos os níveis de ação do sujeito na produção textual, pois os procedimentos pedagógicos articulados favoreceram as intervenções docentes a fim de que os alunos-autores elaborassem o conto. / This research, related to the Graduate Program in Education of the Presidente Prudente College of Science and Technology, in the line of research “Formative Processes, Teaching and Learning”, and fostered by the São Paulo State Educational System, has as its general aim to investigate the contributions from both pedagogical procedures, Didactic Sequence (from the Genevan group) and Reading Strategies (from a North American trend), in essay writing learning. The research problem lies in the evaluation of how, when put together, the aforementioned procedures further the learning of writing skills towards the short story genre by students in Basic Education, whose struggles with the writing language are made evident through external evaluations and in school activities. The specific objectives of the research are the following: to assess if the students´ skills in writing short stories are enhanced after the work with the pedagogical procedures Didactic Sequence and Reading Strategies; to show how the application of a Didactic Sequence along with Reading Strategies concur in order to make the students develop subjects to the short story; to make noticeable how Reading Strategies help students in widening their knowledges on planning a short story structure; to analyze how a Didactic Sequence provides the students mastery of the short story language. The methodological procedure is the Action Research, which aims to change reality and create knowledges about these changes. Thus, the survey took place during the researcher´s teaching practice, in 66 Portuguese Language lessons (33 meetings), in a class made of 26 students in the Sixth Grade of the Elementary Education, in a public state school in Presidente Prudente town. Based on the Didactic Sequence stages, presentation of circumstances; initial production; workshops; and final production, writing lessons were carried out: a project of short stories writing to be published in a collection. In the initial production, it was found students´ difficulties concerning the four main levels of the subject´s action in writing: awareness about the text´s recipient, about the text´s function, and about the author´s position itself in relation to the text genre in question; the creation of subjects that comply with the specificities of the genre; the planning of the text in order to comply with the genre´s standard structure; the choicer of the proper language when writing the text. From that, modular interventional activities were developed dealing with each one of the difficulties found. Since reading is a process of production of meanings, and since there cannot be writing without the understanding of texts, the modular activities were furthered by Reading Strategies in order to amplify the students´ interaction with the short story genre, favoring the feeding of subjects of the texts to be written, as much as the widening of knowledges related to the writing context, the short story form and the language of the text. At last, the students reviewed and rewrote the short story, profiting from the gains obtained during the applied activities. Results showed that in the final production, when compared to the initial production, there were improvement of the knowledges of the class in all levels of the subject´s action in writing, because the pedagogical procedures when integrated provide the detailed study of each characteristic of a text genre, help in the teacher´s intervention, widen the students´ stock of knowledge, and support the learner´s brainwork, in order to make possible the students-authors to write the short story.

The aim of this paper was to investigate if students could become more proficient in their grammatical skills through feedback by underlining. The focus is on the problems students have with verbs when they learn English as a foreign language. 16 students from two different classes participated in the investigation. Eight of the students were interviewed on two occasions. They were shown essays they had written during the fall term of 2005. The teacher had underlined the errors they had made. During the interviews the students were asked to correct and explain the errors. The other eight students served as a control group since it could be suspected that the interviews might have an impact on the students’ performance. The results of this paper show that the students who were interviewed were able to correct most of the errors that had been underlined. The students in this group also seemed to improve more than the control group, but the results of this investigation are inconclusive, since the total number of errors made was fairly small. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much the students improved their proficiency in English grammar.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of the essay writing process of first year undergraduates at Chancellor College (University of Malawi) and to a lesser extent those of the lecturers responsible for teaching academic skills. A mixed methods design, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, was employed in order to obtain richer data for deeper understanding of the students’ writing process. Two hundred students from the humanities and social science faculties responded to a self-completion questionnaire towards the end of semester one. Based on the students’ responses, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to four full time English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors. Findings from this study indicate that most students find it very challenging to obtain sufficient and relevant source text information, paraphrase or summarise information, and use an appropriate academic writing style. As solutions to these challenges, the students suggested the need for timely essay writing instruction, availability of resources for essay writing, increased amount of time spent on essay writing instruction, and discipline specific instruction in essay writing. EAP instructors identified lack of teaching and learning materials, large EAP classes, and students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course, as some of the challenges they encounter when teaching the course. The EAP instructors proposed an increase in the number of staff members, making students aware of the significance of the EAP course at an early stage, and the availability of up to date resources, as some of the ways in which the teaching of the course can be improved. Overall, the findings seem to suggest that difficulties that students encounter during the writing process and teaching challenges that EAP instructors face, have great impact on students’ perception of academic writing as well as their approach to writing tasks. The findings also suggest a lack of dialogue between the students and their lecturers. This is evident in students’ unawareness of the nature of the writing demands of their lecturers and disciplines; students’ desire to have timely essay writing instruction; and the lecturers’ concerns about students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of the essay writing process of first year undergraduates at Chancellor College (University of Malawi) and to a lesser extent those of the lecturers responsible for teaching academic skills. A mixed methods design, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, was employed in order to obtain richer data for deeper understanding of the students’ writing process. Two hundred students from the humanities and social science faculties responded to a self-completion questionnaire towards the end of semester one. Based on the students’ responses, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to four full time English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors. Findings from this study indicate that most students find it very challenging to obtain sufficient and relevant source text information, paraphrase or summarise information, and use an appropriate academic writing style. As solutions to these challenges, the students suggested the need for timely essay writing instruction, availability of resources for essay writing, increased amount of time spent on essay writing instruction, and discipline specific instruction in essay writing. EAP instructors identified lack of teaching and learning materials, large EAP classes, and students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course, as some of the challenges they encounter when teaching the course. The EAP instructors proposed an increase in the number of staff members, making students aware of the significance of the EAP course at an early stage, and the availability of up to date resources, as some of the ways in which the teaching of the course can be improved. Overall, the findings seem to suggest that difficulties that students encounter during the writing process and teaching challenges that EAP instructors face, have great impact on students’ perception of academic writing as well as their approach to writing tasks. The findings also suggest a lack of dialogue between the students and their lecturers. This is evident in students’ unawareness of the nature of the writing demands of their lecturers and disciplines; students’ desire to have timely essay writing instruction; and the lecturers’ concerns about students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course.