Across the globe, linguistically heterogeneous populations increasingly define school systems at the same time that developing the ability to communicate cross-culturally is becoming essential for... Show moreAcross the globe, linguistically heterogeneous populations increasingly define school systems at the same time that developing the ability to communicate cross-culturally is becoming essential for internationalized economies. While these trends seem complimentary, they often appear in paradoxical opposition as represented in the content and execution of nationwide education policies. Given the differing geopolitical contexts within which school systems function, wide variation exists with regard to how policymakers address the challenges of providing language education, including how they frame goals and design programs to align with those goals. Here we present a cross-continental examination of this variation, which reveals parallel tensions among aims for integrating immigrant populations, closing historic achievement gaps, fostering intercultural understanding, and developing multilingual competencies. To consider implications of such paradoxes and parallels in policy foundations, we compare language education in the US and in the EU, focusing on the Netherlands as an illustrative case study. Show less
With adoption of the Common Core (CCSS) in a majority of U.S. states came developmentof new high-stakes exams. Though researchers have investigated CCSS andrelated policies, less attention has been... Show moreWith adoption of the Common Core (CCSS) in a majority of U.S. states came developmentof new high-stakes exams. Though researchers have investigated CCSS andrelated policies, less attention has been directed toward understanding how standardsare translated into testing. Due to the influence that high-stakes tests exert on classroomteaching, research is needed to investigate what kinds of changes in test contentare associated with CCSS, as well as the potential impact of these changes on studentsand teachers. Accordingly, this case study examines changes made to one high-stakesexam by comparing pre- and post-CCSS literacy tests administered to high schoolstudents in New York. The study responds to the following: (1) How did the adoption ofCCSS alter the design of high school literacy exams in New York? (2) To what extent doexams represent measures of college readiness as opposed to early college equivalence?(3) What are the implications of CCSS exam adaptations for the goal of preparingstudents to be college and career ready? Findings suggest that the rush toimplement more rigorous CCSS exams resulted in an exceedingly long and difficultexam that is more representative of early college equivalence rather than of collegereadiness. Show less
To investigate a diverse sample of adolescent writers’ experiences with disciplinary writing, this study compared 66 adolescents’ perceptions of writing through an analysis of interviews as part... Show moreTo investigate a diverse sample of adolescent writers’ experiences with disciplinary writing, this study compared 66 adolescents’ perceptions of writing through an analysis of interviews as part of a national study. Grounded in a social constructivist framework that stresses the role of agency in the development of writing competence, the study aims to examine factors – including language background and prior writing experiences – that are associated with adolescents’ perceptions of their writing development. The study asked: How do native English speaking and English language learning adolescents’ perceptions of writing development compare? To what extent, if at all, is agency implicated in patterns of variation? Results of the comparative analysis suggest that varying affordances and constraints, and combinations of these, relate to adolescents’ expressed agency toward writing. Affordances include opportunities to select personally relevant subjects and to develop writing through feedback and revision processes; constraints include the use of highly structured writing scaffolds, formulas, and tightly constrained topics. Implications for differentiated scaffolding of writing instruction that might affectively and cognitively engage diverse adolescent learners are discussed. Show less
This multiple case study investigated how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing and teacher evaluation system based in part on CCSS assessments might be influencing writing... Show more This multiple case study investigated how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing and teacher evaluation system based in part on CCSS assessments might be influencing writing instruction in elementary schools. The sample included nine schools: Six achieved above-predicted performance on English Language Arts (ELA) as well as prior ELA assessments (called ‘‘odds-beating’’), and three demographically similar schools that achieved predicted outcomes on the same assessments (called ‘‘typically performing’’). Interview and focus group transcripts (N = 30), classroom observations (N = 24), and documentary data were collected and analyzed. Findings from this study revealed that teachers in the majority of schools were using evidence based practices such as peer collaboration, prewriting/planning/drafting, using rubrics, and writing to learn. They focused on comparison/contrast and writing based on research tasks. Teachers shared a generally positive view of the CCSS for writing. However, typically performing school teachers expressed a more negative view regarding the paucity of emphasis on creative writing in the CCSS. The study offers considerations regarding aligning CCSS instruction to evidence based practice highlighted in the research and providing teachers with guidance on scaffolding writing in an effort to develop engaged, motivated, and independent young writers. Show less
