Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Writing development'

These case studies come from work done in the Writing Intensive Project (WIP) from its inception in 2013 until 2016 when formal funding from a Teacher Development Grant from the National Department of Higher Education ended. The project was unique for Rhodes University as it was the first time an intervention of this kind had ever been directed specifically at undergraduate writing development and support in the disciplines, and secondly, that participation by discipline-based academics in the project was entirely voluntary, thereby exemplifying a significant level of agency.

The development and use of languages for official, education, religion, etc. purposes have been a major political issue in many developing multilingual countries. A number of these countries, including China and India, have recognised the issues and developed language policies that have provided some ethnic groups with the right to develop their languages and cultures by using writing systems based on scripts suitable for these purposes. On the other hand, other countries, such as Ethiopia (a multilingual African state) had, for a long time, preferred a policy of one language and one script in the belief that this would help the assimilation of various ethnic groups create a homogenous population with one language and culture. Rather than realizing that aim, the policy became a significant source of conflict and demands for political independence among disfavoured groups. This thesis addresses the development of a writing system for Oromo, a language spoken by approximately 40 percent of the total population of Ethiopia, which remained officially unwritten until the early 1990s. It begins by reviewing the early history of Oromo writing and discusses the Ethiopian language policies, analysing materials written in various scripts and certain writers starting from the 19th century. The adoption of Roman script for Oromo writing and the debates that followed are explored, with an examination of some phonological aspects of the Oromo language and the implications of representing them using the Roman alphabet. This thesis argues that the Oromo language has thrived during the past few years having implemented a Roman-based alphabetical script. There have been and continue to be, however, internal and external challenges confronting the development of the Oromo writing system which need to be carefully considered and addressed by stakeholders, primarily by the Oromo people and the Ethiopian government, in order for the Oromo language to establish itself as a fully codified language in the modern nation-state.

This dissertation examined the development of writing in school-age children from a process-oriented perspective by examining pause patterns and the characteristics of language bursts between pauses. Study 1 investigated the development and operation of different writing processes during on-line text production of typically developing third and fifth graders. Fifth graders paused less frequently than third graders, but their pause duration was similar to the pause duration of third graders’. Fifth graders wrote more words between pauses than third graders. Revision rates were similar in both grades. The findings suggest that fifth graders are more advanced than third graders in the development of writing processes (i.e., planning, text generation, and transcription) whereas revising process does not mature from third grade to fifth grade. The advanced development of planning, text generation, and transcription in fifth grade facilitates the operation of these processes to partially overlap with each other. Revising process does not occur as frequently as other processes in both grades. However, when it does, its operation can sometimes overlap with the operation of text generation and transcription.

Study 2 investigated the effects of writing mediums (i.e., handwriting and typing) on the operation of writing processes during on-line text production of typically developing fifth and seventh graders and on the relation between writing processes and writing quality. Pauses occurred more frequently in typing than in handwriting. As typing skills improved from fifth grade to seventh grade, difference in pause rate between typing and handwriting decreased. Words between pauses were shorter in typing than in handwriting. Overall revision rate and meaning revising rate were higher in typing than in handwriting. There were some indications of positive association between meaning revision rate and writing quality. Overall pause rate was negatively associated with writing quality in fifth grade in both mediums. The findings suggest that the way handwriting and typing influenced the operation of different writing processes differed. However, the role of writing mediums in accounting for the relation between writing processes and writing quality appears to be limited.

While study abroad at the university level has been shown to benefit many aspects of second language proficiency, little is known about how this affects participants’ writing skills. The present study explores writing development in a group of 30 EFL learners over a period of 15-months and compares the progress made in two distinct learning contexts: study abroad (SA) and classroom instruction at home (AH). The learners’ writing before and after each learning context is evaluated by trained raters and analyzed quantitatively, using an assortment of computational tools, to determine whether progress is made in the domains of complexity, accuracy, fluency, lexical diversity and sophistication, and cohesion. The learners’ writing is also compared, in terms of both quality and characteristics, to the writing of 28 native speakers of English who wrote on the same topic under the same conditions. Results indicate the writing improves significantly after the SA context, and that learners make considerably more progress while abroad than during the AH context.
S’ha demostrat que les estades a l’estranger a nivell universitari són beneficioses en molts aspectes per a millorar la competència d’una segona llengua. Tanmateix, no se sap gaire sobre com afecten l’habilitat d’escriure dels participants. Aquest estudi investiga el desenvolupament de l’escriptura en un grup de 30 aprenents d’anglès com a llengua estrangera durant un període de 15 mesos. Alhora compara el progrés en dos contextos d’aprenentatge diferents: les estades a l’estranger i la instrucció a l’aula al país d’origen. S’avalua l’escriptura dels aprenents abans i després de cada context d’aprenentatge, d’una banda, per mitjà d’un grup d’avaluadors experts i, d’una altra, mitjançant un conjunt d’eines computacionals per a determinar si hi ha progrés en els dominis següents: complexitat, correcció, fluïdesa, diversitat i sofisticació lèxiques i cohesió. També es compara, en termes de qualitat i característiques, amb l’escriptura de 28 parlants nadius d’anglès que van escriure textos sobre el mateix tema i en les mateixes condicions. Els resultats indiquen que l’escriptura millora significativament després de l’estada a l’estranger i que els aprenents progressen més quan són a l’estranger que no pas en el context d’instrucció a l’aula al país d’origen

Thesis advisor: Michael J. Connolly
This paper explores the question of script choice for a preliterate society deciding to write their language down for the first time through an exposition on types of writing systems and a brief history of a few writing systems throughout the world. Societies sometimes invented new scripts, sometimes adapted existing ones, and other times used a combination of both these techniques. Based on the covered scripts ranging from Mesopotamia to Asia to Europe to the Americas, I identify factors that influence the script decision including neighboring scripts, access to technology, and the circumstances of their introduction to writing. Much of the world uses the Roman alphabet and I present the argument that almost all preliterate societies beginning to write will choose to use a version of the Roman alphabet. However, the alphabet does not fit all languages equally well, and the paper closes out with an investigation into some of these inadequacies and how languages might resolve these issues
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Departmental Honors
Discipline: Slavic and Eastern Languages and Literatures

