Writing As a Learning Activity [1 ed.] 9789004265011, 9789004259676

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Writing as a Learning Activity

Studies in Writing Series Editor Gert Rijlaarsdam (Amsterdam, Antwerpen)

Editorial Board L. Allal, Switzerland – E. Espéret, France – D. Galbraith, United Kingdom J. Grabowski, Germany – L. Mason, Italy – M. Milian, Spain A. Piolat, France – S. Ransdell, USA – L. Tolchinsky, Spain M. Torrance, United Kingdom – P. Tynjala, Finland C. van Wijk, The Netherlands

volume 28

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/siw

Writing as a Learning Activity Edited by

Perry D. Klein Pietro Boscolo Lori C. Kirkpatrick Carmen Gelati

leiden | boston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Writing as a learning activity / Edited by Perry D. Klein, Pietro Boscolo, Lori C. Kirkpatrick, Carmen Gelati. pages cm. – (Studies in writing ; 28) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25967-6 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-26501-1 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. English language–Rhetoric–Study and teaching. 2. Report writing–Study and teaching. I. Klein, Perry D. PE1408.W77195 2014 808'.042071–dc23 2013049013

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1572-6304 isbn 978 90 04 25967 6 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 26501 1 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents List of Contributors

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Introduction: New Directions in Writing as a Learning Activity 1 Perry D. Klein, Pietro Boscolo, Carmen Gelati and Lori C. Kirkpatrick Writing to Argue: Writing as a Tool for Oral and Written Argumentation 15 Silvia Del Longo and Lerida Cisotto Writing as a Vocabulary Learning Tool 44 Kenan Dikilitaş and Jerome C. Bush Supportive Writing Assignments for Less Skilled Writers in the Mathematics Classroom 66 Markus Linnemann and Sabine Stephany Writing to Engage Students in Historical Reasoning 94 Jannet van Drie, Carla van Boxtel and Martine Braaksma Writing to Learn from Multiple-Source Inquiry Activities in History 120 Jennifer Wiley, Brent Steffens, M. Anne Britt and Thomas D. Griffin Strategy Instruction in Writing in Academic Disciplines 149 Charles A. MacArthur Writing a Synthesis from Multiple Sources as a Learning Activity 169 Mar Mateos, Isabel Solé, Elena Martín, Isabel Cuevas, Mariana Miras and Nuria Castells Summary Writing as a Tool for Improving the Comprehension of Expository Texts: An Intervention Study in a Primary School 191 Carmen Gelati, Nicoletta Galvan and Pietro Boscolo Moving from “Fuzziness” to Canonical Knowledge: The Role of Writing in Developing Cognitive and Representational Resources 217 Brian Hand, Mary Grace Villanueva and Sae Yeol Yoon Writing about Reading to Advance Thinking: A Study in Situated Cognitive Development 249 Charles Bazerman, Kelly Simon and Patrick Pieng University Students’ Knowledge Construction during Face to Face Collaborative Writing 277 Minna Nykopp, Miika Marttunen and Leena Laurinen

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Knowledge Construction in Collaborative Science Writing: Strategic Simplicity, Distributed Complexity, and Explanatory Sophistication 300 Perry D. Klein References 327 Author Index 375 Subject Index 385

List of Contributors Charles Bazerman University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Thomas D. Griffin University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Pietro Boscolo University of Padova, Italy

Brian Hand The University of Iowa, USA

Lori C. Kirkpatrick Martine Braaksma University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Brock University, Canada M. Anne Britt Northern Illinois University, USA

Perry D. Klein Western University, Canada

Jerome C. Bush Yeditepe University, Turkey

Leena Laurinen University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Nuria Castells Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Markus Linnemann University of Cologne, Germany

Lerida Cisotto University of Padova, Italy

Charles A. MacArthur University of Delaware, USA

Isabel Cuevas Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Elena Martín Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Silvia Del Longo University of Padova, Italy

Miika Marttunen University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Kenan Dikilitaş Gediz University, Turkey

Mar Mateos Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Nicoletta Galvan Primary School “S. Vito”, Bassano del Grappa, Italy

Mariana Miras Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Carmen Gelati University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Minna Nykopp University of Jyväskylä, Finland

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list of contributors

Patrick Pieng University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Carla van Boxtel University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Kelly Simon University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Jannet van Drie University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Isabel Solé Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Mary Grace Villanueva Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa

Brent Steffens Northern Illinois University, USA

Jennifer Wiley University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Sabine Stephany University of Cologne, Germany

Sae Yeol Yoon The University of Iowa, USA

introduction

New Directions in Writing as a Learning Activity Perry D. Klein, Pietro Boscolo, Carmen Gelati and Lori C. Kirkpatrick Why a new volume on writing as a learning activity, and why now? Writing is a tool for communicating; it can also be a tool for reasoning and learning (e.g., Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; de la Paz & Felton, 2010; Nückles, Hübner, & Renkl, 2009). However, this claim raises several questions: How much does writing contribute to learning? How, that is, through what processes, does writing aid learning? Most importantly, how can educators support and instruct people in using writing to learn? Some of these questions were explored in an earlier volume in the Studies in Writing series, titled Writing as a Learning Tool (Tynjälä, Mason, & Lanka, 2001a). However, over the past thirteen years, research in this area has evolved rapidly and radically. This volume presents and exemplifies this evolution. To place these changes in context, Writing as a Learning Tool itself marked a turning point. During the 1970s and 1980s, several influential scholars held overlapping positions on the role of writing in learning. Central to these positions was the idea that writing inherently contributes to learning (Emig, 1977; Zinsser, 1988). For example, Britton (1982) exemplified the expressivist view that learning is best supported by informal, personalized writing, making the journal or learning log a favoured genre (cf., A. Thompson, 1990). However, several researchers soon questioned this view. Empirical research on the effects of writing on learning was limited (Applebee, 1984; Ackerman, 1993), and several early experiments on the effects of expressivist writing showed null results (Ackerman, 1993; Stotsky, 1995). A different and more tentative view held that analytic writing, in the form of argumentation, would encourage depth of cognitive processing concerning the specific conceptual relationships on which the writer focuses (Applebee, 1984). Few studies had investigated analytic writing, but these produced generally favorable results (e.g., Langer & Applebee, 1987; Wiley and Voss, 1996; see Klein, 1999 for a review). Writing as a Tool for Learning (Tynjälä et al., 2001a) represented a newly emerging perspective on this field. The dominant tone of the chapters was not Klein, P.D., Boscolo, P., Gelati, C., & Kirkpatrick, L.C. (2014). New directions in writing as a learning activity. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 1–14). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_002

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advocacy, but analysis. The authors foregrounded theories based on cognitive psychology, and presented them as hypothetical models rather than conclusions (Tynjälä et al., 2001a; cf., Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Galbraith, 1992; Klein, 1999). At the same time, the influence of psychology was balanced by the influence of sociocultural theory (e.g., Tynjälä, et al., 2001a; Olson, 2001). The new norm for evaluating theoretical and educational claims was experimentation or detailed qualitative analysis (Hand, Prain, & Yore, 2001; Mason & Boscolo, 2001; cf., Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004). Several chapters methodically investigated the effects of specific practices, such as assessment methods and use of electronic technology, on learning (Hartley & Tynjälä, 2001; Linnakylä, 2001; Slotte & Lonka, 2001). In the present volume, several purposes of Writing as a Tool for Learning have been brought closer to fruition. It is now clear that writing can contribute significantly to learning, although the size of its effects depend heavily on the writer and the task environment; more on this below (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004; Nückles et al., 2009). Initially, research on writing to learn focused on content learning in science, history, and English studies. Several chapters in the present volume extend research to new content domains. For example, Del Longo and Cisotto (this volume) investigated the effectiveness of an intervention focused on two types of argumentative discourse: persuasive essay writing and speaking in academic debates. Self-regulated strategies were explicitly taught to secondary students and writing tools were used to support them. The intervention proved to be successful, not only in improving the quality of persuasive essays writing, which became more organized and cohesive, but also in enhancing the quality of oral arguments, which became more coherent, organized, and connected. Another chapter that extends writing to a new domain of learning is that of Dikilitaş and Bush (this volume), who analyzed the role of writing in improving second language vocabulary acquisition. A group of university students was taught to use sets of target words in writing both sentences and meaningful pieces of text; each activity was followed by a discussion with the whole class. The intervention showed that training students to use vocabulary in writing sentences and texts helped them learn this target vocabulary, as measured by a test of productive vocabulary, compared to a group that did not participate in the writing activities. Similarly, Linnemann and Stephany present research on second language education, focusing on writing as a means of learning both mathematical language and mathematical reasoning. Their project exemplifies the rich teaching environments that characterize contemporary work on writing as a learning activity. They used practices such as authentic writing activities, explicit teach-

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ing of multiple aspects of language, the use of model texts, the use of checklists as an aid to self-regulation, joint construction of texts with the teacher, and peer feedback. In addition to the extension of writing to new domains of learning, new theoretical trends are profoundly changing the role of writing in learning. In the remainder of this Introduction we will highlight three of these changes. Firstly, much research on writing to learn has shifted from a domain-general writing across the curriculum approach, toward a domain-specific writing in the disciplines approach (e.g., van Drie, van Boxtel, & Braaksma, this volume; Wiley, Steffens, Britt, & Griffin, this volume). Secondly, the assumption that the medium of writing inherently elicits learning, which was already widely challenged by 2001, has been superseded by research showing that the effects of writing on learning depend on the cognitive strategies of the writer, and more recently, that such strategies can be taught (e.g., Gelati, Galvan, & Boscolo, this volume; MacArthur, this volume). Thirdly, there has been a shift from a focus on individual writers carrying out discrete writing activities, toward systems comprised of people implementing practices that combine writing with other kinds of representations and educational activities (e.g., Hand, Villanueva, & Yoon, this volume; Nykopp, Marttunen, & Laurinen, this volume). The upshot of these trends is an insight central to this volume: The relationship between writing and learning is not limited to special “writing to learn” activities. Rather, academic and professional writing are intertwined with the construction and internalization of knowledge. We will now expand on these themes.

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From Writing across the Curriculum, to Writing in the Disciplines

Most chapters in this volume exemplify perhaps the greatest recent shift in the field of writing as a learning activity. During the 1970s and 1980s, the conception of writing to learn was the relatively generic one of writing across the curriculum (e.g., Britton, 1982; Fulwiler & Young, 1982). Scholars in this area were grounded largely in English studies or writing education. Genres prominent in these disciplines, particularly the argumentative essay, the journal entry, and the popular nonfiction book, were presented as models for writing in a variety of subject areas. This viewpoint is illustrated by Zinsser’s (1988) widely-cited book, “Writing to Learn” with its subtitle, “How to Write and Think Clearly About any Subject at All.” He argued that better writing, defined by attributes such as good organization, brevity, and the avoidance of jargon, should be applied to every discipline, and that these norms would improve the writer’s reasoning,

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text quality, and understanding of subject matter. (For a more complete and nuanced discussion of the writing across the curriculum movement, see Russell, 2002). However, in the meantime, discipline-specific conceptions of writing were exerting a growing influence in writing research at large. A highly influential early study was Bazerman’s (1981) What Written Knowledge Does: Three Examples of Academic Discourse, which showed that rhetoric and reasoning differ markedly among sociology, biochemistry, and literary studies(cf., Myers, 1985). The belief that writing is specific to each discipline was consistent with theories, such as sociocultural theory, which propose that forms of writing have evolved historically, to express specific epistemological commitments, under the influence of specific institutional structures (Bazerman, 1988; Olson, 1994; Russell, 1997); more on this below. Educationally, the discipline-specific nature of writing meant that it was insufficient for students to learn generic writing strategies; instead, they needed to learn the forms of writing and reasoning appropriate to their disciplines (Bazerman et al., 2005; Russell, 1997). In Writing as a Learning Tool, both Olson (2001), and N. Nelson (2001) referred to the role of the disciplines and professions in shaping personal literacy and learning, suggesting a domain-specific aspect. An early example of such an approach was Hand, Prain and Yore’s (2001) Science Writing Heuristic; it systematically integrated methods of inquiry specific to science, with writing strategies that reflected this method. However, although this disciplinary orientation was beginning to emerge, the concerns of most writing to learn researchers still focused on relatively general topics such as portfolios (Linnakylä, 2001), text genres (Slotte & Lonka, 2001), and technology (Hartley & Tynjälä, 2001). They continued to explore writing about the subject matter of disciplines, but not the writing of the disciplines. It should be noted that this disciplineneutral approach to writing to learn has been supported by research showing that generic writing practices can contribute significantly to learning (BangertDrowns et al., 2004; Hübner, Nückles, & Renkl, 2010; Nückles, Hübner, & Renkl, 2009), and that students can transfer learning skills significantly from one discipline to another (Mason & Boscolo, 2001). The present volume illustrates the recent growth of discipline-specific approaches to writing to learn. For example, van Drie, van Boxtel, and Braaksma (this volume) begin by discussing the expert reasoning of historians. They define historical reasoning as constructing or evaluating a description of processes of change and continuity, an explanation of a historical phenomenon, or comparisons of historical phenomenon or periods. As they note in their review of previous research, “Competent argumentation is thus necessary, but not sufficient to produce a good historical essay”; students also need to learn about

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forms of reasoning that support argumentation in history. They typically have had difficulty with both historical reading and historical writing. Van Drie et al.’s research on writing in history thus evaluates the impact of writing prompts and representational tools on students’ historical reasoning, as demonstrated in their writing. Likewise, Wiley, Steffens, Britt, and Griffin (this volume) begin with the observation that historians, when seeking to understand a historical phenomenon based on source documents, focus on contextualization, corroboration, and evaluating sources (cf., Wineburg, 2001). However, secondary school students do not typically use these heuristics when writing. The research reported by Wiley et al. fosters writing that is based on these discipline-specific reasoning strategies. Like van Drie et al, the authors investigate the effects of mediating representations, in this case the timeline as a planning tool. They also consider the effects of argumentation and explanation prompts. Their results are complex, and in some instances reflect a dilemma of breadth of coverage, versus depth of interest on the part of students. Other chapters in this volume also illustrate discipline-specific approaches to writing as a learning activity. MacArthur (this volume) reviews the role of cognitive strategy instruction in writing as a learning activity (cf., Hand et al., this volume). Other chapters focus on the content of specific disciplines, but do so using relatively generic writing practices (Nykopp et al., this volume). Overall, the papers here somewhat parallel a developmental approach to the issue of domain-specificity versus domain-generality in content literacy education (Moje, 2008; T. Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008): Elementary school writing activities frequently involve general text genres and reasoning strategies (e.g., Klein this volume; Gelati et al., this volume); secondary and postsecondary writing activities more often involve discipline-specific text genres and reasoning strategies (van Drie et al., this volume; Wiley et al., this volume); although there are exceptions to these trends (e.g., Nykopp et al., this volume). Consistent with this developmental approach to writing as a learning activity, it should be noted that while we have used the term “writing in the disciplines” to characterize a discipline specific approach to writing to learn, our use of this term should be qualified. In post-secondary writing education, writing in the disciplines refers to teaching students to write in the specific genres used in a given profession or discipline, as accurately and authentically as possible. Conversely, in discipline-specific writing in secondary schools, students may be taught discipline-specific research strategies; for example, secondary history students learn to use contextualization to interpret primary historical sources. However, they may be taught to write a text with a relatively general

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argument structure, not specific to the discipline of history (e.g., De La Paz & Felton, 2010). In other words, it can be reading and research strategies, rather than the writing strategies, that are adopted from the parent discipline.

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From the Textual Medium to the Cognitive Strategy as the Driver of Learning through Writing

We can see a progression of three phases in beliefs about the regulation of writing to learn, the most recent of which is strongly represented in the present volume. As we noted, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was often assumed that writing had attributes that elicited specific kinds of thinking and learning processes. Specific theories varied; an influential paper by Emig (1977) argued that writing as a process and product has several attributes that correspond to learning as a process. For example, successful learning strategies “make generative conceptual groupings, synthetic and analytic,” just as writing “establishes explicit and systematic conceptual groupings through lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical devices” (p. 128). Another theory claimed that spontaneous writing allows tacit knowledge to emerge from the subconscious mind, and gives it structure (Britton, 1982). In each case, these processes were treated as inherent in writing; this means, in effect, that while learning depended on the reasoning of the writer, the agency that regulated this reasoning was, in effect, ascribed primarily to the medium, or to the assigned text genre, rather than to the writer. This led to several implications: One was a confidence that writing would lead to learning (Emig, 1977; Zinsser, 1988); another was the practice, particularly in the experimental literature, of simply assigning writing tasks, and assuming that students would learn from them with little support or instruction (see Klein, 1999 for review). During the 1980s and 1990s, this view was challenged by the finding that writers responded to content area activities with strategies that were shaped partially by the assignment, but also partially by individual choice (Durst, 1987; Green, 1993; Newell & Winograd, 1989; Penrose, 1992; Wiley & Voss, 1996). This was consistent with the emergence of cognitive models that conceived of writing as a strategic problem solving process (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Hayes & Flower 1980; for a review, see Alamargot & Chanquoy, 2001). According to these models, which were supported by substantial empirical research, successful composition depends on the writer’s ability to set goals, create plans, draft text, and make appropriate revisions; these in turn depend on the writer’s knowledge about text structure, writing procedures, topics, and audiences (Alamargot & Chanquoy, 2001; McCutchen, Teske, & Bankston, 2008; Oling-

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house & Graham, 2009). The same theorists proposed that some expert writing strategies could contribute to the generation of unique content and therefore to thinking or learning (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Flower & Hayes, 1981b). Subsequently, a review showed that although several cognitive models were plausible, little research had investigated the relationship between specific writing processes and learning outcomes (Klein, 1999). Similarly, the 2001 volume on Writing as a Learning Tool acknowledged the influence of writers’ cognitive strategies, but did not provide additional evidence about their role in writing to learn (Tynjälä et al., 2001a). Subsequently, it was shown that in content area writing activities, the writing strategies, discourse knowledge, and academic ability of students affect their conceptual learning (Galbraith, Ford, Walker, & Ford, 2005; Klein & Kirkpatrick, 2010; Rivard, 2004). This suggested that if writers were taught appropriate strategies, they would be better able to use writing as a learning tool. In the meantime, cognitive strategy instruction was developed as a method for teaching writing (Englert, Raphael, Anthony, & Stevens, 1991; Harris & Graham, 1996). For example, the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model improves writing competence by enhancing students’ strategic behavior, as well as selfregulation skills, content knowledge about writing, and motivational dispositions (Harris & Graham, 1996; MacArthur, 2011, this volume). Meta-analytic reviews have shown strong effects of cognitive strategy instruction on the quality of students writing (Graham & Perin, 2007a; Lienemann, Graham, LeaderJanssen, & Reid, 2006; Saddler, 2006). The present volume includes chapters representing an important recent development in writing education: The use of cognitive strategy instruction to educate students in using writing as a tool for learning. The chapter by MacArthur shows that the principles and methods developed in the field of cognitive strategy instruction can be used to teach complex cognitive processes in history, literary studies, and science. In each of these domains, the development of cognitive strategy instruction has been a systematic process, beginning with empirical studies of the reasoning strategies of experts, and culminating in teaching methods for secondary students, and in some instances, elementary school students. MacArthur’s review highlights the instructional components that contribute to the effectiveness of teaching writing to learn strategies. Some of these studies have involved students who are low achieving or who have learning disabilities (e.g., Ferretti, MacArthur, & Okolo, 2001); this is important, because without such instruction, low-achieving students have shown limited learning during writing activities (Rivard, 2004). Mateos, Solé, Martín, Cuevas, Miras and Castells (this volume) present a different way in which to apply cognitive strategies to writing to learn. As

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they report, writing a good synthesis requires the ability to coordinate reading and writing. This task is complex and implies the ability to select, connect, and organize ideas from different texts (Spivey & King, 1989) and to explain information using one’s own words. Students at various educational levels have been shown to struggle with this genre and produce poor quality syntheses, because their use of sources is often superficial, not integrative, and without elaboration. Mateos and colleagues show that teaching students a strategy for writing syntheses leads to improved comprehension of source materials. Gelati, Galvan, and Boscolo (this volume) assume that, beginning in primary school, it is important to teach students how to analyze, manipulate, and elaborate on the information expressed in a text, in order to improve learning. In this chapter, the effects of writing a summary on expository text comprehension are analyzed. Children were taught to select the most important information and to rewrite that information while elaborating upon it. As in the study by Mateos and colleagues, teaching students a strategy for writing in a constructive way improved both their writing and their comprehension of expository texts.

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From the Individual Writer to the Activity System

The chapters in this volume illustrate the continuing evolution of theory and research that connects the individual and systemic aspects of writing. During the 1970s and 1980s, writing to learn, particularly in the experimental research literature, was largely monadic. Writing tasks were relatively discrete essays or journal entries; writers frequently composed individually rather than collaboratively; and learning was attributed to internal psychological processes triggered by the written medium itself (Britton, 1982; Emig, 1977). In other theories, learning was explained by strategies that transformed the writers’ internal knowledge (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). This individual focus was tempered by studies of classroom teaching practices that were intended to support writing and learning (e.g., Langer & Applebee, 1987; Rosaen, 1989, 1990; A. Thompson, 1990; for reviews, see Ackerman, 1993; Applebee, 1984; Klein, 1999). However, the ways in which these practices affected learning was not explicitly theorized or systematically demonstrated. By the 1990s, writing research was heavily influenced by a family of overlapping theories that considered writing in relation to its social context. These included sociocultural theory, activity theory, situated cognition, and distributed cognition (Englert, 1992; Haas & Witte, 2001; Russell, 1997; Zhang & Norman, 1994; see Prior, 2006 for a review). Disentangling these theories and their relationships would require a chapter in itself (e.g., Nardi, 1996); we will simply

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note here that they include subsets of the following ideas: Writing practices have been historically constructed; they are shaped by macrosocial and institutional contexts; writing activities integrally include multiple participants; writing activities involve multiple representational tools; and writing practices are learned through instruction and apprenticeship. These theories were soon incorporated into work on writing to learn, including Writing as a Tool for Learning (N. Nelson, 2001; Olson, 2001; Tynjälä et al., 2001a); for example, several chapters focused on the role of classroom context (Nystrand et al., 2001), or they focused on extended programs of instruction and support (Boscolo & Mason, 2001; Hand et al., 2001). Interestingly, while some authors have stressed the difference between psychological and social theories of writing, a mark of the writing to learn literature has been to treat them as complementary (e.g., Cronin, 2004; Hand this volume; Klein & Leacock, 2012; Oatley & Djikic, 2008; Olson, 2001). The result is that while individual psychological processes continue to be a focus of study in writing to learn (e.g., Galbraith et al., 2005; Klein, 2004), they are now often treated as situated in a more extended system of people, practices, and representations (e.g., Nykopp et al., this volume). Recent developments have set the stage for the innovations reported in this volume. One of these is genre systems theory, which proposes that each text operates as part of system of discourses in other genres. These texts operate in specific relationships with one another, such as informing the content of a given text, eliciting the new text, or repurposing textual content for a new audience (Bazerman, 1994; Russell, 2003). A second important recent development is this: The writing to learn literature traditionally focused on text as a unique method of thinking and learning; however, movements such as semiotics and the New Literacies examine a wider range of types of representations, including various kinds of graphics, electronic text, and multimedia (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004; Smagorinky, 1995). These have their own affordances for communication and reasoning, and they operate in conjunction with written text, and with one another. Consequently, several chapters in this volume treat classroom contexts as complex systems of collaborators and representations. The Science Writing Heuristic (Hand et al., this volume) involves the creation of a classroom community that constructs knowledge in a way that is modeled on the discipline of science. It is based on explicit guidance in planning, conducting and reporting scientific inquiry, collaboration with peers, and reporting to authentic audiences. In the project reported in this chapter, the researchers take up the problem of how students’ initial concepts, which are fragmentary and context dependent (diSessa, Gillespie, & Esterly, 2004), can be developed into

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disciplinary science concepts, which are well-defined and transferrable across contexts. Hand and his colleagues compare two classrooms that illustrate expert and novice implementation of the Science Writing Heuristic. The more expert teacher uses questions and class discussion to help students use a variety of notebook entries as provisional representations through which concepts are constructed and reconstructed. (This use of provisional representations is seen in several chapters in this volume; Bazerman et al., this volume; van Drie et al., this volume; Nykopp et al., this volume). This set of oral, print and graphical representations could be considered a genre system. The result is that students move toward increasingly complex reasoning, canonical science understanding, and a more decontextualized, disciplinary style of communication. Another systemic approach to writing as a learning activity, this one explicitly foregrounding intertextuality, can be found in Bazerman, Simon and Pieng’s chapter on “Writing about Reading.” It reports on a series of writing activities in a first-year education course. Much previous research on writing from sources has shown that only some students manage to integrate the content of sources with one another and with their own ideas (Flower, 1994; Mateos et al., this volume; Segev-Miller, 2007). Bazerman and his colleagues found that in text statements in which students referred to course readings, they showed higher cognitive levels than in text statements not referring to the readings. During the course, students progressed toward depending less on the sources, using less direct quotation, and becoming more able to express their ideas in a focused way. Depending on the genre of the text that they were composing, they were able to reflect on their experiences and develop arguments. The authors attribute this to three supportive factors that operated jointly: engaged experience, genre of the assignment, and access to the literature of their profession. In this chapter, we see writing activities, such as “Hiding Out,” which are specific to a discipline, without being imitations of professional writing in that discipline. Instead, these assignments exemplify school genres, which are designed specifically to allow students to learn the content and modes of reasoning appropriate to a given discipline. Nykopp, Marttunen and Laurinen, on the other hand, foreground the collaborative aspect of writing. While there is a large body of literature on the role of peer review and revision in writing, fewer studies have examined the collaborative construction of knowledge in writing, a topic of increasing importance due to the growing popularity of Computer Supported Collaborative Writing. The authors find an interesting parallel between the social and the cognitive aspects of writing: The processes of collaborative writing provide direct counterparts to the operations of classical cognitive models of writing (e.g., Hayes & Flower, 1980): For example, regulation was traditionally conceived as an indi-

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vidual process of metacognition and self-regulation; however, in this chapter, it is proposed to emerge through a distributed process of negotiation. The authors show that text content is constructed as students individually transform ideas from source texts into summaries, and then transform them again through negotiation, into group essays. This process provides a parallel to those documented by both Hand et al., (this volume) and Bazerman et al., (this volume), in which students also construct disciplinary concepts through recursive processes of provisional writing, discussion, and further writing. Klein (this volume) reports on the strategies that mid-elementary students use to collaboratively construct scientific explanations from sources comprised of diverse kinds of representations. Although Klein studied students at a much earlier educational level than Nykopp et al., their results are parallel in several ways; for example, the students in both studies generated many ideas through “extending” or “collaborative completion,” in which one student begins a sentence, and the other adds an idea to continue or complete it (cf., Teasley & Rochelle, 1993). One unusual result in Klein’s chapter was that all of the groups, including those comprised of below average writers, interpreted the writing activity as requiring knowledge construction, and all synthesized disparate sources to construct a novel explanation. This differs from previous research showing that the strategy of constructing a gist to synthesize disparate sources is used by a minority of students, usually at advanced educational levels (Mateos, this volume; Segev-Miller, 2007). To interpret this result, Klein draws on the theory of distributed cognition. For example, the students’ task representation appeared to be based on the relationship between the assignment instructions, which framed it as a mystery narrative, and the students’ understanding that a mystery calls for one to use inferences from clues to construct a non-obvious explanation.

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Future Directions

Editing a volume on a complex research topic such as writing-to-learn means, of course, providing readers with the opportunity to observe the progress of research and to compare the different approaches to the field. In contrast to an article, although a chapter may report the findings of an empirical study, it is also a synthesis of a scholar’s perspective on the topic. This, in turn, can be fruitfully compared—and possibly contrasted—with the perspectives of others. More importantly, a collection of chapters, while providing the opportunity for considering the state of the art, also allows readers to make a comparison with previous studies, from which continuities and different trends of research

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may emerge, in particular, what is new in the field, and what is still to be investigated. What could/should a future volume on writing-to-learn offer to its readers? The answer to this question can be found in the “directions” for future research and even in the “limitations” which conclude most chapters of the volume. Here, we would like to anticipate some reflections about possible future perspectives on writing-to-learn. Thus, the objective of this last part of the introduction is to outline some possible lines of research that emerge from the chapters, as well as from a brief reflection on the “history” of writing research. In the previous pages of this introduction, the development of the conceptualization of writing as a tool for learning has been underlined. Several chapters in this volume highlight, in particular, the shift of focus from writing as an individual ability, which characterizes early studies on the “instrumentality” of writing, to writing as a powerful system of communication and elaboration, with a variety of genres, media, disciplines and contexts. Computer supported collaborative learning is a typical example of how, in a distributed cognition perspective, writing becomes a mode rather than a tool for learning. As argued in this volume, a computer environment provides students with the opportunity to learn together, by using writing not only for organizing and recording knowledge, but also for posing questions and replying to one another, for testing and evaluating solutions to problems in different disciplines. This increasingly powerful instrumentality of writing stimulates reflection on the relationship between writing and learning. In fact, rather than a tool, writing seems to be a basic component of academic learning, and the expression ‘writing to learn’, which emphasizes the uses of writing as an aid to learning and studying, has perhaps become too narrow. Writing in various genres at different school levels—to expose ideas, express opinions, argue, narrate and describe school and life experiences—is in fact writing-to-learn. Sometimes writing is used intentionally as a tool for learning, as in the case of provisional writings aimed at fixing thoughts and questions to be elaborated (see Del Longo and Cisotto’s chapter, this volume), or as a relatively limited context for helping struggling learners to make sense of previously unknown words, as in the chapter by Dikilitas and Bush. However, in other cases, as in discourse synthesis or writing from sources, writing is no longer a tool, but a partner of reading in cognition, as hybrid literacy tasks demonstrate. Mateos et al. (this volume), as suggested by socio-constructivist scholars (Spivey, 1997), call the tasks in which reading and writing are closely connected “hybrid”. There are different levels of hybridity, however. In fact, “hybridity” is very common in school written language. There are very few, if any, occasions for writing in school that are not aimed at written elaboration. Similarly, there are very few occasions for writing—except in the early years of primary school—which are not triggered

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and justified by reading. From this point of view, reading and writing are twin abilities in that one cannot do without the other, despite their often diverging paths in psychological research. Therefore, writing a synthesis is a hybrid act of literacy because it implies both reading and writing. However, writing about reading, as described in Bazerman et al.’s chapter, is also a hybrid act, in which reading and writing are technically distinct, but conceptually closely related. The points highlighted in the previous pages regard in particular the meaning of writing, the complexity of which does not only involve the cognitive aspect, but also the media and contexts. In particular, writing research has underlined the role of organization and regulation, which were present in the early cognitive models (the monitor function in Hayes and Flower’s (1980) model!), but were assigned to the individual’s ability rather than to a system, like today, from the perspective of distributed cognition. A great merit of writing-to-learn research is that it has contributed to overcoming, at least partially, fruitless controversies between cognitively-oriented and socio-constructivist scholars, as this volume demonstrates. Thus, the highlighted points represent directions with no return, which future studies should not ignore, but analyze in greater depth. However, in general, the development of research on writing-to-learn has affected its two components—writing and learning—in different ways. While writing has demonstrated many possibilities for attaining learning goals of various levels of importance and complexity, learning has been explored mainly for its academic dimension. An important question seems to be whether writing can influence other types of learning, and produce other learning outcomes. Two aspects of learning could be investigated in future research. One regards the motivational aspects of writing-to-learn. Over the past two decades, several studies have considered motivation to write, in particular the conditions which can make writing more attractive to students and students’ selfperceptions of competence in writing (Bruning & Horn, 2000). In writing-tolearn research, with very few exceptions (e.g., Boscolo & Carotti, 2003), the motivational aspects have been rather neglected. In this volume, they are considered in several chapters. Mateos et al. found that their programme led students to learn content more thoroughly thanks to a flexible use of reading and writing, and this can be considered a motivational effect. The title of van Drie et al.’s chapter explicitly emphasizes students’ engagement in historical reasoning. Wiley et al. report that all students involved in their study, who, like most middle school students, had limited practice in how to approach multiple-document inquiry activities, rated the activity as more interesting than normal history assignments, and underlined its novelty. Thus, a problem which deserves a more continuous investigation regards the degree to which

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writing, in its various modes and media, can contribute to engaging students more in the epistemic activities of learning science, literature, history, or any other discipline. However, the motivational dimension regards writing itself. The enormous potential of writing for learning is a paradox. On the one hand, students learn this “tool” very early, but on the other, they use it without being aware of its productivity—in fact, they should be helped in “discovering” the uses of writing, and learn to appreciate it. Perhaps research on writing-to-learn could offer the opportunity to study not only students’ engagement in the various disciplines they deal with through writing, but also the way they can be led to appreciate the epistemic power of writing. A second question regards a different meaning of learning. Until now, learning has been considered as the acquisition and elaboration of knowledge in academic contexts. Social psychologists have recently conceptualized new ways of overcoming conflicts between people of different and opposing groups. Crisp and Turner (2012) have formulated the hypothesis of the imagined contact: it is a new strategy for promoting tolerance and improving intergroup relationships. Research has shown that mentally simulating a positive interaction with an outgroup member can elicit more favorable attitudes, less stereotyping, and enhance intentions to engage in future contacts. So far, the authors have not yet considered using writing as a possible “tool” for realizing an imagined contact—in fact, it seems to be an ideal tool for this. The educational implications of this use of learning and writing are important. Perhaps writing could be a tool for learning to elaborate knowledge, as well as helping people create better relationships with others. Again, writing can also be a tool for becoming aware of one’s agency. Creswell et al. (2007) investigated the positive effects of expressive writing as a self-affirmation activity, which has the potential to buffer the stress of traumatic life events, such as serious illness. Their assumption was that writing about one’s emotions produces self-affirmation and this, in turn, has positive effects on health. Thus, writing about one’s positive experiences seems to produce improvement in health and well-being (cf., Pennebaker, 1997). In future, following the directions which have emerged from the present volume, writing-to-learn research will certainly continue to investigate how writing can become a more and more fruitful tool for elaborating and producing knowledge. However, another possible objective could be that of considering new meanings of learning, and therefore a new instrumentality for writing, as a tool for making people aware of their personal possibilities, and setting up better relationships with others, also outside of the academic context.

Writing to Argue: Writing as a Tool for Oral and Written Argumentation Silvia Del Longo and Lerida Cisotto Language is a tool for communication, in that human beings use linguistic artefacts to express themselves and to cooperate in the sociocultural communities with which they identify. Since the invention of writing, human language has crossed the boundaries of time, space, and modality, and has become a tool for thinking, reasoning, and learning. In fact, as a visual representation of language, writing has amplified the possibilities for storing and retrieving information, thus freeing cognitive resources and facilitating the development of abstract thinking and imagination (Olson, 1994). In the form of textual composition and annotation, writing has enabled humans to think intentionally about ideas, to reason through them, and to reflect upon them. As a problem-solving activity involving complex cognitive processes, writing facilitates active knowledge building and transforming, and it thus promotes content learning and conceptual change (Mason & Boscolo, 2000; Tynjälä, Mason, & Lonka, Eds., 2001b). Besides this epistemic role, writing might also have the potential to foster strategic and self-regulated learning, as using strategies implies the employment of cognitive resources guided by metacognition. Since writing is a tool for thinking, humans can profit from written discourse to become aware of, and regulate, their processes, and also to purposefully and deliberately apply procedural knowledge in the successful performance of a task (Alexander, Graham, & Harris, 1998). Instructional research and practices have focused until now on writing as the process and product of composing texts, and on its role in reasoning and learning. The function of other forms of writing, such as annotation, as mediators in the structuring of thought and in supporting strategic learning, has sometimes been neglected. Notes, graphic organizers, and other representational tools can be successfully used in strategy instruction (MacArthur, this volume), to support and guide students in the use of strategies, as well as helping them demonstrate their cognitive processes—by means of think aloud methods, and also through writing down. Del Longo, S., & Cisotto, L. (2014). Writing to argue: Writing as a tool for oral and written argumentation. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 15–43). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_003

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These writing tools may therefore be a powerful tool for lifelong learning in a variety of sociocultural contexts (Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on key competences for lifelong learning, 2006). In fact, citizens who master the strategic use of such writing tools have the opportunity of success in the access, acquisition, transformation, and construction of knowledge across different discourse communities (Bazerman, 2009; Hyland, 2008). Further research is needed, however, to explore how writing relates to thinking and learning, and how teaching the use of writing tools in support of general writing strategies plays a role in learning specific strategies, such as those for argumentative discourse. The research reported here explores this issue and aims to investigate the role of writing tools in learning strategies for two types of argumentative discourse in secondary education: persuasive essays and academic debates. The novelty of the research lies, in particular, in exploring the role of writing in learning oral argumentation. As will be described in the Method section, we used strategic writing tools throughout the research as the basis on which to develop effective self-regulated strategy instruction. Writing is thus conceived here as a learning activity in the sense that it thoroughly and extensively supports argumentative learning processes in the form of thinking tools for argumentative speaking and writing.

1

Strategic Writing Tools for Argumentative Discourse

Strategies are forms of procedural knowledge that people use intentionally to improve their performance and succeed in a task. In order to adapt to different situations, general strategies can be fine-tuned, devised, or combined, thus making it possible to achieve a goal in a given context (Bereiter, 2002; Paré & Smart, 1994; Samuelstuen & Bråten, 2007). Learners become more competent and eventually expert in their use of strategies as they flexibly and effectively apply existing strategies to new purposes or devise new strategies to overcome difficulties and improve their performance. In learning, speaking, and writing performances, the application of such general heuristics as goal setting, brainstorming, sourcing, organizing, analyzing, assessing, evaluating, monitoring, and modifying, can benefit from the external support of writing, in the form of annotations, maps, diagrams, drafts, repertoires, and commentaries (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013). These strategic writing tools are not always composed nor definitely arranged—unlike texts—and they should be adapted to the strategy used and its purpose. The expression provisional writings is used to refer to written represen-

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tations that can be helpful in structuring thoughts, and which demonstrate and support complex cognitive processes (Boscolo, 2002). Annotations and outlines can be used, for instance, to guide the application of learning strategies. Indeed, notes, maps, summaries, and syntheses have been shown to be effective tools for the acquisition and transformation of knowledge (Gelati et al., this volume; Kiewra et al., 1991; O’Hara, Taylor, Newman, & Sellen, 2002; Segev-Miller, 2004; van Drie et al., this volume). Writing strategies for planning, revising, and editing, such as note-taking, outlining, drafting, proofreading, and re-writing, can all be successfully facilitated by the same kinds of provisional writings—above all by notes and drafts (MacArthur & Philippakos, 2012; Slotte, & Lonka, 2001). Outlines and notes may also be useful strategies for speaking, with particular reference to the process of planning. Argumentation is a set of communicative practices which take place when dealing with a controversial issue and disagreement (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002). It is also a problem-solving activity which places considerable demands on cognitive processes and self-regulation capacities, especially in writing (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012). In fact, both oral and written argumentation presupposes a dialogue with the audience and the purpose of both is to convince critics of the goodness or validity of a claim. However, writers cannot count on the concurrent presence of the audience in the context of production. Therefore, argumentative writers have to represent their audience mentally, anticipating possible objections and counterclaims. They also have to organize the articulated web of reasoning in the coherent and cohesive linear sequence of a text, as in the so-called process of linearization (Coirier, Andriessen, & Chanquoy, 1999). Expert argumentative writing thus requires extensive use of pre-writing and planning strategies as well as the application of metacognitive and selfregulated procedures for editing and revising. Young and novice writers encounter considerable difficulties in regulating these complex processes. Until the age of 15 or 16 years at least, they often fail to take into account two opposing stances, and their argumentative texts are thus based on justification, with no room for discussion (Coirier et al., 1999). Nor do linguistic abilities appear to develop in an integrated way until the age of 12 (Golder & Pouit, 1999; Piolat, Roussey, & Gombert, 1999). Young children’s written argumentation lacks in syntactic complexity, thematic elaboration, and coherence, and the use of punctuation and cohesive devices is poor. Irrespective of age, poor writers struggle to manage the complexity of these processes and rarely succeed in argumentative writing tasks. As a result, they may need explicit strategic support and scaffolding (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012; Graham & Perin, 2007a; Perin, 2007).

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Oral argumentation can be similarly demanding, especially in formal and structured communicative contexts. In fact, even if speakers can build a common ground with the audience for understanding, and rely on immediate audience feedback, the articulation and coordination of speech and gestures is complex, and the use of prosody as a persuasive and organizational device is challenging. Such demanding processes and practices can be successfully supported by self-regulated strategy instruction, as research on writing instruction has showed extensively (Graham et al., 2013; Graham & Perin, 2007a; Harris & Graham, 1999; MacArthur, this volume). In this approach, teachers start the instructional process by activating and developing background knowledge on the use of strategies. They discuss with students the benefits of the strategies, provide thinking-aloud modelling of how, when and why to use the strategies, and help students to memorize the steps. Afterwards, students practise the use of strategies in collaboration with peers, receive teacher support, and are given feedback on the use of the strategies and their performance. As students become more independent in the application of strategies, teachers gradually reduce their control of student performances. Learners are constantly involved in the monitoring and evaluation of strategies; they participate in classroom discussions, and write journal reflections (MacArthur & Philippakos, 2012). Both oral and written argumentation can benefit from strategic support (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012; MacArthur, this volume), especially when the role of provisional writing in self-regulated strategy instruction is emphasized. In particular, teachers provide various writing tools to guide the use of cognitive, metacognitive and self-regulatory strategies for performing successfully in argumentative tasks. These imply: (a) the generation and retrieval of reasons, evidence, and rebuttals by exploring the issue and documentation; (b) the evaluation and selection of argumentative elements according to acceptability, relevance, appropriateness, and usefulness, depending on task, goal, and audience; (c) the organization of argumentative elements in a conceptual hierarchical structure based on logical relationships, that is, on informal reasoning, as well as in a coherent textual structure based on rhetorical strategies, that is, on argumentation; (d) the use of linguistic devices and indicators to guide the audience in understanding the text, or speech; (e) reflection on how, when, and why to use a strategy; (f) monitoring, assessment, and reinforcement of one’s own writing, or speaking (Alexander et al., 1998; Coirier et al., 1999; van Drie et al., this volume).

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Quality of Argumentative Discourse

Strategies and writing tools for argumentation are used to support argumentative processes and to improve writing and speaking performances necessary for success in complex argumentative tasks. Good argumentation depends mainly on the recognition of opposing stances and the appropriateness of chains of inference—from evidence to claims (Santos & Santos, 1999). In order to perform successfully in argumentative discourse, writers and speakers have to be familiar with the topic and the task, retrieve information and schemata from long-term memory, or rely on external sources for documentation. They also need to apply existing cognitive, metacognitive and self-regulation strategies, as well as linguistic and textual abilities to be able to perform successfully in writing and speaking tasks. As mentioned above, this research was aimed at exploring the role of writing tools in learning strategies for argumentative discourse. In particular, we investigated argumentative processes and products in two tasks that involved problem-solving in novel and meaningful communicative situations: persuasive essay writing and academic debate speaking, both based on multiple sourcing (Alexander et al., 1998). In order to perform these argumentative tasks, proficient writers and speakers use a vast array of strategies, with the support of provisional writings. The use of writing and speaking strategies is reflected in the quality of argumentative discourse and can also be indirectly observed in some features of oral and written texts. 2.1 Argumentative Informativeness When a writer, or speaker, acts strategically in the process of generating and selecting relevant elements for argumentation, he/she succeeds in enacting all the moves on which argumentative discourse is based, be it in text or in speech. He or she explores the issue, makes his/her case, takes the opposing stance into account, foresees possible rebuttals, and provides evidence in support of both stances, whatever the source is, be it long-term memory or multiple documents. The result is an informative essay or speech, with no redundancy, in which all elements—claims, backing, warrants, counterclaims, objections, and limitations—are well developed and have a role in the argumentation (Hillocks, 2010; Klein & Rose, 2010; MacArthur, this volume; van Eemeren, Houtlosser, & Snoeck Henkemans, Eds., 2007). We call this feature of essays and speeches argumentative informativeness, which accounts for two compositional processes: (a) idea generation and (b) selection of reasons and opposing arguments.

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2.2 Intertextuality In writing and speaking tasks based on multiple sourcing, a successful performance also depends on the ability of the writer or speaker to use external sources for documentation. The essays and speeches of proficient arguers are based on the integration of different sources, with argumentative elements reworked in an original way, and quoted or cited precisely (Bazerman, 2004b; Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Gee, 2011; MacArthur, this volume). We define the correct use of sources as intertextuality, that is, the degree to which the writer and speaker relate their products to other texts, explicitly mentioning or quoting these sources. The process of documentation is accounted for by this feature of essays and speeches. 2.3 Coherence and Structure Writers and speakers who succeed in argumentative tasks are able to act strategically in the organization of argumentative elements at two different levels: conceptual and textual. At the conceptual level, arguers place logical relations between stance, claims, evidence, and rebuttals, and connect them with appropriate chains of inference (Toulmin, 1958). In writing, at the conceptual level of organization, proficient writers succeed in composing texts characterized by sentences and paragraphs that present conceptual topic continuity and consistency of meaning (McCutchen & Perfetti, 1987; Rossi, Zuczkowski, Alessandri, Giannandrea, & Magnoler, 2008; van Dijk, 1980; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). Speakers are successful in the same respect, but their achievement in continuity and consistency is observed within and across one speaker’s utterances. We define coherence not only as the appropriateness of logical relations between argumentative elements, but also as the continuity of topic and the consistency of meaning. At the textual level, the successful performance of writers and speakers in the organization of argumentative elements can be observed in the textual feature of structure. Proficient writers and speakers succeed in retrieving schemata of essays and speeches from long-term memory and are able to arrange argumentative elements in a textual structure. To help the audience to process and understand oral and written texts, expert arguers also use rhetorical strategies. With the term ‘structure’ we refer to the degree to which writers signal the underlying hierarchical global structure in the following ways: (a) with an introduction and conclusion; (b) by paragraphing; (c) by means of explicit topic statements; and (d) metadiscursive, textual, or dispositional devices (Chambliss & Murphy, 2002; Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Nystrand, 1986; Sanders & Noordman, 2000; Thompson, 2001). These signalling devices are also used by speakers, as these markers are probably helpful for processing oral texts in formal contexts (Horowitz & Samuels, 1987).

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2.4 Cohesion and Linguistic Persuasiveness The written texts and speeches by proficient arguers also include linguistic elements used strategically for cohesive and persuasive purposes. Logical markers serve to signal the semantic relationships previously set at the conceptual level. In this way, writers and speakers compose texts characterized by connectedness at the linguistic level. This feature can be referred to as cohesion. Cohesion in writing can be measured at the local level through the index of integration between T-units (Scinto, 1984). A T-unit is an independent clause together with all the subordinate clauses attached to it (Hunt, 1965). This index of integration between T-units is one of the most powerful for cohesion, because it accounts for the syntactical aspects of planning. The equivalent index in speaking is the integration between Analysis of Speech units (ASunits), that is, between “single speakers’ utterances, consisting of an independent clause, or sub-clausal unit, together with any subordinate clause(s) associated with either.” (Foster, Tonkyn, & Wigglesworth, 2000, p. 365). This index accounts for syntactical and intonational aspects of planning. Finally, at the level of the written paragraph or set of spoken utterances, and at the metatextual level, cohesion is marked in texts by reminders and announcements, while in speeches there are phatic signals. These signals, such as well, then, ok, and you know, have an interactional function and are used to keep the turn in a conversation and establish communicative contact on the basis of shared knowledge (Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Rossi et al., 2008). Linguistic elements can also be used by proficient writers and speakers for a persuasive purpose. As well as incorporating reasons and evidence, and connecting them logically and textually, writers and speakers who perform successfully also add persuasiveness to a text or speech by means of tone, style, attitude, and imagery. In particular, arguers succeed in the following: (a) explicitly creating a textual persona; (b) expressing a textual voice, which Hyland (2005) called stance, and (c) interacting with the audience (Hyland’s engagement) by means of lexical markers. Texts and speeches are thus enriched with hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, reader pronouns, appeals, directives, and questions (Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Hyland, 2005; Thompson, 2001). This use of metadiscourse with the intention of being persuasive is called linguistic persuasiveness.

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Objectives

The main hypothesis underlying this exploratory study regarded the positive influence of an intervention in writing tools for argumentation on the quality of two types of argumentative discourse: persuasive essay writing and academic debate speaking. We hypothesized that the argumentative performances of students who attended four workshops about writing strategies and writing tools would improve more than students who were involved in regular classroom activities about written and oral argumentation. We expected a difference between groups for the quality of essay writing, since instruction on strategies for writing has been shown to make a positive impact on the quality of students’ writing at different school levels (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012; MacArthur, this volume). Past research on writing tools has also shown that students using cued sheets and matrixes for note-taking and outlining are likely to show improvement in the coherence and cohesion of their essays (Benton, Kiewra, Whitfill, & Dennison, 1993; Newell, Beach, Smith, & van der Heide, 2011; Nussbaum & Schraw, 2007; Slotte & Lonka, 2001). In the same way, the use of structures in planning persuasive writing has been shown to improve the organization and structure of written texts (Crowhurst, 1991), as well as the length and persuasive quality (MacArthur, this volume; van Drie et al., this volume). We thus expected a difference between groups—particularly concerning the coherence and structure of the written essays. Second, we hypothesized a difference between groups for the quality of speech in the debate, due to the potential transfer in strategic learning from general writing strategies to task-specific strategies (Hübner, Nückles, & Renkl, 2010; Newell et al., 2011). Learning to use writing tools for planning, editing, and revising a written text is likely to have an impact on learning specific strategies for oral and written argumentation, due to a transfer in both genres of discourse and modality. In fact, if “thinking for writing is a kind of literate thinking that, once mastered, is useful even in oral discourse”, as claimed by Olson (2006, p. 142), then the use of strategic writing tools, that is, provisional writings, has the potential to support the inner dialogue necessary for successful written and oral argumentation (van Eeemeren et al., 2007). Research on teaching argumentative discourse (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012) has shown that strategic support in the identification, selection, and organization of counterarguments and rebuttals can help students anticipate and consider other peoples’ perspectives. The use of writing tools in the construction of logical relations among argumentative elements, in the textual arrangement of argumentative and informative elements, and in the selection of linguistic

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signals can help students. Hence the use of structured notes and cued prosand-cons charts has the potential to: (a) overcome the my-side bias (Wolfe & Britt, 2008); (b) foster a deeper understanding of the audience, and (c) improve students’ performances in the cut and thrust of a debate. Regarding the differences that we expected to find in specific features of debate speeches, the same improvements as were found in writing were hypothesized. In fact, spoken academic debate is similar to staged talk, implying more planning and explicitness than conversation (Nystrand, 1986; Rossi et al., 2008). Because of its features, this type of oral argumentation is likely to benefit in particular from instruction in writing strategies, especially at the conceptual and structural level, which are accounted for by the indices of coherence and structure.

4

Method

4.1 Participants One hundred and twenty-four secondary students from six classes, attending either 11th or 12th grades, participated in the research. All students lived in North-East Italy and were aged between 15 and 17 years. Following a quasiexperimental design, students were divided into two groups by tossing a coin. Three classes were assigned to the writing to argue (WTA) group (n = 65; 44 males, 21 females), and three to the traditional (T) group (n = 59; 28 males, 32 females). The mean age of the groups was 15.9 and 16.5 years respectively. Ten participants in the T group had cognitive/linguistic impairments, mostly dyslexia. Students from both groups were native Italian speakers and most of their parents had a secondary school diploma. The parents of the WTA group were less well educated, with only 18% having a university degree, compared with 37% of the T group. Each group had two different teachers of Italian language and literature who were asked to rate their students’ communicative abilities in oral and written discourse using a 4-point scale: 1 (not proficient), 2 (pass), 3 (good), 4 (proficient). A mean rating of 2 (pass) was observed for both groups (M WTA = 2.05, SDWTA = 0.80; M T = 1.78, SDT = .74). No statistically significant differences emerged between WTA and T for demographics, so the two groups could be considered as equivalent. 4.2 Procedures Participants were administered a pre- and a post-intervention test to analyze the quality of their performances in argumentative speaking and writing. The

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testing sessions took place in school classrooms in the presence of the first author; the pre-test took place two weeks before the intervention and the post-test two weeks after. The tests consisted of an essay writing task and a debate speaking task, both based on multiple sourcing concerning similar controversial social issues: animal experiments in the pre-test, and hunting in the post-test. Students were asked to read three texts—one neutral, one pro, and one con—the same topic. The texts had previously been controlled for readability, length and syntactical complexity. The order of presentation was randomized across participants. In the writing task, participants were asked to write an essay based on their own opinions about the given issue, and to express their ideas and thoughts with the aim of convincing a student of the same age. Students had one hour to complete the task individually and were given an additional blank sheet to take notes from the sources and plan their writing. In the debating task, students were randomly assigned a role to play (introduction, development, or conclusion) on one of two opposing teams: pro or con. Participants had to engage in an academic debate, following the procedure of the World School Debate format (Luckett, 2006; Snider & Schnurer, 2002). As in the writing task, students had one hour to complete the task and were given an additional blank sheet for documentation and planning. The first 30 minutes was for individual planning, while in the following 15 minutes the debaters had to plan in teams, organized according to the stance assigned. The first author had to open the structured discussion and participants had two minutes each for their role and had to try to convince their opponents of the validity of their team’s claims. 4.3 Intervention 4.3.1 Writing to Argue (WTA) Group The intervention in writing tools for argumentation was purposely designed to support students’ learning processes in argumentative discourse by selfregulated strategy instruction. Drawing inspiration from Harris and Graham’s approach (1999; Graham et al., 2013), strategies were explicitly taught through modelling, scaffolding, peer collaboration, discussion, and reflection. Writing tools were used to support cognitive and metacognitive strategies in selfregulated argumentative processes, thus providing students with a powerful learning and thinking tool for argumentation (Hübner et al., 2010). Materials and activities were designed, and were adapted, for a short-term and intensive intervention of four 2-hour workshops a week, conducted by the first author in all classes, in the presence of the teacher of Italian language

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and literature. Each workshop was observed by the classroom teacher, who verified that the instructional procedures were delivered as planned, and gave immediate feedback to the first author. During the intervention, the WTA group was not involved in other classroom activities on argumentation. The structure of each workshop was the same across the intervention: (a) thinking-aloud modelling of the strategy, with the support of writing tools; (b) guided practice in class, where students could rely on the social support of peers and adults and on the cognitive support of writing tools; (c) practice in pairs, with reduced support from the instructor and teacher; (d) classroom discussion and feedback from the instructor and teacher on using the strategy, as well as on using the writing tools; (e) journal writing as a tool for individual reflection about learning processes and the use of the modelled strategy and writing tools. Writing Tools for the Generation and Selection of Argumentative Elements During the first workshop, students were guided in the analysis of different argumentative tasks in order to set communicative goals and become aware of the audience. The issue to be discussed was social networking, which was explored by generating claims and evidence, with reference to students’ previous knowledge. The elements of argumentation were organized by topic/domain. Students were then guided in reading a series of texts about the issue and selecting relevant argumentative elements, according to task, goal, and audience. The selected elements were then organized in order to make explicit the logical relations between claims and evidence, between evidence and backing, and claims and rebuttals. Text sources were also tagged and evaluated for trustworthiness. To support students’ learning of argumentative strategies, two writing tools in the form of notes on cued and structured sheets were used: (a) Vee diagrams for the generation and selection of personal ideas, focussing explicitly on issue and goal; (b) adaptations of the Cornell note-taking system template (Pauk & Owens, 2013) for documentation and the selection and organization of argumentative elements. Two excerpts from students’ self-instructions for generation and selection are reported below. In the written prompt of the task, I underline linguistic elements that help me understand the issue, the goal, the stance, and the audience, and I write them down in the diagram, separating the issue from the communicative goal, that is, I write a sentence that expresses goal, stance, and audience. I use the same diagram to take notes on what I already

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know about the issue, separating informative elements from argumentative ones and trying to organize them thematically. In the documents, I underline the linguistic elements that help me understand the author’s stance and evaluate the trustworthiness of the source. I write them at the top of the chart. Then I search the documents for reasons and counterarguments, I write them down in the wider part of the chart, that is, on the centre right, and label them in the narrower part of the template, that is, on the centre left, on the basis of their argumentative function. At the bottom of the template I record questions, doubts, reflections, and research issues. Writing Tools for the Conceptual Organization of Argumentative Elements The second workshop focused on reasoning and argumentation, through the organization of argumentative elements in a conceptual hierarchy based on logical relations. For this purpose, students were guided in the use of a prosand-cons chart, in which to note selected argumentative elements, and anticipate and express possible objections and rebuttals in the form of annotations (Wolfe & Britt, 2008). Argumentative elements, such as claims, evidence, and backing, were organized spatially, for each argument using indentation and font type/size. The logical relations between argumentative elements were made explicit by the use of labelled arrows connecting the notes. In the last part of the lesson, students were guided in rating each argument. They tried to evaluate the internal coherence of the arguments, with reference to reasoning, and the potential persuasiveness of the arguments, with reference to the audience. The strategic use of the pros-and-cons chart is reported in the following excerpt from a student’s self-instructions: I write down my main claim at the left top of the chart and take notes of the main counterclaims at the opposite end. I select reasons, evidence, backing, and warrants from both the Vee diagram and the note chart and write them down in the left half of the chart. On the right side of the chart, I write down reasons, evidence, backing, and warrants, that is, counterarguments. Then I add rebuttals, objections, and limitations, and I connect them with the respective elements using labelled arrows. If some argumentative elements are missing (e.g., I have evidence, but no backing), I take time to think about them, and then add them to the chart.

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Writing Tools for the Textual Organization of Argumentative Elements The third workshop was aimed at providing students with writing tools for the organization of arguments in a coherent textual structure based on rhetorical relationships. The focus was on discourse planning. The writing strategies of outlining and drafting were used, with the support of papers structured in three sections: introduction, argumentation, and conclusion. Students were first guided in the arrangement (dispositio) of arguments, counterarguments, and rebuttals, paying careful attention to the type of coherence—thematic or logical. Second, the introduction and conclusion of the discourse were drafted, focusing on the following: (a) presentation of issue and stance; (b) confirmation of the stance, and (c) summary of the argumentation (see Appendix A for a student’s example of a structured outline). Writing Tools for the Use of Linguistic Devices for Argumentation The focus of the fourth and final workshop was on the linguistic devices used in argumentative discourse to interact with the audience, to guide understanding, and consequently to increase the potential persuasiveness of written and oral argumentation. Students were first invited to identify and classify by function the lexical items, expressions, and cue phrases expressed in the text sources. A series of repertoires of indicators, markers, and devices for structure, stance, engagement, coherence, and cohesion were then established under the guidance of the teacher and instructor. Lastly, the repertoires were used by students to draft the argumentative discourse, thus combining two powerful writing strategies for argumentation (see Appendix B for examples of: a marked up text in Table B1, and repertoires, in Table B2). Writing Tools for Reflection and Self-Regulation Throughout the intervention period, students were guided in keeping a writing journal, including some clue questions aimed at: (a) triggering reflection on how, when, and why to use different writing strategies, and (b) monitoring, assessing, and reinforcing students’ argumentative learning: – What have I learnt in today’s workshop? – Have I encountered difficulties? When? Why? How can I overcome them? How can I use writing to select argumentative elements? – Why is it useful to take notes about the author? – When is it useful to annotate possible objections?

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Finally, journal entries and materials from the intervention were collected and transformed in another writing strategy: self-instruction. 4.3.2 Traditional (T) Group The students in the T group attended regular classroom activities on oral and written argumentation conducted by their teachers, with no focus on writing tools or strategies for writing, metacognition, and self-regulation. These students listened to lectures on the structure, register, and style of different types of oral and written argumentation, such as opinion letters, essays and lectures on historical and literary issues, advertisements, speeches, and articles on scientific and social issues. They also had the opportunity to practise reading and listening to different texts in order to identify the main claim and reasons. The classroom teachers worked on the use of documents and norms of citation. During the intervention period, students were involved in frequent speaking tasks and writing activities, with feedback on linguistic errors provided by the teacher. 4.4 Measures We followed a top-down approach and referred to a multiple-trait scale (Barkaoui, 2007; Cushing Weigle, 2002; East, 2009; Knoch, 2011) to assess the quality of argumentative writing and speaking. We focused in particular on textual and linguistic features that account for the effective use of strategies in essay and debating tasks. Six indices of quality of argumentative discourse were defined: (1) argumentative informativeness; (2) intertextuality; (3) coherence; (4) structure; (5) cohesion and (6) linguistic persuasiveness. Measures were only slightly differentiated by modality; therefore comparisons can be made between oral and written discourse. Argumentative Writing Persuasive essays were transcribed using a word processor to reduce format bias in assessment (Powers, Fowles, Farnum, & Ramsay, 1994) and the length in words and in T-units was measured (inter-rater agreement for words: 100 %; and for T-units: 98%). The two authors and a trained teacher of Italian language and literature, who did not participate in the intervention, analyzed the quality of texts using a six-trait scale. For each measure the raters gave a score from zero to four, on the basis of the degree to which certain textual and linguistic features were present or not in the texts, as follows:

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– Argumentative informativeness (inter-rater agreement: 95 %): the presence of four argumentative elements were scored one point each: (a) claims and supporting evidence; (b) backing and warrants; (c) counterclaims and rebuttals; (d) analysis of the issue and stance on it (see Appendix C, Table C1 for an example of a highly informative argumentative essay). – Intertextuality (inter-rater agreement: 86%): the presence of four different uses of sources were scored one point each: (a) embedding of more than one text by copying or paraphrasing; (b) embedding of other texts through personal reworking, without any explicit reference; (c) personal reworking of other texts, with poor mentioning of, or allusion to, the authors; (d) good reference to other texts through citation or quotation (see Appendix C, Table C2 for an example of an essay with a low intertextuality score). – Coherence (inter-rater agreement: 88%): the absence of inconsistencies at four levels was scored one point per level: (a) coherence with stance; (b) coherence between argumentative elements: evidence, claims, rebuttals; (c) coherence between T-units; (d) coherence between paragraphs. Some examples of failure in coherence at different levels are: (a) with stance: “I think that vivisection is fair and inevitable (…) vivisection is a useless crime that damages human health”; (b) between argumentative elements: “Drugs obtained from vivisection cause severe damage to human beings; for this reason we now tend to use animal experimentation for symptomatic drugs”; (c) between T-units: “Besides there are animals that behave similarly to humans. But the fact that planet Earth is like this and that many animal species have died out is due mainly to mankind.”; (d) between paragraphs: “We destroyed many beautiful things on this planet. [line] Laws have been created as an excuse, to let people think they are better than what they really are.” – Structure (inter-rater agreement: 94%): the presence of four kinds of structuring devices were scored one point each: (a) introduction and conclusion; (b) topic statements (e.g., regarding the, as for, the problem is); (c) paragraphs, signalled by indentation; (d) metadiscursive devices (e.g., next, on the other hand, nevertheless, secondly, afterwards). An excerpt from a well structured essay written by a student follows: Hunting has always been labelled as the massacre of innocent animals but we never analyzed, indeed, its advantages. (…) [four paragraphs on the advantages of hunting follow, two of which on economics and the other two on biodiversity] Hence, hunting is an extremely advantageous sport for communities from the economical perspective, as well as from the conservative one.

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– Cohesion (inter-rater agreement: 92%): the presence of appropriate cohesive devices on four levels were scored one point per level: (a) argumentative signals (e.g., hence, to connect evidence and claim; because, to connect claim and evidence; but to connect rebuttal and argumentation); (b) cohesive devices between T-units; (c) cohesive devices between paragraphs; (d) reminders and announcements (e.g., as mentioned before, as will be seen below). – Linguistic persuasiveness (inter-rater agreement: 96 %): the presence of four kinds of metadiscursive device were scored one point each: (a) self-mentions: first person and possessives, as my position or from our perspective; (b) reader pronouns, appeals, directives, and questions (e.g., you, we, imagine, consider, what solutions can you foresee?); (c) attitude markers (e.g., unfortunately, appropriate, sacrifice of an entire race); (d) hedges and boosters (e.g., might, perhaps, clearly, demonstrate, should be). Argumentative Speaking Academic debates were transcribed for their linguistic and paralinguistic elements, such as intonation, time, intensity, according to the system proposed by Dressler and Kreuz (2000). Sets of utterances were segmented in AS-units (inter-rater agreement: 76%). According to this method of segmentation, hesitation and disfluency are embedded in the unit, accounting for intonational and syntactical levels of production (Foster et al., 2000). The two authors and a trained Italian language and literature teacher, who did not participate in the study, analyzed each set of utterances for the quality of argumentative speaking using a six-trait scale. In the same way as for writing quality, the raters computed a score from zero to four for each measure, on the basis of the frequency of some textual and linguistic features in the set of utterances (see Appendix D for an example of an individual set of utterances in the debate with sample analysis): – Argumentative informativeness (inter-rater agreement: 94 %): the presence of four argumentative elements were scored one point each: (a) claims and supporting evidence; (b) backing and warrants; (c) counterclaims and rebuttals; (d) analysis of issue and stance on it, for students with introducing or concluding roles, or elaboration of rebuttals, for students with the developing role. – Intertextuality (inter-rater agreement: 84%): the presence of four kinds of intertextuality were scored one point each: (a) embedding of more than one text by copying or paraphrasing; (b) embedding of other texts through personal reworking, without any explicit reference; (c) personal reworking

writing as a tool for oral and written argumentation

–

–

–

–

31

of other texts, with poor mention of, or allusion to, the authors; (d) good reference to other texts through citation or quotation. Coherence (inter-rater agreement: 75%): the absence of inconsistencies at four levels were scored one point per level: (a) coherence with stance; (b) coherence between argumentative elements: evidence, claims, and rebuttals; (c) coherence within one student’s utterances; (d) coherence with utterances by preceding students. Structure (inter-rater agreement: 86%): the presence of four kinds of structuring device were scored one point each: (a) introduction and conclusion of one student’s utterances; (b) topic statements (e.g., regarding the, as for, the problem is); (c) periodicity, signalled by structural pauses; (d) metadiscursive devices (e.g., next, on the other hand, nevertheless, secondly, afterwards). Cohesion (inter-rater agreement: 88%): the presence of correct linguistic and paralinguistic cohesive devices on four levels were scored one point per level: (a) argumentative signals (e.g., hence to connect evidence and claim; because to connect claim and evidence; but to connect rebuttal and argumentation); (b) cohesive devices between AS-units; (c) cohesive devices and fillers in one student’s utterances (e.g., well, then, so, you know); (d) cohesive devices within or among team utterances (e.g., as my opponent said before, my team will present some evidence). Linguistic persuasiveness (inter-rater agreement: 95 %): the presence of four kinds of metadiscursive device were scored one point each: (a) selfmentions: first person, possessives; (b) reader pronouns, appeals, directives, and questions (e.g., you, we, imagine, consider); (c) attitude markers (e.g., unfortunately, appropriate); (d) hedges and boosters (e.g., might, perhaps, clearly, demonstrate).

An additional index of fluency was used, defined by Witton-Davies (2010) as the number of disfluencies per AS-unit, that is, false starts, repetitions, and shifts.

5

Results

Before the interventions, the argumentative writing and speaking performances of the two groups differed in only two of the several indices of quality: (a) written linguistic persuasiveness and (b) oral structure. The WTA group outperformed the T group, showing a better use of metadiscourse in writing (MWTA = 2.89, SDWTA = 0.88; M T = 2.31, SDT = 0.78), as well as a better use of signalling devices for the structure in speaking (M WTA = 2.74, SDWTA = 0.98; M T = 1.83, SDT =

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0.88). Although there were slight differences, the two groups were substantially homogeneous before the interventions. 5.1 Argumentative Writing A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was carried out to determine the effect of the intervention on the quality of argumentative writing as measured by six indices of quality while controlling for the quality of argumentative writing before the intervention, as well as for communicative abilities in written discourse as measured by the classroom teachers’ ratings in reading and writing. Before the test, students who did not participate in both pre- and post-test sessions were eliminated, so analyses were limited to 59 WTA and 49 T cases. A Bonferroni correction was carried out, with level of significance set at p < .01. MANCOVA results revealed significant differences between groups for the combined dependent variable, Wilks’ Λ = .47, F(6,94) = 17.73, p < .001, multivariate η2 = .53. The covariates did not significantly influence the combined dependent variable. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted on each dependent variable as a follow-up test to MANCOVA. Group differences were significant for five out of six indices of writing quality: (a) argumentative informativeness, F(1,99) = 42.26, p < .001, partial η2 = .30; (b) intertextuality, F(1,99) = 23.40, p < .001, partial η2 = .19; (c) coherence, F(1,99) = 8.47, p = .004, partial η2 = .08; (d) structure, F(1,99) = 28.16, p < .001, partial η2 = .22; and (e) cohesion, F(1,99) = 38.18, p < .001, partial η2 = .28. No significant group differences were observed for linguistic persuasiveness, F(1,99) = 2.63, p = .108, partial η2 = .03. A comparison of adjusted means revealed that the WTA student essay scores differed from the T student essay scores by nearly one point, out of four, for argumentative informativeness and intertextuality (see Table 1). 5.2 Argumentative Speaking A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to determine the effect of the intervention on the quality of argumentative speaking as measured by six indices of quality while controlling for the quality of argumentative speaking before the intervention, as well as for communicative abilities in spoken discourse as measured by the classroom teachers’ ratings in listening and speaking. Before the test, students who did not participate in both pre- and post-test sessions were eliminated, so analyses were limited to 60 WTA and 42 T cases. A Bonferroni correction was carried out, with level of significance set at p < .01. MANCOVA results revealed moderate differences between groups for the combined dependent variable, Wilks’ Λ = .86, F(6,88) = 2.36, p = .037, multivariate η2 = .14. The covariates did not significantly influence the combined dependent variable.

2.95 (0.09)** 2.91 (0.11)** 2.55 (0.10)* 2.22 (0.09)** 2.18 (0.07)** 2.56 (0.11)

Argumentative informativeness Intertextuality Coherence Structure Cohesion Linguistic persuasiveness

3.02 (0.66) 2.93 (0.83) 2.49 (0.63) 2.24 (0.73) 2.22 (0.53) 2.66 (0.90)

UnM (SD) [2.73, 3.18] [2.61, 3.20] [2.23, 2.81] [2.00, 2.45] [2.00, 2.37] [2.27, 2.85]

99 % CI 1.98 (0.56) 2.00 (0.79) 2.16 (0.80) 1.47 (0.54) 1.45 (0.50) 2.14 (0.82)

UnM (SD)

[1.81, 2.31] [1.70, 2.36] [1.81, 2.38] [1.23, 1.74] [1.29, 1.70] [1.95, 2.59]

99 % CI

Traditional (n = 49)

2.06 (0.09)** 2.03 (0.13)** 2.09 (0.11)* 1.49 (0.08)** 1.49 (0.08)** 2.27 (0.12)

AdM (SE)

Group

Note. AdM = Adjusted Mean; SE = Standard Error; UnM = Unadjusted Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; CI = Confidence Intervals. * p < .01; ** p < .001.

AdM (SE)

Writing to argue (n = 59)

Quality of argumentative writing after the intervention by group

Indices of writing quality

table 1

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An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted on each dependent variable as a follow-up to the MANCOVA. Group differences were significant only for coherence, F(1,93) = 8.50, p = .004, partial η2 = .08. A comparison of adjusted means revealed that the scores for the WTA student speeches differed from the T student speech scores by half a point, out of four, for coherence (see Table 2).

6

Discussion

The general trends identified by the data analysis support the main hypothesis underlying the present study, that is, the positive influence of an intervention in writing tools for argumentation on the quality of persuasive essay writing and speaking in academic debates. 6.1 Strategic Writing Tools for Argumentative Writing Regarding the first hypothesis, improvement in the overall performance in argumentative writing was expected, and was observed indirectly in the improved quality of persuasive essays written by the WTA students. Students who had been guided by the first author in the strategic use of writing tools for argumentation wrote significantly better texts after the intervention, with the greatest improvements in the conceptual organization of argumentative elements. Taking into account previous achievement levels, these students performed significantly better than those participating in the traditional intervention, with the exception of the use of persuasive linguistic devices, for which no significant differences between the two groups were observed. A higher variability within groups for linguistic persuasiveness was registered together with a slight decrease over time in the scores by both groups. Past and recent research on argumentation has extensively shown the impact of strategic support on the overall quality of argumentative writing (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012; Graham & Perin, 2007a; MacArthur, this volume). The analyses of texts by means of the six indices, however, allows us to cast light on the effects of strategy instruction on the use of strategies and writing tools. Consequently, we may relate greater improvements in intertextuality and coherence to the specific support and guidance given to students during the WTA intervention. In fact, the processes of reasoning, argumentation, and documentation can be supported by means of charts and notes. Students thus experience the potential of writing tools in guiding the selection of argumentative elements from sources and the organization of elements according to logical and rhetorical relationships. Compared with the students who attend traditional

2.06 (0.09) 2.39 (0.11) 3.00 (0.10)* 2.75 (0.12) 2.98 (0.11) 1.78 (0.14)

Argumentative informativeness Intertextuality Coherence Structure Cohesion Linguistic persuasiveness

2.10 (0.66) 2.45 (0.77) 3.02 (0.68) 2.82 (0.85) 2.97 (0.71) 1.80 (0.95)

UnM (SD) [1.83, 2.30] [2.09, 2.69] [2.73, 3.27] [2.43, 3.06] [2.69, 3.25] [1.42, 2.14]

99 % CI 1.90 (0.62) 2.38 (0.85) 2.45 (0.83) 2.33 (1.00) 2.68 (0.13) 1.71 (1.04)

UnM (SD)

[1.67, 2.24] [2.10, 2.84] [2.14, 2.81] [2.05, 2.82] [2.34, 3.03] [1.30, 2.19]

99 % CI

Traditional (n = 42)

1.96 (0.11) 2.47 (0.14) 2.48 (0.13)* 2.43 (0.15) 1.49 (0.08) 1.75 (0.17)

AdM (SE)

Group

Note. AdM = Adjusted Mean; SE = Standard Error; UnM = Unadjusted Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; CI = Confidence Intervals. * p < .01.

AdM (SE)

Writing to argue (n = 60)

Quality of argumentative speaking after the intervention by group

Indices of speaking quality

table 2

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lectures, those who are given strategic writing support are likely to succeed in writing more informative, cohesive, and organized essays (Crowhurst, 1991; MacArthur, this volume; Newell et al., 2011; van Drie et al., this volume). In the same way, the discouraging results in linguistic persuasiveness may be related to the limits of both interventions (writing to argue and traditional argumentative tasks) in influencing writing performances at the stylistic level. On the one hand, secondary school teachers and students have beliefs and experiences about written essays as an “objective” and formal type of discourse, in which the use of voice, expressive language, and evaluation are inappropriate (Kuteeva, 2011; Øgreid & Hertzberg, 2009). The focus on style and register in the traditional interventions may not have taken into account the use of metadiscursive markers as tools to add persuasiveness to the essays. On the other hand, in order to change deep-rooted beliefs and well-established practices, the WTA intervention should probably have been longer and should have focused more on stylistic features. The actual and appropriate use of writing tools for argumentative writing was observed in the provisional writings by WTA students. From the qualitative analyses of the materials produced by a subset of 44 students before and after the intervention, an improvement in the use of writing tools was observed for most WTA students (64%). At pre-test they mainly wrote without the support of writing tools and only a few produced drafts and textual fragments, while in the post-test materials we observed: (a) the use of marginal notes and underlining of sources to identify argumentative moves; (b) the organization of key concepts in maps and diagrams; and (c) the use of charts and outlines to structure argumentative elements. 6.2 Strategic Writing Tools for Argumentative Speaking The second hypothesis regarded the benefits of strategic support and use of writing tools on the quality of verbal debate. An improvement in the WTA students’ performances was observed indirectly in the quality of oral argumentation after the intervention, with the highest scores and greatest improvements in conceptual organization and connectedness of speeches. Compared with the T group, the students guided by the first author in the strategic use of writing tools for argumentation performed moderately better, delivering more coherent speeches. In fact, the benefits of support by strategic writing tools, such as structured notes and cued pros-and-cons charts, in the construction of logical relations between argumentative elements are likely to be observed not only in writing (Ferretti & Lewis, 2012), but also in debate speaking. In oral argumentation we observed the greatest impact of the use of strategic writing tools on conceptual planning. The extensive support of writing while preparing

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the individual and team utterances in the debate affected the quality of argumentative speaking positively, even if only at the coherence level. The novelty and contribution of this research lies particularly in these findings, despite the limited impact of strategic writing tools for argumentation on speaking quality. No significant differences were in fact observed in the structure of individual and team utterances in the debate, contrary to what we had hypothesized, nor in other indices. Nevertheless, the study reported here paves the way to the further exploration of the influence of other elements, such as previous achievement levels, opportunity to practice oral discourse, and familiarity with the task. In fact, while WTA students showed a significantly better use of structural devices before the interventions, T students recovered after the interventions, and their performances improved in structure over time. The differences between groups actually diminished, possibly because both groups had become more familiar with the academic debate task or because they had practiced more extensively in oral argumentative performances, especially in terms of timing, self-confidence, and use of prosody as a conceptual and structural device (Rossi et al., 2008). Finally, the actual and appropriate use of writing tools for argumentative speaking was observed in the provisional writings by WTA students. From the qualitative analyses of the materials produced by a subset of 44 students before and after the intervention, an improvement in writing tools was observed in most WTA students (57%). At the pre-test they mainly wrote without the support of writing tools and only a few of them produced diagrams and conceptual maps, while in the post-test materials we observed: (a) the use of marginal notes and underlining of sources to identify argumentative moves consistent with the stance being taken, and (b) the use of charts and outlines to structure argumentative elements.

