Reflective practice holds critical importance, for example, in higher education and teacher education, yet promoting students' reflective skills has been a persistent challenge. The emergence of revolutionary artificial intelligence technologies, notably in machine learning and large language models, heralds potential breakthroughs in this domain.…

Compares the rhetorical strategies of 20 opening paragraphs from "Psychology Today" to those in 20 first paragraphs from student essays. Observes that professionals regularly begin exposition with narratives, indirection, and irony, while students begin with rhetorical questions, truisms, and muddled strategies. Concludes that students'…

Contrasts a recent collection of "best" student essays with a report reviewing a 1929 test in English that was used for making college admissions decisions. Concludes that writing teachers have been as much or more interested in who they want their students to be as in what they want their students to write. (RS)

Studies the effects of word processing on the composing processes of six basic writers. Concludes that quantity and quality of revisions are not likely to increase, that word processing initially causes many interventions in composing, and that better writers are more likely to use word processing programs in advantageous ways. (RS)

This paper analyzes two student papers, "Pygmalion" and "Waiting to Inhale," in terms of the type of thinking demonstrated in them. It examines the difference between higher order patterns of thinking evident in advanced or adult writers and patterns of thinking in young writers or students. The study reported in the paper…