Research on talent development has focused on K–12 and adult eminence. This investigation addressed the gap in knowledge regarding talent development between the ages of 18 and 27. The purpose was to explain how a group of emerging adults continued to develop their writing ability into talents valued by themselves and society. The key questions investigated the role of self-perception of high ability in writing in the process of talent development as a lived experience, and the relationship of high ability to adult identity formation. The study also investigated how changes in family relationships and the establishment of independence related to talent development in emerging adulthood. It was a multiple case study of 7 creative writers from top-20 MFA programs. The study results indicated a number of findings. Development of writing talent in emerging adulthood is related to achieving adult identity and independence. Self-perception of high ability was universal, as was creativity. Achievement represented the confluence of intention, intellect, volition, knowledge, and imagination expressed as original work. The psychological process of differentiation and integration was used in adapting to achieve individual goals. Achieving identity for these writers and poets meant finding their voices. Ability was a pervasive factor in achieving identity. Parents, teachers, and peers guided and believed in the subjects’ ability. Family support was generally unconditional. Family mental health issues did not prevent talent development and fathers had a strong impact on sons and daughters. Independence was related to identity and represented having established primacy of self-authority. Contrary to theory, participants benefited from continued institutional support.

This dissertation reports on a study of two widely used eleventh grade ELA textbooks for the opportunities they provide students to construct knowledge through writing. Data included every writing task in both textbooks (158 tasks) as well as the corresponding texts. Data analysis focused on (a) how cognitive demand, textual grist, and elaborated communication contribute to the rigor of a writing task, (b) how authentic the tasks are to the discipline of ELA, and (c) how writing tasks position students as intellectual authorities. This study contributes a new approach to determine the quality of ELA writing tasks and a detailed assessment of the writing tasks in the most widely used ELA textbooks. The findings from this study showed differences in the quality of ELA writing tasks types (text-based, non text-based, and creative writing), with text-based tasks ranking the highest quality for cognitively demanding work. Findings also showed that textual grist and opportunities for elaboration in addition to cognitive demand are essential factors when determining the overall rigor of text-based writing tasks (i.e., analyzing text-based ELA writing tasks for cognitive demand alone may inflate the rigor of the task). Further findings on writing task quality describe the level of disciplinary authenticity and intellectual authority contained in ELA textbook writing tasks and why these features are important in determining the quality of ELA writing tasks. The findings from this study suggest the importance of using a disciplinary-specific theory of task quality, including a three-part model of rigor, disciplinary authenticity, and intellectual authority, to assess the quality of ELA writing tasks. Additionally, this study provides suggestions for practitioners including how teachers might revise and supplement ELA textbook writing tasks in order to support student writing.

Although the benefits of group and pair work in the second language (L2) classroom have been extensively studied, most documented research has focused on the use of oral tasks and spoken interaction between learners. Recently however, researchers have begun to investigate the advantages of collaboration on written work. More specifically, with the advancements in computer technology and web-based collaborative platforms like wikis, there has been a growing awareness of the educational possibilities of wikis to enhance L2 writing instruction. This study followed a pretest/posttest repeated measures design to investigate the impact and students' perceptions of wiki-based collaborative writing activities on individual writing performance. The study involved 12 university students in a TOEFL preparation course at a large university in Bogota, Colombia. Students were divided into two groups: the experimental group (n=8) engaged in a series of wiki-based collaborative writing activities and focused practice between pre and posttests, while the control (n=4) received no treatment. Two individual writing samples (pre and posttest) composed by each participant under timed conditions were quantitatively analyzed using the three linguistic developmental measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. While statistically significant differences were not evident for measures of fluency or accuracy, descriptive statistics showed an overall positive impact for collaborative writing on individual learners' written fluency. Analysis of complexity measures revealed mixed results with respect to learning gains. Further analysis of perception data reported by learners in an exit survey disclosed their positive attitude towards perceived linguistic benefits with regard to the wiki-based collaborative writing activities. Both theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study, limitations, and directions for future research are presented.

Professional development in education is often a process focused on teachers' limitations. Teachers are rarely offered choices in professional development, nor are they asked to qualify the attributes of their professional development experiences they find most meaningful. This study situates the National Writing Project as a specific professional development program from which to consider teachers' beliefs and perceptions regarding their professional development experiences. The study begins with a broad view of professional development, then directs attention to the Writing Project as a professional development model. Ten teachers participated in individual and focus group interviews for the study. Interview data were collected and analyzed using a qualitative phenomenological approach to discern the features of the Writing Project that teachers value as a professional development experience. Results from this study include five essential elements of the Writing Project experience as reported by participants. Results show that the Writing Project builds teachers' instructional and pedagogical capacity, sponsors teachers' professional voice, breaks down isolationism, connects teachers to the writer within themselves, and attracts leaders while facilitating leadership in its members. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications researchers and educators may draw from the results.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content of dialogue journals of selected third grade students in order to discover the predominant themes in their writing. A second purpose is to explore how a teacher used the information gained from journals with her students to make curriculum decisions in her classroom. Although many reasons have been given for using journals in school writing programs, few studies have examined the role and impact of dialogue journals in primary grade classrooms. It is hoped that this study will add to the knowlege concerning dialogue journals in primary grades. This study is rooted in the desire to explore and explain what it means for a teacher to enter into a dialogue through journal writing with his or her students. It is hoped that this investigation will not only provide new insights into this relationship but also describe what grade three students and their teacher write about in the process of utilizing a journal. Six grade three students and thier teacher were involved in this study. Student journal entries, the teacher responses to the students' journal entries, and subsequent teacher interviews were all subjected to content analysis. The principal finding of this study was that dialogue journals not only provided a safe and secure environment in which children could express their ideas and knowledge, but it also became an important curriculum tool where specific writing needs and/or instruction based on interest could be met cooperatively. All student wrote on a variety of topics, regardless of their writing ability, and the teacher always responded in a positive manner. This study may provide added awareness of the possibilities of utilizing dialogue journal writing for cooperative curriculum planning. If teachers provide opportunities for students to become partners in curriculum planning, based on their needs, perhaps schools may become more personally fulfilling for both teachers and students.
xii, 120 leaves : chart, plan ; 28 cm.