7

Conclusions

Instruction in writing tools for argumentation has the potential to influence the learning of strategies for argumentative writing and speaking, especially when provisional writings support the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, crucial for academic, professional, and personal life. Although strategic support for argumentative writing has proved to be beneficial in many ways, this study has paved the way towards the exploration of the impact of strategic support on argumentative speaking. This research has also introduced the use of six indices to assess argumentative writing and speaking. Unlike holistic rating scales, useful in assessing linguistic competence in general, multiple-trait

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scales take into account different abilities, providing the opportunity to highlight strengths and weaknesses in specific performances. The six indices of quality focus on different components concurrently, and have the potential to shed light on the different strategies in use during argumentative performances. Following this exploratory study, further research could be designed with the aim of understanding more deeply the role of writing tools in the strategic support of learning, as well as the components of argumentative discourse reflecting a more expert use of strategies. The implementation of writing tools for self-regulated instruction is desirable at different school levels, not only for professional development, but also for effective instructional practices and authentic learning, in the perspective of future-oriented education.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Silvia D’Agnolo, Carlo Carratelli, Floriana Checchini, Elisa Cavallaro, Sara Maccatrozzo, and their students for their active participation in the research; Emanuela Rela for her collaboration in the analyses of texts and speeches; and Dr. Lucia Ronconi for the revision of statistical analyses and results.

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Appendix A. Writing Tools for the Textual Organization of Argumentative Elements table a

Example of a structured outline produced by a student to organize argumentative elements before writing

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Appendix B. Writing Tools for the Use of Linguistic Devices for Argumentation table b1

Example of a text, marked up to identify linguistic devices

table b2

Example of repertoires with linguistic devices for structure and cohesion

Linguistic devices to organize the text in a structure and guide the reader STANCE I’m in favor, against, neutral I side with the opponents, with those in favor of CLAIM I consider, according to me, for me, I judge, I’m convinced that, I believe, I’m inclined, in my opinion, I think that, I believe that, my opinion is that, you can state that EVIDENCE According to a study conducted by … in … The results of the study support the hypothesis that … The above mentioned investigation involved According to my experience … I observed that BACKING As Caffo states (La Stampa, 2012)1 (footnote—reference to trustworthy sources)

Linguistic devices to “cement” the text and guide the reader COHESION MARKERS INSIDE ARGUMENTATION Claim → evidence social networks are good for the mood ACTUALLY the consequences of their use are positive Evidence → claim hence, consequently Claim → arguments because Evidence → backing on the basis of, according to Objections despite … at least …

writing as a tool for oral and written argumentation

Appendix C. Analysis of Argumentative Writing table c1

Example of a highly informative essay with sample coding

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42 table c2

del longo and cisotto Example of an argumentative essay with a low score in intertextuality

Text with highlighted markers of intertextuality

Codes for intertextuality

Vivisection is a useless crime that ends up by damaging human health. Copy of Text source Its supporters believe to this day that these experiments, conducted on 2 without explicit live animals, are an indispensable method for research and progress in reference medicine. Animal suffering is a painful but unavoidable aspect, since if the sac- Paraphrase of Text rifice of millions of animal lives could save as many human lives, this source 2 without makes animal experimentation efficient and to be authorized. The clas- explicit reference sic example of “the ends justify the means”. But it is actually a useless crime. The animal is different from man, both from the anatomical and phys- Paraphrase of Text iological—and consequently pharmacological—point of view. Experi- source 1 without ments conducted on animals could lead to the invention of new drugs explicit reference and treatments, that could however prove to be negative and harmful for man, since they are different subjects and species. In the text there’s the report of one of the best-known examples, that Paraphrase of Text of Amanita phalloides, lethal to humans in minimal doses (…) [three source 1 with poor sentences omitted] mentioning In vitro tests, conducted on isolated cells and tissues, supply precious Personal rework of information as well, since they are carried out on the cells of the species Text source 1 without affected by a disease. These tests are used in the study of the pathology, explicit reference so that there’s no difference of effects for drugs and treatments due to the difference of species. We can read in many documents that computerized models and systems, Paraphrase of Text that simulate with a remarkable degree of reality the functioning of the source 3 with poor organism, give more substantial help. mentioning I think that every living being has its place and deserves to have a right Copy of Text source to life, just as human beings do. 3 without explicit reference For this reason vivisection is a practice which should be suppressed.

Personal idea

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Appendix D. Analysis of Argumentative Speaking table d

Example of an individual set of utterances with coding for all indices of speaking quality

Note. The transcript refers to a set of utterances produced in 1 min 46 sec by a student with an introduction role and a stance opposing hunting.

Writing as a Vocabulary Learning Tool Kenan Dikilitaş and Jerome C. Bush

1

Introduction

In the early to mid-1970s, researchers and authors began to examine the impact of writing on learning (Britton, 1972; Emig, 1977). Since that time, the research on writing-to-learn has shown that, although writing may produce positive learning results, the relationship of writing to learning is complex (Tynjälä, 2001b). Recent research has shown that writing collaboratively leads to construction of knowledge (Nykopp, Marttunen, & Laurinen, this volume) and that writing is a multi-faceted activity that assists in the development of cognitive abilities as well as the understanding and memorization of content knowledge (Bazerman, Simon, & Pieng, this volume). However, writing in a second language adds an additional level of complexity as students are developing linguistic skills in addition to satisfying communicative and educational goals. The bulk of the research on writing in a second language has been produced fairly recently, since the 1980s (Polio, 2003). Most of this research falls into four categories: research about the texts being produced, the process (or processes) being used, the participants, or the context. The research about writing in a second language has been focused mostly on developing the ability to produce acceptable written products, not on the impact writing has on language learning in general. However, there is a growing body of research on the impact of writing on other linguistic competencies, such as vocabulary (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Frodeson & Holten, 2003). Learning vocabulary is a challenge for most students. Vocabulary acquisition competes for time with other aspects of language learning. Additionally, a large amount of vocabulary needs to be acquired for students to be effective communicators, and vocabulary knowledge is interrelated in complicated ways (Zimmerman, 2009). Moreover, teachers have a limited time in which to provide instruction and many other responsibilities such as lesson planning and evaluation (Nation, 2008). Because both teachers and students have so much to accomplish in a limited amount of time, the need to be strategic and efficient in learning second language vocabulary is clear. Dikilitaş, K., & Bush, J.C. (2014). Writing as a vocabulary learning tool. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 44–65). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_004

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Oxford (1990) identified six broad categories of learner strategies: cognitive, meta-cognitive, memory-related, compensatory, affective, and social (Ehrman & Oxford, 1990). N. Schmitt & McCarthy (1998) adapted Oxford’s general categories to the specific area of vocabulary to create a taxonomy of strategies for L2 vocabulary acquisition. While a full discussion of vocabulary learning strategies is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to establish that research has indicated a strategic orientation towards vocabulary acquisition is beneficial. This paper will describe a study examining vocabulary from a strategic perspective. Particularly, the impact of writing exercises on the acquisition of second language vocabulary. Additionally, the differences between receptive and productive vocabulary learning will be explored. This is related to implicit and explicit instruction. Implicit instruction was popularized by Krashen’s (1985) Input Hypothesis, which was rebutted by Swain (1985). The results of the current study suggest that teachers and students make use of both of these orientations. 1.1 Second Language Writing and Vocabulary Acquisition A number of studies have confirmed the positive impact of compositional writing on vocabulary learning. Muncie (2002) argued that L2 writing in certain contexts can be seen as a tool for general language improvement, and it could be especially beneficial for vocabulary development. Among the reasons for this are that students take more time in writing, which allows for greater experimentation with new words than speaking does. Writing also allows for greater use of resources such as dictionaries, the internet, and peer reviews. This may help students to activate less frequent but more appropriate words which may be in their passive vocabulary, but not yet fully part of their active vocabulary (Corson, 1997). Corson contrasts “active” and “passive” vocabulary and says that full vocabulary learning has not taken place until words are available for active use. According to Corson, if students are not able to experiment with low-frequency, academic words in activities such as writing, they will not be able learn the rules for proper usage of such words. Coomber et al. (1986) listed three factors that may account for the positive influence of writing on vocabulary learning: the use of the words in meaningful contexts, the students’ utilization of their higher level cognitive functions, and slow nature of writing that increases time for elaboration on lexical knowledge. Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) assert that the reason writing assists in vocabulary acquisition is that writing calls for deeper processing than other forms of practice. They have developed the Involvement Load Hypothesis, and ranked the level of involvement required of students to complete various activities. In short, their contention is that the deeper the involvement, the better the retention. In their study, those students who engaged in a letter writing

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activity had roughly double the vocabulary retention of students who studied vocabulary through reading and reading with a fill-in task. The letter writing activity required the students to become more involved with the target vocabulary, which led to learning gains over the other two groups. In addition to compositional writing, other writing types have been examined in regard to their impact on vocabulary acquisition. Many of these studies favor repetition. For example, Folse (2006) used three different activities in his study: a fill-in-the-blank exercise performed once, fill-in-the-blank exercises performed three times, and writing original sentences. The study found that students who did the fill-in-the-blank exercises three times outperformed the other two groups. In another study, a repetitive writing homework assignment was found to have a positive effect on beginning Iranian EFL learners’ vocabularies (Dehghani, Motamadi, & Mahbudi, 2011). Likewise, Maftoon (2006) supports the idea that vocabulary learning is made more effective by seeing the written form of a word and repetitively using it in context. However, Barcroft (2004, 2006) found that repetitive writing exercises inhibit vocabulary learning by forcing students to consider other aspects of word knowledge and language. Barcroft’s rationale is that the students have limited processing capacities. By using their processing capacity to produce sentences with new words, they are not focusing their full attention on learning the target vocabulary. Writing sentences requires working with syntax and semantic knowledge, not simply lexical knowledge. Barcroft noted, however, that while the semantic elaboration involved in sentence production can have an inhibitory effect during the initial stages of learning a word (the “form learning” stage), it could facilitate memory for known words (the “semantic learning” stage). In addition, Barcroft made a critical evaluation of the diverse findings regarding writing and vocabulary acquisition and attributed the contrasting findings to learners’ exposure to competing conditions, use of receptive versus productive measures and methodological limitations. Although writing has been found to function as a tool for learning vocabulary, it is also important to realize that vocabulary skill plays a key role in constructing a text (Leki and Carson, 1994). Vocabulary is a key component of language, and writing in a foreign language is difficult when there is insufficient vocabulary. Therefore, many students are interested in developing their vocabulary so that they can be better writers. This suggests a bi-directional relationship between vocabulary and writing. 1.2 Lexical Knowledge: Productive vs. Receptive A distinction between productive and receptive vocabulary is often made in the literature. Receptive vocabulary is the words which are understood when read-

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ing or listening. Productive vocabulary is the words one can use while speaking or writing. The tasks teachers use while teaching vocabulary tend to be receptive rather than productive (Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985; Nagy, Anderson, & Herman, 1987). Common teaching practices include providing a word along with a definition, matching words with their meanings, giving an example sentence that uses the word, guessing from context, learning from word pairs, or reading from a dictionary. In addition, some teachers provide other information such as synonyms and antonyms of the words, collocations, spelling, grammatical features, morphological features, or pronunciation. Receptive tasks are more commonly used and more popular than productive tasks mainly due to the simplicity they provide in designing, grading and completing assignments. Productive tasks, such as cloze exercises or sentence creation, are much less common. It has been argued in a number of empirical studies that L2 learners have more difficulty with developing productive than receptive vocabulary (Laufer and Paribakht, 1998; Nation 2001; Webb, 2008; Zheng, 2009). Studies on learning from word pairs indicate that teaching style (receptive or productive) has a bearing on the type and amount of knowledge gained (G. Griffin & Harley, 1996; Waring, 1997b). In other words, receptive learning tends to lead to significantly more receptive knowledge of words, just as productive learning may lead to more productive knowledge. Due to the simplicity of instruction and design, teachers use receptive tasks and test learners’ vocabulary knowledge through receptive exercises. This may account for the relatively large receptive vocabulary learners develop compared to their productive vocabulary (Laufer & Paribakht, 1998; Waring, 1997a). Convenience for the teacher may come at the expense of the learners, who are generally trying to learn how to communicate in a second language. 1.3 Lexical Knowledge: Breadth vs. Depth Learning vocabulary is not a simple act of memorizing a meaning. Nation (1990) lists a number of aspects that need to be acquired by a learner and that make word knowledge: meaning, associations, collocations, grammatical patterns where a word is to be used, frequency of use and orthography. Zimmerman also wrote about the complex and incremental nature of vocabulary teaching and learning (Zimmerman, 2009). Knowing the various aspects of a word, and how to use that word in multiple contexts, is considered deep knowledge. Reciting a definition for a word, without being able to use that word accurately, is an example of shallow knowledge. The breadth of vocabulary knowledge required by second language students to produce texts has also been discussed in the literature. It has been found that

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the size of a vocabulary can have an impact on the quality of a learner’s written work (Laufer & Nation, 1995). Laufer and Nation (1995) admit that vocabulary size is not the only determinant of the quality in second language writing. However, a positive correlation between vocabulary size and writing proficiency has been observed. Muncie (2002) found that Japanese students will use more (and more advanced) vocabulary in subsequent versions of a written project using the process writing approach. This shows again that the amount of vocabulary used is related to the quality of the text being produced. This underscores the importance of vocabulary learning. According to Nation (2001), “In general, high-frequency words are so important that anything that teachers and learners can do to make sure they are learned is worth doing.” (p. 16). Proficiency in a language requires knowledge of a wide enough vocabulary at a deep enough level to productively communicate.

2

The Current Study

After extensive review of the available literature it became apparent that the impact of the cognitive and productive task of writing on second language vocabulary acquisition was not fully explored. Furthermore, enough evidence was found in the literature to suggest that cognitive and productive exercises, such as writing, could have a positive effect. Therefore, the current study was designed to measure the impact of writing personally created texts on vocabulary acquisition. The study follows a quasi-experimental design and may rightly be called an intervention study. True random assignment was not done. For the purposes of clarity, we will be referring to the two groups as the “writing group” and “control group”. The following hypotheses were developed: 1. The writing group will demonstrate that they recognize the word definitions better by performing better on a matching test. 2. The writing group will demonstrate a deeper understanding of the vocabulary items by performing better on sentence writing exercises. 3. The writing group will experience greater overall vocabulary gains.

3

Method

3.1 Setting The study was conducted at Gediz University in Izmir, Turkey. The university was established in 2009 and now offers courses in 4 faculties in which the

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language of education is English. To prepare students for this academic journey, the preparatory school teaches academic English. Nearly 500–600 students attend the preparatory school each year. The students, with or without scholarship, are admitted to the university through a national placement test. Once they have enrolled in the school, they are required to graduate from the English language program at B2 level to be eligible to start their majors in the faculties. The preparatory program is composed of 4 quarters, each lasting 8 weeks. The students finish one level per quarter. In each quarter, the students are given 4 achievement tests, one reader quiz, weekly vocabulary and speaking quizzes as well as one exit test. The combined results of these tests are averaged to determine the grade of the students. The students go through an extensive exambased process during the year. The program aims to develop students’ ability to use written and oral language productively as they need to listen to their professors, communicate with them and submit weekly reports and assignments in English. A student starting the program at A1 level is supposed to graduate at B2 level in an 8-month period. 3.2 Participants The study was conducted with 32 adult university students. Ages ranged from 18 to 20 in both groups. All the students were Turkish, except for two females who were from Mali. Students were planning on majoring in engineering, administration, or architecture. The control group had five females and eleven males, and the writing group had seven females and nine males. As the students were taking pre-sessional courses at the time of the study, they had no GPA’s. The students were not randomly assigned to one of the groups formed for the current research. However, the classes had no special distinctions. In other words, although purposeful randomization did not occur, the two classes could be said to be somewhat similar because they had gone through the same placement process and were assigned to classes at the same level. Therefore, the sampling method was purposeful as well as convenient. When the students entered the preparatory program at the university, they were given a placement test and placed as B1. At the beginning of the study, students in both groups had just begun level B2, in line with the common European framework. At Gediz University, this is called the “upper intermediate” level. They had been in the program for 2 and half months before the current class. The writing class consisted of 17 students. However, one had to be excluded because of frequent absence. Other students completed all the phases of study, attending the lessons and the activities, and completing the tasks given. The control class had 16 students, one of whom was absent on the day of the matching exam. However, it was decided not to exclude the student

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from the study because the written data was deemed to be valid and important. 3.3 Materials The words in this study came from Reading Explorer 2 (MacIntyre, 2009) and Reading Explorer 3 (Douglas, 2010). The materials used in the reading instruction consisted of 16 units that were covered in a period of eight weeks. The intervention was carried out in 128 hours completed in 32 days in total. In both groups the same books and units were used during the same amount of time. The words targeted for the current research were the ones that the book originally highlighted and aimed to teach. The vocabulary and activities were designed for the proficiency level of the participant students. Each unit in each book has 10 high-frequency target vocabulary words. The units start out with a pre-reading exercise that includes pictures, maps, and discussion questions. Then the books present reading passages that contain and highlight the target words accompanied by colorful pictures. After that is a page of comprehension exercises followed by a page of vocabulary exercises. The vocabulary section has exercises such as gap filling in a reading, manipulation of target words, and finding the appropriate definition in a context. 3.4 Measures A scale for measuring vocabulary knowledge was required. Paribakht and Wesche (1992) developed the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale, or VKS. The scale was refined and published again in 1997 (Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Since that time the scale has been widely used in research on second language vocabulary acquisition. One of the values of the scale is that the differences between the categories used in the scale are large enough to be self-perceived, yet small enough that gains can be seen within a relatively brief instructional period. This aspect of the scale was important for the current study. The five levels of the VKS are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The word is not familiar at all. The word is familiar, but its meaning is not known. A correct synonym or translation is given. The word is used with semantic appropriateness in a sentence. The word is used with semantic appropriateness and grammatical accuracy in a sentence.

The five points are meant to represent a continuum of word knowledge that goes from unknown to fully known.

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Meara (1996) was critical of the VKS, stating that the levels suggest a progression, and vocabulary acquisition doesn’t always follow a standard linear progression. According to Meara, it is possible for a student to write a correct sentence without full understanding of the target word. Students can just reproduce the word in the context in which it was first learned or a set phrase and earn a high rating on the VKS. Therefore, Meara did not consider the VKS fully reliable, and suggested that it is better to focus on the development of the lexicon than on decontextualized words. Meara’s points are well taken, but the current study is focused on following a discrete list of words, which is what the VKS was designed to do. Perhaps the strongest criticisms of the VKS appeared in an article by Bruton (2009). The major shortcoming of the VKS was found to be that it is a single instrument designed to test both receptive and productive knowledge. Bruton argued that different tests are needed to measure receptive and productive vocabulary. The categories were also found to be inadequate in measuring partial word knowledge. Furthermore, a large number of studies used modifications of the VKS, suggesting serious flaws in the original form. These arguments are certainly well thought out and logical. However, Paribakht and Wesche (1997) established an acceptable level of reliability (r = .89) using a test-retest method (Paribakht & Wesche, 1997, p. 180). Therefore, for the current study it was deemed an appropriate basis for the development of an assessment tool. Even Bruton (2009) conceded, “… the quantification of the scores on the VKS is restricted to totals per nominal category, which could be used to plot percentage changes per category over time (p. 295).” Because the goals of the current study had to do with plotting changes in nominal categories over time, it was decided to adopt the VKS, with modifications. Although a wide variety of vocabulary assessment tools exist (see N. Schmitt, 2010), the VKS, modified to compensate for the criticisms put forth in the literature, was deemed most appropriate for this study. 3.5 Pre-Course Vocabulary Knowledge Self-Assessment In order to establish that vocabulary learning had taken place in this study, it was necessary to determine how well the students knew the target words prior to taking the reading class. To control for the practice effect (participants learning from the pre-test), a self-reported measure was used to determine the initial level of word knowledge. Although many researchers are critical of self-reported measures, self-ratings have been found to be both reliable and valid measures of communicative language abilities (Bachman & Palmer, 1989; Ross, 2006). Self-reporting has been found to be accurate when participants are assessing what they do not know and less accurate when reporting what they

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do know (Heilman & Eskenazi, 2008). As the current study is about learning vocabulary, the most important distinction to make was which words were unknown to the participants at the start of the study. Self-reporting’s main threat to validity occurs when something is to be gained (e.g. grades, placement, or exemption from a task) from a high rating (Saito, 2003). In the current study however, the vocabulary exercises were simply homework, with no reason to give a false high rating. Therefore, it was determined that a self-reported measure would be the most appropriate tool to determine initial vocabulary knowledge. To this end, the researchers developed a scale, which they call the Pre-Exercise Self-Reported Vocabulary Evaluation Scale (or PESVES). The scale is based on the VKS, but differs from the VKS in that the VKS uses both self-reported and observed responses, while the PESVES uses only self-reported responses. The PESVES is a self-evaluation rubric (see below) designed to be easy for students to determine their level of lexical knowledge. The 160 target words were each given a score by the participants using the PESVES. The advantage of the Pre-Exercise Self-reported Vocabulary Evaluation Scale (PESVES) over the VKS is that the PESVES can be used with a large number of vocabulary words. In the current study, 160 vocabulary words were targeted for study by 32 students, giving a total number of 5,120 items. Using the unmodified VKS with the same two classes would require the evaluation of over 3,000 sentences by the teacher. The amount of time required to hand score the sentences would be burdensome. Additionally, it was assumed that many of the words were unknown. This could lead to many of the students refusing to write sentences, which would have an impact on the results. 3.6 Matching Tests The post-test consisted of two parts, a matching exercise and written sentence production. To this end, a simple matching test was devised. The vocabulary

table 1

The Pre-Exercise Self-reported Vocabulary Evaluation Scale (PESVES)

Pre-Exercise Self-reported Vocabulary Evaluation Scale 0 No answer 1 I have never seen this word before. 2 I have seen this word, but I am not sure I know what it means. 3 I know the meaning of this word, but I am not sure I always use it correctly. 4 I know what it means and I can use it easily.

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items were grouped in units of ten and definitions were obtained or adapted from the online version of Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English (http://www.ldoceonline.com/). The vocabulary words had blanks in front of them and the definitions had letters in front of them. The participants were asked to put the correct letter in the blank in front of the vocabulary word. This was done to determine if the participants could recognize the word-meaning connection at a fairly low level of receptiveness. Both the words and definitions were provided; the participants just had to recognize which definition went with which word. Such an activity could be termed passive recognition of vocabulary (Laufer, Elder, Hill, & Congdon, 2004). 3.7 Sentence Writing Exercises and Evaluation Rubric The second part of the post-test required students to write complete sentences using the target vocabulary. A sheet was prepared with all 160 of the vocabulary items. The sheet had a blank line next to each word on which to write a sentence. The students were instructed to write sentences of ten words or more. The reason for this was to give the raters ample evidence by which to assess the accuracy of the word knowledge. For example, from a sentence such as “It is a crisis.” the depth of the student’s vocabulary knowledge of the word “crisis” is hard to infer. A rubric was created to analyze the sentences, the Productive Vocabulary Evaluation Rubric (PVER). The PVER’s levels correspond with the levels in the PESVES.

table 2

0 1 2 3

4

Productive Vocabulary Evaluation Rubric (PVER)

Student didn’t write any sentence or answer, or had the word confused with another word. Completely incorrect usage, doesn’t show understanding of the meaning or semantics. Shows low understanding of the meaning of the word, may understand grammatical function or part of speech. Shows understanding of the meaning, but uses the word incorrectly. May use incorrect collocations or awkward usage (Example for the target word ‘tight’: “the road became tight.” Instead of “The road became narrow.”). Shows an understanding of the meaning and usage of the word. Ideally, students are using the word in a complicated way such as changing the part of speech, using idiomatic expressions, collocations, or adding inflectional or derivational morphemes.

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3.8 Procedures Before commencing each reading chapter, the students in both classes were given the self-reported measure with the ten target vocabulary words for the chapter to determine existing word knowledge. During the reading lessons, the students were taught the target words directly in an identical fashion by the same teacher (one of the authors of this study). The instructor followed a student-centered approach to increase comprehension by giving pair work or group work tasks during which students summarized each paragraph and discussed the content of the paragraph with other groups. This allowed the students to take the ownership of their own learning and gave them the opportunity to discover and create the meanings of the words through negotiation. It also lowers their dependency on teachers as the main source of knowledge. In student-centered classroom students do not necessarily expect teachers to approve, correct, advise or praise them (L. Jones, 2007). Rather, they construct knowledge through cooperative and collaborative activities with their peers in the classroom. The grouping arrangements during the instruction were not tracked. In each lesson the students formed pairs or groups without any teacher interference. The vocabulary words in Reading Explorer’s texts are highlighted and students were encouraged to become aware of the context of the words and their collocations. The students were encouraged to use the newly learnt vocabulary in the classroom. Due to time limits imposed by the syllabus, the students were not asked to use all the target words, but rather each pair of students were given one or two words to use in one or two sentences. After writing the sentences, each pair or group shared their sentences with others by reading aloud, and received immediate feedback on the accuracy of the use of the words. The classroom activity was designed to enhance their confidence to use the target vocabulary in their homework assignments. The intervention was conducted by one of the authors. He was the instructor of the reading course and has 15 years of experience of teaching adult university students. The nature of the intervention was developed by frequent interaction between the two researchers, who critically discussed the activities to be carried out in these reading courses. In addition to the tasks above, the writing class had two writing tasks. During the classes, as the first post-reading task, the students were trained to use the target vocabulary in sentences or short original compositions. These compositions varied in length from a few sentences to multiple paragraphs. Variation in style also occurred, some of the students wrote dialogs, others wrote narratives or expository pieces. This was done in pairs or groups of three. Each pair or group was given two of the vocabulary words by the teacher. The

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students were then asked to write a meaningful piece of text with one or two sentences using the target words from the chapter. The writings were discussed and compared by the whole class. This activity gave students the opportunity to consider the surrounding contexts of the words and better comprehend the meanings so they could improve their productive skill. This activity took about ten minutes of class time to complete. As the second post-reading task, the students were asked to write a paragraph at home in which they used all 10 of the target words together in the same text. The students had to submit their writing the day after the assignment was given. As the highlighted vocabulary words in the reading lesson chapters were thematically related, it was fairly easy for them to create contexts. Students reported that the writing homework took about 30 to 60 minutes to complete. The control group performed neither of these extra activities in the classroom or at home. In order to control the instructional time that both groups were given, the control group students were engaged in activities given in the extra materials of the course book that allowed them to do word matching, gap filling, listening and video watching relevant to the chapter. At the end of the course, after the eighth week, the students were given identical tests designed to measure the depth of their word knowledge. The first test was a matching test. All 160 words were given in 16 groups of ten words each on one exam. Both the target words and the definitions were provided. The students just had to select the correct definition from a list and write the letter associated with the definition in a blank next to the target word. Ample time was allotted and every student finished the matching exam. Scoring was done by simply marking the number of incorrect matches and subtracting from 160 to give the number of correct matches. After that, the sentence writing assignment was done in two sessions. During each session the students were asked to write 80 sentences for a total of 160 sentences. Again, ample time was given; however, many students did not write all of the sentences. Roughly 5,000 sentences were generated and analyzed in the current study. Two independent analyses were conducted, one by each of the authors, and the results were compared. The authors are experienced teachers who have worked with foreign language students for 11 and 15 years respectively. One of the researchers is a native speaker of English, while the other is a non-native EFL teacher. This yielded a number of different judgments and intuitions regarding the assessed word knowledge. The native speaker’s intuition contributed to the evaluation of idiomatic uses and nuances of meaning expressed in the sentences, while the non-native speaker’s judgments about the degree of accuracy and meaning enriched the interpretations regarding the rating process. The non-native teacher was aware of what the students were

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attempting to convey more often than the native speaker. The raters reflected upon the rubric and insightfully discussed what each category in the rubric referred to. However, discussion over specific words was kept to a minimum. A 77% inter-rater reliability was established. This would be considered “substantial agreement” according to the Landis-Koch kappa benchmarking scale (Landis & Koch, 1977). The Landis-Koch scale has six levels, “substantial” is level five, just under “almost perfect”. This indicates general agreement between the raters and that the rubric was fairly well understood by both of them. It should be noted that, to control for researcher bias, when the raters disagreed, the lower of the two choices was used.

4

Results

The data were tabulated in Excel and then entered into SPSS for statistical analysis. Because this study was done with a quasi-experimental design, t-tests were chosen as the best way to analyze the results. T-tests are commonly used to compare the difference between the means of two sample populations. The current study compared two groups, so ANOVA or other test was not used. The assumption of normality was met in every case of statistical difference by the Shapiro-Wilk test as well as the KS test. Levene’s test indicated an equality of variances. The confidence level was set at 95% (p = .05), which is a normal level to control for type I errors. The descriptive statistics of the two groups and the significance levels of the t-tests can be seen in Table 3 below. The PESVES scores constitute the pre-test or initial position of the participants. The higher PESVES scores at level one and two and the lower PESVES scores at levels three and four of the control group indicate that the control group students were less familiar with the target words than those of the writing group at the beginning of the intervention. The difference was not found to be statistically significant. Because the two groups are within the normal range of similarity, differences in the PVER (the post-test sentence writing) cannot be attributed to pre-existing vocabulary knowledge. The significant differences in the PVER scores are most likely due to the writing intervention. Interestingly, the writing group, on average, had worse performance (roughly 3% lower) on the matching exercise (M = 137.69, SD = 14.45) than the control group (M = 143.07, SD = 34.83). Although not statistically significant, this finding was surprising for two reasons. Firstly, the writing group reported a higher initial knowledge of the target words. Secondly, the writing group had to perform a cognitive task involving the target words that the control group was not required to do. Therefore, we must conclude that hypothesis 1 is not supported.

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writing as a vocabulary learning tool table 3

Descriptive statistics and significance

Control (n = 16) M SD

Writing (n = 16) M SD

T (30)

PESVES-0 PESVES-1 PESVES-2 PESVES-3 PESVES-4

1.25 50.13 36.31 21.06 50.00

.00 41.56 30.69 22.63 65.13

.000 20.21 8.36 9.28 24.51

1.00 1.296 1.388 -.465 -1.926

.333 .205 .175 .645 .064

Matching

143.0* 14.45*

137.7

34.83

-.555

.583

PVER -0 PVER -1 PVER -2 PVER -3 PVER -4

67.81 1.19 11.00 23.81 56.19

18.75 .63 12.50 35.69 93.63

11.07 .89 6.56 10.74 17.44

7.192 1.071 -.570 -2.944 -6.084

.000 .296 .573 .006 .000

5.00 17.05 13.88 9.71 19.65

24.94 1.91 8.22 12.04 17.37

Sig. (2-tailed)

* n = 15

The productive word knowledge, or the ability to use the words in complete sentences, was examined. This yielded several significant results. First, a significant difference in the level zero sentences was found between the control group (M = 67.81, SD = 24.94) and the writing group (M = 18.75, SD = 11.07), t (30) = 7.19, p = .000, d = 2.73. The control group refused to write many of the sentences, while the writing group was not so reluctant. Cohen’s effect size value (d = 2.73) shows that the writing exercises had an extremely large impact on the ability and/or willingness to produce sentences incorporating the target vocabulary. Additionally, significant differences were found in level 3 sentences for the control group (M = 23.81, SD = 12.04) and the writing group (M = 35.69, SD = 10.74), t (30) = -2.94, p = .006, d = 1.04 and the level 4 sentences for the control group (M = 56.19, SD = 17.37) and writing group (M = 93.63, SD = 17.44) t (30) = -6.08, p = .000, d = -2.15. An analysis of the Cohen’s effect size values (d = 1.04, and d = -2.15, respectively) shows that the intervention had a very large effect on the participants ability to produce a sentence which accurately used the target word. Based on these results, we conclude that hypothesis 2 (the writing group will be able to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the

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vocabulary items by performing better on sentence writing exercises), was supported. To test hypothesis 3, that the writing group would have greater overall vocabulary gains, the results were examined by comparing the differences in the PESVES and PVER scores. The results were taken from Table 3 and are compared in Table 4 below. The percentage change in the level zero scores is not reported because only one student omitted a few of the answers in the PESVES, while many students didn’t write all of the sentences called for in the PVER. Showing a percentage change from zero to any number is not meaningful. Comparing the raw difference scores at level 0 is the best way to consider the differences of the two groups at that level. The higher number of level zero words for the control group show a higher inability or unwillingness to write sentences. As for the level one words (completely unknown words), they have all but disappeared in both groups (98% reduction). This is not surprising, considering the words had been studied for eight weeks. Both groups also show marked decline in the number of level 2 words (-70% and -59 % respectively). However, in the level 3 and 4 words, the writing group is showing more gains than the control group. This indicates that the writing group has gained a deeper productive knowledge of the words than the control group. Specifically, the writing group is demonstrating a better knowledge of the semantic and syntactic features of the target words. This provides further support for hypothesis 2 and contributes to the support of hypothesis 3.

table 4

Comparison of group means

Control level 0 Writing level 0 Control level 1 Writing level 1 Control level 2 Writing level 2 Control level 3 Writing level 3 Control level 4 Writing level 4

PESVES

PVER

Difference

Percent

1.25 0 50.13 41.56 36.31 30.69 21.06 22.63 50 65.13

67.81 18.75 1.19 0.63 11 12.5 23.81 35.69 56.19 93.63

66.56 18.75 -48.94 -40 -25.31 -18.19 2.75 13.06 6.19 28.5

N/A N/A -98 -98 -70 -59 13 58 12 44

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The breadth of learning, or number of words brought into the productive vocabulary, was also higher for the writing group. Looking at Table 2 one can see a 13.06 word increase at level 3 for the writing group compared to a 2.75 word increase for the control group. Additionally, the writing group is showing a 28.5 word increase at level 4 compared to a 6.19 word increase by the control group. The writing group made greater gains in the number of vocabulary words they could use. Because the writing group showed greater gains in both the depth and breadth of vocabulary learned, it must be considered that Hypothesis 3 is supported.

5

Discussion

5.1 Major Findings It was found that there was a significant difference in the writing group’s ability to write sentences that accurately use the target vocabulary (level 3 and 4) after the intervention. This indicates that training students to use vocabulary productively in sentences and short compositions will help them learn target vocabulary more effectively. The writing group showed gains in the number of words brought into productive vocabulary. The writing group was able to demonstrate semantic and syntactic knowledge as well as lexical knowledge during the PVER sentence writing task. A related significant finding was that the students in the control group showed a greater reluctance to writing the sentences asked for in the PVER. If the high number of blank answers were due to fatigue alone, it would seem logical that the writing group would have a higher number of blank answers because they had additional homework requirements. However, this was not the case. It could be possible that the refusal to write was due to some kind of psychological resistance. Another reason the control group may have refused to write the sentences is that they simply could not perform the task. Whether it was because of fatigue, resistance, or lack of knowledge, the control group did not demonstrate any ability to use roughly 42% of the target words. The writing group refused to write sentences for only about 12 % of the target words. An interesting finding was that the treatment did not have a significant effect on the matching tests. The matching tests, according to Laufer, et al. (2004), could be termed as passive recognition, the lowest of four levels of vocabulary knowledge described in their article. As the matching task included both the target words and the definitions, it was considered that this test would show the receptive skill of the participants. Surprisingly, the writing group scored lower than the control group, although the writing group had worked more with the

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words. However, this finding supports Barcroft’s (2004) assertion that writing activities can have an inhibiting effect on the ability to recognize new words. In a subsequent study Barcroft (2006) wrote, “… requiring learners to write target words in sentences can decrease their ability to learn those words by depleting processing resources that otherwise could be used to encode target word forms and establish form-meaning connections.” (p. 494). An additional finding was the difference between the PESVES and PVER scores within and between the groups as shown in Table 2. This was most pronounced in level 4. By the end of the study, the control group students were able to actually produce an increase of just over 6 sentences at level 4, an increase of 12.38%. The writing group, on the other hand, realized an increase of almost 30 sentences, or 43.76%. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r = -.73) indicates that 73% of this difference between the two groups can be explained by the productive tasks during the intervention. This means that 73% of the 43.76% increase was due to the intervention, while 27% of the increase was due to individual factors. This finding must be viewed cautiously due to the tendency for individuals to exaggerate about known items in self-reported measures such as the PESVES. Assigning learners productive tasks in the form of sentence writing and original text writing using the words taught in reading lessons seems to be an effective tool to enhance vocabulary knowledge. It also helps them to learn how to use this knowledge in their language. The negative effect of writing sentences on vocabulary learning reported by Barcroft (2004) is related to new words rather than known words. Apparently, making the words known to students through teaching vocabulary in a reading context prior to productive vocabulary activities is beneficial. The two complementary measurement tools, the PESVES and the PVER, utilized in this study were found to be useful. The advantage of PESVES/PVER over the VKS is that it can be used with a relatively large amount of vocabulary. In the current study, 160 vocabulary words were targeted for learning by 32 students. The VKS accepts self-reporting only at levels 1 and 2, but requires students to demonstrate their vocabulary knowledge at the higher levels. The thousands of sentences that would need to be evaluated using the VKS in this case would take a great deal of time and energy. Additionally, if one is interested in measuring the impact of a course of study on students’ vocabulary knowledge, one may very well want to control for the practice effect. The PESVES was found to be a convenient method to obtain data that could be analyzed in a meaningful way. The PESVES and PVER have been designed to be complementary measurement devices. They are designed to be easy to use both by the student and the

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teacher. Admittedly, it took a lot of time to analyze the sentences at the end of the experiment. However, the combination of the two measures provides some very useful information. One drawback of the PESVES/PVER combination is the lack of precision. A similar criticism has been made about the VKS. The numerical levels do not give an adequate reflection of partial word knowledge. Apparently, the perfect method for assessing vocabulary learning has yet to be developed. Recent improvements of computer assisted methods such as computer adaptive tests or the Coh-Metrix system are promising (Laufer & Goldstein, 2004; Graesser, McNamara, Louwerse, & Cai, 2004). However, for this study, it was found that the PESVES/PVER combination was relatively easy to administer, controls for the practice effect, and provides results that can be examined categorically. Therefore, we recommend other teachers and researchers to try utilizing this combination of measurement devices in their work. 5.2 Relation of Findings to Other Studies The results of the current study are in line with an enduring and popular theory of memory. With their Levels of Processing theory, Craik and Lockhart (1972) were responding to research on memory that was conducted mostly in the late sixties. These studies from the sixties focused on methods of memorization such as presentation rates, scaled properties of stimuli, serial position, or the form of the memory test (Lockhart & Craik, 1990). Craik and Lockhart postulated that memorization is not the result of a special encoding process, but the byproduct of normal cognition. In other words, the ability to remember a certain item is related to the way the individual cognitively processes that item when encountered. Although many cognitive functions have been identified, Craik and Lockhart argued that no specific “committing to memory” function exists. To get a subject to remember a word, Lockhart and Craik make the assertion that it is important to control the “orienting task”. This will control the “depth of processing” (a term which Craik and Lockhart admit is ambiguous) and the quality of recall or recognition. To quote directly from Craik (2002) “Using orienting tasks that induced the participants to process words in a deep semantic fashion, it was easy to demonstrate that incidental encoding can yield levels of memory performance that are at least as good as those obtained after intentional learning.” (p. 310). Later, Craik makes a distinction between “remembering” and “knowing” saying that knowing may be due to higher levels of processing. “One possibility is that representations at higher levels are more interconnected and networked, thereby providing more access routes for retrieval processes; another is that the general knowledge represented by higher levels is used to interpret new events or plan

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new actions, and is therefore accessed more frequently than is specific event information represented by lower levels (pg. 313).” This distinction between knowing and remembering is important for language teachers who want to provide vocabulary instruction. In the majority of cases, language teachers would rather have the students know a word than just remember it. To achieve that aim, target vocabulary must be processed in a deep semantic fashion. The productive action of writing requires such deep semantic processing. This may also help to explain why, in the current study, the groups performed similarly (3% difference) on the matching test and dissimilarly on the PVER sentence writing activity (roughly 400% difference). The control group simply had no tasks which oriented them towards productive use of the vocabulary. Additionally, they did not have the deep semantic processing activity of writing. Both groups, however, were trained to remember the target words. The contention here is that knowing a word is not a simple matter of remembering the form-meaning connection. Furthermore, teaching which concentrates on the form-meaning connection without any tasks which orient the student toward productive use are of limited value to students. After graduating, when former students find themselves in the work environment, they will seldom have to respond to a vocabulary matching test. However, it is quite likely that they will have to construct sentences that incorporate new vocabulary items. Therefore, for the benefit of the students, it behooves teachers to employ productive tasks such as writing when teaching vocabulary. 5.3 Comprehensible Input vs. the Output Hypothesis One of the issues in this study concerns the nature of vocabulary teaching. There has long been a debate over the relative merits of explicit instruction and implicit acquisition. Krashen is probably the most well-known proponent of implicit acquisition. In the mid-1980s, he developed a theory that “comprehensible input” is sufficient for second language acquisition (Krashen, 1985). Swain (1985, 1995) disagreed. According to Swain, output has the key role in second language acquisition. Swain noticed that immersion students failed to produce language like a native-speaker in spite of considerable comprehensible input. This led her to think that mere exposure to input was not enough to trigger production. Swain and Lapkin (1995) argue that it is when learners are producing language that they become aware of problems and seek ways to produce better output. Krashen (1998) responded by saying that “comprehensible output” is a rare phenomenon and therefore can’t be a major contributor to second language acquisition. Swain contends that “Comprehensible Output” can be a misleading term (Swain, 2007). When she was formulating her hypothesis, “output” was

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considered a verb which described the process of production, not the product itself. She did not mean that the output must be understandable, just that the cognitive effort involved in the encoding process can be helpful at times for acquiring a new language. However, she did indicate that the output should be “pushed”, or encouraged by the teacher. Swain states that the claim of the output hypothesis is that, under certain circumstances, productive activities facilitate second language learning. Although the debate continues, most practitioners use some combination of instruction and practice. Rosenshine (2008, 2012) contends that effective teaching is strategic in nature. There is no reason to suppose that vocabulary teaching in a second language is an exception. A strategic approach to vocabulary learning may be beneficial to students’ education. A strategic series of vocabulary learning activities done in a particular order may prove beneficial to learners. That order is receptive activities starting with direct vocabulary instruction including explicit lexical explanations, followed by contextual analysis using reading or concordances, and then further elaboration through productive activities such as discussions and writing. Having considered the debate on the relative values of input and output, it was decided to use both of these approaches in the current study in a strategic manner, starting with input and moving to output. This study supports the view that newly learned words in context through reading lessons are cognitively processed, thus enhancing the awareness of word meaning. The possibility of putting this knowledge into use is enhanced by further cognitive processing in productive activities such as writing. In terms of vocabulary, this meant moving from lexical awareness to semantic elaboration, by moving from listening and reading to discussion and writing. We feel that similar strategic development of activities can have a positive impact on second language learning in general. A new term for this combination of input and output might be the “Throughput Hypothesis”. Briefly stated, the Throughput Hypothesis claims that language teaching is facilitated by strategically designed educational practices that start with receptive activities and move towards productive activities. We are suggesting that this orientation can assist in all language teaching and learning, even the development of receptive skills. For example, reading can be further developed with the aid of productive activities such as comprehension questions, summaries, response essays, and critical analysis discussions. Also, listening skills can be increased with a variety of productive exercises, including note-taking and cloze activities while listening to songs. Input and output cannot be considered in terms of relative importance without a context. In other words, both input and output are crucial to language

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learning, only the focus changes. If the goal is to develop receptive skills, more emphasis may be given to reading and listening. However, if the goal is the development of productive skills, then speaking and writing may be stressed. In either case, learning will be facilitated by the strategic inclusion of a non-focal activity. To state it clearly, every receptive activity should have a corresponding productive activity following it, and every productive activity should be preceded by a receptive activity. By using this strategic approach, second language acquisition will be both more efficient and more effective. One common goal of learning another language is to speak it with nearnative proficiency, or at least to be able to communicate in a real setting. Therefore, knowledge of rules and the ability to recognize words are not enough for many students. Language education should not solely be focused on developing the skill to pass a test. The Throughput Hypothesis suggests developing a production-oriented teaching mode, including writing activities, which will much better serve our students and prepare them for the challenges they will face in modern life. It is important that students start trying to learn vocabulary and stop trying to remember words. 5.4 Limitations As in all studies, this research is not without limitations. First, in an eight-week period 160 words were extensively taught and tested, which could lead to boredom and fatigue in the participating students. Many of the students did not write sentences in the final activity. Many potential reasons for this exist. The main potential reasons for refusal to write the sentences were identified as fatigue, psychological resistance, and inability. Total isolation of one linguistic feature in assessment measures is unlikely. In the current study, in addition to assessing vocabulary, the examinees were assessed on their ability to write sentences. The sentence writing ability was not tested prior to the start of the study. Perhaps some of the lexical items were known, but the participant may have lacked the writing ability to express the lexical knowledge. The self-reported initial measure could easily be said to be a shortcoming. However, research has shown that self-reports are in many cases both valid and reliable. The PESVES and the PVER measured the same construct using different methods. These rubrics were careful designed to collect reliable data. However, it must be admitted that the self-reported measure at the outset of the study will be considered by many to be a serious threat to the validity of this study. The intervention itself was not strictly controlled. The writing assignments were given as homework. The amount of time spent and exact procedures used

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by the students were not monitored. Furthermore, the writing assignments were not assessed nor feedback given. Although this is a limitation in terms of the validity of the study, it has implications for teaching. The gains reported by the writing group required only about ten minutes of class time per day. Also, the Bonferroni correction was not utilized. Although many variables are included in the study, only two groups are being compared. At the time of the study, it was thought that a Bonferroni correction could only be conducted with three or more groups. Therefore, a Bonferroni correction was not applied. In this case, the comparisons which are significant are highly significant (p < .005 in two cases and p = .006 in the other). Therefore, likelihood of a type I error in this case is extremely low and it is unlikely that the Bonferroni correction would have substantially altered the interpretation of the data. Finally, the sample size of 32 students is on the small side. A larger sample size will reveal more generalizable results. This study was also conducted only at one university preparatory program and other programs may provide for different results. More research is needed in the area of strategic vocabulary learning. Particularly, the impact of the cognitive processes involved in writing on vocabulary acquisition should be more thoroughly explored.

Supportive Writing Assignments for Less Skilled Writers in the Mathematics Classroom Markus Linnemann and Sabine Stephany

1

Writing—An Important Competence in the Mathematics Classroom?

Writing competence is, in addition to reading skills, one of the key competencies in a highly literate society, and its teaching is one of the central tasks of any school curriculum. In German schools, in research, and in public discourse, writing is mainly a matter for the German classroom. Writing is not yet a focus in other disciplines. So why do we promote writing in the disciplines at all and in mathematics in particular? One purpose of writing is to learn subjects in general: Writing can be used to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of a particular subject (cf., Mason & Boscolo, 2000, 2001). In contrast to spoken language, which is temporal and ephemeral, written language “leaves a permanent record that can be pondered and reflected upon” (Shanahan, 2006, p. 174; see also Pohl & Steinhoff, 2010). As writing gives time, it enables the writer to arrange, to deepen and to link knowledge, as well as to discover misconceptions. Another purpose of writing in the disciplines is to provide writers with the opportunity to take part in specialist discourse. This includes following school lessons, using specialist knowledge for communicative purposes, recognizing which issues of the respective subject are socially relevant, and which content contributes to social progress. These cannot all be taught in the German classroom but must be a topic of each other subject in the curriculum. However, learning math through writing is not a “fast sell”; writing assignments must be carefully constructed. Instructional concepts are in the scope of this article, but first we will briefly outline our understanding of writing competence and describe different functions of writing in the mathematics classroom. We will then look at the role of writing and writing assignments in mathemat-

Linnemann, M. & Stephany, S. (2014). Supportive writing assignment for less skilled writers in the mathematics classroom. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 66–93). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_005

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ics from three perspectives: curriculum requirements, teachers’ attitudes, and students’ difficulties. These insights reveal a strong need to define demands for writing assignments that support all students, but particularly support less skilled writers. On this basis, we will propose criteria for designing supportive writing assignments (SWA). Eventually we will give examples of SWAs and evaluate their impact on learning math and math related language.

2

Writing and Writing Competence

For the following considerations we will first explain our understanding of writing and writing competence under three headings: Writing is composing; writing is unlike speaking; and writing is an ongoing process. 2.1 Writing is Composing In this paper the term ‘writing’ means composing. Composing a text is an active, problem-solving, constructive process, because writers have to contribute their social, motivational, cognitive, and linguistic experiences (Becker-Mrotzek & Schindler 2007; McCutchen, Teske, & Bankston, 2008). For us, writing competence is divided into two aspects. First, writers have to integrate components that are mostly independent of the text type, and they have to integrate constituents that are effective across subjects. These include, for example, cognitive factors at a basic level, perceptual and motor skills, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, orthography, essential grammatical competence, reading competence, cohesion, and coherence. Further texttype independent components students have to integrate are the ability to take someone’s perspective, the ability to reflect, and to produce an unambiguous illocutionary act. Second, we consider writing competence to be an integration of components and knowledge that are subject-specific. These include a highly specialized lexicon, and specialized syntactic and morphosyntactic structures of text types that are typical of a given subject. Because text composition involves a complex interaction of the abovementioned components, writing demands considerable cognitive resources (Hayes, 1996; McCutchen, 1996). Mastering lower-level processes (such as spelling) releases cognitive capacity to integrate other skills to achieve a higher order skill (such as idea generating; Fayol, 1999). In addition to these processes, metacognitive control over writing subprocesses plays an essential role in text production (McCutchen, 1988).

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2.2 Writing is Unlike Speaking When discussing writing and writing competence it is important to take into account the differences between everyday spoken language and written language. Writing, and speaking alike, falls on a continuum of abstractness from informal to formal language (Chafe, 1982; Crystal, 2006; for German see e.g. Koch & Oesterreicher, 1985). Language required by many written tasks in school is located toward the formal end of this scale. This is due to an increased distance between the writer and the reader. Additionally, writing text is an asynchronous act of communication, without any options for direct interactions to ensure mutual understanding. For both these reasons, the writer has to take the prior knowledge of the reader into account. The less shared knowledge there is between interlocutors, and the higher the level of abstraction and generalization of the content is, the more explicit the language must become. Formal language is therefore more dense (e.g. complex nominal groups), more abstract, and less personal; it includes more explicit reference and less deictic expressions than the familiar, informal everyday language students use outside school in face-to-face contexts. Hence writing in a subject means knowing how to “manipulate the forms and structures of everyday spoken language in new ways to express more concisely and precisely the complex ideas and concepts that are embedded in the content of a subject” (Gibbons, 2009, p. 55). Learning the registers and conventions of the written and formal mode is a huge challenge for students, especially for those learning German as a second language (L2) or for those who are educationally disadvantaged (Lehrl, Ebert, Roßbach, & Weinert, 2012). 2.3 Writing is an Ongoing Process Learning to write effectively is a long-term process; it does not end in 2nd grade. After the foundations of motor skills, spelling, and other skills have been laid at the beginning of schooling, writing competence continues to develop into the ability to write within a discipline and in academic contexts. Therefore teachers of any grade level can never assume that students have accomplished “full” development in writing. Building on the basic competencies learned in the German classroom, subject-related language and text types must be taught explicitly. Consequently, it is the responsibility of every discipline to teach writing.

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Epistemic and Communicative Writing in the Mathematics Classroom

Writing in the mathematics classroom has two functions. The epistemic function of writing is to serve as a learning tool to understand and to apply mathematical content. The communicative function of writing is to express one’s mathematical thinking to others. It is important to use the language of mathematics, which comprises more than numbers and formulas, to express mathematical ideas precisely. 3.1 Epistemic Writing in the Mathematics Classroom Writing requires a different kind of thought in comparison to the kind of thought involved in speaking. Due to the physical and temporal absence of a participant in written discourse, knowledge has to be processed in order to adapt it to the rhetorical and pragmatic goals of the writer, a process of “knowledge transforming” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). Content knowledge can also be generated by “constraint satisfaction within distributed semantic memory, and in which sequences of ideas can be produced by inhibitory feedback from preceding output” (“knowledge constituting”, Galbraith, 1999, p. 139; see also Galbraith, 1992). The underlying processes of writing can be used to deepen the understanding of knowledge, to structure and to generate new knowledge. Writing can support conceptual understanding by stimulating growth in metacognitive thought and conceptual change (cf. Wallace, Hand, & Prain, 2004). However, various contextual factors have to be taken into account: (1) Florence and Yore’s (2004) study shows the value of situated learning and coauthoring between novices and experts in learning to write about science (see also Keys, 1994). Although not yet proven empirically, there is some evidence that it could be beneficial to explicitly teach students why writing is useful for learning (cf. Hübner, Nückles, & Renkl, 2010; Klein, 2000). (2) Writing about authentic and meaningful matters appears to facilitate the process of conceptual learning in science classes (Wallace et al., 2004). This is supported by psychological findings on the relationship between interest and learning (Andre & Windschitl, 2003; Chiu & Xihua 2008, Mason & Boscolo, 2004; Mason, Gava, & Boldrin, 2008). Thus, it must be shown for the mathematics classroom how authentic writing tasks can be established. (3) In the study of Gunel, Hand, and McDermott (2009) content learning was promoted when students wrote to younger students. This shows the value of writing for different and authentic audiences. Maier (2000) presents comparable findings in a study in which students had to write a mathematical report for other students. (4) Explicit

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instruction is needed, for example, to teach specific text types (Keys, 1999). (5) De La Paz and Felton (2010) have shown for argumentative essays on historical topics that teaching of pre-writing strategies leads to increased ability to use writing as a tool for learning. (6) In addition to these findings it can be shown that without a certain level of general language ability students cannot use writing as a learning tool (Stephany, Linnemann, & Becker-Mrotzek, 2013). Language ability is an important variable that may be mediating writing-tolearn effects (Rivard & Straw, 2000). The epistemic effect of writing can be used in the mathematics classroom in various ways. For example, students can learn to solve word problems by writing word problems (Gallin & Ruf, 1995). Knapp, Pfaff, and Werner (2010) used videography to examine the communication process while students wrote word problems in pairs. Mathematical prompts were presented as a rule of three: For example: 30→5, 1→150, 50→3; a resulting word problem could be, “30 workers need 5 days, how much time will 50 workers need?”. Knapp et al. found out that composing text leads to an intensive reflective process combining content and linguistic knowledge. Without mathematical and linguistic support however, some of the students created unacceptable word problems. Other ways of helping to build new mathematical knowledge include the following: Writing math journals (Hußmann, 2003), describing individual approaches to solving math problems and explaining calculation methods, creating lexicons and glossaries, generating math stories, and writing observation protocols or more elaborated papers on specific mathematical subjects (i.e. maxima and minima in curve sketching). In most of the aforementioned studies written products have not been analyzed linguistically in detail. Thus no evidence for the role of writing or for the role of communication skills was produced. These are nevertheless important, so we will deal with them in the next section. 3.2 Communicative Writing in the Mathematics Classroom Students have to learn to communicate about mathematical and technical matters, which is an important skill for many jobs. The application of mathematics in a multitude of contexts and situations has had a fundamental influence on the development of our society. To participate fully students therefore have to make use of mathematics in everyday life. They must use it as a tool to communicate quantitatively, solve mathematics-related problems, recognise situations in which mathematics must be applied, and use appropriate methods to support such applications, in the sense of mathematical literacy. Mathematics also has to be used to explain and predict phenomena in the physical and social

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environment. Only then can students become informed, confident, and active citizens. To communicate effectively, students must tailor their writing to the audience. Psychological concepts such as empathy, perspective taking (Schmitt & Grabowski, 2012), and social cognition and audience awareness (Bonk, 1990) are the backbone of communicative writing. However, several factors influence students’ ability to write for an audience. To be successful, writing tasks must have a clear communicative function such as informing, instructing, or convincing a reader (e.g. Bachmann & Becker-Mrotzek, 2010; Bachmann, Ospelt-Geiger, Ospelt, & Vital, 2007; Bräuer & Schindler, 2011; Couzijn & Rijlaarsdam, 2005; Rijlaarsdam & Braaksma, 2008). In addition to this, writing activities must include “realistic assignments linking classroom learning to professional utility”, involve “an audience other than the instructor”, and require “frequent interaction among students and instructors or teaching assistants” (Chinn & Hilgers, 2000, p. 12, highlighted by authors) to support communicative skills. Chinn and Hilgers (2000) report gains in content and career knowledge, writing skills, and research abilities in the university science classroom. There have been very few controlled studies concerning writing arrangements to explicitly support the communicative competence of students in the mathematics classroom. This points to the need for further research on this topic.

4

Curriculum Demands and Teachers’ Attitudes

Writing in the mathematics classroom can be demanded by school and education authorities in the form of educational standards, curricula, and textbooks. Therefore, using German sources, we will analyze these sources and examine whether writing plays any role at all. If writing is officially legitimized by the authorities, the question arises whether or not teachers incorporate writing tasks into their lessons and how they do this. We will show the results of a survey we conducted. 4.1 Curriculum Demands In 2004 educational standards for mathematics were introduced by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of Germany (KMK) as a component of quality assurance in school education. Educational standards dictate the goals of educational work in the form of learning outcomes for the transition from the primary level to the secondary level (4th grade) and for the intermediate school leaving certificate (10th grade). German

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school curricula are based upon these standards. To investigate the role of writing in math education we first analyzed educational standards (4th and 10th grade), school curricula (primary and secondary school), and textbooks (primary and secondary school). For the purpose of this article it is not necessary to go into the details of these analyses. The following results, however, should be noted. Writing is explicitly required in the standards for the intermediate school leaving certificate: Students are required to “read and write mathematical texts” (KMK, 2004a, p. 6, translation by authors), and to present mathematical knowledge in oral and written form (KMK, 2004a). In curricula for primary schools reference is made to written tasks: Students are required to present their methods of calculating and their thought processes in oral or written form. They write word problems and document their findings and learning experiences in written form (MSW, 2008). What is striking is that with only one exception all sample tasks that can be dealt with in written form in the educational standards for primary school (KMK, 2004b) are accounted as higher order mathematical tasks (“generalizing and reflecting”). Without support, less skilled writers may have difficulties in tackling these tasks and therefore would not get the opportunity to write in the first place. Also, students with low mathematical ability are impeded from performing higher order tasks. The possible positive effect of writing on mathematics learning remains unexploited for these students both in the guidelines and in the classroom. The review of representative textbooks shows various “operators”1 that require linguistic acts such as describing and explaining. However, most often it remains unclear how these tasks ought to be tackled, orally or in written form, or which text type or linguistic register is expected. Related teacher handbooks usually do not give any instructions or suggestions on how to deal with such linguistically challenging tasks in the classroom (see also Thürmann, 2012; Vollmer & Thürmann, 2010). 4.2 Teachers’ Attitudes As described above teachers may administer writing assignments in the mathematics classroom. However, for the mathematics classroom in Germany there is no research-based evidence that writing plays any role at all. Nonetheless, it can be presumed that students copy what is written on the blackboard and that

1 In contrast to mathematics in this context an operator is an action that must be performed linguistically such as describing, reporting, explaining, etc.

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they write to organize their homework but we assume that composing coherent text is not part of mathematics lessons. To address this issue we carried out a study to collect information about writing activities taking place in the mathematics classroom. A total of 50 math teachers of primary and secondary schools took part in an online survey. In the following section we give a brief overview of its main results. Teachers were asked to rate the frequency of nineteen writing tasks on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to very frequently (5). A factor analysis (PCA) yielded 6 factors accounting for 71.6 % of the variance. Table 1 shows the items, means, and factor membership. Results of our study reveal low frequencies for what we called highly challenging writing activities and high frequencies for low challenging writing activities. Highly challenging activities are activities demanding a high degree of knowledge, mental workload, and automatization; they result in the production of extended text, and require describing, explaining, arguing, and so on. Low challenging activities demand fewer skills and include copying from the blackboard or workbook. Writing single sentences or single technical terms fall between these two kinds of activities in complexity, and are thus called medium challenging writing activities. Our terms highly/medium/low challenging tasks refer exclusively to the cognitive demands of writing, not to the cognitive demands of the math. Next, we asked teachers what kind of students (high/low mathematical competence; high/low language abilities; German as L2, whole class) took part in the writing activities. Almost all of the low challenging writing activities (94.5%2) were used for all students in the classroom, compared to only 59.6 % of the highly challenging writing activities. Further analysis revealed that if teachers differentiated their courses, highly challenging writing activities were carried out by students with high mathematical competence (82.5% of the activities are directed to these students) or by students with high language competence (68.6%). Students with low mathematical or language competence were only engaged in highly challenging activities when the whole class was involved. Apparently teachers considered none of the writing activities as particularly helpful for students with low competencies. We were also interested in the application of the writing tasks. More than half of the teachers surveyed (58% (28)3) stated “yes” in response to the ques-

2 Percentages were calculated as follows: A percentage was first calculated per teacher per writing activity level and then summed up over all teachers within this writing activity level. 3 Two of the initial 50 teachers did not finish the survey.

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linnemann and stephany Writing activities median, mean scores, standard deviations and factor structure

Writing activity

Md

M

SD

Describing/explaining of calculation methods in writing Describing/justifying methods of arriving at an answer/solution methods in writing Arguing in written form Writing scientific/mathematic essays Writing protocols (e.g. of computer simulations)

2.0

2.58 1.13

3.0

2.94 1.15

2.5 2.0

2.62 1.01 2.18 1.21

1.0

1.70 0.89

Writing word problems/math 2.0 stories Writing math journals 1.0 Writing technical terms, definitions, 2.0 explanations on to word walls

2.22 0.74

Writing answers to word problems Writing definitions Writing questions to word problems Writing knowledge repositories and lexicons

4.0 4.0 3.0 2.0

3.92 3.64 2.96 2.45

Filling information into tables Labeling axes of diagrams Writing achievement tests Doing written calculations Copying tasks from a textbook

Factor Factor name 1

Highly challenging writing activities 1: describing, explaining, arguing, etc.; composing text

2

Highly challenging writing activities 2: composing short texts

0.95 1.24 1.01 1.28

3

Medium challenging activities 1: composing sentences

3.0 3.0 4.0

3.33 0.83 3.42 1.03 3.66 0.87

4

Medium challenging activities 2: writing mainly single words

4.0 2.5

3.66 0.82 2.56 1.25

5

Low challenging activities 1: calculate in writing

Copying from blackboards 4.0 Writing to organize (e.g. homework, 3.5 dates)

3.48 1.09 3.56 1.15

6

Low challenging activities 2: copying and organizing

1.78 1.19 2.48 1.11

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tion of whether they carried out complex writing tasks implying text composition. The majority of the teachers made language a subject of discussion; however, mainly technical terms were discussed. They also gave support and feedback to the students, and gave opportunities for peer feedback and text revision. Fewer teachers stated that their students never had to write to an audience or write for authentic reasons; 42% (20) of the teachers denied carrying out complex writing tasks at all. Nine of the 20 teachers stated they did not take writing into consideration; eight teachers had no time to apply writing tasks during their lessons. Only three expressed that writing is not appropriate in the mathematics classroom or has no learning effect (see Table 2). A total of 18% of the 50 teachers surveyed were unconcerned about writing in the mathematics classroom, 62% of all teachers surveyed never assign students to write for a specific addressee; and 70% stated that they never assign writing tasks with an authentic purpose. Our results on teachers’ attitudes show that the practices of most mathematics teachers hardly reflect the benefit of writing. However, writing can contribute much more to learning in the mathematics classroom than just organizing homework and administering lessons. Before we describe how writing assignments should be designed we will briefly illustrate problems of less skilled writers and students with German as L2 when trying to compose texts in the mathematics classroom without being supported. These are examples from simple, decontextualized writing tasks.

table 2

Reasons for not administering writing activities (multiple choice), total numbers and percent

Reasons

N

%

Writing tasks expect too much from my students No material available Writing is not appropriate in the mathematics classroom No time during the lessons to apply writing tasks I’m not qualified enough to apply writing tasks I haven’t taken writing into consideration yet

4 2 3 8 1 9

20.0 10.0 15.0 40.0 5.0 45.0

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Problems of Less Skilled Writers in the Mathematics Classroom

Students writing word problems or explaining calculation methods in written form without an appropriate support show relatively poor outcomes (for examples in German: Stephany, Linnemann, & Becker-Mrotzek, 2013). Students’ difficulties can have several different causes: poor mathematical abilities, insufficient cognitive or motivational dispositions, or poor linguistic abilities. Learning motor skills and spelling, applying syntactic structures of academic language, expanding the mental lexicon to include technical terms and cohesion types, and broadening the repertoire of text types can all be cumbersome for students in general, and can be even more cumbersome for students learning German as L2. The next paragraphs will discuss this from a linguistic point of view. 5.1 Motor Skills and Orthography Text composition can only be successful if students are able to write single letters and words. At the beginning of writing development motor skills and spelling make large demands on cognitive resources, resulting in decreased text quality and leaving reduced capacity for higher activities. Cognitive overload leads to decreased memory performance (Bourdin & Fayol, 1994), so that while composing students occasionally forget what they intended to write (BeckerMrotzek, 2006). Consequently, if a math student has difficulties with the orthographic transcription, he or she may not have sufficient capacity remaining to conceptualize and compose the word problem itself. Some students speaking German as L2 have learned a different orthographic system, such as Chinese or Arabic, further contributing to this problem. 5.2 Vocabulary, Cohesion, und Coherence According to Steinhoff (2009) vocabulary is the focal point of language acquisition at school, which leads to structural and functional implications. Vocabulary is not an autonomous system, but corresponds with choices at other linguistic levels, such as text type. Every text type has specific lexical and syntactic elements associated with it. This is also true of different disciplines, including mathematics: “In addition to single words, vocabulary [in each discipline] also includes collocations, phrases or syntactic constructions” (Steinhoff, 2009, p. 9, translated by authors). Research on students with German as L2 shows that vocabulary in particular causes problems (e.g. Antos, 1985; Grießhaber, 1999; Penner, 1998; Studer, 2000). Vocabulary relevant to writing texts includes content words, which are meaningful and have a referential function (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).

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It also includes function words, like conjunctions, pronouns, and prepositions, which have a decisive effect on coherence and cohesion. These words have no inherent meaning, but they function to connect words, sentences, phrases, or clauses together. In mathematics, function words can be used to express relations, including relationships between numbers. Diego’s word problem (see Figure 1) shows that function words can cause difficulties. If we were to first look at Diego’s word problem without looking at his calculation, we would conclude that this word problem cannot be solved unambiguously. His calculation shows that the 3 and 8 adults should be a subset of the 30 adults mentioned before. This is not expressed explicitly but it is necessary to know it to solve the word problem. Diego’s problem with writing an adequate word problem is linguistically induced. Using the word “must” in his first sen-

figure 1

Diego’s word problem (5th grade)

30 adults pay 40€ each month. 3 adults forgot to pay. 8 adults don’t know if they have to pay. a) How many adults pay? b) How much do the adults pay? a) A: 19 adults pay every month. b) A: The adults pay 931€ every month. Translation4

4 Corresponding translations by authors, spelling and grammar are usually corrected.

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tence, and using the correct, relevant function words (“dass”; “that” instead of “ob”; “if”), would change his unsolvable word problem into a solvable one. The German subjunction “ob” is used to express uncertainty and doubt. It is thus not possible to decide whether the 8 adults are a subset of the 30 adults or not. Diego’s calculation shows “that” they have to pay, which means they are definitely a subset of the 30 adults. This example shows the importance of being precise when writing mathematical texts. 5.3 Grammar and Syntactic Structures Grammar and syntactic structures unique to academic language must be learned by students and integrated into their text productions. In particular, linguistic structures which are rarely used in everyday language but which are relevant for the language of schooling can cause difficulties. These include complex noun groups, complex syntax, subordinate sentence structures, and passive constructions (e.g. Diehl, 2000; Dollnick, 2000; Wegener, 1998). Mehmed’s word problem (see Figure 2) is a very simple one for a 6th grade student. Mehmed uses only simple main clauses with a subject-verb-object structure, connected by “and”, without using pronouns. A subordinate clause, such as “Mehmed wanted to buy a ball that costs 10 €”, would have been more appropriate than two main clauses. Probably Mehmed does not compose a more challenging task because he has not yet developed the linguistic means to express complex mathematical issues. He has only been learning German for a relatively short time. 5.4 Text Type Knowledge of a text type, including its purpose, form, and language features, has an important function for recurring writing tasks (Becker-Mrotzek, 2006).

Mehmed and Ivan went shopping and Mehmed wanted a ball the ball costs 10€ and Ivan wanted a football boots that costs 10€ how much did this cost altogether? Mehmed and Ivan have to pay 20€. Translation figure 2

Mehmed’s word problem (6th grade)

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Text types can be seen as relatively subject-independent (e.g., a report), or strongly associated with a specific subject (e.g., mathematical word problems, laboratory reports in chemistry). Two examples illustrate the difficulty of the application of the required text type. In her word problem (see Figure 3) Anna already gives the answer to her own question, hence it is not necessary for the recipient to calculate it. If we consider word problems as a specific text type, then we can say Anna’s knowledge of this genre is deficient because the text type “mathematical word problem” implies not giving the answer in the text. Alvine’s processing of the task (see Figure 4) also illustrates the mishandling of text types and linguistic operators. The operator “explain” in the assigned task required the student to write why it is possible to calculate with the Napier’s bones, and to describe what the bones look like. Instead of writing an explanation, Alvine switches between instruction and description; she does not explain, which could have had a larger epistemic effect. It is not possible to make a conclusive assessment of whether this problem is due to a lack of linguistic competence or a lack of mathematical competence. Probably the communicative part of the task, which was addressed “to your parents”, does not fit the epistemic purpose of the task, “to explain,” because the student may consider it sufficient to show her parents how Napier’s bones work, instead of giving them insights into the mathematics behind it. These examples show students’ linguistic and mathematical challenges when writing on mathematical issues. Not all learners have sufficient skills to master these tasks on their own. Without the required language competences in addition to certain mathematical abilities writing does not unfold its full potential on learning content and language. Supporting subject-related language competences is necessary in order to help students express mathematical concepts on an academic language level and thus enable them to use writing as a learning tool. Those who are in need of such support are second language learners. Thus for writing as a learning tool it is not if but how writing

48 cars are in a garage 25 cars are sound and 23 cars are broken Q: How many cars does he have to repair? Translation figure 3

Anna’s word problem (3rd grade)

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Task: “Imagine you have to explain to your parents how Napier’s bones work.” Alwine’s answer: “First you come up with a number, for example 325 * 4. After that you take the bones and on top of these bones there are the numbers 123 … Then you lay the number 325 * 4, on one bone ‘factor’ is written. Lay this factor as well and look at the 4th position. Then you simply calculate as a rhombus.” Translation figure 4

Alvine’s solution (6th grade)

tasks shall be used (Thürmann, 2012). We will address the issue of “how” by setting up writing assignments meeting specific criteria. These criteria will be explained next.

6

Supportive Writing Assignments

Based on theoretical considerations, curricular demands, teachers’ behavior, and classroom examples, criteria for supportive writing assignments (hereafter, SWA) in the mathematics classroom will now be formulated. These assignments should combine the communicative and epistemic function of writing to promote two processes: One is learning-to-write, that is, becoming acculturated in the specific discipline and gaining mathematical literacy; the other is writing-to-learn, that is, content learning. Because findings on epistemic and communicative writing for a particular audience partly overlap (Gunel, Hand, & McDermott, 2009), we assume that communicative writing can trigger the epistemic function. Communicating, considering writing goals, and taking into account the audience, may lead to a deeper analysis of the subject content; this has to be tested empirically. Additionally, functional-pragmatic competencies in the sense of mathematical literacy can be acquired. Our understanding of writing assignments goes well beyond just presenting single isolated writ-

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ing tasks: Applying writing assignments means supporting students all the way from building background knowledge to independent writing. Derived from the theory and research discussed above, our criteria for SWA are as follows: Supportive writing assignments are situated and authentic. “Knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used” (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). SWAs are situated in a specific context, linked to the student’s reality and framed individually, in accordance with the student’s needs. Students have the opportunity to gather useful information and acquire common or everyday knowledge to know what to write about. This knowledge has to be relevant to the students. Writing tasks will be perceived as “authentic” if they directly refer to situations or problems in the lifeworld of the students (Bräuer & Schindler, 2010). As math is often abstract and decontextualized, topics used for writing assignments have to be chosen carefully. But as tasks fall on a continuum of inauthentic to authentic, the amount of authenticity involved in the tasks should be increased, even if it is not possible to apply entirely authentic and situated tasks in every lesson plan. For example writing word problems for class members would be less authentic than writing for a newspaper, but more authentic than writing them for the teacher. In the last section we will show an example of writing authentic word problems for a mathematical quiz that was part of a school party. Supportive writing assignments have different and authentic audiences and addressees. SWAs support the ability to change perspective and write audienceoriented texts, because the writing tasks have different and authentic audiences and addressees. Supportive writing assignments have a distinct communicative function. Only if students know the goal and the audience of their communication can they reasonably choose the structure, content, and language of the text. Therefore SWAs always include an explicit function such as instructing someone to do something. Supportive writing assignments make use of explicit instruction and show the value of writing. Archer and Hughes (2011) give an overview of the characteristic elements of an explicit approach to teaching, which provides valuable ingredients for SWA. In explicit instruction, skills are sequenced and

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broken down into smaller instructional units. In our approach students do not usually start with writing full text; SWA guide students through the process of producing text. Another feature of explicit instruction is to “begin lessons with a clear statement of the lesson’s goals and your expectations” (Archer & Hughes, 2011, p. 2). We support using this practice for most writing tasks. Supportive writing assignments allow for interaction among students, teachers, writers, and readers. One of the principles of SWA is to encourage classroom activities that promote communication, not only between students and their teachers, but also among students themselves, and between writers and readers. These last two options help students to monitor the effect of their text on the reader (Rijlaarsdam, Braaksma et al., 2008). SWA allow for peer writing and math conferencing, and give students the opportunity to interact socially and receive peer feedback. Oral communication can serve as a scaffold for written communication (Quasthoff, Ohlhus, & Stude, 2009). Supportive writing assignments take the student’s language ability into account. In SWA less skilled writers are explicitly helped to gain necessary everyday knowledge and content knowledge on one hand, and the linguistic means for the composition of a mathematical text on the other hand. Language ability can be supported in three ways: Building the field, vocabulary building activities, and discovering the linguistic patterns of various text types. Each of these methods will now be briefly discussed. Building the field means assessing and activating prior knowledge of the topic; it also means building new content knowledge or linguistic knowledge that is relevant for the required task. Building the field is important because it helps students to connect their knowledge with the body of knowledge to be learnt. However, in the mathematics classroom it is not enough to acquire everyday knowledge; previous mathematical knowledge has to be explicitly built up to master mathematical writing tasks. Vocabulary building activities are an important element of SWA. Single words, technical terms, collocations, phrases, and syntactical constructions have to be contextualized and embedded systematically in the lessons. Scaffolds for building vocabulary include the use of knowledge repositories, mind maps, and word walls with important terms and phrases. In SWA students have the opportunity to discover the linguistic patterns and meanings of various text types, and reflect upon them. This can be done, for

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example, by analyzing and comparing different texts in terms of their purpose and distinguishing features. Dealing with various text types is particularly important for writing in math. Some of the text types are not commonplace in everyday speech; for example, there is no orally transmitted equivalent of word problems. These types of texts do not become incorporated into the repertoire of text types before schooling, in contrast to narrative texts. Scaffolds for the handling of different text types can be sentence frames, means for structuring texts, checklists, and joint constructions. Sentence frames are given sentences with blanks placed at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence (Figure 5 shows two examples). Students have to fill in one or more words. Sentence frames can be used to develop vocabulary or syntactic structures. Checklists can guide students through the writing process or guide them in peer-response activities, for example to help to reflect if all the information needed is in the text. In a joint construction students create text in a teacher-student collaboration. The teacher leads the discussion and remodels the written text by asking the students to discuss each step. Joint construction is a method to develop knowledge about specific text types, about the writing process and to develop a meta-language to describe the genre. Some of these aforementioned methods are adapted from the teachinglearning cycle developed by systemic functional linguists (Feez, 1998; Gibbons, 2009). In this cycle, these methods are employed in a quantity, and in particular

figure 5

Materials for calculating with the abacus (key vocabulary and sentence frames on denoting numbers), created by teacher trainees

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ways, that are adapted to students’ language competences and the kinds of writing tasks the students are carrying out. In the following sections we will show examples of SWA carried out with L2 learners of German in a summer school.

