Research in English: Revising with Word Processors

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review: Subjects were eighth graders. Question: Revising as you go or postponing until finished the draft. Results inconclusive.

Title: “The Effects of Revising with a Word Processor on Written Composition.” E Joram, et al. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1992), 167-193.

Assumptions: “Skillful revision is one of the hallmarks of expert writing. Expert writers engage in significantly more revision that novices…and the changes they make are associated with higher ratings of text quality…. However, revision is a difficult skill for students to acquire and it constitutes one of the stumbling blocks of writing instruction. Because of the importance of revision, interventions and technologies that increase the amount of revision and improve its quality are of great interest to writing instructors.”

Quote: “While the claim that word processors improve the quality of composition because they facilitate revision is intuitively appealing, there is little research that tests this claim….”

Quote: “…it is possible that word processors increase the frequency of only surface revision (that is, revision involving surface features of texts such as spelling) which could distract writers from the constructive processes of composing and make their writing more novice-like.”

Quote: “Simply because writers use a word processing system for a long time does not ensure that they will become skilled at text-editing.”

Comment: So the question remains: how to use word processing in teaching revision. We still do not know how to teach revision. Word processing alone won’t do it.

As for whether to revise as you go along vs. postponing until after the draft, my personal preference is to postpone until after the draft because frequent revising while writing the draft will distract from completing it, even to the point of giving up. Rays.

Research in English: Validity of Holistically Scored Writing Samples

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review: Validity of Holistically scored writing samples depends on purpose. For placement, validity is acceptable. For purposes like preventing students from graduating, cannot be defended.

Title: “Locally Developed Writing Tests and the Validity of Holistic Scoring.” T McKendry. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1992), 149-161.

Quote: “…none of the statistical validity studies, local or large-scale, shows a correlation that is more than moderate….”

Quote: “For purposes like placement, holistically scored writing samples may be accepted as the most practical, least invalid choices. Where possible other measurements, such as previous grades or a second writing sample, can be combined with the holistically scored essay to make placement more accurate.”

Quote: “For tests with more important consequences, such as barrier tests that prevent students from graduating, however, holistically scored writing samples cannot easily be defended on statistical or theoretical grounds.”

Comment: Even for placement, local holistically scored essays should be combined with previous English course grades and other criteria, like objective tests of writing as with the SAT. RayS.

Research in English: Rewriting Literary History

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review: Suggests that in addition to the usual approach to writing literary history, the record of readers’ responses to literature, from generation to generation, be included.

Title: “Readers Responding—And Then?” Gunner Hanson. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1992), 135-148.

Why should readers’ responses be included in literary history?

Quote: “And this production of meanings takes place at two different points—at the writing of the texts, and at the reading of the texts. The latter points, the reading of literature, is in reality a series of points, since new meanings and values are produced by new generations and groups of readers for as long as the texts survive and are used by readers.”

How is literary history traditionally written?

Quote: “As we all know, traditional literary history—research as well as the writing of handbooks—has concentrated almost completely on the writing of literature: on the authors, their lives and problems, their education and reading, influences on and from them, the schools and movements to which they belong, and so on. When properly done, this is sound and solid history, derived from documents and other reliable data. There is no need to question that kind of history—it has been and will always be of vital interest as the grounding of literature. But where is the other side—the reader’s side?”

What questions might be answered in a reader’s history of literature?

Quote: “What do we know—or what could we know—about the distribution of, say, the novels of Upton Sinclair or Jack London? Who were the people who bought, borrowed, and read their books? And what significance and value did they find in the books? How were their ways of thinking and their views of life influenced by their reading of the books?”

How do different groups of people respond differently to literature?

Quote: “If a cross section is made through a population at a particular time, we shall in most cases find different groups, different communities, giving more or less different meanings to the texts.”

Of course literary critics, informed readers of literature, provide most people’s interpretations of literature. How do ordinary readers of literature respond sometimes to the critics’ view of literature? “…it would put the students in situations where they either have to protest or argue against the analysis, or have to accept the analyst’s statements—saying for instance: OK, this was said or written by an expert; I cannot see what he saw in the text, but that’s because I am a bit stupid and a bad reader of poetry.”