La tesi parteix d'una perspectiva socialment situada per explorar el desenvolupament i els processos d'escriptura dels estudiants de doctorat des d'un enfocament multimetodológico (diferents dissenys, instruments i procediments d'anàlisi). Des d'aquesta perspectiva, el desenvolupament doctoral es defineix com un procés d'aprenentatge per (arribar a) ser, un investigador autònom en una o diverses comunitats (inter) disciplinàries. L'escriptura és un dels factors més influents en aquest procés d'aprenentatge, ja que és una eina mediadora, un segon estímul dels processos d'investigació i aprenentatge en què participen els estudiants de doctorat. Malgrat el creixent interès en l'educació doctoral, la investigació sobre com els estudiants aprenen al llarg del doctorat és encara escassa, especialment en el nostre context. Així mateix, és necessari dissenyar i aplicar eines innovadores per investigar el tema. Aquesta tesi té com a objectiu explorar el desenvolupament i escriptura dels estudiants de doctorat des d'una perspectiva socialment situada, i descriure, dissenyar i avaluar diferents eines per analitzar aquests temes. Per aconseguir els objectius vam dur a terme tres estudis empírics i una revisió de la literatura. El primer és un estudi de casos múltiple dirigit a explorar les experiències més significatives de quatre estudiants de doctorat i la relació entre aquestes experiències i la percepció dels estudiants sobre la seva posició en la comunitat. A més, l'estudi pretenia explorar la utilitat d'una entrevista multimodal en la que es van utilitzar els instruments Journey Plot i Community Plot. Les anàlisis qualitatives van mostrar un impacte significatiu de les experiències positives i negatives en les trajectòries dels estudiants, tot i que la proporció va variar molt segons els participants. Els resultats mostren que les experiències significatives relacionades amb l'escriptura involucraven a tots els agents socials i que els supervisors van jugar un paper significatiu en la posició dels estudiants en la comunitat, especialment en relació a les experiències negatives. En el segon estudi empíric vam explorar les percepcions sobre l’escriptura acadèmica d'estudiants de doctorat en tres països (Espanya, Finlàndia i el Regne Unit) i com aquestes percepcions es relacionen amb les condicions de recerca i el suport social. Es van analitzar les respostes de 1.463 estudiants de doctorat al qüestionari Doctoral Experience per determinar l'estructura de l'escala d'escriptura acadèmica. A més, vam identificar i comparar els perfils d'escriptura en relació a les condicions de recerca i l'experiència i el suport social. Vam identificar tres perfils, Productive, Reduced productivity i Struggler, diferents entre ells en relació al suport percebut de la comunitat i del supervisor i al nombre de publicacions, però no en relació al país i l'idioma de la tesi. A més, els resultats suggereixen que els estudiants de doctorat encara no tenen oportunitats per escriure amb altres investigadors. El tercer estudi, una revisió de la literatura, va tenir com a objectiu construir un panorama exhaustiu de l'estat de la recerca sobre regulació de l'escriptura en Educació Superior de les últimes dues dècades. Vam analitzar qualitativa i quantitativament les característiques de 51 estudis en relació a la seva perspectiva teòrica, objectius i opcions metodològiques. Els resultats indiquen que algunes característiques metodològiques estan relacionades amb les perspectives teòriques dels estudis, mentre que altres depenen dels seus objectius. Les tres perspectives teòriques difereixen en la seva diversitat entre els diferents objectius. Es van identificar àrees de desenvolupament i desafiaments de la recerca en aquest àmbit. Aquests resultats van guiar el disseny del quart estudi, que va tenir com a objectiu caracteritzar els processos de regulació online dels estudiants de doctorat en un context real i natural, i com aquests processos es modifiquen després de rebre retroalimentació. Dos estudiants de doctorat van escriure un resum extens del seu article d'investigació, van rebre retroalimentació i van revisar els seus textos en condicions naturals. La recollida de dades es va realitzar a través d'un software de gravació de pantalla, keystroke logging, un diari d'escriptura i un qüestionari obert. Les dades van ser analitzades a partir de la unitat d'anàlisi 'Episodi de Regulació'. Els resultats mostren que escriure un resum extens és una tasca difícil per a les dues escriptores. Les estudiants van basar-se en les seves pròpies fonts per escriure el primer esborrany i van posar en marxa processos de regulació més estratègics i flexibles després de la retroalimentació. Els resultats suggereixen que la regulació de l'escriptura és un procés fonamentalment social. En general, aquesta tesi contribueix a augmentar la nostra comprensió sobre el paper de l'escriptura en el desenvolupament doctoral, especialment en relació a la participació dels estudiants de doctorat en les comunitats de recerca. L’aproximació multi-metodològica del conjunt de la tesi mostra diferents formes d'abordar l'estudi de les experiències i l'escriptura dels estudiants de doctorat des d'una perspectiva socialment situada, tant en relació al disseny i els instruments com a l'anàlisi dels dades. La tesi conclou amb la discussió de les contribucions pedagògiques del treball, les seves limitacions i possibles línies futures de recerca.
La tesis parte de una perspectiva socialmente situada para explorar el desarrollo y los procesos de escritura de los estudiantes de doctorado desde un enfoque multimetodológico (diferentes diseños, instrumentos y procedimientos de análisis). Desde esta perspectiva, el desarrollo doctoral se define como un proceso de aprendizaje para (llegar a) ser, un investigador autónomo en una o varias comunidades (inter)disciplinarias. La escritura es uno de los factores más influyentes en este proceso de aprendizaje, ya que es una herramienta mediadora, un segundo estímulo de los procesos de investigación y aprendizaje en los que participan los estudiantes de doctorado. A pesar del creciente interés en la educación doctoral, la investigación acerca de cómo los estudiantes aprenden a lo largo del doctorado es aún escasa, especialmente en nuestro contexto. Asimismo, es necesario diseñar y aplicar herramientas innovadoras para investigar el tema. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo explorar el desarrollo y escritura de los estudiantes de doctorado desde una perspectiva teórica socialmente situada, y describir, diseñar y evaluar diferentes herramientas para su análisis. Para lograr estos objetivos llevamos a cabo tres estudios empíricos y una revisión de la literatura. El primero es un estudio de casos múltiple dirigido a explorar las experiencias más significativas de cuatro estudiantes de doctorado y la relación entre estas experiencias y su percepción sobre la posición que ocupan en sus comunidades de referencia. También indagamos la utilidad de una entrevista multimodal en la que utilizamos los instrumentos Journey Plot y Community Plot. El análisis cualitativo reveló que las experiencias positivas y negativas fueron significativas en las trayectorias de los estudiantes, aunque la proporción varió mucho según los participantes. Los resultados mostraron que las experiencias significativas relacionadas con la escritura involucraron a todos los agentes sociales y que los supervisores jugaron un papel significativo en la posición de los estudiantes en la comunidad, especialmente cuando estaban involucrados en experiencias negativas. El segundo estudio empírico tuvo como objetivo explorar las percepciones de escritura académica de estudiantes de doctorado en tres países (España, Finlandia y el Reino Unido) y cómo estas percepciones se relacionan con las condiciones de investigación y el apoyo social. Las respuestas de 1.463 estudiantes de doctorado al cuestionario Doctoral Experience se analizaron para determinar la estructura de la escala de escritura académica. Además, identificamos y comparamos los perfiles de escritura con respecto a las condiciones de investigación y la experiencia y el apoyo social. Identificamos tres perfiles, Productive, Reduced productivity y Struggler. Estos perfiles presentaron diferencias en relación al apoyo percibido de la comunidad y del supervisor y al número de publicaciones, pero no en relación al país y al idioma de la tesis. Además, los resultados sugieren que los estudiantes de doctorado aún carecen de oportunidades para escribir con otros investigadores. El tercer estudio, una revisión de la literatura, tuvo como objetivo construir un panorama exhaustivo del estado de la investigación sobre regulación de la escritura en Educación Superior de las últimas dos décadas. Las características de 51 estudios se analizaron cualitativa y cuantitativamente en relación a su perspectiva teórica, objetivos y opciones metodológicas. Los resultados indicaron que algunas características metodológicas estaban relacionadas con las perspectivas teóricas de los estudios, mientras que otras dependían de sus objetivos. Las tres perspectivas teóricas difirieron en su diversidad entre los diferentes objetivos. Se identificaron áreas de desarrollo y desafíos de investigación en este ámbito. Estos resultados guiaron el diseño del cuarto estudio, que tuvo como objetivo caracterizar los procesos de regulación on-line de los estudiantes de doctorado en un contexto real y natural, e indagar si estos procesos se modifican después de recibir retroalimentación. Dos estudiantes de doctorado escribieron un resumen extenso de su artículo de investigación, recibieron retroalimentación y revisaron sus textos en condiciones naturales. La recogida de datos se realizó a través de un software de grabación de pantalla, keystroke logging, un diario de escritura y un cuestionario abierto. Los datos fueron analizados a partir de la unidad de análisis 'Episodio de Regulación'. Los resultados mostraron que escribir un resumen extenso fue una tarea difícil para las dos escritoras. Las estudiantes confiaron en sus propias fuentes para escribir el primer borrador y mostraron procesos de regulación más estratégicos y flexibles después de la retroalimentación. Los resultados también sugieren que la regulación de la escritura es un proceso fundamentalmente social. En general, esta tesis contribuye a aumentar nuestra comprensión del papel de la escritura en el desarrollo doctoral, especialmente en relación con la participación de los estudiantes de doctorado en las comunidades de investigación. La aproximación multi-metodológica del conjunto de la tesis muestra diferentes formas de abordar el estudio de las experiencias y la escritura de los estudiantes de doctorado desde una perspectiva socialmente situada, tanto en relación al diseño y los instrumentos como al análisis de los datos. La tesis concluye con la discusión de las contribuciones pedagógicas del trabajo, sus limitaciones y posibles líneas futuras de investigación.
The thesis takes a socially situated perspective to explore doctoral development and doctoral writing from a multimethodological approach (different designs, instruments and analysis procedures). Based on a this theoretical perspective, doctoral development is defined as a process of learning to be(come) an independent researcher within one or many (inter)disciplinary communities. Writing is one of the most influential factors in this learning process, as it is an essential mediating and promoting tool, a second stimuli of the research and learning processes in which doctoral students are involved. Despite the growing interest on doctoral education, little is known about how doctoral students learn along the doctorate, especially in our context. Moreover, there is still the need to design and apply innovative research tools to research the topic. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore doctoral students’ development and writing from a socially situated theoretical perspective, and to map, design and assess different tools to analyse these issues. To achieve the objectives, we conducted three empirical studies and a literature review. The first one is a multiple case study aimed at exploring four doctoral students’ most significant experiences and the relationship between them and students' perceived position in the research community. We also sought to explore the utility of a multimodal interview in which the Journey Plot and Community Plot instruments were used. The qualitative analysis revealed that both positive and negative experiences were significant in students’ trajectories but the proportion varied greatly across participants. Results showed that research writing experiences were significant in relation to all the social agents and that supervisors played a significant role in participants' perceived position in the community, especially when they were involved in negative experiences. The second empirical study aim to explore individual doctoral students’ research writing perceptions across three countries (Spain, Finland and UK) and how these perceptions relate individuals’ research conditions and social support. Responses to Doctoral Experience survey of 1,463 doctoral students were analysed to determine the structure of the research writing scale, research writing profiles were identified and compared regarding research conditions and experience and social support. The Productive, Reduced productivity and Struggler writing profiles were identified. They differed from each other in terms of experienced research community and supervisory support and number of publications, but were similar in terms of country or language of the dissertation. Results showed students still lack opportunities to write with and from other researchers. The third study, a literature review, sought to build a comprehensive picture of the state of writing regulation research in Higher Education in the last two decades. The characteristics of 51 studies were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively in relation to their theoretical perspective, objectives and methodological options. Results indicated that some methodological characteristics were related to theoretical perspectives, while others depended on their objectives. The three theoretical perspectives presented differed in their diversity across different objectives. Some underdeveloped issues and research challenges were identified. This results guided the design of the fourth study, which aimed to characterize doctoral students’ on-line regulation processes in a real and natural setting, and how these processes are modified by feedback. Two doctoral students wrote an extended abstract of their research article, received feedback and revised their texts under natural conditions. Screen-recorder and keystroke logging software, writing logs and an open-ended questionnaire were used to collect data. The analysis was based on the unit of analysis 'Regulation Episode'. Results showed writing an extended abstract was a challenging task for the two writers. Writers relied on their own sources to write the first draft and showed more strategic and flexible regulation processes after feedback. Results also suggest writing regulation is a fundamentally social process. Overall, the thesis contributed to increase our understanding of the role of writing in doctoral development, especially in relation to doctoral students' participation in the research communities. The different methods and the mixed-method approach of the thesis as a whole provide evidence of different ways to approach the study of doctoral students’ experiences and writing from a socially situated perspective, both in relation to the design and instruments and the analysis of the data. Pedagogical contributions of the