7

Implementing Writing Assignments in the Mathematics Classroom

7.1 Aims of This Study In the previous section we showed that writing can be used as a means to deepen understanding of subject-related content, and as a tool to acquire subject-specific, functional-pragmatic knowledge. Although writing in the mathematics classroom is legitimized by the authorities, our survey supports the thesis that teachers usually do not make use of the advantages of writing as they do not know how to apply supportive and challenging writing assignments for less skilled writers. This suggests that they need more support in the form of further training or guidance. Guidance and materials that can be used to support teachers in applying writing have to be developed and evaluated. We propose that the basis for subject-related writing education are the criteria discussed in the previous section. The aim of our study is to evaluate if SWA can be used as a learning tool for low achieving students in the mathematics classroom in two respects: to learn mathematics and to learn subject-related language. 7.2 Supporting Writing Skills in the Mathematics Classroom In the following sections we will describe the characteristics of the participants, materials, procedure, and design, and give some examples of SWA. 7.2.1 Participants A total of 90 students participated in two summer school math courses (2011 and 2012). All students were aged between 10 and 12 years and were in the 5th or 6th grades in secondary schools in Cologne, Germany. All of them were learning German as L2. They were registered for the courses by their teachers because they were having difficulties in math classes due to their lack of language ability. Students took part in standardized pretests and post-tests. The results are based on 42 participants who took part in the summer school in 2011. 7.2.2 Materials and Procedure Materials used in this study were texts and worksheets developed and adapted by the authors and teacher trainees (university students) who took part in the study. Examples of the materials will be depicted in the sections below.

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To test the students’ development in mathematical and linguistic competence, two parallel test forms (“A” for pretest and “B” for post-test) were developed for both diagnostic and scientific reasons. The tests included basic calculating operations, describing an arithmetic error (see Figure 6), and solving word problems. The test’s inter-item reliability was acceptable, Cronbach’s alpha = .72 (test form A). Because students of former summer schools struggled with basic calculation techniques, items measuring basic calculation operations were included for diagnostic, didactic, and scientific reasons. Because SWA is meant to contribute to learning, the students’ change in mathematical skills was measured. Describing an arithmetic error gives the opportunity to measure a relationship of mathematical and linguistic skills. Further linguistic data in the form of text products, such as word problems composed by students, was collected during the summer school. The lessons were held during summer schools in 2011 and 2012 in nine twoweek math courses that integrated content and language learning for students speaking German as L2. The summer schools were organized by the Institute of German Language and Literature II of the University of Cologne. Classes with 10 students in each were held in teams by teacher trainees (university students) of math and German. One aim of the summer school was to support students’ linguistic and mathematical competence in order to help them to participate more successfully in regular math classes. A second aim was for the teacher trainees to gain extensive practical experience in teaching. Additionally we expected an increase in the teacher trainees’ language awareness regarding language issues in maths. Classes were held for four hours per day, five days a week. Courses on basic arithmetic operations and calculating with measures were given the titles “Calculating Today and in the Past” and “Math and Sports”. The lessons directed students’ attention to both mathematical and linguistic features relevant for the given mathematical topic at the same time. Various activities supporting learners of L2 were undertaken. In the following we will nonetheless only focus on writing and present examples how SWA was applied in the summer school courses. 7.2.3 Design An exploratory one-group pretest post-test design was used. In this design, students were assessed twice, once before the independent variable (the program) was introduced and once afterwards. Because there was no control group, internal validity was challenged by extraneous variables such as changes in school regulations, regression to the mean, testing issues, placebo and Hawthorne effects, maturation, and dropout. We addressed these issues in several respects:

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Gains in language ability

There were no changes in regulations that were directly relevant to the topic of the study; we used parallel tests to measure gains; improvement in mathematical skills due to maturation alone is highly unlikely in this short time period; gains in academic language due to maturation during the summer holidays are similarly unlikely; and the dropout rate was low. 7.2.4 Applying Supportive Writing Assignments In the following sections we will present examples of SWA that were conducted in the summer school.

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Writing Word Problems Word problems are a frequently used text type in math lessons; they have special characteristics. Therefore dealing with this text type must be learned exclusively in math classes. One way to learn to solve word problems is to write them. In the following section we will describe a teaching unit where students had to write word problems for a mathematical quiz held at the summer school’s closing party; this was intended to be an authentic and communicative writing assignment. In the courses on “Math and Sports,” students were to write interesting, challenging word problems on this topic. As an excursion to the Sports and Olympic Museum in Cologne was part of the summer school, this provided a great opportunity for building a field of background knowledge. Students in pairs collected information in the museum that could be used for writing word problems. Additionally, they could use newspaper articles and profiles of athletes as information tools. At the museum site, these activities involved reading, speaking, and note taking. Back in the classroom, these activities included developing word walls with useful, technical vocabulary and creating wallpapers to collect ideas. At this stage the teacher introduced, repeated, and highlighted important key vocabulary, phrases, and grammar structures, which were meaningful for this topic. For example, to help students construct sentences, comparative forms of adjectives such as higher than, faster than, longer than, the fastest (runners), the longest (jump), and so forth were collected on a word wall. With this jointly generated background knowledge students in pairs wrote a first draft of a word problem. These first drafts were exchanged with classmates to gain initial feedback on solvability, interestingness, and the level of challenge. Written word problems are particularly suitable for feedback because students immediately are given the opportunity to directly learn the impact of their texts on the reader: For example, if the written word problem was not formulated precisely enough, then the reader would not be able to solve it. Based upon students’ experiences with the first drafts, in the next step, the structure, linguistic, and mathematical features, and purpose of the text type “word problem” were the focus. Model texts and exercises such as reconstructing word problems, matching questions with answers, and matching word problems with corresponding calculations, were used. During this stage a checklist for writing good word problems was developed in the class. The next step was the joint construction of a word problem. The teacher and students wrote a word problem together, whereby the teacher took up the students’ ideas and modelled the writing process by thinking aloud. Together they discussed the topic, vocabulary, grammar, mathematical issues, and so on. The product of the joint construction was a mathematically and linguistically

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correct word problem on the blackboard. The complete, tedious process was recorded in the crossed out words, phrase, added words, and other markings. This co-written word problem was rewritten on a large sheet of paper and used in the mathematical quiz. In the final stage, students in pairs revised their drafts from the beginning with the help of the checklist on good word problems and the linguistic and mathematical scaffolds they had worked out together. Once more they got feedback from their peers in “math-conferences” and afterwards they made a final revision. They also could write an additional word problem on their own. The final word problems were displayed in the mathematical quiz at the summer school’s closing party. Calculations with the Abacus In the courses on “Calculating Today and in the Past” the topic of one teaching unit was “calculating with the abacus.” As part of this unit students had to explain to a friend who had not taken part in the summer school how to add with the abacus; this was a recipient-oriented occasion to write, with an authentic addressee. This is a huge challenge for students learning German as L2, because they not only have to master a mathematical problem (performing an addition with the abacus that includes an understanding of the decimal system); they also have to manage the linguistic challenge closely linked to this task. Because there is no shared room and little shared knowledge between author and reader, all information must be given through language, which must be very explicit with respect to various subject-specific terms. Students approached the topic gradually, beginning with more concrete, situationally-embedded tasks, using informal everyday language. In pairs and small groups they had to construct an abacus, denote numbers, and try to work out how to add with it. During this phase the teacher introduced and repeated key vocabulary. In the course of the unit of study, the tasks and required language became less situation-dependent and more abstract. With the help of the teacher groups of students reported their findings to the whole class. For this they had to use very explicit language and newly-acquired mathematical terms. In the subsequent class discussion, the teacher helped to build generalizations and mathematical rules. Writing individually to a friend was the final, most abstract, and most mathematically and linguistically challenging activity in this unit. It is important to note that the writing task was situated at the end of the unit rather than at the beginning. The activities were sequenced so that students could use familiar language for the initial activities, and build up expertise and academic language throughout the stages of the unit. To support this process, teachers and researchers provided linguistic and textual means in the form of word walls and sentence frames (see Figure 5).

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Further Writing Assignments Besides the teaching units introduced in this section, there were other writing tasks. Table 3 shows these tasks, which were tackled at the end of the corresponding SWAs. Like the main writing activities described above, these tasks were sequenced, beginning with those that were concrete, and situationallyembedded, and progressing to those with a higher degree of abstraction. In general, a typical sequence included the following: (1) preparatory activities in groups or pairs; (2) a teacher-guided oral presentation; (3) completion of a writing task. The more formal yet spoken language in the teacher-guided oral presentation serves as a bridge between informal everyday language and the registers expected in mathematical texts.

table 3

Further writing assignments

Topic

Mathematical skills

Type of writing

Exploring, solving and creating magic squares (Magic squares are a form of number patterns that have been dealt with since thousands of years. For a normal magic square each row, column and diagonal must sum to the same value. This value is named the magic constant or magic number.)

Performing operations with whole numbers (addition and subtraction) Discovering relationships and patterns between numbers Using and developing problem solving skills Using mathematical language to communicate mathematical ideas

Text type: description, instruction Task: What is a magic square? Describe what makes it special. Give someone who wants to construct his own magic square, hints how to do it originating from an existing square.

Measurement of length and time in sports: Calculating with decimals

Notation and place values (tenth, hundredths, thousandths) Identifying the values of the digits in a decimal Calculating with decimals Using algorithms

Text type: description, explanation Task: Describe your way of calculating decimals. Imagine your grandmother, who hasn’t learned to calculate the way you do, wants to learn your method. Explain your calculation method to her.

90 table 3

linnemann and stephany Further writing assignments (cont.)

Topic

Mathematical skills

Type of writing

Data analysis in the context of Reading and interpreting sports graphs and tables Collecting and organizing data Making diagrams Presenting information in diagrammatic and tabular forms

Text type: description Task: Work in pairs. Conduct a survey on a sports topic of your choice in the other courses of the summer school. For this purpose, create a questionnaire and organize the resulting data in a diagram. Present your diagram to your classmates. In the end, write a description of your survey which will be published at the summer schools closing party and on our website.

Writing a learning journal on different math topics

Text type: report, protocol Task: Processing different prompts, e.g.: This is what I learned today. This is a question I have today. This is something I can do well. This is something I still don’t understand. This is what I found interesting today.

Collecting mathematical ideas, questions Reflecting on mathematical learning Using mathematical language

7.3 Results In presenting some main results we will focus on the following topics: a quantitative analysis of changes in the test scores of students’ mathematical ability; and a qualitative analysis of some examples of linguistic behaviour. Results of the research on teacher trainees will be presented in a future paper (in preparation).

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7.3.1 Mathematical Ability Univariate analysis revealed significant differences between the pretest and the post-test of total math scores (t (41) = 4.33, p < .001, d = .46). The students were able to solve the tasks better at the end of summer school than at the beginning, means improved from M = 15.0 (SD = 5.4) to M = 17.3 (SD = 4.8). The math test contained one item requiring students to write a description of a mathematical error in a written algorithm. During the course, this task was neither explicitly taught nor exercised, thus the outcome can be considered as knowledge transfer. Quantitative analysis of the task revealed significant differences between pre- and post-test (t (41) = 2.61, p < .05, d =.51). Students’ scores increased from the beginning of the course, M = 0.76 (SD = 0.82), to the end of the course, M = 1.19 (SD = 0.86), showing that they were able to increase their mathematical competence. 7.3.2 Linguistic Behavior To test for possible gains in students’ linguistic competence, the linguistic features of the students’ descriptions of the mathematical error were analyzed. We focused on the use of relevant technical terms like “Zehnerübertrag” (= tens carry) and did a bottom-up analysis of general academic language features5 that are meant to make students’ texts more accurate and elaborated. This is a work in progress, yet first results show that students also made progress in linguistic competence. We will give some examples (see Figure 6). Some students had difficulties with the written description task in the pretest. Elif’s strategy to solve the problem was to write down the correct algorithm. Jefferson showed, also non-verbally, with the help of arrows, the error in the given calculation. For both students, the task was at least partly clear (“Find his error”), but neither of them put his/her findings into writing. In contrast, Hakan and Olga tried to describe the error in written form. For this they made use of everyday language; they did not yet use mathematical terms or academic language. Particularly in Hakan’s case this resulted in an inaccurate description of the error, which therefore cannot be related precisely to the given calculation. The post-test showed notable improvements among all four students in the level of language use. In the post-test Elif and Jefferson tried to describe the error in written form. In doing so Elif used the mathematical term “Zehner-

5 For the German language a broad and empirically grounded description of academic language features is only in its early stages (e.g. Gogolin & Lange, 2010).

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übertrag” (= tens-carry), so that any reader would immediately know where the error had occurred in the algorithm. Jefferson used written calculations to demonstrate what he meant, and struggled with vocabulary and grammar due to interferences from his mother tongue English. However, he at least tried to describe the error in written words and he did make use of the technical term “addieren” (= to add). His progress may seem marginal, but Jefferson had been learning German only for six months. Olga’s and Hakan’s descriptions were more formal in the post-test. They included technical terms (“Übertrag” = carry, “Einerspalte” = ones-column, “addierte” = added, “Einer” = ones) and particularly Olga’s text was considerably more abstract and compact than in the pretest. These more precise descriptions allow immediate localization of the error. These examples demonstrated that the students made clear progress, most notably at the word level. Academic and technical terms were not used in the pretest, but were used by all four students in the post-test. The use of academic and mathematical language is not an end in itself, but rather it is functional. The improvements in the student’s level of language use turned out to have a positive impact also on mathematical correctness. By the end of the intervention, all students showed a more precise and, on average, a mathematically more correct description of the error in the given calculation, apparently due to a more frequent use of specialized and technical language.

8

Discussion

Students have to learn both mathematical content and mathematical language. To support both, writing can be used as a learning tool. One of our findings is that writing in the mathematics classroom is required by school regulations. Nevertheless, math teachers use writing tasks either not at all or in a fairly vague manner; in any case, teachers do not support higher order skills in a sufficient way. Teachers do not seem to be aware of how writing activities can be reasonably embedded into their math lessons, and what can be achieved by using such lessons. Writing is valuable for all students, yet particularly challenging for L2 learners. To help teachers to support students in writing, we developed the concept of supportive writing assignments (SWA). This concept is assumed to help all students, including less skilled writers, to use writing for epistemic and communicative purposes for subject-related topics. In this chapter, we described examples of SWA for mathematical tasks.

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One of the main results of our study is that SWA can be embedded into the mathematics classroom; writing tasks need not be artificially introduced, or presented separately from the math lessons. Furthermore, the first results from our study suggest that the application of SWA led to an increase in both mathematical and linguistic competence. However, it is not possible to make a conclusive assessment of the extent to which the increase was influenced by the program because there was no control group. The effect may have been contributed to by extraneous variables. Additionally, some questions remain: (1) If tasks fall on a continuum of inauthentic to authentic, how authentic and situated do the writing assignments have to be? (2) What kind of audience has the best potential to support the epistemic and the communicative function most effectively? Gunel, Hand, and McDermott (2009), for example, showed that writing to the teacher is authentic but not very effective, while writing for younger peers is significantly more effective. (3) Which communicative function and which text types are the best for promoting the learning of mathematics and language? Explaining, arguing, describing, or reporting requires different means and cognitive processes. (4) How can operators (e.g., “explain”) be combined with the right audience (e.g., “to your classmate”)? Further research concerning the application of SWA in regular, heterogeneous classes and their effect on mathematical and linguistic learning has to be carried out. Also the role of the teacher has to be further examined. There is some evidence that the influence of the teacher plays a profound role in the application of learning through writing concepts and for learning achievement (see Hand, Villanueva, & Yoon, in this book). It will be particularly interesting how linguistically less experienced math teachers will deal with SWA in the classroom because like learning math through writing, also teaching math through writing is not a “fast sell,” and therefore it can be assumed that explicit coaching is needed.

Writing to Engage Students in Historical Reasoning Jannet van Drie, Carla van Boxtel and Martine Braaksma History education aims at mastering and understanding historical content, such as historical facts, concepts, and chronology, and developing the ability of historical thinking and reasoning. We consider historical reasoning to be a key activity in the learning of history (cf. Leinhardt, Stainton, Virji, & Odoroff, 1994; Lévesque, 2008; van Drie & van Boxtel, 2008; VanSledright, 2011). Historical reasoning is needed to gain historical understanding. Historical events, for example, render meaning when they are situated in a historical context, explained, attributed historical significance, or compared with other historical or current events. Previously, we defined historical reasoning as constructing or evaluating a description of processes of change and continuity, an explanation of a historical phenomenon, or a comparison of historical phenomena or periods (van Drie & van Boxtel, 2008). Important components of historical reasoning we discerned include asking historical questions, contextualizing events, using substantive historical concepts (e.g., the French Revolution), using metaconcepts of history (e.g., change, cause), putting forward claims supported with arguments, and using sources that give information about the past as historical evidence. School history is a literate discipline: It strongly depends on reading textbooks and other sources; as well as forms of writing, such as note-taking, short-answer questions, and essay writing. In schools writing is often used for assessment purposes, to monitor and evaluate students’ knowledge. However, several scholars in the field of learning and teaching of history consider writing as a means to engage students in historical reasoning (e.g., Counsell, 1997; Greene, 1994; McCarthy Young & Leinhardt, 1998). This perspective is in line with writing-to-learn approaches (cf. Ackerman, 1993; Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; Klein, 1999) and conceptualizations of writing as a problemsolving activity (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Hayes & Flower, 1980). Writingto-learn refers to writing activities aimed at increasing students’ learning in the content areas. The premise of writing-to-learn is that writing is not just a way of communicating, but also a tool for acquiring content knowledge, developing understanding, and improving thinking skills. The act of writing is seen as

Van Drie, J., Van Boxtel, C., & Braaksma, M. (2014). Writing to engage students in historical reasoning. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 94–119). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_006

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a means of transforming the writer’s knowledge. Knowledge transforming, as Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) defined it, means that writing can contribute to knowledge acquisition when the text is formulated within a continuous interaction between the writer’s content-related knowledge (the topic addressed in the text) and the writer’s rhetorical knowledge (as reflected by the design of the text and, among other things, its structure). This problem-solving process (Hayes, 1996) requires text producers to reflect on and to extend their knowledge. Although research on writing-to-learn has often been conducted in the field of science, positive effects have also been found in the field of history. Boscolo and Mason (2001), for example, conducted a study in which they compared a writing group with a non-writing group in elementary schools. Results indicated that students in the writing group developed a deeper understanding of the historical topic than those in the non-writing group. Improvement was found in conceptual understanding and the explanations of the historical event. The authors also found a change in students’ beliefs about the nature of history and the role of historians. Students in the writing group were better able to recognize the differences between two historical accounts of a certain event. In this contribution we focus on writing-to-learn in history as well, and specifically as a means to engage students in historical reasoning, a learning activity important for developing historical understanding and students’ ability to reason about the past. Below, we first address the question of what kind of historical-reasoning processes students engage in when writing in history and what difficulties they experience. We discuss previous research literature and conclude that most research has focused on argumentation and the use of historical sources as evidence, whereas there is relatively little research on other components of historical reasoning, such as contextualization and the use of historical concepts. In the second part of this chapter we address the question of how we can provoke and support students’ historical reasoning by focusing on characteristics of the writing task itself. We focus here on the importance of the writing prompt and the use of representational tools and how these affect students’ reasoning. We discuss relevant literature and provide examples from our own research. We give two examples of writing prompts that were successful in provoking historical reasoning: an evaluative inquiry question and the task of establishing the historical significance of a historical event or person. Finally, we show how computer-supported collaborative writing can enforce the potential of writing tasks to engage students in historical reasoning and present examples of how representational tools can support students’ historical reasoning during a writing task. Our main point is that the design of the

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writing task influences students’ historical reasoning and that by manipulating the design the teacher can enhance specific aspects of historical reasoning.

1

Writing and Reasoning in History

Historians convey their reasoning about historical phenomena through text. Through writing tasks students can learn to participate in a cultural practice important in the discipline of history. This raises the question of what characterizes writing in the domain of history. Monte-Sano (2010) refers to the practices of historians when writing, and considers making a case for a particular interpretation as the main characteristic of writing in history. Constructing an historical argument goes together with disciplinary ways of thinking and using evidence. When evaluating historical evidence one needs to consider the perspective and historical context of the author. In addition, historical interpretations must account for all the available evidence, which implies that contradictory evidence should be considered and weighed. For example, when historians want to explain why many German boys and girls in the 1930s joined the Hitler Youth and enthusiastically participated, they can draw from oral histories, diaries, and letters to argue that teenagers were indoctrinated. However, they also need to take into account sources showing that some teenagers disagreed and resisted. Writers in history cannot simply combine information from several sources into a single representation, because historical documents each give only a partial account of the situation they describe, often provide contradictory information, and reflect a specific perspective on the situation. It is therefore necessary to take into account the characteristics and the context of the source, to check the information and compare it with other documents, and finally to decide which information should be selected and used. Perfetti, Rouet, and Britt (1999) suggest that when learning from multiple texts readers need to construct a representation (document model) that consists of a situations model and an intertext model. In the situations model a representation is formed of the general situation described across texts. In history, several documents can refer to the same information, but each can also provide unique information. The intertext model reflects information about the source, purpose, potential bias etcetera. Mateos et al. (this volume) describe the complexity of writing from multiple documents and the processes that are involved. In schools, students must combine their content knowledge and their competency in historical reasoning (including using and weighing evidence from documents), with knowledge of appropriate ways to present their ideas in text.

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This requires the use of rhetoric, and knowledge of how ideas in the discipline of history can be presented (cf. Langer, 1992). This is quite a complex activity and several studies have identified students’ difficulties when writing in history. These difficulties are closely related to the difficulties students face with historical reasoning. When we use our definition of historical reasoning to look at students’ difficulties in writing, it appears that most studies point to problems with developing arguments and using historical evidence. Several studies have shown that students are inclined to simply report information, instead of constructing an interpretation of events. In a case study Leinhardt (2000) examined one student’s writing in history over a school year. His first writing was characterized as a specific-list pattern and five-paragraph theme format in which time, place, and causal-list connectors were used. An overall argument was missing. The same was found by McCarthy Young, and Leinhardt (1998) who followed the developments of five students (high school level) in document-based historical text writing over a school year and analyzed in detail the content and rhetorical quality of their texts. Students’ initial writing was described as knowledge telling (cf. Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987), in which period and document knowledge were listed as discrete bits of information. During the year students’ writing moved to knowledge transforming, in which they interpreted and integrated period and document knowledge as evidence for their claims. Over the year, the texts showed increasingly elaborated theses, factor-specified list patterns, source contextualization, and increased structural complexity. However, students still faced difficulties in using rhetorical strategies to integrate historical facts into explanations and arguments. In line with the analyses of students’ writing mentioned above, teachers considered the lack of development and organization of ideas a major problem. When interviewing history teachers, De Oliveira (2011) found that they claimed that students know that they are to provide examples to support their positions, but they do not know how to link the examples to the points developed in their essays or to connect them to their thesis statements. De Oliveira argued that this elaboration is the feature that most strongly distinguished between essays considered “strong” and “weak.” Competent argumentation is thus necessary, but not sufficient to produce a good historical essay (cf. Monte-Sano, 2010). Voss, Perkins, and Segal (1991) mention three criteria for evaluating the soundness of what is called informal reasoning. These criteria include the following: (1) whether the reasoning providing support is acceptable or true; (2) the extent to which the reason supports the conclusion; and (3) the extent to which an individual takes into account reasons that support the contradiction of the conclusion (counter argumentation). With respect to the first two criteria it is important to realize that not all

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arguments are really supportive from a disciplinary perspective. Monte-Sano (2010) provides an example of a student who included evidence according to such argumentation conventions, but fell short from a disciplinary perspective because the evidence was detached from its source and the context in which it was written. Other studies have also shown that students are not automatically inclined to use contextualization, sourcing, and corroboration heurists to consider evidence (e.g., Britt & Anglikas, 2002; Leinhardt, 2000; Wineburg, 1991a). With respect to the third criterion, taking into account counterarguments, Spoehr and Spoehr (1994) argue that this is a very difficult aspect of reasoning in history. It is related to students’ epistemological understanding of history (Kuhn, Weinstock, & Flaton, 1994), whether historians’ accounts are distinguished from the events themselves, and whether different accounts are discerned from one another. Only a few studies on writing in history explicitly mention difficulties students have in contextualizing historical events, persons, or phenomena; interpreting processes of change; and explaining historical events (causal reasoning). Contextualizing, identifying aspects of change and continuity, and explaining events, all require the use of both substantive- and meta-concepts of history. For example, when explaining the outbreak of the First World War, historians contextualize tensions between European states by relating the tensions to the development of modern imperialism and the rise of nationalism. They also discern different types of causes, such as structural and incidental causes, which can both be related to the meta-concept causation. In our own studies in secondary education we found that students include more concrete substantive concepts (which refer to concrete phenomena or persons), than abstract substantive concepts (e.g., democratization; van Drie, van Boxtel, & van der Linden, 2006). Furthermore, they do not tend to use meta-concepts in an explicit way (van Drie et al., 2006; van Drie, van Boxtel, & Stam, submitted). Research on students’ understanding of causation and processes of change in history shows that they have difficulties with, for example, multiple and structural causes, and often treat long-term developments as if they are concrete historical events (P. Lee, 2005). Writing in history not only involves students in developing arguments, but also in using the domain specific language and ‘grammar’ of history. Leinhardt’s case study (2000) showed that the essays of the student she followed improved in the sense that a larger variety of causal links was used. Coffin (2004) shows that the writing of secondary school students (aged 12 to 18) over the school years moves towards increasingly complex, structural analyses of events. She also points to the growing extent to which students use nouns and verbs related to the meta-concept causality, such as ‘consequence’, ‘reason’, ‘influence’, ‘result in’, ‘cause’, and ‘contribute to.’

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To conclude, several scholars have examined writing in history, often through small-scale studies. This provides us with information on the characteristics of writing in history and insight into the difficulties students may face when writing in history. Only a few studies have explicitly examined whether writing tasks engaged students in various components of historical reasoning. Most researchers have focused on the quality of argumentation and the use of historical evidence; other components, such as the use of concepts and contextualization, have gained less attention.

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Supporting Historical Reasoning in Writing

Having identified what writing in history implies and the difficulties that students encounter, the question arises as to how to stimulate and improve students’ historical reasoning in writing tasks. De Oliveira (2011) described the perspectives and practices of teachers concerning writing, drawing on questionnaire data from 44 history teachers and interview data from 4 teachers, all from California. The teachers considered writing in history a very important activity, both as a means to display and to develop knowledge, which fits well with their goals for teaching. However, they mentioned several challenges that they encountered, including: students’ limited reading skills (the teachers came from culturally and linguistically diverse schools); students’ limited foundation in history; and the high demands of the history curriculum, which included a strong focus on content coverage and a lack of time (e.g., to give more than 100 students feedback on their writing). The level of attention given to writing instruction differed and teachers did not provide a consistent way of addressing writing at each grade level. For many of the teachers writing instruction meant explaining the requirements of a given assignment or the general structure of an essay. Only a few teachers provided deep scaffolding and active attention to writing instruction throughout the year. With respect to writing instruction in history, interesting questions are whether instruction should focus on generic writing strategies only, or on disciplinary thinking and reasoning only, or whether these two should be integrated (and how and to what extent). Another question is whether students with different abilities in writing and historical reasoning benefit more from one kind of instruction than from others. Thus far, only a few studies have focused on writing instruction in history, making a case for integrated instruction. MonteSano (2011), based on comparing the strategies of two different teachers, mentions the following strategies as effective: annotating primary source readings,

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regular informal writing prompts that call for a synthesis of major issues, and feedback focused on evidence use and accuracy of interpretations. In an experimental study with 8th grade students with mixed writing ability De La Paz (2005) combined two types of writing instruction. The first type focused on prewriting strategies and was taught by the language arts teacher. The second type focused on strategies for reconciling accounts containing conflicting information or viewpoints and was taught by the social studies teacher. Students in the control group did not receive either of these two kinds of instruction. Positive effects were found for the experimental group, who scored significantly higher on essay length, persuasive quality, number of arguments, and historical accuracy. Building on this study, De La Paz and Felton (2010) conducted a study in which writing and historical reasoning instruction were integrated and provided by the same social studies teacher (see also the chapter of MacArthur, this volume). Eleventh-grade students learned historical inquiry strategies using events from American history, as well as a pre-writing strategy for composing argumentative essays about each historical event. This strategy instruction resulted in longer, more persuasive essays containing more arguments and more accurate historical content in comparison to essays written by a control group that was exposed to the same materials without instruction. Recently, in an experimental study we compared the effects of more general writing instruction with discipline-based writing instruction (van Drie, Braaksma, & van Boxtel, submitted). Preliminary results have shown a positive effect of the discipline-based instruction on the quality of historical reasoning, but no effects were found on general writing quality. More studies like these are needed to gain more insight into effective instruction for writing in history. The studies addressed above focused on explicit instruction; in the following section, we will turn our focus to the writing task itself. We will consider two aspects of the writing task, the writing prompt and the use of representational tools, and elaborate on how they affect and support historical reasoning in writing.

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Effects of Writing Prompts on Historical Reasoning

In history classes students get a variety of writing tasks (Coffin, 2006a, 2006b). The text that they have to deliver can be, for example, an argumentative text, a historical account, or an explanation. Students can be provided with information in a textbook or with multiple historical documents. According to the “genre hypothesis” (Klein, 1999) different types of writing tasks require different cognitive processes and hence stimulate different kinds of reasoning. When

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aiming at eliciting students’ historical reasoning through writing it is therefore important to make a careful selection of the writing genre and carefully design the related writing prompt. Coffin (2006a, 2006b) made a description of the different kinds of texts that are typically required by secondary school history. Based on the linguistic analysis of samples of writing produced by secondary school students (7th–11th grade) in Australia, she distinguishes three genre families: the recording, the explaining, and the arguing genre. These include nine genres: autobiographical recount, biographical recount, historical recount, historical account, factorial explanation, consequential explanation, exposition, discussion, and challenge (see also Martin, 2002). The genres are distinctive from each other because of their different text structures and the different ways in which they draw on grammatical structures and lexis (vocabulary). In order to develop students’ writing skills in history, Coffin proposes to use the sequences of the genres in the curriculum and to make the differences between the genres explicit to students, in order to raise students’ consciousness of the form and function of different history genres, and thus help them to produce better texts. The different genres each require different kinds of historical reasoning. For example, the overall purpose of a historical recount is retelling events of the past, which includes focusing on components such as contextualization and describing historical events using historical concepts; however, an exposition or a discussion requires more argumentation. Some studies have investigated how different writing prompts affect students’ reasoning and writing. Voss and Wiley (1997) conducted a study in which they compared how sources and writing tasks affected students’ learning and understanding in history. They found that writing an argumentative essay in combination with multiple sources especially enhances understanding in history, as it engages students in knowledge transforming activities (cf. Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). Sixty undergraduates were given either a textbook chapter about the Irish potato famine between 1800 and 1850 or the same information in the form of multiple sources. After reading, they were instructed to write a history, a narrative, or an argumentative essay about what produced the significant changes in Ireland’s population between 1846 and 1850. The researchers hypothesized that writing from sources would yield higher performance than writing from a textbook, because it requires more processing to integrate source material than to integrate the material in the already organized textbook. Writing an argumentative essay would also require more processing, as it requires examining and evaluating several factors and organizing them into a reasonable argument. The results showed that the multiple source-argumentative essay condition resulted in more transformation of information and more analytic essays, with

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more causal and connective statements, than the other conditions. Moreover, it produced better understanding of the relations among concepts and resulted in better learning (recall) of text content. Recently, Monte-Sano and De La Paz (2012) compared four different writing prompts on the origins of the Cold War. The situated prompt encouraged students to imagine themselves as a historical agent. The sourcing prompt asked students to consider the authors’ motivations or purposes. The document analysis prompt encouraged students to compare documents and discuss the similarities and differences. The last prompt, the causal prompt asked students to construct a historical explanation. Participants were 101 students from 10th or 11th grade. They investigated the effects of the writing prompts on three aspects of historical reasoning: substantiation (providing evidence and explanation in support of a claim), perspective recognition (presenting the texts as authors’ viewpoints), and contextualization (situating arguments in time, place, and setting). The results indicated that prompts focused on sourcing, document analysis, and causation were more likely to elicit students’ attention to perspectives than prompts that asked students to imagine themselves as historical agents. The first three prompts all require considering the authors of the documents and their different viewpoints, which is a key step in advancing students’ historical reasoning. 3.1 Explanatory Versus Evaluating Inquiry Question We conducted a small-scale study in which we compared the effects of two types of writing prompts on historical reasoning (van Drie et al., 2006). Two prompts that are often used in Dutch secondary history education were compared. The first task focused on explaining a historical change: “How can the changes in the behavior of Dutch youths in the 1960’s be explained?”. The second task focused on evaluating possible interpretations of the same historical change: “Were the changes in the behavior of Dutch youths in 1960’s revolutionary?”. The tasks involved studying pre-selected historical sources (including primary and secondary documents, photos, etcetera) on the topic and writing an essay of approximately 1,000 words. The students had not received any instruction on this topic in advance. Based on studies that consider argumentative writing powerful (cf. Voss & Wiley, 1997) we expected that explaining a historical change would result in more historical reasoning about explanations, causes, and consequences; and that evaluating a historical change would also elicit students’ reasoning about explanation, but also more reasoning about their own opinions and arguments to support these. The students worked in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment that enabled them to work collaboratively on the task,

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including the essay. Each student worked on his or her own computer and they communicated by means of chat and shared tools, such as a shared text editor. Twenty students from a history class in upper secondary education (pre-university level, 16, 17 years of age) participated in this study. The students were randomly assigned to pairs and to one of the conditions, with 5 pairs in each condition. The study took place at school during the history lessons and lasted for six lessons of 50 minutes each over a period of two weeks. Data included electronic records of chat discussions and collaboratively written essays, which were both analyzed with respect to the components of historical reasoning and an individual pre- and posttest on historical topic knowledge. Students’ chat interactions were analyzed on the level of utterances, based on the use of the ‘enter’ key by students. Most often, the chat utterances contained one single function. When a chat utterance was compounded and contained two or more functions, the utterance was split. Utterances that reflected historical reasoning were selected and further analyzed on the appearance of contextualization of historical events, persons or sources in time; causal reasoning; identification of aspects of change and continuity; the use of sources (discerning different perspectives and discussing the trustworthiness of sources); the quality of argumentation and the use of substantive and meta-concepts. These aspects of historical reasoning were also used to analyze students’ essays (more information on the analyses can be found in van Drie et al., 2006). The results indicated that the evaluative prompt was more powerful in eliciting historical reasoning than the explanatory prompt. The prompts elicited different kinds of historical reasoning. The overall quality of historical reasoning in the texts, an aggregation of the scores on the different components of historical reasoning, was higher in the evaluative condition. In the evaluative condition students scored higher on the quality of argumentation, which was expected. However, no differences were found on the quality of students’ causal reasoning, so, the expectation that students in the explanatory condition would score higher on this aspect was not confirmed. The historical reasoning displayed in the chat discussions showed a different pattern: The explanatory prompt elicited more talk about causes, and the evaluative prompt elicited more argumentation. In addition, the chat discussions in the evaluative condition showed more collaboratively constructed and elaborative historical reasoning compared to the explanatory condition. Thus, the evaluative prompt not only elicited more extensive and more elaborated historical reasoning in the chat discussions, but also resulted in better texts. Whereas the explanatory prompt elicited reasoning about explanations in the discussions, this did not result in higher scores on this aspect of the texts, as students in the evaluative

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condition tended to include explanation in their essays as well. In Figure 1 an example is presented of how two students (from the evaluative condition) integrated explanations for the changes in the Sixties in their overall argument that the Sixties were revolutionary. The students mention several changes, although these are not really elaborated, and try to explain those changes by providing multiple causes. This kind of reasoning was often found; however in some essays we found a more advanced level of describing processes of change. This was both the result of a higher level of argumentation and of a more elaborated use of the meta-concept change. Historical change is a multifaceted process. Change can come about gradually or suddenly and can have more or less impact. The evaluative writing prompt stimulated students to think about the nature of changes in the Sixties. Figure 2 presents a conclusion that was written by two students who worked on the evaluative writing prompt. These students not only identified aspects of change and continuity; they also discussed whether and why the changes can be considered revolutionary or not. Furthermore, they introduced and weighed arguments provided by different historians. In one essay we found a nice example of students that were able to contextualize their own point of view and that of people in the Sixties (see Figure 3). Contextualization statements like these were not often found in the essays.

When we look at the behaviour of youth in the Fifties and Sixties, we come up with a number of changes. First, the preference of music changes: in the Fifties youngsters still bravely listened to Dutch music, but this changed to Jazz, Rock ‘n Roll, Rock and pop music. Causes of this were the transistor radio, which was smaller and thus portable, and of course also the influence of America played a large role. Another big change was that youngsters more and more opposed against parental authority, and developed their own vision. On the one hand this was because of the growing income that gave students more money for themselves and made them less dependent on their parents, and on the other hand because of the upcoming idea of a ‘faulty’ generation. The older generation was definitely guilty of the Second World War and the Vietnam War, and thus the governmental system didn’t work. Because of this there was a call for a complete democracy and the flower-power started to take shape. figure 1

Excerpt from an essay of students working in the condition with an evaluative writing prompt (translated from Dutch)

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Thus, there is a fundamental change when we compare it with the Fifties and before. Youngsters started behave differently and a youth culture came into existence and that had never happened before. Youngsters became a large group with a large influence on society and determined a large part of the supply of music, films and luxury goods. Although part of these changes already started in the Fifties, they were accomplished and culminated in the Sixties. Therefore we agree with historian Righart who also holds the opinion that changes in the Sixties can indeed considered revolutionary. figure 2

Conclusion from an essay of students working on an evaluative writing prompt (translated from Dutch)

Of course it is another issue how people experienced it back then. In those times parents thought the behavior of their children was miserable. Youngsters themselves thought they were acting revolutionary, but from a historical perspective that’s easy to refute. figure 3

Excerpt from an essay of students working on an evaluative writing prompt with contextualization (translated from Dutch)

3.2 Authentic Writing Tasks Related to the specific writing prompt is the context in which the writing task is embedded. Several scholars claim that language forms are best learned in the context of authentic use. Purcell-Gates, Duke, and Martineau (2007), for example, found that the degree to which children (primary education) were involved in authentic literacy events in science was strongly related to the degree of growth in their abilities to comprehend and produce texts. Greene (1994) found that students often write for their teachers, and are thus inclined to show their knowledge of the topic and the sources. Providing an authentic context for the writing task may help students overcome this problem, as the purpose and audience of writing is more clear to students. In addition, authentic tasks are believed to have a high potential to prepare students for the application of knowledge and skills, to motivate students, and to make learning more meaningful (Duffy, Lowyck, & Jonassen, 1993; Newmann & Wehlage, 1993). In the field of learning-to-write and effective writing instruction it is also advocated that students write for authentic audiences (cf. Graham & Perin, 2007b). In one of our studies we used an authentic audience for a writing task (van Drie et al., submitted). Students were asked to write a letter to a foundation that planned to organize an exhibition about the development of democracy in the Netherlands. Students were asked to make a case for a specific person or event that

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in their opinion was most significant for the development of Dutch democracy and should therefore be part of this exhibition. The students were thus asked to determine historical significance, which is a key-concept in doing history (Lévesque, 2008; Seixas & Morton, 2012). This is also an evaluative prompt that requires various aspects of historical reasoning, such as argumentation, contextualization, and use of meta-concepts (as students need to discuss the impact of historical changes and its short and long term consequences). Instead of the more commonly used essay, students had to write a letter. We analyzed the classroom interaction and the letters using our framework for analyzing historical reasoning (van Drie & van Boxtel, 2008), and found that this question elicited rich historical reasoning in classroom interaction and in writing. Still, the letters were relatively weak on the aspects of use of contextualization, as students hardly situated historical persons and events in time and related them to characteristics of that time, and use of meta-concepts, as they hardly made explicit use of meta-concepts such as change, continuity, cause, consequence etcetera. As these outcomes are promising, a next step would be to compare this task systematically with another (not-authentic) writing task to determine its effects. To conclude, the studies described above make it clear that different genres and writing prompts enhance different kinds of historical reasoning, as they focus students’ attention on specific components of historical reasoning. It is therefore important for teachers and researchers to carefully design writing prompts in relation to the kind of historical reasoning they want to elicit.

4

Using Representational Tools to Support Historical Reasoning

A second way to promote historical reasoning in writing is through the individual or collaborative construction of external representations, such as diagrams and matrices, for selecting and organizing information during the preparation phase of essay writing. External representations can be used as “tools for thinking” (Salomon, 1990), for they can help learners to express, explain, and discuss their ideas (G. Stahl, 2002). Collaboratively constructing an external representation can be meaningful because of the communicative and cognitive affordances of this kind of activity (Suthers & Hundhausen, 2003). It can contribute to a shared understanding of the problem between co-learners; it can enable users to focus on salient knowledge; and it can stimulate the process of elaboration, for it can refine and structure the content of students’ knowledge and make users aware of gaps in their own knowledge. An important dimension of external representations is the format used to display information (De Jong et

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al., 1998), and the cognitive and social affordances of a representation depend on the representational notation (Suthers & Hundhausen, 2003). Different representational formats may therefore support particular components of historical reasoning. For example, the construction of a causal diagram may provide guidance when learners are asked to explain a historical phenomenon, whereas a matrix can be a useful format to organize aspects of change and continuity. Building on the outcomes of the study described in the section above, we conducted a study in which we compared the influence of three representational formats on historical reasoning in students’ discussions and essay writing (earlier described in van Drie, van Boxtel, Jaspers, and Kanselaar, 2005). The computer-supported collaborative learning-environment used in this study is called Virtual Collaborative Research Institute (VCRI, see http://edugate.fss.uu .nl/vcri; Jaspers & Erkens, 2002). VCRI is a groupware program that enables students to work collaboratively on an inquiry task and write an essay. Each student works at one computer, physically separated from her or his partner. Communication takes place by means of chat and shared tools. Figure 4 shows the main screen of VCRI. Information about the task and relevant historical sources is found in the database menu. The upper left window contains a chat facility and the chat history. The lower left window contains a shared text

figure 4

The main screen of VCRI

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processor that can be used by taking turns. This text processor enables the students to write the essay collaboratively in a shared space. What is written is directly visible to the other students. The upper right window contains a private notepad. In the lower right window, a representational tool is shown (in this case a shared matrix). We used the same task and method as in the study described above (van Drie et al., 2006). All students worked in pairs with the evaluative prompt, “Were the changes in the behavior of Dutch youths in 1960’s revolutionary?”. The effects of three different representational formats were compared: a diagram (16 pairs), a list (14 pairs), and a matrix (18 pairs). The diagram aimed at supporting the process of argumentation and taking into account counter-argumentation. In the diagram a point of view and arguments for and against can be graphically represented (see Figure 5). Viewpoint, arguments pro, arguments contra, and

figure 5

Example of a diagram constructed by one of the dyads (in Dutch). The terms are: Standpunt = Standpoint; Voorargument = Pro-Argument; Tegenargument = Contra-Argument; Voorbeeld = Example

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examples can be represented in text-boxes (each with their own color) and all boxes can be linked to each other by arrows. Furthermore, in each box students can refer to the source from which the argument or the example derives. As the diagram, the list also focuses on the argumentative process (see Figure 6). However, whereas an argumentative diagram organizes and links arguments in a two dimensional graphical way, the list organizes arguments in a linear way. Students can put their arguments for and against below each other. Whereas the diagram and list focus on the process of argumentation, the matrix focused on describing, categorizing, and determining the impact of historical changes. The matrix used consists of a table format that can be filled out by the students (see Table 1). In the second column, students can record the number of the sources; in the third column, students can describe historical changes or aspects of continuity; and in the fourth column, they can indicate whether they think the change can be defined as revolutionary or not. The last column contains a sort function. Students can categorize the changes in the way they choose, for instance, on type of change (economical, political, or cultural). When they push the sort button, all the changes are sorted.

figure 6

Example of a list constructed by one of the dyads (translated from Dutch)

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table 1

Example of a matrix constructed by one of the dyads (translated from Dutch)

Id Source Description changes

Revolutionary change? Sort

5

00

YES

Culture

6

00

NO

Politics

7

00

YES

Politics

9

02

YES

Economy

8

03

NO

Economy

NO

Culture

YES

Education

NO

Politics

YES

Culture

YES

Culture

YES

Culture

10 04 11 05

13 07 12 08

17 09

14 10

Old ways of living, traditions and cultures were partly lost, secularization and decline of the youth movement Interference by the government decreased during the 1950s but did not disappear strong demand for fundamental changes during the 1960s Youngsters earned more money, so they did not need to give up their complete earnings to their parents New types of leisure activities due to increasing wealth Parents had more time to spend time with their families Because the number of people pursuing an education increased rapidly, social differences between people diminished. Nozems were not accepted by society. They were considered hopeless cases. The influence of television grew strongly during the 1960s, a structural depillarization* took place, although depillarization was still visible in broadcasting The rise of new music was widely noticeable. Young people in particular were attracted by it. Youth culture changed significantly between the 1950s and the 1960s; as became visible through the rise of popular idols, and a tendency to revolt against grownups.

*Depillarization refers to the breakdown of the strict division in socio-religious groups or pillars that existed in Dutch society since the beginning of the twentieth century.

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All actions made in the VCRI-environment were logged. The chat protocols were analyzed by using MEPA, a computer program for Multiple Episode Protocol Analysis (Erkens, 2002, see http://edugate.fss.uu.nl/mepa). The mean length of the chat protocols was 328.2 utterances (SD = 144.7). Utterances in which students explicitly discussed the past, gave an interpretation of the past, or discussed the merit of the sources, were coded as historical reasoning (M = 23.5; SD = 19.2). The external representations the students constructed were analyzed with respect to the number of arguments that were represented and on the balance between arguments for and against. The balance was computed as the difference between the number of arguments for and the number of arguments against, thus a higher score means less balance. Furthermore, the quality of the collaboratively written essays was scored, using the six components of historical reasoning (maximum score was 60). The results showed no differences between the effects of the conditions on the overall quality of historical reasoning in the essays (see Table 2). With regard to the chat-discussions we found that working with the matrix, compared to the other conditions, resulted in more historical reasoning, especially with regard to describing historical changes, and more elaboration and more co-construction between students (instead of one student dominating). Furthermore, we found for the matrix condition that the amount of co-constructed and elaborated historical reasoning in the chat correlated positively with the overall quality of the essay. Additional post hoc analyses revealed the following: in both the list and the matrix condition more arguments were used compared to the diagram condition; in the matrix condition students used more sources compared to the other two conditions and in the list condition students used more sources compared to diagram condition; the matrix showed less balance in arguments pro and contra compared to the diagram and list. We did not find differences between the conditions in the overall quality of the essay, nor on the different components of historical reasoning, with the exception of the matrix scoring significantly higher on use of concepts compared to the list. Our main interest here is whether, and how, the different representations affect students’ historical reasoning in the chat and how students use these tools in trying to accomplish their collaborative writing assignment. Below we will describe these effects for each individual representational format. The results of the Analysis of Variance to which we will refer are summarized in Table 2. In addition, we will provide examples of typical task related discussion stimulated by the tools. (A more extensive discussion of the analyses can be found in van Drie et al., 2005).

112 table 2

van drie, van boxtel and braaksma Mean frequencies and standard deviations of amount of historical reasoning in the chat protocols, scores of the constructed representation, and scores of the essays for the three conditions, and the results of Analysis of Variance (N = 48)

Chat Historical reasoning utterances Representation Number of arguments Sources used Balance arguments pro and contra Essay Scores

Diagram (N = 16)

List (N = 14)

Matrix (N = 18)

16.7 (14.8)

17.6 (11.0)

34.3 (23.4)

13.5 14.3 4.3

(3.7) (4.8) (2.3)

17.6 20.9 4.2

(3.1) (4.5) (2.8)

18.6 25.1 6.4

(2.0) (0.7) (2.1)

13.2 .00* 36.9 .00* 4.9 .01*

36.5

(5.2)

38.6

(4.9)

38.1

(5.3)

0.7 .50

F

p

5.3 .01*

* p ≤ .01

4.1 Argumentative Diagram In the argumentative diagram, arguments pro and against can be graphically represented. The amount of historical reasoning was about the same as in the list, but significantly less than in the matrix condition (see Table 2). It was expected that the diagram would show more discussion about the viewpoint on the issue at hand compared to the other representations; however this was not confirmed. The analyses of the constructed representations indicated that a diagram is less suitable than other representations to represent a lot of information. The constructed diagrams contained significantly fewer arguments and references to sources than the matrices and lists. An important advantage of the argumentative diagram lies in the fact that it is possible to organize the arguments graphically and to interrelate the arguments with links. However, a diagram might become too complex and too hard to organize when a lot of information has to be represented. Moreover, it appeared that the students faced difficulties in using the constructed diagram for writing the text. There was not much overlap between arguments in the diagrams and the texts, and the texts contained many new arguments. Problems may have arisen in converting the graphical structure of the diagram into a linear structure of the text, as the process of linearization is a difficult one (Coirier, Andriessen, & Chanquoy, 1999). In line with the expectations, students reached more balance

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between arguments for and against in the diagrams, compared to the matrix, probably because in a diagram the number of arguments for and against is immediately visible. This result was not directly reflected in the scores of the texts; however, this might be due to the fact that the analyses of the text focused less on the argumentative structure. This suggests that a diagram is specifically suitable for presenting a small amount of information, and for focusing on the balance between arguments for and against. Figure 7 shows a fragment of a chat discussion of students working with the diagram. This fragment derives from the beginning of the third session of the students’ collaboration. They have read the sources and constructed their arguments in the diagram. The position they have chosen to defend is that the Sixties in fact were revolutionary. Bas asks Christa how many arguments regarding “nozems” she has found in her sources. Nozem is the name of a subgroup of young people in the Fifties, mostly from the working class, who were hanging around the streets and loved rock and roll, motorbikes, etcetera. He has already seen

80

Bas

81

Bas

82 83

Christa Christa

84 85

Bas Christa

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Christa Bas Christa Bas Christa Bas Christa Bas Christa Bas

figure 7

That thing about nozems took place in the Fifties. Did you write a lot of arguments about that? I already saw one, but that has to be a counter-argument and not one pro, because it took place in the Fifties. No, is the only one. But it’s something of a development on the Sixties and that’s very important. Yes but it didn’t take place in the Sixties and that’s the position. So in that sense 60 is not revolutionary and it already started in the 50. so counterargument. indeed I agree with you [in English]. Was it an argument pro at first then? Yep. Oh, ok, that’s a mistake then. Alright, don’t cry. I’m trying to. I know. But it’s hard. Wanna talk about it?

Fragment of chat discussion in the diagram condition (translated from Dutch)

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one in the diagram as an argument in favor of the revolutionary character of the Sixties. He argues that this should be an argument against, as these youngsters were from the Fifties (lines 80–81). Christa tries to counter his argument by seeing them as precursors (line 83). However, she readily agrees with the argument of Bas that an important change in the Fifties does not support the position of a revolution in the Sixties (line 84–85). They agree and conclude that the “nozems” argument should be changed from an argument pro into an argument contra in the diagram (lines 86–90). They close the topic by a comical mea culpa exchange. The fragment indicates that argument textboxes in the diagram may specifically stimulate explicit reflection by the students on differences between supporting and refuting evidence, and between arguments for and against a position. 4.2 The List As the diagram, the list focused on the process of argumentation, not by representing the arguments in a graphical structure, but in a more linear structure. The list did elicit discussion in terms of arguments pro and contra, but this discussion is less explicit than with the diagram in which students had specific pro and contra argument text boxes. Furthermore, findings were similar for the diagram and the list: There were no significant differences with respect to amount of historical reasoning in the chats and scores for the text. There was also less co-elaborated historical reasoning in the chat dialogues than in the matrix. With respect to the constructed lists, analyses showed that contrary to the diagram, the list enabled students to represent a lot of information. However, this information was less structured than in the diagram. The list has an open structure and can therefore be used in different ways. For example, some students ordered the information in a list with arguments for and against the revolutionary nature of the changes in the Sixties; whereas others ordered the information according to the number of the source, and mentioned in brackets whether it was an argument for or against. As the diagram, the list showed more balance of arguments for and against compared to the matrix. Compared to the diagram, the list seemed more easy to use for text writing. This might have to do with the fact that students were more familiar with ordering information or arguments in a list than with making a diagram. It resembled a way of note-taking that students practice more often. Converting information from the list into a text might also be less difficult because a list already has a more linear structure. Figure 8 shows a fragment of a chat discussion (6 minutes and 30 seconds) in the list condition. These students encounter the same problem as the students in the first fragment. In earlier sessions the students have read the information sources, and

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130 Dorien Okay, but if we look at our standpoint, would it be an argument pro if in the Fifties a change occurred and I’m looking at source 1 then. 131 Dorien hello???????? 132 Pim Yes, the nozems started in the Fifties, but what was there influence in the Sixties? 133 Dorien a bit of consultation please I can’t get it to work out . . . . . 134 Pim Was it large or not? 135 Dorien Is it positive what happens in the Fifties I don’t get that. 136 Dorien Fifties generally. 137 Pim ehm, I think that was what gave reason to a revolution in the Sixties. 138 Pim But do we consider the Sixties to be revolutionary or not??????? 139 Dorien Yes well to sources 1 up to 6 arguments have to be added. 140 Pim I do actually. 141 Dorien shall we describe the Fifties first in the text and then go on to the Sixties and see if a lot of changes took place there and if the Fifties had an influence on the Sixties. 142 Dorien Yes, well, I thought the Sixties were revolutionary too you know, 143 Dorien I just want to set up the text right and some clarity. 144 Pim Yes I think we should just take the Fifties in short as a starting point for the Sixties. figure 8

Fragment of chat discussion in the List condition (translated from Dutch)

for each source they have entered a short summary in the arguments-list tool. This is the fourth session, and they have already agreed to label the summaries as an argument for and against before they start writing the essay. Dorien encounters the problem when she tries to label the summary of the first source (line 130): Is the change in the Fifties supportive for the position that the Sixties were revolutionary? And she wants to consult Pim about this issue. Pim agrees: the “nozems” started in the Fifties, but how big was their influence on the developments in the Sixties? However, Dorien addresses a more general question, whether events in the Fifties can be positive (supportive) for a position of revolutionary Sixties (line 135). Pim answers that in his opinion these events triggered a revolution in the Sixties and changes the topic to the position they should take. Dorien states that not all sources are labeled yet (line 139) and proposes a strategic solution to write the essay on the period from the Fifties into the Sixties, and to decide whether the changes during the Sixties were rev-

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olutionary (line 141). Pim agrees on this strategy. Interestingly, in this fragment the discussion of the supporting evidence is less explicit and more vague than in the diagram condition in which the students have specific textboxes for arguments pro and contra. Furthermore, their writing strategy is more like drawing up an inventory of arguments, in order to decide on their position. This strategy may be motivated by the inventory quality of the List tool. 4.3 The Matrix Whereas the diagram and list both specifically aimed at supporting the argumentative process in historical reasoning, the matrix also focused on describing historical changes and deciding to what extent each change could be labeled as revolutionary. Hence, the matrix was expected to have more potential to support domain-specific reasoning (in this study reasoning about historical changes, especially). This hypothesis was confirmed (see Table 2). The empty boxes of the matrix prompted the students to both describe each change and to answer the question whether this change was revolutionary or not. The excerpt of a chat discussion shown in Figure 10 indicates that the discussion takes place in terms of historical changes and the revolutionary impact of these changes, instead of arguments for and against the revolutionary nature of change, as with the diagram and list. Like the list, the matrix enabled representation of a lot of information. The structure of the matrix seems to have prompted students to fill in all available changes and continuities, for which they used almost all available sources. This finding is in line with results of Suthers and Hundhausen’s study (2003) in which the matrix group represented the most evidential relations. However, compared to the list, this information is more specific and more structured. The headers of the columns in the matrix direct and constrain what is written in the boxes, and the sort function makes it possible to sort the information in various ways. The positive findings in the chat protocols did not result in higher scores on the text. And although the construction of the matrix elicited increased talk about historical changes, and detailed descriptions of the changes and their revolutionary impact, this did not result in higher scores on the aspect change in the text. Additional analyses of the essays, however, showed that compared to the other conditions, the students in the matrix condition more often categorized the historical changes as political, cultural, and economic. However, the original scoring of the text did not catch this difference. An interesting question for additional research would be how the students used the matrix during the planning or writing phase. The number of arguments represented in the matrix was the same as in the list, and significantly more than in the diagram. The balance between

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arguments for and against the revolutionary nature of the changes in the Sixties was, compared to the diagram and list, less. In the matrices more arguments for were represented. Figure 9 shows a fragment of chat discussion in the Matrix condition. It is a 5 minute and 50 second fragment of the chat discussion between Rosa and Wilma in the second session. Rosa and Wilma are summarizing changes that are described in the sources and putting them in the matrix. Earlier, Wilma asked what to do when a source (number 22) is the opinion of an historian; what are the changes then? Rosa has had a similar source (number 23) and answers that she has summarized his opinion and the big changes this author mentioned for the Sixties (line 66). Wilma asks whether the changes in fact were revolutionary and Rosa confirms

66

Rosa

67 68 69

Rosa Wilma Rosa

70 71 72

Wilma Rosa Rosa

73 74 75 76 77

Rosa Wilma Rosa Wilma Rosa

78 79

Wilma Rosa

80 81 82 83 84

Wilma Rosa Rosa Wilma Rosa

figure 9

I kind of expressed his opinion and told what he thought was so changeable about the Sixties. I’ll just put it in the matrix. oh … and is that revolutionary then …? I think so because it happened rather quickly and changed a lot for the future. at source 22 you mean??? no, at my own sources. source 22 is rather vague to me because it mentions so many features. not really a change what it describes. the end of an era and the beginning of a new era. that sounds pretty. yeah does, but so that’s a change then isn’t it …? But he doesn’t think it’s revolutionary because it says that when it comes to representation, the Sixties are heavily exaggerated. that’s a good one … so it’s not all that much according to him [the author of the document JvD]. I’ll put that one in then. Is that something you can work with. ? Yes, that’s a good answer to me … don’t you think? Yes, fine.

Fragment of chat discussion in the Matrix condition (translated from Dutch)

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that they were (lines 68–69). Wilma gets confused, thinking that this is about her source 22. Rosa denies and adds that she found source 22 rather vague. Wilma quotes “The end of an era and the beginning of a new one.” (line 74). Rosa counters that the same author moderates the image of the Sixties as revolutionary. They come to agreement on the conclusion that the Sixties were not that revolutionary (lines 78–84). The fragment shows in our opinion that the matrix tool stimulates a discussion from a quite different viewpoint. The students do not argue about what position to take and about the definition of arguments for and against a claim, as in the fragments before. Instead, the discussion is about what kind of changes took place and when a change can be labeled as revolutionary. In this way the tool stimulates more reflection on criteria of historical reasoning than on criteria of argumentative discourse.

5

Conclusions and Discussion

Writing in the domain of history puts high demands on students, with regard to content knowledge, historical reasoning, and knowledge of rhetoric. We addressed the question of how writing tasks can engage students in historical reasoning and more particularly focused on the writing prompt and the use of representational tools for selecting and organizing information in the pre-writing phase. Most research focuses on argumentation and the use of historical evidence; less research focuses on contextualization of historical events, identification of aspects of change and continuity, and the use of using substantive concepts and meta-concepts concerning history. More research is therefore needed on how students engage in these components of historical reasoning in writing tasks. Furthermore, there is a need for more larger-scale, experimental studies. From the studies we discussed, it becomes clear that different genres and writing prompts enhance different kinds of historical reasoning, as they focus students’ attention on specific components of historical reasoning (see also the studies on differences between position-based writing prompts and contributing-factors writing prompts described by Wiley, Steffens, Britt, and Griffin in this volume). Writing tasks should therefore carefully be designed, in line with the specific goals one has in mind. In addition, it is important to think about what representational format would be best to enhance the kind of reasoning that is required in the writing task. For instance, a time-line may be suited when the focus is on describing historical events, a concept map when the focus is on a historical concept, a causal diagram for explaining historical events, a matrix for describing and categorizing changes, or a diagram when

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focusing on argumentation. Future research (especially experimental studies) should further investigate the effects of different writing prompts on students’ historical reasoning. Another interesting line of research is the role of different representations in supporting students’ reasoning and writing in history. The focus of the chapter was on two aspects related to the writing task, the prompt and the representational tools used to select and organize the information during the preparation phase of writing. There are of course other means that support students’ writing. Recent research has provided some indications of critical elements of successful writing-to-learn programs (e.g., De La Paz & Felton, 2010; De La Paz & Graham, 2002; Hohenshell & Hand, 2006; Klein & Kirkpatrick, 2010). These elements include: frequent writing, explicit instruction in elaborative and analytical genres, and engagement in rhetorical elements of text production. Content teachers should therefore also be aware of the ingredients of effective writing instruction. Future research should adapt these general strategies to the history domain and investigate their effects on historical reasoning in writing.

Writing to Learn from Multiple-Source Inquiry Activities in History Jennifer Wiley, Brent Steffens, M. Anne Britt and Thomas D. Griffin

1

Writing to Learn from Multiple-Source Inquiry Activities in History

To learn about History is to try to understand the past. Historians approach this task by considering the information available to them across many sources as they develop written accounts or arguments. Inquiry writing activities seek to engage students in a similar context by asking them to use multiple documents, like historians do, to reason about how different people’s motives and actions; the cultural context including social, political and economic factors; and the occurrence of other events, all interact to make History happen. In addition to being representative of disciplinary practice, there are other reasons why developing writing-to-learn activities specifically in multiple document contexts may be important. First, the contexts have practical and pragmatic importance in today’s society. The ease with which information may now be accessed on the Internet turns many informal inquiry tasks (“Do citizens need an identification card to vote in their district?” or “What led to an attack on an embassy?”) into a multiple-source learning situation. Searching the Internet for information on any topic produces numerous accounts that may overlap, vary in detail, or even contradict each other. Students need to be educated in skills that will help them in these contexts. Second, there is a growing pedagogical need for this work. Learning in many subject-matter domains requires the comprehension of text and, increasingly, the use of multiple sources to construct written products (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Holt, 1990; T. Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Wiley, et al., 2009; Wiley & Voss, 1999; Wineburg, 1991a). Yet the advanced literacy and composition skills needed to learn from multiple documents are not often directly taught during formal schooling, at least in the United States, except perhaps for the instruction that occurs in select high school Advanced Placement (AP) History courses around how to approach Document Based Questions that appear on Wiley, J., Steffens, B., Britt, M.A., & Griffin, T.D. (2014). Writing to learn from multiple-source inquiry activities in history. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 120– 148). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_007

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the AP Exam (Wiley et al., 2009). As such, multiple source writing activities appear to be becoming a widely adopted approach to writing to learn as shown by this volume, in which we see examples from Mateos et al.; MacArthur; van Drie, van Boxtel, and Braaksma; and Klein. Third, this work has important implications for theories of text comprehension and models of reading for understanding. Multiple-document inquiry activities provide a unique opportunity to support advanced comprehension skills. Developing an understanding from multiple sources requires a transformative, integrative, and constructive activity (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Mannes & Kintsch, 1987; Spoehr & Spoehr, 1994; Wiley & Voss, 1999; Wineburg, 1991a). But, it is clear that engaging in these processes can be demanding. Reading multiple sources and integrating information across different documents into a written product can be challenging, even to college students and adult readers (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Wiley et al., 2009). In reading single documents, readers usually rely heavily on the textbase (Kintsch, 1998) and the author’s intended purpose for a text, and engage minimally in interpretative, integrative, or constructive processing. Constructing understanding from multiple-document inquiry activities involves more than just creating independent representations for each document (Britt, Perfetti, Sandak, & Rouet, 1999; Perfetti, Rouet & Britt, 1999). Typically, the documents are written for varied purposes and contain information that can be integrated in numerous ways to address several different issues and inquiry questions. Readers must impose their own goal or purpose upon the documents to create an organizing structure that will guide how and what information from various documents is integrated. A reader’s goal and inquiry question will often differ from that of some or even all of the documents, thus requiring interpretation, application, and re-purposing of information. If we take understanding to mean the construction of mental models of phenomena, then when the parts of a model are distributed across documents, multiple-document activities make integration necessary for understanding (Wiley et al., 2009; Wiley, Griffin & Thiede, 2005). When the same parts of a larger model are presented as sections of a single coherent document, there is typically an author who does the work of organizing the presentation order of the sections to simulate how the concepts and cause-effect relations are organized in the phenomena, along with linguistic markers that connect the parts of the model, such as transitions, mentions of prior and upcoming sections, and overview or summary statements. Even when each individual document provides a coherent explanation of its own target concepts, a multiple-documents context will lack these features that signal how and what parts of the overall model need to be connected. Readers are forced to do much of the integration

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work on their own that an author would normally do for them in a single document context. Thus, multiple-document inquiry activities are opportunities that require students to develop the skills they need to engage in reading for understanding. 1.1 How Do Students Perform Multiple-Document Inquiry Activities? Given that many students are not directly taught how to engage in historical inquiry or multiple-source comprehension, a goal behind much of the previous research in this area has been developing an understanding of the skills that naïve students bring to document-based writing activities. Early work by Wineburg (1991a) identified three main types of processes that expert historians, but not high school students, use as they approach documents to answer a question in History. The sourcing heuristic resulted from the observation that historians routinely look to the bottom of excerpts to examine the source prior to reading, and also mention how the source helps them make predictions and interpret the content. The corroboration heuristic resulted from the tendency of historians to note connections, agreements, or conflicts across documents. Corroboration is essential to creating an integrated representation of a situation. The contextualization heuristic resulted from the tendency of historians to use temporal context to make inferences about the information they read, and even question the accuracy of witnesses’ accounts. Convergent support for these observations comes from many subsequent studies that have been done on document-based learning with students in History. Many of these findings have come from Britt and her colleagues whose line of work on multiple-source comprehension uses a set of materials related to the Panamanian Revolution of 1903 (Britt, Rouet, Georgi, & Perfetti, 1994; Britt, Rouet, & Perfetti, 1996; Britt & Sommer, 2004). These materials also serve as the document set for the studies reported in this chapter. This previous work on the Panama unit has yielded a number of findings that resonate with and expand on the early Wineburg findings about how students typically approach document-based tasks. Several studies have examined the propensity with which readers pay attention to source information as they engage with documents. These studies have found that, in contrast to domain experts, high school and college students often fail to spontaneously attend to source information or consider the quality of sources when faced with multiple documents (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Rouet, Britt, Mason, & Perfetti, 1996; Rouet, Favart, Britt, & Perfetti, 1997). In fact, high school students readily use information from fictional sources such as novels and movies to support the arguments they make in their History essays (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002). It does not seem to be until students have substantial grounding in the discipline, such as being

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graduate students in History, that they routinely consider characteristics of the source such as the author and document type when given document-based activities (Rouet et al., 1997). Other studies have suggested that students can be made more sensitive to source information. For instance, Rouet et al. (1996) found that providing primary documents in the document set increased students’ attention to source information, affected their judgments of trustworthiness, and made them more likely to include references to documents in their essays as compared with students performing the same tasks on sets without primary documents. In other studies, the inclusion of conflicting information across documents seems to increase students’ attention to source information. For instance, discrepant information makes the authors of sources more memorable to students (Rouet, Britt, Caroux, Nivet & Le Bigot, 2009). An eyetracking study has shown that discrepant information within news stories prompts readers to look back at source information, moreso than when news stories contain only consistent information (Braasch, Rouet, Vibert, & Britt, 2012). Other studies have investigated how a computer-based environment called Sourcer’s Apprentice can train and support skills in sourcing (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Britt, Perfetti, Van Dyke, & Gabrys, 2000). Sourcer’s Apprentice supports sourcing by prompting students to complete “notecards” for each document within a document set. When high-school students read the Panama unit using the Sourcer’s Apprentice environment, it not only improved their ability to identify and evaluate source information, but also led them to write essays that cited more sources and referenced more information from primary and secondary sources than did a comparison condition in which writers did not use it (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002). To support students’ further use of document skills in their writing, a newer version of the Sourcer’s Apprentice environment has been enhanced with an automated citation analyzer, SAIF (Sourcer’s Apprentice Intelligent Feedback), which has been shown to increase the likelihood of citation practices even further (Britt, Wiemer-Hastings, Larson, & Perfetti, 2004). Another area of difficulty in learning from multiple-document activities in History is the need to contextualize the information in time and place. One observation from years of studies of the Panama unit is that without a map, many students are unaware of Panama’s location. Understanding Panama’s unique geography is highly relevant for understanding the reasons for the revolution in 1903. Another observation has been the prevalence of temporal misconceptions, especially among younger students. For instance, many students mistakenly think that the canal was built prior to the revolution when, in fact, the revolution enabled the treaty to build a canal with Panama. If students do not correctly represent the order of events, they cannot accurately infer

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potential causes of events. Thus, explicitly supporting students’ ability to contextualize the information in the documents may also improve what is learned from the activity. A third area that students seem to have difficulty with is corroborating or integrating information across documents. Readers of multiple texts are required to contend with the competing goals of understanding each source separately as its own entity, and then also in connection with the other documents. In order to build a coherent mental representation of the content being discussed in the documents, readers must integrate information from across the texts. An important element of reading multiple documents is the challenge of reading and integrating conflicting information, and this challenge is part of the Panama document set as it includes multiple, conflicting perspectives. Rouet et al. (1997) found that graduate students in History were more likely to write an essay that considered multiple perspectives, while graduate students in Psychology were more likely to assert a claim that argued for one perspective, or to include a statement of their opinion. Britt et al., (1994) also found that undergraduates had difficulty integrating across different texts. In this study, a small group of undergraduates read large sections from several books on the Panama Canal. After reading each document, students were asked to give a summary of their current understanding about the Panamanian Revolution. Rather than including the most corroborated events across texts, these summaries were very strongly affected by the perspective of the most recent text that had been read. Engaging in corroboration or integration across texts seems very challenging for students who do not have advanced training in History. Yet, integration across documents is key for developing an understanding of the content. Thus, tasks or prompts that help readers integrate information across documents and recognize corroborated information may be very helpful. Two interventions have already shown some promising steps in this direction. Britt and Sommer (2004) found that answering macro-level questions about an initial text and being prompted to read for corroboration (“compare and contrast the information”) improved students’ integration of the Panama content. Britt and Angliskas (2002) also found that an interface that prompts students to take notes on agreements and disagreements among the documents, and even the simple presence of multiple documents (versus a single textbook-like text), led to greater integration. Because much of the attention in learning from multiple documents in History has focused on improving sourcing skills, in this chapter we attempt to focus on the other two main skills underlying learning from document-based inquiry activities: contextualization and corroboration/integration.

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1.2 Chronological Thinking and Learning in History As discussed above, one of the three main processes that historians, but not students, spontaneously use when approaching historical information is contextualization. One important initial step toward engaging in contextualization is considering how historical information may be organized in time, which is essential for reconstructing historical events (Barton & Levstik, 1996; Wineburg, 1991a). Indeed, national standards in History identify chronology as a basic component of historical thinking (National History Standards Project, 1994a, 1994b). Students cannot understand the causes of an event if they are not clear on which events precede and follow from other events. Alleman and Brophy (2003) further suggest teaching students to engage in chronological thinking will not only boost understanding of historical events, but that it could also help students avoid the problem of Presentism. Presentism occurs when a person evaluates the past through the lens of current societal or cultural expectations. When reading from multiple documents, it is especially important for students to attempt to contextualize the information from each document and understand the temporal ordering of events. When studying from a single information source such as a textbook, it can usually be assumed that time will progress linearly throughout the narrative, with events mentioned earlier in the text preceding events mentioned later. If this is not the case, the author will likely indicate that this convention is being violated. When reading multiple documents, however, students cannot assume temporal continuity, and texts may be presented in a random order that does not match the natural progression of events. Furthermore, different documents may cover different timeframes. For example, in the Panama document set, some documents cover large time spans (early 1800s – early 1900s); some cover shorter time spans (October 16th, 1903—End of October 1903; October 10th, 1903—October 16th, 1903); and several present events from a single day (the 1846 Treaty; a newspaper article from July 13, 1903; military telegrams from November 2nd, 1903 and November 3rd, 1903). Thus, it is up to the reader to construct the temporal order of events that are mentioned within and across this set of documents. Monitoring the chronological order of historical events can be a difficult task, and studies have shown that children at different age levels may not be equally proficient at it. Elementary school children in particular have been shown to have great difficulty thinking about time in the past and its relation to the present. Young students’ understanding of the past has been characterized as undifferentiated, with children describing the past as a time when there were wars, dinosaurs, and kings, or when parents were young and Jesus and

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God were alive (Barton & Levstik, 1996; Lynn, 1993). The work of Barton and Levstik (1996) demonstrates that the ability to chronologically order historical information develops with age from kindergarten through sixth grade (ages 5 through 11). While all children showed some ability to order a set of pictures depicting key events in American History, the researchers noted that at about 5th grade, students begin to use more complex strategies to think about the ordering process. Other research has shown that chronological thinking is also a skill that may be successfully supported even among young children, particularly through the use of multimedia (e.g., Wiley & Ash, 2005). In one study with high school students, Friedman and Marti (1945) showed that students who practiced developing timelines as part of their first semester of World History developed better understanding of the general temporal order of historical events as compared to students who did not. In another study, Davis, Hicks, and Bowers (1966) found that high school students learned more from a historical text when provided with a timeline. Studies with younger students have also shown that those who engage in activities such as timeline generation, sequencing, or detecting anachronism develop a better understanding of historical time than those who do not (Alleman & Brophy, 2003; Masterman & Rogers, 2002). Given the inherently temporal nature of historical inquiry, in the present experiments we directly test the hypothesis that building a temporal model is an important precursor to exploring the complex causality of historical topics, by manipulating whether or not students were directed to engage in a timeline activity during the multiple-document inquiry task. As a first step toward examining whether such an intervention may be beneficial, we re-examined the annotations that students made who participated in the Wiley and Voss (1999) study. Wiley and Voss had undergraduates read a set of documents providing information about the causes of population change during the Irish Potato Famine. When writing their essays, students were able to use any notes they took during reading, but not the documents. A subset of students spontaneously created timelines or outlined the temporal sequence of events as part of their notes. The essays were scored in terms of the number of casual factors from an a priori model of the event. The post-hoc reanalysis of essays showed that the students who included timeline information in their notes demonstrated better understanding of the causes of the potato famine and included significantly more correct causal concepts in their essays (M = 6.2, SD = 1.6) than the other participants (M = 5.0, SD = 1.6), t(44) = 2.00, p < .05. These results suggest that constructing a timeline could be a facilitative activity toward constructing better understanding during historical inquiry from multiple documents. However, given that no timeline instruction was actu-

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ally given to students, it is not possible to rule out an explanation for these results based on individual differences (i.e., better students spontaneously use timelines). Thus, one focus of studies described here is the manipulation of whether students are asked to generate or review a timeline before they write their essays. 1.3 Writing Task Instructions and Learning in History Several studies (Voss & Wiley, 1997; Wiley & Voss, 1996, 1999) have found that the nature of the writing instruction that is given to students during writing-tolearn activities can also have an effect on learning. In particular, asking students to write essays that require them to integrate information across documents, such as writing an argument or explanation, can lead to better learning than asking students to write more descriptive or superficial essays. Britt and Sommer (2004) also found an effect of writing task instructions on learning from a pair of texts. They had some students create a summary of the initial History text before reading the second (Experiment 1) or answer macro-level questions compared to detail questions (Experiment 2). The students who wrote a summary of the first text and those who answered macro-level questions both showed better understanding across the pair of texts after reading. Thus, the writing instructions that are given can help students to generate a better understanding from historical inquiry activities, especially if they prompt integration across texts. In the present studies we used a “how and why” inquiry prompt as a way to direct students towards developing an integrated causal account of the Panamanian Revolution. In particular, students were asked to write an essay explaining the factors that caused the Panamanian Revolution of 1903. As a comparison for this prompt, in some studies, we also used an alternative type of prompt that others have argued might be more engaging or might encourage more elaborative processing. For example, to increase engagement in expository writing on Science topics, Hidi and her colleagues had students write “position papers” such as “Insect infestations: To spray or not to spray?” (e.g. Hidi, Ainley, Berndorff & del Favero, 2007). Boscolo and his colleagues have suggested that having students write about their personal point of view about the topic of a set of sources should stimulate more personal interest and involvement (e.g. Boscolo, del Favero & Borghetto, 2007). Similarly, De La Paz and Felton (2010) have used take-a-side prompts to increase engagement in writing in History (e.g., “Your task is to take the role of historian and develop a written argument about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964. If you were a member of Congress at the time this event unfolded would you have voted for or against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Please choose and defend one point of view in a well-developed opinion essay.”). The rationale for using these sorts

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of prompts comes from studies that have shown that heightened interest in reading topics or writing tasks can lead to longer essays (Flowerday, Schraw, & Stevens, 2004), better inference verification performance (Ozgungor & Guthrie, 2004), better recall of readings in written summaries, or higher quality essays that include more inferences or are more coherent (see Hidi, 1990; Schiefele, 1999; for reviews). However, a major concern is that even if take-a-side prompts or prompts to write opinion-based essays are engaging, such prompts may orient the student to only part of the information. To understand an historical event, it is important for students to establish as complete a representation as possible of all the relevant information. Prompts to argue for a particular position may thwart this goal by reinforcing students’ tendency to selectively seek support for the position that their prior assumptions, limited knowledge, and misconceptions may bias them towards (confirmation bias; Perkins, 1989; Perkins, Faraday & Bushey, 1991). Rather than reason through the information to arrive at a position, students may adopt a position early, and process the information only to the degree needed to find what they feel is sufficient support for this position. This would lead students to write essays that fail to acknowledge other positions or perspectives, and ignore or distort important facts or details that do not support their side (my-side bias; Nickerson, 1998; Wolfe, Britt, & Butler, 2009). In addition, position-based prompts will likely focus students on evaluating a specific claim for which there are limited and often dichotomous agree/disagree positions, such as “Did the new taxes on the colonies by the British lead to the American Revolution?” This is in contrast to a prompt that provides no claim to be evaluated, but rather a more open-ended question that requires readers to construct a claim from the to-be-learned information, such as “What were the factors that lead to the American Revolution?” Even if students consider “both sides” of a specific claim, their focus will tend to be on the subset of information directly related to that specific claim, ignoring other information critical to understanding other causal factors of the historical event. Besides the narrowing of focus, typical position-based prompts seem to invite cognitive processes more akin to evaluating provided explanations than to constructing one’s own explanation. Thus, another focus of the studies described here is the manipulation of the kind of essays that students are prompted to write, to determine whether a position-based writing prompt or a contributing-factors writing prompt that requires construction of an explanation would lead to better coverage and integration of the content. In sum, the studies reported in this chapter prompt chronological thinking using timeline activities, prompt integration using different writing prompts, and examine the effects that both of these manipulations have on student

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learning about History from document-based writing activities. The studies also move the investigation of learning from multiple-document inquiry activities using the Panama Unit into even younger student populations.