Comment: An interesting new dimension to the history of literature. Of course there would be problems in collecting and selecting the responses of individuals and groups. Interesting. RayS.

Research in English: Model for a Good Research Study

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

Title: “From the Editor.” S Stotsky (Editor). Research in the Teaching of English (May 1992), 133-134.

Quote: “Thus, if a manuscript reports a well-executed piece of research with interesting or useful information for educators or researchers, the reviewers and I (the editor) will help the authors make sure that an adequate theoretical rationale frames the research questions, that these questions emerge clearly form the review of relevant literature, that the limitations of the study are explained to the reader, that educational implications are appropriately qualified, and that whatever the authors choose to say is readable by a general audience of researchers and educators. Reports of educational research should be, and can be, reader friendly to educators as well as to researchers for the optimal communication of the authors’ ideas.”

Comment: In a way, this editor’s listing of criteria for published research in English can be used as an assessment in determining the quality of a published research study, and I will use it as such.

Theoretical Rationale: 20%

Review of Relevant Literature: 20%

Questions: 20%

Limitations of Study: 10%

Implications for Classroom Qualified: 10%

Readable: 20%

RayS.

Research in English: Peer Response Groups in Writing Instruction

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review: The most productive result of this study was the suggestions for future research.

Title: “Outside-In and Inside-Out: Peer Response Groups in Two Ninth-Grade Classes.” SW Freedman. Research in the Teaching of English (February 1992), 71-107.

Quote: “Results suggest that future research on response groups should carefully describe the groups under study, specifying the…activities and interactions…. Future researchers also should look systematically for the conditions that stimulate the most productive kind of peer talk. Similarly, teachers should observe response groups in the classrooms and carefully evaluate students’ interactions in the groups against the overall goals for the group….”

Comment: First describe the groups’ activities and interactions. Second, identify “productive talk” about writing and the conditions that encourage it. Third, evaluate students’ interactions. Not impossible, I guess, but need to provide the logistics. After all, there will probably be 5 groups of 5 in the classroom and there’s only one teacher. RayS.

Research in English: The Changing Nature of Research in English

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review: “The study examined the history of research on the teaching and learning of English.”

Title: “Promising Research: An Historical Analysis of Award-Winning Inquiry, 1970-1989.” Research in the Teaching of English (February 1992), 41-70.

Summary: Analyzed the work of recipients of the NCTE’s Promising Researcher Awards, year by year.

Quote: “Results of the analysis of studies revealed a strong but shifting influence of approaches borrowed from other disciplines, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive psychology, anthropology, and literary criticism. Findings suggest that the development has been characterized not by ‘pendulum shifts’ from one extreme to another but by the gradual discovery of a new area of interest, exploration and broader analysis of the area through a variety of approaches, followed by a move to a new focus of investigation….”

Comment: Somehow, I feel a need to have someone summarize promising ideas in research—ideas that might have practical value to the classroom teacher. In short, I think a new journal should be developed called Research in English from the Teacher’s Point of View. The ideas might not need to be “proved” by research, but be labeled “promising research findings.” In other words, the teacher needs educators to interpret the implications of research findings from the classroom point of view without the specialized language of research and in plain English.

This particular study seems to have the most value to would-be researchers and very little value to the classroom teacher except for general understanding of a trend in research. RayS.

Research in English: Males and Females as Writers

Purpose of this blog: Reviews of interesting research in English education journals. When possible, I suggest how I might apply the findings to my own classroom.

10-second review;: “Overall, the results of this study warrant the view that the writing of men and women is far more similar…than different.”

Title: “Gender-Typical Style in Written Language.” DL Rubin and K Greene. Research in the Teaching of English (February 1992), 7-40.

Quote: “Women used far more exclamation points than did men.”

Quote: “Women were more likely than men to acknowledge the legitimacy of opposing points of view.”

Comment: The authors begin with the following quote: “Everyone ‘knows’ that girls and women write differently from—i.e., better than—boys and men; that is part of the common wisdom of the classroom.” This research, however, finds that males and females are more alike than different in writing.


I never regarded my student writers as different in gender. I did notice that they were significantly different as individuals regardless of gender. RayS.