This special issue of Management Learning on ‘Writing Differently’ builds on a groundswell of resistance to ‘scientific’ norms of academic writing. These norms are restrictive, inhibit the ...development of knowledge and excise much of what it is to be human from our learning, teaching and research. Contributors to the special issue explore how, released from these restrictions, it is possible to touch vulnerable flesh and invoke new political and ethical practices. Through changing our norms of writing, we explore different modes of learning and change how and what we teach. By bringing the previously excised vast hinterlands of life and lives to the fore, we create the intellectual space to engender new ideas as well as more collaborative forms of learning. In so doing, we foster alternative conversations as to how we might constitute new, highly ethical and humanitarian organisations.
This article describes the Mentored Multigenre Project, a virtual writing collaboration experience between high school writers and teacher candidates. Our goal was to create an authentic opportunity ...for our high school students to receive writing feedback from virtual writing mentors, while also creating an opportunity for our teacher candidates to practice the craft of teaching writing. In this article, the authors outline the ways in which they prepared and supported the high school students during the project. Then, the authors highlight an emergent case from the project to demonstrate the virtual writing collaboration experience in action and evaluate the extent to which it created an authentic writing experience for one high school writer. Finally, the authors share their reflections on the experience and suggestions for others interested in using a learning management system to connect high school writers with teacher candidates.
This study examined whether discourse and topic knowledge separately predicted the overall quality and the inclusion of basic genre elements in 5th grade students' stories, persuasive papers, and ...informational text once the other type of knowledge as well as topic interest, spelling, handwriting fluency, length of text, and gender were controlled. Fifty students (25 girls, 25 boys) wrote a story, persuasive paper, and informative text about outer space. In addition, students' discourse knowledge, knowledge about the writing topic, interest in the topic, and handwriting fluency were measured. Discourse knowledge made a unique and statistically significant contribution to the prediction of the quality and inclusion of genre-specific elements in story, persuasive, and informational writing beyond topic knowledge and 5 control variables (i.e., gender, topic interest, handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy, and text length). Topic knowledge also predicted story, persuasive, and informational writing quality beyond discourse knowledge and the 5 control variables. Further, topic knowledge predicted the inclusion of genre-specific elements in informational text. These findings supported the proposition that discourse and topic knowledge are important ingredients in children's writing and provided support for the architecture of the knowledge-telling model (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
In Flanders, there are neither Flemish assessments nor teacher surveys to provide insights into the current practice and outcomes of writing instruction. In the present study, we provide ...a-state-of-the-art study of the practice of writing instruction in Flemish late elementary education by investigating: (a) how writing is taught, (b) how teachers think about writing and writing instruction, and (c) how student characteristics, teacher characteristics, and classroom writing practices correlate with students’ writing performance. In total, 128 teachers and 800 fifth- and sixth-grade students completed teacher and student questionnaires. Students also completed two writing tests (i.e., writing an informational and a narrative text). The descriptive results on the teacher questionnaire showed that upper elementary school teachers spent only about 65 min each week on various writing assignments in class (e.g., stories and worksheets). During these lessons, teachers primarily focused on explicit instruction of writing skills. In addition, teachers were generally positive towards writing and writing instruction and they felt self-efficacious in teaching writing. As to the relationships with students’ writing performance, multilevel analyses indicated that students with a high self-efficacy for ideation and autonomous motivation wrote qualitatively better narrative and informational texts, while students with controlled motivation were significantly less successful in writing narrative texts. Also, teacher efficacy for writing was positively correlated with students’ informational text quality. In conclusion, this study represents an important starting point in unraveling the black box of writing instruction in Flanders. However, more research is needed to further investigate correlates on student, teacher, and class levels.