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Experiment 1: Writing to Learn with Timelines and Different Writing Prompts among Undergraduates

The objective of Experiment 1 was to manipulate both timeline activities and writing prompts, and to explore the effects of these on learning. In this study, the participants were university students and their level of understanding was derived by examining the quality of their inquiry products. 2.1 Participants The sample consisted of 150 Psychology students from a large Midwest university in the United States who participated in partial fulfillment of an introductory course requirement. To ensure low prior knowledge, the sample was restricted to undergraduates who had completed fewer than three college History courses. The number of college and high school History courses taken did not vary by condition. The average age was 19.26 years (SD = 2.81). The sample was 44% female. Self-reported ethnicity was 8% Hispanic, 22% African American, 6% Asian, 65% Caucasian, and 1% Native American. 2.2 Materials 2.2.1 Document Set The materials included nine documents about the Panamanian Revolution of 1903, based on those originally developed by Britt et al. (1994) to represent multiple perspectives on the event and its antecedents. It was assumed that students would have low prior knowledge about the topic, so a background text was included that provided a general overview of events leading up to the revolution and the construction of the canal. Two of the documents were accounts written by historians, each taking a side on whether or not President Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for inciting the revolution. Two other documents were personal accounts. One was written by Theodore Roosevelt, who was President at the time, and one was written by Bunau-Varilla, an official from the French Canal Company that had failed in its attempt to build a canal in the 1880s. The excerpt from Roosevelt’s autobiography denied any involvement in the revolution, while the excerpt from Bunau-Varilla’s book detailed a meeting with Roosevelt where they discussed the possibility of a revolution in Panama. Other documents included excerpts

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of the 1846 treaty between Colombia and the U.S. that suggested a canal could be built in the future, and an article from the New York Times about Colombia’s negative reaction to a canal treaty proposed in 1903. The last two documents included U.S. Naval communications during the revolution, and a fullpage map of Panama and the canal area. The average length of each document excerpt was around 300 words and average grade level was 10.9 as determined by the Flesch-Kincaid readability formula (Kincaid, Fishburne Jr, Rogers, & Chissom, 1975). 2.2.2 Pre-Writing Manipulation Before writing essays, students were assigned to one of three pre-writing activity conditions: timeline generation, timeline preview, or no-timeline. The students in the timeline-generation condition were asked to read the documents and create a timeline as an initial activity to become familiar with the information. In this condition, they were given a blank page on which to create their timelines. They were prompted to give the dates for 10–12 events. The students in the timeline preview condition were prompted to use the timeline and the set of documents to become familiar with the information. They were provided with an experimenter-generated timeline (using information from the document set) showing 13 events listed in temporal order: 1821 1846 1848 1850s–1900

Panama becomes part of Colombia. The U.S. and Colombia sign the Treaty of 1846. California gold rush. Panamanian people revolt against Colombian rule at least four times. 1855 The U.S. builds a railroad connecting Atlantic to Pacific across Panama. 1869 Suez Canal completed. 1880–1889 French company tries and fails to build a canal. 1902 Commission identifies Panama as only site for canal. Early 1903 The Hay-Herran Treaty approved by the U.S. Congress. Aug 1903 The Colombian government rejects the Hay-Herran Treaty. Nov 3, 1903 Panamanian Revolution takes place. Nov 6, 1903 U.S. recognizes Panamanian independence. In the no-timeline condition, students were simply prompted to become familiar with the documents as their initial activity.

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2.2.3 Essay Prompt Manipulation After the timeline or preview activity, students were given one of two essay prompts. In one condition students were asked to write an argument about the extent to which U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and his administration were responsible for bringing about the Panamanian Revolution. In the other condition, students were asked to write an argument about the factors that contributed to the Panamanian Revolution of 1903, and were encouraged to piece together the most complete and accurate evidence-based account of the controversy. 2.3 Procedure The experiment was run in one 90-minute session. Students were randomly assigned to pre-writing and essay prompt conditions, yielding a 3 × 2 design. They performed the pre-writing activities for 10 minutes before they were given the essay task instruction. While working on the essay task, students were able to use the documents and their notes. Students also provided demographic information and interest ratings. 2.4 Results 2.4.1 Essay Length Overall, the written responses were quite short and were generally only 10 sentences. A 3×2 ANOVA showed effects of the writing prompt, F(1, 144) = 6.88, MSE = 3932.94, p = .010, η2 = .004. Essays had more words in the positionbased prompt condition (M = 202.72, SD = 61.39) than in the contributing-factors prompt condition (M = 173.56, SD = 67.76). An effect was also found for prewriting activity, F(2, 144) = 3.82, MSE = 3932.94, p = .024, η2 = .005. Significantly more words were included in the no-timeline condition (M = 204.69, SD = 57.71) than in the generate-timeline condition (M = 172.34, SD = 69.66). The number of words included in the timeline-preview condition (M = 196.80, SD = 65.26) did not differ from the other conditions. 2.4.2 Core Content The essays that students wrote were scored for coverage of important information using the rubric of 16 core concepts based on an a priori event model. A diagram of the event structure appears in Figure 1. A 3 × 2 ANOVA on the proportion of core concepts that students included in their essays revealed only a main effect for the writing prompt, as shown in the left panel of Figure 2. Being prompted to piece together the factors that contributed to the revolution led to better coverage of concepts (M = 0.18, SD = 0.10) than being asked to write about whether Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for the revolution (M = 0.15, SD

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= 0.08), F(1, 144) = 4.33, MSE = 0.008, p = .039, η2 = .006. No main effects were seen for the pre-writing activity manipulation, nor was there an interaction, Fs < 1. To further explore the coverage of the event model, the core concepts were divided into proximal and distal causes of the revolution. The distal causes are presented as shaded boxes in Figure 1. As shown in the right panel of Figure 2, students in the contributing-factors condition were more likely to include the distal causes in their essays (M = 0.22, SD = .16) than students given the position-based prompt (M = 0.13, SD = .11), t(100.12) = 3.94, p < .001, while students in the position-based condition included more proximal causes (M = 0.18, SD = 0.15) than students given the contributing-factors prompt (M = .13, SD = 0.11), t(144.46) = -2.24, p = .027.

figure 1

The Panama Canal model with perspectives, distal (shaded) and proximal concepts

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Coverage of event model in essays by timeline and writing prompt (left panel), and proximal vs. distal causes by writing prompt (right panel)

2.4.3 Non-Core Content To examine the other types of information that students included in their essays, sentences not including a key concept were coded into one of five categories. The categories included background information (facts from the background text), evaluations (student’s opinions or interpretations), irrelevant elaborations (additions of information not relevant to the topic), questions (questions posed by the students), and misconceptions (erroneous inferences or facts). Examples from student essays for each category include: Background information: “In 1846 Columbia granted the US the right to travel through Panama. A portion of the treaty that granted this right stated that the US must ensure Columbia’s soverenty [sic] over Panama.” Evaluation: “Roosevelt chose to recognize Panama as an independent nation, because they were more willing to allow the construction of the canal.” Irrelevant evaluation: “Another reason Panama most likely rebelled was because of President Theodore Roosevelt, who is generally regarded as the most awesome of the Presidents. This is because he went hunting and owned a pet tiger and bear in his house which also happened to be the white house.” Question: “If he could feel a revolution coming, then why didn’t he stop to think about his plan?” Misconception: “In 1903 Colombia gave the US government [the right] to proceed with the construction of the canal.” The evaluative statements were most frequent (M = 4.68, SD = 2.63), followed by background statements (M = 2.24, SD = 2.16). The other three types of statements were infrequent (additions: M = .14, SD = .58; misconceptions: M = .37, SD

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= .70; questions: M = .03, SD = .16). Separate 3×2 ANOVAs were conducted on the number of each type of statement in the essays. The only significant effect was a main effect of prompt on number of evaluative statements. Participants given the position-based prompt included more evaluative statements (M = 5.29, SD = 2.48) than participants given the contributing-factors prompt (M = 3.75, SD = 2.59), F(1, 144) = 12.61, MSE = 6.42 p = .001, η2 = .088. All other effects were not significant (Fs < 1.76). 2.4.4 Essay Quality Coding was done for three other aspects of the essays: the extent to which they were written from a personal perspective determined by the use of first-person singular pronouns, the extent to which all of the four possible motivating perspectives were included (U.S., Panama, Colombia, and the French Canal Company), and whether or not they included citations. The personal pronoun analysis revealed that the position-based prompt led to greater use of first-person singular pronouns (M = 4.18, SD = 6.26) compared to the contributing-factors prompt (M = 1.66, SD = 3.37), F(1, 144) = 8.09, MSE = 28.73, p = .005, η2 = .056. A 3×2 ANOVA on the number of perspectives that students included in their essays revealed only a main effect for the writing prompt. Being prompted to think about the contributing factors led to the inclusion of more perspectives (M = 1.46, SD = 0.84) than being asked to write about whether Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for the revolution (M = 1.18, SD = 0.80), F(1, 144) = 4.60, MSE = 0.66, p = .034, η2 = .032. The rate of sourcing in essays was also examined. Because of the low frequency of this activity, sourcing was coded as a dichotomous measure: whether any citation, reference, or source was offered for any piece of information in the essay, or not. No differences in sourcing frequency were seen across the different timeline conditions, X2(2) = 3.20, p = .20. However, more sourcing was seen in the position-based condition where 38.5% of students included at least one reference, than the contributing-factors condition where only 16.9 % of students did, X2(1) = 7.88, p < .001. 2.4.5 Interest A 3×2 ANOVA on topic interest ratings again showed only a main effect for writing prompt, F(1, 144) = 15.53, MSE = 4.92, p < .001, η2 = .108. Students were asked to indicate their interest in the topic on a scale from 1-to-10 with 1 meaning not interested and 10 meaning very interested. The topic was rated as more interesting if students got the position-based prompt (M = 4.24, SD = 2.30) than the contributing-factors prompt (M = 2.76, SD = 2.04).

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2.5 Conclusions College students did report more interest in learning with a position-based writing prompt, used more citations, and wrote longer essays; however, these differences did not translate into better coverage. Instead, the position-based prompt led to more selective essays containing fewer distal causes of the revolution. The position-based prompt also led to more usage of first-person singular pronouns, suggesting that in this condition students were more likely to write their personal opinion. Further, the use of a timeline activity did not improve the quality of essays among these college-aged students, and unexpectedly, generating a timeline led to shorter essays.

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Experiment 2: Writing to Learn with Different Writing Prompts among High School Students

The results of Experiment 1 suggest that differences in learning resulted from these different types of writing prompts. The contributing-factors prompt contained an additional encouragement to “piece together” information that the position-based prompt did not contain. In our second study, we extended the investigation of writing prompts into high school grades to see if the same effects would be obtained with just the manipulation of the question students were asked to answer—contrasting position-based prompts with contributingfactors prompts. 3.1 Participants Participants were 88 high school students from 10 Non-AP History classes in two Midwest schools in the United States. The average age was 16.90 years (SD = 1.95). The sample was 66% female. Self-reported ethnicity was 69 % Hispanic, 2 % Asian, 7% Pacific Islander, 7 % Native American, 1 % African American, 23 % White. These total to over 100% because students were allowed to indicate multiple ethnicities. 3.2 Materials 3.2.1 Document Set The same document set was used in this experiment, with slight modifications to simplify vocabulary and sentence structure for younger students. The average Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level was 7.6 (Kincaid et al., 1975). The average word count per document was 245.

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3.2.2 Essay Prompt Manipulation Instructions for both conditions included the following short paragraph: Historians work from a variety of sources including newspaper articles, autobiographies, and government documents like census reports to create explanations of historical events. They read documents from a variety of points of view. They read documents that sometimes express strong personal opinions. Some documents may be written by historians. Some may be written by people who were directly involved in the events. You will read some documents like this, so you should not think of all the documents as being similar to textbooks. Below this paragraph was one of the two essay prompts: Your task is to use this set of documents to write an argument about the extent to which U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and his administration were responsible for bringing about the Panamanian Revolution. or Your task is to use this set of documents to write an essay explaining the factors that caused the Panamanian Revolution of 1903. Students were told they could take notes while reading, and were asked to write at least a page. 3.3 Procedure The experiment was run over two days, in 50-minute periods. Students were handed folders containing the document set. The experimenter then read over the task instructions (which included one of the two above prompts) while the students followed along. The participants were told to read through the document set starting with the background document to write their essay. Students also provided demographic information and interest ratings. 3.4 Results 3.4.1 Essay Length Essays were again quite short, averaging around 17 sentences. Essays also tended to be longer in the contributing-factors prompt condition (M = 244.55 words, SD = 10.02) than in the position-based prompt condition (M = 241.75

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words, SD =13.77), although this difference did not reach significance, t(86) = 1.25, p = .22. 3.4.2 Core Contents The essays that students wrote were scored for coverage of important information using the same rubric of 16 core concepts used in Experiment 1. An independent samples t-test revealed that being asked to write about the factors that contributed to the revolution led to better coverage of concepts (M = 0.25, SD = 0.11) than being asked to write about whether Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for the revolution (M = 0.20, SD = 0.12), t(86) = 2.10, p = .039. Also, as in Experiment 1, differences were seen in the number of proximal and distal causes by writing prompt condition. Students in the contributing-factors prompt condition were significantly more likely to include the distal causes in their essays (M = 0.28, SD = 0.15) than students given the position prompt (M = 0.20, SD = 0.15), t(86) = 2.51, p = .014, while no differences were seen in the proximal causes, t < 1. 3.4.3 Essay Quality Coding was again done for three other aspects of the essays. The position-based prompt (M = 7.15, SD = 14.10) led to greater use of first-person singular pronouns than the contributing-factors prompt (M = 1.51, SD = 5.45), t(86) = 2.34, p = .024. The multiple perspectives analysis revealed the contributing-factors prompt (M = 2.10, SD = 0.86) led to more perspectives being included in the essays than the position-based prompt, (M = 1.61, SD = 0.86), t(86) = 2.67, p = .009. No differences were seen in rate of sourcing in this study, X2 < 1. 3.4.4 Interest Students rated their interest in the topic on a 1-to-5 scale with 1 meaning not interested and 5 meaning very interested. In this study, the topic was rated as more interesting if students got the factors prompt (M = 2.54, SD = 1.18) than the position-based prompt (M = 1.97, SD = 1.21), t(86) = 2.10, p = .032 3.5 Conclusions High school students showed a clear effect of the different writing prompts on essay coverage. Even without encouragement to “piece together” the evidence in the factors condition, the contributing-factors prompt led to better coverage and understanding of distal causes, while the position-based prompt led to more selective and personalized essays.

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Experiment 3: Writing to Learn from Timelines in Middle School Students

Although Experiment 1 failed to yield effects of timeline activities for college students, a third experiment investigated whether timeline activities might be more helpful for improving the understanding of younger learners when faced with document-based writing activities in History. 4.1 Participants Participants were 34 6th graders from 3 classes in a Midwest middle school in the United States. Average age was 11.4 years (SD = 0.54). The sample was 56% female. Self-reported ethnicity was 32% Hispanic, 3 % African American, 15 % Asian, 56% White, 9% Other. These total to over 100 % because students were allowed to indicate multiple ethnicities. 4.2 Materials 4.2.1 Document Set The same basic document set was used, again with some slight modifications. The main change was to make the motives of the different factions involved in the Panamanian Revolution more explicit (e.g., adding a short section about President Theodore Roosevelt’s belief that nothing further could be done in terms of negotiation with Colombia over the canal treaty). The average FleschKincaid reading grade level was 9.8 (Kincaid et al., 1975). The average word count per document was 250. 4.2.2 Timeline Manipulation Students were randomly assigned to one of two timeline conditions in which they either filled in a timeline prior to writing their essay or after writing their essay. Students in the timeline-first condition were asked to read the documents and fill in a timeline before writing an essay. The instructions for this condition were: Your task is to read these documents so you can later write an essay explaining the factors that caused the Panamanian Revolution of 1903. But before you can understand the causes, you have to first figure out what happened. Please complete the timeline below by writing the event that happened next to the dates provided. You will be able to use this sheet to help you while you are writing your essay. Feel free to write on these documents while you are reading.

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TIMELINE: 1821 – 1846 – 1848 – 1850 – 1855 – 1902 – Early 1903 – Aug 1903 – Sept./Oct. 1903 – Nov 3, 1903 – Nov 6, 1903 – 1914 – Students in the second condition were given the essay task on the first day: Your first task is to read these documents so you can write an essay explaining the factors that caused the Panamanian Revolution of 1903. You will need to use specific information from the document set to support your conclusions and ideas. Feel free to write on these documents while you are reading. This is the same writing prompt that the timeline-first condition received on the second day of the study. Both conditions had one 50-minute period to work on the essay. 4.3 Learning Measures In this study, two measures were used to assess student learning. As in previous studies, the essays that students wrote were scored for coverage of important information and number of perspectives. In addition, a true-false measure (the Inference Verification Task) was developed to test for students’ understanding of the connections that could be made among the documents. 4.3.1 Inference Verification Task (IVT) Based on the procedure used in Wiley and Voss (1999), an IVT task presented 22 statements of possible connections between ideas stated in the documents. The students’ task was to decide whether each statement seemed true or false based on the information they had read. Half the statements represented correct inferences from the documents and half represented incorrect inferences. The connections that were tested were considered central to understanding

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the document set as a whole, and were not arbitrary links between different statements. About half of the items asked about actions or temporal aspects of events and another half asked about motives. False items were created by making inappropriate connections, such as stating that the Panamanians rejected the canal treaty, when it was the Colombians who had done so (this is an example of a false/motive item). An example of a true action/temporal item is “Orders were sent by a U.S. Commander before the revolution started telling the railroad to deny transit to Colombian troops.” 4.4 Procedure The experiment took place over two days, in 50-minute class periods. Students were handed folders containing the document set. In the timeline-first condition, participants worked on the timeline activity during the first day. On the second day, participants switched to the essay-writing task. In the essay-first condition, the participants wrote their essay on the first day. On the second day, participants switched to the timeline activity. At the end of the second class period, all materials were collected and students completed the IVT from memory. On another day, participants provided demographic information, interest ratings, and responded to questions about their perceptions of the task. To obtain measures of reading skill, a teacher survey asked teachers to indicate each student’s comprehension skill relative to grade level as low, medium, or high. 4.5 Results 4.5.1 Essay Length Responses were brief at only around 10 sentences. Only non-significant trends were seen as essays tended to be longer in the timeline-first condition (M = 171.06, SD = 13.90) compared to the essay-first condition (M = 138.83, SD = 14.59) F(1, 28) = 2.82, MSE = .32, p = .11, η2 = .102, and essay length tended to increase with comprehension skill F(1, 28) = 2.49, MSE = .32, p = .11, η2 = .178. 4.5.2 Core Content A 3×2 (comprehension skill by timeline condition) ANOVA on the overall proportion of concepts that students included in their essays revealed only a main effect for teacher-rated comprehension skill. As might be expected, higher-skilled comprehenders learned more from this writing-to-learn activity. No differences were seen in the inclusion of proximal causes in the essays, either for comprehension skill or timeline conditions, Fs < 1.03. All students included around one proximal cause. However, there was a significant effect of comprehension skill on the proportion of distal causes included in the essays,

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F(2, 28) = 7.71, MSE = .014, p < .01, η2 = .55, and a trend toward an effect for timeline condition, F(1, 28) = 2.42, MSE = .014, p = .13, η2 = .087, as shown in the left panel of Figure 3. .

4.5.3 Essay Quality The first-person singular pronoun analysis revealed no significant differences between the timeline conditions (F < 1), although there was an effect for comprehension skill, F(2, 28) = 4.45, MSE = 33.12, p = .021, η2 = .318. Low-skill comprehenders were more likely to use first-person singular pronouns. No significant differences were seen in the number of perspectives due to timeline conditions, F < 1. However, there was an effect of comprehension skill, F(2, 28) = 6.98, MSE = .73, p = .003, η2 = .499. Above-average comprehenders included more perspectives than average comprehenders, who considered more perspectives than the low-skill comprehenders. Only six of the students included a reference in their essays, and this did not vary significantly due to timeline condition or comprehension skill. 4.5.4 Interest No differences were seen in topic interest due to either comprehension skill or timeline condition, Fs < 1.37. 4.5.5 IVT Overall, the students in the timeline-firstgroup tended to do better on the IVT (M = .61, SD = .08) than did the students in the essay-first group (M = .57 SD = .14). While both groups performed similarly on the temporal items, F < 1, students in the timeline-first group did better particularly on the motives items, F(1, 28) = 4.73, MSE = .01, p = .038, η2 = .169. There was also a trend toward an effect of

figure 3

Coverage of distal causes in essays (left panel) and performance on motive items on the inference test (right panel) by comprehension skill and timeline condition

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comprehension skill on the motives items, F(2, 28) = 2.18, MSE = .01, p = .13, η2 = .155. 4.5.6 Perceptions of the Task The students rated this kind of learning activity as being very new and different from the way they usually learn (average rating of 3.8 out of 5). They also reported enjoying it more than “normal” assignments (average rating of 3.7 out of 5). Finally, they were asked what kind of things in the activity they found difficult or challenging. The responses addressed the need to corroborate across documents as well as simply the amount of reading. Examples include: “It felt difficult when I had to scavenger [sic] through the documents just to find the date I was looking for. It was challenging! I did like doing it though.” “In order to find it I had to skim all the parts of the story to make sure I was piecing it together in a way that will make sense.” “how to put things in a way they make sense to other people” “having to look back and forth between documents and taking notes from multiple documents at once” “I think the work was challenging with all the reading but I like a good challenge.” 4.6 Conclusions Middle school students showed some benefits from engaging in a timeline activity to guide their first reading through a document set. Although both conditions were given an equal amount of time to construct a timeline and to write their essay, the order of these tasks seemed to affect their understanding. Considering the timeline first may have helped students to form a structure of what happened, and having that structure in turn may have helped them to think more deeply about the causes for the Panamanian Revolution as they constructed their essays. As a result, they included more distal events in their essays, and better understood the connections between the motivations of the different agents and the actions that were taken.

5

Discussion

The main goal of these studies was to explore writing to learn from multiplesource inquiry activities in History. Because of this, our target measure of essay quality was coverage of a model that represented understanding of the histor-

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ical content. Another focus of these studies was two main skills underlying learning from document-based inquiry activities: contextualization and corroboration/integration. We prompted chronological thinking using timeline activities and integration using different writing prompts, and we examined the effects that both of these manipulations had on student learning about History from document-based writing activities. 5.1 Writing Prompts Overall, the writing prompt did have an effect on both college students and high-school students. In the two experiments that varied the writing prompt, the contributing-factors prompt led to the inclusion of more concepts in general and more distal concepts in particular in their essays. The factors prompt also led to essays including more perspectives. In contrast, the position-based prompt resulted in more first-person singular pronouns, more proximal causes (college students only), and more sourcing (college students only). The college students given the position prompt viewed it as more interesting and wrote longer essays than the college students given the factors prompt. The position prompt had the opposite effect on the high school students. They rated the position prompt as less interesting and wrote shorter essays. Some possible reasons for the inconsistent results in interest may be due to either the population or the context. The college students were older, but also were not doing this as a class activity whereas the younger high school students were doing the task as part of a History class activity. However, while the college students showed heightened interest in the position prompt, it is important to note that this did not relate to improved learning. While it may be important to generate student interest in learning tasks, stating an opinion on a historical debate may not tap the type of interest that will lead to the most complete understanding of the texts. It has been suggested that only certain types of interest (e.g., cognitive interest) may benefit comprehension processes, while other types (more emotional or personal interest) may not (Harp & Mayer, 1997; Kintsch, 1980). Further, the negative effects of using a position-based writing prompt are consistent with the findings of Stahl, Hynd, Britton, McNish, and Bosquet (1996) who found that students who were asked to write an opinion were more likely to present unsupported generalizations than students asked to write a description. One possibility is that students may not be very familiar with writing persuasive, argumentative, or explanatory essays, and may not know that they should attempt to use evidence to support their positions, claims, or explanations. The lack of prior instruction in how to write in these genres may have a large effect on how these writing instructions were interpreted. More research is needed to

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better understand what types of writing instruction can help students to better understand these kinds of writing activities. Then we can return to exploring which of these prompts might maximize both cognitive interest and learning from multiple-document inquiry activities. Another issue with interpreting the results of the present studies is that only the final study included a measure of learning outside of the essay. While it may be that the essays provided a valid reflection of student understanding of the content, it may also be the case that students wrote more selective essays in direct response to the position-based prompt, and that they actually learned more information than they used in the essays. Future research needs to include measures such as the IVT that was introduced in Experiment 3, or any other alternative learning outcome assessment, to separate learning outcomes from the quality of the written product and to better understand the contexts in which writing activities can effectively be used as writing-to-learn activities. 5.2 Timelines In two experiments, we used a pre-writing timeline activity to prompt chronological thinking and contextualization. Overall, the effects of this manipulation on learning were relatively weak. Wineburg (1991a) and others (Alleman & Brophy, 2003; Masterman & Rogers, 2002; Poster, 1973) have noted the important role of understanding the temporal order of events in creating an interpretation of historical events and we expect that this is even more important when reading multiple documents where temporal order has to be monitored across documents. While there have been a few studies examining how students understand time and use time to create context, to our knowledge only Davis, Hicks, and Bowers (1966) has found a benefit of timeline activities on learning. They found that a timeline helped students learn temporal information from a single text. Also, they found it was most beneficial for high IQ students. No studies that we know of have looked at the effect of timeline activities on the learning of a causal model from multiple-documents inquiry tasks. Thus, the present studies are an important first step into understanding how and when timeline activities may be used to improve understanding. The findings from our timeline studies with college students suggest that the timeline activities may not be necessary. The timeline activities did not help to improve the essays of college students. In fact, having students generate the timeline led to shorter essays which suggests a tradeoff in effort between writing the timeline and the essay. Alternatively, it may be that students considered the timeline part of their answer, so they did not include redundant information because it had already been said. Still another possibility is that having

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written the information once caused students to have memory confusion, and they failed to notice it had not been included in their essays. For any of these reasons, timeline activities that are done immediately before writing an essay response may have the negative consequence of reducing essay content. Perhaps this could be alleviated with more specific instructions on how to use the timeline to construct an account. Students could be taught that generating the timeline is only a first step in contextualization that needs to become part of the account. Or, introducing a delay between the two activities could help with memory confusions. In our study with middle school students, where timeline and essay activities were done on separate days, we did find some evidence that a timeline activity may be helpful; students made more accurate inferences about motives and showed a trend towards including more distal concepts in their essays. However, three aspects of this study may have reduced our ability to see a larger impact of the timeline activity on learning. First, we had a small sample, and perhaps with a larger sample, significant differences might have emerged. Second, we wanted to examine the effect of task order (timeline before writing, writing before timeline) while holding the activities constant. It is possible that a group that did the timeline activity before writing, compared with a group that did not do a timeline activity at all, would show more robust differences on the final learning measure (the IVT). Third, similar to the suggestion made with college students, students were not told how to use the timeline to contextualize information and support their essay writing. It may be that instructing students how to use the timeline to support the understanding of potential causes would add meaning to the task and help students see the timeline as more than a list of dates or unrelated busy work. It may also be that having students create timelines concurrently with planning the essay (as the spontaneous timeline generators did in Wiley & Voss, 1999) would lead to better synergy from the two activities. Although the competing demands of doing two activities at once might overwhelm younger students, which is why we chose to do the activities sequentially in the present study, an interesting empirical question is what would happen in a combined timeline/essay planning condition. Nevertheless, the present results are encouraging as they offer some evidence that completing a timeline before writing gave younger students a context they could use for integration and understanding. Future studies will explore how these benefits may be enhanced.

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Increasing Interest and Skills in Writing to Learn from Multiple-Document Inquiry Tasks One very encouraging set of results came from asking the middle school students in Experiment 3 about their perceptions of the Panama task they had just completed. Students reported that writing essays from multiple documents was challenging, but many students also remarked that they enjoyed the challenge. Students generally rated the activity as more interesting than normal History assignments. They also rated it as a relatively novel activity, consistent with the assumption that most middle school students have limited practice in how to approach multiple-document inquiry activities. Given the increased demands of reading multiple documents, providing students with practice in writing-to-learn activities throughout their middle school and high school years is essential to helping them negotiate the demands of the task. But, of course, practice is not enough. We also need to document the kinds of training and scaffolds that may guide students toward developing the skills they need in these contexts. While we have several leads on potentially beneficial conditions, the results of these studies highlight the need for more research to identify effective and efficient methods of improving students’ development of the skills of both contextualization and integration/corroboration. In addition, it is important to better understand how skills in all three of the target processes, sourcing, contextualization, and integration/corroboration, might interact. In these studies, we wanted to specifically examine how contextualization (the timeline activities) might set the stage for integration/corroboration (the construction of an essay containing the core content of the unit, plus the ability to recognize connections between ideas in the IVT). However, we also examined spontaneous sourcing. The level of sourcing was generally low for all groups. In fact, the percentage of students mentioning at least one citation was 28% for college students, 19% for high school students, and 17% for the 6th graders. While this rate of sourcing was similar to what we have found for untrained college students (Britt et al., 2004), it is lower than we have found for high school students (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002). Especially for younger students, it may be difficult to simultaneously promote both sourcing and integration. Sourcing relies heavily on individual document representations, whereas integration relies on abstracting common ideas (Britt, et al., 1999). It may be that students need more practice with each skill to be able to effectively coordinate these two skills. Better use of contextualization might provide a key link between the other two skills, but as noted above, students may need a better understanding of how to engage in contextualization, and prompting students to create timelines may be just a first step in this process.

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Although the research reported here focused upon the domain of History, some of the same skills are likely to be relevant to learning from multiple sources in other contexts (see also the Klein chapter in this volume). On the one hand, contextualization of the information in place and time seems notably more relevant to specific historical events than to the type of cause-effect explanations in Science that are typically intended to generalize across place and time. On the other hand, integration and sourcing are highly relevant for scientific inquiry practices. Documents in Science can conflict or cohere with each other, or provide different pieces of an explanatory account of complex scientific phenomena. For example, Wiley et al. (2009) and Griffin, Wiley, Britt, and Salas (2012) have explored learning from multiple document inquiry tasks in Science, where key causal concepts about plate tectonics or climate change are presented separately in various documents, so that developing an understanding of the phenomena requires integrating these concepts and connecting them. Research reports and data presented by scientists versus popular media accounts or textbook chapters have differences that parallel the differences between primary and secondary sources in History. Also, author bias, expertise, and the reliability or credibility of sources are important factors to consider when learning Science from multiple documents or Internet inquiry tasks (e.g., Wiley, Ash, Sanchez & Jaeger, 2011; Wiley, et al., 2009). Thus, developing skills of sourcing and integration/corroboration is likely to be useful across a wide range of contexts where people need to gain understanding from multiple sources. Another set of factors that we have only mentioned in passing throughout this chapter are the many individual differences between students that may affect learning from multiple sources and how students approach both reading and inquiry tasks. In these studies we have begun to explore the effects of (single text) comprehension skills on learning from multiple-source inquiry tasks. As one might expect these skills are related, as learning from multiple-sources will necessarily depend on the ability to read and represent single sources. Another area of individual-differences research has been the exploration of students’ beliefs about the disciplines of and inquiry practices in History (Voss, Wiley, & Kennet, 1998) or Science (Bråten, Britt, Strømsø, & Rouet, 2011), and the effect that these beliefs might have on how students engage in multiplesource inquiry tasks. But, there are also other individual differences that may be important, in particular students’ more general epistemic goals related to forming and updating their own ideas and beliefs. Inquiry and essay prompts frame a given academic task and can shape the readers’ goals, but readers also come to the task with their own goals, which are partially shaped by their thinking dispositions. For example, the extent to which students generally consider

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it important to evaluate their own ideas against evidence ought to influence the extent to which they seek out and make use of evidence during an inquiry task. Griffin (2008) showed that people do vary in whether they tend to base their ideas in their own emotional preferences or on evidence. Salas and Griffin (2012) extended this finding to a multiple-document context, showing that students who base their beliefs more in affect than evidence are less likely to give preference to documents that provide evidence. In a more recent study looking at learning in multiple-document inquiry tasks in Science, Griffin et al. (2012) measured middle-school students’ general disposition to consider and evaluate evidence related to their existing beliefs and ideas. They found that this general thinking disposition predicted the number of key concepts that students included in their essays about climate change and predicted their comprehension as measured by an inference test. These effects on both measures of learning were found to be independent of the influence of reading ability, prior knowledge, or student interest. Such individual-difference studies signal another set of potential leverage points for improving learning. Interventions that encourage students to increase their commitment to considering evidence should improve learning from multiple-document inquiry tasks, and in concert with the other instructional interventions discussed above, seem a promising avenue toward helping students to gain the most from writing-to-learn activities.

Acknowledgements The research reported here and preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education in part by Grant R305B07460 Improving Metacomprehension and Self-Regulated Learning from Scientific Texts from the CASL program to Thomas D. Griffin and Jennifer Wiley and in part by Grant R305F100007 Reading for Understanding Across Grades 6 through 12: Evidence-based Argumentation for Disciplinary Learning from the Reading for Understanding Research Initiative to Anne Britt, Thomas D. Griffin and Jennifer Wiley. The authors thank the other members of Project READi for their assistance and contributions. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute of Education Sciences or the U.S. Department of Education.

Strategy Instruction in Writing in Academic Disciplines Charles A. MacArthur Over the past three decades, a substantial body of research has demonstrated that instruction in cognitive strategies can help students to develop more sophisticated strategies that improve their performance in reading, writing, and mathematics (MacArthur, 2011). In the area of reading, the National Reading Panel report (2000) as well as other meta-analyses (e.g., Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 2001) have found that instruction in reading comprehension strategies is effective. In writing, two recent meta-analyses, one of writing instruction for adolescents (Graham & Perin, 2007a) and one of strategy instruction itself (Graham, 2006) have both reported large effect sizes for strategy instruction. Research on strategy instruction in writing has included a variety of strategies for planning and revising. Most research has focused on general writing tasks, including persuasive, narrative, and general expository texts. However, writing and reading tasks vary substantially by domain, both across professional domains and across academic disciplines (Bazerman & Rogers, 2008). In particular, growing bodies of literature describe the reasoning processes of experts and novices in history (Stearns, Seixas, & Wineburg, 2000; Wineburg, 1991b, 2001) and science (Klein, 2006; Sodian & Bullock, 2008; C.B. Zimmerman, 2000), and other reports describe the rhetorical demands of writing in literary studies (Fahnestock & Secor, 1991; Wilder, 2005). The aim of this paper is to review recent work that has attempted to apply understandings of domain-specific reading and writing processes to develop strategy instruction approaches in the disciplines of history and literature. The overall argument is that the principles and methods that have been developed in the field of cognitive strategy instruction could help us do a better job of teaching complex cognitive processes in disciplinary fields. In the first section following this introduction, I review the basic components of cognitive strategy instruction together with their theoretical foundations. I also briefly discuss variations in models of strategy instruction par-

MacArthur, C.A. (2014). Strategy instruction in writing in academic disciplines. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 149–168). Leiden: Brill.

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ticularly with regard to self-regulation and social support. In the second section, I address applications of strategy instruction to writing-to-learn in history, briefly discussing research on cognitive processes in the discipline and describing research with my colleagues and by others. In the third section, I describe one study that applied strategy instruction to literary analysis. The fourth section considers one approach to learning through writing in science that is consistent with strategy instruction principles. Finally, I consider other potential applications and make concluding comments.

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Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing

The fundamental idea behind strategy instruction is that it is possible to understand the conscious cognitive processes used by people who are proficient in complex tasks and to teach those processes explicitly in simplified form to less proficient learners. Cognitive strategy instruction draws on several theoretical sources to address three key issues. First, cognitive models of expert and novice performance help us understand what strategies might be useful to teach. Second, theories of self-regulation are important in understanding the development of independent performance. Finally, social constructivist theories that emphasize the active construction of understanding in social contexts are critical in understanding the development of strategic cognitive processes. 1.1 Cognitive Models Strategies are derived from cognitive models of expert, or proficient, performance. In reading, for example, Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) summarized the results of research on the cognitive processes of proficient readers, and Pressley (2000) applied that review in discussing promising comprehension strategies for instruction. In writing, a rich research literature has described the cognitive processes of proficient writers (Hayes, 1996; Hayes & Flower, 1980; Rijlaarsdam & van den Bergh, 2006). For example, the original model of Hayes and Flower (1980) described planning processes, including goal setting, content generation, organization, and revising processes, particularly evaluation. Strategy instruction has addressed all of these aspects of writing. To be useful to learners, strategies need to be specific enough to guide performance on complex tasks but also general enough to transfer to a relatively broad range of situations. The most commonly studied strategies involve the use of text structures to help generate and organize content. For example, the Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing model developed by Englert and her colleagues (Englert, Raphael, Anderson, Anthony, & Stevens, 1991) taught students to use graphic

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organizers to plan types of expository text, such as sequence, description, and compare-contrast. Graham and Harris (2005) have investigated strategies for planning stories and persuasive essays that use text structure mnemonics. In addition, a number of studies have investigated strategies for applying evaluation criterion in revising (see MacArthur, 2012 for a review), and several studies have looked directly at goal-setting strategies (e.g., Butler, 2003; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999). As noted earlier, substantial bodies of literature describe the cognitive processes and, in particular, reading and writing practices, of experts in the disciplines of history, science, and literary studies. This research could be used to develop teachable strategies in those domains. 1.2 Self-Regulation An important concern, and a critical goal, of strategy instruction is to prepare learners to use strategies independently. For example, students should be able to recognize a situation in which a strategy would be helpful and apply that strategy without prompting. In the early days of strategy instruction, A.L. Brown and Palincsar (1982) discussed the need for ‘informed self-control training’ in strategies, emphasizing the importance of informing learners about the value of strategies and developing self-regulatory skills. According to Pressley’s model (Pressley, Goodchild, Fleet, Zajchowski, & Evans, 1989), good strategy users must possess: a repertoire of strategies that they can use in a coordinated way; metacognitive knowledge about when and where various strategies are valuable and metacognitive strategies for self-regulation; other knowledge and skills needed to make use of strategies, including content knowledge and task knowledge; and motivational beliefs that support effortful use of strategies, particularly self-efficacy. Self-regulation includes a range of processes for setting goals, selecting strategies, monitoring strategy use, evaluating effects on performance, managing motivation and effort, and managing time and the environment (Harris, Graham, MacArthur, Reid, & Mason, 2011; B.J. Zimmerman, 1994). Because of the complexity of writing and the effort required for skilled writing, self-regulation is particularly important, and cognitive models of writing have generally included self-regulation components. Hayes and Flower (1980) described writing as a goal-directed problem-solving process requiring writers to flexibly shift attention among planning, translating, and reviewing processes. They posited the existence of a ‘monitor’ to manage and regulate the other processes. Bereiter and Scardamalia’s model (1987) included an ‘executive control’ component with similar functions, and they conducted a number of experimental studies showing the importance of this control function to proficient writing.

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Approaches to strategy instruction in writing have conceptualized selfregulation in somewhat different ways. The self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model developed by Harris and Graham (1985, 2009; Graham & Harris, 2005) includes specific procedures to help students develop selfregulation strategies. Students learn to set goals for performance to motivate their efforts. They are taught procedures for self-monitoring their use of strategies, self-evaluating their performance to determine whether the strategy is working, and self-reinforcement. Finally, SRSD instruction aims to help students develop an internal dialogue for directing strategy use and maintaining motivation; students learn to use self-statements and self-questions that are individualized to their needs. Other approaches that do not include explicit instruction in self-regulation strategies, nonetheless emphasize the importance of fostering independent self-regulated use of strategies. For example, in the Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing model of Englert and colleagues (1991), self-regulated use develops through scaffolded support from teachers and peers with gradual release of responsibility. A meta-analysis of research on writing strategy instruction (Graham, 2006) found larger effect sizes for instruction following the SRSD model than for approaches with less explicit focus on self-regulation. 1.3 Learning and Instruction Social constructivist theories that emphasize the active construction of understanding in social contexts are critical in understanding development and instruction in cognitive strategies (Englert, Mariage, & Dunsmore, 2006; Pressley, Harris, & Marks, 1992; Vygotsky, 1978). Teachers provide explicit explanations of strategies, but much of the instructional and learning effort is devoted to scaffolding students’ attempts to use strategies and helping them to understand the value and purpose of strategies for worthwhile tasks. Because strategies are ideally heuristics to guide students in thinking about complex processes rather than prescriptive procedures, it is essential for students to construct their own understanding of the strategies. Most approaches to strategy instruction (Graham & Harris, 2005; Pressley & Wharton-McDonald, 1997) include the following components: First, teachers plan to teach strategies using meaningful writing tasks. Without this meaningful context, strategies may fail to make sense to students and are unlikely to generalize to other tasks and settings. Second, teachers provide explicit explanations and modeling of strategies using think aloud methods. Explanations address the purpose and value of the strategies as well as how to carry them out. Think aloud modeling is necessary to demonstrate cognitive processes that are otherwise invisible. If self-regulation strategies are included, they are

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modeled as part of the process and discussed. Third, teachers scaffold student use of the strategies through teacher-student or peer collaboration and guided practice. In this process, teachers evaluate student understanding and provide feedback to students on how they are using the strategy and on their writing performance. Practice continues until students demonstrate independent use of the strategy, meaning that they can explain the strategy and use it for writing. Fourth, teachers build motivation by helping students to see how the strategy improves their performance and stressing that students can be successful by using strategies. Finally, teachers support maintenance and generalization in a number of ways. They frequently discuss with students when and where they might use the strategy. They provide ample opportunities for students to use the strategy, and may plan with other teachers to remind students about the strategy when appropriate. Other approaches to scaffolded instruction, such as teacher and peer conferences in writing workshop, provide social support as students construct an understanding of writing. Strategy instruction differs in its emphasis on explicit explanation of processes for writing that have been shown to be effective. Strategy instruction is compatible with social approaches to writing such as writing workshop. MacArthur and colleagues (MacArthur, Schwartz, Graham, Molloy, & Harris, 1996) reported a case study of writing workshop teachers implementing an integrated reading-writing strategy in a class of struggling readers and found that the strategy instruction was consistent with the teachers’ focus on writing processes and independent performance. Englert and colleagues (2006) have fully integrated strategy instruction as one component in a primarily sociocultural approach to writing instruction. I have explained the basic components and theoretical foundations of strategy instruction rather briefly in order to consider how these components could be applied to reading and writing instruction in the disciplines. In the next section, I review research that has attempted to integrate strategy instruction into history education. The first requirement for such applications is an understanding of the demands of reading and writing in history and the cognitive processes used by historians.

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Historical Understanding and Reasoning

Current approaches to history education emphasize the importance and value of teaching history as a discipline (VanSledright, 2010; Wineburg, 2001). This emphasis is reflected in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS, Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010), which include critical reading of primary

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and secondary sources and use of multiple sources to develop written historical explanations and arguments. I acknowledge that there are other important purposes of history education, such as promoting informed and active participation in a democratic system (Barton & Levstik, 2004). Nonetheless, my colleagues and I have argued that learning history as a discipline is important and complementary to learning to evaluate information relevant to contemporary public issues (MacArthur, Ferretti, & Okolo, 2002). By the standards of history as a discipline, students have not performed well. The NAEP history test, given in 1994, 2001, and 2006 (J. Lee & Weiss, 2007) assessed students’ knowledge and understanding of history from multiple perspectives and their ability to conduct historical analysis and interpretation— across four main themes and eight chronological periods. For example, fourth graders (age 9–10) were asked questions about the meaning and importance of the First Amendment, eighth graders (age 13–14) were asked about the contents of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and twelfth graders (age 17–18) were questioned about the arguments at the Constitutional Convention. Overall performance improved at all three grade levels from 1994 to 2006. Nonetheless, in 2006, at the fourth and eighth grades, about a third of students performed below the basic level, half at the basic level, and fewer than 20 % at the proficient or advanced levels. In twelfth grade, 53% of students scored below basic, 33% at basic, and only 14% at proficient or advanced levels. One requirement for the development of cognitive strategy instruction in historical thinking and writing is an understanding of the cognitive processes of expert historians. A substantial body of research has investigated the thought processes of historians as they construct historical accounts and compared them to the thinking of college students (Rouet, Britt, Mason, & Perfetti, 1996), high school students (Wineburg, 1991b, 2001; Wineburg, Mosberg, Porat, & Duncan, 2007; Young & Leinhardt, 1998), and elementary school students (Barton, 2001; P. Lee & Ashby, 2000; VanSledright & Kelly, 1998). History educators have written about two aspects of historical thinking. First, historical understanding requires seeing the world from the perspectives of people who lived in different times, places, and cultures. Thorough comprehension of a historical narrative involves understanding how environment, technology, economics, and other aspects of culture shaped peoples’ perspectives and the decisions they made (P. Lee, Dickinson, & Ashby, 1997). Interpreting the past in terms of one’s own experiences and values is a common source of misconceptions about history (Ferretti, MacArthur, & Okolo, 2007). Furthermore, it is important to understand the perspectives of multiple groups to make sense of historical conflict and change (Barton, 2001). Second, historical reasoning involves understanding that historical accounts are argu-

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ments for particular interpretations of the past, which must be supported with relevant evidence using discipline-relevant methods (VanSledright & Kelly, 1998; Wineburg, 1991b, 2001). In evaluating evidence, historians consider the source of the evidence and resulting bias, seek corroborating evidence from other sources, and use their knowledge of the historical period and situation to develop interpretations (Wineburg, 1991b). Both of these kinds of historical thinking—understanding the perspectives of others and critical evaluation of evidence in support of an argument—are relevant to the broad purpose of preparing students for participation in a democratic and multicultural society. In the next three sections of the paper, I will describe three efforts to use cognitive strategy instruction to help students develop historical understanding and historical reasoning. First, our research group (Ferretti, MacArthur, & Okolo, 2001, 2005; MacArthur et al., 2002; Okolo, Ferretti, & MacArthur, 2007) conducted a series of design studies on strategy-supported inquiry instruction in fifth- and sixth-grade classes (age 10–12). Second, De La Paz and Felton (De La Paz, 2005; De La Paz & Felton, 2010) studied the use of integrated strategies for historical reasoning and argumentative writing in eighth-grade classes (age 13–14). Third, Nokes, Dole, and Hacker (2007) taught high school students (age 16–17) a set of heuristics for interpreting historical documents and writing about them. 2.1 Strategy-Supported Project-Based Inquiry in History My colleagues, Ralph Ferretti and Cindy Okolo, and I (Ferretti et al., 2001; MacArthur et al., 2002; Okolo et al., 2007) developed a curriculum model, Strategy-Supported Project-Based Learning, designed to help students with and without learning disabilities in inclusive classrooms to develop (a) historical understanding, which includes understanding of history as a narrative and appreciation of the lives and motivations of peoples in the past and (b) historical reasoning, which includes an understanding of historical evidence and how it is used to construct historical accounts or interpretations. To investigate the model, two instructional units were developed; both focused on the migration of peoples. The fifth-grade unit dealt with westward expansion from 1840–1860 and the migration of farmers, miners, and Mormons to the American West. The sixth-grade unit dealt with immigration at the turn of the twentieth century with a focus on Eastern European Jews and Chinese immigrants. Each unit was taught over eight weeks in 25–30 lessons lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The overall approach was social constructivist. Collaborative discourse with peers and sensitive guidance by the teachers were seen as critical to learning. Strategy instruction was only one of several instructional design elements.

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First, multimedia was used along with printed texts to present background information about the historical period. Each unit began with four to five one-hour sessions of whole class presentations and discussions using video, photographs, maps, and textbook selections to give students some common understanding about the historical context. Second, students engaged in project-based inquiry on historical problems. Students worked collaboratively in small groups on investigations, wrote about their findings, and then presented their investigations to the whole class. For example, in the fifth-grade unit, each student group investigated a group of migrants heading West (e.g., Mormons) or a group of Native Americans (e.g., Sioux). A variety of primary and secondary sources were used including both texts and pictures. For example, they read diary entries by migrants and newspaper excerpts, and looked at paintings from the time and photographs of artifacts. Third, we embedded cognitive strategies in project activities. The units on migration were organized around two conceptual frameworks, or “big ideas,” that were taught as strategies to be used to construct written historical narratives. Our goal was for students to understand that history is fundamentally a narrative (P. Lee & Ashby, 2000)—the story of people who encountered a problem that required them to take some action. The ways of life framework was used to analyze different groups of people by examining their cultural ways of life in categories of economy, technology, daily life, religion, and political beliefs. The migration and conflict framework was used to interpret reasons for migration and resulting conflicts. Students learned that problems related to people’s ways of life motivate migration and bring them into contact with other groups of people, who often have different ways of life. Conflicts arise, and various outcomes occur as a result of these conflicts. Finally, students also learned a compare-contrast strategy to guide their understanding of similarities and differences between groups of people with different ways of life. Students used the compare-contrast strategy along with the categories from the ways of life framework in collaborative inquiry projects to construct narratives of particular groups of migrant peoples. Throughout the inquiry projects, students used the strategies to support their writing activities. They took notes using a graphic organizer that incorporated comparison of groups on ways of life. They wrote brief pieces explaining conflicts between groups. Finally, they wrote a summary narrative about their assigned group and made a group presentation to the class. In some classes with adequate technology support, this final narrative was presented using multimedia (Ferretti et al., 2001). In the second year of development and implementation, we added debates to the units. Information gathered in inquiry projects was organized and used in classroom debates with groups of students taking the perspectives of the

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historical groups they had studied. Students were provided with a general framework for planning their arguments, including reasons, evidence, and rebuttals of potential opposing positions, which they used to prepare written notes for the debates. This framework was not taught as a full self-regulated strategy, but rather as a procedural support. Also, students were not asked to write argumentative essays after the debates; rather, the debates were intended to help inform their final group reports and presentations. Finally, we attempted to teach a basic understanding of standards used by historians to evaluate evidence and historical interpretations. Students read, viewed, and discussed different examples of primary and secondary sources, and considered the strengths and weaknesses of different types of evidence. They learned about bias in sources of evidence and in omitting perspectives. In their inquiry projects, students were reminded to provide an accurate interpretation that took into account different viewpoints. Because these were design studies and the cognitive strategies were only one component of the full instruction, we have not made claims about the effects of the strategies. In general, both students with LD and their normally achieving peers made gains from pretest to posttest on tests of historical knowledge about the content taught. They also made gains on interviews that addressed application of the migration framework to brief stories of contemporary immigrant groups, and issues about primary and secondary sources and biased accounts (Ferretti et al., 2001; MacArthur et al., 2002). Qualitative analyses of the interviews and classroom interactions also revealed many limitations in students’ understanding. Regarding the narrative framework about migration and ways of life, most students in the interviews could give possible reasons why groups of people might move and come into conflict with others in their new locations, but few could explain the actual categories for ways of life or reasons for moving. Regarding historical reasoning, most students developed some understanding of primary and secondary sources, but many developed the common misconception that primary sources are more reliable than secondary sources (Barton, 2005). Concepts about disciplinary reasoning in history are complex, and further research is needed on the relationships between instruction and misconceptions. A discourse analysis of classroom debates (MacArthur et al., 2002) found that they promoted high levels of engagement and equal participation by students with and without disabilities as well as by boys and girls. Furthermore, debate discourse was influenced by the knowledge students gained during their investigations. However, we also found that students failed to use much of the knowledge they possessed about the historical groups as evidence in the debates. The debates were more typical of everyday arguments based on

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general principles than of historical or policy debates based on evidence. Based on these findings, in future work we plan to structure the debates as policy debates with the goal of developing a consensus on public policy. In addition, we plan to provide more explicit instruction in a debate strategy. Analyses of instructional interactions revealed a number of areas for improvement, including aspects of instruction in the strategies. Integrating instruction in cognitive strategies with content area instruction is complex and demanding for teachers. Teachers explained the compare-contrast strategy and the ways-of-life and migration frameworks, but they did not consistently use these strategies and frameworks to scaffold students’ thinking as they engaged in inquiry projects (Ferretti et al., 2005). In future work, we need to provide greater clarity in our instructional model and stronger professional development and support for teachers. Although our program included instruction in historical reasoning, including interpretation of historical sources, we did not use strategy instruction for this purpose. In the next section, we describe research on instruction that did provide explicit strategy instruction on interpretation of primary sources. 2.2 Strategies for Historical Reasoning and Argumentation De La Paz (2005) developed a strategy for analysis and interpretation of primary sources and integrated it with a previously developed strategy for argumentative writing (De La Paz & Graham, 1997). The strategy for interpretation of primary sources involved processes of sourcing and corroboration (Wineburg, 1991b, 2001). The argumentative strategy guided students in using information from this analysis to construct an argument for a particular interpretation of a historical event. Instruction in both strategies followed the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model (Graham & Harris, 2005). The strategy instruction was integrated with a unit of study on Westward Expansion. Students worked with sets of historical documents about topics such as Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act and its impact on the Cherokee Nation, and the events that led to the war between the United States and Mexico. All primary source documents were texts written at the time and represented contrasting perspectives. Students also read textbook accounts of the events to become familiar with general background information. The strategy for analysis and interpretation of primary sources included three steps. The first step focused on sourcing, the process of considering a document’s source to judge its rhetorical purpose and bias. Students answered three questions: “(a) What was the author’s purpose, (b) do the supporting reasons and explanations make sense, and (c) do you find evidence of bias?” (De La Paz, 2005, p. 144). The second question prompted students to consider the inter-

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nal consistency of the statements in the source text. For the third question, to detect bias, students examined the author’s word choice and whether there was only one point of view in the document. The second step focused on corroboration by comparing details across sources and looking for conflicting points of view or information. Students answered five questions: “(a) Is an author inconsistent, (b) is a person described differently, (c) is an event described differently, (d) what is missing from the author’s argument, and (e) what can you infer from reading across sources?” (De La Paz, 2005, p. 145). Thus, students learned to identify and then ignore misleading and untrustworthy information, and to focus on facts that appeared consistent across multiple sources. The final step involved the use of a specific format for recording written notes on information that seemed reliable from each source. The format involved writing paraphrases of the information in the source and noting their answers to the questions about sourcing and corroboration. The argumentative strategy (De La Paz & Graham, 1997) prompted students to generate reasons and evidence on both sides of an issue and select reasons and opposing reasons to use in an argument with rebuttal. Students then drafted an argumentative essay following a text-structure guide that included position, reasons and evidence for the position, reasons on the other side with rebuttals, and a conclusion. Students read primary sources on historical events they were studying and wrote essays on controversial issues, for example, “Did the U.S. have a reasonable argument for going to war with Mexico?” They used the primary source strategy and wrote notes; then they used these notes on the sources to select reliable evidence for their position or to refute opposing positions based on unreliable evidence. The two strategies were taught cooperatively by the students’ history and English teachers. The history teacher taught the strategy for analysis of primary sources using four sets of primary source documents, and the English teacher taught the argumentative writing strategy using content from the history topics. Following the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model (Graham & Harris, 2005), teachers explained the importance of the strategies, explained and modeled the steps, arranged and supported small group practice, and gradually transitioned the students to independent use. Students worked in small groups as they learned the strategies. Then they worked independently on two new topics. Instruction was relatively brief considering its complexity; it included 10 days (class periods) in the English class and 12 days in the history class. The instruction was investigated in a quasi-experimental study. Two eighthgrade classes (70 students, age 13–14) that included both students with LD as well as average and talented writers received the instruction. Two other classes

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in the same school served as a no-treatment control; however, the control classes included no students with LD. For pretest and posttest, experimental students analyzed a set of primary-source documents and wrote an argumentative essay; control students participated only on the posttest. Posttest essays written by students in the treatment group were longer and included more arguments; they were also rated higher in persuasive quality and historical accuracy of content (all results statistically significant at p < .01). A subset of treatment-group students, including 10 students with LD and 15 students without LD matched on race and gender, was interviewed before and after instruction about their understandings of historical reasoning using an interview based on a similar measure by Ferretti and colleagues (2001). Quantitative analysis of correct answers on the interviews showed that both students with and without LD made significant gains. Qualitative analysis indicated that most students increased their knowledge about the types of primary source documents that historians use and the need to evaluate those documents; however, only a small minority seemed to understand the larger point that historical accounts are interpretations rather than factual accounts. De La Paz and Felton (2010) conducted a second study of similar strategies for analyzing primary source texts and writing arguments based on them. The study extended the previous research by working with older 11th-grade students (age 16–17) and enhancing the instruction to support more critical use of evidence. The analysis strategy addressed issues of sourcing and corroboration with somewhat more sophistication than in the previous study (De La Paz, 2005). The strategy included four components: Consider the Author, including credentials, knowledge, and viewpoint; Understand the Source, focused on the type of document and its purpose; Critique the Source, focused on corroboration of consistency within and across sources; and Create a more Focused Understanding, focused on interpretation of what was most reliable across the sources. Four teachers and their 10 classes participated, with two teachers implementing the strategy instruction and two teaching the control classes. The pretest and posttest required students to analyze a set of documents, including a 2-page historical overview, a timeline, primary sources including a cartoon and several text documents, and to write an essay taking a position on a controversial historical topic. Treatment classes learned to use the strategy and practiced using it to analyze four sets of documents similar to the sets of test documents. Comparison classes covered the same events, read the same primary sources, received whole-class instruction in interpreting primary and secondary sources, and wrote the same number of essays. Students in the treatment group made greater gains than students in the control group on length,

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quality, rebuttals, and citations of primary source documents. Treatment by time interaction effects were statistically significant for all these measures, but the results must be interpreted with caution because the control group had significantly better performance on quality and length at pretest. Both studies were relatively small quasi-experimental studies with only one team of two teachers per condition. Furthermore, in the first study, the control group was not pretested, did not receive access to similar instructional texts, and did not include any students with LD. In the second study, the groups were not equivalent at pretest. The studies show some promise for the instruction, but further research is needed to demonstrate efficacy. 2.3 Heuristics for Interpreting Historical Documents Nokes, Dole, and Hacker (2007) taught high-school students (age 16–17) to interpret historical documents using a set of three heuristics, or strategies, based on the research on historians’ cognitive processes (Wineburg, 1991b, 2001). The three heuristics addressed sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization. Sourcing and corroboration were included in the strategy studied by De La Paz (2005). Contextualization refers to the use of knowledge about the historical, political, and cultural context of the time to interpret the meaning of a document. Instruction in the heuristics was embedded in an American history course in a unit on life in the 1920s and 1930s. Teachers explained each heuristic explicitly, discussed its importance for historical understanding, modeled using it to interpret primary source documents, and supervised small group practice applying the heuristic. Study guides were used to support use of the heuristics. As new heuristics were introduced, the teacher reminded students to use all the processes they had learned. Students responded in writing to questions designed to tap their understanding of the heuristics. For example, for contextualization, after reading a series of poems from the Harlem Renaissance, students were asked to respond to the following question, “How did the historical context of the Harlem Renaissance influence the writers of these poems and the things they wrote about?” The study used a quasi-experimental design with eight history classes randomly assigned to four conditions that varied on two dimensions, heuristics versus traditional reading practice and single textbook versus multiple documents. Except for the ten 1-hour lessons on the heuristics, instruction was the same across all conditions. The common history instruction followed detailed lesson plans that included discussions, videos, cooperative learning activities, and simulations. In the multiple-text and heuristic condition, the ten heuristics lessons included a range of documents including excerpts from historical fiction, historical speeches, and textbooks, as well as photographs and charts

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of historical data. The main outcome measures were a test of historical content knowledge and a measure of the students’ use of the heuristics. To test their use of heuristics, students were given a picture and a set of documents and asked to write a 200-word essay about whether the picture accurately represented the events described in the documents. They also answered a series of questions about which documents were most and least reliable and helpful in the task. The essays and question answers were analyzed for evidence of using the three heuristics and for use of documents. Students in the condition with heuristics and multiple documents made significantly greater use of the sourcing and corroboration heuristics. Few students in any condition used the contextualization heuristic, and there were no differences in use of documents. Both groups that used multiple documents, with or without the heuristics, scored significantly higher on the test of historical content. Though these authors did not refer to their instruction as cognitive strategy instruction, it included most of the elements of strategy instruction. The heuristics were based on the cognitive processes used by historians, in fact, the same processes included in the strategy used by De La Paz (2005). Teachers provided explicit explanations of the heuristics and when and why to use them. They repeatedly modeled the use of the heuristics to interpret historical documents and provided guided practice in their use by small groups and individual students. This study successfully isolated the effects of the heuristics or strategy by arranging for common lessons and materials for content instruction across treatment and control groups. In this way, it provides important further evidence of the effects of instruction in a domain-specific strategy for historical thinking.

3

Strategy Instruction in Literary Analysis

Literary interpretation and analysis is an important goal of English instruction in secondary schools (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010). Engagement with literary texts has the potential to help students to enter imaginatively into the lives of others and understand their own roles and lives better. Despite the importance of literary interpretation, secondary students in English classes spend relatively little time on interpretive or analytical writing (Applebee & Langer, 2006; Gamoran & Carbonaro, 2002; Kiuhara, Graham, & Hawken, 2009). Low-achieving students receive even less opportunity and instruction in analytic writing (Applebee & Langer, 2006). Lewis and Ferretti (2009, 2011) taught low-achieving high school students a strategy for literary analysis based on disciplinary standards for analytic liter-

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ary arguments and previous research on strategies for argumentative writing. Students learned a process for interpreting texts by using common topoi of literary criticism and then writing argumentative texts that connected thematic claims to textual citations. Like other scholarly disciplines, literary studies, or literary criticism, has standards for relevant knowledge, analytical and critical methods, and discourse forms for argumentation. Fahnestock and Secor (1991) conducted a rhetorical analysis of major journals of literary studies and found that scholars used a set of shared topoi (appearance/reality, paradigm, ubiquity, contemptus mundi, and paradox) as critical lenses for literary interpretation. These topoi were part of the common disciplinary knowledge acceptable as warrants for argumentation. More recent research has found that these topoi are active in the interpretations of contemporary literary scholars (Wilder, 2005) and in the discourse of college literature classes (Wilder, 2002). Wilder (2002) found that these special topoi appeared in the discourse of instructors and students in an introductory college English course, and that students who recognized these topoi and discourse conventions were more successful in the class. Another essential feature of literary criticism is the use of quotations and textual references to support arguments (Graff, 2003). Lewis and Ferretti (2009, 2011) articulated a constructivist perspective on literary interpretation based on Rosenblatt’s reader response theory (1995) and van Dijk and Kintsch’s (1983) construction-integration model of comprehension. Rosenblatt differentiated between the text on the page and the meaning that the reader elicits in transaction with the text. Van Dijk and Kintsch described comprehension as including development of a text representation and a situation model that integrates the reader’s background knowledge. In this formulation, knowledge of literary features and tools such as topoi, as well as personal knowledge, are part of the background knowledge used in forming a situation model. Lewis and Ferretti (2009, 2011) designed a strategy for literary interpretation that drew on this base of expert knowledge. Strategy instruction usually includes both new declarative knowledge as well as strategic cognitive procedures. In this strategy, new knowledge included learning about figurative language and one of two topoi. The ubiquity topos involves analysis of how a form (e.g., image, symbol, syntactic pattern) is repeated throughout a work. The paradox topos involves attempts to reconcile apparently irreconcilable contradictions in the work. Students also learned a strategy for argumentative writing based on previous strategy instruction (De La Paz & Graham, 1997) but modified for the literary arguments. The strategy employed a mnemonic, THE READER, to help the students recall the genre-specific elements of liter-

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ary discourse: Students must have a THEsis; they must back up that thesis with REAsons; they should include Details as illustrations of those reasons (direct quotes or direct reference to the literary passage); they should Explain how those quotes and references are related to their reasons or thesis (warrant); and they should Review their main points in a conclusion. In addition, a graphic organizer was used to help plan the elements of the essay. Instruction followed the usual procedures of the self-regulated strategy development model (Graham & Harris, 2005). It integrated the new knowledge and the strategy. The general steps in the strategy would not help in literary analysis without the knowledge of figurative language and topoi, and the new knowledge would make little sense without understanding how to use it in constructing an interpretation. The instructor developed students’ knowledge about figurative language. Then he explained and modeled the strategy, discussing the purpose and importance of each step, and demonstrating its use for planning and writing while thinking aloud. Once students had a basic grasp of the strategy, the instructor taught students about one of the topoi by providing explicit examples of repeated patterns of imagery, symbolism or language use in literary passages. The information about topoi was then integrated with the strategy as a way to generate a thesis, reasons, textual evidence, and warrants (called ‘tie-in’ sentences) in planning an essay. The study used a multiple-probe, multiple-baseline design with six high school students from lower level classes. Baseline and posttest essays about literary passages were scored for text structure elements (standpoint, reasons, textual citations, warrants) plus use of the ubiquity and paradox topoi. They were also scored for overall quality as literary analyses. All students demonstrated consistent and educationally meaningful improvements in text structure, use of the topoi, and overall quality. With instruction, students were able to invoke the accepted topoi of literary criticism (Fahnestock & Secor, 1991), utilize textual citations to support their standpoints, and utilize warrants to explain the relationship between the textual evidence and the students’ reasons.

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Scientific Thinking and Writing

Science educators have a long tradition of attempting to teach students to think like scientists. These efforts have been supported by research on the cognitive processes of scientists and students (e.g., for a review, see C. Zimmerman, 2000) including the specific processes involved in constructing science explanations in writing (Keys, 1999a; Klein, 2004; Klein, Boman, & Prince, 2007; Klein, this volume).

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One approach that illustrates the application of strategy instruction methods to science education is the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) (Akkus, Gunel &Hand, 2007; Hand, Wallace, & Yang, 2004; Keys, Hand, Prain, & Collins, 1999). The SWH is used in the context of inquiry-based science instruction in which students conduct collaborative investigations and interpret and write about their findings. The SWH is designed to guide students in the cognitive and social processes used by scientists: asking questions, making observations, designing investigations, making claims, using evidence, comparing ideas with others, and reflecting on learning. Through a series of informal activities, observations, and writing with teacher guidance, students collaboratively formulate questions for a laboratory investigation and carry out the lab. They are guided by series of heuristic questions (e.g., What are my questions?; What did I do?; What did I see?; What can I claim?). They write their answers as they proceed and write a laboratory report at the end. An initial qualitative investigation of small groups in two 8th-grade classes taught by the same teacher (Keys et al., 1999a) found that the SWH helped students to analyze data in meaningful ways, link claims to evidence based on data, and engage in meta-cognitive reflection about their learning. Two mixed-method studies that combined quasi-experiments with qualitative analysis of interviews (Akkus et al., 2007; Hand et al., 2004) have compared the SWH approach to more traditional science instruction. In addition to comparing SWH to traditional instruction, Hand and colleagues (2004) investigated whether SWH could be enhanced by asking students to write a textbook explanation of the topic for younger students. They assigned (not randomly) five classes of the same seventh-grade teacher to various conditions: two SWH, two with SWH plus writing a textbook explanation for younger students, and one control class with traditional lab investigations and reports. All classes engaged in an eight-week unit on cell biology that included three laboratory experiments. In the SWH classes, students generated their own questions with teacher guidance and designed and carried out investigations. The control class followed the scripted laboratory guide. The quantitative results indicated that both SWH groups did better than the control class on a multiple-choice test of science content, but only the SWH plus textbook explanation group did better than controls on conceptual essay questions (p < .01). Qualitative analysis of interviews with students in the experimental classes indicated that students found both the SWH and explanation-writing activities helpful, and that they developed increased understanding of scientific investigation processes. The results should be interpreted cautiously given the weak research design. Akkus and colleagues (2007) provided professional development in inquiry science instruction using the SWH to seven teachers (grades 7–11), and then

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assigned the multiple sections of each teacher to SWH or continued traditional instruction. Observers rated the quality of implementation of SWH of each teacher and the quality of their traditional instruction. No direct statistical comparison was made between treatment and control classes. Instead classes were assigned to four groups: high and low quality SWH and high and low quality traditional instruction. Differences in student posttest performance were found across these groups, but the only significant pairwise comparison was between high quality SWH and low quality traditional classes. Analysis also revealed that posttest differences between high and low achieving students were smallest in SWH classes, suggesting potential for reducing achievement gaps. Overall, the research suggests that the SWH method may have potential as an approach for developing the scientific reasoning abilities of students. The data on implementation (Akkus et al., 2007) also suggest that it is a challenging approach for teachers to learn. Further research using stronger experimental or quasi-experimental designs is needed.

5

Concluding Comments

This review chapter has been limited to discussion of a few studies that consciously attempted to apply methods from cognitive strategy instruction to develop students’ ability to write in the disciplines of history, literary studies, and science. Other research might have been included. For example, Kinder and Bursuck (1993) taught a strategy for reading history textbooks as complex narratives. The narrative strategy presented historical events as series of problems, solutions, and effects. It was not included here because it did not include disciplinary writing. In addition, a relatively large number of studies have investigated the use of general reading strategies in social studies and science classes that were not included because the strategies were not domain-specific. Even more relevant is the work on writing in history classes reported in two other chapters in the current volume (van Drie, van Boxtel, & Braaksma; Wiley, Steffens, Britt, & Griffin). Additional work in science education might also have been included, such as work on writing arguments in science (Klein & Samuels, 2010). This chapter has reviewed selected research that has attempted to apply understandings of domain-specific reading and writing processes to develop strategy instruction approaches in the disciplines of history, literature, and science. The overall argument is that the principles and methods that have been developed in the field of cognitive strategy instruction could help us

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do a better job of teaching complex cognitive processes in disciplinary fields. Constructivist approaches to education share an emphasis on helping students to construct complex representations of concepts that can be used to solve meaningful problems in various areas (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Many approaches have been developed that contribute to this general goal in general literacy and in specific disciplines. Cognitive strategy instruction is properly seen as a constructivist approach to learning and instruction. What does strategy instruction have to contribute to constructivist approaches? First, it brings an emphasis on explicit explanation and modeling of strategies that are based on expert thinking and that can be evaluated for their educational effectiveness. For many students, if not most, explicit instruction in complex thought processes is beneficial. Kuhn (2009) asked in the title of a recent article, “Do students need to be taught how to reason?” I agree with her that the answer is “yes,” and propose that strategy instruction for disciplinary writing is one way to accomplish this end. Second, research on strategy instruction can inform us about some of the instruction that is needed to guide or scaffold students in mastering complex strategies. One such lesson is that students need to practice strategies repeatedly with sensitive guidance to attain mastery. One finding of our case study of writing workshop teachers implementing writing strategies (MacArthur et al., 1996) was that teachers had to modify their usual pattern of planning, writing, revising, and publishing individual pieces to provide more concentrated practice on the planning strategy. They simply had students plan and draft several pieces before choosing their best ones to revise and publish. The quality of teacher support for strategy use is also critical; strategy instruction is a challenging approach for teachers (Pressley et al., 1989). Teachers need to evaluate and provide feedback to students on their understanding of the strategy as well as their writing performance. In disciplinary area classes, evaluation of content mastery is required as well. In our own work with history instruction (Ferretti et al., 2005, 2007; MacArthur et al., 2002), we were able to trace some student misconceptions and failure to apply strategies to limited guidance by teachers in using strategies. Limited research has focused on professional development in strategies instruction. However, two recent studies provided fairly extensive training, including two days of explanation, modeling, and practice of strategy instruction followed by support and feedback during classroom instruction (Harris et al., 2012; MacArthur & Philippakos, 2013). Third, the emphasis on self-regulation in strategy instruction may contribute to the development of self-efficacy and motivation, especially for low-achieving students. Strategy instruction research has designed methods for developing self-regulation strategies for managing tasks, monitoring strategy use and

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learning, and coping with difficulties. An important aspect of strategy instruction is helping students see that they can be successful if they master the right strategies. As students see the effects of strategies, their attributions change to focus on strategies rather than personal limitations, and their selfefficacy increases (Butler, 2003; Harris et al., 2011; MacArthur & Philippakos, 2013; B.J. Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994). Research is still needed on many questions. Few studies have investigated which components of strategy instruction are required for effectiveness, particularly with different populations of students. A review of studies that investigated components of strategy instruction (De La Paz, 2007) found modest support for specific self-regulation procedures and for peer support. Further components analysis is needed to make strategy instruction efficient, particularly in content area classes with multiple demands on teacher and student time. Overall, little research has been conducted on strategy instruction for disciplinary writing in history, literature, and science. Knowledge about strategies and strategy instruction has become an essential part of pedagogical content knowledge in reading and writing instruction, required for proficient teaching of literacy. I think that strategy instruction has a similar potential in the content areas, but to achieve this potential, the field needs to get beyond general literacy strategies to develop domain-specific writing strategies.

Writing a Synthesis from Multiple Sources as a Learning Activity Mar Mateos, Isabel Solé, Elena Martín, Isabel Cuevas, Mariana Miras and Nuria Castells The fact that writing is involved in performing numerous academic tasks does not mean it is used in a similar way in all of them, nor does it presuppose that when it is employed it is used epistemically and eventually leads to learning. The possibility of using writing as a learning instrument is dependent on the type of tasks teachers set and students have to carry out in academic settings. However, research on writing has often ignored the fact that the demands made on students to write mostly require them to write after having read one or more texts. When this happens, reading and writing are performed in close connection with each other, so that some authors have defined them as hybrid acts (Spivey, 1997). This chapter focuses on how hybrid tasks can be better used within education to promote learning. It begins with an examination of the epistemic potential of synthesis and hybrid tasks in general. Writing a synthesis from multiple sources is a hybrid task with a high potential for fostering learning. For example, using multiple sources (“library research”) is a common learning activity at the higher educational levels; so is writing from multiple primary historical sources (see Wiley, Steffens, Britt, & Griffin, this volume). The chapter then deals with the complex processes involved in writing syntheses from multiple texts. We analyse the differences in the ways students write syntheses and the difficulties they have with such tasks at different educational levels, and we present some of the studies we have carried out on the processes involved in making syntheses and on the resulting products. Some of the methodological tools employed in analysing these processes are also examined. We end by describing several interventions to improve learning. These interventions aim to help students at different educational levels to produce syntheses from multiple texts.

