This study aims to develop a method for more clearly understanding the topics that applicants choose when writing their college or university application essay. As such, the purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, to analyze the unstudied volume of advice and guidance available to applicants on the World Wide Web, this study will analyze the guidance that is available to motivate and guide applicants as they embark on writing their essay. Second, this study examines the college application essay and will create a categorization of the application essay topics on which a select group of applicants chose to write. The purpose is not to evaluate the applicant or their demographics, nor is it to suggest “best practices” for college applicants to follow when writing their essays. Furthermore, as an examination of popular media and of narrative expression, this analysis does not attempt to reveal a causal link between media and the resulting narratives. Instead, this inductive analysis develops a baseline theory that begins a discussion of the application essay and the multitude of information that might guide its creation. The motivation for this study is grounded in the following: 1) many colleges and universities employ selective practices in their admissions process and they consider the application essay to be a helpful tool in selecting from among otherwise academically eligible students; 2) applicants consider the essay to be one of the most challenging and unfamiliar aspects of the application; and 3) a multi-million-dollar industry has developed to assist students with college and university applications. This research supports prior studies that indicate that the writing of college application essays (or personal statements) is in fact as Paley (1996) suggests an exercise in a rhetorical conundrum. Applicants emerge from the angst and confusion of how to approach and what to write about in their college application essay to produce a work that reveals personal characteristics that they think are important to college admissions officers and that they hope, will ultimately, result in admission to their institution of choice. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-194).

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Douglas Hesse (chair), Janice Neuleib, Maurice Scharton. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-182) and abstract. Also available in print.

Argumentation is widely regarded as both a productive path and a critical objective of education. However, poor performance remains a serious problem at all ages in assessments of expository writing in which students are asked to make an argument in support of a claim. An apprenticeship model is proposed as a mechanism in the development of skill in dialogic argumentation, with this skill serving as a bridge to individual written argument. In a multi-week intervention, young adolescents were paired with a series of both more skilled and similarly skilled partners, anonymously, in conducting one-on-one electronic dialogs on controversial issues. A comparison group was included who engaged in the same intervention and assessments, but their dialogic partners were confined to similar ability peers. The more skilled adult partner displayed skilled forms of counterargument and use of evidence to support claims as well as frequent questioning with respect to the partner’s statements and meta-talk about the discourse itself. Effects on students’ individual argument skill on a new topic were assessed by means of both a (solitary) individually constructed dialog and an individual essay. In both the dialogs and essays, the experimental group showed greater skills in using evidence to support a claim, generating advanced counterarguments, and constructing integrative critical arguments coordinating two contrasting claims, relative to the comparison group. These results lend support to the power of apprenticeship in individual argument skill development. Both groups also advanced in individual dialogic argument skills following their engagement in argumentation, a result thereby demonstrating the passage of higher-order intellectual skills from a social to individual level. Besides their educational implications, the theoretical significance of these results in relation to both an apprenticeship model and a dialogical model of argument skill development was discussed.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of different expository text structures on fourth and sixth grade students' written retellings. Although previous research has shown that text structure can assist in understanding and recalling text, little work has been done with the use of different expository text structures by elementary school students, who typically have difficulty with expository text. The basic questions of the study were (1) Is there a difference in students' use of structure or number of idea units? (a) in retellings of passages presented in four different structures? (b) in the retellings of students in grade four compared with those in grade six? (2) Is there an interaction between structural pattern and grade level in the use of structure or the number of idea units? (3) Is there an interaction between structural pattern of text and topic in the use of structure or the number of idea units? Subjects were thirty-nine students in each grade with average and above average reading ability. Using passages in four top-level structures identified by Meyer (1975) -- collection/description, problem/solution, comparison/ contrast, and cause/effect--subjects read and immediately retold passages in writing. The retellings were scored for the use of the author’s original structure and the number of targeted idea units. Hypotheses were tested using a 4 (text structure) x 4 (topic) x 2 (grade level) factorial analysis of variance for each dependent variable. The analysis indicated the following results: (1) For the dependent variable of level of text structure use, there was a Significant difference for grade level and interactions between topic and structure. There were no interactions between grade and structure. (2) For the dependent variable of number of idea units, there were was a Significant difference for grade level, but none for text structure. There were no interactions between grade and structure and none between topic and structure. Subjects were found to use the original structure for problem/ solution more than for the other three patterns. Differences in text structure were found to have little effect on the number of idea units in the students' retellings. Developmental differences were evident both in the use of structure and in the number of idea units produced by fourth and sixth grade students. / Ed. D.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 M663 / Master of Arts