This study explored the development of new texts by fluent non-native speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an endangered indigenous contact language of the Pacific Northwest United States. The texts were developed as part of the language and culture program of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon for use in university-sponsored language classes. The collaborative process of developing 12 texts was explored through detailed revision analysis and interviews with the materials developers and other stakeholders. Fluent non-native speakers relied on collaboration, historical documentation, reference materials, grammatical models, and their own intuitions and cultural sensibilities to develop texts that would be both faithful to the speech of previous generations and effective for instruction. The texts studied were stories and cultural information developed through research-based composition, translation from interlinear and narrative English in ethnographic sources, and editing of transcribed oral narrative. The revision analysis identified points of discussion in the lexical development and grammatical standardization of the language. The preferred strategy for developing new vocabulary was use of language-internal resources such as compounding although borrowing and loan translation from other local Native languages were also sometimes considered appropriate. The multifunctionality of the lexicon and evidence of dialectal and idiolectal usage problematicized the description of an “ideal” language for pedagogical purposes. Concerns were also expressed about detailed grammatical modeling due to potential influence on non-native speaker intuitions and the non-utility of such models for revitalization goals. Decisions made in the process of developing texts contributed to the development of a written form of Chinuk Wawa that would honor and perpetuate the oral language while adapting it for the requirements of inscription. The repeated inclusion of discourse markers and the frequent removal of nominal reference brought final versions of texts closer to oral style, while inclusion of background information and the avoidance of shortened pronouns and auxiliaries customized the presentation for a reading audience. The results of this study comprise a sketch of one aspect of the daily work of language revitalization, in which non-native speakers shoulder responsibility for the growth of a language and its transfer to new generations of speakers.