Mateos, M., Solé, I., Martín, E., Cuevas, I., Miras, M., & Castells, N. (2014). Writing a synthesis from multiple sources as a learning activity. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 169–190). Leiden: Brill.

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Hybrid Tasks and Their Epistemic Potential

Today there is general agreement that the mere fact of assigning writing-tolearn tasks in academic settings is no guarantee of meaningful learning, that is, learning in terms of knowledge construction (Tynjälä, 2001a). This is so because there is not just one way of performing writing processes. The classical work on writing, Bereiter and Scardamalia’s The Psychology of Written Composition (1987), proposes two ways in which texts are produced: the knowledge-telling and knowledge-transforming models. These two general models, which some authors suggest might be viewed as two strategy families (Hayes, 2011), mark the difference between writing procedures that may potentially lead to a review and modification of one’s own knowledge (knowledge-transforming procedures), and those in which writing is limited to reflecting, in whole or in part, already-existing knowledge (knowledge-telling procedures). Composing a text in accordance with one model or the other entails activating different cognitive processes which, in the final analysis, have different consequences for the writer’s knowledge. In writing from sources, students alternately adopt the roles of reader and writer, a reader who reads with the aim of writing, and a writer who writes based on what he or she has read. In this connection, some research supports the hypothesis that when reading and writing are used together they are more powerful learning tools than when used separately (for a review see Tierney & Shanahan, 1996; Tynjälä, 2001a; see also Bazerman, Simon, & Pieng; Gelati, Galvan, & Boscolo; and Wiley, Steffens, Britt, & Griffin, in this volume.). This epistemic potential resides, at least in part, in the possibility of using a procedure in the production process that is more recursive than linear (McGinley, 1992); the students’ process of recurrently going back and forth between the source text(s) and their own text means that the information is understood, elaborated, and integrated. This process can give rise to more or less substantial modifications to the knowledge the students had in approaching the task. In this way, when students write on the basis of, and in relation to, what they have read, reading and writing combine their respective potentials and thereby multiply their powers as instruments of thought and learning. However, not all tasks involving reading and writing have the same epistemic potential. The actual potential of hybrid tasks seems to depend on various modulating variables; two of the most obvious are the number of texts to be read and the nature of the task the students have to perform on the basis of the reading material. Several studies have found that having to read one text involves dissimilar requirements from having to read more than one text, so these two kinds of tasks may therefore promote different degrees of learning

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(Wiley & Voss, 1999). Furthermore, recent research has suggested that some multiple-source tasks are more suitable for promoting learning than others (Le Bigot & Rouet, 2007; Wiley & Voss, 1999; Wiley et al., this volume). Learning potential is enhanced on more complex hybrid tasks requiring the production of a text whose content and structure must be decided by the author. For instance, in making a summary, students can use practically the same structure as the source text and confine themselves to telling the textual source in a kind of variation on knowledge-telling. Both knowledge-telling from textual sources and knowledge-telling from long-term memory imply a lack of transformation of information. However writing a synthesis requires elaborating an integrating idea or “superproposition” from different “macropropositions” of multiple textual sources (Segev-Miller, 2004). The writer must make decisions regarding the organizational structure to adopt in order to integrate the information from the different sources, and this may lead to knowledgetransforming. As with other writing tasks, the potential of hybrid tasks as learning instruments depends not only on the task’s intrinsic characteristics, but also on the student’s constructed representation of the task. Several studies have shown that a key difference among students is their representation of the task, and their subsequent methods for selecting and developing ideas from sources (Flower, et al., 1990; Nelson & Hayes, 1988). Even though a given hybrid activity is capable of triggering knowledge-transformation and -elaboration processes, not all writers will necessarily recognize the task as an opportunity to engage in higher level learning and not all will be able to take advantage of this opportunity (Penrose, 1992). In previous descriptive studies (Mateos, Villalón, de Dios, & Martín, 2007; Solé, Mateos, et al., 2005) we explored the reading and writing tasks for learning that were usually assigned and performed in secondary, post-secondary, and higher education classrooms in Spain. A total of 214 teachers and 646 students from across the three educational levels taking Natural Sciences and Social Sciences participated in the study. They received a questionnaire containing a list of reading and writing tasks to learn academic content, and had to select those they actually set/performed in their courses. For each task selected, participants were asked to answer a set of multiple-choice questions to characterize the task on different dimensions: primary source of information; frequency of setting/performing; perceived difficulty; kind of learning promoted by the task; degree of interest; kind of social organization to perform the task; whether performance was assessed and so on. Turning to the results of Mateos et al. (2007) and Solé, Mateos, et al. (2005), some differences were found between the educational levels and between

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the content areas; however the most frequently assigned and performed tasks (underlining; answering questions on a text; summarizing) require the reading and processing of only one text, demand very simple levels of writing composition, and lead mainly to reproducing knowledge. These tasks were carried out on an individual basis and teachers and students considered them easy. On the other hand, the tasks least frequently assigned and performed require high levels of elaboration, integration of different texts and written composition (writing an essay, writing a synthesis of multiple texts) and may lead to deepening knowledge. They were also performed on an individual basis and teachers and students perceived them to be difficult. These findings are consistent with those reported by Cassany (1999) for Spain, and with those reported by Applebee and Langer (2009), Bean (2000), and Tynjälä (1998) for other countries. They lead to the inference that the difficulties many students experience in tackling complex tasks that involve reading and writing from multiple sources, such as making a synthesis, have to do with the fact that these tasks are seldom the object of specific teaching and learning.

2

Processes Involved in Writing Syntheses from Multiple Sources

Various authors have viewed composing a synthesis of two or more texts as a hybrid task of a high degree of complexity and with strong potential for fostering learning (Flower et al., 1990; Segev-Miller, 2004; Spivey, 1997). Producing a written synthesis, with this or any other name (essay, review, report, etc.), is a type of task frequently used at the higher educational levels, especially in certain content areas (Social Sciences, Humanities, etc). The degree of difficulty and complexity of this type of task may vary in accordance with some of the variables already mentioned, for example, the number of sources, the specific demands of the task, or the characteristics of the information in the source texts. In researching these characteristics, many studies have focused on the use of texts presenting divergent or contradictory viewpoints on a particular topic (Britt & Sommer, 2004; De la Paz & Felton, 2010; Mateos, Martín, Villalón, & Luna, 2008; Wiley et al., this volume), whereas others have concentrated on tasks in which students are asked to synthesize texts providing similar and complementary information (Boscolo, Arfé, & Quarisa, 2007; Kirkpatrick & Klein, 2009; Segev-Miller, 2004). In all cases, producing a written synthesis always requires organizing, selecting, and connecting information from more than one text (Nelson, 2008; Spivey & King, 1989). It follows that producing a written synthesis involves not only

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the ability to construct the meaning of each of the texts and integrate the corresponding information (intratextual integration), but more specifically, the ability to connect and link the ideas from the different texts (intertextual integration) (Segev-Miller, 2007). According to Perfetti, Rouet, and Britt (1999), in the process of comprehending multiple texts the reader constructs a representation—the document model—that integrates the two components: the intertext model and the situations model. The intertext model represents the pragmatic and rhetorical characteristics of the source texts (source, purpose, potential bias, main ideas, etc.) and the overall relations among the different texts (support, corroboration, or opposition). The situations model is a representation of the global situation described across multiple texts, which may include aspects of the situation described by just one of the sources, aspects described by several sources, or even aspects that are described in contradictory ways across the sources. These contradictory aspects are integrated through rhetorical predicates linking them to the relevant sources (“according to,” “based on,” “in X’s view”). Moreover, while writing, writers must select which ideas they are going to include in their own text, find a common thread or structuring theme, and generate a new structure enabling them to integrate, connect, and organize the contents into an original text. Consequently, these tasks simultaneously pose students with a problem of content, that is, what to say taking into account what they have read; and a problem of rhetoric, that is, how to say it in their own words without ignoring the voice of the authors of the texts they have read. The resolution of both kinds of problems may lead to the students’ knowledge being transformed as a result of the comprehension, integration, and elaboration processes involved. In this context, the general aim of our research programme is to investigate the way students use reading and writing as tools for learning at different educational levels (primary, secondary, and higher education), and to intervene to improve this use. In particular, we are interested in synthesis tasks involving the articulated use of reading and writing processes based on multiple sources and in the quality of the written products generated, although we have also studied other hybrid tasks such as summaries (Gràcia, Castells, & Espino, 2012; Mateos et al., 2008; Solé, Miras, & Gràcia, 2005). Our studies have also led us to look for relations between synthesis quality and the degree and type of learning achieved by students, and to explore the influence of certain variables on performance. A considerable amount is known about some of these variables, such as prior knowledge and reading comprehension. But others, such as epistemological beliefs and beliefs about reading and writing, have been less thoroughly explored, although we have made some contributions regarding these (Mateos et al., 2011; Mateos & Solé, 2012; Villalón & Mateos,

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2009) and continue to work on them. In spite of the interest of these contributions, for reasons of space, in this chapter we shall concentrate first on research concerning students’ differences and difficulties in performing synthesis processes and the corresponding differences in the resulting products, and second on the effectiveness of different intervention strategies on synthesis production.

3

Students’ Differences and Difficulties in Writing Syntheses

The processes activated during reading and writing have generally been studied separately. There has been far less research on processing activity during hybrid tasks involving both reading and writing. Although synthesis tasks have not been studied very much, the existing research (e.g., Flower et al., 1990; Nelson, 2008; Segev-Miller, 2004; Spivey, 1997) has characterised them as cognitively demanding. Previous research has indicated that performing synthesis tasks proved too demanding not only for secondary school students (Spivey & King, 1989), but also for most college students (Flower et al., 1990; McGinley, 1992; Segev-Miller, 2004; Spivey, 1984). The work done by Spivey (1997), for example, shows that students do not usually employ their prior knowledge to process information to any great extent, except insofar as is necessary to establish connections and organize contents. Younger students find it particularly hard to establish both intratextual and intertextual connections. They tend to take ideas from the different texts without providing the necessary links between them. In all cases, the more experienced students are better at selecting information and write more coherent and better-connected texts. McGinley (1992) found that when writing a synthesis of various sources, university students read and write both linearly and recursively. For example, reading appeared as a linear activity in that it featured to a greater extent during the earlier than the later stages of the process, but it was also used recursively in that it still featured to some extent in every stage. Once the students started to write, they tended continually to seek support by reading the source texts, their notes, and their own texts. Middle school students, on the other hand, do not usually read and write recursively when performing synthesis tasks on the basis of various texts. Lenski and Johns (1997) carried out a case study of middle school students doing a research task which involved reading various texts. In this type of task students have to integrate three complex processes: searching, reading, and writing. Depending on the order in which the students performed these processes, Lenski and Johns (1997) distinguished three profiles or patterns: sequential,

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spiral, and recursive. For the sequential pattern of research, students went from searching to reading to writing. The spiral pattern was defined as moving through the stages of searching-reading-writing and repeating this pattern until the paper was complete. The recursive pattern was characterized by integrating searching, reading, and writing as the situation required. The pattern followed during a synthesis task also translated into products of differing quality. With the exception of one student who adopted a recursive pattern and wrote a more integrating paper, all the others adopted sequential or spiral patterns and wrote summary papers. In short, the texts that students write may be a restatement of the sources they have read or the students may simply paraphrase the source texts in their own words. Previous research has shown that the complex task of writing a synthesis requires alternating between the source texts and the synthesis text-sofar throughout the task in a recursive way. What makes the process recursive is not the mere process of alternating reading and writing, but the process of integrating information from the different sources around a structuring theme. As shown in the Lenski and Johns (1997) study, an easy way to write badly from multiple sources might be to read one source, write about it, read the second source, write about it, and so forth, adopting a spiral pattern. In this context, we set out to investigate how students at different educational levels, from the first year of secondary school—seventh grade—to university, performed a synthesis task in their regular classrooms. The three studies we carried out with this general aim are described below. 3.1

An Analysis of the Procedures and Products in the Production of Syntheses in Secondary and Higher Education In a first study (Mateos & Solé, 2009), we aimed to analyse the following: 1) the characteristics of the synthesis tasks assigned by social sciences teachers; 2) the written products generated by students; and 3) the reading and writing procedures used by students to produce written syntheses when asked to do so by their teachers as part of their normal school work. We carried out a qualitative case study of 45 secondary school and university students: 12 seventh grade (12–13 year-old) students, 11 ninth grade (14–15 year-old) students, 11 postcompulsory secondary education (16–17 year-old) students and 11 university undergraduates from the Faculty of Psychology. The students had to produce a written synthesis based on reading two texts. At all four educational levels the tasks were incorporated into an existing teaching sequence. The texts were chosen by the teachers and task instructions were given by the teacher to the whole class. The participants performed the task outside of the classroom in the pres-

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ence of a researcher, whereas their classmates did the task at home. The entire proceedings, during which think-aloud protocols were obtained, were videotaped. In relation to our first objective, the results allowed us to identify the tasks and texts assigned at each level as well as the significant differences between them. This analysis suggests that as one goes up the educational ladder, the complexity increases with regard to the type of synthesis required (from integrating complementary to conflicting information), the documentary sources used (from academic and non-academic texts adapted by the teachers to authentic scientific texts), the superstructure (from expositive to argumentative texts), and the lexical and syntactical difficulty of the texts. At the highest level, university, the greater complexity of the task is combined with more generic task instructions. Moreover, we may add that as far as the texts and tasks in this study were concerned, the teachers had considerable difficulty in finding texts that would facilitate the production of a synthesis, and in providing the students with an aim that would require them to integrate the information from both texts. In many cases the instructions given to the students did not go beyond asking them to connect or integrate the ideas in the different sources. To meet our second aim, the students’ written products were analysed with regard to a set of categories enabling the identification of differences conceptually relevant to the synthesis texts (Cerdán & Vidal-Abarca, 2008; Flower et al., 1990; Segev-Miller, 2004; Spivey, 1997; Spivey & King, 1989): selection, integration, appropriateness of the interpretation, and content elaboration. We distinguished different types of products in regard to the degree to which the ideas of the two source texts were integrated: 1) Non-synthesis, a product combining ideas from both texts, either by juxtaposing separate summaries of each of them, or by alternating ideas from the two, without integrating them; 2) Attempted synthesis, a synthesis that fails because it tries to integrate information from both texts around an incorrect or under-elaborated structuring theme; and 3) Successful synthesis, one that integrates information from both texts around a suitable structuring theme. As expected, the quality of the products differed from one educational level to another, with the students at the lower levels producing the fewest proper syntheses (58.3% of all products by seventh grade students were not proper syntheses; and 72.7% of those by ninth grade students were not proper syntheses). The texts produced by these students were often juxtaposed summaries of the source documents and failed to integrate the information. Only at the higher levels—where we found the only two successful syntheses—did the attempted syntheses outnumber the products that could not be considered

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syntheses (63.6% of all products by post-compulsory secondary students and 90.9% of those by undergraduates were attempted syntheses). Our data confirm the difficulty posed by the task of producing a synthesis. Moreover, analysis of the products themselves shows that many students (more than 50 % of the total) misinterpreted fragments of the source texts; 12 of them, in fact, had difficulty in understanding the texts as a whole, even at the higher educational levels. Earlier research (Risemberg, 1996; Spivey, 1984; Spivey & King, 1989) had shown that competence in making syntheses increases with the writer’s level of reading comprehension, which might, in part, explain our findings. However, it should not be forgotten that even though nearly half the participants did not show comprehension difficulties, they too failed to synthesize the source documents adequately. The third objective of our study was to identify the processes carried out by students in writing syntheses. Analysis of the data gathered provided access to the different reading and writing actions performed by the students in order to produce a synthesis (see Table 1) and the sequence in which these actions were performed. This analysis was carried out on the basis of viewing the recordings made of the students while performing these tasks, and also taking into account the products generated.

table 1

Categories and subcategories of actions performed during the synthesis task

Category

Subcategory

Reading

Reading source text 1 (ST1) and source text 2 (ST2) Reading and underlining ST1 and ST2 Reading part of ST1 and ST2 Reading written notes Reading draft Reading the synthesis produced

Writing

Writing notes Writing outlines Writing a draft Writing the synthesis

Revising

Editing Reformulating

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Ascertaining which of the above actions are employed and the sequence in which they are deployed makes it possible to reveal the existence of procedures with a greater or lesser degree of recursiveness and mediation between the source texts and the production of the students’ own texts. Along a continuum, procedures can be identified that follow a sequential logic (the student reads first and then writes) or a recursive logic (the student reads, writes, re-reads, writes again, and reads again). Moreover, the procedures vary depending on the mediation introduced. In some cases mediation is practically non-existent (the student reads the source texts and writes his/her own text directly), whereas in others, various degrees of mediation are found (reading accompanied by underlining and/or note-taking; making of outlines and/or rough drafts; revision and amending of the student’s own text). Taking into account the degree of mediation and recursiveness of the procedures, we were able to identify low, medium, and high complexity patterns of performance. As was to be expected, the procedures employed by students at the higher levels of the educational system were more complex and appropriate than those employed by students at the lower levels, whose procedures were simpler. Whereas the former engaged in more recursive performance patterns in which writing was supported by recurrent reading of the source texts and their own notes, the most common performance pattern among the younger participants was linear. These students read the texts and “forgot” about them, adopting a more sequential approach. These results corroborate the findings of McGinley (1992) with university students and those of Lenski and Johns (1997) with middle school students. At the lower levels there is a positive relationship between the complexity of the procedures employed and the quality of the products. However, a similar relation was not found among the students at the higher levels. This may be due to the fact that at the higher educational levels the students no longer use simple procedures, which means that the differing qualities of their texts are the product of similar procedures (of medium and high complexity). At the lower levels, where the students are just beginning to tackle synthesis tasks, extremely simple procedures co-exist with more complex ones and a relation between procedure and product is more frequently found. Another feature of the relationship between the procedure employed in performing the task and the quality of the resulting product that our study has revealed is the importance of the students’ revision of their own texts, not only in regard to formal aspects, but also in regard to content. Even though they may use procedures of a certain complexity, students who carry out a purely formal revision produce products of poor quality.

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3.2 Beyond Actions: Studying Processes in Depth Two new studies (Mateos, et al., 2008; Solé, Miras, Castells, Espino, & Minguela, 2013) are a further step along this path. They examine in detail the processes carried out by secondary school students in writing a synthesis by analysing the verbalizations the participants made while performing the task. The utterances were coded using a category scheme based on previous research findings (Coté, Goldman, & Saul, 1998; Flower et al., 1990; McGinley, 1992; Palincsar & Magnusson, 2001; Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). The specificity in our case consisted in the production of a scheme comprised of a single set of categories for both reading and writing in accordance with our view of the hybrid nature of the synthesizing tasks involving them. The main categories were: Task analysis, Planning, Meaning construction, Monitoring, and Emotional reactions and Value judgements. Each main category included various subcategories.

table 2

Reading and writing operations during a hybrid task

Category and subcategories

Description

Task analysis Reflecting on task demands

Analysing the problem (purpose, audience, contents and structure of the writing or reading)

Evaluating task difficulty

Evaluating the text/contents/task in regard to its difficulty or interest

Planning Global planning

Planning and choosing the purpose, audience, contents and structure of the writing, or the reading and writing procedures, in regard to units longer than a paragraph

Local planning

Planning and/or choosing what or how to write the next clause of a sentence, or the reading and/or writing procedures, in regard to units no longer than a paragraph

Meaning construction Restating

Repeating literally what has just been read. Copying the source text, copying the rough draft

Paraphrasing

Repeating/copying in other words what has just been read

Elaborating

Connecting ideas or concepts in the text to examples from the student’s own experience or knowledge

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mateos et al. Reading and writing operations during a hybrid task (cont.)

Category and subcategories

Description

Drawing conclusions

Constructing a conclusion, explanation or prediction, or a synthesis or generalisation that goes beyond the information provided by the text

Inappropriate elaborations

Constructing a wrong conclusion or explanation, or one that is irrelevant since it is unrelated to the text that has been read

Intra-integrating

Establishing connections between various ideas in one text

Inter-integrating

Establishing connections between ideas in two texts

Monitoring Task progress/Comprehension check

Supervising comprehension/composition: confirming a prediction or expectation, confirming something that was already known. Evaluating the progress of the task or the appropriateness of the text already written

Detection of main ideas

Confirming the identification of main ideas or important information

Detection of difficulties

Formulating comprehension problems (a word or phrase not understood, conflict with previous knowledge, etc.) or composition problems (not knowing what to write and/or how to write it)

Problem-solving strategies

Verbalizing the use of problem-solving strategies

Emotional reactions & Value judgements Emotional reaction Reacting in a personal and affective way. Judgements regarding the student’s own competence, or references to personal or emotional states Value judgement

Judgements to do with the contents or the formal features of a text, or with the author’s stance or style

In the study by Mateos at al. (2008) we analysed the utterances of 9 of the 11 ninth grade students (14–15 year-olds) who had participated in the previous study. Of the nine, three were girls and six were boys. Two independent raters coded each utterance in the protocols, with 82% exact agreement. The predominant processes were related to meaning construction; the most common three subcategories were paraphrases, restatements, and elaborations linking the contents to previous knowledge. Generally speaking, the tendency to para-

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phrase sentences during writing was very strong. In the case of elaborations, connections to prior knowledge referred to concrete and familiar objects and events, and were not very developed. So, although the students tried to use prior knowledge to make sense of the new information, this did not lead them to construct new knowledge or coherent text representation. Moreover, they hardly drew any conclusions or integrated information from non-contiguous parts of one text or from the different texts. These findings are similar to those obtained by Spivey and King (1989). Monitoring operations were the next most frequent category after meaning construction operations. However, the participants tended not to monitor their comprehension during reading. They did not pose themselves specific problems of comprehension nor did they evaluate what they had understood. The problems the students posed while writing had to do with to what to say rather than how to say it. They were not concerned with how their text met certain goals or addressed a particular audience. Rather, they focused on the length of the text produced, and whether it matched the contents of the source texts (whether they had said everything, whether they had left anything out). To put it briefly, their biggest concern was to “tell” the contents of the source texts. In revising their products, the few modifications they made to their texts were mostly superficial; they did not reorganize what they had written. Instances of reflecting on, or planning the task were practically non-existent. On the few occasions the students manifested plans verbally, they were very general. The students did not take notes or make rough drafts. Their composition processes therefore displayed the features of writers with difficulties (Graham & Harris, 2000) and clearly fit the “knowledge-telling” model (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987) in that they were limited to “telling” or reproducing the contents of the source texts. The limited self-regulation processes were accompanied by a local processing focus. In line with previous research on students of similar ages reading informative texts (Coté et al., 1998), comments tended to elaborate, explain, paraphrase, or confirm understanding of single sentences, while actions tended to consist of local rereading of the source texts and the student’s own text. Moreover, the students detected mainly comprehension and composition problems focusing on single words or single sentences. On the basis of these results, we can conclude that the secondary school students who participated in this study lacked the cognitive and metacognitive processes that would enable them to make strategic use of reading and writing. Regarding the relationship between the students’ cognitive operations during reading and writing and the quality of their written products, the processing pattern associated with more coherent and integrated written products

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included appropriate use of prior knowledge and paraphrases, coupled with either an absence of comprehension problems or problem-resolution. On the other hand, the reasons for the poor-quality texts, according to our interpretation, were not the same in every case. In some cases it was because the students made interpretation errors, sometimes due to a lack of comprehension. In other cases, it was because they activated inappropriate prior knowledge, and brought this confusion to the writing of their texts, leading them to include mistaken ideas. This is also what happened with the participants in the work of Coté et al. (1998). In another set of cases, the problem lay in the oversimplified manner in which the pupils wrote, limiting themselves to repeating or paraphrasing the sources without revising the products they generated. These patterns were also reproduced by students who did detect certain problems, but failed to solve them, and by those who did not see any problems. The study by Solé et al. (2013) set out to examine in detail the processes carried out by secondary school students in writing a synthesis, with a specific focus on the integration component. In this case, we established a double system of analysis: a more “macro” level, affording us an overview of the procedures employed by the participants in performing the task (actions, duration, and sequence), and a more “micro” level, embedded within the other, comprising an analysis of the students’ operations involved in their verbalizations. Both actions and operations were coded using the same categories described above (see Tables 1 and 2). Our system allowed us to see when the different operations occur during the action sequence. The participants in this study were 10 fourth-year compulsory secondary education students (five boys and five girls) aged between 15 and 16 years. All the participants were good or average readers. The students were asked to write a synthesis of three history texts containing complementary information on the general topic of the synthesis. The task was presented as just another history learning activity and the students were told that the syntheses would be given to the teacher. The participants in the case study performed it individually in the presence of a researcher. The students’ written products were analysed in regard to a similar set of categories as in our previous studies: selection of information, integration, text organisation, elaboration of information, and comprehension errors. The written products were analysed by two researchers who obtained 79% overall agreement and resolved discrepancies collaboratively. As already mentioned, in this study we looked at the verbalizations that were coded as “integration”, both intertextual and intratextual. The verbalizations were analysed by two researchers who obtained 74% agreement.

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The texts produced by the participants had a number of common features: they were extremely dependent on the source texts, in regard to content— which would be expected—, but also in regard to the way and the order in which the information was organized; in the majority of cases they failed to select sufficient information; most texts contained interpretation errors of varying degrees of importance; moreover, half of the students did not integrate at all, while two of them made only one integration. Indeed, none of the students’ texts had the necessary features to be considered a fully adequate synthesis, as they all failed to provide a central theme for structuring and integrating the information. However, this does not mean that all the products were the same. We found five failed texts, which were produced through copying, listing of ideas, or linear paraphrase with serious mistakes; as well as two juxtaposed summaries of the source texts, with selection of information, paraphrasing or elaboration, and some intratextual integration; and three attempted syntheses, texts in which the students selected and connected information from the source texts by means of intra- and intertextual integrations, and organized it in their own texts. Analysis of the procedures used in carrying out the task revealed that half of the participants used a simple, reproductive process that was non-recursive (without elaboration, deepening, or re-reading to check) and unmediated. The other participants engaged in more elaborative processes during reading and re-reading, but their writing was still extremely linear. It is revealing that six of the participants did not plan what they were going to write at all; two did so generically (“a final summary of the three texts …”); and the other two specified slightly more what they were going to do. Only the students whose pattern included elements of recursiveness referred to the source texts when revising their own text. The more reproductive patterns included very few integrations, confined to occasional or specific actions. On the other hand, the students who followed a more elaborative pattern produced more integration during the process, especially when the pattern included elements of recursiveness. It is noteworthy that 69% of the intratextual integrations and 58% of the intertextual integrations occurred while the participants were reading or re-reading the source texts. The remainder were verbalised while they were re-reading the source texts and writing. Only one instance of intratextual integration occurred in a writing action. These results would seem to suggest the importance of deep, elaborated reading and hybrid sequences of elaborative reading and writing in fostering the establishment of connections between the different items of information in the texts. An interesting result is the difference between the number of integrations in the product and the number verbalized during the

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production process. This discrepancy reveals the fact that many of the connections the students make while reading and re-reading to help them in their writing never find their way into the text that is actually written. In accordance with the findings of our previous studies, the results of this study suggest a general trend according to which more complex processes are associated with texts closest to true syntheses, whereas failed texts are associated with the adoption of a simple, linear, direct procedure that is manifestly inadequate for tackling a demanding task such as this. On the whole, our studies corroborate what has already been found by previous research on the cognitive demands posed by this task and the need to teach it adequately. We can infer from our data that this is a task that is seldom performed and that few instructions are given when it is assigned. This interpretation is reinforced by the procedures employed by the students, especially secondary school students. These procedures seem to reveal a recently learned sequence, somewhat different in each case, which most of the students apply in a fairly mechanical fashion (as happens in many cases when they revise their product). In such conditions, it looks as though, rather than using strategic thinking to resolve a problem requiring the integration of diverse pieces of information around a structuring theme, the students engage in the exercise of joining and connecting, without an adequate representation of what the task really requires.

4

Intervention to Help Students at Different Educational Levels to Produce Syntheses

As already pointed out, our line of research has a clear, basic aim. However, it maintains its commitment to the idea that a fuller understanding of the epistemic potential of hybrid reading and writing tasks leads to improved teaching processes in formal educational settings. That is why some of the studies conducted by the group have consisted of designing and developing programmes aimed at teaching students at different stages of their education to make syntheses of several texts and at examining the impact of such teaching on the type of procedures the students use, the quality of their written products and, in one study, the level of learning they achieve. Although the different studies have certain specific characteristics, they share a number of assumptions that need to be made explicit before going on to describe each one. These assumptions are also shared by Gelati, Galván, and Boscolo (this volume). The first assumption is that it is both necessary and possible to begin working on these complex tasks—the ones with greater

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epistemic potential—during the compulsory education stage, without having to wait for later stages such as upper secondary or higher education. The second follows to a large extent from the first. We agree with the approach of Writing across the Curriculum (McLeod & Soven, 1992; Young & Fullwiler, 1986) that these tasks are strategic learning tools and students should perform them on specific content and therefore in all subjects. The third assumption is that the interventions should aim at ecological validity; in other words, they should be carried out in situations as similar as possible to those normally found in the classroom. Although a lot of research has had the aim of teaching pupils how to read and write with increasing competence, very little has had the goal of developing intervention programmes with tasks involving both processes together and still less has specifically examined the production of a synthesis based on reading various sources. In the university context, Boscolo et al. (2007) found that discussing the revisions of the synthesis with the students to identify the good and bad examples had positive effects. Segev-Miller (2004) implemented an explicit programme to teach undergraduates to write syntheses, in which the students produced several texts and kept a diary of their learning processes. Both the quality of the written processes and the students’ explanations of the processes improved. At an earlier educational stage, Hamman and Stevens (2003) compared two interventions with 8th-year pupils—one focusing on information selection, the other on text organization—and found they affected different aspects of the written product. Working with students of a similar age (7th- and 8th-years), Kirkpatrick and Klein (2009) implemented a programme in which the students were taught a strategy for writing aspectbased comparisons; the strategy included drawing and completing a table to plan their text. This improved the quality of their comparison texts. Wray and Lewis (1997) employed the EXIT programme with primary school pupils aged between 7 and 11. Working with expository texts dealing with curricular content, the programme distinguished ten reading and writing strategies that were applied recursively. The results showed that the pupils learned to use expository texts as learning instruments. Having seen that the still insufficient implemented interventions so far have had positive results, we carried out several studies at different educational levels (primary, secondary, and higher education), some of which are still ongoing. Only completed studies are described below. They are presented in the order of the educational levels on which they were conducted.

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Teaching Primary School Pupils to Write Syntheses of Complementary Texts Based on the findings of a prior pilot study (Martínez, Martín, & Mateos, 2011), the main objectives of this study were to assess the programme’s impact on the writing procedures, written product quality, and level of learning achieved, and to examine the relations among these three elements. The participants were 62 sixth-year primary school pupils (11 year-olds; 33 in the experimental group and 29 in the control group) who had previously been shown to have equivalent levels of reading comprehension and prior knowledge of the topics in the Knowledge of the Environment syllabus dealt with in the synthesis texts. In the first session, each pupil in both groups wrote a synthesis of two complementary texts to obtain a measurement of their starting level. The quality of the initial syntheses of the two groups was equivalent. Following this, the pupils produced three more syntheses over a four-week period. During this time the experimental group was given the teaching programme while the control group performed their class tasks without any specific help. After this, all the pupils individually produced another synthesis, which served as a post-intervention measurement, and answered a new questionnaire to assess their level of learning. Eight weeks later they were asked to write a last synthesis to assess the maintenance of the programme effect and were given a learning maintenance test. A subsample of 32 pupils (16 from each group) was video recorded in order to analyse the procedures they employed in producing the first and last syntheses. The participants of the subsample were randomly chosen and it was verified that the two groups were equivalent to each other and to the full sample. The programme was carried out over twelve 60-minute sessions by the researcher, but with the teacher present at all times. The aim was to teach the pupils, using a metacognitive approach, the following basic aspects of making a synthesis: 1) task representation; 2) activation of prior knowledge; 3) text comprehension using mediators (underlining, note-taking)); 4) interand intratextual integration of information; 5) generation of the final ideas, organization, and production of the written text; and 6) revision of the text. For example, in order to work on improving the integration process, which plays a key role in making a synthesis, the researcher encouraged the students by asking questions and having them draw conceptual maps to consider how the ideas selected in the previous comprehension stage were related to each other, first within each text and then between the two texts. While working on these different aspects, the researcher, together with the group, drew up a guide setting out the steps in the process. Various teaching strategies were employed in the programme, including explicit teaching, modelling, group

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work, and use of the written guide, which had been shown to be effective in earlier studies (Fidalgo, García, Torrance, & Robledo, 2009; Graham & Harris, 1996; B.J. Zimmerman, 2000). The aim was to gradually transfer control of the different procedures to the students, so the first synthesis in the programme was done with the researcher, the second in groups, and the third individually with the support of the written guide. The results showed that product quality, assessed in accordance with the criteria described in this chapter, improved significantly in the experimental group and remained higher than in the pretest (on a scale of 1 to 4, M pre= 1.68 and SDpre= 0.50; Mpost= 3.24 and SDpost= 0.59). The control group’s product quality did not improve (M pre = 1.70 and SDpre= 0.43; Mpost = 1.88 and SDpost= 0.33). Use of underlining and note-taking explained 57% of text quality variance. In addition, the experimental group improved its high-level learning—the type that requires students to interpret and integrate information by making inferences- and maintained this improvement eight weeks later. It was also found that the pupils who wrote better-quality texts achieved a greater degree of deep learning (15% of total variance). To analyse the role of procedures, several activities were examined in addition to those that had been looked at in previous studies: time spent, number of activities performed, type of initial reading (reading source texts separately or together), type of interaction between rereading of source texts and student’s own text, and type of revision. Students who first read the texts together, engaged in longer rereading of the source texts while producing their own text, and made revisions comprised of substantial changes, wrote better syntheses. These three types of activity accounted for 74% of text quality variance. In the light of the results, it can be said that the programme led the students to learn the content more thoroughly thanks to a more recursive and flexible use of reading and writing. Furthermore, the programme enabled sixth-year primary school students to produce better syntheses from two source texts containing complementary information. 4.2

Teaching Secondary School Students to Write Syntheses of Argumentative Texts Unlike the study described above, the overall goal of this second study (González-Lamas, Cuevas & Mateos, 2012) was to assess the effectiveness of three different types of intervention aimed at improving the ability of secondary school students to write argumentative syntheses based on two texts supporting conflicting positions on a particular topic. The participants came from three ninth grade (14–15 year-old) classrooms; there were 105 participants in all. The three groups had an equivalent prior reading comprehension level.

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The three types of intervention were: 1) Explicit teaching and feedback; 2) Explicit teaching and feedback, plus modelling; and 3) Explicit teaching and feedback, modelling, and joint production of a guide. The programme was implemented in Language and Literature classes by the researcher, but always in the presence of the teachers who normally taught these classes. The students wrote a synthesis individually prior to the intervention as a pre-test measure and one at the end as a post-test measure. The quality of the initial syntheses of the three groups was equivalent. The programme was implemented once a week in five 50-minute sessions. The explicit teaching addressed the following elements: Explaining what arguing is; the types of argumentation (supporting a thesis, refuting a thesis, integrating); argumentation errors; what an argumentative synthesis is; and how to produce and structure one. Modelling consisted of providing examples of the processes of argument selection, organization, integration, and elaboration, stressing the metacognitive elements of planning, supervision, and revision. In the third type of intervention, the students also had a guide which they had produced jointly with the researcher. In the course of each of the three programmes the students produced three syntheses working in pairs and received feedback from the researcher on the process and product in the first two and on the product in the third. The results showed that all three types of intervention produced an improvement in quality between the first and the final synthesis. However, the students who received the most comprehensive intervention obtained significantly higher scores on intertextual integration than the other two groups.

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Concluding Remarks

The production of written syntheses based on reading various sources is a complex task that students are required to perform, especially from secondary school onwards, although less frequently than desired. Moreover, it is also part of what students habitually do when they need to refer to various documents to carry out school work in primary education; and many adults will probably need to integrate and synthesize information from diverse sources in different formats throughout their lives. Understanding the processes involved in performing such tasks, the relationships between these processes and the quality of the written products, and the results of the learning that can be achieved, are some of the goals we are pursuing with the line of research described here. We seek to contribute to the knowledge already gained in this field. Another aim is to move forward on making available tried-and-tested flexible teaching pro-

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grammes that can improve the learning of students faced with synthesis tasks at the different educational levels. These are ambitious goals. To achieve them, we need to continue our research and work with other researchers involved in studying, from different perspectives, the performance of hybrid tasks and their potential to enhance learning. After more than a decade focussing part of our efforts on this topic, we know that despite the advances made in recent years in regard to writing based on more than one text, many problems remain to be resolved. However, some progress has been made during this time, especially, in our case, in identifying and understanding the processes involved in performing synthesis tasks. Our findings bring out the diversity of procedures students employ on such tasks, their more or less recursive and mediated character, and their greater or lesser potential suitability for tackling these tasks successfully. What our studies suggest is that rather than leaping suddenly from one process to another or replacing one way of proceeding by a more suitable one, students make gradual and effortful advances throughout their schooling. Our work on intervention shows that these advances are facilitated when students, even the youngest of them, have the opportunity to tackle complex hybrid tasks and are given adequate help in doing so. Students’ ability to take advantage of the potential for deep learning afforded by these tasks depends on such opportunities and such help. From the methodological viewpoint, the two-level system of analysis of hybrid processes we have used, in which a finer level of analysis, which looks at verbalisations reflecting cognitive operations, fits into a more global level, which looks at actions and their duration and sequence, is an original contribution that has shown its usefulness in various studies. The macro level allows us to describe the action sequence in which the students engage, and thereby detect to what extent it is recursive and mediated. At the micro level, the singlecategory system has enabled us to encode the participants’ verbalisation during the performance of the task, both while they are involved in reading and while they are involved in composing. Researchers usually adopt different categories to analyse reading and writing. We do not find this solution satisfactory, as we are convinced of the hybrid character of the tasks we are looking at. Such an analysis requires “hybrid categories” applicable to an examination of both reading and writing processes. The usual strategy with category systems is to focus on the number and kind of operations. This standard strategy allows us to know what kind of operations a student engages in. It also tells us whether a student employs more or different strategies than another student; but it gives us no indication as to when or why this happens. Our system allows us to see when these operations occur during the action sequence, which provides greater

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knowledge of the cognitive operations involved in producing a synthesis and the concrete tasks that help to set them in motion. In this way we can gain a slightly better understanding of the complex processes underlying this hybrid task, which gives us clues for intervening through education to enable students to appropriate these operations and tasks, and improve them.

Acknowledgements The research project was funded under the National Programme for Basic Research Projects 2008–2011 by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (EDU2009-14278-C02-01/02). In addition to the authors of this chapter, the research team members were J. González Lamas, J. Manso, I. Martínez Álvarez, M. Solari and R. Villalón, of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; and S. Espino, E. Lordán, C. Luna, M. Minguela and E. Nadal, of the Universitat de Barcelona.

Summary Writing as a Tool for Improving the Comprehension of Expository Texts: An Intervention Study in a Primary School Carmen Gelati, Nicoletta Galvan and Pietro Boscolo

1

Theoretical Background

According to the most influential model of text comprehension (W. Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983), reading is characterized by different levels of comprehension, which range from superficial to deep. Initially, propositions are elaborated upon, and the relationships between the propositions, known as the microstructure, and between groups of propositions, known as the macrostructure, create a textbase. These processes require active meaning construction. For example, a reader must infer causal, spatial, and temporal relationships when the connections are not explicitly expressed, must relate a pronoun to its referent at the microstructural level, and must relate a group of propositions to the appropriate superordinate topic at the macrostructural level. Readers, who have their own goals, reduce and reorganize the microstructure into the macrostructure using the macrorules of deletion, generalization, and construction. In fact, readers summarize what they are reading, and this activity is closely related to text comprehension. As W. Kintsch (1998) emphasized, “the formation of a macrostructure is an integral part of normal text comprehension. It does not occur merely in response to special task demands, such as instructions to summarize the text, but is an automatic component of the process of comprehension that cannot be separated from it” (p. 174). The relationship between summarization and text comprehension is particularly relevant from an instructional perspective. The ability to summarize a text adequately in either oral or written form is a basic tool to assess student comprehension and a learning strategy. Written summaries require a higher-level processing of the text (Britt & Sommer, 2004). By manipulating the content, summarizers reconstruct the meaning, which helps students better understand what they have read, particularly with regard to constructing and retaining the central ideas of the texts (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, Gelati, C., Galvan, N., & Boscolo, P. (2014). Summary writing as a tool for improving the comprehension of expository texts: An intervention study in a primary school. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 191–216). Leiden: Brill. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_010

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1987). As Bretzing and Kulhavy (1979) noted, summarizing facilitates semantic processing because the activity requires the integration of text information and prior knowledge. Thus, summarizing facilitates a deep comprehension of the text at the textbase and, with respect to the situation model, a mental representation of the material characterized by the integration of text information and personal knowledge (Franzke, Kintsch, Caccamise, Johnson, & Dooley, 2005; W. Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Wade-Stein & Kintsch, 2004). Starting from the upper grades of primary school, students should be taught to use written summaries to analyze and understand expository written texts when studying. In the Italian school system, the processing of expository texts starts during 3rd grade, when children must read, analyze, and study written texts on science, history, and geography. This processing becomes more important in grade 4, when there is an increase in the material to be studied. The task becomes more frequent during the ensuing years, from middle school to university. Although summarizing is a basic component of text comprehension, students often find it difficult, particularly when they are asked to summarize in written form. Following the analysis of summarization processes based on W. Kintsch and van Dijk’s (1978) model of text comprehension, several studies have considered the difficulties of writing summaries (A.L. Brown & Day, 1983; A.L. Brown, Day, & Jones, 1983; Friend, 2001). Although the construction of the macrostructure is an automatic component within the process of comprehension, many students are unable to manage the strategies of deletion, generalization, and construction. It is necessary to acquire the ability to adequately use these macrorules, which is often accomplished through direct instruction (Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 2001). The difficulty that children experience with writing adequate summaries has primarily three reasons, which pertain to the reading and writing activities involved in summarization and will be analyzed in the following paragraphs: 1) the complexity of expository texts, which are the typical genre of materials that are to be studied and summarized, 2) the strategies and cognitive processes to be used during summarization, and 3) the specificity of summaries as a writing genre. This chapter focuses on using summaries as a learning strategy. Specifically, we are interested in analyzing the effects of writing a summary on expository text comprehension. After considering the complexity of summarizing, we will present the results of our study, which aimed to analyze the effects of summary instruction on the expository text comprehension of fourth graders. 1.1 The Complexity of Expository Texts Expository texts are more difficult to process than other genres (Hidi & Hildyard, 1983; McCutchen & Perfetti, 1982) because they typically contain a sub-

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stantial amount of information and often include unfamiliar concepts and technical vocabulary. The logical-causal relationships between concepts that characterize expository texts are more complex and abstract than the temporal-causal flow of narrative texts, which children typically process in emergent literacy and early primary school (Stein & Trabasso, 1981). Whereas the structure of narrative texts is well known to students, expository texts often present more complex and non-linear structures (Gersten et al., 2001; Meyer & Freedle, 1984). Over the past three decades, several instructional strategies have been adopted to help students at different school levels understand expository texts. Studies conducted in the early 1980s emphasized the crucial role of metacognition, which is the awareness and control of the reading processes (e.g., Baumann, 1984; A.L. Brown et al., 1983). Other studies focused on instructional strategies aimed at improving comprehension, such as analyzing and reorganizing disorganized passages (Wong & Wilson, 1984), self-questioning and self-monitoring training to identify and reflect on the main ideas of a passage, (Wong & Jones, 1982), the role of mapping strategies and note-taking to create a coherent outline of the text (Swanson, Kozleski, & Stegink, 1987), and the importance of peer mediation (e.g., Englert & Mariage, 1991). Kobayashi (2009) emphasized the role of external strategies during reading, such as note-taking, annotating, and underlining. In particular, writing summaries seems to be useful for learning from texts (Bretzing & Kulhavy, 1979), and several studies have analyzed the role played by summarization in enhancing text comprehension (e.g., Baleghizadeh & Babapour, 2011; Rinehart, Stahl, & Erickson, 1986). 1.2 Strategies and Cognitive Processes Used When Writing a Summary Writing a summary is a complex task that requires many abilities. First, writers must identify the explicit and implicit main ideas. Textual cues and background knowledge may help writers evaluate what to report and to omit (Baumann, 1984; A.L. Brown et al., 1983; Winograd, 1984). However, writing a good summary involves selecting the most important concepts, deleting the details, connecting the ideas, making inferences, adding related information, and drawing conclusions. In this way, writers create a structure by concisely stating the text’s message with their own words (E. Kintsch, Caccamise, Franzke, Johnson, & Dooley, 2007; Mannes & Kintsch, 1987; Taylor, 1986). The complex cognitive processes that summarizing involves make this task highly demanding for children. The ability to summarize develops slowly, and even college students often have trouble with summarization (A.L. Brown & Day, 1983; A.L. Brown et al., 1983; Friend, 2001). Although primary-school children are aware that a summary is a short text that reflects the most important

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ideas expressed in the original text, the quality of their summaries is often low (Hidi & Anderson, 1986). The difficulties that primary-school students must address when summarizing a text may be primarily the result of the selection and reduction of information. Regarding selection, children have trouble identifying the main explicit and implicit concepts until at least the sixth grade (e.g., Baumann, 1984; Taylor, 1986). When making judgments, instead of taking the entire text into account, they use a sentence-by-sentence analysis (A.L. Brown et al., 1983; Hare & Borchardt, 1984). Problems finding the essence of a plot can have negative consequences on the quality of a summary, the construction of a text’s macrostructure and, subsequently, its global comprehension (Armbruster et al., 1987). The reduction process may be less demanding than the selection process. Even fifth graders can delete trivial and redundant information. However, compared with older students, younger students use simpler strategies when writing summaries. In particular, they usually adopt the copy-delete strategy in which, after determining which elements to include and delete, they copy verbatim or nearly verbatim the words of the original (A.L. Brown & Day, 1983; A.L. Brown et al., 1983). Older students are better at transforming the content of a text and modifying the text order compared with younger students. In doing so, they use sophisticated rules, such as invention, which involves adding something new and rewriting the meaning of the text in their own words (A.L. Brown & Day, 1983; A.L. Brown et al., 1983). 1.3 Summary as a Writing Genre Writing a summary is a specific genre that involves a dual difficulty because only the writers who understand the text can synthesize it and retain the specific rules for expressing its most important ideas. In primary school, language skills teachers seldom teach students how to summarize a text. Occasionally, the teachers use summaries as a tool for analyzing the contents of a text. However, this sporadic use of summaries is not sufficient for teaching young students how to write summaries or how to use them as a learning strategy. Given that children have trouble writing a good summary, specifically having problems with selection, reduction, and invention (A.L. Brown & Day, 1983; Taylor, 1986), instructional interventions regarding how to write this genre seem necessary. Few studies have analyzed the effectiveness of specific treatments (e.g., Armbruster et al., 1987; Baumann, 1984; Rinehart et al., 1986), and new research with new instructional interventions is needed. The ability to find the most important information, which is essential for understanding texts and writing good summaries, can be improved through instruction. Empirical evi-

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dence indicates that text comprehension is related to the ability to select the main ideas (e.g., Winograd, 1984), and Baumann (1984) verifies the effectiveness of an intervention focused on teaching the comprehension of the main ideas of a passage. In Baumann’s study, sixth-grade students attended eight lessons that focused on the ability to find and express the explicit and implicit main points in texts. The intervention was based on direct instruction, as follows: a teacher modeled the skill to be acquired, and then, the children progressively applied the instructed strategy autonomously. The treatment was successful in improving both reading comprehension and writing skills. In fact, there was an increase in the children’s abilities to recognize implicit and explicit main ideas and to summarize short passages by constructing main ideas. A similar positive effect of summarization on reading and writing skills was found by Armbruster and colleagues (1987). This study focused on the knowledge of text structure as a means to form an accurate macrostructure and to enhance text comprehension. In this intervention, fifth graders were directly taught to recognize a conventional text structure, known as problem/solution, and to use it when writing summaries. The problem/solution structure is characterized by the definition of a problem, the description of the actions realized to solve the situation, and the outcome. Specifically, a teacher presented a schematic representation of the problem/solution structure and a set of guidelines for summarizing the texts. The intervention had positive effects on text comprehension, as demonstrated by the responses to main-idea questions. In addition, the intervention affected the children’s ability to write summaries, which by the end of the intervention were better organized and included more central ideas. Rinehart and colleagues (1986) taught sixth graders a number of summarization rules, such as the selection of main ideas and supporting details as well as the deletion of trivial and redundant information. This treatment was based on the direct instruction of the strategies and on metacognitive awareness. The students were invited to monitor and evaluate their own work throughout the intervention, which lasted five days. Teaching summarization rules proved to be effective for improving summarization abilities and reading/studying skills. In fact, the summarization training improved students’ learning from the text, helped them recall the most significant information, and increased their ability to summarize short paragraphs. However, this improvement occurred only when the paragraphs included a main idea. Direct instruction of the summarization strategy proved to be successful for improving the text comprehension of students with learning disabilities (e.g., Gajria & Salvia, 1992; Malone & Mastropieri, 1992; J.R. Nelson, Smith, & Dodd, 1992). More recent studies have supported the findings of the previous ones while demonstrating the effective-

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ness of summaries guided by an interactive computer tutor named Summary Street. The software, which provides a supportive context that aids in writing and revising summaries, improves text comprehension and the quality of the summaries (Franzke et al., 2005; Wade-Stein & Kintsch, 2004).

2

Hypotheses and Aims of the Study

Given that summarization may improve learning by helping writers construct and clarify the meaning of a text, we believe that a specific intervention the focuses on how to write summaries should start from fourth grade, when students are asked to read and study expository texts that are related to different subjects. Few studies on summary as a tool for understanding expository text have been conducted on young writers. Using the results of past studies as a starting point, we conducted a study aimed at analyzing whether summary instruction could affect fourth graders’ expository text comprehension. Taking into account that the effect of writing on learning could depend on the intensity of the treatment and on the features of the writing tasks, specifically that longer interventions that incorporate metacognition enhance text comprehension (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004), we conducted a five-month intervention on writing summaries that stimulated students to reflect on their thinking processes. We focused on the micro- and the macrostructure, while considering the selection, reduction, and elaboration processes. Our intervention had two primary objectives: a) to improve the ability to select the most important ideas from the texts supplied by identifying implicit and explicit information. Implicit information is not directly expressed in a text and requires students to make inferences to be understood, whereas explicit information is directly reported in the text and thus simpler to locate; b) to improve the ability to write a summary, and in particular to express in written form the core of a text using one’s own words. We hypothesized a double effect of the treatment. First, we expected that text comprehension would improve after the intervention as a result of the emphasis on the elaboration and transformation of knowledge. During the main-idea selection and the summary writing using one’s own words, children were stimulated to manipulate the content and create new meanings, which are activities useful for enhancing a deep comprehension of the text (Franzke et al., 2005).

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Second, we expected that the intervention would affect the ability to construct a good summary because children were taught to express only the most important concepts by changing the words of the original text. Therefore, we hypothesized that after the intervention the children would write summaries that included more main ideas, were expressed with their own words, and thus were of higher quality than before the treatment. Compared to previous studies, our intervention was conducted with younger children. Like Rinehart and colleagues (1986), we taught students how to select the most important ideas. However, in our study, we proposed the strategy of taking into account the author’s purpose and perspective. Due to the long duration of the intervention, we could spend a substantial amount of time in collaborative writing while continuously fostering the elaboration and transformation of knowledge. Unlike Baumann’s study (1984), throughout the treatment, the students summarized the texts provided as a whole by focusing on more than a single short passage or a few paragraphs. Working with the overall text is more demanding than focusing only on parts of the text. The writers must analyze more material, summarize more information, and monitor whether any changes in the text produced incoherence.

3

Method

3.1 Participants Sixty-four 4th graders (M = 33, F = 31) from four classes in a primary school in a northern Italian town participated in this study. Two classes, with a total of 35 students, were assigned to the experimental group (M = 21, F = 14), and two classes, with a total of 29 children, were assigned to the control group (M = 12, F = 17). The mean ages of the groups were 9.45 (SD = .31) and 9.47 (SD = .27) years, respectively. In addition to the native speakers of Italian, only the non-native Italian-speaking students who had attended primary school in Italy from the first grade were considered in the analysis. Non-native Italian speakers who attended an Italian school from the second grade onward and students with learning disabilities participated in the activities. However, they were not considered in the analysis. Four language-skills teachers were involved, each of whom was responsible for one class. All of the teachers had experience teaching writing in a primary school. Before the intervention, the language-skills teachers were asked to rate their students’ writing abilities using the ten-point scale adopted in the Italian school system (1 = extremely scarce, 6 = sufficient, 10 = excellent). No significant differences emerged between the two groups, with F(1, 62) = .16, n.s.

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3.2 Measures The study followed a pre-test/post-test design. 3.3 Pre-Test Measures All of the participants were assigned the following tasks in this order: 1. Knowledge of summarization task. The children were asked to answer four open-ended questions regarding their knowledge of summaries. Two questions focused on the characteristics of good summaries (i.e., “what is a wellwritten summary?” and “If you had to explain to a younger schoolmate how to write a good summary, what would you say?”). A third question focused on the perceived usefulness of summarization (i.e., “What is the purpose of summarizing a text after reading it?”). The fourth question focused on difficulty (i.e., “Is writing a summary a difficult task?”). 2. Reading comprehension test. The MT Reading Comprehension Test (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1998) was administered. After reading a supplied text, the students were asked to answer 14 multiple-choice questions. 3. Summary writing. After reading an expository text, the children were asked to write a summary of it. The text was present while the students were writing its summary, and they could reread it whenever they required. The text had been used in a previous year by the Italian National Institute for the Assessment of Education and Instruction System (INVALSI). However, the text was new to the participants. 4. Expository text comprehension. After writing the summary, the children were asked to answer 10 multiple-choice questions and 5 open-ended questions regarding the explicit and implicit information contained in the text. 5. Sentence-combining. This task assessed the students’ ability to connect sentences, which is a skill used when writing a summary. The task contained 13 items that require combining two or more sentences (five at a maximum) into a single written sentence. Some of the sentences were adopted from the Sentence Combining subtest of the Towel-3 (Hammil & Larsen, 1996) and adapted to the Italian language. 3.4 The Intervention The intervention lasted 5 months with a total of twenty-five 2-hour lessons. A preliminary meeting of the first and second authors and the teachers involved in the study revealed that although all of the students were accustomed to analyzing expository texts by paraphrasing simple sentences or texts, mapping the content, or finding keywords, the use of summaries was not systematically taught as a tool for understanding the material. The intervention was con-

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ducted by the second author with the presence of a language-skills teacher for each class. During the intervention, all of the students from the experimental and control classes were involved in reading and writing activities, whereas the control classes did not work specifically on writing summaries. The treatment specifically focused on the following abilities: a) selecting the main ideas and b) explaining them in a summary by elaborating on the information while changing the words of the original text. First, the experimenter elicited a definition of and discussed the importance of summarization with the children. The students were aware that summaries contain only the most important ideas and that when writing a summary the writer cannot copy the original text but must use his or her own words. However, even when students seemed to know the characteristics of a summary, during the first lessons, they often used the copy-delete strategy with no lexical elaboration or cohesion. To help the children understand the criteria for identifying the main ideas to be included in a summary, a simple narrative text (i.e., “Little Red Riding Hood”) was proposed and analyzed instead of expository material. The experimenter wrote information and facts from the story on the blackboard and asked the students to select which information and facts were important for understanding the characters and the story. Through a discussion, the students realized that in a narrative text, they should select the information that helps the story “go on”, that is, the events of the plot. Then, the students analyzed a second narrative text with the experimenter and summarized it. Next, the students read an expository text on the extinction of koalas and were invited to reflect on the structure of this specific genre, which is significantly different from narratives because it does not possess a necessary temporal sequence of facts. The children realized that different genres require different criteria for finding the crucial points of the texts. The experimenter suggested that a useful strategy for finding the main ideas of an expository text is to consider the author’s aim and then helped the students determine this aim. The lessons were conducted as follows: – Reading. Students silently read a new expository text, which was adopted from a fourth-grade textbook. – Discussion. After reading, the experimenter checked the students’ comprehension of the text through conversation and questions. The experimenter clarified doubts, indicated causal connectives, and provided explanations for new terms. – Identification of the author’s purpose. The experimenter asked the children to uncover and clarify the aim of the author. Children had trouble with this task, and often, the experimenter had to suggest the solution.

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– Selection process. While considering the author’s purpose and with the experimenter’s guidance, the children were asked to determine the text’s most important ideas. Through specific questions, the children were stimulated to find explicit and implicit information. Because the explicit information was directly expressed in the text, the children identified it easily when using the experimenter’s questions as prompts. In contrast, for the implicit information, which requires making inferences, the experimenter spent more time helping students formulate inferences. For example, the experimenter stimulated children to connect concepts that were located in different paragraphs, to identify causal connections, and to consider the entire text to identify its purpose or to create a new and appropriate title for the text. In this manner, she supported the students’ creation and expression of new meanings. During the discussion, the students underlined (or took notes on) selected ideas in the text. Table 1 shows an example of a dialogue between students and the experimenter. – Writing the summary. The children and the experimenter collaborated on writing the summary. The original text was present while the children and the experimenter were constructing the summary. As Hidi and Anderson (1986) stated, looking at the text during the process of summarization could help students reassess their comprehension. During the writing of the first summary, the experimenter modeled the procedure by starting with the main ideas. In particular, by thinking aloud, she rewrote the selected ideas while providing different sentences on the same concept and choosing the best solution. Moreover, she provided examples regarding how to connect the sentences by revising what she had written, if necessary. Then, the students continued with increasing autonomy. They were asked to propose how to write the selected information, and the experimenter wrote their exact suggestions on the blackboard. The experimenter requested children to read and if necessary to revise what she had written. If the children used the same words as appeared in the original text, she invited them to change the terms and wrote new solutions on the blackboard. If the student sentences were unclear, incoherent, or had no connection with other propositions, the experimenter asked the students to provide revisions and wrote the correct sentences on the blackboard. If the students were unable to suggest how to describe a concept, she provided alternative solutions, which stimulated a dialogue with and between the children, and then she asked them to choose. When constructing the summary, the experimenter continuously encouraged the elaboration and transformation of knowledge with the aim of helping the students write a high-quality summary. When all of the main ideas were written on the black-

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Dialogue between students and the experimenter

Dialogue Experimenter: The writer wants us to understand why koalas are at risk of extinction. Try to find information that supports this idea. Do you think it is important to say that koalas are nice animals? Children: No, it’s not. Experimenter: Ok, we can go on. In the summary, is it important to report information about their disease? Children: Yes, we should include it because we must explain why koalas are at risk of extinction. Experimenter: What do they eat? Children: Eucalyptus leaves.

Description Explanation of the author’s purpose / question prompt

Yes or no answer Question prompt

Answer connected to author’s purpose Question prompt Answer regarding explicit information Question prompt

Experimenter: … Is it important to include this fact in the summary? … Experimenter: We have talked about koalas, and we have Request of inference found a lot of information about them. Now, we try to change the title. What is a good title in your opinion?

board, the children and the experimenter reread the summary together and revised it. Finally, the students copied the summary into their exercise books. Typically, two consecutive lessons were necessary to complete the steps previously described. The children wrote summaries for a total of eleven expository texts following this procedure and two individual summaries. The experimenter acted in the typical manner of a teacher by regulating the discussion, providing feedback, helping the children discover problems, stimulating them to find solutions, and supporting them when they experienced difficulty. Throughout the treatment, she stimulated the students’ active participation and adopted a scaffolding function. The progression of the instructional activities is illustrated in Table 2.

Read aloud, discussion on the structure of an expository text and the differences between expository and narrative texts Discussion on the differences between the criteria for finding the main ideas of narrative and expository text; selection of the explicit main ideas (author’s purpose explained by the experimenter); discovery and selection of the implicit main ideas through experimenter prompts (author’s purpose only explained by the experimenter) Collaborative writing (experimenter and students): writing the main ideas on the blackboard, connecting them (knowledge transforming)

Criteria for identifying the main ideas in a narrative text

Characteristics of the expository genre

Criteria for identifying the main ideas in an expository text

Writing a summary

Little Red Riding Hood and text on bears

Text on koalas

Shared revision

Read aloud, selection of the main ideas, discussion, and summary of the text on bears (think aloud and modeled writing)

Discussion on: a) the aim of the intervention; b) definition and importance of the summary

Concept and importance of the summary

Introduction

Activity

Focus

Intervention: instructional activities

Title of activity

table 2

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Writing a summary for monitoring the progress

Consolidating

Text on hunting in packs

Texts on animals and migration

Writing a summary changing the sequence of the original text

Consolidating

Discussion, selection of the main ideas, collaborative writing, and shared revision: see above

Writing a summary following the sequence of the information of the original text

Text on birds

Texts on animals and nourishment

Discussion, selection of the main ideas, collaborative writing, and shared revision: see above

Writing a summary for monitoring the progress

Text on functions and structure of medieval castles

Discussion, selection of the main ideas, collaborative writing, and shared revision: see above

Individual writing

Discussion, selection of the main ideas, collaborative writing, and shared revision: see above

Individual writing

Identification of the author’s purpose, selection of explicit and implicit information Collaborative writing and shared revision: see above

Criteria for identifying the main ideas Writing a summary for each text

Texts on the language of the animals, nutrition of humans and animals, effects of some beverages

Activity

Focus

Title of activity

improving the comprehension of expository texts

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The control group students spent the same amount of time on languageskills topics but did not work systematically on writing summaries. These students followed the usual curriculum, which is based on reading and writing. For instance, they read and analyzed various texts. The students were invited to express comments and to answer multiple-choice and open-ended questions in both oral and written form. The teacher stimulated their active participation in discussions. At times, the students wrote texts, which were often personal narratives. In these texts, the teacher sometimes asked the students to paraphrase single sentences or texts. However, the students were seldom, if ever, asked to write summaries. The teacher provided help when required and feedback to improve the students’ writing abilities. In other disciplines, such as science and history, the students usually read expository texts, and with the teacher’s help, they underlined the keywords. Summary writing was not used as a tool for understanding this material. 3.5 Post-Test Measures All of the participants were assigned the following tasks in this order: 1. Knowledge of summarization task. The same questions were asked as during the pre-test. 2. Summary writing. Similar to the pre-test, after reading an expository text, the children wrote a summary of it. The text was present while students were writing the summary. A similar version of the pre-test was administered during the post-test. The text was new to the participants. 3. Expository text comprehension. After writing the summary, the children were requested to answer 10 multiple-choice and 5 open-ended questions regarding explicit and implicit information from the text. 4. Sentence-combining. A similar version of the pre-test was administered during the post-test. 3.6 Data Analysis 1. Knowledge of summarization task. The children’s responses to the openended questions were analyzed and grouped into the following categories: a) the characteristics of good summaries (e.g., linguistic aspects, such as errors and clarity; content; linguistic aspects and content; good habits, such as rereading; and no answer); b) how to summarize (e.g., reading; reading and selection of the main ideas; elaboration; reading, selection, and elaboration of the main ideas); c) the reason the summary was considered to be useful (e.g., understanding written texts, studying and/or memorizing, improving writing, recounting textual information, and no answer); and d)

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the level of difficulty perceived by students (e.g., easy, difficult, medium difficult, depending on the text). 2. Summary writing. To evaluate the students’ summarization abilities, each summary was rated with respect to the following factors: a) Content completeness. This measure analyzed the quality and quantity of the main ideas expressed. The presence of main information, which was previously identified, was considered. Taking into account whether the summary was a copy of the original text, each summary was rated using a 5-point scale, from a low score of 1 (a copy of the original text or no main ideas) to a high score of 5 (a text rich in content) (Appendix A). b) Cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics. Holistic scoring on a 5-point scale was used, from a low score of 1 (a copy of the original text or very confusing) to a high score of 5 (a respect of written-language conventions and excellent sentences) (Appendix B). c) Text quality. Each summary was scored using a holistic scoring on a 5point scale, from a low score of 1 (a copy of the original text or an incoherent summary) to a high score of 5 (an excellent summary). The holistic scoring took into account the content of the summary and how the ideas were expressed. The inclusion of trivial or redundant information negatively affected the score (Appendix C). 3. Expository text comprehension. The following two measures were used: a) Explicit information. The ratio of the number of correct explicit information answers to the total amount of explicit information requested to provide complete answers was calculated. The questions on explicit information required locating information explicitly expressed in the text (for example, “What type of tool does the author use to observe the birds?”). b) Implicit information. The ratio of the number of correct implicit information answers to the total amount of implicit information requested to provide complete answers was calculated. The questions on implicit information required inferences to generate the answers (for example, “What is the aim of this text?”). For the multiple-choice questions, 1 point was attributed to each correct answer, whereas for the open-ended questions, the students’ answers were scored following an answer key that was previously developed by the authors. A score of 1 point was attributed to each correct concept/element included in an answer. 4. Sentence-combining. Sentences were scored as correct when the children wrote a single sentence without grammatical errors that included all of the elements of the stimulus sentences. Orthographic errors were not considered.

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Inter-rater agreement was based on about 40% of the protocols (pre-test and post-test). All disagreements were solved by discussion. For the summary measures, inter-rater agreement was 81.6% for the content completeness, 83.6% for the cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics, and 89.7 % for the text quality. For the expository text comprehension inter-rater agreement was 99.6 %.

4

Results

After a brief presentation of the preliminary analyses, aimed at verifying whether the experimental and control groups were homogeneous prior to the intervention, we will present the post-treatment analyses, which are aimed at verifying the effectiveness of the intervention. 4.1 Preliminary Analyses As is evident by the following results, the experimental and control groups were homogeneous prior to the intervention: 4.1.1 Reading Comprehension Test From an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the number of correct answers as the dependent variable and group as the independent variable, no significant differences emerged between the two groups, F(1, 62) = 1.62, n.s. 4.1.2 Summary Writing a) Content completeness and cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted using the completeness score and the cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics score prior to the intervention as dependent variables, group as the independent variable, and the reading comprehension test scores and teacher evaluations as covariates. No significant differences emerged between the two groups, F(2, 59) = .64, n.s. b) Text quality. An ANCOVA with text quality prior to the intervention as the dependent variable, group as the independent variable, and reading comprehension test scores and teacher evaluations as covariates revealed no significant differences between the two groups, F(1, 60) = 1.80, n.s. 4.1.3 Expository Text Comprehension A MANCOVA with the explicit and implicit information scores prior to the intervention as the dependent variables, group as the independent variable, and reading comprehension test scores and teacher evaluations as covariates

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revealed no significant differences between the two groups, F(2, 59) = 2.92, n.s. 4.1.4 Sentence-Combining An ANCOVA with the number of correct sentences produced prior to the intervention as the dependent variable, group as the independent variable, and reading comprehension test scores and teacher evaluations as covariates revealed no significant differences between the two groups, F(1, 61) = .60, n.s. 4.2 Post-Treatment Analyses 4.2.1 Knowledge of Summarization Task Log-linear analysis was applied to the participant responses to open-ended questions on summarization. Bonferroni correction was applied to all of the results reported in the present section (Wickens, 1989). For each question, each student’s answer was categorized into one category. Answers to the question regarding the characteristics of good summaries were divided into 5 categories depending on their emphasis on the following: a) linguistic aspects (e.g., errors or clarity); b) content (e.g., main ideas); c) linguistic aspects and content; d) good habits (e.g., work hard, reread); and e) no answer. Log-linear analysis was conducted using group, time (preand post-test), and the categories as variables. No significant differences were found. When students had to explain how to summarize, the following categories were used: a) reading; b) reading and selection of the main ideas; c) elaboration; d) reading, selection, and elaboration of the main ideas; e) no answer. Log-linear analysis with the group, the time, and the categories as variables revealed a significant association between the group and the categories: χ2(3) = 9.01, p < .05. The standardized estimates of parameters indicated a significant frequency higher than 0 (z = 2.98, p < .05). The children in the experimental group cited the importance of reading and the selection of the main ideas more often than the students in the control group. Responses to the question regarding the usefulness of summarization were divided into the following 4 categories: a) understanding written texts, studying, and/or memorizing; b) improving writing; c) recounted textual information; and d) no answer. Log-linear analysis was conducted using the group, the time, and the categories as variables. A significant association between the group and the categories was found: χ2(3) = 15.42, p < .01. The standardized estimates of parameters revealed a significant frequency higher than 0 (z = 2.96, p < .05). That is, the children in the experimental group considered summarization to be a tool for understanding written texts, studying,

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and memorizing material more than students in the control group. Moreover, a significant association between the three variables was found: χ2(3) = 30.90, p < .001. The standardized estimates of parameters revealed two significant frequencies higher than 0: in the post-test, the students in the experimental group considered summarization to be a tool for recounting textual information (z = 3.04, p < .05), whereas the children in the control group considered summarization to be a tool for improving writing (z = 3.64, p < .05). The responses to the question regarding difficulties with summarization were divided into 4 categories: a) easy, b) difficult, c) medium difficult, and d) depending on the text. Log-linear analysis with the group, the time, and the categories as variables indicated a significant association between the group and the categories: χ2(3) = 48.20, p < .001. The standardized estimates of parameters revealed significant frequencies higher than 0. That is, the children in the experimental group considered summarization to be an easy task (z = 2.42, p < .05) or emphasized that the level of difficulty is dependent on the text (z = 3.07, p < .05), whereas the students in the control group considered summarization to be a difficult task (z = 4.38, p < .05) or a task with medium difficulty (z = 2.36, p < .05). Analyses of covariance were conducted for each measure of the summary writing task, the expository text comprehension task, and the sentencecombining task. A Bonferroni correction was applied to all of the multivariate analyses of covariance. Given that the measures were administered on different days, the number of participants varied. 4.2.2 Summary Writing Content completeness and cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted using the completeness score and cohesion, sentence clarity, and the mechanics score after the intervention as the dependent variables, the group as the independent variable, and the completeness score and the cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics score prior to the intervention, the reading comprehension test scores, and the teacher evaluations as covariates. The multivariate test revealed a significant effect of group: F(2, 57) = 16.47, p < .001, η2p = .37. From the univariate tests, the following significant effects were found: – Content completeness: F(1, 58) = 28.48, p < .001, η2 = .33; – Cohesion, sentence clarity, and mechanics: F(1, 58) = 29.74, p < .01, η2 = .34.

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After the intervention, the children in the experimental group wrote more complete summaries, were better able to express the main ideas, and respected written-language conventions more than those students in the control group (Table 3). The copy-delete strategy was used extensively by all of the students prior to the intervention, with 51.4% and 55.7% of the experimental and control groups adopting this strategy, respectively. After the treatment, 41.4 % of the students in the control group continued using the copy-delete strategy, whereas only 14.3% of the students in the experimental group continued to use this strategy. As expected, the majority of the children in the experimental group learned to write a summary that included changing the words. Text quality. From an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with the text quality after the intervention as the dependent variable, group as the independent variable, and the pre-test scores, the reading comprehension test scores, and the teacher evaluations as covariates, a significant effect of group emerged: F(1, 59) = 41.83, p < .001, η2 = .41. The effect of the pre-test scores was significant: F(1, 59) = 21.19, p < .001, η2 = .26. After the intervention, the children in the experimental group wrote better summaries than the children in the control group, and they achieved a score of approximately 3 in the post-test (Table 4). 4.2.3 Expository Text Comprehension A MANCOVA was conducted using the explicit and implicit information scores after the intervention as the dependent variables, the group as the independent variable, and the pre-test scores for implicit and explicit information, the read-

table 3

Content completeness and cohesion, sentence clarity, mechanics

Experimental group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE Completeness

Control group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE

1.66

.76

3.63

.19

1.55

.63

2.06

.21

Cohesion, sentence 1.71 clarity, mechanics

.82

3.14

.15

1.59

.73

1.89

.17

*Adjusted M

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table 4

Text quality

Experimental group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE 1.68

.80

3.20

Control group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE

.14

1.51

.63

1.79

.16

*Adjusted M

ing comprehension test scores, and the teacher evaluations as covariates. This multivariate test revealed a significant effect of group: F(2, 57) = 23.41, p < .001, η2p = .45. Regarding the covariates, only the teacher evaluation variable was significant: F(2, 57) = 6.03, p < .01, η2p = .17. From the univariate tests, the following significant effects were found: – Explicit information: F(1, 58) = 12.95, p = .001, η2p = .18; – Implicit information: F(1, 58) = 44.43, p < .01, η2p = .43. After the intervention, the children in the experimental group achieved better results regarding text comprehension than the students in the control group. In fact, these children reported and identified a large amount of both explicit and implicit information (Table 5). 4.2.4 Sentence-Combining From an ANCOVA with the number of correct sentences produced after the intervention as the dependent variable, the group as the independent variable,

table 5

Expository text comprehension

Explicit information Implicit information *Adjusted M

Experimental group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE

Control group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE

.45 .56

.59 .64

.22 .24

.81 .95

.02 .02

.19 .18

.67 .74

.03 .02

improving the comprehension of expository texts table 6

Sentence-combining

Experimental group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE 4.35

211

1.47

7.45

.31

Control group Pre-test Post-test M SD M* SE 4.69

1.97

6.19

.33

*Adjusted M

and the pre-test scores, the reading comprehension test scores, and the teacher evaluations as covariates, a significant effect of group emerged: F(1, 58) = 7.51, p < .01, η2 = .11. Additionally, the effect of the pre-test scores was significant: F(1, 58) = 6.48, p < .05, η2 = .10. After the intervention, the children in the experimental group wrote more correct sentences than the children in the control group (Table 6). In brief, the students in the experimental group emphasized the importance of reading and the selection of the main ideas for writing good summaries, stated that summarization was useful for studying, and compared with the children in the control group considered summarization to be an easier task. The findings of this study indicated that the children in the experimental group learned to write better summaries by including important information and respecting the conventions of the written language after the treatment. Accordingly, these students improved their ability to understand expository texts. In fact, they answered more questions correctly than the children in the control group and were more likely to report or identify explicit and implicit information.

5

Discussion

This study’s aim was to investigate the effects of an instructional intervention focused on the summary writing of 4th graders. Two hypotheses guided this intervention. The first hypothesis was that teaching students to write summaries of expository texts would have positive effects on their text comprehension. The results confirmed this hypothesis. After the intervention, the children in the experimental group were more accurate when responding to questions regarding the content of the supplied text than the children in the control group. Importantly, this positive effect was evident for both explicit

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and implicit information. The treatment improved the children’s ability to locate the main information in the text to answer explicit information questions and to find implicit information, which is obviously more difficult than locating the concepts explicitly expressed in the text. One possible explanation of this outcome is that the children’s ability to make inferences increased during the treatment. Throughout the intervention, children’s active participation was stimulated because the experimenter dedicated a substantial amount of time to helping students discover the implicit information, elaborate on the concepts for use in the written summary, and make inferences. The experimenter continuously involved the children in transforming and constructing new meanings by asking questions that stimulated reflection and reasoning during the selection of the main ideas and when writing the summary. As Rinehart and collaborators (1986) have argued, summarization training may make children more attentive when reading. Thus, they pay more attention to the text, specifically to the important information. Reflection on the text and the active transformation or construction of knowledge that was requested by the experimenter when writing the summary could have improved the children’s awareness of the macrostructure, which favors text comprehension. The results of the current study suggest that writing summaries increases text comprehension. Expository texts are difficult for children, and the use of summarization as a learning strategy could be helpful for understanding, studying, and memorizing content. In addition to language skills, the use of summarization should be promoted in other disciplines, such as science, history, and geography. A limitation of this study is that a non-summarizing control group was not included. A comparison between this type of control group, a control group that produced summaries without teaching, such as in the current study, and an experimental group that produced summaries after an intervention could provide a better understanding of the relationship between summarization and text comprehension. In particular, the inclusion of this type of control group could provide insight into whether only well-written summaries affect text comprehension or whether unsupported summaries, presumably of poor quality, influence understanding compared with not summarizing. Future studies are required to understand these relationships. The second hypothesis was that teaching students to write summaries would have positive effects on their ability to produce good summaries. In addition to the process of comprehension, summarization involves complex language skills, specifically the adoption of academic writing conventions and the ability to write the main information in a concise, coherent manner. To teach these abilities, the experimenter dedicated time and effort toward improving

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the selection of main ideas and the elaboration of knowledge using the students’ own words. The results confirmed our hypothesis such that the children in the experimental group outperformed the children in the control group after the intervention. These children wrote better summaries, which included more main ideas, than they had prior to the treatment, and they were more likely to respect the conventions of the written language. Nearly all of the children in the experimental group learned to express the crucial information by transforming knowledge, thereby abandoning the copy-delete strategy. Additionally, the processes of knowledge construction and elaboration, which were emphasized throughout the intervention, may have affected the children’s ability to integrate sentences in a structured text, according to the results for the sentence-combining measure. Despite the positive results, after the long intensive summarization training, the children in the experimental group achieved a score of 3 in text quality, that corresponds to a summary with only a sufficient level of completeness and clarity, written in own words, with a simple sentence structure that occasionally included small inconsistencies. This finding suggests that although the intervention was effective, fourth graders may still have trouble with summary writing because it requires substantial effort. In this study, taking the author’s perspective was a successful strategy to overcome a primary difficulty for the children: the selection process. However, given that many students had trouble identifying the author’s purpose, suggestions from the experimenter were often necessary. The active collaboration between the children and the experimenter when constructing the summary helped the students elaborate and transform knowledge. The children learned to express meanings in their own words and to avoid using the simple copy-delete strategy often used before the intervention. From Britt and Sommer’s study (2004) conducted on undergraduate students, it emerged that summarizing a text before reading another text increases inter-text integration. As Mateos and collaborators (this volume) found, teaching students to write from sources in a constructive way results in improved learning. In future studies, it could be interesting to analyze the effect of summarizing on the ability to synthesize texts in primary-school children. In particular, after an intervention aimed at improving the ability to summarize, it could be challenging to verify if assigning a discourse synthesis task in which students are asked to summarize two or more sources before proceeding to write a synthesis would result in a conceptually and rhetorically more integrated product compared with control groups who are not trained to summarize or do not write a summary of each source before proceeding to the synthesis.

