Writing tasks are essential in students' academic literacy learning experience. An important factor for success with academic writing tasks is task representation, which refers to how students understand the assigned writing tasks. Second language (L2) writing research has taken interest in this topic. However, most research has focused on the issue of task representation among students in higher education, despite the growing presence of multilingual learners in U.S. high schools and the emphasis on writing in high school classrooms. To address this gap, this study explored the issue of task representation among two Chinese "parachute kids" and their writing experiences during their sophomore year in an American high school. The study focused in particular on how the participants constructed and applied task representations for research paper assignments in their English Language Arts (ELA) and U.S. History courses. The data for this research were collected from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews with the students and their teachers, analysis of the written texts that the students produced, and field notes from classroom observations. Guided by the framework of a social cognitive theory of writing (Flower, 1994), this study examined the students' engagement with task representation from a cognitive perspective by examining their private composing processes. It also considered the social and cultural factors that contributed to their understanding of and approaches to the assigned writing tasks. The findings revealed that the two "parachute kids" had considerable difficulty in understanding, and thus responding meaningfully to, the assigned writing tasks. They did not construct task representations that aligned with their teachers' expectations. Their ideas about research paper writing were rooted in notions of informational or descriptive writing, not writing that is analytical or argumentative in nature. That is, they believed their responsibility was to display information, not transform it for some larger purpose. This limited understanding had a significant impact on the writing they produced. Additionally, the findings showed that the two "parachute kid" participants' encounters with task representation were complex, multi-faceted experiences in which four major factors stood out: teacher influence, their native language (L1) writing experience, their freshman year writing experience in the high school, and their level of task engagement. There were both similarities and differences in how the participants experienced those factors. The study's findings draw attention to the situated nature of task representation and to the need to account for a host of variables in accounting for the relationship between task representation in L2 academic writing and how Chinese "parachute kids," as novice L2 writers, approach such writing, especially as related to composing research papers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]