"December 2008".
Thesis (DAppLing)--Macquarie University, Division of Linguistics and Psychology, Dept. of Linguistics, 2009.
Bibliography: p. 299-327.
Introduction -- Literature review -- Study 1 -- Study 2 -- Conclusions.
The aim of this case study was to identify the beliefs of eight pre-service teachers about thesis writing and professional development while and after writing their BA thesis through diary and survey inquiry. This research was conducted in the teaching area of the major in Modern Languages (LEMO) from the Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP). The methodology used to identify trainee beliefs was applied in two periods: during the process to include reflection in action, and after the process obtaining reflection on action as suggested by Schön (1983, p. 26). Thus, the participants wrote their electronic dialogue diaries while taking the two Research Seminars and writing their thesis. In this diaries they expressed their thoughts and feelings, sent them to the teacher and the teacher answered them also via e-mail. Then, when the Research Seminars had finished, they answered the questionnaire called Thesis and Professional Development Questionnaire (TAPDQ), which was especially designed for this research taking insights from Eraut (1995), Fullan(1995), Burns et al (1999), Schmekes (2004) and Viaggio (1992). This questionnaire contains Likert scales and some open questions. The findings of these studies reveal that participants were aware of their lack of expertise in thesis writing and they looked for strategies to overcome this problem. Also, the findings suggest that the participants were benefited from the constructivist methodology employed in the Research Seminars. Most of the participants reported having acquired skills, knowledge, having improved their attitude and having become better students after writing their thesis. This doctoral thesis begins exploring an area that has not been explored on ELT teacher cognition at least as reported in the research reviews done by Borg (2003, 2006) and Reyes & Rodríguez (2007). It aims to contribute to get a better understanding the thesis writing processes in teacher education programmes in public universities in Mexico.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xvii, 359 p

Colleges and universities in the United States are enrolling a growing number of veterans returning home from military service. Many of these veterans struggle in their transition from military to collegiate and civilian life. To augment college resources provided to assist veterans in their transition, this study offered and assessed the effects of a curriculum intervention associated with expressive writing activities over the course of a semester and within a classroom setting consisting of veterans. Designed as practitioner action research within a constructivist epistemology, the study took place at a community college in California within a for-credit, college-level English composition course designed for veterans. The study’s research question was: What are the perceived effects on the well-being of student veterans who write expressively about their military experiences? The study’s findings suggest that student veterans who engage in expressive writing activities within a classroom setting are likely to experience improvement in their self-reported well-being relative to their self-efficacy in terms of college, life in general, social support, their future, and gaining perspective to make meaning of their military experiences as they transition from military to civilian life. Key insights are offered for educators interested in offering expressive writing for veterans on college campuses.

The aim of the present thesis is to make a longitudinal study of changes affecting sentence-initial elements in articles published over time by a sample of researchers in international journals of physics. The linguistic framework adopted for such a study is a systematic-functional one. The general research methodology is established around two main axes, one linguistic, and the other statistical. To conduct a longitudinal survey focusing on thematic changes, it was necessary on the one hand to set up clear and unambiguous linguistic categories to capture these changes and, on the other, to present and interpret the findings in manageable and reliable ways with the assistance of statistics. A pilot study was initially set up to explore possible changes in two articles published within a two year interval by the American Physical Society. The articles were the first and the last of a series of five articles written by the same researcher on the same problem in physics. The method of analysis of the texts used a formulation of Theme that included Subject as an obligatory component, and Contextual Frame - i.e. pre-Subject elements - as an optional one. The analysis, using taxonomies proposed by Davies (1988, 1997) and Gosden (1993, 1996), suggested differences in thematic elements, especially regarding a certain type of complex Subject. On the basis of coding difficulties and the findings of the pilot study, taxonomies were modified to include in particular new Conventional and Instantial classes for Subject and Contextual Frame. Conventional wordings, both in Subject and in Contextual Frame position, are identified as being expressions which are readily available to novice writers of articles, because they are commonly used terms in the fields of research concerned. In contrast Instantial wordings are identified as being expressions which have been especially contrived by the writer to fit a given stretch of discourse. As writers develop and make their own the matter with which they are working; they become increasingly capable of crafting these more complex workings which involve multiple strands of meaning. In the case of this latter class, particular reference is made to post-modification and clause-type elements which allow meanings to be combined in specific ways.

