Reading and Writing

TR 6. The Role of Task Representation in Reading-to-Write, by Linda Flower (Reading-to-Write Report 2). In a study of college writers, Flower looks at the ways different writers interpret a "standard" writing task. In analyzing their reading and writing strategies, Flower demonstrates how students construct significantly different representations of a task, leading to differences in their texts and their writing process. June, 1987; 35 pages; $4.00.
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TR 7. A Sisyphean Task: Historical Perspectives on the Relationship Between Writing and Reading Instruction, by Geraldine Joncich Clifford (a joint report with the Center for the Study of Reading). Using perspectives drawn from American educational and social history, Clifford identifies five historical forces and probes their interacting influence on English education: the democratization of schooling, the professionalization of educators, technological change, the functionalist or pragmatic character of American culture, and liberationist ideologies. September, 1987; 47 pages; $4.00.
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TR 8. Writing and Reading in the Classroom, by James Britton (a joint report with the Center for the Study of Reading). Britton explores the classroom as an environment for literacy and literacy learning. He discusses ways in which teachers have developed strategies for encouraging children to learn to write-and-read--activities that have often been dissociated in classrooms but that together create a literacy learning environment. August, 1987; 25 pages; $4.00.
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TR 10. Movement Into Word Reading and Spelling: How Spelling Contributes to Reading, by Linnea C. Ehri (a joint report with the Center for the Study of Reading). Drawing on studies of the role of spelling in the reading process, Ehri discusses ways in which spelling contributes to the development of reading and, conversely, how reading contributes to spelling development. The role of writing in reading and spelling development is also discussed. September, 1987; 15 pages; $3.50.
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TR 13. Writing and Reading: The Transactional Theory, by Louise M. Rosenblatt (a joint report with the Center for the Study of Reading). This report focuses on some epistemologically-based concepts relevant to the comparison of the reading and writing process which Rosenblatt believes merit fuller study and application in teaching and research. January, 1988; 20 pages; $3.50.
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TR 17. Written Rhetorical Syntheses: Processes and Products, by Margaret Kantz. Addressing the ways in which college students synthesize source material when they write research papers, Kantz presents case study analyses of the composing processes and written products of three undergraduates, supplemented by quantitative analyses of a group of seventeen undergraduate research papers. From this analysis, she offers a tentative model of a synthesizing process. January, 1989; 26 pages; $4.00.
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TR 18. Readers as Writers Composing from Sources, by Nancy Nelson Spivey and James R. King. Extending research on writing processes as well as reading processes, this study examines the report-writing of sixth, eighth, and tenth graders, as accomplished and less accomplished readers work with source texts and compose their own new texts. Analyses reveal composing patterns connected not only to grade level but to reading ability as well. February, 1989; 30 pages; $4.00.
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TR 19. Rethinking Remediation: Toward a Social-Cognitive Understanding of Problematic Reading and Writing, by Glynda Hull and Mike Rose. This paper presents a case study of the writing produced by a community college student, considered "at risk" of not succeeding in school, for a basic reading and writing class. The authors reveal what writing strategies, habits, rules, and assumptions characterize the writing skills of this underprepared student and suggest a pedagogy to move such students toward more conventional discourse. May, 1989; 16 pages; $3.50.
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TR 20. Forms of Writing and Rereading From Writing: A Preliminary Report, by Elizabeth Sulzby, June Barnhart, and Joyce Hieshima (a joint report with the Center for the Study of Reading). The authors report on a study of young children's use of five emergent forms of writing-- scribble, drawing, non-phonetic letter strings, phonetic or invented spelling, and conventional orthography. Describing developmental patterns of writing and rereading from writing found among kindergarten children, the authors discuss ways that children build a repertoire of useful linguistic tools using these five forms. July, 1989; 34 pages; $4.00.
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TR 21. Studying Cognition in Context: Introduction to the Study, by Linda Flower (Reading-to-Write Report 1). Reading-to-write is an act of critical literacy central to much of academic discourse. This report introduces the Reading-to-Write project, which examined the cognitive processes of reading-to-write as they were embedded in the social context of a college course. Flower discusses the background to the project and provides an overview of the study design, which included an exploratory study (Technical Report 6) and a teaching study (Technical Reports 22-30). May, 1989; 42 pages; $4.00.