A escrita científica é um processo que exige dedicação, conhecimento e habilidades de diferentes áreas científicas. No entanto, os autores, principalmente os jovens que iniciam a pós-graduação e a ...carreira científica, estão propensos a cometerem alguns erros ao escrever e que muitas vezes pode passar despercebido. Neste sentido, este estudo objetiva descrever erros comuns na redação científica e técnicas de como evitá-los. Erros podem ocorrer no processo de escrita antes e durante o ato de escrever, pois muitos autores não estão familiarizados com a escrita científica ou pulam etapas importantes a que deveriam ser consideradas anteriormente. Para preparar o manuscrito é essencial que os autores dominem a temática do estudo e que os resultados da pesquisa sejam suportados pela literatura científica. Durante a redação, muitas vezes o autor faz uso equivocado dos itens necessários em cada seção do artigo, perdendo o sentido lógico dos resultados da pesquisa e dificultando a leitura do texto. Antes de iniciar o processo de redação, é necessário, portanto, planejar cada parágrafo e utilizar técnicas textuais que garantam coesão e coerência entre os parágrafos. Assim, este estudo descreve os principais erros no processo de redação de artigos científicos, visando aprimorar técnicas, otimizando o tempo dos pesquisadores para desenvolver um texto adequado, claro e elegante.
PhD candidates face heavy workloads and lack strategies to prioritize their dissertation, resulting in limited writing opportunities and low confidence in writing capabilities. Although writing ...retreats are known to propel academics' writing productivity, little is known about how they may assist PhD candidates in enhancing writing self-efficacy and self-regulation. An Explanatory Sequential Mixed Method with a quasi-experimental design was used to examine the impacts of writing retreats on PhD candidates' internal factors (writing self-efficacy and self-regulation) and external factors (urgency and opportunities to write). An experimental group (n = 34) and a control group (n = 64) answered a questionnaire measuring retreat effects, after which a subsample (n = 30) was interviewed to further interpret these effects. In sum, writing retreats enhance PhD candidates' writing self-efficacy and self-regulation through goals setting and time management practices. Recommendations are provided about using socially structured writing activities to support PhD candidates' dissertation advancement.
This article presents a revised version of the writer(s)-within-community model of writing. Writing is conceptualized as a social activity situated within specific writing communities. Writing in ...these communities is accomplished by its members. The model proposes that writing is simultaneously shaped and bound by the characteristics, capacity, and variability of the communities in which it takes place and by the cognitive characteristics, capacity, and individual differences of those who produce it. The model further proposes that writing development is a consequence of participation in writing communities and individual changes in writers' capabilities, which interact with biological, neurological, physical, and environmental factors. This newer version of the model places a greater emphasis on communication and the reader. It expands the description of a writing community to include the social, cultural, political, institutional, and historical influences that shape it. It further describes the tenets that underlie the operation of the model.
We designed and investigated the first set of instructional procedures we are aware of to teach 4th and 5th grade students how to write a persuasive essay following close reading of a source text. ...Eight boys and girls attending a diverse, low income school who were having difficulty learning to write participated in an experimental multiple-baseline design study. Self-regulated strategy development instruction for close reading of informational text and writing to persuade was situated in the writing process and included discussion, modeling, explicit instruction, scaffolding, collaboration among peers and with teachers, self-regulation of the writing process and affect, and additional components and characteristics. Outcome measures included genre elements, holistic quality, number of words written, and complexity of plans for writing. All students showed meaningful gains on the writing outcomes, with the exception of length, which varied, as predicted. Limitations and directions for future research are considered.
Writing Majors Greg Giberson, Jim Nugent, Lori Ostergaard
02/2015
eBook
Open access
The writing major is among the most exciting scenes in the evolving American university.Writing Majorsis a collection of firsthand descriptions of the origins, growth, and transformations of eighteen ...different programs. The chapters provide useful administrative insight, benchmark information, and even inspiration for new curricular configurations from a range of institutions.A practical sourcebook for those who are building, revising, or administering their own writing majors , this volume also serves as a historical archive of a particular instance of growth and transformation in American higher education. Revealing bureaucratic, practical, and institutional matters as well as academic ideals and ideologies, each profile includes sections providing a detailed program review and rationale, an implementation narrative, and reflection and prospection about the program.Documenting eighteen stories of writing major programs in various stages of formation, preservation, and reform and exposing the contingencies of their local and material constitution,Writing Majorsspeaks as much to the "how to" of building writing major programs as to the larger "what," "why," and "how" of institutional growth and change.
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