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Regarding the answers for summarization knowledge, the children in the experimental group considered summarization to be an easy task and an important tool for studying. The majority stated that reading and the selection of main ideas are essential for writing a summary, thereby omitting the elaboration process. Given that nearly all of the children in the experimental group wrote summaries using their own words, it is possible that they were aware of the importance of knowledge transformation but unable to explicitly express it. The results of the present study have an important instructional implication in that the process of summarization, which affects understanding and consequently school success, must be sustained. This research demonstrated that teaching students to summarize in a constructive way not only results in good summaries but also improves learning, specifically reading comprehension. Given the intrinsic difficulty of summarization but also its potential for learning, summarization training could be provided a more prominent place in teacher education. We think that summary writing should be taught regularly starting from primary school. Because the summarization process is demanding for young students, a close collaboration between researchers and teachers is necessary and desirable. In fact, this collaboration could produce early instructional interventions that enable students to overcome their difficulties and lead them to become skilled summarizers.

Appendix A. Summary: Content Completeness 1. The summary is written using the copy-delete strategy and/or no main ideas are presented. 2. Students write summaries of the supplied text that are very poor in content. At least one main idea is presented, but less than 50 % of the main information is reported. 3. The summary has a sufficient level of completeness. Between 50 and 65 % of the main information is included. 4. The summary is fairly complete regarding content, with 66 to 80 % of the main points presented. 5. The summary is very rich in content, with 81 % or more of the main information included.

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Appendix B. Summary: Cohesion, Sentence Clarity, and Mechanics 1. The summary is written using the copy-delete strategy and/or the summary is very difficult to understand because the ideas are expressed in a very confusing way. 2. Many ideas are expressed in a confusing way with some incorrect connections or a lack of connections between many sentences. Errors in grammar and spelling could interfere with the understanding of the summary. 3. Information is expressed in the student’s own words in a sufficiently clear manner, but the sentences have simple structures and are connected with simple connectives. Very few unclear expressions and/or incorrect lexical choices could be included in the summary. Errors in grammar and spelling do not interfere with understanding. 4. Information is clearly expressed in the student’s own words, with no unclear expressions or wrong lexical choices evident. Sentences are well constructed and most are well connected. A few errors in grammar and spelling, as well as in connecting coordinate or subordinate clauses, are evident in the summary. 5. Information is clearly expressed and sentences are well constructed. Appropriate coordination and subordination is characterized at this level. No errors in grammar and spelling are evident.

Appendix C. Summary: Text Quality 1. The summary is written using the copy-delete strategy and/or is incoherent. 2. The summary is very poor in content and quite difficult to understand because of the presence of many unclear sentences and errors in grammar and spelling. Bad summary. 3. The summary has a sufficient level of completeness, but some trivial or redundant information is reported. Most sentences are expressed in the student’s own words in a sufficiently clear manner using simple sentence structures. A few inconsistencies are evident, and the reader must do some inferences to fill in the gaps. Errors in grammar and spelling are present, but do not interfere with understanding. Fair summary. 4. Many main ideas are included, and little to no trivial and/or redundant information is reported. The content is clearly expressed in the student’s own words, with few if any grammatical and/or orthographic errors. Good summary.

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5. All or almost all of the main ideas are expressed, and trivial and redundant concepts are totally omitted. The core of the content is clearly expressed with well-constructed and well-connected sentences. No errors in grammar and spelling are evident. Very good summary.

Moving from “Fuzziness” to Canonical Knowledge: The Role of Writing in Developing Cognitive and Representational Resources Brian Hand, Mary Grace Villanueva and Sae Yeol Yoon

1

Introduction

Over the last twenty-five years, the role of writing in science, as a means to build students’ conceptual understandings, has shed much light on cognitive, social and linguistic benefits. There have been productive models proposed as to how the production of text can result in the transformation and constitution of new knowledge (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Galbraith, 1999). Yet, to understand the multiple dimensions (Cummins, 2013) of this development requires greater attention. From a cognitive science perspective, Klein (2006) suggested that students engaged in the processes of narrative writing in the content area of science start from a position in which their initial ideas have a degree of “fuzziness” and then develop to a position of canonically accepted knowledge in science. He argued that this movement from fuzzy, or second-generation, knowledge to scientifically acceptable or first-generation knowledge requires a variety of science writing opportunities for students to explore and construct scientifically acceptable meaning. These affordances for language development have led to another area of research related to the context of the classroom where the use of text and other representations, in conjunction with science and social practices such as inquiry the use of models or argumentation, assist students to develop or make meaning of their understandings (cf. Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Rivard and Straw’s (2001) study on talk and writing, as well as other research along those lines (e.g. Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999; Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Jang, 2007; Wellington & Osborne, 2001), have been critical to highlighting the importance of receptive (e.g. reading and listening) and productive (e.g. talking and writing) language skills yet, there still appears to be a knowledge gap regarding the mechanisms or elements that elicit movements in students’ thinking toward deeper conceptual understandings. In other words, it Hand, B., Villenueva, M.G., & Yoon, S.Y. (2014). Moving from “fuzziness” to canonical knowledge: The role of writing in developing cognitive and representational resources. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 217–248). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_011

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is still unclear how certain discursive, linguistic and pedagogical practices used alongside the activity of writing, engage the processes that shape how scientific knowledge is realized. In order to understand the complexity of these practices and their interactions requires engagement with a variety of theoretical perspectives. Thus, researchers in science and language have used a collection of disciplines to analyze students’ development of conceptual understanding. For example, researchers employ Systemic Functional Linguistic and science education frameworks to analyze students’ written assignments (Seah, Clarke & Hart, 2011). Their findings pose critical work for both fields, particularly in how to address students’ challenges in “conceptualizing scientific knowledge through language, but also to the effective control of the use of language as a semiotic tool” (p. 873). In his synthesis of research in learning sciences, science studies and science education, Duschl (2008) suggests that the integration of these knowledge domains offers insight to improving K-12 learning; in particular, our understanding of conceptual structures, cognitive processes, epistemic frameworks, and social processes and contexts enrich science learning and assessment (p. 273). Duschl (2008) further contends the need for research to understand how students learn and develop scientific knowledge and inquiry practices “over time when guided with competent instruction.” (p. 274). In this chapter, we bring together theoretical perspectives from cognitive psychology, cognitive and social development, and science education to develop a richer understanding of writing in relation to students’ reasoning and teachers’ classroom practice. As such, our aim for this chapter is twofold: 1) to investigate pedagogical practices that lend to students’ critique and negotiation of ideas, and 2) to explore how this negotiation moves students from their initial “fuzziness” to greater scientific canonical knowledge. 1.1 Context Current reform efforts in science education curricula have placed a great deal of emphasis on students’ engagement in inquiry practices, including argumentation of evidence, as critical elements of the learning process. Ford and Forman (2006) argue that learning about the discipline of science relies on not only understanding, but also engaging the interplay of the material and social aspects of science. Instrumental to the social practices of arguing, critiquing, analyzing and evaluating (National Research Council [NRC], 2012) is the explanatory accounts of nature, or the material aspect. The use of canonical science ideas, models, and overarching theories in arguments are fundamental to interpretation of data, augmentation of evidence, and scientific explanation. Explanations must be consistent with observational evidence about

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nature, emphasize physical causality, and facilitate accurate predictions, when appropriate, about the systems studied. The emphasis on argumentation and other social practices requires learners to engage not only in the construction of knowledge (e.g., the methods or processes of science, such as identifying questions and interpreting data), but also in the critique of that knowledge (e.g., the process of peer review, evaluation of methods, interpretations, etc.) (Ford, 2008). Furthermore, when students are immersed in the very nature of the material and social aspects of science students also become literate in the discourses of science (Cavagnetto, 2010; Moje, 2007). The interaction of, and participation in, construction and critique allows students to utilize and develop a combination of scientific knowledge, and a set of scientific practices and habits of mind (B.A. Brown, Reveles & Kelly, 2005; NRC, 2012). 1.2 The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) Approach Our ongoing work and research with the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach centers on the development of students’ disciplinary understandings through an immersive process. Writing is a critical component of the approach and understanding science. The SWH approach emphasizes the questioning, the tools and techniques used to gather, analyze, and interpret data while recognizing the limitation of data multiple types of error, and the need to critique evidentiary explanations (Villanueva & Hand, 2011). The framework used in the approach guides science inquiry and writing activities and provides metacognitive support for reasoning about data. Table 1 shows a SWH template and some of the questions used to support student learning.

table 1

Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) student template

Beginning ideas What are my questions? Tests

What did I do?

Observations

What did I see?

Claims

What can I claim?

Reading

How do my ideas compare with others? Did I change my ideas?

Reflection

– Testable questions – Non-testable questions – Remember the controls and variables – Share the sequence of your actions – Organize your data in charts and/or graphs – Make them easy to read – Explore patterns – Use complete sentences – State what you found out – Scientists and other experts – My classmates – Explain if and how your ideas changed

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The implementation of the approach relies on students to negotiate their understandings individually, and publicly in small group and whole class settings. Students think and write about their understandings derived from investigations, readings, and classroom discussions. The development and evaluation of these ideas then form the basis of the formal writing that is required at the end of the unit, where the students explain what they have learnt. Equally important are the theoretical frameworks on which the approach centers. The SWH approach takes an assets-based perspective to students prior knowledge (Falk, Storksdeck, & Durking, 2007), and their growth in scientific understanding. Instructional practices focus on “working with” students’ current ideas and assumptions (Duschl, Maeng, & Sezen, 2011) and then creating the conditions to support their learning. As language and science are integrated, the SWH approach emphasizes discursive practices where language is critical for negotiated meanings (Vygotsky, 1978).

2

Theoretical Framework

What helps students bridge these two different perspectives and practices of reasoning, language, and knowledge construction? The authors view students’ engagement in critique (philosophically) or evaluation (psychologically) as a driving force for mediating these differences. To deepen our understanding of critique or evaluation, we use the dual processing theory as the theoretical foundation for our work. Research suggests that two forms of cognitive processing explain human cognitive actions such as reasoning, judgment, decision making and social cognition (Evans, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010; Stanovich, 2009, 2011). Otherwise known as dual processing, the theory addresses the interplay between implicit and explicit, heuristic and analytic, automatic and controlled, domain specific and domain general, and associative and rule-based cognitive processes (Evans, 1984, 1989; Evans & Over, 1996; Reber, 1993; Sloman, 1996; Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Stanovich, 1999). These terminologies seem to suggest that the two processes map explicitly to two distinct brain systems, and imply that they are refereed as a singular system (Stanovich, 2011); however, the systems in the brain work as plural systems, or a set of systems. Stanovich (1999) proposed the use of generic terms of type 1 and type 2 processing and has since been used in a number of studies (Evans, 2003, 2010; Evans & Over 1996; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Stanovich, 1999, 2004). Following these ideas and conventions of dual processing, this study has adopted the framework of type 1 and type 2 processing in accordance to the

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heuristic-analytic theory (Evans, 1984, 1989, 2006; 2008; Evans, Over, & Handley, 2003). According to the heuristic-analytic theory, type 1 processing relates to heuristic/intuitive processing. The major goal of this processing is to generate selective representations of knowledge. The cognitive processes that occur because of type 1 processing are fast, automatic, and belief-based. In this sense, reasoning in type 1 processing is contextualized and sometimes biased. This type of processing selectively focuses on task features that appear relevant and prior knowledge is introduced in the process (Evans, 2008). On the other hand, type 2 processing is called analytic/reflective processing, and derives inferences or judgments from the representations generated by type 1 processing. This type of cognitive process includes evaluation, which can be slow, explicit and understood as abstract and decontextualized. Type 1 and type 2 work as a set of systems that continuously and iteratively share representations. Type 1 processing uses heuristic processes that generally supply hypotheses within contextualized reasoning, while type 2 processing critically evaluates the representations type 1 processing generated and, if need be, modify or replace them. When applied to learning in the classroom, the ideas of dual processing may be useful to understand how students engage in analytic and reflective processes to develop or advance their initial inferences. As national science standards in the U.S. (NRC, 2012) point to engagement in the practices of “argument from evidence”, type 1 and type 2 processes may be used to understand how students can engage in the actions of knowledge construction and critique, and appropriate those roles accordingly. Analytic/reflective processing is central to understanding the features of scientific knowledge and texts and becoming literate in the discourse of science. With this mind, the authors of this chapter view writing as a process that can help students to engage in, and practice, both roles of constructors and critiquers. 2.1 Writing to Promote Construction and Critique How can writing help students engage in the process of evaluation or a role of critiquer? Drawn from a dual-processing account of human cognition, Galbraith (2009b) proposed a dual-processing model for two systems of writing: the writing-retrieval system and writing-constituting system. According to Galbraith’s (2009b) dual processing model of writing, the knowledge-retrieval system works to organize explicitly text and to ensure that this arrangement satisfies rhetorical goals. In this sense, writers guide their explicit representation of what they have to say. Planning helps to construct a clear mental model before writing and is important for identifying potential aspects of the topic that need to be included in the text. The knowledge-constituting system, how-

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ever, synthesizes knowledge activated by the knowledge-retrieval process into explicit, connected sentences. Whereas the knowledge-retrieval system aims to elaborate existing knowledge, the knowledge-constituting system includes two processes: a) synthesizing knowledge activated by the knowledge-retrieval system, and b) discovering relevant knowledge during text production. In other words, without the knowledge-retrieval system, creating new knowledge that satisfies rhetorical goals and captures the writer’s implicit understanding of a topic would not be possible. Similar to dual processing theory, the two writing systems have complementary and sometimes competing relations. From this point, the model proposed by Galbraith (2009b) helps not only to expand our understanding of how writing promotes both students’ active engagement in the construction of knowledge and in the critique of the knowledge, but also overcomes the limitation of previous models that see thinking and language production separately. Importantly, students engage in two different evaluation processes through writing based on: a) feedback from content in working memory to the writer’s disposition, and b) feedback from produced texts and linguistic resources in working memory to the writer’s linguistic disposition. These evaluating processes play a crucial role in students’ engagement in scientific practice. First, they perform a similar function to the critique component involved in public negotiation. When scientists present arguments for a new knowledge claim, peers seek errors in the inferential chain that forms the explicit connection to nature’s behavior (Ford, 2008). While participating in writing activities for knowledge constitution, students individually engage in cognitive processes for developing ideas that are responsible for producing two different feedbacks that function as the evaluation of the inferential chain represented by written texts. Fundamentally, these processes involve not only constituting new knowledge claims, but also critiquing their own knowledge claims. Therefore, evaluation that emerges in writing as knowledge constitution serves as a process of critique. Second, in the development of understanding through writing, students also engage in articulation of individual reasoning patterns that are keys to participation in scientific practice. Scientific accounts for natural phenomena do not lie on the level of individual reasoning, but rather scientific knowledge is explicit, public, and a product of a community. However, writing as a knowledge constituting process helps students engage in a process of implicit and explicit evaluation with respect to their current knowledge claims to complete writing tasks. Such evaluation helps them improve their reasoning of science, and through ongoing writing activities, they can begin to articulate their individual reasoning patterns. In this regard, writing helps students engage in

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scientific practice for the development of understanding by practicing both roles of constructors and critiquers.

3

Cross-Case Analysis of Students’ Writing

In order to examine the impact on students’ writing when students are placed in learning situations for which they are required to engage in the actions of construction and critique, two independent studies are presented in this chapter. The two studies take place in the context of writing-to-learn science and teachers’ implementation of the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach with grade 5 students. In each study, the fidelity of teacher implementation was measured using a modified version of the Reformed Teacher Observation Protocol (RTOP) (Sawada, Piburn, Turley, Falconer, Benford, Bloom, & Judson, 2000). The instrument measures “reformed” teaching through observation and analyses characteristics of a classroom on a quantitative scale regarding efforts of reform. The abridged version of the protocol has 13 questions divided into 3 categories: student voice, elements of argument, and teacher’s role. This chapter presents two independent, but related case studies to highlight the differences between levels of implementation of writing-to-learn practices, as well as to build on our understanding of students’ reasoning when certain discursive opportunities are afforded in the classroom. In case study 1, Mrs. Patterson is a veteran science with 20 years teaching experience, yet has only been introduced to two semesters of implementing the SWH approach in her classroom. In the first semester, Mrs. Patterson RTOP scores showed moderate levels of student ‘voice’ or engagement and teacher’s role, yet as expected from a teacher new to argument-based inquiry, demonstrated novice levels of argument. In case study 2, Mr. Keller’s classroom context shows a teacher with five years of teaching experience and six semesters of the SWH approach. Mr. Keller’s RTOP scores reflect a teacher who is proficient at the SWH approach. The case studies related to Mrs. Patterson and Mr. Keller sought to answer similar questions about writing as a learning activity; however, each case examined writing for discrete content area domains (e.g., case study 1: matter; case study 2: seasons) and employed distinct methods of discourse analysis of students’ text. Despite these differences, the two studies were selected purposefully for this chapter to provide a cross-case analysis of students’ writing and teacher implementation. The studies share other commonalities, such as demographically and academically comparable student samples, the use of small sample sizes, and similar classroom artifacts used for analyses, e.g. informal and formal text. Informal

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texts in this study are defined as non-assessed writing tasks where there is no audience other than the student. These texts include students’ science notebooks that contain information including class notes, data from inquiry activities and reflections. Written tasks, which are used for assessment and that have a formal audience such as the teacher, are defined as formal text. In both studies, the summary writing activity at the end of the unit represents formal texts. Table 2 provides an overview of the texts analyzed in each study. Due to the nature of the analysis, each study focuses on examining only a small number of students’ writing samples. The six students (3 per study) were selected based on the availability of complete written samples, as well as on students’ level of achievement on state standardized assessments. In addition to collecting and analyzing students’ writing samples, data from classroom observations were used to establish how other discursive practices contributed to students’ understanding. 3.1

Case Study 1: Examining the Impact of Novice-Level Implementation of the SWH Approach on Student Writing Some studies on writing have been criticized for emphasizing the product of the writing (e.g., knowledge expressed as an outcome), instead of examining the process of writing (Hairston, 1982; Murray, 1972). Case study 1 attempts to do both. Broadly, the study seeks to understand if, and how, students use writing to move towards a richer understanding of matter. The findings of case study 1 are communicated in three sections. The first section highlights the development of students’ conceptual understandings as represented in diagnostic activities, science notebooks, and laboratory reports. The second section identifies students’ end-of-unit understandings of matter and attempts to locate where these ideas were generated throughout the course of the unit. Students’ texts throughout the unit are used as a road map to show how the students travelled or moved from their initial understandings to their ideas communicated via text at the completion of the unit. The third and final section presents the summary of findings. 3.1.1

Students’ Understandings from Diagnostic Assessment and Informal Writing Tasks Two writing activities, pre-unit probe and concept maps, were used to identify students’ initial ideas of matter, In the first activity, the pre-unit assessment showed that all three students’ responses related to the target concepts of the lesson, namely the characteristic properties of substances, states and changes in states of matter, and conservation of mass/matter. The analysis of students’ responses revealed that they had some understanding of the ideas in the probe.

Mystery Powder

Letter to a 4th grader

Summary writing activity

Investigation: “Mystery Powder”; Reflection Investigation continued: description of physical properties of powders Investigation: “Ice in a Container” Ask the Experts, “What is Matter?”

Concept map Define ‘properties’; describe properties of an object Introduction of big idea; students’ questions Investigation: “What physical properties do the six powders have?”; Reflection Investigation continued: data collection; Reflection

Laboratory report

Science notebook entries

Diagnostic assessment activities Formative assessment probes worksheet

Case study 1

Writing-to-learn science activities and writing tasks for case studies 1 and 2

Written work

table 2

Scenario-based hypothetical writing activity

SWH template

Reflection:

Design and modify investigation procedures: “How does the distance/angle between a black sheet of paper and a lamp affected the surface temperature of the paper?” Investigation; data collection Ask the Experts: What makes seasons?

Introduction of big idea Beginning ideas: What do I know about seasons? Concept map Students’ questions: Testable vs. Non-testable

Case study 2

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With respect to the concept of conservation of mass/matter, the probe contained two diagrams; the first diagram depicted a scale and, on the scale, an ice cube in a jar weighing three units, and the second diagram showing a melted ice cube. The students were asked to draw an arrow on the 2nd diagram to show the weight of the jar and melted ice cube, and then explain why the weight did or did not change All three students understood that the mass on the scale did not change and their descriptions related to the changing states of matter. Brandon noted, “[it] ways(sic) the same it just is not frozen”, while Abby explained that the ice cube that melted into water, “did not take anything or add anything” into the contents of the scale. Of the three students, Cara provided her answer and an alternative explanation of evaporation as a possible reason why the scale would be less than the initial reading. The second question involved four burning candles in jars of various sizes, and only one jar did not have a lid. The students were asked to explain why the candle kept burning so much longer than the other candles. This question yielded similar responses from all three students, as well as common scientific misconceptions held by young students that fire needs “air” as opposed to oxygen. Although not explicitly stated, the three students described the chemical changes of burning candles and communicated the notion of the “candles” having “limited air” (Brandon) in the jars. Abby used the term “suffocated” and then clarified her idea by comparing the jars: “I mean it had a lot of air the others had limited air.” Cara, in suggesting that the “fire on the candle needs to be able to breathe”, connected her understanding to the other candles in that “the others that had lids on them ‘sucked up all the air”. In the last question, the students’ were provided a scenario about an alien and his curiosity about water. The students were asked, “What can Richard the Alien say to his people about the properties of water?” The students responded by providing descriptions based on utility (e.g., “it is drinkable … it can clean you”, Brandon), location where water can be found (e.g., “pools, faucets, puddles, rivers, etc.”, Abby), or its physical appearance (e.g. wet, dirty, “has a blue tint”, Abby). Interestingly, Cara combines the three states of matter and examples of those states (words in parentheses included by the researcher): “Water can be wet (liquid), frozen (solid) or in gas (gas) form.” Additionally, Cara highlights that “Water moves by air.” The second diagnostic activity was the creation of concept maps. Following the pre-unit probe, each student was required to develop a concept map based on his/her current understanding of the chemical and physical properties of matter. In Abby, Brandon and Cara’s concept maps, students reiterated similar ideas about the states of matter as was observed in their pre-unit probe. In the case of Abby and Cara, the idea of substances was linked with the words solids,

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liquids and gasses; however, the majority of the ideas depicted in the concept maps were not grouped with other key ideas. For example, in Abby’s concept map, there are five ideas about substances that appear unassociated as they are drawn directly from the main idea, as opposed to grouped around the idea of a substance. Science Notebook Over the course of the unit, the students’ notebooks contained eight dated entries. The notebooks’ organization, activities and content were similar amongst the students: the introductory section, (e.g. concept map and students’ beginning questions about the big idea, short activity describing the properties of an object in the classroom); three empirical investigations, (e.g., “Properties of powders”, “Mystery Powders”, and “Ice in a Container”), and one research activity, (e.g., “What is Matter?”). Table 2 also indicates where these activities were accompanied by students’ reflections. The analyses of students’ writings show that the science notebook was used primarily as a tool for constructing ideas, more so than a vehicle for critiquing and revising understandings. For example, in the first investigation, the students were asked to write their beginning idea about the physical properties of the six unknown powders, as well as write down the materials they used to make the observations (e.g., “Materials: 6 white powders, toothpicks, lens.”, Cara). As for the students’ reflections, the majority of students’ text focused on the affective aspects of the activity, such as their perceptions about group work, or enjoyment of the activity. Observation Activity Similar to the writings observed in the pre-unit probe and the introductory activities, the students provided descriptive lists of the powders’ tactile properties and practical uses. Through the students’ writings, a combination of key conceptual ideas, as well as unclear ideas emerged during this activity. Cara and Brandon wrote about related ideas regarding granular material, such as the powders being “broken up in tiny pieces” of a solid or that “powders have grain and other things”, while Abby’s use of the word “combined” might have led to discussions about mixtures, dissolving, or solutions. Students also demonstrated ‘fuzzy’ or unclear (Klein, 2006) and vague notions such as “there was a mixture of things that were different and the same about these powders” (Brandon) or Abby’s use of the word “minerals” to describe the powders. Of the three, Brandon was the only student that noted his peers’ alternative descriptions and suggested that these differences were “because it was their opinions.”

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Testable Questions In the investigation of the Mystery Powder, the students created a data table to describe the changes in each powder when mixed with a particular liquid. All three students described the appearance, texture and color of the powders, but only Brandon and Cara noted the physical changes in the powder in response to each liquid, e.g., “it fizzed in viger (sic) like red and turned black like green idon (sic).” Cara’s response appeared more analytical: “I thought it was made of the green, red, and yellow powder … it showed properties of all three.” She concluded it must be more than one powder because it “some parts … had stronger reactions than others” and less than the seven tested powders because “it didn’t have a property from each.” While students’ provided claims regarding their mystery powder, their evidence was simply a reiteration of their data. Similar to the question in the pre-unit probe, the students conducted the Ice in the Container activity as a means to understand the conservation of mass. Although all three students’ responses in the probe were scientifically acceptable, the activity yielded different results. Abby expresses the idea that the ice will melt and weigh more after the state change. Abby reasons that “it is enclosed in a hot area” but offers no further explanation, Brandon claims the container will not weigh the same after the ice melts because of evaporation, then claims, “the container got heavier.” The two ideas in Brandon’s conclusion demonstrate confusion regarding the conservation of mass, but could possibly be explained by Cara’s idea that the melted ice would cause the container to “press down”, thus weighing more after a physical change. Researchable Question The students had the opportunity to use books and the internet to answer the question, “What is Matter?” All three students opted to use the non-fiction science books from their classroom. Students took “notes” from the readings, often copying more definitions than examples. Laboratory Report The students’ laboratory report was the only writing activity throughout the unit that was not included in the science notebook, but completed on a separate sheet of paper. All three students used the information from the Mystery Powder activity in their notebook and copied the relevant information into the respective sections of the laboratory report template. There were several interesting findings from the laboratory report. Firstly, when using the information from the notebook to complete the laboratory report, the students simply transferred the text. In other words, other than minimal changes to

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spelling and alterations of their claims, there was little clarification or elaboration of the procedural or conceptual ideas from the notebook to the laboratory report. With respect to the students’ claims, we observed students’ ‘Ending Claim’ written in their notebook became their ‘Beginning Claim’ in their laboratory report, and that the laboratory report showed no differences in both the beginning and end claims. This finding is notable as it suggests that students may have perceived the need to provide a “correct answer” in the laboratory report instead of reporting the tentative nature of their initial ideas. These findings may also suggest that the students were unaware of the value placed on the revision of claims due to the evidence generated from the investigation. Along these lines, there was little evidence to suggest that the students grasped the importance or productive nature of the counterargument. For example, in the final section of the laboratory report, the students were asked to write about whether they disagreed with their peers claims and evidence and to explain why. Two of the three students left this section blank, while Abby replied, “We don’t disagree we just have different answers.” 3.1.2 Students’ Science Notebooks: A Road Map of Ideas Given the description of the activities and the resulting text from the science notebook, the students’ ideas observed in their summary writing activity could be traced to the ideas developed from their science notebook. Figures 1, 2 and 3 depicts Brandon (Figure 1), Cara (Figure 2) and Abby’s (Figure 3) use of information from their science notebooks to their respective summary writing activity. While the students engaged in seven different writing activities over the course of the unit, very little information from the testable questions and the laboratory report could be found in Brandon and Cara’s summary writing activity. The bulk of their ideas were gleaned from the introductory activities (dotted lines) and, primarily, the researchable question (solid lines). The ideas used from the researchable question were expressed verbatim within the summary writing. The highlighted words and phrases in the summary writing text are ideas that were not found explicitly from the unit writing activities; however, these ideas may have been drawn from reading or discussions. Brandon’s sentence, “Gas you can’ see, you can’t smell most of the time”, was not found in Brandon’s science notebook, but was evident in Abby and Cara’s writings. In Figure 3, Abby’s map of writing activities follows similar patterns to Brandon and Cara. The difference, however, is Abby’s inclusion of ideas stemming from the Mystery Powders activity. The map shows “new” idea lines stemming from both the Mystery Powders activity and laboratory report, but as was noted in the findings from the previous subheading, the students simply transferred

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Mapping Brandon’s ideas from the unit writing tasks to the summary writing activity

the text from the notebook to the laboratory report. Abby appears to offer one idea that was not located in any other writing activities. 3.1.3 Summary of Findings from Case Study 1 To fulfill the physical science standards for grade 5, Mrs. Patterson attempted to work from the big idea that “substances have chemical and physical properties.” The diagnostic assessments showed that students began the unit with some ideas about solids, liquids, and gasses, yet at the end of the unit, the summary writing activity showed minimal development of those ideas. The students’ summary writing showed no distinction between a chemical and physical property. And while writing was an activity used throughout the unit, these writing opportunities were treated as independent exercises rather than opportunities to build on students’ prior knowledge or consolidating informa-

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figure 2

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Mapping Cara’s ideas from the unit writing tasks to the summary writing activity

tion to make sense of the big idea. Ideas generated from each activity did not appear to be revisited or revised in the subsequent writing activities. Any “new” knowledge generated could be traced back to the researchable question, “What is Matter?” with very little elaboration from their initial ideas. In researchable question activity, the students defaulted to answers from the experts, i.e. the text from the books, with very little synthesis of the textbook knowledge and the understandings developed from the investigations or other discursive opportunities. 3.2

Study 2: Examining the Impact of Expert-Level Implementation of the SWH Approach on Student Writing Study 2 aimed to explore the development of students’ understanding through writing while students were immersed in an ABI approach with the teacher

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Mapping Abby’s ideas from the unit writing tasks to the summary writing activity

who was ranked as expert-level implementer. Three fifth grade students’ (Leanne, Ashley, and Jordan) writing samples were closely examined to explore the development of their understanding of Seasons. Table 2 shows the argument-based activities students had engaged in during this unit and the SWH student writing template (see Table 1). Findings of study 2 are presented in two sections; the first section reports the growth of students’ knowledge gains as represented in students’ informal and formal writing tasks. In the se-

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cond section, students’ development in terms of reasoning and use of language including pictorial representations are explored. 3.2.1 Knowledge Gained from Informal and Formal Writing Tasks The authors of a new framework for K-12 science education (NRC, 2012) include core concepts related to seasons and, in particular, that students understand the predictable patterns caused by Earth’s movement in the solar system. The framework highlights, “Even though Earth’s orbit is very nearly circular, the intensity of sunlight falling on a given location on the planet’s surface changes as it orbits around the sun. Earth’s spin axis is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit, and the seasons are a result of that tilt”. (pp. 174–175). However, studies and reports suggest that correct explanations and the use of models to describe the phases of the moon and seasons are extremely difficult to achieve (NRC, 1996). Several studies have explored learners’ general preconceptions (or alternative concepts) (c.f. Salierno, Edelson, & Sherin, 2005; Plummer, 2009) and recurring alternate conceptions include: – Distance: The seasons are controlled by the distance between the Earth and sun. – Orbit: The Earth’s orbit around the sun is a highly elongated ellipse, varying the distance between earth and sun dramatically over the course of a year. – Revolution (rotation): The Earth moves around its orbit and at certain times of the year the rotation axis suddenly tips one way or another and thus we have seasons. – Tilt: There is something about the tilt that causes earth to be much closer to the sun at certain times of the year. The researchers used these four common preconceptions as a guideline to explore three fifth grade students’ knowledge development. Mr. Keller also used these four concepts to design a summary writing activity that required students to speculate about four scenarios, with each scenario related to one of these four conceptions. Figure 4 shows the growth of fifth grade students’ conceptual understanding of seasons throughout a unit. 3.2.2

Science Notebooks: Space for Cognitive and Linguistic Movements Study 2 aimed to explore students’ knowledge development through writing beyond the common approach of comparing students’ writing at the beginning and the end of the unit, in order to demonstrate the difference as the growth

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What are the predictable patterns caused by Earth’s movement in the solar system?

Related concept

Type of writing

Distance

Day 1

Distance + Orbit

Informal Writing →

Rotation + Revolution

Synthesizing four concepts

Formal Writing →

Earth’s tilt

figure 4

Sophistication of conceptual understanding of seasons Students posed a question, “Why do we have seasons?” Most students think the distance b/w the Earth and sun as the cause of seasons “I think that we are 30,000,000,000 klometers (sic) away from the sun. I think this because…” Day 5 Students considered the shape of orbit as a cause of seasons. Day 7 Students confused, “… if the shape of orbit was an oval, there would be two seasons because two sides would be closer to the sun and two would be farther away…” Some students confused between the Earth’s revolution and rotation. Day 17 Reading helped them know about tilt, and students further explored it. “From day one I changed my ideas in seasons. The thing that I changed the most was that I thought that the Earth moved all over the place every season to change the climate but it’s actually the Earth’s tilt/angle that causes seasons.” Day 22 Students generated an argument by completing the SWH template. “We have seasons because of Earth’s tilt. When the Earth’s tilt is tilted to the sun it’s summer and when the tilt is away from the sun we have winter and in between fall and spring. The tilt is always in the same direction. The tilt is 23.5 degrees. The suns rays are more dispersed in winter and the rays are less dispersed in spring and fall. When the sun’s rays are direct in the Northern hemisphere it is summer.” Day 25 As a summary writing, the teacher designed a scenario-based assessment where students were asked to choose one of four scenarios, and explain why it would have the most impact on climate change.

Growth of fifth grade students’ conceptual understanding of seasons throughout a unit

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of their conceptual understanding. Thus, the researchers closely examined students’ texts to explore the movement from fuzzy, or second-generation, knowledge to scientifically acceptable, or first-generation, knowledge suggested by Klein (2006). With this in mind, data analysis focused on students’ cognitive and linguistic shifts that emerged in their writing samples. The emergence in relating three themes emerged. The findings are discussed in terms of these three themes: a) movements in students’ reasoning, b) movements in the way students’ use of language, focusing separately on their use of written texts and diagrammatical representations. Movements in Reasoning Study 2 examined embedded reasoning in the students’ texts and the findings highlights students’ complexity of reasoning which developed throughout unit of seasons. The connection between, and arrangement of, conceptual ideas and meanings were classified based on the functions. The functions were defined by the reasoning flow students generated through writing, and reflected a possible way students might experience the process of constructing and evaluating meanings. Once classified, the clauses and their linkages were identified. The classification and identification of reasoning complexity illustrated how a student-author coordinates the various meanings into a single story that represents his or her cognition. The patterns that emerged in students’ text show a single unit of reasoning, a reasoning chain, and a reasoning network. A single unit of reasoning is defined as a single inference-information pair, but not connected to other reasoning; a reasoning chain as a series of single units of reasoning; and a reasoning network as an advanced format of reasoning chains that comprises multiple single and chains of reasoning, so as to form a networktype reasoning structure. Figure 6 illustrates a chain of reasoning (left), as well as a reasoning network (right). A chain of reasoning is represented by the connection of concepts, and the chains of reasoning were generally observed when students elaborated on their descriptions or initial arguments. A reasoning network, on the other hand, is represented by multiple connections of reasoning chains. The complexity of conceptual relationships were often seen when students attempted to develop acceptable explanations of natural phenomena, such as explanations to the change of seasons. For example, in week 1, students engaged in a beginning activity of concept mapping that aimed to initiate their ideas about the topic. Mr. Keller helped students engage in these beginning activities, and encouraged them to write their beginning ideas about seasons in their science notebooks (informal writing), which was not used for assessment tool, and the audience of this writing task was herself. Texts students generated during these days exhibited students’

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fuzzy understanding of Seasons. The phrase “fuzzy understanding” is used to denote students’ initial inferences at the onset of the units, where their understanding is not clear and concise with respect to the canonical version of the concept. Their initial inferences were identified in all three students’ texts, and these inferences did not contain any developed reasoning to support why and how their inferences were plausible or scientifically acceptable. The initial inferences were understood as being derived largely from students’ previous knowledge, experience and perceptions, and were interpreted as the cognitive artifacts activated predominately by type 1 processing. In week 2, Mr. Keller had students engage in small group and whole class discussions about seasons and distance between the Earth and seasons since most students at the beginning of unit had indicated that the distance away from sun caused seasons, but they did not provide their reasons. These public negotiation processes provided multiple opportunities for students to share their initial inferences with peers. In a writing activity after public negotiation, Mr. Keller asked students to write about their current ideas regarding the distance between the Earth and sun again. The analysis suggested that at this point, the students started to build or revise their initial fuzzy understandings, and reasoning began to emerge in their texts. In other words, students’ texts exhibited a single unit of reasoning, producing only a partial account or description of seasons. For example, Jordan produced a paragraph to present his idea about the distance between the Earth and the sun. He stated, I think that we are some light years away from the sun because if you go up in space just right out of the earth and you look up at the sun, it is very small. If you keep going just a small amount of distance, the sun still looks the same, but the earth doesn’t look the same. The schematic diagram in Figure 5 maps Jordan’s reasoning that emerged in one of his informal writing samples. His reasoning provided his thought about the distance between the Earth and sun (some light years away), supporting by his hypothetical assumption. This single line of reasoning provides his understanding of natural phenomena, focusing on what happened, but this reasoning is insufficient to produce scientifically plausible explanation about seasons, which is required to answer how and why it happened. In the same way, we analyzed Jordan’s week 2 writing sample, twenty-four writing samples per student were examined, and the schematic diagrams for these writing samples were created. An example of chains of reasoning (week 3) and a reasoning network (week 5) are presented in Figure 6. In general, data analysis illustrated that the complexity of embedded reasoning in these three

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Jordan’s single unit of reasoning in week 2

fifth grade students’ writing had developed across the time of the unit. At the beginning of the unit, students tended to generate their initial inferences about the core concepts of seasons. During the unit, students had engaged in diverse public and negotiation, and we believe these negotiation opportunities encouraged them to engage in reflective practice such as reviewing, reflecting, and rethinking their previous and current ideas, as well as peers’ ideas. This reflective practice, especially writing, appears to promote their engagement in evaluation (type 2 processing). With this in mind, study 2 appears to indicate that students had engaged in, and practiced, the process of evaluation in the role of critiquer through writing over the this period allowed for the unit. The complexity of reasoning that emerged in students’ texts shifted from undeveloped reasoning to a reasoning network, which suggests a shift from their initial fuzzy understanding to relatively consolidated and canonical knowledge of science. Movement in the Sources Used to Make Meaning Movements in students’ use of language were examined using two different foci: a) sources used for making meaning through written texts, and b) diagrammatic representations. The ways students, as writers, constitute meaning by producing written texts were examined by analyzing linguistic components exhibited in verbal words that students used as they developed their idea of science through writing, with the researchers classifying two sources of meaning:

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Examples of a chain of reasoning and a developing reasoning network in study 2

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personal (or intuitive) source and reflective (or scientific) source. Personal sources of meaning are distinguished when words illustrate that the writers have projected themselves into the texts (as participants). These participants perceive and experience activities related to natural phenomena or events (as processes). The particular circumstance that the students describe in their texts appears to be derived from their daily lives. We identified other cases as reflective sources of meanings. For example, we classified that writers used ‘scientific sources’ to build up meanings in their texts when texts presented a number of semantic relations and excluded participants in their description of natural phenomena and events. In this study, we viewed students’ use of ‘personal source’ as one which may be constructed intuitively, close to colloquial language, and related to type 1 processing, and ‘reflective source’ as that might be only related semantically, close to scientific texts and language, and related to type 2 processing. The analysis of students’ texts shows changes to the sources they used to make meaning. For example, in week 1, Ashley states, “I think that we are 30,000,000,000 klometors(sic) away from the sun.” She used the pronoun “we” to situate the distance between “we”, beings on the Earth, to the sun. The use of “We are” instead of “The Earth is” implies that her source of meaning is established within her personal relation to the sun. This pattern was observed frequently in students’ texts throughout the unit. Students were more likely to use a contextualized or expressive nature of language to represent their inferences through writing. However, text that demonstrated an elaboration of reasoning and conceptual understanding also showed students’ use of both sources to represent their ideas. For example, in his reflection writing in week 3, Jordan states, I think that the one sitting up will attract(sic) more sunlight. One thing that I found out today is that the Earth place closer or father away from the sun matters. I disaggre(sic) with the Earth somewhat like wobbles in a hula hoop shape around the sun. I need to know how the Earth’s tilt causes seasons. The second sentence of his writing sample contains two clauses: (1) One thing that I found out today is that, and (2) the Earth place closer or father away from the sun matters. The first clause exhibits his reflection on learning (what I have done), and the second presents the scientific knowledge he learnt (what I have learned). In the first clause demonstrates intuitive sources to construct meanings, while the second clause suggests the use of reflective sources. The researchers would highlight the difficulty in stating that only one piece of the

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information was critical for Jordan to illustrate his ideas. However, one could argue that Jordan seemed to illustrate both pieces of information together, so that both sources were used equally in terms of priority. Similar to Jordan’s week 3 writing samples, when the scientific explanation students generated became more complicated and sophisticated, students tended to use less intuitive sources in their texts. Students were able to construct successfully their knowledge claims of seasons without projecting themselves into texts. Thus, the features of student-generated texts appeared to become closer to denotative scientific texts, which are decontextualized, relatively abstract, and semantically related. Movement in the Use of Diagrammatical Representations In addition to the source used for making meaning through written texts, we also examined students’ use of diagrammatical representation. Since representations in science inherently involve multimodal representations, analyzing only the verbal-texts was insufficient for understanding the students’ cognitive processes while they learned about seasons. Thus, we were keen to examine the degree of contextualization and the degree of coherence in using multimodal representation. For example, Ashley drew the Earth and the sun in her notebook in week 1 (Figure 7). Her written texts on another page exhibited her fuzzy and contextual understanding, and suggested the personal or intuitive sources used to make meaning through written texts. Ashley’s illustration depicts the sizes of the Earth and the sun as equally proportionate. Her drawing was placed another page to her written texts, which

figure 7

Ashley’s drawing in week 1

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could be seen as isolated position, and there was no label to describe what this drawing indicated. Since the primary focus of her writing near her drawing was the distance between the Sun and the Earth on the orbit, we assumed that she might want to represent her idea with respect to the distance. However, it would be difficult to understand this diagrammatical representation fully without knowing and engaging in a specific context in which her drawing took place, since this drawing was not explicitly coherent with any text in their notebook. With this in mind, her diagram appeared highly contextualized, and incoherent with written texts. When students became more engaged in public (talking) and private (writing) negotiation, students’ conceptualization of the relations between the Earth and the sun were elaborated in detail. Differing from week 1, students’ diagrams in week 3 were less likely to be contextualized, so that readers might be able to understand what the representation depicted. However, those still indicated a lack of cohesiveness with the written texts. Following is students’ diagrammatical representations in week 3. Figure 8 shows students’ use of multiple ideas to explain seasons through drawings. The production of these drawings occurred when the students started to build a chain of reasoning in their texts. Similar to written texts, students started to compare ideas to symbolize their ideas through multimodal representations. All three of these diagrams show the similarity. In the drawings of Leanne and Jordan, they purposefully differentiate the size of the sun and the Earth. Their diagrammatic representation became more informative and explicative by the drawing of imaginary lines to represent rays, rotation, different angles, and tilt. In general, their diagrammatic representations indicate that the students started to more foreground a particular element in their diagrams; however, these representations are not linked explicitly to written texts even though they could be seen as implicitly associated with students’ interest and question that are revealed in their written texts.

figure 8

Ashley, Jordan, Leanne (left to right)

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Mr. Keller encouraged students to engage in reflective writing activities, where the focus was on reflecting on what they had learned in previous days, how current ideas could link to big ideas, and what they thought they might need to develop ideas. He also highlighted the uses of multiple modes of language such as drawing, graphs, table and so on. In week 4, the analysis of writing samples indicated that students tended to consolidate their understanding to build scientific explanation about seasons. In terms of sources used for making meaning, reflective sources were used primarily through written texts. This pattern seemed to influence their diagrammatical representation. Similar to sources used, they did not project themselves into texts and images. This served to remove contextual cues, so that students began to link coherently their diagrammatic representation and written texts. For example, in Jordan’s week 4 reflective writing, his diagram had not much changed compared to his week 3 diagram (see Figure 9), but it was evident that he used written texts and his diagram very tightly to construct meanings to represent his reflections, indicating his elaborated understanding of seasons. In summary, there was a shift from students’ predominant use of personal sources and perception-based writing to a greater focus on using multiple sources of text and diagrammatical representations. At the beginning of the unit, the students tended to focus on generating experience at the level of a specific context, so that it was difficult to find explicit connection to other modal representations, especially written texts. Similar to the pattern found in the source of meaning, students were more likely to project themselves into

figure 9

Jordan’s week 5 writing and drawing

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diagrams. However, as students had more opportunities to engage in writing activities, such as a reflective writing activity, their initial representations were revised and reconstructed and students started to frame their lens into a narrow and simplified version by putting their emphasis on a specific pattern, relation, or element of concepts. Additionally, students started to add more labels and explicit links with written texts. This implied that diagrammatical representation generated by students became more coherent with written texts and less contextualized. 3.3 Cross-Case Synthesis of Study 1 and Study 2 The studies presented in the previous sections provide insight to understanding students’ movement from fuzzy understandings of core concepts to more canonical scientific understandings. In this section, we begin to unpack a complex process that is multi-dimensional in nature. In both studies, students were required to encompass a broader perspective of language. By having to pose questions, generate data, make claims supported by evidence, and argue evidentiary explanations students are required to both publicly and privately negotiate meaning through language. Yet, given the differing levels of implementation of the SWH approach in each study, there is a need to look at more than just the written text. This context becomes important in trying to determine if, and why, fuzziness is overcome. In study 1, the novice-level teacher was reluctant to emphasize the critique of ideas, a process that is necessary for students to test their claims and evidence while communicating and arguing those ideas. This restriction on the development of meaning making, as a critical element of constructing knowledge, meant that students defaulted to “textbook knowledge” (study 1) rather than engaging with their own understandings as they move to canonical knowledge (study 2). The analysis of student work for study 1 revealed little or no interaction of their sources that, in turn, afforded minimal expansion, change or development of ideas from the written diagnostic assessment to the end-of-unit summary writing activity. This would suggest that each writing episode was treated as independent writing tasks rather than opportunities to engage in a cultural approach of evidence-based, argumentative inquires with supportive scaffolding. In a classroom where the teacher’s pedagogical practices often straddled two epistemically different inquiry approaches (e.g., hands-on activities and ABI), the discourse opportunities appeared to make minimal impact to students’ elaboration of conceptual understandings. On the other hand, the expert-level teacher was able to establish a learning environment where active negotiations took place in small group and whole class settings, and where students were required to constantly use their science

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notebooks as a place to explore and critique their own ideas. That is, the teacher was able to encourage students to see the informal writing opportunities (notebook entries) as a critical element to help them, not only record events, but iteratively build claims and evidence, and “doodle” with representations of the ideas for which they were engaged. Within this environment, student knowledge was valued and constantly challenged as they move toward constructing scientifically acceptable understandings. As an outcome of these two studies, we put forward a model that brings together different foci (Figure 10). These are: a) the sources of meaning (e.g., shift from private intuitive to public scientific knowledge), b) the complexity of reasoning (e.g., movement from a single line of reasoning to a reasoning network), and c) diagrammatic representation (movement from perception based to coherent use of diagrams). We also identified and classified five epistemic phases evident in the student writing samples: 1) fuzzy understanding, 2) alternative explanation, 3) comparing ideas, 4) consolidating ideas, and 5) further negotiation. Throughout these phases, the students displayed a growing complexity of reasoning, as well as changes to their sources of meaningmaking and use of diagrammatic representations. We believe these phases may be cognitive steps that occur when writing functions as a learning tool. These phases represent the engagement of the dual processes as students move from an initial fuzziness, through negotiations with this initial idea, towards some

figure 10

Five phases observed in students’ sources of meaning, complexity of reasoning and diagrammatic representation

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consolidation that enables further negotiation to occur. These phases are described below. 3.3.1 Phase 1: Fuzzy Understanding Fuzzy understanding does not imply that students lacked prior knowledge understanding of the topic. This fuzziness represents type 1 thinking in that students displayed their intuitive or implicit understanding of the topic. At this stage, the students used limited cognitive and linguistic resources to communicate their initial ideas through writing. The form of writing adopted was narrative, and students projected themselves into texts. This projection can potentially be found in students’ diagrammatic representations. 3.3.2 Phase 2: Alternative Explanation In this phase, students’ reasoning became apparent in their texts. The students’ reasoning aimed at the construction of an explanation; however, the explanation was not fully developed. This single unit of reasoning focused on describing what happened, yet it resulted in an evaluation of their initial ideas. As such, we observed movement away from the starting point of fuzzy understanding. In terms of the sources of meaning, the students used a narrative form of language to make meanings for describing their ideas. Limited use of diagrammatic representations occurred in this phase. 3.3.3 Phase 3: Comparing Ideas In this phase, students explained the phenomena, which allowed for comparisons of the ideas of others against their own. Students’ reasoning became more sophisticated, and, although the complexity of reasoning varied across individual students, their reasoning developed toward a chain of reasoning. This chain consisted of connections to multiple single units of reasoning. In order for this to occur, students were required to engage in an evaluation process that seeks to clarify the differences between the competing ideas. In terms of sources of meaning, students began to move away from their own implicit understandings to focus on the use of scientific sources. While students began to use diagrammatical representations, there appeared to be a lack of coherence of the diagrams with the written texts. 3.3.4 Phase 4: Consolidating Ideas In phase 4, students moved to consolidate newly constructed ideas. This occurred through reading of scientific texts from books, Internet, newspaper articles, etc., and engaging in reflection opportunities provided throughout the unit. Type 2 processing is predominant in this phase. The analytical and reflec-

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tive processing allowed students to generate logical explanations supported by evidence, and move towards scientifically plausible explanations, or canonical scientific knowledge. Students’ reasoning became more complex, and multiple chains of reasoning were apparent. While the students presented blended sources of meaning, there was an increased use of scientific sources. The students frequently used scientific sources to make meaning through writing. This pattern also appeared in their diagrammatical representations. In addition, the representations appeared to link coherently to the written text. 3.3.5 Phase 5: Further Negotiation The previous four phases were evident in the students’ science notebook. The informal writing tasks of the science notebook served as the foundation for the negotiations to occur within the formal writing task of the summary writing activity. In this phase, the reasoning pattern appears more complex and results in the development of a reasoning network. The use of scientific sources occurred more frequently to illustrate students’ explanations. Students’ use of language centered on the use of scientifically acceptable terminology rather than personal word choices. These phases represent a framework though which science education and language researchers can begin to unpack how writing acts as an epistemic tool, specifically when students are immersed in situations where they are required to be active in negotiating meaning in both a public and private manner. Based on our findings, the nature of the public negotiation appears to have an impact on students’ abilities to move beyond their initial ideas and initial or alternate conceptions. In case study 1, the novice-level teacher afforded times for students to present publicly their ideas, yet the engagement of critique, or public negotiations, was limited. This resulted in situations where having the “correct answer” was the focus of the learning environment, rather than the negotiating of—and constructing from—students’ ideas. This is not to downplay the importance of knowing scientific ‘facts’, but what must be emphasized is that understanding is established from ‘what exists’ (prior knowledge) to ‘what needs to be learnt’ (scientific knowledge). What appeared to be the most useful in the learning experience was the manner in which Mr. Travis scaffolded students’ ideas and encouraged them to communicate their evolution of ideas through writing.

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Implications and Conclusions

As part of our research program, we are interested in developing an understanding of the discourse space that is created within the classroom, and the impact that this space has on students’ use of language as a learning tool. Importantly, language is viewed as all forms of representation (text, diagrams, equations, etc.). The concept of discourse space is framed around the physical, cognitive and representation resources that are available, and used, as elements in the learning process (Yoon, 2012). Yore and Hand (2010) called on science education researchers to develop relevant theories of foundations and actions for language and all forms of representations used within science. We believe our current model and the five phases presented in the previous section adds to this discourse. The model discussed in this chapter provides another mechanism to examine and describe what occurs within SWH and perhaps other argument-based inquiry classrooms. A number of critical questions arise from the case studies presented in this chapter. For example, what is the critical role of talk in supporting the writing process? At what stage are students able to understand the different functions of argumentative writing and informative explanations, as required of the SWH approach? Are there scaffolds required to help students to engage in the different phases of comparing and consolidation of ideas? When do students begin to understand that writing is an epistemic tool that helps to build and shape understandings of science ideas? In conclusion, within a culture of public negotiation, students are able to glean from scientific and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts (NRC 2012), as well as engage in the epistemic nature of the writing process. It is within this culture that critical thinking, metacognition and reflection converge (Yore & Treagust, 2006). Approaches such as the SWH require students to construct ideas in science and engage in arguments (NRC, 2012) both in a public manner, e.g. talk and writing, and in a private manner through informal and formal writing opportunities. This function of public critique means that students have the agency to move beyond their own ideas to engage with the ideas of others, be it their peers, experts or teachers. Importantly, the role of the teacher is to “nudge” or mediate the learning process towards the scientifically acceptable ideas under review. We believe it is the learning activity of writing which serves as the critical medium for which students engage in their private construction and critique of the ideas discussed in the public forum. Understanding the richness of the phases presented in this chapter is critical if

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we are to improve and make a positive impact on the quality of writing within science classrooms.

Acknowledgements The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, through Grants R305A090094 and R305B10005 to The University of Iowa. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the US Department of Education.

Writing about Reading to Advance Thinking: A Study in Situated Cognitive Development Charles Bazerman, Kelly Simon and Patrick Pieng As teachers, we would like to think that students’ thinking improves through discussing texts they find meaningful. The belief that becoming familiar with concepts through reading and rehearsing those concepts in challenging writing tasks will lead to integration of the concepts into the developing intellect of the student, provides the rationale for reading and writing assignments in many university subjects, where students are asked to become familiar with theoretical concepts of a field and use those concepts to discuss issues and solve problems. At this moment when media are transforming the modes of academic reading and writing from traditional print to digital multimedia hypertext, a well-grounded and detailed understanding of conceptual learning from reading realized through writing assignments would serve us well in designing assignments mediated in new ways. As a by-product of a previous study looking at the role of genres in cognitive development (Bazerman, Simon, Ewing & Pieng, forthcoming), we have found evidence of increased cognitive sophistication when students in their writing engage the meanings they find in texts in relation to problems and experiences they are attempting to work through. This evidence confirms that conceptual development occurs through writing about reading and gives us insight into the processes by which intellectual growth occurs. Our data, collected for the previous study of the relationship between genre and cognitive development, were from a focused year-long graduate academic program in teacher education with well-articulated goals and assignments that introduced students to domains of thought and practice new to them and specifically relevant to professional training. As part of the earlier study we developed codes to characterize cognitive statements made in assigned writing, electronic forums, and class discussions. In examining the data for genre effects, we incidentally noted that the sentences which included references to the professional literature seemed to have higher cognitive codes than the surrounding sentences. Further we saw evidence of increasing sophistication in Bazerman, C., Simon, K., & Pieng, P. (2014). Writing about reading to advance thinking: A study in situated cognitive development. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 249–276). Leiden: Brill.

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the use of citations over the year and several writing tasks investigated. Following on these clues we developed additional codes to characterize the nature of the citations and surrounding discussion, which we then correlated with our cognitive codes. That evidence has led us to the conclusion that reference to concepts from readings indeed supported more sophisticated expressed thought. Further, over time and with familiarity of domain, referenced ideas from reading were expressed in a more focused way, were more integrated into students’ thoughts, and were discussed more extensively. All these findings suggest students internalized concepts from referenced sources in order to advance their own thinking.

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Theoretical and Empirical Contexts

The process of adopting concepts from reading and incorporating them in one’s writing can be seen from several intersecting perspectives, all of which recognize the interaction between individual and group cognitive development.

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Intertextuality, Citation Studies and Referencing Practices

From a textual point of view, learning to use the ideas from reading in one’s own statements can be seen as an aspect of intertextuality—that is, how each text relies on and takes positions towards previous texts within a field of socially and historically emerged information and ideas. The concept of intertextuality has its roots in Volosinov (1986) and Bakhtin (1980) as part of understanding how consciousness was socially formed. It was later developed (and given the name intertextuality) in literary theory (initially, Kristeva, 1980) primarily to contest the idea of the autonomous author. Within literacy and writing studies the concept of intertextuality has highlighted how writers enter into and contribute to a discussion through drawing on communal resources, characterizing and reformulating prior discussion, and commenting on specific statements of others (Bazerman, 2004a). In academic and scientific writing intertextuality is explicitly indicated by citation practices. Citation in research publications has been the object of studies for over half a century, dating back to the start of citation indices which called attention to citations as a significant part of academic texts (Garfield, 1955). Early enthusiasm for citation as a simple measure of the influence of authors was tempered by an examination of rhetorical functions carried out

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by citation (Chubin & Moitra, 1975; Moravcsik & Murgesan, 1975). Since then there have been extensive studies of the use of citations in many fields, from both scientometric perspectives (notably, Cronin, 1984; Cronin & Shaw 2002) and linguistic (e.g., Hyland 1999, 2004) perspectives. These textual studies have been supplemented by systematic interview studies (e.g., M. White & Wang, 1997, Wang & White, 1999; Harwood 2009). Both textual and interview studies have primarily developed taxonomies of purposes for citation and measured the relative frequency of these purposes within various fields. Some studies from rhetorical scholars, however, have looked at how citations have been used to frame specific arguments, particularly at moments when authors sought redirection of fields through reevaluation of literatures or bringing to bear new literatures (e.g., Bazerman, 1993; Journet, 1995; Ceccarelli, 2001; Wynn, 2012). The dominant function of citations is to carry forward the intellectual content for the field of investigation. Small (1978) early on identified that citations could serve as symbols for concepts. These cognitive functions have been conceived in social terms, as carrying out the intellectual debate and work of the field, such as identification of concepts and invoking prior thought of the field, or codification of findings and ideas. Harwood’s (2009) interview study, for example, identified such functions for citing as justification (of topic, method, claims), positioning work in field, engaging with ideas and building on prior knowledge. Such cognitive rhetorical moves participate in communal deliberation, disputation, and growth of knowledge through sorting out of claims and building networks of repeated claims of value to successive authors within disciplines. Citation mapping, in fact, uses patterns of citations to document the intellectual structure and growth of fields and specialties as publications cluster around key defining texts (Small 1973, 1977; Mullins et al. 1977; H.D. White & Griffith, 1981). While citation studies indicate growth of communal thought, only by implication could they suggest that specific readings actually influenced the thinking of individual scientists, for the representations of the literature in research articles are rhetorical constructions to support the claims presented and not the actual thinking during investigative practice (Medawar, 1964; Bazerman, 1988). Nonetheless, autobiographical accounts of scientists are filled with the transformative effects of having read certain authors or identifying articles that posed puzzles or provided clues that lead to breakthroughs. Further, from rhetorical studies there have been studies of how terminology of disciplines have shaped the work and conceptualization of practitioners and clients particularly in psychologically related fields (McCarthy, 1991; Berkenkotter & Ravotas, 1997; Emmons, 2008).

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At the university level, studies of writing with citations have centered on learning the practices and forms of proper academic citation such as giving credit and avoiding plagiarism, though patchwriting (using shards of borrowed material) has been recognized as part of a developmental process in learning to use sources (Howard, 1999). Students have also been found to deploy citations rhetorically to perform the role of industrious students who are attentive to the points of view expressed by the instructor (Harwood & Petric, 2012). A series of studies on discourse synthesis (Spivey, 1984) has examined more deeply the processes of how students learn to incorporate and synthesize multiple source texts into their own writing (Flower et al., 1990; Flower, 1994; N. Nelson, 2008). These studies have focused on the skills of writing necessary to make a coherent and purposeful synthesis under the control of the writer’s voice. Even though the specific role of cited concepts in idea building is not examined in these prior studies, such work has important implications for how students incorporate ideas from reading into their expressed reasoning and establish the basis for focused forms of originality (Bazerman, 2010). Several studies in this current volume, however, do examine individual and collaborative processes by which student reasoning develops in writing tasks involving representation of sources or information from sources (see chapters by Hand et al., Klein, and Nykopp et al.). A few studies at the more advanced secondary and higher education level have focused on discipline specific reading (Deegan, 1995; Hynd, Holschuh, & Hubbard, 2004; Boyd & Ikpeze, 2007; C. Shanahan, Shanahan, & Misischia, 2011) and critical and rhetorical reading (Haas & Flower, 1987; Haas, 1994; Hasswell, Briggs, Fay, Gillen, Harrill, Shupala, & Trevino, 1999; Norris, Phillips, & Korpan, 2003). A few studies as well have examined how students use their reading in their writing to form identity and affiliation within disciplinary contexts (Bartholomae, 1985; Berkenkotter, Huckin, & Ackerman 1991; Geisler, 1994) and their adoption of common practices for asserting presence within disciplinary fields (Swales & Najjar, 1987).

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Conceptual Learning in the Writing-to-Learn Literature

While the incorporation of ideas from reading into one’s writing and the role of those cited ideas in advancing one’s thinking is an aspect of writing to learn, the research on writing-to-learn has focused its attention on other forms of learning through writing—particularly the improvements of factual memory through content rehearsal in writing and of conceptual integration through synthetic forms of writing (for reviews of the writing-to-learn literature see

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Klein, 1999; Tynjälä, Mason, & Lonka, 2001b; Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; Bazerman, Little, Chavkin, Fouquette, Bethel, & Garufis, 2005; Newell, 2006). Monte-Sano & De La Paz (2012) have advanced a more specific understanding of how writing can elicit thinking about reading, by finding that different reasoning about reading is elicited by writing tasks in different genres, consistent with conjectures in Bazerman et al. (2005) and Bazerman (2008). Chapters in this volume extend the inquiry as well into the development of critical and analytic thinking through argumentative writing. The citation of concepts and ideas from reading, as examined here, proposes a different sort of learning—that is concepts drawn from reading provide a way of focusing writing about experiences and reflections, framing thinking, solving problems, and developing more sophisticated approaches.

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Internalization of Concepts

From a cognitive perspective, learning to use ideas from one’s reading in thought can be seen as an internalization process, forming higher modes of perception and thinking by adopting the externally received signs as tools for the regulation of one’s internal thought and then as means of expressing that thought through externalization processes (Vygotsky, 1986). Vygotsky in fact associates the adoption of culturally received signs as tools for the regulation of internal perception and thought as the means of developing higher modes of thinking. Culturally developed and received knowledge, according to Vygotsky, moves from interpersonal symbols to intrapersonal signs and then deeply felt cognitive gists. Further, Vygotsky characterizes the organized bodies of socially received thought transmitted in schools as scientific concepts, which then can serve to reorganize a person’s spontaneous concepts, thereby becoming deeply personally meaningful in the way one experiences and responds to the ambient world. Thus, the organized, conceptually rich reading done as part of schooling can enter into the cognitive structure of educated individuals, transforming their ways of thinking (Bazerman, 2012). From this perspective, writing about reading can provide a key mechanism of intellectual growth. This study focuses on the cognitive outcomes expressed in student-produced texts rather than the cognitive processes underlying the outcomes. This study, however, provides robust evidence that under the specific conditions examined, reference to readings in student writing correlates with advances in the cognitive level of student expression of ideas, and thereby provides empirical confirmation of the role reference to reading in writing can take in intel-

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lectual development. Further, the data provide evidence that as students gain familiarity with the domain and relevant texts, their discussion of referenced texts become more focused and extended. While the qualitative discussion of a sample case after the quantitative results gives a more concrete picture of how the role of references evolve in one student’s writing, it is important to first establish on more quantitative grounds the phenomena that referring to reading has a positive correlation with advances in students’ thinking within a specific domain, and students’ discussion of cited texts change as students become more familiar with the domain.

5

Methods

This study consists of a reanalysis of data collected for a previous study of the cognitive impact of writing particular genres within the context of a rich set of educational experiences. Here we first summarize the method by which the data were collected and initially analyzed, and then detail the new analytical procedures specific to this study. For a more detailed account of the methods of the prior study, see Bazerman et al., forthcoming.

6

Site and Materials

In the prior study, to find specific and identifiable cognitive effects rather than generalized cognitive skills, we sought subjects engaged in an academic program that had well-defined cognitive goals within a well-formed sequence of activities and assignments directed toward those goals which were largely new and unfamiliar to the students. We found an appropriate research site in a one-year M.Ed. teacher education program at a major public university in California. In the first academic year of our study we determined the program goals, the curricular structure, writing assignments, and student orientation to the activities through interview and ethnographic observation, from which we developed a strategy for gathering and initial analysis of data. In the second year we collected our main data from six focal students for detailed analysis. The small tightly-structured cohort based program runs from mid-July to mid-July of the following year. In the academic year of our main study there were 46 students in the primary multi-subject credential program and 40 in the secondary single-subject credential program, with 12 specifically seeking the secondary English credential. We followed the cohort of English Education

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students, who all took the exact same course work, and we collected all major written assignments across the year, including credential documents. We also observed them in selected classes, recording large samples of their classroom discussion and collecting informal writing. The focus of the writing in all the assignments was the student teacher’s observations and reflections on their experiences in their classroom internships. They experienced three cycles of internship with responsibilities increasing from observation to full takeover of a classroom for a semester. There are four major writing assignments we examined. Due in midNovember, a theory-directed action inquiry called the Hiding-out paper asked teacher candidates to identify and gather information about two students in the classes they are observing who have reading difficulties and exhibit coping behaviors to avoid being exposed as poor readers. The teacher candidates are asked to interpret the collected information through Brozo’s (1990) characterization of those students as hiding-out. We also examined a more open-topic writing assignment from a seminar in English Education due shortly thereafter. In this assignment students were simply asked to consider an issue that was coming up in their internship observations in relation to the course reading on English Education. We next examined a teaching portfolio, called PACT (Performance Assessment for California Teachers), consisting of two videotaped selections of their internship teaching along with several commentaries concerning school and community context; planning and rationale; a narrative account of the unfolding of the lesson recorded on videotape and the decisions made by the teacher candidate; assessment of the work produced by students; daily reflections on what is working, what is not and what to do next; and overall reflection on the teaching event, citing relevant literature and theory. This portfolio was prepared over the winter and submitted in March. Finally we examined M.Ed. theses, submitted in June, though worked on in parts throughout the year. The final thesis presents a structured action research inquiry built on a sequence of narratives and interpretations of artifacts (or evidence) collected as the teacher candidate develops in thinking and problem solving as a teacher. The different artifact discussions represent different moments in thinking about the educational issues that drive the candidate’s teacher inquiry. The final thesis also must include an introductory narrative of personal development describing evolution of thinking about the inquiry question.

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Initial Coding

Relying on Vygotskian assumptions that advanced forms of thought are discipline or activity specific (Vygotsky, 1986; Scribner & Cole, 1981), based on the particular kinds of judgments to be made by participants engaged in specific activities within distributed systems (Hutchins, 1995), we developed program specific categories of perceptions and thoughts about actors and actions in the classroom. Our first draft of these categories was based on our interviews with program leaders and our ethnographic observations during the first year, but then we grounded and revised these in relation to the detailed data gathered in the second year of the study. The coding scheme we developed reflected the program goals of turning the teacher candidates into reflective practitioners able to make thoughtful and evidence-based classroom choices. We coded statements in each sentence of the writing and in each turn of the student’s classroom talk using the scheme. As we identified puzzles in coding, anomalous statements, and other difficulties, we revised and refined the coding scheme. The final cognitive codes contained nine categories for sentences characterizing classroom actors and events (see Scheme 1). Overall these levels move towards increasing understanding of the educational situation as complex, based on multiple external influences and dynamics within the situation, and ultimately guided by the reflective participation of teachers and students. In this way all the levels at code 4 and above are distinctly different from the first three coding categories that attribute educational events to fixed characteristics of individuals (such as personality or intelligence attributes), prior conditioning that controls current behavior, or fixed moral responsibilities that individuals either live up to or violate. To reiterate, these codes are not intended to be universal or self-evident from differing educational perspectives; rather, they are grounded in the goals and practices of this particular teacher education program. A more extensive account of and rationale for the coding scheme and analytical procedures are to be found in Bazerman, et al. (forthcoming). In order to get a better qualitative understanding of the course of students’ expressed thinking we decided to focus our analysis on six of the twelve cases, purposefully chosen to include the two teacher candidates who expressed higher level thoughts from the beginning, and the remainder randomly chosen from the class and reflective of the general level. For the initial study, we coded the full text of the hiding-out papers, the English Ed. paper and all sections of the Teaching Portfolio for the six teacher candidates, except for the context commentary that contained few relevant comments on classroom behaviors. For the M.Ed. papers we coded the presentations and analyses of the first

writing about reading to advance thinking scheme 1

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Cognitive codes

1. Fixed Characteristics. These statements about teachers, the school system, or students assume that that the classroom and its participants are unchangeable and non-reactive. 2. Prior Characteristics Shape Current Learning. These statements assume a student or teacher’s behavior/actions/thoughts are a result of unchangeable prior characteristics, such as language, class, disability, personality, or moral characteristics. 3. Educational Moral Imperatives. These statements imply that all students should respond in similar ways to instruction or assignments without considering the intricacies of the student responses. 4. Influences on Students. These statements detail specific assignments or lesson plans with the underlying assumption that students will be affected. 5. Reactiveness of Educational Setting. These statements depict the teacher’s reactions in the classroom, or they depict a student response to something happening in the classroom—maybe to a classmate or teacher. 6. Complexities in Situation. These statements consider a student’s life outside the classroom and can include reflections about the student’s family or language background, or will include specific assignments explicitly tailored to reach outside-the-class interests of students. 7. Dynamic Complexities of Responsiveness. These statements consider learning differences in the classroom by identifying the reason a certain student behaves in a certain way. 8. Learning in Dynamic Systems. These descriptive statements about classrooms go beyond description of lesson plans and consider what to the teacher hopes to achieve, and/or what actually happened in the classroom, and/or what the teacher, would have or should have done differently. 9. Reflective Command over Environment. The statements provide supported conclusions/theories about school or learning that highlight a complexity to learning/teaching. These statements will recognize learning and teaching as situated in a large and reactive system. The 9’s do not have to be grounded in observation about specific classroom practices, but they sometimes are. 0. No characterization of students, teachers, or classroom interactions.

and last artifact, the review of literature and the concluding discussion. For this study we added back the intertextual events in parts not examined in the previous study.

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Additional Analytic Codes for This Study

To these initial codes for the prior study we added further codes to examine the use of intertextuality and how it was realized within the student writing. In developing and assigning the following codes, we initially developed the codes in discussion between the first two authors, the second author then applied the codes, and the two discussed problem cases, and revised codes to create more precise and appropriate codes grounded in the data. The first author then recoded a sample of the data, and the second author also brought all problem cases to the first for discussion, and all differences were discussed until we achieved 100 per cent agreement on the assigned codes. First, most directly, we identified whether each sentence contained a reference to a professional source or not. We coded all sentences in the corpus simply on whether it contained an explicit reference or citation to another text or not. The use of a term such as “hiding-out student” or “scaffolding” without explicit mention of a source did not count as a reference. Second, we examined each intertextual reference to determine the content that was taken from each source. In particular, we were interested in whether students found the texts they were citing useful primarily for the conceptual content or for other reasons. We developed four categories that covered all instances of reference in our corpus: referring to a fact, referring to an example, referring to a procedure or method, and referring to a concept (See Scheme 2, which includes examples from our corpus). To determine a composite picture, we summed the content codes for all students with each assignment and then aggregated these across all students and assignments. Third, to see whether referring to texts made a difference in the character of the thought students expressed, we correlated the cognitive codes for each sentence with whether or not there was an intertextual reference. We compared the profiles of cognitive codes for referring and nonreferring sentences for each assignment (summing all students) and for all the assignments aggregated. We also calculated the means of the cognitive scores for referring and nonreferring sentences for each assignment and for all the assignments aggregated. Fourth, to see whether students adapted the content from the references to the context of their own arguments, we assigned a Representation Code to each sentence with a reference. The representation codes characterized the form in which the student presented the content from the source (see Scheme 3). We then compared the aggregate profiles of intertextual representation across assignments to see whether the manner of presentation of the reference varied according to assignment and over time.

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Content codes with examples

1. Referring to a fact. Example: Purves argues in his article, “by secondary school, the large majority of students in the United States report that …. they read to take tests on what is read.” 2. Referring to an example. Example: In a study by Lave (1988) in a Weight Watchers class, a participant used the resources available to him to solve a math problem. When told to measure three-quarters of the two-thirds cup, instead of using an algebraic formula, he “filled a measuring-cup two thirds full of cottage cheese, dumped it out on the cutting board, patted it into a circle, marked a cross on it, scooped away one quadrant, and served the rest” (as cited in Brown et al., 1989, p. 35). 3. Referring to a procedure or method. Example: Jane Schaffer’s method used the idea of structured, five-paragraph essays in the teaching of writing. Each paragraph that is written under this model has a “topic sentence,” “concrete details” from the text, “commentary” by the writer on the concrete details, and a “concluding sentence.” 4. Referring to a concept or idea. Example: Moffet’s (1968) final line in his chapter “Kinds of Discourse” grabbed my attention and ignited my thinking about student-centered learning in secondary classrooms: “In moving outward from himself, the child becomes more himself. The teacher’s art is to move with this movement, a subtle act possible only if he shifts his gaze from the subject to the learner, for the subject is the learner” (p. 59).

Fifth, to see how extensively students discussed each reference to a source text we then identified continuous sequences of sentences that comprised a single reference and related discussion of a referenced text, labeling each sequence as an intertextual event, and counted the number of sentences in each event. We then calculated the mean sentence length of intertextual events for each assignment across all students and compared these mean lengths over time and across assignments. Sixth, to see how the students discussed the cited material we assigned a discussion code to each sentence within each intertextual event. These discussion codes are contained in Scheme 4. We then compared the aggregate profiles of discussion codes for each assignment.

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1. Direct quotation. Uses words directly from the original source, identified through quotation marks or block quotations. (Example: Bodrova & Leong (1998) say that scaffolding is used “… to specify the types of assistance that make it possible for learners to function at higher levels of their zones of proximal development (p. 3).”) 2. Paraphrase. Represents the information or ideas from the original in the same detail as the original but with changes in wording. (Example: It is not our goal as teachers to entertain our students; our goal is to teach them through methods that are comprehensible to them (Dewey, 1913).) 3. Summary. Presents a shortened and focused form of the original source material, perhaps in relation to material from other sources. (Example: Greene (2008) argues that students do their best most of the time, and that the responsibilities of the adults in the classroom include the responsibility to help the students develop the skills to sustain attention and pursue difficult or boring but necessary tasks.) 4. Mention. Mentions the source text but without specifics or elaboration. (Example: The use of formative assessment in which I am most interested is called by Sharkey and Murnane (2006) the conceptual approach.)

scheme 4

Discussion codes

1. Direct Presentation. Directly represents an idea from a source (Example: This exercise relates closely to Brozo’s “Adapt instruction to low ability students” instruction, in that it helps to “buoy confidence and see that their input is valued.”) 2. Explanation. Explains the cited idea, often by extending a definition, or by providing a contrast without any conceptual addition. (Example: While my idea of scaffolding has certainly changed throughout each chapter, I now believe that it is a positive support given by a more knowledgeable party that gives either immediate guidance, long-term learning, or a mixture of both which helps the learner do something he or she could not do prior.) 3. Response. Responds specifically to a cited point, drawing out a consequence or posing a question directly related to the cited text. (Example: “If students actively construct their own knowledge by … making connections, building mental schemata and developing new concepts from previous understanding” (Roehler & Cantlon, 1996, p. 3), we need to give them opportunities to practice this high level of thinking on their own.)