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TR 24. Exploring the Cognition of Reading-to-Write, by Victoria Stein (Reading-to-Write Report 5). This report describes how a comparison of the think-aloud protocols of 36 students showed differences in ways students monitored their comprehension, elaborated, structured the reading, and planned their texts. A study of these patterns of cognition and case studies of selected students revealed both some successful and some problematic strategies students brought to this reading-to-write task. May, 1989; 39 pages; $4.00.
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TR 25. Elaboration: Using What You Know, by Victoria Stein (Reading-to-Write Report 6). This report provides a more in-depth look at one of the cognitive processes used in reading-to-write, namely elaboration. The process of elaboration allows students to use prior knowledge not only for comprehension and critical thinking, but also for structuring and planning their papers. However, this study found that much of this valuable thinking failed to be transferred into students' papers, although it had an important indirect influence. May, 1989; 24 pages; $4.00.
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TR 27. Translating Context into Action, by John Ackerman (Reading-to-Write Report 8). Based on protocols, texts, and interviews, this report describes a set of "initial reading strategies" nearly every freshman used to begin the task--strategies that appear to reflect their training in summarization and recitation of information. From this limited and often unexamined starting point, students then had to construct a solution path which either clung to, modified, or rejected this a-rhetorical initial approach to reading and writing. May, 1989; 31 pages; $4.00.
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TR 30. Expanding the Repertoire: An Anthology of Practical Approaches for the Teaching of Writing, edited by Kathleen McCormick (Reading-to-Write Report 11). This set of classroom approaches, written by teachers collaborating on a course that grew out of the Reading-to- Write project, helps students to explore their assumptions about their own reading and writing processes, become more aware of the cognitive and cultural implications of their choices, and find alternative approaches to the writing task. May, 1989; 77 pages; $5.50.
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TR 40. Reading, Writing, and Knowing: The Role of Disciplinary Knowledge in Comprehension and Composing, by John M. Ackerman. To explore how experienced writers use both knowledge of a specific discipline and knowledge of general rhetorical skills, Ackerman analyses 40 synthesis essays written by graduate students in psychology and business. He finds that reading comprehension and composing processes are interrelated. March, 1990; 42 pages; $4.00.
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TR 45. Effects of Controlled, Primerese Language on the Reading Process, by Paul Ammon, Herbert D. Simons, and Charles Elster. Millions of American children have received beginning reading instruction based on "controlled" texts in which words from a restricted vocabulary are used repeatedly in short sentences. To determine whether such "primerese" language makes learning to read easier or more difficult, the authors rewrote four primerese stories from basal readers to use more "natural" language. They then compared the effects of the original versus the rewritten texts on the reading process and reading comprehension of first graders. December, 1990; 22 pages; $4.00.
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TR 46. Plain Language for Expert or Lay Audiences: Designing Text Using Protocol-Aided Revision, by Karen A. Schriver. This paper addresses both critics and proponents of the "plain language" movement, arguing for a redefinition of plain English and suggesting a method for assessing whether or not a text is indeed clear to its intended readership. Using two case studies, Schriver details the process of protocol-aided revision, which uses reader feedback to help writers to modify texts for expert or lay audiences. She also provides a cognitive model of the process of protocol-aided revision. February, 1991; 38 pages; $4.00.
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TR 47. Transforming Texts: Constructive Processes in Reading and Writing, by Nancy Nelson Spivey. This paper focuses on the complex processes involved when writers compose from sources, processes in which writing influences reading and reading influences writing. Arguing that this "hybrid act of literacy" has been neglected in research, Spivey discusses ways writers organize, select, and connect content as they appropriate source materials and transform them in generating new texts. February, 1991; 24 pages; $4.00.
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TR 55. Writing from Sources: Authority in Text and Task, by Stuart Greene. In this study, fifteen undergraduates in a European history seminar were asked to write either a report or a problem-based essay, integrating prior knowledge with information from six textual sources. Analyses of the student essays as well as think-aloud protocols and reading-writing logs revealed that the groups differed significantly in their interpretations of the two tasks and in their approaches to restructuring textual information; students writing problem-based essays included significantly more content units in their essays than students writing reports. October, 1991; 32 pages; $4.00.