Dissertação (Mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão.
Made available in DSpace on 2012-10-17T08:03:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0Bitstream added on 2016-01-08T22:53:54Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 144034.pdf: 3810760 bytes, checksum: 3515ad082fbb05dfa7846995c6773908 (MD5)

Despite calls for better training of college composition teachers utilizing computer-assisted writing instruction (CAWI), English departments have only recently begun to systematically address the faculty development needs of these teachers. Other fields such as adult education and staff development have begun applying theory and research to faculty development efforts, but CAWI proponents have yet to attain that depth of study and commitment.By investigating methods and characteristics of CAWI faculty development programs, this study found that academic-year workshops were the most common development activity, although teachers preferred personal, collaborative approaches like mentors, consultants, and discussion groups. These patterns were consistent across types of colleges and universities, indicating general context descriptors like institutional size and mission did not significantly influence or limit faculty development practices. This discrepancy between preferred and offered programs indicates faculty needs are not being met, and offers potential reasons for a lack of satisfaction with CAWI faculty development and administration.Faculty respondents identified adequate time and funding as the most important contributors to the success of CAWI faculty development, noting that faculty support-particularly the personalized attention teachers prefer-is time-intensive and requires extensive commitment from those providing the services. These time concerns reflect staffing patterns: CAWI administrative duties were added to the workload of current departmental administrators just over half of the time, and CAWI support duties were assigned to current administrators over onethird of the time. These support duties were assigned to non-tenure-line personnel over one-quarter of the time, a practice that raises questions about authority and credibility needed to administer faculty development programs.Despite a relative lack of concern among faculty, evaluation and reward systems play an important long-term role in CAWI support. Current structures do not adequately recognize and reward CAWI-related scholarship and service, including faculty development work. Applying Boyer and Glassick's expanded concepts of scholarship might prove useful in improving and professionalizing CAWI faculty development efforts, thereby helping secure scholarly identity for CAWI and its support activities.
Department of English

How can writing exploratively and expressively help people critically assess their life? In what way can a writing process, akin to that used by creative writers to generate first drafts, be a form of critical reflection and reflexivity for personal and professional development? The publications and introductory essay presented in this PhD by Publication thesis examines reflective practice writing for professional development and therapeutic writing for personal development. Both forms use expressive and explorative writing in association with facilitated critical discussion. The publications cover a twenty-five year period of practice and practitioner research enquiry, using narrative, poetry, fictional and autoethnographic-type writing methods. Reflective and therapeutic writing are claimed to form an element within the internationally growing related fields of medical humanities and literature and medicine. The nature of the self which professionals and individuals enquire into through their writing is examined in this thesis, drawing upon an eclectic range of psychological, literary, educational, philosophical and anthropological theories. Narrative and metaphor (natural human forms for self-understanding, learning, and communication) are central to reflective and therapeutic writing. A wide range of professionals have been involved in this research into practice (for example medical, healthcare, education, clinical psychology and healthcare), and different client groups (for example palliative care, and primary care anxious and depressed patients). Explorative and expressive writing for personal and professional development, embryonic areas of study twenty-five years ago, now has high impact potential in social, cultural and professional areas. Although gaining in interest, credibility and presence, they need significant further research to achieve their potential status and value.

Students’ perceptions of feedback can impact other writing constructs, such as motivation, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and achievement (Ekholm, Zumbrunn, & Conklin, 2015; Magno & Amarles, 2011; Zumbrunn, Marrs, & Mewborn, 2016; Zumbrunn, 2013). The goal of this study was to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring students’ perceptions of writing feedback. Evidence for validity and reliability were gathered throughout the development of the Student Perceptions of Writing Feedback (PoWF) Scale, a self-report questionnaire that asks students how they perceive feedback they get on their writing from their teachers. Items on the PoWF reflected the extant literature on students’ feedback perceptions. The PoWF was administered to 275 secondary students attending a suburban, mid-Atlantic high school. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) yielded a four-factor structure of students’ feedback perceptions that accounted for 55 percent of the variance. Given the important role feedback may have in improving student writing, it is important to understand students’ perceptions of writing feedback, which is a relatively new construct. This measurement study was a critical first step toward a better understanding of students’ writing feedback perceptions as well as related theoretical implications.

This thesis examines the development of didactic literary authority in women's writing between the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century. This authority developed as a result of changing social pressures, in which women were increasingly associated with the domestic sphere, and had to align their writing practice with this domestic respectability. Women writers used didacticism, with its roots in the moral philosophy of the mid-Eighteenth century, to claim that their writing was primarily interested in promoting the sensibility associated with the domestic sphere. Didacticism allowed writers to make distinctions between themselves and another kind of writing which, they claimed, produced the "wrong" sensibility, usually constructed as the self-indulgent, morally lax emotionalism associated with the sentimental movement. By contrast, what didactic writers claimed to be doing was performing a useful and beneficial task, writing which would produce positive, rational and domestic feelings in the reader. Didactic authority often took the Highlands as its object. Constructed as being less "civilised" than the rest of Britain, the Highlands allowed the writer to claim to be providing a "correction" to the damage done to our "original" sensibility by describing the "simple" and uncorrupted lifestyle of the Highlanders. Writing about the Highlands then appeared to be a source of didactic authority which many women were keen to exploit. But at the same time, this kind of writing was beset with difficulties, particularly in its claim to be emerging either out of the writer's "simple" response to the Highlands or by being a purely descriptive, non-fictional discourse. One influential work examined in this thesis, for example, is Anne Grant's Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders (1811), which, in spite of the authoritative title, achieves little in the way of ethnographic objectivity, and is beset by a series of problems associated with Grant's negative associations with women's writing.

