Writing on-demand, text-based analytical essays is a challenging skill to master. Novice writers, such as the sixth grade US students in this study, may lack background knowledge of how to compose an effective essay, the self-efficacy skills, and the goal setting skills that will help with completing this task in accomplished ways. This sequential…

We investigate students' implementation of the feedback messages they received in an automated writing evaluation system ("eRevise") that aims to improve students' use of text evidence in their writing. Seven 5th and 6th-grade teachers implemented "eRevise" (n = 143 students). Qualitative analysis of students' essays across…

A novel instrument, the Features of Excellent Arguments task (FEXA), was developed to elicit adolescents' judgments about argumentative essays displaying to varying degrees features characteristic of strong persuasive writing: academic language, rich evidence, multiple perspectives, and rhetorical appeal. We collected students' categorical choices…

The aim of the action research reported here was to examine the differential effects of the 'writers' workshop' approach on the L2 (English) writing skills of upper-primary students with varying writing abilities. The participants were 31 fifth-grade students (17 boys and 14 girls) aged 10-11, who followed L2 English writing instruction based on…

Writing a good essay typically involves students revising an initial paper draft after receiving feedback. We present eRevise, a web-based writing and revising environment that uses natural language processing features generated for rubric-based essay scoring to trigger formative feedback messages regarding students' use of evidence in…

We investigate how technologies that automatically score student written essays and assign individualized guidance can support student writing and revision in science. We used the automated scoring tools to assign guidance for student written essays in an online science unit, and studied how students revised their essays based on the guidance and…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of two comprehensive argumentative writing interventions--Text Structure Instruction (TSI) and Text Structure Revision Instruction (TSRI)--on the eighth-grade students' ability to compose convincing essays that include structural elements of argumentative discourse. Both treatment groups…

This study examined the revising processes used by 8 middle school students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing as they composed essays for their English classes. Using grounded theory, interviews with students and teachers in one middle school, observations of the students engaging in essay creation, and writing samples were collected for analysis.…

Middle school students struggle to explain thermodynamics concepts. In this study, to help students succeed, we use a natural language processing program to analyze their essays explaining the aspects of thermodynamics and provide guidance based on the automated score. The 346 sixth-grade students were assigned to either the critique condition…

A growing body of research supports the use of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) to improve the writing skills of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). This single subject multiple baseline, multiple probe design study extends this research base by investigating the effects of peer-revision instruction on the persuasive…

The current study examines data from students in grades 4-8 who participated in a statewide computer-based benchmark writing assessment that featured automated essay scoring and automated feedback. We examined whether the use of automated feedback was associated with gains in writing quality across revisions to an essay, and with transfer effects…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to score student essays and support revision. We studied how an AWE program called MY Access![R] was used in eight middle schools in Southern California over a three-year period. Although many teachers and students considered automated scoring unreliable, and teachers'…