To understand complex disciplinary texts, students need to possess a rich store of background knowledge. But what happens if students don't have that knowledge? In this article, Doug Buehl explores frontloading strategies that can bridge the gap between what students know and what they need to know to comprehend a disciplinary text. He outlines…

The present study examines the ways Chinese high school EFL learners organize information in their writing. A class of 50 students at grade 9 from a local high school in Guangzhou, China, were recruited as participants. The students' writing at grade 9 was collected as a corpus, comprising ten writing tasks from different text types. In order to…

Clipping is a word formation process in which a word is reduced/shortened to one of its parts as in exam, math, grad, lab, Sue while still retaining the same meaning and same part of speech. Clipping is classified into: (i) Initial clipping: phone (telephone), net (Internet); (ii) Medial clipping: fancy (fantasy), ma'am (madam); (iii) back…

With the wide introduction of English-medium instruction (EMI) to higher education institutions throughout East Asian countries, many East Asian universities are using English proficiency tests that were not originally designed for this context to make admissions and placement decisions. To support the use of these tests in this new EMI context,…

This study explores how Deleuzian concepts of assemblage, affect, and rhizome can inform, and transform, our understanding of how technology shapes second language academic writing. More specifically, it focuses on the practice of L2 academic writing as novice writers compose a source-based research paper in an English for Academic Purposes…

Second-language learners increasingly need effective writing skills in English for academic and professional purposes, as well as for personal and social purposes. To date, peace education (PE) activities in the English language classroom have mostly focused on speaking. This article presents an activity that can help fill the gap in the lack of…

Although the behavior and impacts of instructor reflection in writing classes have been extensively studied over the past few decades, a significant proportion of the work has concentrated on students' attitudes and utilization of all such responses, as opposed to teachers' perspectives, self-assessments, and actual text comments given. Research…

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) presents postsecondary educators with a conundrum: how to design and support small-group activities without stifling deep and meaningful learning. The literature indicates that students are not consistently practicing higher-order cognitive activities, educators are not reliably designing or…

In this study, integration, or students' connection formation across texts, was examined across two tasks: when undergraduates were asked to complete a writing assignment and a novel, diagram construction task. While the writing assignment asked students to compose an argument based on multiple texts, the diagram construction task asked students…

As a first-year writing instructor, I generally expect a few mainstays: a handful of bored students, recurring absences, and plenty of covert texting. In order to disrupt the usual lackluster engagement associated with required classes, I approach my writing seminar like a theatre class. By incorporating common performance practices such as the…

Courses: Business and Professional Communication, Persuasion. Objectives: Students demonstrate application of rhetorical invention and improved persuasive writing style through a brief, multi-draft writing activity.

The Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) feature argumentative writing across the curriculum in grades 4 through 12, yet little is known about how young adolescents develop the challenging advanced language and literacy skills needed for these tasks. This study explored productive academic language use in the…

The following study situates feedback in two teacher education courses to explore the following research question: How do students rely on discursive features of feedback to reflect on and write their identities as future teachers? A total of 41 participants were recruited for the study. These participants are undergraduate students enrolled in…

The ever growing diversity poses challenges for social work educators, who are engaged in developing new pedagogical methods for enhancing multicultural practice. Within the framework of a diversity course, I have developed a pedagogical practice for training social workers to work in a diverse, multicultural reality. Students conduct an…

The study explored the correlation between teaching lexical bundles and improving writing skills in English composition courses. The study addressed two research questions. First, to what extent can the explicit teaching of lexical bundles facilitate greater comprehension and retention of the elements of the bundles? Second, the study investigated…