This thesis contains the results of my research between 1994 and 1998 into the uses of fictional autobiography in personal development. The topic arose out of my observation, both of my own experience and the experience of students attending my creative writing courses, that writing fictional autobiography as part of a writing apprenticeship not only enabled the development of writing skills and the finding of a writing 'voice', but often had a therapeutic effect on the writer's relationship with himor herself, and with his or her significant others. I set out to explore this observation through an examination of my creative writing course 'Autobiography and Fiction' (subsequently called 'Autobiography and the Imagination'), which I taught at the University of Sussex Centre for Continuing Education from 1991 to 1996. I issued questionnaires to all 78 students who had taken this course, to generate data on the benefits of engaging in the writing of fictional autobiography. I also conducted interviews on the same topic with 5 of these students. I analysed the resulting data using the theory of the Germani American psychoanalyst Karen Horney, and to a lesser extent that of object relations theorists D.W. Winnicott, Christopher Bollas and Marion Milner. Where appropriate, I also used theory of literary and social narrative. The thesis presents the three main findings of the research, namely, that the writing of fictional autobiography (1) can facilitate a closer contact with the inner life, resulting in a stronger sense of identity and the finding of a 'writing voice'; (2) can help to reveal and work through problems of identity which cause writer's block; and (3) can provide a means of're-writing' self-narratives which have been 'written' in the psyche by family and society. The thesis concludes with some suggestions as to how fictional autobiography might be used in a self-analytic or psychoanalytic context.

This master thesis discusses three different parts of adventure game development. The first part is about the usage of existing development environments; which one we selected and how we selected it. The second part discusses the development of the game using the selected development environment from the first part. The third and last part discusses the benefits from using skilled story writers when developing an adventure game. In this work the story writers were students from the English Department at Blekinge Institute of Technology.

This research investigates the impact that incorporating reading into writing can have on University paragraph level EFL writing of 54 second-year English major students at Naresuan University, Thailand, and what these EFL learners think about being taught by a reading into writing method. Intensive reading tasks are incorporated into a paragraph-writing classroom. The changes in students' written performance in terms of grammatical accuracy, grammatical complexity, and coherence and cohesion are examined. The study compared two groups of learners in which one instruction for one group was taught by an incorporated reading into writing activities (i.e. the "experimental" group), and the other group was taught without these activities (i.e. the "control" group). The research comprises both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The written texts produced by both groups obtained from a pre-test and post-test are analyzed and compared to see whether or not there is any significant difference between these two groups in changes in grammatical accuracy, grammatical complexity, and coherence and cohesion. Questionnaire responses and interview data are analyzed and compared to elicit these EFL writers' opinions about being taught by this reading into writing method in comparison to a group taught without this approach. Analysis of the data indicates the positive impact that reading can have on paragraph- writing development, particularly in the area of grammatical complexity. In addition, these EFL learners reported that they found this reading into writing approach helpful in improving their paragraph writing ability. These findings highlight the benefits of paragraph-writing instruction in such a context and may help writing teachers to recognize the importance of reading tasks for EFL writing classrooms in university contexts.

Within postgraduate studies, learning is assessed through the examination of modules making up a taught programme and the writing of a dissertation. However, research, nationally and internationally, has shown that although students are generally able to complete the modules making up a postgraduate programme successfully, often difficulty arises in the writing of the dissertation which begins with the conceptualising and writing of the research proposal. It seems that students are considered poorly equipped for postgraduate study, which puts their academic success and completion of their studies in jeopardy, particularly those for whom English is not a first language. Since 1994 with wider access to higher education, a concern has arisen about National figures for postgraduate throughput rates, which on average, are quite low. This current research originated with concern about the unpreparedness of some postgraduate students in a specific master‟s programme in a Faculty of Education at a South African university and about offering them the foundations for the development of their academic research writing, an aspect so vital to achieve success at this level. It seems that programmes which incorporate academic writing are put into place in some honours programmes (see Henning, Gravett & van Rensburg, 2005; Thomson, 2008 for South African programmes) but once the student progresses to master‟s or doctoral level, this does not seem to be the case. The main aim of this study was to obtain insight and understanding of the demands of academic writing at postgraduate level and to develop an effective intervention to assist in the development of proficient academic research writing. Thus, the development of an academic research writing intervention deemed most appropriate for postgraduates in education was designed and developed to assist students during the first stages of their research, that of conceptualising, writing and successfully defending the research proposal. The premise is that during this first year of study, acquiring and developing academic literacies, in order to become competent academic writers would provide the scaffolding1 for the move into the second phase of the research process, that of academic research writing. Design Research was considered most appropriate for this research as it is interventionist, iterative, process-focused, utility-oriented and theory-driven (Van den Akker, Gravemeijer, McKinney & Nieveen, 2006, p.5) and in addition, requires the involvement of practitioners (Plomp, 2013, p. 20). The sample for this study was drawn from a specific master‟s programme in education and consisted of students, the supervision team and the academic research writing practitioner. A mixed methods approach was used where data comprised quantitative data (questionnaire, evaluations and assessments) and qualitative data (personal writing, evaluative writing, interviews and assessments). Findings emerging from the context of this particular master‟s programme point to a set of design principles that inform the development of a model for academic research writing which appears promising for supporting the postgraduate student effectively. It is hoped that the findings emerging from the research will fill a gap in the literature and add to the body of knowledge on postgraduate academic research writing.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014.
lk2014
Science, Mathematics and Technology Education
PhD
Unrestricted

Learning of threshold concepts in engineering science courses such as statics has traditionally been a difficult and critical juncture for engineering students. Research and other systematic efforts to improve the teaching of statics in recent years range widely, from development of courseware and assessment tools to experiential and other "hands-on" learning techniques. This dissertation reports the findings from a multi-year, dual-institution study investigating possible links between short writing assignments and conceptual knowledge development in statics courses. The theoretical framework of the study draws on elements from cognitive learning theory: expertise, procedural and conceptual knowledge development, and conceptual change. The way that students approach learning in statics with regard to procedural and conceptual knowledge is explored qualitatively, and the relationship between the writing assignments and conceptual knowledge development is examined using a mixed-methods approach. The results show that students approach learning in statics with varying emphasis placed on procedural and conceptual knowledge development and that a student's learning approach influences their perception of the written problems and the ways that they utilize them in learning. Thus, they provide evidence that the learning approach of students may be an important factor in the success of interventions designed to improve conceptual knowledge in statics. Increases in conceptual knowledge as a result of completing the written problems are also empirically supported though limited by problems with data collection. Areas for future work in light of these findings are identified.
Ph. D.