by Tang Kit-yi. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [1]-[13]). / by Tang Kit-yi. / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Background of This Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Theoretical Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Choosing S6 Students --- p.5 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- Revision Task of the Expository Writing --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purposes of This Study --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Substantive Problems of Revision in Hong Kong --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Significance of This Study --- p.8 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW / Chapter 2.1 --- What is Revision: Definition and Measurement --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Historical Perspectives of Writing & Revision --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Definition of Revision and Related Concepts --- p.9 / Definition of Revision --- p.9 / Terms Related to Revision --- p.10 / Revision and Rewriting --- p.11 / Revision and Planning --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Measurement of Revision: Methodology and Counting --- p.12 / Methodology --- p.12 / Counting --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- How Revision Occurs: Revision Models --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Introduction --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- "Hayes, Flower, Schriver,Stratman & Carey's Working Model" --- p.21 / Theoretical Perspectives --- p.21 / Working Model --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Bereiter and Scardamalia's CDO model --- p.28 / Chapter 2.3 --- Reasons Affecting Revision: General Perspective of Revision / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Revising Own Text Vs Revising Other's Text --- p.33 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Amount of Revision --- p.36 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Detection Vs Diagnosis --- p.38 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- "What, Why, and How Differences in Revision: Skilled Writers Vs Unskilled Writers" --- p.40 / What are the Differences --- p.40 / Why Unskilled Revisors Cannot Perform in Expert Ways --- p.42 / How Skilled Writers Trigger Revision --- p.44 / Chapter 2.3.5 --- Instruction --- p.46 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHOD --- p.49 / Chapter 3.1 --- Research Questions --- p.51 / Chapter 3.2 --- Subjects --- p.52 / Chapter 3.3 --- Procedures --- p.53 / Chapter 3.4 --- Measures --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Product Rating --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Process Analysis --- p.57 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION / Chapter 4.1 --- Product Rating --- p.61 / Chapter 4.2 --- Revision Process of Hong Kong S6 Students --- p.64 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Task Definition and Task Representation --- p.64 / "Goals, Constraints and Criteria for the Texts and Plans" --- p.65 / Overall Problem Spaces --- p.70 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Evaluation --- p.81 / Evaluation in the Different Text Levels --- p.83 / Block in the Evaluation Process --- p.84 / Criteria of an Effective Evaluation Process --- p.90 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Strategy Selection and Problem Representation --- p.94 / Strategy Distribution and Delay & Ignore Strategies --- p.94 / Searching Strategy --- p.98 / Searching Strategy and Anderson's Two-Concept Theory --- p.104 / Chapter 4.3 --- Review of the Working Model --- p.114 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Task Definition and Task Representation --- p.115 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Evaluation --- p.116 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Strategy Selection and Problem Representation --- p.117 / Chapter 4.4 --- Conclusions --- p.121 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- General Summary --- p.121 / Products rating --- p.121 / Protocols analyses --- p.121 / Differences from the Working Model --- p.124 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Implications --- p.125 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Suggestion for Further Study --- p.126 / Chapter 4.4.4 --- Limitation --- p.128 / References / Appendix 1 Purposes of this study and the instruction of this think-aloud methodology / Appendix 2 Instruction of the writing and revision task (English version) / Appendix 3 Instruction of the writing and revision task (Chinese version) / Appendix 4 Retrospective questions of Task Definition / Appendix 5 Retrospective questions of Evaluation / Appendix 6 Retrospective questions of Detection of the Problem Representation / Appendix 7 Retrospective questions of Diagnosis of the Problem Representation / Appendix 8 Retrospective questions of Strategy Selection / Appendix 9 Attitude questions / Appendix 10 Cantonese version of the interview questions (Appendices 4-9) / Appendix 11 Original (Chinese) written documents of subjects 2 and 8 including: Outlines or the draft papers of the writing task First draft of the written texts / Researcher's observation notes / Appendix 12 Original (Chinese) writing task and interview protocols of subjects 2 and / Appendix 13 English-translated writing task and interview protocols of subjects 2 and / Appendix 14 Final texts of the 10 subjects

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

This study examines how post-process theories are being defined, negotiated, and enacted in composition classrooms. While recognizing that most composition instruction remains shaped by modern and process oriented theories, this research asks how post-process considerations might be currently informing teaching practices in some classrooms.