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4. Example. Offers an experience or specifics which exemplify the concept from cited text. (Example: While his rubric score on that essay would represent him as a better writer than many of his peers, he lacks an understanding of some of the latent criteria of the assignment. He fulfills the letter of the assignment, without achieving the spirit of that assignment. Sadler argues that formative assessments are well-suited to bring these latent criteria to students’ and teachers’ attention. Some students, especially lowachieving students, may lack many of the latent criteria necessary to successfully achieve grade level standards.) 5. Expanded Thought. Builds upon the cited material to explore implications, develop judgments, or otherwise develop further thoughts. (Example: The founding theory of my inquiry was that personal connection enhanced the level of student understanding. Based on Moffet’s idea of “Kinds of Discourse” that each student is not a hollow container that a teacher needs to fill up with ideas but rather a dynamic person with formed ideas and perspectives on the world already in place created through personal experiences, I believed that I needed to link what the student already knew about the topics with new knowledge of the topic (1968). This was a way for students to abstract content, or think about the content in their own terms, for their own understanding. Looking at this big idea, I realized I first needed to discover exactly what I meant by personal connection. I created a working definition of personal connection to have a starting point.)

scheme 5

Summary of codes

Each sentence was assigned a: cognitive code (kind of thought expressed–9 categories) reference code (whether makes reference or not–2 categories) Those sentences that make a reference were each assigned a: content code (what was taken from the source–4 categories) representation code (form of representing material–4 categories) discussion code (how the source material discussed–5 categories) Each intertextual event was provided a: count of sentences for length of event.

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Results

9.1 Sources were Used Overwhelmingly for Their Conceptual Content For all the assignments in this study, references were used for conceptual content over 80% of the time and in one case 100 % of the time (see Figure 1). This is not to say that this would be the case in all academic programs in all domains, as readings may be oriented to providing facts, examples, or procedures. In such cases one might not find the same cognitive effect as reported in the further finings below. In the case of this study, however, the overwhelming orientation to concepts may be a result of the goals and structure of this program which sought to develop reflective understanding of practice, and which therefore asked students to develop conceptual understanding of their internship experiences. Accordingly, students were exposed to readings that provided relevant conceptual resources and then asked to use them to reflect on experience. Nonetheless, many academic programs and courses are similarly structured, and this case provides a demonstration that students can use references to identify concepts relevant to their reflection on experience or data. 9.2 Referring to a Source Supported Higher-Level Thought On all four major assignments for the six students we examined, we found significantly different distribution of cognitive codes for sentences with references than those without. Further, the referring sentences had higher mean cognitive codes than those without.

figure 1

Content codes of each assignment (percentages)

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The comparative distribution between the referring and nonreferring sentences for each of the assignments are shown in Figures 2 through 5. In each of these figures it can be seen that the cognitive levels of sentences with references (darker bars) have a different distribution than the sentences without references (lighter bars). Further, the distribution of sentences with references is greater in each case at the higher end of the scale. Thus, from the fall term writing assignments (the Hiding-out Paper and the English Ed. Paper) through the winter PACT portfolio to the final M. Ed. Thesis in the spring, sentences embodying references regularly displayed a higher cognitive profile than other sentences in the same assignment. Particularly noteworthy on all assignments is the strong association between referring sentences and scores at the highest end of the scale. Figure 2 reveals that for the Hiding-out paper submitted in mid-November, over half the statements that referred to reading were coded 7, 8, or 9, and none were coded at the lowest 1, 2, or 3. Few nonreferring sentences were coded at 8 or 9, while some nonreferring statements did receive lower codes, particularly 3 and 4. Figure 3 reveals an even more striking pattern on the English Education paper submitted shortly thereafter in early December. Over 80 % of the referring statements were coded 7, 8, or 9, while just 20 % of the nonreferring state-

figure 2

Hiding-out paper: distribution of cognitive codes in referring and nonreferring sentences (percentages)

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English education paper: distribution of cognitive codes in referring and nonreferring sentences (percentages)

ments received those higher codes. Also all the lowest codes of 1, 2, or 3 came only from nonreferring statements, and nonreferring statements were much more likely than referring statements to be coded at 4. Figure 4, presenting data from the PACT portfolio submitted in March, shows a similar pattern with just over 60% of the referring statements at 7, 8, or 9, while under a third of the nonreferring statements received those codes. The lowest codes have almost entirely vanished, but nonreferring statements were much more likely to receive code 4 than referring statements. In the final M.Ed. thesis submitted in June, as shown in Figure 5, both referring and nonreferring statements tend to receive higher codes, but still referring statements are more likely than nonreferring statements to be coded 7, 8, or 9. Just over 80% of the referring statements obtained these higher codes, while just over 60% of the nonreferring statements do. The aggregated distribution of codes for all assignments is shown in Figure 6. This figure again highlights the higher distributions of cognitive codes for referring statements than for nonreferring statements, with the difference being most striking at the higher codes of 7, 8, and 9. A two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test was conducted to test the equality of the distribution of codes (aggregated across all four genres) between the referring and non-referring groups of sentences. The distribution of the aggregated codes between the two groups was significantly different (D = .36, p < .001). Additional two sample KS tests were conducted to test the equality of the distribution of codes between the referring and non-referring groups for

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figure 4

PACT: distribution of cognitive codes in referring and nonreferring sentences (percentages)

figure 5

M.Ed. thesis: Distribution of cognitive codes in referring and nonreferring sentences (percentages)

each paper (genre). Significant distributional differences between groups were found for the English Ed. paper (D = .35, p < .001), PACT (D = .35, p < .001, and MED paper (D = .19, p < .001). The distributional difference between groups for the hiding-out paper was marginally significant (D = .27, p < .06).

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Aggregate of all papers: distribution of cognitive codes in referring and nonreferring sentences (percentages)

From Figures 2 through 6 one can see that the cognitive codes for the referring sentences tend to be substantially higher than for the non-referring sentences on all the assignments. This tendency is confirmed by taking the means of the cognitive codes of the two groups for each assignment and then for all aggregated, as displayed in Figure 7. This suggests that referring to sources can serve as a cognitive bootstrap by providing concepts that can help students articulate the meaning of their experiences. Qualitative reading of the student papers supports this suggestion; the qualitative discussion of one student below provides examples of how reading provides organizing and focusing concepts for the student’s observations. While each student showed a different path of intellectual development, each repeatedly used references to provide concepts that made sense of their experiences and observations. Noteworthy on Figure 7 is that the codes tend upwards for both groups across the assignments as the year progresses, suggesting an overall increase in cognitive sophistication, though it is difficult to separate the effect of genre task in requiring different kinds of thought and use of citations from the effect of increasing familiarity with the domain over time. These two variables of genre and time are even more entangled in that the tasks assigned became more challenging over time, as is typical in well-designed educational programs. Also noteworthy is that distance between the means for the two groups becomes somewhat narrower as the year progresses, which might indicate that students are able to maintain more sophisticated thought on their own with less need

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figure 7

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Mean cognitive codes of referring and non-referring sentences in all assignments

for the bootstrap of references to provide concepts. Qualitative reading of the student papers supports both speculations. An independent samples t-test was conducted to compare the mean cognitive code (aggregated across genres) between the referring and nonreferring groups. The mean cognitive code for the referring group (M = 6.79, SD = .07) was significantly higher than the mean cognitive code for the nonreferring group (M = 5.74, SD = .03), t(1392.86) = 14.73, p < .001. Additional mean comparisons were conducted to compare the mean cognitive codes between groups within each assignment. For the hiding-out paper, the mean cognitive code for the referring group (M = 6.22, SD = .52) was significantly higher than the mean cognitive code for the nonreferring group (M = 5.32, SD = .11), t(335) = 2.12, p = .03. For PACT, the mean cognitive code for the referring group (M = 6.38, SD = .16) was significantly higher than the mean cognitive code for the nonreferring group (M = 5.64, SD = .03), t(224.32) = 4.58, p < .001. For the MED paper, the mean cognitive code for the referring group (M = 6.99, SD = .08) was significantly higher than the mean cognitive code for the non-referring group (M = 6.34, SD = .07), t(1767) = 6.13, p < .001. For the English Ed. paper, the mean cognitive code for the referring group (M = 6.42, SD = .17) was significantly higher than the mean cognitive code for the nonreferring group (M = 5.16, SD = .08), t(588) = 6.65, p < .001.) 9.3 Text Representations Become More Focused and Compact Over the year, across the four assignments, the content of the referenced texts became represented in more compact ways that were integrated into the voice and stance of the writer. That is, the students relied less on direct quotation

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and increasingly used paraphrase and summary, as is displayed in Figure 8. In the hiding-out paper in the fall term almost 53 % of the content representations were direct quotation, with only 17.5 percentage as paraphrase or summary, while in the final M.Ed. thesis only 18 % were quotation, while over 55% were paraphrase and summary. The use of mentions-only followed a more erratic pattern, perhaps reflecting the genre expectations of each assignment. Two sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were conducted to test the equality of the distribution of representation codes between genres. The distribution of representation codes was significantly different between the following pairs of genres: Hiding-out and PACT (D = .45, p = .002); Hiding-out and MED (D = .35, p < .02); PACT and MED (D = .27, p = .001); PACT and English Ed (D = .57, p < .001); and MED and English Ed (D = .53, p < .001). The distribution of representation codes between Hiding-out and English Ed was not significantly different (D = .21, p = .45). 9.4 Intertextual Events Became Longer While the representation of cited material became more compact and focused, the intertextual events became longer, indicating more extensive discussions involving ideas from sources. Events lengthened from about 2.4 sentences in the Hiding-out assignment in the fall to about 6.4 sentences in the M.Ed. finished in June, as shown in Figure 9. The mean length of intertextual events in the Hiding-out paper was significantly shorter than that of the other three papers. The fact that the English Ed paper was due only a few weeks after the hiding-out paper but doubled the mean length of intertextual events, suggests that genre expectations may be entangled with time in producing these results.

figure 8

Discussion codes across all papers (percentages)

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figure 9

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Mean lengths of intertextual events over the year

The distributions of the event lengths were positively skewed for the PACT and MED genres. One outlying intertextual event length (i.e., more than 3.0 SD from the mean) was removed from the PACT genre and three outlying event lengths were removed from the MED paper. The Levene’s test of error variances indicated that the variance of intertextual event lengths were unequal across the four genres, F(3, 153) = 7.60, p < .001. Due to the violation of the equal variance assumption, a Welch one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare the mean intertextual event length across the four genres. The results of the more conservative (i.e., robust) test for comparing means indicated that there was at least one mean difference across the four genres, F(3, 63.89) = 21.49, p < .001. All pairwise comparisons were examined using the Tukey HSD tests. The mean intertextual event length for the Hiding-out paper (M = 2.38, SD = 0.96) was significantly shorter than the mean for length for the English Ed paper (M = 4.61, SD = 1.67; p = .04), the PACT (M = 4.82, SD = 2.52; p = .01), and the M.ED. paper (M = 5.23, SD = 2.66; p < .001). There were no other significant differences. 9.5 Discussion Type Varied across the Tasks The distribution of types of discussion varied from one assignment to the next, though not in any clear progression over time, as shown in Figure 10. Some of the differences were significantly different across pairs of assignments while others did not rise to the 0.05 level of significance. These results suggest that the nature of the discussion was an effect of genre rather than time.

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Discussion codes over the year (percentages)

Two sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) tests were conducted to test the equality of the distribution of discussion codes between genres. The distribution of discussion codes was significantly different between the following pairs of genres: PACT and MED (D = .12, p = .04); PACT and English Ed (D = .18, p = .02); and MED and English Ed (D = .14, p = .04). The comparisons between the distribution of discussion codes between Hiding-out and all other genres were not significantly different: Hiding-out and PACT (D = .17, p = .28); Hiding-out and MED (D = .16, p = .24); and Hiding-out and English Ed (D = .23, p = .08).

10

Discussion

As all students studied were graduates of good universities with undergraduate GPAs all over 3.4 and had sufficiently good records to be accepted in a selective graduate M.Ed. teacher credential program, it is likely this was not the first time students used sources or learned concepts from their writing, but this is the first time of their reading and learning in this domain of education. Thus, we cannot attribute the changes in writing about other texts to new learning about intertextuality, but we can more plausibly say these changes arose out of their increasing familiarity with a focused body of literature and concepts related to the field of education, and the application to a sequence of coordinated experience in their student teaching placements. Their thinking in the field of education grew in relation to their intellectual sophistication applied to the practical experience learned through student teaching and reflection on it. In short, students are thinking through new experiences with new purposes, using new domain-specific concepts introduced in their reading. They

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use those concepts to bootstrap their own ideas and reflections on their experiences to a more sophisticated cognitive level. In the course of this process, as students become more conversant with those ideas they become less beholden to repetition of exact words from the sources of the ideas and are able to state the ideas in more compact and focused ways, while extending the discussions of those ideas at greater length. As framed by the expectations of the assignments, they were able to use those ideas to reflect on their experiences and develop their own arguments. To see how these processes play out concretely, let us look at how one student comes to think about the role of student interest and perceived relevance in supporting learning through the year. Tricia (pseudonym) in the Hiding-out paper submitted in mid-November has just two brief intertextual events using the assigned source Brozo as a lens to identify student behaviors, as asked for in the assignment, as in this example: I tried asking Ray much more pointed questions in a second interview, to see if he did any of the strategies Brozo points out in his article. ho paper, intertextual event #2

Though Tricia does show interest in making learning “relevant” to her students in the Hiding-out paper, she does not find Brozo a resource to advance this idea. In the more open-ended paper for the English Education assignment submitted shortly thereafter in early December, she was able to focus more directly on issues of relevance and authenticity, including exploring one of the several resources that was previously assigned as a reading in this course. In this paper she has 4 events (averaging 5.75 sentences in length), all of her intertextual references are drawn from one self-selected source, and most are direct quotations, as in this example: The first thing that a teacher must do, I believe, in order to successfully make the connection between all of their students and the reading and work that is done in the English classroom, is appreciate how much each student brings. Appropriating a line from Purves, I argue that since we know “readers are not naïve; that they have something in their heads that has been put there by past experiences,” it is essential that we draw from students’ prior knowledge and current habitus to appeal to students (349). My exploration of relevance in the English classroom hinges upon that fact that each student has personal aspirations, passions, understandings and perspectives. I feel that it is my job as the teacher, in exploring relevance, to inquire at length into this sort of understanding of ourselves

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so that we may guide our English curriculum toward that which is useful for each of us. english ed intertextual event #2

In this discussion of four sentences, Tricia uses Purves to help articulate a thought she is already committed to concerning students prior experience as the basis for relevance. Following the quotation Tricia elaborates the idea and applies it to her role as a teacher. In the PACT portfolio, Tricia further develops her ideas related to authenticity and relevancy, but drawing from more sources. Nonetheless, she still mostly relies on direct quotation. There are more episodes (6) of greater mean length (8,166 sentences). The intertextual references, however, still give her a lens for interpreting and justifying classroom events. As a foundation for much of my teaching, I am invested in making my classroom a space of authentic learning. I want my students to be able to see that the tasks we are doing in the English classroom apply to their daily lives outside of the English classroom. In “Authentic Pedagogy and Student Performance” Newmann, Marks, and Gamoran, in the American Journal of Education, define authentic academic achievement through three criteria: “construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school” (282). Students are meant to “strive for in-depth understanding rather than superficial awareness” and their achievements should have “aesthetic, utilitarian, or personal value apart from documenting the competence of the learner” (283, 284). In my classroom, after learning a skill or academic language and/or depth to their prior knowledge, students construct personal reasons for how what we have learned in the classroom connects to life outside of English class. I believe it is important that they are not only memorizing facts, but also using them and the skills that envelop them in order to create work that has value beyond just their grade. For many of my students, English will not be their college major, if they end up going to college—there has to be a better reason for them to want to engage in our classroom activities. To me, everything that we learn in English applies directly to the outside world and I am working in the classroom to make this directly evident to my students by incorporating authentic learning tasks and assessments and making them provide personalized reasons for how what we have learned connects to them outside of our classroom. pact text event #1

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In this extended discussion of eight sentences, Tricia uses her source to articulate thoughts she was inclined towards, but the resource elaborates more fully. After the quotation, she explains how she applies the principles from the resource to understanding her classroom and directing her teaching. By the time of her M.Ed. thesis Tricia recognizes that different authors take different stances, and she must adjudicate between them to work out her own thinking about authenticity. She sees authenticity as a complex and contested concept, and places different resources in relation to each other, rather than positioning her discussion as dependent on a single dominant source. She is able to articulate independent views that sometimes conflict with her sources, and is able to take control of the conceptual argument, situating herself inside of conversations in the field related to authenticity and relevancy in learning. She relies less on direct quotation, and integrates the intertextual references more fluidly into her own discussion and interpretation of learning. The discussions tend to be more extended (with a mean intertextual event length of 7.1875) and rely much less on direct quotation to represent the ideas of the authors. The following example, explaining her intellectual path, is both explicit about her intellectual path and demonstrative of her intellectual mastery of the domain. I found the term authentic learning while researching and accredit the discovery to Joseph Petraglia’s book, Reality by Design: The Rhetoric and Tehnology of Authenticity in Education (1998). My beginning hesitations to change my inquiry from a focus on relevance to a focus on authentic learning came because of conflicting definitions of authentic learning in the field. Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989) and Barab, Squire, and Dueber (2000) argue that authentic learning requires activities in the classroom that are similar to those that are done out in the community by members with professional roles, such as scientists, doctors, editors, and novelists. Because I do not believe that only activities that are relevant are those that are actually being done by community members out in the community, I shied away from this terminology and association in most of my inquiry. However, after finishing my placement this year and reflecting on the literature, I have now found a definition of authentic learning that I can align myself with by Newmann, Marks, and Gamoran (1996). They argue that the components of authentic learning include: student construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry and value beyond school (Newmann et. al, 1996). Their definition explains that in authentic learning students are actively working to create and produce their own understanding of con-

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cepts instead of reproducing the knowledge that they have been taught by their teachers (Newmann, Marks, Gamoran, 1996). The concept relies on students’ prior knowledge, in-depth understanding, and an elaborated understanding and communication of concepts (Newmann et. al, 1996). Lastly, and most importantly, it requires “aesthetic utilitarian, or personal value apart from documenting the competence of the learner” (p. 284). This focus, of assignments and projects having student-perceived value, is at the heart of my inquiry. It was not until the end of my inquiry that I was able to align my research with this theory, but moving forward it will provide me with another strong base that I can build upon. m.ed. intertext event #1

This ten-sentence event shows Tricia reevaluating concepts, evaluating the views of authors and seeing the limits of individual concepts. On the basis of her understanding the concepts presented in the literature, she changes her conceptual framework and reorganizes her inquiry. Each student showed a unique path of intellectual development, making different uses of the sources to work out their own intellectual puzzles, but each showed similar growth in their ability to discuss ideas from sources and in the way concepts from sources worked into their thinking.

11

Conclusion

While these data represent only a small group of students enrolled in a single program over a year, they demonstrate that for these students referencing published texts serves to advance thinking expressed in each assignment. Further the data demonstrate that over the course of a series of assignments over the year that engage related professional texts, students both advance in their thinking in the domain and are able to engage in more focused and extended discussion of the ideas. The students reference texts largely for the conceptual content of the texts, and they then use the conceptual material to articulate their own thinking and the interpretation of their experiences, to bootstrap them into the kinds of thinking supported by the assignments, courses, and program. This does not mean that citing texts in every situation will bootstrap student thinking and lead to cognitive growth, but it does demonstrate that under some conditions citing texts can have that function. The conditions that applied in this situation that may contribute to the value of citation have to do with the sources providing tools to think through problems students were trying

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to solve in pursuit of their career goals and in relation to internship experiences. Additionally, the writing was embedded within a program that supported reflection on experiences and professional practices. Finally, students were able to select texts and issues they felt most relevant to their concerns; after the initial assignment, students could select texts they found most meaningful to articulate their thinking and were able in two of the assignments (the English Education paper and the M.Ed. thesis) to define the core issue to be argued. In the series of writing assignments studied here, three mutually supportive factors seemed to work together to aid cognitive development: data from engaged experience, genre, and use of the professional literature. Students in this program through their classroom internships were gaining increasing amounts of challenging and engaged practical experience, which they were learning to describe and use as data in their writing in more detailed ways; the detail and specificity of their writing about experience also correlated with their cognitive development (see K. Simon, 2012). Further, the genres they wrote in provided intellectual challenges based on reflective interpretation of experience, seen through the lenses of concepts arising from the professional literature (see Bazerman et al., forthcoming). And, finally, as reported here, the professional literature provided intellectual tools to examine experience and address the challenges of the assigned genres. Results in this study and in like situations should be interpreted through the interaction of these three factors. It should be further cautioned that the effects are not simply the result of learning to cite and write about sources as a general skill. Since these students had already obtained undergraduate degrees in other programs, where they presumably had writing courses and other courses demanding writing with disciplinary content, citation, and conceptual thinking, this is likely not their first encounter with using sources in their writing for conceptual or other purposes. Further, there was no organized instruction in the skills of citation and discussion of texts in this program. The effects more likely had to do with becoming familiar with a new conceptual domain of immediate and pressing practical significance, matched with a continued engagement with a set of personally selected set of issues. The findings here argue for the value of having students read and write about conceptually relevant texts and engaging them over time in continued problem- solving, using conceptual resources in contemplating their own experience and gathered data. While many teachers have long acted on these principles, assigning disciplinary readings and having students write about data and experience using those texts, it is good to have some evidence to support and analyze such practices. Such evidence is particularly valuable in the face of

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educational practices that sometimes separate academic reading from reflection on practice or experience, under the belief that the authority of texts can blind students to the details of their experience. We see here that using conceptual texts can under the right conditions help students articulate their experience and think about experience in more sophisticated ways. Only further research will determine if and under what conditions exposure to conceptual reading can suppress authentic and nuanced reflection. Such research can help us understand better the most appropriate ways of using readings and asking students to write using those readings to advance cognition, including which genres to assign to evoke desired reference discussion practices. Finally, from a writing to learn perspective this study provides evidence that within an inquiry domain, writing about reading can be a means of learning to engage in more sophisticated domain-specific forms of reasoning. Continued writing practice over an extended sequence of writing activities incorporating reading in that domain can lead to deeper and more sophisticated thinking in that domain, particularly in the context of personally important problems and rich experience and other forms of evidence to ponder.

University Students’ Knowledge Construction during Face to Face Collaborative Writing Minna Nykopp, Miika Marttunen and Leena Laurinen At university, writing is a mode of communication as well as a means for learning. Although writing is often an individual activity, students are increasingly writing texts collaboratively with other students in order to learn subject content. In working life, in turn, employees are often required to compose texts together with colleagues. Some studies on individual writing have shown that writing has an important effect on both the knowledge construction and cognitive development of the writer (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Klein, 1999), while other studies have found such effects to be weak or even non-existent (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004). It has been argued that writing is a useful tool in learning because it enables one to make his/her thoughts visible which in turn provide possibilities to review one’s thinking processes (e.g. Emig, 1977; Klein, 1999). Collaborative writing can be considered as a specific learning task in which two or more learners participate equally in constructing and writing a text (Giroud, 1999). Collaborative writing provides opportunities for writers to interact with each other during the writing process. Interaction with other writers may promote writing skills (Daiute & Dalton, 1988; Dale, 1994; Storch, 2005), conceptual comprehension (Andriessen, Erkens, van de Laak, Peters, & Coirier, 2003; van Boxtel, van der Linden, & Kanselaar, 2000), understanding of content knowledge (Andriessen et al., 2003) and reflective thinking, particularly if students are engaged in the act of explaining and defining their ideas to their peers (Storch, 2005). In collaborative writing, the partners exchange ideas, plans and suggestions for the composition of the joint text, and together solve the problems that arise during writing (Giroud, 1999). During interaction, students are also able to observe how other learners think and can model their own thinking after their peers’ thinking strategies (Dale, 1994). Collaborative writing has been studied widely in the domain of computer-supported collaborative learning (Barile & Durso, 2002; Erkens, Jaspers, Prangsma, & Kanselaar, 2005; Onrubia

Nykopp., M., Marttunen, M., & Laurinnen, L. (2014). University students’ knowledge construction during face to face collaborative writing. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 277–299). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_013

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& Engel, 2009; Pragman, 2003). It has also been studied from different perspectives, such as its effects on argumentation (Andriessen et al., 2003; Erkens et al., 2005; Munneke & Andriessen, 2000) and second language learning (Storch, 2005; Yong, 2010). However, studies on knowledge construction during collaborative writing face to face remain few. This study focuses on how students write collaboratively and how they construct knowledge during writing face to face.

1

Literature Review

1.1 Collaborative Writing Process In their model of the cognitive processes of writing, Flower and Hayes (1981) represent what a writer actually does during writing. They state that “writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which the writer orchestrates or organizes during the act of composing” (p. 366). The model of the cognitive processes of writing distinguishes three main processes: planning, translating and reviewing. These processes include a number of subprocesses guided by the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory and the writing process. Although in the model of the cognitive processes of writing the focus is on individual writing, the same processes apply in the case of collaborative writing. In the planning process, the writers generate ideas by retrieving relevant information from long-term memory, set goals for writing, organize ideas into a meaningful text, and may also take the reader into account. Generating ideas may also include reading source texts and making notes on them. In collaborative writing, planning is emphasized, as setting the goals and framing the guidelines of the text need to be negotiated in order for the participants’ ideas to be put into writing (Erkens, Prangsma, & Jaspers, 2006). During translation, the writers translate their ideas into visible language. In collaborative writing, students may have different ways of dividing the translating work among the participants according to their skills (Marttunen & Laurinen, 2012). Depending on group size, one or two may be writers while the others dictate sentences. Students may also rotate the different duties. Although the translating work is distributed, all the participants are held equally responsible for the outcome. The reviewing process consists of evaluating and revising the text. According to Flower and Hayes (1981), the reviewing process is a conscious process in which the writers read what they have written and systematically revise and evaluate the text. Reviewing may occur throughout the writing process and it may also be a stimulus to further writing. In order to compose a coherent text collaboratively the writers need to engage in negotiations on their evaluations relat-

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ing to both the content and grammatical correctness of the text. To conclude, it should be noted that planning, translating and revising can occur at any moment during writing. Interaction between planning, translating and revising is an indication of the recursive nature of the writing process (Galbraith, 2009). 1.2 Collaborative Writing as a Problem-Solving Process Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987, p. 10) emphasize the importance of the knowledge-transforming process during writing. According to them, in the knowledge-transforming process, ideas that are initially inchoate develop by dint of being rethought and restated throughout the composition process, finally taking the form of fully developed thoughts in the finished product. Hence, writing can play an important role in the development of the individual writer’s knowledge, since by using knowledge-transforming strategies writers consider not only changes in the text but also changes in what they want to say. Thus, the writing process involves interaction between text processing and knowledge processing. The problem-solving process in knowledge transforming involves two different kinds of problem spaces: content space and rhetorical space (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987, p. 11). In the content space, the writer works out problems of belief and knowledge; in the rhetorical space, the writer is concerned with the problem of achieving the goals of the composition. Knowledge transforming usually involves parallel activities in these two spaces. Interaction between these spaces means that solutions in one space serve as contributions to the other. When collaboratively writing a text, the writers need to negotiate on both the content and the rhetorical structure of the text (Erkens et al., 2006). Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006, 2010) have introduced the concept of knowledge building, where students are seen as active knowledge creators. According to the principle of knowledge building, writers recognize the importance of both personal and collective responsibility for a successful knowledge-building effort. When collaboratively writing a text, the writers need to negotiate a fit between their personal ideas and the ideas of others (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2010). Composing a coherent high quality text involves taking into account the hierarchy of goals and sub-goals that determine the explicit representation of the rhetorical problems of the text, and the active transformation of knowledge to satisfy its communicative goals (Tynjälä, Mason, & Lonka, 2001). In collaborative writing, the problem-solving processes become explicit and amenable to study as the writers attempt to reconcile different perspectives and the prior knowledge of individual writers in order to reach mutual understanding on the joint text.

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1.3 Knowledge Construction during Collaborative Writing Writing offers a readily available means for composing abstract formulations of ideas (Emig, 1977) as well as for critical thinking and the construction of new knowledge (Klein, 1999). In the following sections, we examine knowledge construction from two perspectives. First, we consider how interaction may promote knowledge construction when writing collaboratively, and second, how integrating reading and writing practices may enhance knowledge construction. 1.3.1 Interaction Promoting Knowledge Construction Kreijns, Kirschner, and Jochems (2003) emphasize that social interaction is a key element of collaborative learning. However, placing students in groups does not necessarily ensure collaboration; individuals should make a conscious, continued effort to coordinate their activity with respect to the construction of knowledge (Kreijns et al., 2003; Teasley & Roschelle; 1993). One such effort is that students should be willing to make their relevant knowledge and skills available for the use of the group (Erkens et al., 2005; Yong, 2010). Moreover, during joint writing, when they contribute an idea, students expect a response from their co-authors. One example of responding to another person’s idea is called “collaborative completion” which means that one student begins a sentence or an idea, and another student completes it (Teasley & Roschelle, 1993). Collaborative completion indicates that students further elaborate their thoughts and ideas together, which in turn may promote their understanding of the issue at hand. This can make their learning processes more meaningful and productive both for themselves and their collaborators (Erkens et al., 2005; Yong, 2010). Other interactional features, such as presenting questions and expressing disagreement, may also promote knowledge construction during collaborative writing. King (1994, 2002) has studied guided and structured interaction in the peer learning task. She found that, in particular, structured questions designed to prompt group members to explain the idea, relate new material to former knowledge or draw conclusions can promote students’ knowledge construction and enhance their comprehension and retention of the material to be learned. She states that high-level complex learning demands that interaction within the group should also be cognitively high-level, including the exchange of ideas, different information perspectives, attitudes, and opinions toward the issue at hand. Interaction of this kind generates thought-provoking questions, explanations, inferences, hypotheses and conclusions. By applying King’s (2002) ideas to collaborative writing, asking thought-provoking questions and answering them can compel students to think more deeply about the material, integrate

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it with prior knowledge and construct new knowledge. Moreover, by asking questions in a collaborative writing group, students have a chance to use their learning partners as an information resource (Weinberger & Fisher, 2006). In her study on collaborative writing interactions in the ninth-grade classroom Dale (1994) found that writing together places students in a learning environment which encourages disagreement between group members. When writing collaboratively, disagreement will emerge when students offer alternative ideas during writing. Disagreement is an important element in maintaining student engagement in the writing process. Further, Dale (1994) states that for the experience of collaborative writing to be successful, students must feel comfortable with disagreement. Hence, a positive social environment is essential to ensure that students can challenge group members’ ideas. This requires that students trust each other and the collaborative experience. Expressing disagreement can lead to cognitive conflict, which arises when an individual realizes that his or her conceptions, thoughts, or efforts are inconsistent with new information or another person’s point of view (Daiute & Dalton, 1988). Earlier studies (Dale, 1994; Munneke & Andriessen, 2000; Yong, 2010) have shown that cognitive conflict facilitates knowledge construction during collaborative writing. Attempts to solve the conflict engage students in reflective thinking, when they compare opposed meanings or opinions, justify their arguments and generate alternative ideas. However, Dale (1993) points out that some collaborative writing groups may avoid cognitive conflicts by merely agreeing to the suggested text. These groups would be less involved in the writing process than a group that challenges each others’ ideas to the extent that the speaker is obliged to clarify his/her reasoning and to support his/her ideas. The more conflict a group generates, the richer the interaction (Dale, 1994). 1.3.2 Collaborative Writing as a Source-Based Activity Knowledge construction during collaborative writing requires that students engage in cognitive processing such as sharing information and clarification of understanding. These cognitive processes may occur when students are preparing themselves for an upcoming collaborative writing assignment by reading source materials in order to gain familiarity with the topic (Volet, Summers & Thurman, 2009). Cognitive processing can also emerge when ideas are outlined at the beginning of the collaborative writing process. Writers may also engage in even more demanding cognitive processing (Volet et al., 2009) when they construct meanings during reading by integrating content from source texts with previously acquired knowledge. This may take place through selecting, organizing and drawing relations from source materials in order to produce new texts (Spivey & King, 1989; see also Bazerman, Simon & Yoon, this volume).

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Students can use different study strategies, such as underlining, note-taking and summary writing, in order to understand and integrate information from multiple textual sources as well as to prepare for a writing assignment (Lahtinen, Lonka, & Lindblom-Ylänne, 1997; Lonka, Lindblom-Ylänne, & Maury, 1994; see also Cisotto & Del Longo, this volume). Summarizing, which requires elaboration of the idea of the text by writing an abridged version in one’s own words during reading may foster deeper comprehension and learning than, for example, simply underlining texts, as well as contribute to the construction of conceptual knowledge (Gil et al., 2010; Lonka et al., 1994; Slotte & Lonka, 1999; Wade-Stein & Kintsch, 2004). According to Tynjälä (2001), students occupy multiple roles when reading and writing from sources in order to compose a joint essay. They are readers of the source article, summary writers and summary readers, essay writers, and readers of their own draft. In these changing roles, students engage in internal dialogue with themselves. This internal dialogue can also be extended to the collaborative planning process when the plan and drafts of the text are shared with other students. The different roles may be occupied by a single writer, but in a collaborative writing group, these tasks may be shared among the participants according their abilities: some students may be good writers while others may be better at understanding concepts in source texts (Marttunen & Laurinen, 2012). 1.4 Monitoring and Regulation during Collaborative Writing Metacognition is seen as “knowing about knowing”, which is parallel with descriptions of knowledge about one’s own or others’ knowledge and cognitive processes (Flavell, 1976; Metcalfe & Shimamura, 1994). “Metacognition refers to the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective” (Flavell, 1976, p. 232). Metacognition consist of two components: knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition (Brown, 1978; Flavell, 1979). Knowledge about cognition refers to an individual’s knowledge about general cognitive processes and strategies. Regulation of cognition refers to active tracking of mental processes and use of regulatory strategies to facilitate cognitive performance. Monitoring, affiliated to regulation, means one’s awareness of comprehension and task performance. In collaborative writing, students use the metacognitive strategies of monitoring and regulating in order to express their understanding of an issue or specific concepts and to evaluate other student’s contribution. Monitoring is important for students’ learning because it helps students keep track of their ongoing cognitive processes and use regulatory strategies to solve problems (Nietfeld et al., 2005).

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Although metacognition is usually considered an individual process, it has recently also been considered a social process (e.g. Iiskala, Vauras, Lehtinen, & Salonen, 2011; Salonen, Vauras, & Efklides, 2005). According to Kiili, Laurinen, and Marttunen (2011), students’ monitoring and regulation may concern their own activities, others’ activities, or joint activities. For example, students can express their difficulty in understanding, detect misunderstanding by their partners, or pay attention to the progress of a joint task. These monitoring activities will trigger different kinds of regulative processes. The study by Volet et al. (2009) showed that collaborative work, in which students actively monitor and regulate their joint processes, supports the construction of meaningful knowledge.

2

Research Questions

This study focused on university students’ knowledge construction during collaborative writing in a face-to-face situation. The task assignment included a combination of reading, writing and group discussion, and it was carried out by applying source-based summary writing. The particular interest of the study was on the elements of the students’ discussions that can be interpreted as supporting knowledge construction. The research questions were the following: 1. How does university students’ knowledge construction emerge during collaborative writing? 2. Are there differences in students’ knowledge construction when they a) reformulate their previous text from source-based individual summaries? b) write ideas on the basis of a course book? c) create new text during writing?

3

Method

3.1 Participants Twenty-one Finnish university students (19 females and 2 males; aged 20–41 years), enrolled in a course on educational psychology, were divided into 6 groups of 3–4 persons to perform a collaborative writing task. Because one student dropped out, one group offended up with just two students. Moreover, the students could choose their fellow collaborators. Since the course on educational psychology formed part of the curriculum of the Department of Education and was mandatory for all students, the ecological validity of the

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study was guaranteed. The aim of the course was to acquaint the students with theories of learning and development in a way which could help them relate the content of the course book (Crain, 2005) to their own experiences. However, participation in the present study was optional for the students and refusal to participate did not affect their final grades. 3.2 Task Assignment and Data The course involved writing tasks the purpose of which was to practice academic discussion and writing conventions as a preparation for working life. The writing task, similar to tasks normally used in the course, included working both individually at home and collaboratively in a group in the classroom (Table 1). The students prepared themselves for the group task by reading six chapters on developmental theories from a course book individually at home. During their reading, the students were to list the key concepts of each theory, and, after reading, to write summaries including at least three of the essential ideas contained in each theory by utilizing the key concepts they had noted. The students were asked to bring their concept lists and summaries with them to the seminar, where their task was to write a joint essay. In the collaborative writing situation, the teacher assigned each group one theory as their essay topic. First, the students were asked to silently read each other’s summaries on their topic theory. Second, they were asked to discuss the theory on the basis of their individual summaries, and third, to collaboratively write an essay on that theory. The individual summaries and the course book were both available to the students as resource materials during the collaborative writing process. Moreover, the students were instructed to employ a scholarly writing style in their joint essay. As is common practice in Finnish universities, the course book was written in English whereas the individual summaries and the joint essays were in Finnish. The group discussions during writing were tape-recorded and transcribed. The study design is illustrated in Table 1. 3.3 Data Analysis The analysis proceeded in three phases. First, the students’ joint essays were analyzed sentence by sentence to determine whether a sentence as such or an idea included in it was present in one or more students’ individual summaries. Second, discussion fragments dealing with the ideas included in the sentences of the joint essays were tracked from the students’ group discussions. Third, utterances which were interpreted as expressing knowledge construction inside the discussion fragments were analyzed.

knowledge construction in collaborative writing table 1

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Study design and data

Task assignment

Data

Working individually at home 1. The students read 6 chapters on developmental theories from the course book individually at home and write summaries of each chapter.

Individual summaries (n = 21)

Working in groups in a collaborative writing situation 2. The teacher assigns one theory to each group. 3. The students silently read each other’s summaries. 4. The students discuss their topic theory on the basis The students’ group of their summaries. discussions (8,177 speech turns in total) 5. The students collaboratively write an essay on the Joint essays (n = 6) theory.

3.3.1 Analysis of the Joint Essays The students’ joint essays consisted of 179 sentences in total (M = 29.8 sentences per essay). Each sentence was classified on the basis of how and from which source it was composed. The analysis included four data-driven categories, as presented in Table 2.

table 2

Category

Analysis of the sentences

Description of the category

1. Literally copied A sentence was copied literally from one student’s individual summary 2. Reformulated A sentence was reformulated from one or more students’ individual summaries 3. Book-based A sentence was composed by utilizing the course book 4. New text A sentence consists of new text which was created during the group discussion

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As the students had access to both the individual summaries and the course book during writing, some of the sentences were composed by utilizing both of these sources simultaneously. These sentences were categorized according to the main source utilized during writing. The main source was identified by determining which source the students primarily used: for example a student may have composed a sentence on the basis of an idea taken from his/her individual summary (main source), and then checked the idea from the course book. 3.3.2 Analysis of the Group Discussions The students’ group discussions were analyzed by searching for and categorizing discussion fragments in which the students discussed the ideas included in the sentences of their joint essays. In this study, a discussion fragment was defined as a thematic text entity where the students composed sentences through discussion. Discussion fragments where the students literally copied sentences from the individual summaries were omitted from the analysis, as the purpose of the analysis was to concentrate on discussion fragments reflecting knowledge construction. These discussion fragments were: 1) Fragments of text reformulation, where the idea was reformulated from an idea presented in one or more students’ individual summaries; 2) Fragments of book-based ideas, where students formulated ideas by utilizing the course book; and 3) Fragments of new texts, where new text was created through discussion. 3.3.3 Analysis of the Utterances Indicating Knowledge Construction The fragments of the students’ group discussions were further analyzed by investigating utterances interpreted as indicating knowledge construction. In this study, an utterance is a complete unit of speech (Bakhtin, 1987, p. 67) which can be located in the transcription. Such an utterance can be a speech turn or a part of a speech turn and it originates from the experience and/or thoughts of the speaker. Utterances (n = 3,865 in total) were classified into four main categories: Collaborative interaction, which is social in nature; Content processing, which is cognitive in nature; Monitoring and regulating, which is metacognitive in nature; and Off task. In collaborative interaction, we emphasize such social interaction that maintained students’ engagement in the learning activities. In content processing, we concentrate on such cognitive processes through which the students both broadened and deepened their understanding on the issues studied. In monitoring and regulating, we concentrate on such metacognitive processes through which the students evaluated their understanding and progress in the task or discussed how to proceed with the task. Collaborative interaction comprised several sub-categories: Asking questions, Answers to

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questions, Collaborative completion, Expressing disagreement or conflict, Quick agreement, Quick disagreement and Discussing edits. The sub-categories of Content processing were: Expressing an idea or a thought, Conceptualizing ideas, and Clarifying ideas. The utterance categories were mutually exclusive in nature within but not between the main categories. Due to the nature of the collaborative writing process, content processing was intertwined with and overlapped collaborative interaction. Thus, the same utterance could be assigned simultaneously to both the categories of Collaborative interaction and Content processing. This is expressed in the next extract where two students (Anna and Eva) talk about Piaget’s theory (utterances 76–77). In the extract, they try to clarify the idea that most adults do not reach the stage of formal operational thinking. First, Anna (utterance 76) phrases an example concerning an issue (tribal societies) discussed in the course book. Next Eva engages in collaborative interaction (Collaborative completion) by completing (in italics) Anna’s thought of “tribal societies” (utterance 77). The same utterance also indicates content processing (Clarification of an idea), as Eva clarifies Anna’s idea by pondering how Piaget’s theory is manifested in the context of a tribal society. Anna Eva

I just thought about it that it was some … Tribal societies, yeah. Yeah, it was that … you know … in tribal societies, people don’t necessarily reach the level of formal operational thinking, because they don’t need it in their daily life. And, there was …

The utterance categories are based on both theory and data-driven analysis. The length of utterances in words was also measured. The analytical categories are presented in more detail below. 3.3.4

Categories of Collaborative Interaction Asking Questions Questions indicate collaboration, simply because participants are expected to answer them (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). In this study, questions are related to the content of the issue at hand. For example, one student may ask another student to describe more precisely the content of the sentence they are writing. Questions may also be related to the writing process. Students may, for example, ask how or in what order ideas should be written down. Questions of this kind are very close to suggestions, which can be expressed interrogatively: for example: “Should we continue this in the same sentence or …?” (utterance 3411). Hence suggestions of this kind were classified as questions because the other students were either expected to answer or express agreement to them.

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Answers to Questions Answering thought-provoking questions requires students to make connections among ideas and generate explanations, elaborations, speculations, inferences, and other forms of knowledge (King, 1994, 2002). In this study, two types of answers were found: answers relating to the content of the issue (often rather long explanations), and answers relating to the writing process (often short answers). Collaborative Completion Collaborative completion occurs when one student begins a sentence or an idea and another student completes it by taking over, integrating or applying the ideas or perspective of their learning partners (Teasley & Roschelle, 1993; Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). Sometimes Collaborative completion touches upon answers, which are related to explanation-seeking questions. In that case, the answerer completes the fuzzy idea or thought which the other student has presented. Collaborative completion is described in the following extract (in italics) in which two students (Nina and Mia) are talking about the idea of the universal principle in Kohlberg’s theory (utterances 3923–3926). In the first utterance, Nina is reformulating a sentence which Paula (a third student in the group) is going to write down. Next, Mia first agrees with Nina’s formulation and then completes the idea of the sentence by stating what she thinks the word “principle” means. Finally, Nina further completes Mia’s idea. Nina Mia Mia

Nina

[Nina dictates the sentence which Paula is writing] Most individuals do not reach this sixth phase. Yeah. I think “principle” means, that in the sixth, also known as the phase of universal principles, the individual … er … assumes … or, well, the individual, individual, individual wants … to respect the basic dignity of all people as individuals. That is, you know, that tolerance …

Expressing Disagreement or Conflict In a collaborative writing situation, students may express conflicting points of view. Students draw attention to such conflict by expressing their thoughts out loud to each other (Dale 1994). This enables the other students to evaluate how relevant the thought is to their joint essay and either agree or disagree accordingly. Interaction with other students fosters the probability that conflict will occur during discussion (Daiute & Dalton, 1998). The next text extract

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(utterances 358–360) highlights a cognitive conflict (in italics) between two students (Nico and Maria). First, Nico puts forward the idea that Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are based on Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. Maria disagrees (erroneously) with Nico by saying that the stages do not originate from Piaget but are based on Kohlberg’s own thinking. At the end, Nico disagrees with Maria’s previous statement. Nico

I think that we could put there, that like, you know, like Piaget, you know, that intelligence … or … I mean the stages of thinking in the cognitive-developmental theory, so in the same way, these stages of moral development are based on Piaget’s concepts of the five stages which have the following characteristics: qualitative differences, structured wholes, invariant sequence, hierarchic integration, and universal sequence and in addition … Maria I think these are not Piaget’s ideas since these are presented in Kohlberg’s theory … Nico No, they are not. Quick Disagreement In this study, quick disagreement means a rapid rejection of another students’ contribution without giving a reason for this. Quick disagreement is often related to a situation where one student wants to stop another student from going off on the wrong track. Quick Agreement Quick agreement is used as a means by students to accept the contributions of their learning partners in order to move on with the task (see Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). The contribution can be either a question or an interrogative suggestion related either to the content of the issue, the sentence at hand, or the writing process. Quick agreement can thus be considered as a coordinating discourse move. Quick agreement can also be defined as a form of unmodified rephrasing of a learning partner’s statement (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). In the following text extract, two students (Elisa and Tia) coordinate the writing process by indicating Quick agreement (utterances 1734–1735). In the first utterance, Elisa interrogatively suggests that they should go forward. Tia agrees with Elisa’s suggestion. Elisa Tia

Yeah. Should we go forward? Let’s do that.

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Discussing Edits This category includes utterances in which the students discussed edits of the text, e.g. grammatical corrections, wordings and typos. 3.3.5 Categories of Content Processing When students write collaboratively, in addition to interaction, they also have to concentrate on the content of their writing. The categories which indicate knowledge construction during content processing are the following. Expressing an Idea or a Thought Discussions typically start with an expression of an idea or a thought, or the topic changes with the expression of an idea. Expressing an idea or a thought means that students make a contribution to the discussion without referring to other students’ contributions, i.e., the learners externalize what they know about the topic at hand (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). In the next speech turn (utterance 2724), Jenny expresses an idea to the other participants in order to make a new contribution to the discussion. Jenny Hey … Should we put … you know … at the beginning there is, well, hm … there is … that Darwin … the old theory … you know, creationism … or something like this, what is it? … the theory anyway … Conceptualizing Ideas Conceptualizing ideas can be defined as expressing one’s ideas in an abstract way. In this study, students were instructed to employ a scientific writing style in their joint essay, and consequently in some cases they reformulated the concrete ideas presented in their individual summaries into a more scientific form for their joint essay. Moreover, the theories and the concepts in the course book were conceptual in nature and they were also written in a foreign language (English). Hence, the students had, first, to translate and form the ideas in their own words, often at a somewhat concrete level in order to understand the theory or concept, and then, to incorporate it into the text in an abstract and scientific way. According to van Boxtel et al. (2000), students’ conceptual understanding may be promoted through participation in writing practices which require the use of scientific concepts to describe and explain theoretical principles in the domain of interest. Conceptualizing ideas (in italics) is described in the next extract (utterances 3,903–3,906) in which the students (Mia and Nina) are formulating the concept ‘equity’ in Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. First, they express the relevant concepts i.e. ‘equity’ and ‘universal ethical principles’ and then Mia describe the concept in an abstract way.

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Mia: Nina Mia

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I think it is only sort of … all … equity. Equity … is Yeah, universal ethical principles. Universal ethical principles for all. It’s, you know, the idea in a nutshell. Personally acquired, naturally universal, and consistent … Principle of equity, equality, reciprocal, and human rights.

Clarifying Ideas When students clarified an idea they either explained it to each other or gave an example of it. By clarification through examples, an abstract concept, presented for example in a course book, becomes more comprehensible. Because the course book was written in a foreign language, clarification was needed in order to understand the concepts or theoretical principles presented in it. Clarification can be related to explanation-seeking questions (van Aalst, 2009), which involve sufficient accurate clarification on the issue in question. Volet et al. (2009) have suggested that clarifying understanding may refer to low-level cognitive processing. However, clarification has an important role with respect to the goal of improving students’ comprehension on a particular issue. The following utterances (utterances 213–214) are taken from rather a long discussion where the students pondered the concepts presented in Piaget’s theory. As the concepts seemed to be difficult for the students, clarification was needed. First, Helena offers the group an example of Piaget’s concept ‘assimilation’. Then Olivia presents her own example of assimilation (in italics) in order to improve the comprehension of the concept. Helena

Olivia

So, is it (assimilation) something, you know, you can imagine that if you put two different substances into a glass, which will be blended together, cocoa powder and milk? Or I think it is more like, that your old knowledge is here, it is what you already know. The sponge cake and then cream will be added to it. So, it is, you know, the same, but then a little bit more is added to it.

3.3.6 Monitoring and Regulating Students observed their understanding of the issue at stake, but also scanned their textual products for mistakes, by the metacognitive strategies of monitoring and regulating. During collaborative writing, monitoring can help students to attend to ongoing cognitive processes and to use regulatory strategies to solve problems (Nietfeld et al., 2005). Students can monitor their comprehension of concepts which they have incorporated into their joint essay and regulate their writing style in order to adhere to the scholarly style of the joint essay.

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Monitoring also assists in managing the writing process through the effective allocation of attention, memory and time, when writing together in order to complete an academic writing assignment (Nietfeld et al., 2005). In this study, Monitoring and regulating occurred during content processing and collaborative interaction alike. In collaborative writing, monitoring provided not only for self-generated feedback but also feedback from other students to control their performance and comprehension (Nietfeld et al., 2005). An example of monitoring here is the idiom I am completely at sea (utterance 1179) that one student used in a situation where the students were translating the stages of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development from English into Finnish. When regulating their activities students, for example, checked difficult concepts and ideas from the course book. 3.3.7 Off Task The fragments also contained utterances not related to the task, such as references to different editions of a book or the capacity of the computer. 3.4 Reliability Measuring and Statistical Analysis In determining the reliability of the analysis, 13% of the utterances (520 in total) were examined by two judges. The inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa) of the analysis on the categories of Collaborative interaction was .86; on the categories of Content processing .94; and on Monitoring and regulating .85. The associations between the fragment types and the categories of collaborative interaction, content processing, monitoring and regulating and off task were analyzed by using the nonparametric χ2 test. In order to describe the nature of the associations found by the χ2 test more deeply, adjusted residuals were used (Bewick, Cheek & Ball, 2004).

4

Results

4.1 Fragment Types in the Students’ Group Discussions The students’ group discussions were divided into 142 discussion fragments on the basis of the analysis of the sentences in the students’ joint essays. The two most common sentence categories in the essays were Literally copied (73, 41%) and Reformulated (71, 40%). Further, 28 (16 %) sentences were composed by utilizing the course book and 7 (4%) sentences included new text created during the discussions. The discussion fragments were formed on the basis of the sentence categories Reformulated, Book-based and New texts. The most common fragment

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type was “Text reformulation”: in 100 (70%) fragments, the students reformulated a sentence first presented in one or more students’ individual summaries. The students wrote book-based ideas in 32 (23%) fragments, i.e., they translated and formulated sentences for their joint essay on the basis of the course book. In 10 (7%) fragments, the students created new text. 4.2 Collaborative Interaction The total amount of utterances included in the discussion fragments was 3,865. The number of utterances indicating collaborative interaction was 3,555, and the rest of the utterances (n = 310) belonged to the other categories: Content processing, Monitoring and Regulating, and Off task. The most common utterance categories which described students’ knowledge construction during their collaborative interaction in the joint writing process were Collaborative completion (32%), Quick agreement (22%), Asking questions (18 %), and Discussing edits (13%) (Table 3). The students Expressed disagreement or conflict (4 %) and Quick disagreement (4%) far more rarely (Table 3). When the number of words in the collaborative interaction utterances was counted, it was found that the students most commonly engaged in Collaborative completion: 42% of words were used for this purpose (Table 3). Other common categories of collaborative interaction as counted by the number of words were Asking questions (21%) and Discussing edits (16 %). The students asked rather a lot of questions, but Answering the questions was more rarely

table 3

Distribution of collaborative interaction utterances by category

Utterance categories

Distribution of utterances f %

Number of words f %

Length of utterances in words Min Max M SD.

Collaborative completion Asking questions Answers to questions Quick agreement Expressing disagreement or conflict Quick disagreement Discussing edits

1149 629 257 798 137

32 18 7 22 4

10,248 5030 1258 1647 1495

42 21 5 7 6

1 1 1 1 4

63 46 41 9 28

8.9 8.0 4.9 2.1 11.0

7.2 6.2 5.8 1.6 5.5

125 460

4 13

642 3898

3 16

1 1

20 40

5.1 8.5

3.6 5.9

Total

3555

100

24,218

100

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observed (5%). Expressions of disagreement or conflict (6 %) and Quick disagreement (3%) were also rare (Table 3). When the association between the categories of collaborative interaction and the different text fragments was tested (Table 4) a significant association was found ( χ2 = 56.88; df = 14; p = .000). Examination of the adjusted standardized residuals (z) showed that when the students wrote ideas on the basis of the course book, Collaborative completion (n = 394, 33%, z = 3.2), in particular, was commonly engaged in. Although expression of disagreement or conflict was infrequent across the discussion, it was associated both with the text fragments in which the students reformulated previous text from their source-based individual summaries (n = 106, 4%, z = 3.1) and with fragments where the students created new ideas (n = 12, 7%, z = 2.6) for the joint essay. However, the students very seldom expressed disagreement or conflict (n = 19, 2 %, z = -4.3) when writing ideas on the basis of the text book. The students often discussed edits of their joint text in the text reformulation fragments (n = 333, 13%, z = 3.5) but hardly ever when writing book-based ideas (n = 105, 9 %, z = -3.9).

table 4

Utterance categories

Collaborative completion Asking questions Answers to questions Quick agreement Expressing disagreement or conflict Quick disagreement Discussing edits Other categories¹ Total

Proportions of the three different types of discussion fragments in the collaborative interaction utterances by category Fragments of text reformulation f % z*

Fragments of book based ideas f % z

Fragments of new texts f % z

Total f %

702

28

-3.3

394

33

3.2

53

32

0.5

1149

30

423 162 509 106

17 6 20 4

1.3 -0.7 -0.8 3.1

181 80 258 19

15 7 22 2

-1.1 0.2 1.1 -4.3

25 15 31 12

15 9 19 7

-0.5 1.2 -0.7 2.6

629 257 799 137

16 7 21 3

87 333 190

4 13 8

1.1 3.5

34 105 114

3 9 10

-0.9 -3.9

4 22 6

2 13 4

-0.6 0.5

125 459 310

3 12 8

2512

100

1185

100

168

100

3865

100

*z = Adjusted standardized residual ¹Note: Other than collaborative interaction categories.

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4.3 Content Processing The amount of utterances which indicated content processing was 1,442 of total utterances (n = 3,865). The rest of the utterances (n = 2,423) belonged to categories other than content processing: Collaborative interaction, Monitoring and Regulating, and Off task. The most common utterance categories describing the students’ knowledge construction during content processing when they were writing their joint text were Conceptualizing ideas (54 %) and Clarifying ideas (40%) (Table 5). When knowledge construction during content processing was examined by using the number of words as a measure, the ranking of the most common categories was somewhat different: Clarifying ideas (48 %) and Conceptualizing ideas (47%). The association between the categories of content processing and the different text fragments (Table 6) was not significant. ( χ2 = 4.27; df = 6; p = .640). 4.4 Monitoring and Regulating, and Off-Task Discussion Metacognitive activities during the students’ discussions were rare: only 320 (8%, 3,219 words in total) of all utterances were assigned to the category Monitoring and regulating. The association between Monitoring and regulating and the different text fragments was not significant ( χ2 = 2.34; df = 2; p = .310). The students also very rarely engaged in Off-task discussion (53 utterances, 358 words in total), although somewhat more typically when they wrote book based ideas (n = 27%, z = 2.7) and particularly infrequently when reformulating previous text (n = 25, 1%, z = -2.7).

table 5

Distribution of content processing utterances by category

Utterance categories

Conceptualizing ideas Clarifying ideas Expressing an idea or a thought Total

Distribution of utterances f % 785 580 77

54 40 5

1442

100

Number of words f % 7239 7400 813

47 48 5

15452 100

Length of utterances in words Min Max M Std. 3 2 4

44 9.2 63 12.6 30 10.6

5.9 7.7 6.2

296 table 6

nykopp, marttunen and laurinen Proportions of the different types of discussion fragments in content processing utterances by category

Utterance categories

Fragments of text reformulation f % z*

Conceptualizing ideas Clarifying ideas Expressing an idea or a thought Other categories¹

527 363 49 1573

Total

2512 100

21 14 2 63

1.4 -1.3 -0.3

Fragments of book based ideas f % z 221 192 25 747

19 16 2 63

1185 100

-1.7 1.4 0.3

Fragments of new texts f % z 37 25 3 103

22 0.6 15 0.0 2 -0.2 61

168 100

Total f % 785 580 77 2423

20 15 2 63

3865 100

*z = Adjusted standardized residual ¹ Note: Other than content processing categories.

5

Discussion

During collaborative writing, the students often completed each other’s ideas and asked questions. According to Teasley and Roschelle (1993), collaborative completion is an effective expedient in knowledge construction, because it spreads the interrelated goals, features, and actions related to knowledge elements across the discussion. This provides multiple opportunities for students to contribute to the construction and verification of the new piece of shared knowledge. High-level interaction, characterized by the exchange of ideas, information and perspectives, generates thought-provoking questions, explanations and conclusions (King, 2002). Questions have an important role in knowledge construction during collaborative writing, because they may direct students to think more profoundly about the issue at hand instead of retrieving and regurgitating information. Presenting questions may promote deeper learning regarding the topic which the students are writing about. Teasley and Roschelle (1993) point out that collaboration does not happen just because individuals are co-presenting information; instead, individuals need to make a conscious, continued effort to coordinate their interaction and activity with respect to shared knowledge. Although the students asked a lot of questions, the number of answers was

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small. This may partly be due to the nature of collaborative writing. During collaborative writing, questions that have been asked may be left unanswered either because their content needs to be examined more closely or the questioner does not expect an answer but is contemplating the issue interrogatively. We noticed that the students more often left questions unanswered in groups containing more than two students. In those groups, students floated ideas by means of questions and suggestions, without waiting for direct answers to them. Sometimes the answers that the students gave were interpreted here as collaborative completion. Furthermore, unanswered questions may also be related to the students’ writing process method. As Healy (1980) points out, constructive criticism is often given in the form of questions. Then the intention is not to answer these questions, but to take them into account in writing the next draft of the text. Cognitive conflict has been found to facilitate knowledge construction among collaboratively writing students (Dale, 1994; Hmelo-Silver, 2003; Yong, 2010). However, in this study the students rarely expressed disagreement or conflict during this task. This may be explained by reference to the culture of Finnish higher education: Finnish university students often confine themselves to passive knowledge acquisition, trusting authority, for example course books or the teacher, instead of engaging in critical collaboration with their discussion partner (Marttunen, 1994). Moreover, the small amount of cognitive conflicts in the students’ discussion is not necessarily a sign of reduced collaboration, but may rather refer to a different way of engaging in collaborative activities. Weinberger, Laurinen, Stegman and Marttunen (2009) compared Finnish and German university students in a collaborative study context and found that while the German students typically engaged in conflict-oriented collaborative work, the Finnish students tended to integrate the arguments of their learning partners in their own line of reasoning. Another reason for the scarcity of conflicting interaction among the students in this study might be that almost all the participants were females. Carr et al. (2004; see also Herring, 1996) have found that male students, compared to females, tend to have a more assertive and competitive discussion style, and hence are more inclined to engage in conflict. In the present instance, disagreement surfaced during discussions where the students were reformulating sentences on the basis of one or more student’s individual summaries and when they were creating new text during a discussion. There are three possible reasons for this. First, when individuals are working together, their collaborative activity often produces periods of conflict, for example when individual ideas are negotiated with respect to the joint task. According to Teasley and Roschelle (1993), such periods of conflict signify

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a breakdown in mutual intelligibility, but not in collaboration. In this study, it was often presumed that, in reformulating sentences, different viewpoints and ideas from individual summaries would be taken into account. When incongruous ideas encounter each other, conflicts may arise. Second, by writing individual summaries, students were able to conceptualize the issue in question and produce their own interpretation; thus, they had enough knowledge to voice disagreement with other students’ interpretations or defend their own contribution. They also had enough knowledge to recognize the discrepancy between their own and other students’ understanding of the concepts or theoretical principles under discussion. Third, expressing disagreement or conflict may also be a sign of mistrust of other students’ thoughts or interpretations. Students sometimes rejected other students’ thoughts, whereas they accepted information from the course book without question. The reason for this may be that the course book was seen as an authority which cannot be challenged, although it is possible that the book was theoretically interpreted differently by different students. Utterances indicating content processing were usually somewhat longer than utterances indicating collaborative interaction. Some ideas were complicated or difficult for the students, and consequently long explanations were needed in order to clarify them. The students seldom created totally new text for their essay. Where students clarified their ideas by an example, they took it from the book rather than created one of their own. They clung to their individual summaries or to ideas taken directly from the course book, but they did not further evolve their thinking together. This might be due to the task assignment, which guided them to write a joint essay as a summary of a theory presented in the course book. Other reasons for the small amount of students’ new text might be the limited time they were given to perform the task, and that the book was written in a foreign language. English was quite difficult for some of the students to understand, and thus they might have needed more time to understand the content of the book. Therefore, they probably merely adhered to the text of the book instead of re-creating the idea in their own words. The small proportion of monitoring and regulating can be explained by the task. The students were not asked to evaluate either their own comprehension or performance or others’ contributions during the writing process. However, the students monitored their comprehension spontaneously during their collaborative work. Monitoring may stimulate knowledge construction, because it reveals misunderstandings and requires that misconceptions should be rectified by clarification. The small amount of off-task discussion suggests that in general the students concentrated very well on the writing task. It is worth noticing that off-task discussion occurred mostly when students wrote ideas

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on the basis of the course book, which may indicate that they experienced difficulties in reading and translating as well as understanding the book, which they then tried to diminish by engaging in off-task discussion. Another reason for the occurrence of off-task discussion when writing book-based ideas may be that reading the course book during the collaborative writing phase may have overloaded the students’ working memory and disturbed their ability to concentrate on writing. In order to assess how a collaborative writing task, such as the one used in this study, can benefit knowledge construction, the task assignment as a whole has to be borne in mind. Although single actions, such as utilizing a course book, might introduce features that may adversely affect the knowledge acquisition process, in total the use of individually written summaries, the opportunity to use the course book during the writing process, and the composition of a joint essay through group discussion, can be argued to constitute an entity which can promote knowledge construction in multiple ways. A collaborative writing task that combines reading, summary writing and group discussion may produce more beneficial learning outcomes than when they are used separately (see Tynjälä, 2001). Thus, it can be said that reading theories presented in course books, writing summaries on them, and then working on the theories further in seminar situations can produce rich discussions which seem to assist students in their construction of knowledge.

Knowledge Construction in Collaborative Science Writing: Strategic Simplicity, Distributed Complexity, and Explanatory Sophistication Perry D. Klein

1

Introduction

In The Sciences of the Artificial, Herbert Simon (1996, p. 51) presented a parable about an ant: We watch an ant make his laborious way across a wind- and wavemoulded beach … Viewed as a geometric figure, the ant’s path is irregular, complex, hard to describe. But its complexity is really a complexity in the surface of the beach, not a complexity in the ant. Simon used the ant’s path to introduce one of the themes of his chapter on human thinking: It emerges from the interaction between two elements. One is a limited capacity, short duration, working memory; the other is an environment rich in structured information.1 This rich structure allows humans to carry out complex activities using relatively simple strategies. This parable raises a question for the psychology of writing. Is the complexity of writing, like the path of the ant, largely a function of information structure in the environment? Or is it a function of sophisticated strategies internal to the writer? The present chapter addresses this question in relation to writing as a learning activity, in this instance, the writing of fifth grade students constructing an explanation of episodic acidification. Cognitive psychology has most often explained writing primarily in terms of the complexity of the individual writer’s strategies and knowledge. Skilled Klein, P.D. (2014). Knowledge construction in collaborative science writing: Strategic simplicity, distributed complexity, and explanatory sophistication. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 300–326). Leiden: Brill. 1 H.A. Simon considered the “environment” to include both long term memory, and the physical and cultural world, in the sense that both are external to working memory.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004265011_014

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writers have knowledge in long term memory about strategies, topics, audiences, language, and genre (e.g., Alamargot & Chanquoy, 2001; Hayes, 1996; McCutchen, Teske & Bankston, 2008). They deploy this knowledge using processes that include planning, self-regulation, and revision. These complex structures and processes have also been recognized in theories of writing to learn. To date, perhaps the most widely discussed theory has been the knowledge transforming model (Bereiter & Scardmalia, 1987; Galbraith, 2009a; Kellogg, 2008; McCutchen, Teske & Bankston, 2008; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). It proposes that expert writers use a sophisticated strategy based on a dialectic between rhetorical problem solving and content problem solving. The writer defines rhetorical goals; to pursue these goals, he or she sets content subgoals. To pursue these content goals, the writer engages in content problem solving, using operations such as inference-making and decision-making. This produces content propositions, which are then transformed into goals for a rhetorical problem solving process. There is some evidence that skilled writers use this model, and that it accounts for learning during writing in at least some instances (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Klein, Boman & Prince, 2007). The present study was initially conceptualized in terms of the knowledge transforming model. Fifth grade students were presented with a newspaper clipping reporting the disappearance of fish from a river. They received source materials containing relatively raw information, and worked with partners to write an explanation of the disappearance. The source documents implicitly supported an explanation in terms of episodic acidification, a phenomenon in which the acidity of a body of water briefly rises markedly. All nine groups created a partial or nearly complete explanation. However, neither the knowledge transforming model nor other models of writing based on expert strategies provided a framework that fit the students’ discourse and text; the writers individually engaged in almost no pre-writing text planning or process planning, little explicit means-end problem solving, and little post-writing revision. Instead, the collaboration of the writers, and their interaction with an assignment and sources rich in structured information, appeared to allow them to construct explanatory texts. It will be proposed that four aspects of the students’ writing were situated, emergent, or distributed: First, the students’ task representation appeared to be situated, apparently arising from the interaction between the students’ prior knowledge of the mystery genre, and the narrative frame in which the task was presented. Second, the writing process appeared to emerge from the dialogue between the writers: Each writer’s comments, taken individually, would comprise a simple strategy; however, taken jointly, they instantiated a more complex process in which they regulated the writing process, and extended and

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challenged one another’s ideas. Third, the rhetorical text structure appeared to arise from the interaction between the students’ strategies, and sources that defied summarization but afforded the construction of a novel macrostructure. Fourth, topic knowledge was emergent, arising from the interaction between students’ strategies of reading and interpreting sources from front-to-back, and sources that afforded bridging inferences.

2

Theoretical Background

Classical cognitive theories of writing implicitly invoke a certain kind of setting: The writer composes alone; the genre is an argument or narrative; and the writer composes on a topic of common knowledge. The process of writing is heavily dependent on individual, internal resources: Knowledge about how to write and how to organize a text are located in schemata in long term memory; topic knowledge is similarly located in long term memory. Consequently, knowledge construction is conceived to arise from inferences based on information in long term memory (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). This process, for writers of medium and high skill levels, is impressively dynamic; writers progressively elaborate a complex hierarchy of goals, and the results of the writing process at each moment provide stimuli that support writing in subsequent moments (Flower & Hayes, 1981a; van den Bergh & Rijlaarsdam, 2007). This kind of writing situation, which could be described as “lean,” occurs commonly in settings such as college entry tests and state-wide writing assessments. This kind of setting is particularly interesting, because it foregrounds the process through which skilled writers can create engaging discourse, and even new knowledge, out of (nearly) nothing. However, many writing situations differ from the type just outlined. As the chapters of the current volume illustrate, an important venue for writing as a learning activity is the classroom in a content area such as science, history, or mathematics. Writing in the content areas typically does not rely primarily on topic knowledge in students’ long term memory; rather students write from sources such as books; the role of textual sources is already well-recognized in cognitive theories of writing (Hayes & Flower, 1980; Mateos et al., 2008; SegevMiller, 2007; Spivey, 1997). Additionally, students in content area classrooms may write about raw sources of data, such as science experiments or observations. Today, students base much of their content area writing on electronic sources, many of which include a variety of kinds of media and genres (Kress & Bezemer, 2009; Starke-Meyerring, 2009). Such sources require students to

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engage in resemiotization, in which they translate representations from one symbol system into another (Iedema, 2001; Seigel, 2006). Some writing activities based on multimodal sources, such as WebQuests, specifically require students to create products that go beyond the information given in the sources (Dodge, 2001; Karchmer-Klein, 2007). Students’ strategies for writing from multimodal sources have not yet been investigated to any significant extent (Kirkpatrick, 2012). A second characteristic of many writing to learn activities is that they include collaboration. Some aspects of collaborative writing have been researched extensively, such as peer review of draft texts; to date, fewer experimental studies have focused on collaboration during drafting or throughout the writing process (e.g., I. Jones, 2003; Yarrow & Topping, 2001; for reviews, see Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara & Harris, 2012; Graham & Perin, 2007). However, interest in real time collaborative writing is increasing due to the growing popularity of computer supported collaborative learning and computer supported collaborative writing (e.g., van Drie, can Boxtel & Braaksma, this volume; Onrubia & Engel, 2009). Initial research suggests that negotiating text production with a partner promotes the use of metalinguistic talk (I. Jones, 2003; Nykopp Marttunen & Laurinen, this volume). Some research indicates that collaborative writing in the content areas contributes to learning (e.g., Jaubert & Rebiere, 2005; Johnson & Johnson, 2009). These findings invite further research on the role of collaborative drafting in content area learning. Thirdly, contemporary content area writing involves a variety of genres beyond narrative and argumentation. These include learning logs, letters, lab reports, brochures, posters, newspaper articles, textbooklets for younger students, and PowerPoint presentations (Kress & Bezemer, 2009; McDermott & Hand, 2010; Waldrip, Prain & Carolan, 2010). The present paper focuses on the genre of explanation. Explanation is defined here as a type of text in which the writer makes intelligible to the reader why or how something happens. Elementary science curricula, for example, include many topics such as the rock cycle, the water cycle, and human digestion. Research on students’ reading and writing of explanations is limited (e.g., Chambliss, Christenson, & Parker, 2003; Christie & Derewianka, 2008). Cognitive theories of writing have explained genre writing using the concept of text schemata (Hayes, 1996; Klein & Kirkpatrick, 2010). However, whereas a genre such as argumentation appears to have a set of overlapping elements that re-occur across a range of situations (e.g., Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Toulmin, 2003), the structure of explanation is more controversial and possibly more variable across topics and disciplines (e.g., Chambliss et al., 2003; Rowan, 1988). This suggests the need for a more contextual source of guidance for explanation-writing. Therefore, research is

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needed to understand how explanations are constructed in content area classrooms, and how they contribute to learning.

3

Writing as Distributed Cognition

This study was initially conceived in terms of the knowledge transforming model. However, in order to interpret the results, the framework eventually adopted was primarily distributed cognition. This framework proposes that in typical human activities, cognition is usually implemented in a system that extends across multiple individual internal minds and external cultural tools (e.g. Hutchins, 1995; Zhang & Norman, 1994; Zhang & Patel, 2006). Thus, the framework provides two levels of analysis. At the distributed level, analysis focuses on the system of persons and external representations, and the processes through which representations are constructed and transformed. A question of interest is how the activities of the participants are coordinated. At the psychological level, the analysis focuses on internal, individual mental structures and processes, and their interaction with external elements (Zhang & Norman, 1994). Important ways in which internal and external representations may interact include the following: External representations supplement knowledge in long term memory; external representations allow information to be offloaded from working memory into the environment; and external representations can perceptually trigger retrieval of information from long term memory (Zhang & Patel, 2006). Writing has been considered an instance of distributed cognition (Glasswell & Kamberelis, 2007; Oatley, & Dijkic, 2008; Zhang & Norman, 1994). The distribution across persons includes traditional writing practices such as peer review and editing, as well as non-traditional practices such a collaborative writing. The external representations include elements such as assignments or writing prompts, source texts, outlines and drafts, and predictive spelling software (Beaufort, 2008; Cronin, 2004; N. Nelson, 2008; see Klein & Leacock, 2010 for a review). However, it should be noted that in the domain of writing, a sharp distinction cannot be made between individual and distributed cognitive theories (see Klein & Leacock 2010 for a review). Cognitive theories of writing, including classical cognitive theories, have always included external resources. For example, the classical cognitive theory (Hayes and Flower 1980; Hayes, 1996) included the interaction of short term memory with the text that has been composed to a given point in time. Topic knowledge was considered to derive from both long term memory, and from source texts (Hayes & Flower, 1980; cf., Cerdan & VidalAbarca, 2008; Mateos, Martín, Villalón & Luna, 2008; Segev-Miller, 2007; Spivey,

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1997). Writing goals and genre knowledge were considered to derive from both schemata in the individual’s long term memory, and from writing assignments provided by teachers or researchers (Flower, 1987; Hayes, 1996; Spivey, 1997). Similarly collaboration in writing has been a longstanding topic of research in the cognitive tradition (Boscolo, & Ascorti, 2004; MacArthur, Schwartz & Graham, 1991; Wigglesworth & Storch, 2009; Yarrow & Topping, 2001). Just as classical theories have included distributed elements, distributed theories include classical elements, such as the declarative and procedural knowledge necessary to participate in distributed activities (Zhang & Norman, 1994).

4

The Science Topic

In this study, students learned about episodic acidification (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2012; Laudon, Westling, Bergquist & Bishop, 2004). This is a phenomenon in which the acidity of a body of water temporarily spikes. It is environmentally problematic because a river or pond that usually has moderate acidity can reach levels that adversely affect aquatic life. The writing task in this study dealt with a form of episodic acidification that is common in northern countries: Acidified snow melts in spring, flowing into streams and ponds. Episodic acidification was selected as a topic because it is environmentally important, and because it builds on two common elementary curriculum topics: the water cycle, and chemical substances. Also, it is a somewhat obscure phenomenon, so it was not familiar to students prior to this study; this afforded them the opportunity to construct knowledge about it during writing. For the purpose of this study, the explanation of episodic acidification was considered to include six key cause-and-effect relationships: 1. Some factories discharge pollutants (sulphates and nitrates) into the air. 2. These pollutants mix with water vapor to make acidic clouds. 3. In winter, acidic clouds drop acidic snow, which accumulates throughout the season. 4. In spring, warmth causes the acidic snow to melt. 5. Acidic melt water flows into streams and lakes, causing their pH to drop sharply.2 6. Acidity can prevent fish eggs from hatching and cause young fish to die. 2 In episodic acidification, an important process is that increased acidity dissolves metals, which are washed into streams and ponds, affecting aquatic life. However, to simplify the topic for elementary students, only the effect of acidity itself was included.

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The students’ task was to work from a portfolio of diverse source documents to address the question, “Why are there no young fish in the Stony River?” The portfolio did not present an explanation, but it contained relatively raw information from which students could construct an explanation by integrating information across sources and drawing inferences.

5

Research Questions

The overall research question was how (through what strategies) do writers construct explanations from multimodal sources? This included the following subquestions: a) What strategies did students use to collaborate, that is, what operations did they use and how were they organized? (cf., Klein, April, 2009). b) What strategies did students use to read/view the source documents, that is, what operations did they use and how were they organized? c) What strategies did students use to write, that is, what operations did they use and how were they regulated? d) How were these strategies for collaborating, reading/viewing, and writing, inter-related?