This research examines factors that either promote or hinder workplace writing among Chemical Engineering students during their study in two Technical Report writing courses. It examines the extent to which a workplace writing environment, which instructors believe they create, is actually enacted in the classroom, and also explores the differences in intended and actual learning outcomes between instructors and students.
A number of qualitative research methods were used to gather data for sixteen student case studies. These methods include taped and transcribed interviews with students and the two course instructors, an analysis of all student reports and course documentation, classroom observations, taped student-professor conferences, and taped responses from both instructors as they evaluated each student report.
Research findings suggest that students learned the required technical report format since everyone passed the course. Findings further suggest, however, that explicit efforts to enact a professional chemical engineering writing environment within this university context were generally unsuccessful. Writing tasks did not reflect an authentic workplace writing situation where writers believed their composing purpose was to communicate with others within their community of Chemical Engineering. Even though attempts were made by instructors to create such an environment, the writing task actually became a school-based exercise where students learned to provide the right textual format in order to meet with both teacher expectations and writing success.
The study concludes that educators must be aware of their real teaching and learning agendas and that these objectives must be conveyed adequately to students. Findings also reinforce the difficulty of enacting authentic workplace writing contexts within academic environments, and ways to achieve this goal are discussed. This research also contributes to evolving theoretical discussions about writing and the teaching of writing.

Background. Developmental dyslexia is characterised as a specific learning difficulty with written language: namely, reading and spelling. To date, little research has been conducted to examine the role of spelling when writing and, in particular, in the writing of young children with dyslexia. This is surprising when considering that spelling is an active process used when transcribing written text. Thus, this thesis aimed to investigate the impact of spelling ability in four areas: the quality of the written compositions produced, spelling error analyses, vocabulary choice when writing, and handwriting execution. Method. Thirty-one children with dyslexia (15 boys, 16 girls; 9 years) were compared to two typically developing groups: the first matched by age and the second by spelling-ability. Participants completed tasks that assessed cognitive ability, spelling, reading, working memory, narrative writing, vocabulary level, motor skill, and handwriting performance. A digital writing tablet was used to record and identify the temporal characteristics of handwriting. Results. Children with dyslexia scored significantly below their peers for written text quality, wrote less overall, and demonstrated a higher number of phonetically and orthographically inaccurate spelling errors. Limited vocabulary choices and a more disfluent handwriting profile were characteristics of the writing by children with dyslexia. These children with dyslexia did not have motor difficulties and demonstrated that handwriting execution speed was in fact similar to their peers. Rather, children with dyslexia paused more frequently before misspellings and within-words, a similar pattern to the younger spelling-ability matches. Spelling ability was found to predict a large proportion of variance in handwriting speed, written vocabulary choice, and the quality of the written text produced by children with dyslexia. Conclusions. A new model of the interacting writing processes was proposed, emphasising the importance of acquiring strong foundations in proficient spelling for writing to progress. The proposed model relates to atypical and typical development. The findings are related to theories of dyslexia and avenues for future research are discussed in relation to expanding the new writing model.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing have created a challenge for teachers at an urban elementary school as they struggled to provide effective writing instruction to support the rigorous expectations of the standards. The purpose of this study was to explore elementary teachers' lived experiences of instruction and better understand instructional writing procedures and strategies. The conceptual framework of this study was based on Dennick's work for incorporating educational theory into teaching practices, which combined elements of constructivist, experiential, and humanist learning theories. Research questions investigated how teachers perceived the impact of the CCSS writing standards on their practice and what kinds of support they needed in order to effectively support writing instruction. A phenomenological design was selected to capture the lived experiences of participants directly associated with CCSS writing instruction. The study included 6 individual teacher interviews and a focus group session of 6 teachers who met the criteria for experience in Grades 3-5 at the elementary school. Data were coded and then analyzed to determine common themes that surfaced from the lived experiences of teachers including the need for training in writing instruction, the impact of common core standards on the increased rigor of current writing instruction, a lack of PD at the local school, and instructor challenges with differentiated writing instruction. A job-embedded professional development model was designed to support teachers with effective writing instruction and improve teacher practice at the local school, the district, and beyond. When fully implemented, this professional development may provide elementary teachers with research-based writing strategies that will support the rigor of CCSS standards and college and career readiness.

This present study investigates the development of second language (L2) Chinese learners’ writing by 1) subjective ratings of essay quality, 2) a battery of objective measures representing the general syntactic complexity as well as specific syntactic features, and 3) the sources of verb phrase complexity used by learners of different institutional levels. This study first compares the subjective ratings of the essays written by learners across four institutional levels and then uses Cumulative Linked Model to examine the contribution of the objective measures of linguistic features to the essay ratings. This study further identifies a number of sources used by learners to construct complex verb phrases, which is an important contributor of the essay rating, and compares the amount of usages by learners at different institutional levels. The purpose of the study is to better understand L2 Chinese learners’ syntactic development in writing from multi-dimensional perspectives, and to identify the most crucial elements that determine the quality of writing. This study recruits 105 L2 Chinese college learners to write a narrative essay and an argumentative essay according to the prompts. Each of the writing sample is rated by two independent raters according to the holistic ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, as well as the analytic rubric which was adapted from the ESL Composition Profile for this study. The derivation of syntactic complexity measures was based on the rank scales of lexicogrammar in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), involving 12 features at the levels of clause complex, clause, and verb phrase, some of which represent constructions unique to Chinese. A series of statistical tests, including Kruskal-Wallis tests, Dunn’ tests, Spearman’ correlation tests, and CLM are performed to answer that research questions. The findings show that 1) learners’ overall writing quality measured by holistic and analytic ratings do not show significant differences across the first several academic years; 2) higher-level learners are more heterogeneous in writing ability than lower-level learners; 3) phrasal complexity contributes more to the essay quality than clausal complexity; 4) syntactic complexity features that learners develop fastest hardly overlap with those that contribute most to the essay rating; 5) complex verbal phrases come from 10 different sources and the composition of complex verbal phrases remain stable across the groups; and 6) essay types makes significant differences in terms of holistic and analytic ratings, use of syntactic complexity features, as well as their contribution to the essay ratings. From the pedagogical view, this study points out that instruction should focus more on complexity at the phrasal level, especially nominalization and complex verb phrases, that play a more important role to determine the writing quality. Some of the current focus in instruction may not necessarily lead to better quality or higher proficiency in Chinese writing.