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TR 56. Collaboration and the Construction of Meaning, by Linda Flower and Lorraine Higgins. This study explores the constructive and collaborative process of a group of college freshmen in a writing course. Flower and Higgins discuss the theoretical roots of collaborative planning, look at students' planning as acts of construction and negotiation, and raise questions about the role students' strategic knowledge plays in this social/cognitive process. December, 1991; 74 pages; $5.50.
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TR 59. Constructing a Research Paper: A Study of Students' Goals and Approaches, by Jennie Nelson. This study considers the processes involved in writing an academic research paper. Nelson studied twenty-one college freshmen enrolled in an introductory cognitive psychology class to determine how students understood the teacher's research paper assignments, whether students took extensive notes and produced multiple drafts, and whether these "high-investment" reading and writing processes led to higher-quality papers. February, 1992; 16 pages; $3.50.
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OP 1. Interpretive Acts: Cognition and the Construction of Discourse, by Linda Flower. This paper discusses the cognitive processes which make reading and writing constructive (and intentional) acts. Flower elucidates a cognitive framework for understanding the acts of reading and writing, contrasting it with other familiar frameworks from other disciplines. September, 1987; 18 pages; $3.50.
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OP 4. The Construction of Purpose in Writing and Reading, by Linda Flower. Based on a decade of studies of the cognitive processes student and expert writers reveal while composing text, this paper discusses two interrelated concerns: how writers come by/find/create their sense of purpose, and whether readers are aware of or are affected by writers' purposeful text construction. July, 1988; 21 pages; $4.00.
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OP 5. Writing and Reading Working Together, by Robert J. Tierney, Rebekah Caplan, Linnea Ehri, Mary K. Healy, and Mary Hurdlow (from a joint project with the Center for the Study of Reading). Drawing on their teaching experience and research perspectives, the authors discuss specific classroom practices in which writing and reading work together. They focus on students' social and personal growth, growth in their learning, development of their critical reading, and improvements in their writing and reading skills as a result of these practices. August, 1988; 37 pages; $4.00.
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OP 7. The Problem-Solving Processes of Writers and Readers, by Ann S. Rosebery, Linda Flower, Beth Warren, Betsy Bowen, Bertram C. Bruce, Margaret Kantz, and Ann M. Penrose (from a joint project with the Center for the Study of Reading). The authors focus on writing and reading as forms of problem-solving that are shaped by communicative purpose. They examine the kinds of problems that arise as writers and readers attempt to communicate with one another--as writers and readers try to write to a specific audience, for example, or as readers try to interpret an author's meaning--and the strategies they draw upon to resolve those problems. January, 1989; 30 pages; $4.00.
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OP 8. Writing and Reading in the Community, by Robert Gundlach, Marcia Farr, and Jenny Cook-Gumperz (from a joint project with the Center for the Study of Reading). This paper reviews recent scholarship on writing and reading outside of school--that is, in the community, both at home and in the workplace. Gundlach, Farr, and Cook- Gumperz explore writing and reading as social practices and consider the implications of this social view of literacy outside of school for writing and reading instruction in school. March, 1989; 41 pages; $4.00.
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OP 9. Bridges: From Personal Writing to the Formal Essay, by James Moffett. Moffett discusses the transition from writing personal-experience themes to writing formal essays. As a framework for understanding this transition, he presents a schema that groups different writing types and shows their connections. As illustration, he includes examples of student writing from his anthology series Active Voices. March, 1989; 19 pages; $3.50.
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OP 12. Construing Constructivism: Reading Research in the United States, by Nancy Nelson Spivey. Constructivism portrays the reader as building a mental representation from textual cues by organizing, selecting, and connecting content. This paper reviews research on these aspects of reading and assesses the impact of constructivism on four reading-related issues in the United States: readability of texts, assessment of reading ability, instruction in reading, and conception of literacy. June, 1989; 24 pages; $4.00.
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OP 29. Mining Texts in Reading to Write, by Stuart Greene. In this paper, Greene proposes a set of strategies for connecting reading and writing, discussing ways writers read and select information from source texts when they have a sense of authorship. In order to make clear how authorship affects reading, Greene explores three key "excavation" strategies students employ for what he terms "mining" a text--reconstructing context, inferring or imposing structure, and seeing choices in language. October, 1991; 18 pages; $3.50.
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