6

Method

6.1 Context The activity described in this paper took place in the context of a larger study on writing and learning across the curriculum (Klein & Rose, 2010). In this larger study, students in Grade 5 learned strategies for writing arguments and explanations, in order to use writing as a tool for learning in content areas such as science and social studies. At the point when the present study took place, the students had recently started a unit of study concerning explanations; they had read examples of explanations, and analyzed explanation texts to identify the components that they typically include: Introduction, parts, operations, and comment (Raison et al., 2004). Because the operations component fulfills the central function of telling how or why a phenomenon occurs, students learned a brief strategy for elaborating this section: Get informed; include each step; and tell why each step happens. The current study was initially intended to check whether, at this point in the project, students were using this strategy to plan their explanation writing, and whether this led to learning through a knowledge transforming process.

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6.2 Participants The participants were 18 Grade 5 students; they comprised all of the students from one Grade 5 class who consented to participate in the study outlined above. The data collection took place in February of the school year, so students ranged in age from 10 years, 2 months to 11 years, 1 month. Of the students, two had previous average writing grades that were in the “A” range, indicating that they achieved grade level expectations to a high degree; five were in the “B” range, indicating that they met grade level expectations to a considerable extent; eight were in the “C” range, indicating that they met grade level expectations to some extent; three were in the “D” range or lower, indicating that they met grade level expectations to a limited extent. Of these students, one spoke English as a second language, and one had a learning disability. Students who consented to participate were paired with a partner of the same gender and level of previous writing achievement. The purpose of pairing students with similar achievement levels was to allow them to participate equally in the activity. 6.3 Procedure and Materials Each session was conducted by a research assistant. She initially presented the students with the first document in the package, a newspaper clipping which reported that young fish were missing from the Stony River (see Table 1). To assess their initial ideas, she asked the students why the fish could be missing; none proposed an explanation related to pollution or acidification. Next the research assistant presented the students with the portfolio containing the instructions and source documents. The instructions were as follows: Young fish are missing from the Stony River. What happened to them? It is a mystery! In this folder, you will not find the answer. Instead, you will find clues to help you solve the mystery. Please read the materials in this folder. Then work with your partner. Write an explanation on this topic: “Why are there no young fish in the Stony River?” The materials in the folder comprised five brief documents, each in a different genre. Each target inference required students to connect information from at least two documents and relate it to the disappearance of the fish. The students received a pen and a stack of papers. They continued to write until they were satisfied that they had completed the activity. This required 20 to 40 minutes.

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Title

Media/genre

Cover: Missing Fish Puzzle Locals

Newspaper clipping Report of the disappearance of several species; quotes from locals; investigation to begin. Map Representation of main streets, iron factory, river. Fast Facts Definition of acid; properties; examples; explanation of pH. Diagram Illustration of cycle (pollution, condensation, precipitation), with labels and caption. Line graph Months of year versus pH. Table Acidity and pH; corresponding effects on fish and invertebrates.

1. Town of Riverside 2. What is an Acid? 3. What Causes Acid Rain and Snow? 4. Acidity of the Stony River 5. How Acid Affects Water Animals

Description

6.4 Analysis The analysis was primarily qualitative. The videotape was transcribed in tabular form. The participants’ speech was segmented by conversational turns to form rows. The first column reported the participants’ speech; the second column identified the document that was open during a given conversational turn; the third column reported any text written during that conversational turn. In the first phase of analysis, the protocols were read through. Based on this, each was tentatively divided into three broad phases: researching, drafting, and concluding. Additionally, instances of any of the six key inferences (see numbered list in Introduction) were identified. In the second phase of the analysis, the transcript was coded on three dimensions. The first dimension, social operations, was adapted from I. Jones (2003), and included the following: Negotiate operation (direct, invite, offer, propose, confirm, or disagree about operation); assist or request assistance; extend idea or language; confirm content or language; and disagree about content or language. Eventually, this social dimension was conceptualized as “regulatory,” because the negotiation of operations determined the next operation, and who would carry it out. Reading/viewing operations were created based on the discourse itself, and comprised the following: decode; interpret (relate elements of a given representation to one another); and inference. Writing operations were coded using categories adapted from Flower and Hayes (1981a; van den Bergh

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& Rijlaarsdam, 2007) and comprised goal-setting, organizing, generating, transcribing, rereading, evaluating, and revising. In the third phase of the analysis, protocols were then characterized with respect to molar sets of operations. Each operation set comprised more than one operation occurring in a given sequence. Operation sets were used in the analysis, because single operations were not sufficient to represent the groups’ strategies. To code each operation set, a query was formulated and applied to a phase of each protocol. Typical queries were these: Did the group read/view all source documents before beginning to draft text? Did the group take notes during their initial reading/viewing of the sources? Did the group produce an outline prior to writing? In total, there were 12 operation set queries for the research phase, 12 for the drafting phase, and 13 for the concluding phase. To check reliability, each protocol was examined by a second researcher, from whom the initial coding was masked. A descriptor for each operation set appears in italics in the Results section.

7

Results

7.1 Overview 7.1.1 General Nature of Protocols The verbal protocols ranged from about 790 to 2896 words; the texts ranged from 112 to 293 words. Each group adopted the goal of explaining why the fish disappeared; all groups explicitly referred to this goal at some point; and it comprised the gist of each of the texts. Of the six target inferences about the cause-and-effect relationships comprising episodic acidification, all groups successfully generated three to five. Each explanation also included additional inferences that were idiosyncratic. None of the groups articulated a process plan for the activity as a whole. The writing processes used by various groups were similar to one another in comprising three phases. The first phase, research, was comprised of decoding/viewing, interpreting, and/or inferencing from the sources prior to writing. Eight of the nine groups included this phase; the ninth group alternated reading sources and drafting text throughout the early part of the session. The second phase, drafting, was comprised of composing the text. The third phase, concluding, included writing a conclusion to the text, evaluating the text, and/or editing it. To illustrate the students’ strategies, excerpts from protocol of Nicole and Patricia (pseudonyms) will be presented. They were selected to be representative of the students, in the sense that they ranked 4th of the 9 groups in previous

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writing achievement. Patricia’s writing grade for the Fall term was C+ (just below grade level expectations); Nicole’s Fall term grade was B- (minimally meeting grade level expectations). They drew five of the six key inferences, which was equal to or greater than the number drawn by any other group. Their writing process was typical of most groups, in the sense that they included the phases of researching, drafting, and concluding. For each phase, Nicole and Patricia’s strategies will be reported first; the number of other groups that used the same strategies will be reported; and finally any other types of strategies used by other groups in that phase will be reported. 7.2 The First Phase: Research For the research phase, inter-rater reliability for operation set descriptors was 90.74%; it ranged from 77.78% to 100% exact agreement. 7.2.1 Reading/Viewing Strategies Nicole and Patricia followed a strategy of reading/viewing the documents in the sequence in which they were given in the portfolio. They considered most documents using a cyclical approach of decoding, interpreting, and inferring: For example, in the excerpt below, (Table 2) they were reading/viewing a graph of acidity levels in the Stony River; the x-axis represented months of the year, and the y-axis represented the acidity of the river expressed in pH. Nicole worked her way along the graph, describing the changes in acidity month by month. The two partners then inferred what the current document meant for the disappearance of the fish. They then repeated this cycle for each subsequent source document. During this initial phase, Nicole and Patricia did not make any planning notes. The reading/viewing operation sets used by Nicole and Patricia represented those instantiated by most other groups: Eight groups read/viewed all of the documents before beginning to write (one of these groups read through the entire set of sources once, and then read through them a second time to make planning notes). The ninth group alternated reading/viewing each document with drafting text. Like Nicole and Patricia, seven groups read/viewed the source documents in the sequence in which they were given in the portfolio; two groups began to read/view them in the order given, but then moved backward and forward among the documents, apparently to locate information relevant to questions that occurred to them as they read. Also, like Nicole and Patricia, seven of the groups followed a cyclical approach of decoding, interpreting, and inferring; the other two groups simply decoded all of the sources on the first pass, making interpretations and inferences later.

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Excerpt illustrating reading/viewing operations

Dialogue P: Okay: Acidy pH of the Stony River. N: So: Okay. Very acidic. So it starts like at 7 and then it stays there then it goes up really high. It goes down a bit, goes across again: down and it’s like the same old way. P: Okay. Snow metals and melt water. Snow melts and melt water runs into Stony River. N: So, like, it makes the— P: Yeah. N: The fact that the sulphuric is like burning—

Reading/viewing operation Decoding Interpret

Decode

Inference

7.2.2 Social and Self-Regulatory Strategies With respect to self-regulation, Nicole and Patricia did no process planning during the research phase. They made two comments in which they explicitly negotiated operations or roles, e.g., Nicole said, “Okay, well let’s start. Let’s turn the page.” However, for the most part they appeared to simply fall into the pattern of alternating decoding, with little negotiation of this process. Other groups similarly showed no instances of process planning during the research phase. Seven groups showed several instances of negotiating operations or roles in this phase. With respect to the work of reading/viewing, Nicole and Patricia collaborated in several ways, most of which are illustrated by the excerpt below (Table 3). In this excerpt, they opened the portfolio, so that the diagram of the acid rain cycle was visible. As noted, they took turns decoding the documents. The partner who was not decoding a given document assisted the other with difficult vocabulary; eight of the nine groups did the same. With respect to interpreting and inferencing operations, Nicole and Patricia collaborated by regularly extending one another’s interpretations or inferences. For example, below, Nicole interpreted the diagram as showing “acid rain” and Patricia confirmed this. Then Nicole said that sulphur is causing “it,” which was ambiguous at this point, but seemed to refer to the disappearance of the fish. Then Patricia extended this by saying that “it’s acid,” seeming to imply that acid is causing the death of the fish; then Nicole extended this by clarifying that “acid is killing the fish.” Of the nine groups, six extended one another’s interpretations or inferences; two groups did not, and simply decoded the sources and reserved interpreting

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table 3

Excerpt illustrating social and regulatory operations

Dialogue P:

N: P: N: P: N: P: N:

Mixes with the water vapour in the clouds. Then the water vapour condenses so the clouds drop rain or snow made of mild sul—I can’t say that word (laughs) Sulphuric Sulphuric acid. Oh. ( ) factory. Looks like it’s rain, rain, it’s acid, right? Yeah There’s acid, that’s the smoke that’s coming out. Yeah sulphur and that’s causing it Maybe it’s acid Yeah! that must be what’s killing the fish. Or making it:

Reading/viewing Social/regulatory operation operation Decode

Request assistance

Decode Decode Interpret

Assist Request Confirmation Confirm

Inference Inference Inference

Extend Extend

and inferencing for later; an additional group confirmed one another’s inferences without extending them. In only two groups did participants disagree with one another’s interpretations or inferences during the research phase. Overall, for six of the groups, extending was more frequent than disagreeing; one group more frequently disagreed; and two groups did not extend or disagree because their initial reading was limited to decoding. Additionally, it was notable that Nicole and Patricia used the source texts in a way that allowed them to coordinate their participation by reading aloud, pointing to text and pictures, and turning pages. These actions appeared to allow the two partners to direct their attention to the same information at each moment. All nine groups used this operation set. The adequate level of their coordination was apparent in the fact that they were able to alternate turns smoothly in reading aloud, to assist one another in decoding difficult words, and to extend one another’s interpretations and inferences. Overall, eight of the nine groups appeared to be well-coordinated with each other.

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7.3 Phase Two: Drafting 7.3.1 Overview of Drafting in Relation to Text Produced Overall reliability of coding of operation sets for this phase was 87.04% exact agreement; it ranged from 77.78% to 100.0%. Nicole and Patricia drafted their text in the sequence in which it appears; that is, they did not organize text ideas prior to drafting, or revise the sequence after writing. Consequently, it provides a useful point of reference for describing their drafting strategy. In Appendix One, their text has been marked up with numbers in square brackets to show the major movements in their writing strategy: [1] They began by reading the title of the portfolio, set the goal of writing a definition, and then wrote that the fish were missing. [2] They reviewed the table concerning the effects of acidity on animals, and wrote a sentence ascribing the disappearance of the fish to acid rain. [3] They followed a cyclical strategy of reviewing most sources (map, diagram, graph) and writing a sentence about each; this was their main strategy for drafting. [4] Patricia said that she wanted to learn why there was “more sulphur in the air in March,” and so reread the first source, a news clipping again; soon after, Nicole wanted to “make it longer,” and so prompted by the reference to clams and snails in the news clipping, they added a sentence to explain their disappearance. [5] Continuing to try to understand what happened in March, they reviewed the graph of acidity levels in the Stony River, and the table on the effects of acidity on animal life, and then elaborated the effects of acidity on eggs and young fish. (The final sentence was added during the Concluding phase, as described below). 7.3.2 Social and Regulatory Operations In the drafting phase, Nicole and Patricia showed the only instance of process planning in the study. Nicole said, “Okay, so we’re just gonna run through it really quickly and then I’m gonna start writing and you’re gonna help me start writing something,” to which Patricia agreed. Another regulatory operation that Nicole and Patricia used several times was goal-setting. Several of these goal statements reiterated the assigned goal: Explaining the disappearance of the fish. The participants instantiated these goal statements jointly, usually through a proposal or question from one partner, and a response from the other: P: N:

Why do you think they’re missing? Um, because of the sulphur that’s coming out of the factory? Acid rain—

Patricia and Nicole also set content goals for explaining particular events that comprised steps in the explanation:

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Now don’t you think that um more of the sulphur probably got into the air in March. So, do you think there’s a reason?

Additionally, Nicole and Patricia set goals to include particular rhetorical or structural elements in their text: They began with “a definition:” “Young fish are missing from the Stony River.” After reviewing all of the source documents and writing about most of them, Nicole also said: “Maybe we could put something there to make it longer—maybe what they said?” Like Nicole and Patricia, seven of the nine groups reiterated the content goal of explaining the disappearance of the fish, or parts of this process; three of these groups also mentioned goals for the length of the text. Conversely two groups mentioned no goals at all during this phase. The regulation of the writing process occurred largely through negotiating operations or roles. This was comprised of discussions about what writing operation would occur next, and how one or both partners would contribute to it. Often one participant proposed or volunteered an operation, and the other agreed; for example, Nicole asked Patricia if she should put the title in, and Patricia provided it. Seven of the nine groups negotiated operations or roles during this phase. Additionally, while drafting, participants in five groups requested assistance or offered assistance to one another, particularly with spelling. Finally, they frequently extended or disagreed with one another’s interpretations and inferences (more on this below). Additionally, the emerging text provided a shared focus of attention; in all nine groups, the student who was not writing at a given moment either attended to the text that the partner was transcribing, or looked up needed information in the source documents (more on this below). Finally, in order to maintain this shared focus, in five groups the student transcribing at the moment asked the partner to “wait” while a sentence was completed. 7.3.3 Reading/Writing Operations Above, an overview was given of the writing strategy; now this will be examined in more detail. During drafting, the main strategy of Nicole and Patricia, mentioned in their process plan above, was to review most sources sequentially and generate a sentence or two for each. For three groups this was the predominant way in which they generated their texts. In a similar strategy, one group had made jot notes during researching, and reviewed their jot notes and expanded them to compose sentences. So in total, four of the groups primarily used the sources to stimulate the generation of text and organize the sequence of ideas. Three groups (two of the same just mentioned) reviewed the source documents from front to back to verify that they had addressed each of them. In contrast, five

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of the groups generated most of their written text by restating the inferences that they had made during the research phase, without systematically reviewing the sources. All nine of the groups generated most text sentences in the order in which they appeared in the text, without any further organizing. Nicole and Patricia also used the additional strategy, when a need arose during writing, of selectively reviewing specific source documents to locate information. For example, they had generated some tentative ideas about why the fish were missing, then Nicole said, “The sulphur that’s coming out of the factory … acid rain … they eat it … they live in it.” To get more information on the effects of acid on living things, they turned directly to the table on “Effects of Acid on Living Things.” This led them to infer that the water would have to be only slightly acidic to kill fish “if they were babies.” They also returned to specific sources to check facts: P: N: P:

Do you think it’s – because of the factories. Yeah (.) Like, there’s, um, [turns to map] an (.) an iron factory really close to the river.

In total, Nicole and Patricia went through a cycle of generating an idea, which led to a question or issue, which led to rereading part of a source document, which then led to generating text, a total of six times. This approach of reviewing sources selectively to locate specific information was used by all of the groups at some point. Most of Nicole and Patricia’s writing operations were comprised of generating ideas and transcribing sentences. This was true of all nine groups. In doing so, they interleaved their contributions very closely; frequently, one began a sentence, and the other extended it by contributing additional ideas or words (Table 4). Nicole and Patricia were representative in this respect, as all nine of the groups extended the ideas and sentences offered by a partner during the drafting phase. Conversely, Nicole and Patricia also disagreed about content at times. In the following excerpt, Nicole began to transcribe an idea; Patricia disagreed, so then Nicole modified it: N: P: N: N:

Fish (.) eggs (.) die (.) because: Fish eggs are, um, not die. They’re not even alive yet so: Fish eggs: [side talk] Fish eggs don’t hatch (.) because (.) because: (.) because the acid –

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Dialogue N:

P:

N: P: N:

P:

klein Excerpt illustrating writing operations Source document visible

Fish eggs don’t hatch Table (.) because (.) because: (.) because the acid— What month do you Graph think most fish’s, like eggs are laid? Probably March— Yeah, and so there would be— fish eggs don’t hatch because of the acid rain: (.) which makes not many fish because if the eggs don’t hatch then there won’t be many young fish:

Written text

Reading/ viewing operation

don’t hatch because

Writing operation

Social/regulatory operation

Generate & transcribe

Request Assistance Inference Confirm Inference of the acid rain witch makes not much fish left. Inference

Generate & transcribe

Generate

Extend

Disagreements about content were found in the discourse of six of the groups. However, overall, seven groups showed more instances of extending content than disagreeing about content; one group showed more instances of disagreeing about content; one group did not disagree about content or extend it. 7.4 Phase Three: Concluding The final phase of the activity was defined as beginning with the first mention of completing or concluding the writing process by either partner, and defined as ending when they completed all types of writing operations. Interrate reliability for coding of operations sets was 88.89 % exact agreement across operation sets; inter-rater reliability for each type of operation set ranged from 77.78% to 100.00%.

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At the end of the previous phase, Nicole and Patricia had completed a text that coherently accounted for the disappearance of the fish. Recall that their main strategy was to review the sources and generate a sentence about each, and to review each source to check whether they had addressed it in their text. They revisited the graph, and then Patricia said, “Think we should go on to our conclusion?” and suggested that they could “tell all our reasons.” The partners then took turns contributing ideas, with Patricia referring to “sulphur in the air,” and Nicole adding “acid rain” and transcribing a sentence based on these ideas. Nicole then concluded that they were “done” and Patricia agreed. Nicole suggested that they reread the text, and did so aloud. They did not make any evaluative comments on the text or any revisions to it. The other eight groups showed variations on this process. The students’ reasons for moving on to the conclusion included the following: Completing the explanation (five groups); addressing all of the sources (two groups); or enough time or enough text (two groups). Like Nicole and Patricia, eight of the groups added a conclusion to their text. They concluded in various ways: summarizing ideas that they had stated earlier; thanking the reader; urging the reader to stop pollution; or explaining why the fish came back. Four of the groups reread their texts. Whether or not they reread, seven groups made an evaluative comment about their texts. For six groups, the evaluative criteria were meaning-based, referring to the rhetorical purpose or content of the text, including the following: “See if it makes sense,” “organized,” “explained well,” “tells people how to solve the mystery,” “told how it got polluted” and “good … lots of good reasons.” Additionally, two groups evaluated the text on a surface feature (length); one group made an evaluative comment with no specific criterion; two groups stated more than one of the criteria just mentioned. However it should be noted that for eight groups, these evaluative comments were summative appraisals; they were not input to a process of revision. Only five of the groups made any revisions. Two of these groups edited a surface feature (e.g., spelling); two groups made a sentence level revision to meaning by changing a word. Two groups made a change in meaning above the level of the sentence: one of these groups wanted to tell more about “how it got polluted,” so they added the ideas that sulphur was in the air, and that snow melting and running into the river polluted it; the other created a title.

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Discussion

This study began with the general question, what strategies do junior students use to collaboratively construct explanations from multimodal sources? Initially, it was tentatively hypothesized that students who construct new knowledge during writing might exemplify the knowledge transforming model. It was found that all of the groups constructed some or most of an explanation of episodic acidification, which required inferences beyond the information given in the sources. What strategies did they use? In the first phase, research, eight of the nine groups read/viewed all of the sources before beginning to write. During reading/viewing, most groups followed a strategy of decoding a given source, interpreting the relationships among elements of the source, and drawing inferences about the disappearance of the fish. For most groups, there were several instances of “extending” in which one participant uttered a partial interpretation or inference, and the other partner immediately uttered a proposition that elaborated it. In the second phase, drafting, most groups explicitly restated the goal of explaining the disappearance of the fish and/or particular events in the causal chain leading to the disappearance. One common strategy was to recall inferences that were made during the research phase, and transcribe them; the other common strategy was to review the sources in the order given to recall inferences made earlier and to generate new inferences. Additionally, all groups, as they drafted text, selectively reviewed the sources to find information that was needed to support their writing. Most groups collaborated by briefly negotiating the next operation and the role of each participant in that operation; they coordinated their contributions by focusing attention on the sentence that was currently being transcribed. Most writing operations comprised generating and transcribing sentences. Writers frequently extended sentences generated by a partner; they also sometimes disagreed. All groups recorded their sentences in the order in which they were generated. Writers most often moved to the third phase, concluding, because they had produced an explanation that culminated in the disappearance of the fish. Most groups explicitly set the goal of generating a conclusion for their text. Several groups reread their texts, and most evaluated them on meaning-based criteria; however, only five groups edited their texts in any way, and only one of these groups added significant content to their explanation.

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Interpretation: Knowledge Construction in Writing as Distributed Cognition All groups constructed most of the explanation of the disappearance of the fish, which required considerable inferencing. However, in most respects their reading and writing strategies did not correspond to those expected in the knowledge transforming model or other models of writing as expert problem solving. With respect to the knowledge transforming model, there is a sense in which nearly any writing that results in knowledge construction must be consistent with it. Writing usually begins with a rhetorical goal of some kind; if this leads to content problem solving, and the result of this content problem solving is later translated into text, then this would be consistent with the knowledge transforming model. In the present task for example, students began with the rhetorical goal of explaining the disappearance of the fish, and all groups eventually engaged in content problem solving, the results of which they recorded in their texts. In this broad sense, it was consistent with the knowledge transforming model. Additionally, as each group drafted particular sentences, they set local rhetorical goals, and returned to the sources to select information and in some cases, generate additional inferences. However, none of the groups engaged in an ongoing dialectic between rhetorical problem solving and content problem solving, so overall most of their writing processes were not a clear instantiation of the knowledge transforming model. Additionally, other processes associated with the knowledge transforming model, and other classical models of writing as problem solving, were rare or absent. These included prewriting planning, and post-writing revisions to content and structure. In midelementary students, this was not surprising; however, what was surprising is that using non-expert strategies, students were nonetheless able to construct novel science explanations during writing. So how can we characterize the process that led to knowledge construction? In this section, I will suggest that several aspects of it can be understood in terms of distributed cognition and related concepts. Recall that “distributed” refers to cognition (transformation of representations) that is instantiated across one or more individual minds and external representations (e.g., the assignment, the source documents, the emerging text). The related term “situated” will be used to refer to a structure or process that is instantiated in a particular context, but may not be an enduring knowledge structure or transferrable strategy of the individual student. The term “emergent” will be used to refer to a structure or process that occurs as a result of the interaction among distributed elements. It will be suggested that four aspects of the writing process can be understood using these concepts: (1) The writers’ task representations, particularly their overall goal of constructing an explanation, was

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situated in relation to the Missing Fish assignment; (2) the regulation of the writing process was distributed among the two writing partners, the assignment, and the source materials; (3) the rhetorical structure of the text was emergent from the strategies of the writers, and the affordance of the source materials to support rhetorical integration; and (4) topic knowledge emerged from the interaction between the affordance of these source documents to support inferencing and the strategies of the writers, as well as from the interaction between the writers. 8.1.1 The Situated Task Representation A task representation comprises the writers’ interpretation of the writing activity. It includes elements such as the writers’ goals, their understanding of the function of sources of information, their organizing plans for writing (strategy), and their conception of the expected text format and features (Flower, 1987). In the present study, all groups, including the lowest achieving, understood that the goal was to construct an explanation of the disappearance of the fish. This was evident both in the students’ goal statements and in the genre of the resulting texts. It is somewhat unusual that students readily understood that an explanation was required. Previously, when the students in this sample were asked to write an explanation, they substituted texts in a more familiar genre, such as a recount of events or instructions for a procedure (Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Klein & Rose, 2010). The second aspect of the goal, the construction of knowledge, was also unusual for young writers. In the larger study from which this was activity was drawn, only two students showed any explicit understanding that writing is mode of learning or thinking (Klein & Rose, 2010). Similarly, previous research has shown that even at the secondary school and university level, many students do not understand the importance of constructing a gist around which the text can be organized (Flower, 1987, 1994; Mateos et al., this volume; Segev-Miller, 2007; Spivey, 1997). Therefore, it is likely that the goal of constructing new knowledge was not an enduring part of the students’ schemata for writing. How did students form a knowledge constructing goal for this activity? It is proposed here that the assignment instructions played a role by framing the task as solving a “mystery,” comprised of a “disappearance” with “clues.” Students frequently referred to the “mystery” and the “clues.” For mid-elementary students, mystery narratives are a familiar genre from television, films, and children’s books such as the popular Encyclopedia Brown series (e.g., Sobol, 1963). It is likely that students have a schema representing this mystery genre. The term “mystery” carries the connotation that there is some event to be explained; that the explanation will not be explicitly given to the reader; and that the

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explanation can be inferred from “clues.” In previous research, students as young as five years have understood that the term “clue” refers to the basis for an inference (Gopnik & Graf, 1988). Therefore, although the goal of constructing a written explanation is uncommon for junior students, it appears that appropriate task instructions can activate children’s mystery narrative schemata to form a knowledge construction goal in a content area writing task. 8.1.2 A Strategy Without a Plan: Distributed Regulation Writing is frequently regulated by a schema that represents the structure of a text in a given genre, and/or schemata for organizing the process of writing (Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara & Harris, 2012; Hayes, 1996; Klein & Kirkpatrick, 2010). These schemata are deployed in a particular exigency through the construction and gradual elaboration of a plan that includes an evolving hierarchy of goals (Flower & Hayes, 1981a; Flower, 1987). However, in this study, only one pair of partners offered one brief instance of process planning. Students in all groups occasionally articulated goals and subgoals, but these were most frequently reiterations of the main goal of the task, to explain the disappearance of the fish. So what regulated this activity? Briefly, all groups followed an overlapping set of top level strategies: All groups read the assignment first; then most read/viewed all of the sources; then they drafted a text in which they interpreted most of the sources one after another; then they added a conclusion and made minimal post-writing edits. It is notable that the assignment appeared to shape the writers’ first regulatory step: setting a goal. More generally, most students’ strategies overlapped with a strategy often documented in the previous literature, “gist and list” (Flower, 1987; Segev-Miller, 2007). In “gist and list” the writer composes by reading a series of sources, and interpreting the main idea of each one. He or she then composes by summarizing one source after another, so that the resulting text comprises a series of sections, each corresponding to one source, and bracketed with an introduction and conclusion. A somewhat similar strategy was apparent here when several writers explicitly used the sources in the sequence given to generate text; and in some instances, they evaluated their own texts for completeness by verifying that they had discussed each source. In this strategy, the source documents themselves play a role in regulating the writing process: The gist of each source determines the ideas that the writer selects to include in his or her text; the sequence of sources shapes the sequence of ideas for the text; and the number of sources determines when the writing is completed. Consequently, control of the writing process is distributed between the writers’ “gist and list” strategy (which presumably resides in long term memory), and the external documents (assignment and sources). However, paradoxically, the

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organizing plan was also similar to a different, more sophisticated strategy, that of synthesizing ideas around a controlling concept (Flower, 1987; cf., Mateos et al., this volume; Segev-Miller, 2007). This will be discussed below, with respect to text structure and topic knowledge. Additionally, control of the writing process was partially distributed between the two individual writers in each group. As the results described, writers briefly negotiated the next operation to be followed, and the role that each would play. To put this differently, in collaborative writing, negotiation concerning the next writing operation appears to play a regulatory role, in the same way that for individual writing, internal metacognition plays a regulatory role. More generally, we can see a systematic parallel between metacognitive operations in individual writing, and interactions in collaborative. For example, the question, “What do you want to do next,” stimulates the partner to offer a brief plan; disagreeing with a partner’s idea is analogous to evaluating an idea; proposing a change to a partner’s language is like editing, and so forth. It is notable that Nykopp et al. (this volume) also recently observed that in faceto-face collaboration, regulation occurs through negotiation of roles; and that collaborative operations are the counterparts of cognitive operations in classical cognitive models. It should also be noted, however, that the comparison between internal metacognition and external negotiation is not exact; in a collaborative context, individual students may either make statements to a peer that are metacognitive in themselves as well as collaborative (e.g., “We have not explained why yet”), or statements that are regulatory but not metacognitive (e.g., “Wait for me to write that”). 8.1.3 Emergent Creation of Text Structure In the present study, Nicole and Patricia’s text was comprised of an overview sentence, followed by a series of cause-and-effect statements, followed by a conclusion. Similarly, other texts comprised an explanation, in the form of a series of cause-and-effect relationships. This is of some interest, because frequently writing from sources does not lead to a rhetorically coherent text, particularly for young students. For example, the “listing” strategy described above typically leads to a series of summaries, each framed with reference to its source rather than with reference to a global gist (Flower, 1987; Mateos, Martín, Villalón & Luna, 2008; Segev-Miller, 2007). Typically, it is more mature writers who create a rhetorical structure that integrates sources successfully. Why was it possible for the writers here to produce a rhetorically integrated text? The assigned goal to create an explanation, which all groups adopted, may have played a role. The nature of the sources also appeared to play a role. First, the sources clearly required some rhetorical transformation. In the

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present activity, four of the sources were largely graphical (i.e., a map, a graph, diagram, and a table). Thus it was salient that at the very least, the sources had to be translated into text (i.e., resemiotization or transmediation; Iedema, 2001; Siegel, 2006). Additionally, each source was very brief, and the gist of each source was different from the gist of each other source, so there was a not a great deal of overlapping content that writers had to select out. Perhaps most importantly, the gist of each source could be connected to the gist of other sources to construct a novel explanation; this will be discussed further in the subsection on topic knowledge. In these ways, the present activity contrasted with many discourse synthesis tasks in previous research. These have often used texts in which each source was in a genre similar to that of the assigned writing task; the topics of the sources overlapped, and the genres were similar or identical. For example, in a study by Mateos et al. (2008), students in an argumentation condition were provided with two texts comprising different points of views, and asked to synthesize them. Each source was on the same topic, and in the same genre (argumentation), as the product text. Consequently, students could complete the writing activity (poorly) by using limited strategies, such as selecting one source and paraphrasing it (cf., Flower, 1987; Segev-Miller, 2007). Successful completion of traditional discourse synthesis tasks requires considerable selection and re-mapping of source contents. It appears then that the ability of a given writing strategy to produce rhetorical integration may be relative to the characteristics of the source texts. 8.1.4 Emergent Topic Knowledge Topic knowledge frequently resides in the form of content schemata in long term memory, or it is derived from text sources (Hayes & Flower 1980; Hayes, 1996; McCutchen, et al., 2008). However, in previous research, many writers have used strategies that only minimally transformed the content of the sources. For example, a common strategy is for students to borrow the main idea from one source to serve as the main idea of a new text (Flower, 1987; Mateos et al., 2008; Segev-Miller, 2007). However, in the present study, the gist of each group’s product text was a causal explanation (episodic acidification) that could not be found in any one of the sources, but made use of information from several sources. This is unexpectedly sophisticated for elementary writers. What accounts for this atypical achievement? I would suggest that in this study, topic knowledge emerged from the interplay between the students’ reading and writing strategy, and the nature of the sources. The students’ most common initial strategy was to read the sources and draw inferences from them as they proceeded. This complemented the

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ability of the sources to support bridging inferences. A bridging inference is one that is necessary to fill a gap between the proposition currently in attention, and some effect of interest (here, the disappearance of the fish). Bridging inferences are a type that readers draw frequently and perhaps automatically (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994); although some evidence indicates that the difficulty of inferences is a multi-dimensional construct (Klin, Murray, Levine & Guzmán, 1999). Additionally, in the present task several of the sources were sequenced so that the premises required for most inferences appeared in consecutive texts; for example, the graph on acidity levels was immediately followed by the table on the effects of acidity on various animals. Moreover, each source document was brief (about one half page in size); this meant that the amount of tangential material that students were required to search was modest, reducing extraneous cognitive load (Mayer, Heiser & Lonn, 2001). Consequently, it appears that students can compose a text organized around topic knowledge that they have constructed, provided that the sources have features (brevity, complementary content, accessible inferences) that support such construction. Additionally, topic knowledge appeared to emerge from the interaction between writers. In previous research, the dialect between writers with different opinions has received considerable attention for its role in reasoning and learning (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2007; Mercer, 2000). Similarly, disagreement played a role here. However, the process that occurred more frequently was extending, in which one student uttered a proposition, and another immediately elaborated on it. The role of extension in collaborative writing to learn invites further investigation.

9

Conclusion

This chapter began with H.A. Simon’s parable of the ant. The complexity of the ant’s path resulted, not from its internal strategy, but from the complexity of the environment. This chapter has offered a somewhat analogous view of writing as a learning activity. In this study, the complexity of the students’ explanations was not a result of sophisticated individual writing strategies. Instead it appeared to be the result of a supportive writing environment and collaboration between the peers. It is proposed then that a simple writing strategy, similar to “gist and list,” can give rise to knowledge construction, provided that the following conditions are met: (a) The writing assignment triggers a task schema that includes knowledge construction, such as a “solving a mystery” schema; (b) the sources are brief, complementary to one another, and afford

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bridging inferences; and (c) students write with a collaborator who engages with them in moves such as extending and disagreeing. This interpretation somewhat complements the results of an earlier meta-analysis, which found that writing produces significant effects on learning with students in the first through fifth grades, who presumably use relatively basic writing strategies (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley & Wilkinson, 2004). Similarly, Klein (2000) found that sixth grade students who constructed new explanations of buoyancy while writing most frequently relied on a strategy of cyclically reviewing experimental results, generating ideas, and transcribing them; they engaged in only a few instances of planning and revision per student, typically limited to the sentence at hand. Some limitations of this study should be acknowledged. The analogy of the ant on the beach is inexact. The ant obviously has no strategy in the metacognitive sense; it might, for example, be returning from foraging, guided by the angle of the sun. In contrast, the individual participants in this study had strategies. However, like the ant, they did not appear to have an internal strategy that represented the complexity of the process they engaged in, or the product that resulted. As a further limitation, it is not claimed here that complex strategies do not facilitate knowledge construction during writing. Previous research has shown that both content area reasoning strategies and metacognitive strategies for writing contribute significantly to learning during writing (e.g., Akkus, Gunel & Hand, 2007; De La Paz & Felton, 2010; Hübner, Nückles, & Renkl, 2010). Finally, the method of research used here was qualitative analysis, similar to verbal protocol analysis, but based on collaborative discourse. This was considered an ecologically valid way to examine the strategies used by the writers. However, a more conclusive test of the ideas advanced here would require that each element be tested experimentally (i.e., “mystery” assignment instructions; brief, complementary sources that afford bridging inferences; collaboration). It has been proposed here that the effect of a writing strategy on learning is dependent on the environment. If this turns out to be correct, it would have several educational implications. It suggests that one way in which to engage young students in writing to learn is to create environments that scaffold this, using special assignment instructions, sources that afford inferences and syntheses, and opportunities for collaboration. Webquests, in which students access a variety of websites, and use the information to create a new product, such as a text, lend themselves to this approach (Dodge, 2001; Karchmer-Klein, 2007). This approach would be a complement to other strategies for supporting writing as a learning activity, such as the following: Providing young writers with informal assignments and metacognitive writing prompts (BangertDrowns et al., 2004); explicitly scaffolding metacognition during informal writ-

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ing (Hübner et al, 2010); and teaching discipline-specific strategies for writing and reasoning (Akkus et al., 2007; De La Paz & Felton, 2010; MacArthur, this volume). In this case, educators would have several powerful tools for supporting students in using writing as a learning activity.

Appendix. Nicole and Patricia’s Text [1] The mystery of the missing Fish! Young fish are missing from the stony river. [2] We think this is because of the acid rain. [2] Fish are dieing because of the factory close to the river. [3]. The factory is putting sulphur in the air. this helps make acid rain. Most of the acid rain came in march. The water was pure during the months of Jan, feb, June, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec. [4] Not only fish have been missing but clams and snails have been to. [5] Fish eggs don’t hatch because because of the acid rain witch makes not much fish left. Lots of the Young fish die and some of the adult. [6] We think the fish are missing because of the sulphure put in the air witch makes acid rain.

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Author Index Ackerman, J.M. 1, 8, 94, 252 Afflerbach, P. 150, 179 Aglinskas, C. 120–123, 146 Ainley, M. 127 Akkus, R. 165–166, 325–326 Alamargot, D. 6, 301 Alessandri, G. 20 Alexander, P.A. 15, 18–19 Alleman, J. 125–126, 144 Anderson, L.M. 150 Anderson, R. 47 Anderson, T.H. 191 Anderson, V. 194, 200 Andre, T. 69 Andriessen, J. 17, 112, 277–278, 281 Anthony, H.M. 7, 150 Antos, G. 76 Applebee, A. 1, 8 Applebee, A.N. 1, 8, 162, 172 Archer, A.L. 81–82 Arfé, B. 172 Armbruster, B.B. 191, 194–195 Ascorti, K. 305 Ash, I.K. 126, 147 Ashby, R. 154, 156 Asterhan, C.S.C. 324

Bazerman, C. 4, 9–11, 13, 16, 20, 44, 149, 170, 249–254, 256, 275, 281 Beach, R. 22 Bean, T.W. 172 Beaufort, A. 304 Becker-Mrotzek, M. 67, 70–71, 76, 78 Benford, R. 223 Benton, S.L. 22 Bereiter, C. 2, 6–8, 16, 69, 94–95, 97, 101, 151, 170, 181, 217, 277, 279, 301–302 Bergquist, A. 305 Berkenkotter, C. 251–252 Berndorff, D. 127 Bethel, L. 253 Bezemer, J. 302–303 Bishop, K. 305 Bloom, I. 223 Boldrin, A. 69 Boman, J.S. 164, 301 Bonk, C.J. 71 Borchardt, K.M. 194 Borghetto, M. 127 Boscolo, P. 1, 2–4, 8–9, 13, 15, 17, 66, 69, 95, 127, 170, 172, 184–185, 191, 305 Bosquet, D. 143 Bourdin, B. 76 Bowers, N.D. 126, 144 Babapour, M. 193 Boyd, F.B. 252 Bachman, L. 51 Braaksma, M. 3–4, 71, 82, 94, 100, 121, 166, 303 Bachmann, T. 71 Braasch, J.L. 123 Baker, S. 149, 192 Bransford, J.D. 167 Bakhtin, M. 250, 286 Bråten, I. 16, 147 Baleghizadeh, S. 193 Bräuer, G. 71, 81 Bandura, A. 168 Bretzing, B.H. 192–193 Bangert-Drowns, R.L. 1–2, 4, 94, 196, 253, 277, Briggs, T. 252 325 Britt, M.A. 3, 5, 23, 26, 96, 98, 118, 120, Bankston, C. 6, 67, 301 121–124, 127–129, 146–147, 154, 166, 169–170, Barcroft, J. 46, 60 172–173, 191, 213 Barile, A.L. 277 Britton, B.K. 143 Bartholomae, D. 252 Britton, J. 1, 3, 6, 8, 44 Barton, K.C. 125–126, 154, 157 Brophy, J. 125–126, 144 Baumann, J.F. 193–195, 197 Brown, A.L. 151, 167, 192–194, 282

376 Brown, B.A. Brown, J.S. Brozo, W.G. Bruning, R. Bruton, A. Bullock, M. Bursuck, W. Bushey, B. Butler, D.L. Butler, J.A.

author index 219 81, 259, 273 255, 260, 271 13 51 149 166 128 151, 168 128

Caccamise, D. 192–193 Cai, Z. 61 Cammack, D.W. 9 Carbonaro, W.J. 162 Carolan, J. 303 Carotti, L. 13 Caroux, L. 123 Carr, T. 297 Cassany, D. 172 Castells, N. 7, 169, 173, 179 Cavagnetto, A.R. 219 Ceccarelli, L. 251 Cerdán, R. 176 Chafe, W. 68 Chambliss, M.J. 20, 303 Chanquoy, L. 6, 17, 112, 301 Chavkin, T. 253 Chinn, P.W.U. 71 Chissom, B.S. 130 Chiu, M.M. 69 Christenson, L.A. 303 Christie, F. 303, 320 Chubin, D. 251 Clarke, D.J. 218 Cocking, R.R. 167 Coffin, C. 98, 100–101 Coirier, P. 17–18, 112, 277 Coiro, J.L. 9 Cole, M. 256 Collins, A. 81, 273 Collins, S. 165 Colpo, G. 198 Common Core State Standards Initiative 153, 162

Congdon, P. 53 Coomber, J.E. 45 Corson, D. 45 Coté, N. 179, 181–182 Counsell, C. 94 Couzijn, M. 71 Craik, F.I. 61 Crain, W. 284 Creswell, J.D. 14 Crisp, R.J. 14 Cronin, B. 9, 251, 304 Crowhurst, M. 22, 36 Crystal, D. 68 Cuevas, I. 7, 169, 187 Cummins, J. 217 Cushing Weigle, S. 28 Dafouz-Milne, E. 20–21 Daiute, C. 277, 281, 288 Dale, H. 277, 281, 288, 297 Dalton, B. 277, 281, 288 Davis Jr. 126, 144 Dawes, L. 217 Day, J.D. 192–194 De Dios, M.J. 171 De Jong, T. 106 De La Paz, S. 1, 6, 70, 100, 102, 119, 127, 155, 158–163, 168, 172, 253, 325–326 De Oliveira, L.C. 97, 99 DeCoster, J. 220 Deegan, D. 252 Dehghani, A.P. 46 Del Favero, L. 127 Dennison, R. 22 Derewianka, B. 303, 320 Dickinson, A. 154 Diehl, E. 78 Djikic, M. 9 Dodd, J.M. 195 Dodge, B. 303, 325 Dole, J.A. 155, 161 Dollnick, M. 78 Dooley, S. 192–193 Douglas, N. 50 Dressler, R.A. 30

377

author index Duffy, T.M. 105 Duguid, P. 81, 273 Duke, N.K. 105 Duncan, A. 154 Dunsmore, K. 152 Durso, F.T. 277 Durst, R.K. 6 Duschl, R. 218, 220 East, M. 28 Ebert, S. 68 Edelson, D. 233 Efklides, A. 283 Ehrman, M. 45 Elder, C. 53 Emig, J. 1, 6, 8, 44, 277, 280 Emmons, K. 251 Engel, A. 278, 303 Englert, C.S. 7–8, 150, 152–153, 193 Erickson, L.G. 193 Erkens, G. 107, 111, 277–280 Eskenazi, M. 52 Espino, S. 173, 179 Esterly, J.B. 9 Evans, E.D. 151 Evans, J.St.B.T. 220–221 Ewing, P. 249 Fahnestock, J. 149, 163–164 Falconer, K. 223 Falk, J.H. 220 Faraday, M. 128 Farnum, M. 28 Favart, M. 122 Fay, J. 252 Fayol, M. 67, 76 Feez, S. 83 Felton, M.K. 1, 6, 70, 100, 119, 127, 155, 160, 172, 325–326 Ferretti, R.P. 7, 17–18, 22, 34, 36, 154–158, 160, 162–163, 167 Fidalgo, R. 187 Fischer, F. 287–290 Fishburne Jr. 130 Fitzgerald, J. 16

Flaton, R. 98 Flavell, J.H. 282 Fleet, J. 151 Florence, M.K. 69 Flower, F. 6–7, 10, 13, 94, 150–151, 171–172, 174, 176, 179, 252, 278, 302, 304–305, 308, 320–323 Flowerday, T. 128 Folse, K. 46 Ford, J. 7 Ford, M. 219, 222 Ford, M.J. 218 Ford, S. 7 Forman, E.A. 218 Foster, P. 21, 30 Fouquette, D. 253 Fowles, M.E. 28 Franzke, M. 192–193, 196 Frederick, S. 220 Freedle, R.O. 193 Friedman, K.C. 126 Friend, R. 192–193 Frodeson, J. 44 Fuchs, L.S. 149, 192 Fulwiler, T. 3 Gabrys, G. 123 Gajria, M. 195 Galbraith, D. 2, 7, 9, 69, 217, 221–222, 279, 301 Gallin, P. 70 Gamoran, A. 162, 272–274 Garfield, E. 250 Garufis, J. 253 Gava, M. 69 Gee, J.P. 20 Geisler, C. 252 Georgi, M.C. 122 Gersten, R. 149, 192–193 Giannandrea, L. 20 Gibbons, P. 68, 83 Gil, L. 282 Gillen, N. 252 Gillespie, N.M. 9 Giroud, A. 277 Glasswell, K. 304

378 Gogolin, I. 91n5 Golder, C. 17 Goldman, S.R. 179 Goldstein, Z. 61 Gombert, A. 17 Goodchild, F. 151 Gopnik, A. 321 Grabe, W. 44 Grabowski, J. 71 Gràcia, M. 173 Graesser, A.C. 61, 324 Graf, P. 321 Graff, G. 163 Graham, S. 7, 15–18, 24, 34, 105, 119, 149, 151–153, 158–159, 162–164, 181, 187, 303, 305, 321 Greene, S. 94, 105, 260 Grießhaber, W. 76 Griffin, G. 47 Griffin, T.D. 3, 5, 118, 120–121, 147–148, 166, 169–170 Griffith, B.C. 251 Grootendorst, R. 17 Gunel, M. 69, 80, 93, 165, 325 Guthrie, J.T. 128 Guzmán, A.E. 324 Haas, C. 8, 252 Hacker, D.J. 155, 161 Hairston, M. 224 Halliday, M.A.K. 21 Hand, B.M. 2–5, 9–11, 69, 80, 93, 119, 165, 217, 219, 247, 252, 303, 325 Handley, S.J. 221 Hare, V.C. 194 Harley, T. 47 Harp, S.F. 143 Harrill, R. 252 Harris, K.R. 7, 15, 18, 24, 151–153, 158–159, 164, 167–168, 181, 187, 303, 321 Hart, C.E. 218 Hartley, J. 2, 4 Harwood , N. 251–252 Hasan, R. 21 Hasswell, R. 252

author index Hawken, L.S. 162 Hayes, J.R. 6–7, 10, 13, 67, 94–95, 150–151, 170–171, 278, 301–305, 308, 321, 323 Healy, M.K. 297 Heilman, M. 52 Heiser, H. 324 Herman, P. 47 Herring, S.C. 297 Hertzberg, F. 36 Hicks, L.C. 126, 144 Hidi, S.W. 127–128, 192, 194, 200 Hildyard, A. 192 Hilgers, T.L. 71 Hill, K. 53 Hillocks, G. 19 Hmelo-Silver, C.E. 297 Hohenshell, L.M. 119 Holschuh, J.P. 252 Holt, T. 120 Holten, C. 44 Horn, C. 13 Horowitz, R. 20 Houtlosser, P. 19 Howard, R. 252 Hubbard, B.P. 252 Hübner, S. 1, 4, 22, 24, 69, 325–326 Huckin, T. 252 Hughes, C.A. 81–82 Hulstijn, J.H. 45 Hundhausen, C.D. 106–107, 116 Hunt, K.W. 21 Hurley, M.M. 1, 94, 196, 253, 277, 325 Hußmann, S. 70 Hutchins, E. 256, 304 Hyland, K. 16, 21, 251 Hynd, C.R. 143, 252 Iedema, R. 303, 323 Iiskala, T. 283 Ikpeze, C. 252 Jaeger, A. 147 Jang, S. 217 Jaspers, J. 107, 277–278 Jaubert, M. 303

379

author index Jochems, W. 280 Johns, J.L. 174–175, 178 Johnson, D.W. 303 Johnson, N. 192–193 Johnson, R.T. 303 Jonassen, D.H. 105 Jones, I. 303, 308 Jones, L. 54 Jones, R.S. 192 Jones, W. 193 Journet, D. 251 Judson, E. 223 Kahneman, D. 220 Kamberelis, G. 304 Kanselaar, G. 107, 277 Kaplan, R. 44 Karchmer-Klein, R. 303, 325 Kellogg, R.T. 301 Kelly, C. 154–155 Kelly, G.J. 219 Kennet, J. 147 Keys, C.W. 69–70, 164–165 Kiewra, K.A. 17, 22 Kiili, C. 283 Kincaid, J.P. 130, 135, 138 Kinder, D. 166 King, A. 280, 288, 296 King, J.R. 8, 172, 174, 176–177, 181, 281 Kintsch, E. 192–193, 196, 282 Kintsch, W. 20, 121, 143, 163, 191–193 Kinzer, C.K. 9 Kirkpatrick, L.C. 1, 7, 119, 172, 185, 303, 321 Kirschner, P.A. 280 Kiuhara, S.A. 162, 303, 321 Klein, P.D. 1–2, 5–9, 11, 19, 69, 94, 100, 119, 121, 147, 149, 164, 166, 172, 185, 217, 227, 235, 252–253, 277, 280, 300–301, 303–304, 306, 320–321, 325 Klin, C.M. 324 Knapp, W. 70 Knoch, U. 28 Kobayashi, K. 193 Koch, G. 56 Koch, P. 68

Korpan, C. 252 Kozleski, E. 193 Krashen, S. 45, 62 Kreijns, K. 280 Kress, G. 302–303 Kreuz, R.J. 30 Kristeva, J. 250 Kuhn, D. 98, 167 Kulhavy, R.W. 192–193 [KMK] Kultusministerkonferenz Kuteeva, M. 36

71–72

Lahtinen, V. 282 Landis, J. 56 Lange, I. 91n5 Langer, J.A. 1, 8, 97, 162, 172 Lapkin, S. 62 Larsen, S. 198 Larson, A.A. 123 Laudon, H. 305 Laufer, B. 45, 47–48, 53, 59, 61 Laurinen, L. 3, 10, 44, 277–278, 282–283, 297, 303 Le Bigot, L. 123, 171 Leacock, T.L. 9, 304 Leader-Janssen, B. 7 Lee, J. 154 Lee, P. 98, 154, 156 Lehrl, S. 68 Lehtinen, E. 283 Leinhardt, G. 94, 97–98, 154 Lenski, S.D. 174–175, 178 Leu, D.J. 9 Lévesque, S. 94, 106 Levine, W.H. 324 Levstik, L.S. 125–126, 154 Lewis, M. 185 Lewis, W. 17–18, 22, 34, 36 Lewis, W.E. 162–163 Lienemann, T.O. 7 Lindblom-Ylänne, S. 282 Linnakylä, P. 2, 4 Linnemann, M. 2, 66, 70, 76 Little, J. 253 Lockhart, R.S. 61

380 Lonka, K. 2, 4, 15, 17, 22, 253, 279, 282 Lonn, S. 324 Louwerse, M. 61 Lowyck, J. 105 Luckett, J.W. 24 Luna, M. 172, 304, 322 Lynn, S. 126 MacIntyre, P. 50 Maeng, S. 220 Maftoon, P. 46 Magnoler, P. 20 Magnusson, S.J. 179 Mahbudi, A. 46 Maier, H. 69 Malone, L.D. 195 Mannes, S.M. 121, 193 Mariage, T.V. 152, 193 Marks, M.B. 152, 272–274 Marti, V.A. 126 Martín, E. 7, 169, 171–172, 186, 304, 322 Martin, J.R. 101 Martineau, J.A. 105 Martínez, I. 186 Marttunen, M. 3, 10, 44, 277–278, 282–283, 297, 303 Mason, L. 1–2, 4, 9, 15, 66, 69, 95, 253, 279 Mason, L.H. 151 Mason, R.A. 122, 154 Masterman, E. 126, 144 Mastropieri, M.A. 195 Mateos, M. 7–8, 10–13, 96, 121, 169, 171–173, 175, 179–180, 186–187, 213, 302, 304, 320, 322–323 Maury, S. 282 Mayer, R.E. 143, 324 McCarthy Young, K. 94, 97 McCarthy, L.P. 251 McCarthy, M. 45 McCutchen, D. 6, 20, 67, 192, 301, 323 McDermott, M.A. 69, 80, 93, 303 McGinley, W. 170, 174, 178–179 McKeown, D. 303, 321 McLeod, S. 185 McNamara, D. 61 McNish, M.M. 143

author index Meara, P. 51 Medawar, P.B. 251 Mercer, N. 217, 324 Metcalfe, J. 282 Meyer, B.J.F. 193 Minguela, M. 179 [MSW] Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 72 Miras, M. 7, 169, 173, 179 Misischia, C. 252 Moitra, S. 251 Moje, E.B. 5, 219 Molloy, D. 153 Monte-Sano, C. 96–99, 102, 253 Moravcsik, M.J. 251 Mortimer, E. 217 Morton, T. 106 Mosberg, S. 154 Motamadi, A. 46 Mullins, N. 251 Muncie, J. 45, 48 Munneke, L. 278, 281 Murgesan, P. 251 Murphy, P.K. 20 Murray, D. 224 Murray, J.D. 324 Myers, G. 4 Nagy, W. 47 Najjar, H. 252 Nardi, B.A. 8 Nation, I. 44, 47–48 Nation, P. 48 National Reading Panel 149 National Research Council 218 Nelson, J. 171 Nelson, J.R. 195 Nelson, N. 4, 9, 172, 174, 252, 304 Newell, G.E. 6, 22, 36, 253 Newman, W. 17 Newmann, F.M. 105, 272–274 Nickerson, R.S. 128 Nietfeld, J.L. 282, 291–292 Nivet, C. 123 Nokes, J.D. 155, 161

381

author index Noordman, L.G.M. 20 Norman, D.A. 8, 304–305 Norris, S. 252 Nückles, M. 1–2, 4, 22, 69, 325 Nussbaum, E.M. 22 Nystrand, M. 9, 20, 23 O’Hara, K.P. 17 Oatley, K. 9, 304 Odoroff, E. 94 Oesterreicher, W. 68 Øgreid, A.K. 36 Ohlhus, S. 82 Okolo, C.M. 7, 154–155 Olinghouse, N.G. 7 Olson, D.R. 2, 4, 9, 15, 22 Onrubia, J. 277, 303 Osborne, J.W. 217 Ospelt-Geiger, B. 71 Ospelt, K. 71 Over, D.E. 220–221 Owens, R.J.Q. 25 Oxford, R. 45 Ozgungor, S. 128 Page-Voth, V. 151 Palincsar, A.S. 151, 179 Palmer, A. 51 Paré, A. 16 Paribakht, T.S. 47, 50–51 Parker, C. 303 Patel, V.L. 304 Pauk, W. 25 Pennebaker, J.W. 14 Penner, Z. 76 Penrose, A.M. 6, 171 Perfetti, C.A. 20, 96, 121–123, 154, 173, 192 Perin, D. 7, 17–18, 34, 105, 149, 303 Perkins, D.N. 97, 128 Peters, N. 277 Petric, B. 252 Pfaff, H. 70 Philippakos, Z.A. 17–18, 167–168 Phillips, L. 252 Piburn, M. 223

Pieng, P. 10, 44, 170, 249 Piolat, A. 17 Plummer, D.J. 233 Pohl, T. 66 Polio, C. 44 Porat, D. 154 Poster, J. 144 Pouit, D. 17 Powers, D.E. 28 Pragman, T.C. 278 Prain, V. 2, 4, 69, 165, 303 Prangsma, M. 277–278 Pressley, M. 150–152, 167, 179 Prince, M.P. 164, 301 Prior, P. 8 Purcell-Gates, V. 105 Quarisa, M. 172 Quasthoff, U. 82 Raison, G. 306 Ramsay, P. 28 Raphael, T.E. 7, 150 Ravotas, D. 251 Reber, A.S. 220 Reid, R. 7, 151 Renkl, A. 1, 4, 22, 69, 325 Reveles, J.M. 219 Rijlaarsdam, G. 71, 82, 150, 302, 309 Rinehart, S.D. 193–195, 197, 212 Risemberg, R. 177 Rivard, L.P. 7, 70, 217 Robledo, P. 187 Rochelle, J. 11 Rogers, P. 149 Rogers, R.L. 130 Rogers, Y. 126, 144 Rosaen, C.L. 8 Roschelle, J. 280, 288, 296–297 Rose, M.A. 19, 306, 320 Rosenblatt, L.M. 163 Rosenshine, B. 63 Ross, J. 51 Roßbach, H.-G. 68 Rossi, P.G. 20–21, 23, 37

382 Rouet, J.F. 96, 121–124, 147, 154, 171, 173 Roussey, J.-Y. 17 Rowan, K.E. 303 Ruf, U. 70 Russell, D.R. 4, 8–9 Saddler, B. 7 Saito, Y. 52 Salas, C.R. 147–148 Salierno, C. 233 Salomon, G. 106 Salonen, P. 283 Salvia, J. 195 Samuels, B. 166 Samuels, S.J. 20 Samuelstuen, M.S. 16 Sanchez, C.A. 147 Sandak, R. 121 Sanders, T.J.M. 20 Santos, C.M.M. 19 Santos, S.L. 19 Saul, E.U. 179 Sawada, D. 223 Scardamalia, M. 2, 6–8, 69, 94–95, 97, 101, 151, 170, 181, 217, 277, 279, 301–302 Schiefele, U. 128 Schindler, K. 67, 71, 81 Schmitt, M. 71 Schmitt, N. 45, 51 Schnurer, M. 24 Schraw, G. 22, 128 Schwartz, S.S. 153, 305 Schwarz, B.B. 324 Scinto, L.F.M. 21 Scott, P. 217 Scribner, S. 256 Seah, L.H. 218 Secor, M. 149, 163–164 Segal, J.W. 97 Segev-Miller, R. 10–11, 17, 171–174, 176, 185, 302, 304, 320–323 Seixas, P. 106, 149 Sellen, A.J. 17 diSessa, A.A. 9 Sezen, A. 220

author index Shanahan, C. 5, 120, 252 Shanahan, T. 5, 66, 120, 170, 252 Shaw, D. 251 Sherin, B. 233 Shimamura, A.P. 282 Shupala, A. 252 Siegel, M. 323 Simon, H.A. 300, 324 Simon, K. 10, 44, 170, 249, 275, 281 Singer, M. 324 Sloman, S. 220 Slotte, V. 2, 4, 17, 22, 282 Small, H.G. 251 Smart, G. 16 Smith, D.J. 195 Smith, E. 220 Smith, J. 22 Snider, A. 24 Snoeck Henkemans, A.F. 17, 19 Sobol, D.J. 320 Sodian, B. 149 Solé, I. 7, 169, 171, 173, 175, 179, 182 Sommer, J. 122, 124, 127, 172, 191, 213 Soven, M. 185 Spivey, N.N. 8, 12, 169, 172, 174, 176–177, 181, 252, 281, 302, 304–305, 320 Spoehr, K.T. 98, 121 Spoehr, L.W. 98, 121 Stahl, G. 106 Stahl, S.A. 143, 193 Stainton, C. 94 Stam, B. 98 Stanovich, K.E. 220 Starke-Meyerring, D. 302 Stearns, P.N. 149 Stegink, P. 193 Stein, N.L. 193 Steinhoff, T. 66, 76 Stephany, S. 2, 66, 70, 76 Stevens, D.D. 7, 150 Stevens, J. 128 Stevens, R.J. 185 Storch, N. 277–278, 305 Stotsky, S. 1 Straw, S.B. 70, 217

383

author index Strømsø, H.I. 147 Stude, J. 82 Studer, T. 76 Summers, M. 281 Suthers, D.D. 106–107, 116 Swain, M. 45, 62–63 Swales, J. 252 Swanson, H.L. 193 Taylor, A. 17 Taylor, K.K. 193–194 Teasley, S.D. 11, 280, 288, 296–297 Teske, P. 6, 67, 301 Thiede, K.W. 121 Thompson, A. 1, 8 Thompson, G. 20–21 Thurman, J. 281 Thürmann, E. 72, 80 Tierney, R.J. 170 Tonkyn, A. 21 Topping, K.J. 303, 305 Torrance, M. 187 Toulmin, S.E. 20, 303 Trabasso, T. 193, 324 Treagust, D. 247 Trevino, S. 252 Turley, J. 223 Turner, R.N. 14 Tynjälä, P. 1–2, 4, 7, 9, 15, 44, 170, 172, 253, 279, 282, 299 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

305

van Aalst, J. 291 van Boxtel, C. 3–4, 94, 98, 100, 106–107, 121, 166, 277, 290, 303 van de Laak, C. 277 van den Bergh, H. 150, 302 van der Heide, J. 22 van der Linden, J.L. 98, 277 van Dijk, T.A. 20, 163, 191–192 van Drie, J. 3–5, 10, 13, 17–18, 22, 36, 94, 98, 100, 102–103, 105–108, 111, 121, 166, 303 Van Dyke, J.A. 123 van Eemeren, F. 17, 19

VanSledright, B.A. 94, 153–155 Vauras, M. 283 Vibert, N. 123 Vidal-Abarca, E. 176, 304 Villalón, R. 171–173, 304, 322 Villanueva, M.G. 3, 93, 217, 219 Virji, S.M. 94 Vital, N. 71 Volet, S. 281, 283, 291 Vollmer, J. 72 Volosinov, V.N. 250 Voss, J.F. 1, 6, 97, 101–102, 120–121, 126–127, 139, 145, 147, 171 Vygotsky, L.S. 152, 220, 253, 256 Wade-Stein, D. 192, 196, 282 Waldrip, B. 303 Walker, G. 7 Wallace, C. 69, 165 Wang, P. 251 Waring, R. 47 Webb, S. 47 Wegener, H. 78 Wegerif, R. 217 Wehlage, G.G. 105 Weinberger, A. 281, 287–290, 297 Weinert, S. 68 Weinstock, M. 98 Weiss, A.R. 154 Wellington, J. 217 Werner, S. 70 Wesche, M. 50–51 Westling, O. 305 Wharton-McDonald, R. 152 White, H.D. 251 White, M. 251 Whitfill, J.M. 22 Wickens, T.D. 207 Wiemer-Hastings, P. 123 Wigglesworth, G. 21, 305 Wilder, L. 149, 163 Wiley, J. 1, 3, 5–6, 13, 101–102, 118, 120–121, 126–127, 139, 145, 147, 166, 169–172 Wilkinson, B. 1, 94, 196, 253, 277, 325 Williams, J.P. 149, 192

384

author index

Wilson, M. 193 Windschitl, M. 69 Wineburg, S.S. 5, 98, 120–122, 144, 149, 153–155, 158, 161 Winograd, P.N. 6, 193, 195 Witte, S.P. 8 Witton-Davies, G. 31 Wolfe, C.R. 23, 26, 128 Wong, B.Y. 193 Wray, D. 185 Wynn, J. 251 Xihua, Z. Yang, E.

69 165

Yarrow, F. 303, 305 Yong, M.F. 278, 280–281, 297 Yoon, S. 3, 93, 217, 247, 281 Yore, L.D. 2, 4, 69, 247 Young, A. 3, 185 Young, K.M. 154 Zajchowski, R. 151 Zhang, J. 8, 304–305 Zheng, Y.Y. 47 Zimmerman, B.J. 151, 168, 187 Zimmerman, C. 164 Zimmerman, C.B. 44, 47, 149 Zinsser, W. 1, 3, 6 Zuczkowski, A. 20

Subject Index Academic debate 2, 16, 19, 22–24, 30, 34, 37 Academic language 76, 78–79, 86, 88, 91, 91n5, 272 Addressee 75, 81, 88 Answers to questions 287–288, 293–294 Argument 2, 6, 10, 19, 22, 26–27, 40, 51, 94, 96–98, 100–102, 104, 108–109, 111–118, 120, 122, 127, 131, 136, 149, 154–155, 157–160, 163, 166, 188, 218, 221–223, 229, 234–235, 247, 251, 258, 271, 273, 281, 297, 302, 306 Argumentation 1, 5, 16–19, 22–28, 30–31, 34, 36–37, 40, 95, 97–99, 101, 103–104, 106, 108–109, 114, 118–119, 158, 163, 188, 217–219, 278, 303, 323 Argumentative informativeness 19, 28–30, 32–33, 35 Argumentative texts 17, 163, 176, 187 Audience 6, 9, 17–18, 20–21, 23, 25–27, 69, 71, 75, 80–81, 93, 105, 179, 181, 224, 235, 301 Authentic writing task 69, 105 Chat protocol 111–112, 116 Chronological thinking 125–126, 128, 143–144 Citation 28–29, 31, 123, 134–135, 146, 161, 163–164, 250–253, 258, 266, 274–275 Cognitive conflict 281, 289, 297 Cognitive model 6–7, 10, 13, 150–151, 322 Cognitive processes of writing 278 Cognitive strategies 3, 6–7, 24, 37, 149, 151–152, 156–158 Cognitive strategy instruction 5, 7, 149–150, 152, 154–155, 162, 166–167 Coherence 17, 20, 22–23, 26–29, 31–35, 37, 67, 76–77, 240, 245 Cohesion 21–22, 27–28, 30–33, 35, 40, 67, 76–77, 199, 205–206, 208–209, 215 Collaboration 9, 18, 24, 83, 113, 153, 213–214, 280, 287, 296–298, 301, 303, 305, 322, 324–325 Collaborative completion 11, 280, 287–288, 293–294, 296–297

Collaborative interaction 286–287, 292–295, 298 Collaborative writing 10, 95, 111, 197, 202–203, 277–285, 287–288, 291–292, 296–297, 299, 303–304, 322, 324 Communicative writing 69–71, 80, 87 Complementary sources 325 Comprehension 8, 50, 54, 63, 120–122, 140–143, 147–150, 154, 163, 173, 177, 180–182, 186–187, 191, 192–196, 199–200, 212, 277, 280, 282, 291–292, 298 Computer-supported collaborative learning 102, 107, 277 Concepts 9–11, 36, 66, 68, 71, 79, 92–95, 98–99, 101–102, 111, 118, 121, 126, 131–133, 137, 140, 143, 145, 147–148, 157, 167, 179, 193–194, 197, 200, 202, 205, 212, 216, 224–227, 233–237, 243, 247, 249–253, 258–262, 266–267, 270–271, 273–275, 279, 282, 284, 289–292, 298, 303, 319, 322 Content processing 286–287, 290, 292–293, 295–296, 298 Content space 279 Contextualization 5, 95, 97–99, 101–106, 118, 122, 124–125, 143–147, 161–162, 240 Contradictory sources 96, 172–173 Corroboration 5, 98, 122, 124, 143, 146–147, 158–162, 173 Discourse segmentation 30 Discourse synthesis 213, 252, 323 Discussion 2, 4, 10–11, 17–18, 24–25, 34, 45, 50, 56, 59, 63, 75, 83, 88, 92, 101, 103, 107, 111–118, 142, 156, 161, 166, 199–204, 206, 211, 220, 227, 229, 236, 249–250, 254–255, 257–261, 266, 268–276, 283–286, 288, 290–299, 314, 318 Distributed cognition 11–13, 304, 319 Document-based questions 120, 124, 143 Drafting 17, 27, 303, 308–310, 313–315, 318 Dual processing 220–222

386

subject index

Epistemic potential 169–170, 184–185 Epistemic writing 69 Explanation 4–5, 11, 63, 74, 79, 89, 94–95, 97, 100–104, 121, 127–128, 136, 143, 147, 152–154, 158, 162, 164–165, 167, 180, 185, 199, 201, 212, 218–219, 226, 228, 233, 235–236, 240, 242–247, 260, 280, 288, 291, 296, 298, 300–301, 303–309, 313, 317–325 Explicit information 196, 200–201, 205, 209–210, 212 Explicit instruction 62, 70, 81–82, 100, 119, 152, 158, 167 Explicit teaching 3, 186, 188 Expository text 8, 149, 151, 185, 192–193, 196, 198–199, 201–202, 204–206, 208–212 Fluency

31

Generating 19, 25, 67, 70, 135, 145, 242, 278, 309, 315, 318, 325 Generation process 7, 18–19, 25, 150, 186, 314 Genre 1, 3–6, 8–10, 12, 22, 79, 83, 100–101, 106, 118–119, 143, 192, 194, 199, 202, 249, 253–254, 264–270, 275–276, 301–303, 305, 307–308, 320–321, 323 Goal-setting 151, 309, 313 Graphic organizer 15, 151, 156, 164 Heuristic 5, 16, 122, 152, 155, 161–162, 165, 220–221 Historical reasoning 4–5, 13, 94–97, 99–103, 106–107, 111–112, 114, 116, 118–119, 154–155, 157–158, 160 History 2, 5–7, 12–14, 94–103, 106–107, 118–120, 122–127, 129, 135, 138, 142–143, 146–147, 149–151, 153–157, 159, 161, 166–168, 182, 192, 204, 212, 302 Hybrid (reading and writing) tasks 169–171, 173–174, 189 Implicit information 196, 198, 200, 203–206, 209–212 Inference 11, 19–20, 122, 128, 133, 139, 141, 145, 148, 172, 187, 193, 196, 200–201, 205, 212, 215, 221, 235–237, 239, 280, 288,

302, 306–312, 314–316, 318–319, 321, 323–325 Inquiry tasks 120, 144, 146–148 Integration 20–21, 67, 121, 124, 127–128, 143, 145–147, 163, 172–173, 176, 182–184, 186, 188, 192, 213, 218, 249, 252, 289, 320, 323 Interest 5, 69, 111, 127–128, 131, 134–137, 140–141, 143–144, 146, 148, 171, 174, 241, 257, 271, 283, 290, 303–304, 322, 324 Intertextual integration 173, 183, 188 Intertextuality 10, 20, 28–30, 32–35, 42, 250, 258, 270 Intervention programmes 185 Intratextual integration 173, 183, 186 Journal writing 25 Juxtaposed summaries

176, 183

Knowledge building 15, 279 Knowledge construction 11, 170, 213, 220–221, 277–278, 280–281, 283–284, 286, 290, 293, 295–296, 298–299, 302, 319, 321, 324–325 Knowledge-telling model 97 Knowledge-transforming model 170–171, 279 Lexical knowledge 45–47, 52, 59, 64 Library research 169 Linear production processes 17, 112 Linguistic persuasiveness 21, 28, 31–36 Literary analysis 150, 162, 164 Literature 6, 8–10, 14, 23, 25, 28, 30, 46–48, 51, 85, 95, 149–151, 163, 166, 168, 188, 249, 251–252, 255, 257, 270, 273–275, 278, 321 Mathematical language 2, 89–90, 92 Mathematical literacy 70, 80 Meaning construction 179–181, 191 Mediators 186 Mental model 121, 221 Modelling 18, 24–25, 186, 188 Monitoring 16, 18, 27, 125, 151, 167, 179–181, 203, 282–283, 286, 291–293, 295, 298 Multiple documents 19, 96, 120, 122, 124–126, 142, 144, 146–147, 161–162

subject index Multiple sources 101, 120–121, 147, 154, 159, 169, 172–173, 175, 242, 252 Multiple sourcing 19–20, 24 Multiple-trait scale 28

387

Scaffolds 82–83, 88, 146, 153, 158, 167, 247, 325 Science Writing Heuristic 4, 9–10, 165, 219, 223 Science education 165–166, 218, 233, 246–247 Note-taking 17, 22, 25, 63, 94, 114, 178, Second language learning 63, 278 186–187, 193, 282 Second language vocabulary acquisition 2, 48, 50 Organization 3, 13, 18, 20, 22, 25–27, 34, 36, Selection process 194, 200, 213 39, 97, 150, 171, 185–186, 188, 227 Self-instruction 25–26, 28 Outlining 17, 22, 27 Self-regulated strategy instruction 16, 18, 24, 164 Persuasive essay 2, 16, 19, 22, 28, 34, 100, 151 Self-regulation 3, 7, 11, 17, 19, 27–28, 150–152, Planning 5, 9, 17, 21–24, 27, 36, 44, 49, 116, 167–168, 181, 301, 311 145, 149–151, 157, 164, 167, 179, 181, 188, 221, Sequential production pattern 174–175, 178 255, 278–279, 282, 301, 310, 319, 325 Signalling devices 20, 31 Problem space 279 Situated learning 69 Problem-solving process 95, 151, 279 Situation model 163, 192 Process planning 17, 311, 321 Sourcing 16, 98, 102, 122–124, 134, 137, 143, Productive vocabulary 2, 45, 47, 51, 53, 146–147, 158–162 59–60 Spiral production pattern 175 Strategic learning 15, 22, 185 Reading comprehension 195, 198, 206–211, Strategic vocabulary learning 65 214 Strategic writing tools 16, 22, 34, 36–37 Reasoning 1–7, 9–10, 13, 15, 17–18, 26, 34, Strategies 2–3, 5–8, 11, 15–20, 22, 24–25, 28, 94–104, 116, 118–119, 149, 153, 157, 166, 34, 37–38, 45, 97, 99–100, 119, 126, 149–153, 212, 218–223, 233, 235–239, 241, 244–246, 155–161, 163, 166–168, 174, 180, 186, 189, 252–253, 276, 281, 297, 324–326 192–195, 271, 277, 279, 282, 291, 300–303, Receptive vocabulary 46–47 306, 309–311, 318–321, 323, 325–326 Recursive production processes 11, 175, 178, Structure 4, 6, 18, 20, 22–23, 25, 27–28, 31–33, 187, 189, 279 35–37, 40, 67–69, 74, 76, 78, 81, 83, 87, 95, Reference 17, 25–26, 29–31, 68, 72, 112, 123, 99, 101, 106, 112–114, 116, 121, 131, 135, 142, 134, 141, 148, 163–164, 180, 249–250, 253–254, 158, 171, 173, 179, 188, 193, 195, 199, 202–203, 258–259, 261–263, 266–267, 271–274, 276, 213, 215, 218, 235, 251, 253–254, 262, 279, 292, 297, 313, 322 300–301, 303–304, 319–322 Regulation 6, 10, 13, 85–86, 92, 253, 282–283, Subject-related language competencies 68, 314, 320–322 79, 84 Repertoires 16, 27, 40, 76, 83, 151 Summarizing 117, 172, 192–195, 198, 212–213, Representational tools 5, 9, 15, 95, 100, 106, 282, 317, 321 108, 118–119 Summary 8, 27, 115, 121, 124, 127, 156, 171, 175, Reviewing 151, 237, 278, 313–315, 325 183, 192–194, 196–202, 204–206, 213–216, Rhetorical knowledge 95 224, 230, 260–261, 268, 282, 286, 298 Rhetorical space 279 Summary writing 196, 198, 200, 203–206, 208–209, 211–214, 224–225, 229–234, 243, SWA 67, 80–82, 84–86, 89, 92–93 246, 282–283, 299

388 Supportive writing assignments 67, 80–82, 86, 92 Synthesis 8, 11–13, 100, 169, 171–180, 182–183, 185–190, 213–214, 218, 231, 243, 252 Task analysis 179 Task representation 11, 186, 301, 319–320 Teachers’ attitudes 67, 71–72, 75 Teaching vocabulary 47, 60, 62 Text 159 Text comprehension 8, 121, 186, 191–193, 195–196, 198, 204–206, 208–212 Text structure 6, 18, 20, 27, 101, 150–151, 164, 195, 302, 322 Thinking dispositions 147–148 Topic knowledge 103, 302, 304, 320, 322–324 Translating 151, 278–279, 292, 299 Vocabulary knowledge 44, 47, 50–53, 56, 59–60 Vocabulary learning 45–46, 48, 51, 60–61, 63, 65

subject index Word problem 70, 72, 74, 76–79, 81, 83, 85, 87–88 Writing across the curriculum 3–4 Writing from sources 10, 12, 101, 170, 282, 322 Writing in the disciplines 3, 5, 66 Writing instruction 18, 99–100, 105, 119, 127, 143–144, 149, 153, 168 Writing prompt 5, 95, 100–102, 104–106, 118–119, 128–129, 131, 133–135, 137, 139, 143, 304, 325 Writing strategies 4, 6–7, 16–17, 22–23, 27–28, 99, 116, 152–153, 159, 167–168, 185, 313–314, 319, 323–325 Writing task 6, 8, 17, 24, 54, 59, 71, 73, 75, 78, 81–82, 84, 88–89, 92–93, 95–96, 99–101, 105–106, 118–119, 127–128, 149, 152, 171, 184, 196, 208, 222, 224–225, 230–233, 235, 243, 246, 249–250, 252–253, 284, 298, 305, 321, 323 Writing to learn 1–9, 12, 95, 120–121, 129, 135, 138, 142, 146, 252, 276, 301, 303, 325 Written guides 187