Since adolescent English language learners (ELLs) are facing increasing demands to engage in advanced disciplinary writing and this type of writing is oftentimes one of the most challenging... Show moreSince adolescent English language learners (ELLs) are facing increasing demands to engage in advanced disciplinary writing and this type of writing is oftentimes one of the most challenging academic tasks they encounter, this study investigated their experiences with writing in English language arts, social studies, science, and mathematics classrooms. Rooted in a social-constructivist conception of writing, which foregrounds the relationship between individual agency, engagement, and disciplinary discourse, this study asked: 1) What are adolescent ELLs’ stances toward content-area writing and how do they differ by grade level? 2) To what factors do adolescent ELLs attribute their stances toward writing? 3) How do adolescent ELLs’ stances vary across content areas and by type of writing? A micro-level discourse analysis approach was used to analyze interviews with 26 ELLs in different school contexts with varying emphases on writing in the core disciplines. The analyses revealed generally positive stances toward source-based writing tasks, even when students viewed these as challenging, yet negative stances toward writing in which literary texts provided the source material. This study is timely in light of the increased emphasis on the development of advanced disciplinary writing competencies among adolescent ELLs. Implications for pedagogy are discussed. Show less
This research embedded in the National Study of Writing Instruction examines higher- and lower-achieving adolescents’ stances toward content-areawriting through a qualitative discourse analysis... Show more This research embedded in the National Study of Writing Instruction examines higher- and lower-achieving adolescents’ stances toward content-areawriting through a qualitative discourse analysis of interviews with 40 students in California, Kentucky, New York, and Texas secondary schools. The study asked: (1) How do students’ stances toward writing compare in general and across disciplines? (2) How do stances compare among middle and high school students and among students with different achievement histories? Results suggest that adolescents generally hold positive attitudes toward writing that allows for the expression of subjective stances, which they report ismore commonly assigned inEnglish language arts classrooms. Implications for the adoption of new US standards for disciplinary writing are discussed. Show less
While many adolescents in US school settings do not achieve basic levels of writing proficiency, new standards and assessments hold all students, regardless of academic performance history and... Show moreWhile many adolescents in US school settings do not achieve basic levels of writing proficiency, new standards and assessments hold all students, regardless of academic performance history and language background, to higher standards for disciplinary writing. In response to calls for research that can characterize a range of adolescents’ writing experiences, this study investigated the amount and kinds of writing adolescents with different academic performance histories and language backgrounds produced in math, science, social studies, and English language arts classes in schools with local reputations of excellence. By applying categories of type and length, we analyzed the writing of 66 students from California, Kentucky, New York, and Texas: 26 English learners (L2) and 40 native English speakers (L1), of whom 19 were identified by school norms as lower performing and 21 were identified as higher performing. We found the majority of writing tasks adolescents completed did not require composing more than a paragraph. Exceptions were essays in English language arts and persuasive essays and reports in social studies—almost half of which were source-based tasks. In addition, considerable differences were noted in the range of genres and amount of extended writing produced among L1 writers with histories of higher performance in contrast with L1 writers with histories of lower performance and L2 writers. These findings are discussed in light of Common Core State Standards shifts and the implications they hold for content area teachers who teach adolescents with different achievement histories and language backgrounds. Show less
We present a review of literature drawn from two prominent journals in the fields of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL Quarterly) and English Education (Research in the... Show moreWe present a review of literature drawn from two prominent journals in the fields of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL Quarterly) and English Education (Research in the Teaching of English) that publish writing research regarding secondary and lower-division postsecondary learners. The purpose of the review is to compare how the two journals represent conceptions of writing — conceptions that shape research designs, data analyses, and the interpretations of findings. Results suggest that, while the two journals share common theoretical concerns with the uses of language, they differ with respect to how they represent the goals and functions of extended written composition in educational settings. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research thatmore deliberately integrates knowledge across the respective fields of English Education and TESOL. Such an integrated approach, we argue, can ultimately help teachersmake more informed decisions about how best to differentiate writing instruction in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms. Show less
Composition theorists concerned with students’ academic writing ability have long questioned the application of voice as a standard for writing competence, and second language compositionists ... Show moreComposition theorists concerned with students’ academic writing ability have long questioned the application of voice as a standard for writing competence, and second language compositionists have suggested that English language learners may be disadvantaged by the practice of emphasizing voice in the evaluation of student writing. Despite these criticisms, however, voice continues to frequently appear as a goal in guidelines for teaching writing and on high-stakes writing assessment rubrics in the United States. Given the apparent lack of alignment between theory and practice regarding its use, more empirical research is needed to understand how teachers apply voice as a criterion in the evaluation of student writing. Researchers have used sociocultural and functionalist frameworks to analyze voice-related discursive patterns, yet we do not know how readers evaluate written texts for voice. To address this gap in research the present study asked: 1) What language features do secondary English teachers associate with voice in secondary students’ writing and how do they explain their associations? 2) How do such identified features vary across genres as well as among readers? Nineteen teachers were interviewed using a think-aloud protocol designed to illuminate their perceptions of voice in narrative and expository samples of secondary students’ writing. Results from an inductive analysis of interview transcripts suggest that participating teachers associated voice with appraisal features, such as amplified expressions of affect and judgment, that are characteristic of literary genres. Show less
Genre-based approaches to teaching writing have made important strides in heightening students’ awareness of audience and purpose but have paid less attention to the ways in which expectations... Show moreGenre-based approaches to teaching writing have made important strides in heightening students’ awareness of audience and purpose but have paid less attention to the ways in which expectations for written performance in school context are embedded in expectations for certain kinds of discipline-based thinking. In this paper we present a study that explored how a group of high school students studying history and literature within an interdisciplinary framework experience the thinking demands associated with a particular kind of writing characteristic of both subjects: analytic exposition.We found that the task of articulating interpretive thematic statements is a significant challenge for these students, in some cases because the nature of interpretative understanding remains elusive to them and in others because they struggle with finding the language to express this understanding in a concise form. A separate but related finding has to do with opportunities for interpretive insight that arose from writing in genres other than conventional analytic exposition, for example, narrative, descriptive, and imaginative writing. We conclude our discussion by recommending further investigation of ways in which alternatives to analytic exposition may be used as bridges to mastery of this important academic genre. Show less
Persistent gaps between optimistic state and pessimistic national academic performance assessment results are increasingly leading to calls for unified national standards in the US. Critics argue... Show morePersistent gaps between optimistic state and pessimistic national academic performance assessment results are increasingly leading to calls for unified national standards in the US. Critics argue that these gaps reveal vast differences in how proficiency is conceptualized; however, little is known about how conceptualizations compare among large-scale US assessments. To explore this issue, the present study investigated constructs of writing proficiency implicated in 41 US state and national high school direct writing assessments by analyzing the relationships between prompt-genre demands and assessment scoring criteria. Results of this analysis suggest that national writing assessments differ as a group from state assessments in the extent to which they emphasize genre distinctions and present coherent conceptualizations of writing proficiency. The implications of these assessment variations for college preparedness are discussed. Show less
High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to... Show moreHigh-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of secondary education. In this paper we conduct an exploratory analysis of the genre demands of high-stakes writing assessments from three states – California, Texas, and New York – with the aim of discerning, comparing, and evaluating the role that genre knowledge plays in the construct of writing competence measured by these assessments. Our method of inquiry includes both task analysis of the prompts and genre analysis of high-scoring benchmark papers written in response to these prompts. For the analysis of benchmark papers we employed both structural analysis and quantitative counts of key linguistic features to characterize the genres represented in these assessment tasks. Our results suggest a lack of alignment between the genres of the benchmark papers designated as exemplary and the genre demands of the prompts to which they were written. Exceptions to this pattern were most common on the New York assessments, which contextualize writing tasks in tests of subject–matter knowledge. Findings from our exploratory analysis lead us to argue for greater consistency and clarity of expectations in the design of high-stakes writing exams, and for the design o Show less
