Writing Research

TR 1. Research in Writing: Past, Present and Future, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman, Anne Haas Dyson, Linda Flower, and Wallace Chafe. This paper reviews the past twenty years of writing research in order to posit a social- cognitive theory of writing and the teaching and learning of writing. The authors provide a constructive rationale for the research mission of the Center for the Study of Writing. (Note: For an updated version of this literature review for a broader audience, see Occasional Paper No. 20.) August, 1987; 61 pages; $4.50.
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TR 1-B. Critical Challenges for Research on Writing and Literacy: 1990-1995, by Anne Haas Dyson and Sarah Warshauer Freedman. Dyson and Freedman discuss critical challenges for research on writing and literacy if educators are to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse populations that make up the United States. They selectively review the research that provides a basis for the mission and strategy of the National Center for the Study of Writing and, more specifically, for the Center's research projects. February, 1991; 40 pages; $4.00.
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TR 1-C summarizes NCSWL research during the past ten years:

TR 4. Historical Overview: Groups in the Writing Classroom, by Anne DiPardo and Sarah Warshauer Freedman. DiPardo and Freedman review research on the use of peer groups in the classroom, focusing on peer response groups in the writing class. They discuss the role of groups in the collaborative process of language learning and suggest directions for future research on collaborative learning, particularly groups in writing classrooms. September, 1987; 17 pages; $3.50.
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TR 38. Theory Building in Rhetoric and Composition: The Role of Empirical Scholarship, by Karen A. Schriver. This paper discusses the assumptions underlying empirical approaches to scholarship in rhetoric and composition. Shriver reviews recent criticisms of empirical scholarship and advocates a pluralism that focuses on how well particular perspectives or methods are used, rather than using some perspectives or methods to argue against others. January, 1990; 15 pages; $3.50.
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TR 39. Document Design from 1980 to 1990: Challenges that Remain, by Karen A. Schriver. Document design is the theory and practice of creating comprehensible, usable, and persuasive texts (oral or written, visual or verbal) for a particular audience in business, industry, government, or education. Schriver discusses the evolution of document design over the past decade, identifies challenges in integrating research with practice, and suggests a research agenda for document design in the 1990s. January, 1990; 31 pages; $4.00.
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TR 50. A Teacher-Research Group in Action, by Sandra R. Schecter and Rafael Ramirez. Based on a two-year study of a university-affiliated teacher-research group, Schecter and Ramirez address three concerns: (a) the kinds of support teachers need to conduct classroom research; (b) the effects of becoming researchers on teachers' views of classroom practice and of themselves as professionals; and (c) the kinds of knowledge teacher research can provide and the ways teachers present this knowledge in written texts. June, 1991; 14 pages; $3.50.
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TR 54. Bilingual Minorities and Language Issues in Writing: Toward Profession-Wide Responses to a New Challenge, by Guadalupe Valdes. In this paper, Valdes presents an outline of issues fundamental to developing effective approaches for teaching writing to American bilingual minority students. She criticizes existing compartmentalization within the composition profession, identifies different types of bilingual individuals, reviews trends in current scholarship in second-language writing, and discusses a number of research directions in which the involvement of mainstream scholars would be most valuable. October, 1991; 38 pages; $4.00.
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TR 68. Crossing the Bridge to Practice: Rethinking the Theories of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman. Freedman argues that Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's theories of social interaction are so general that they are not always useful guides for classroom practice. A comparison of secondary school classrooms in Great Britain and the United States reveals that when teachers apply similar theories to everyday practice, important pedagogical contrasts remain--both in terms of the ways instruction is organized and in terms of what students produce. May, 1994; 16 pages; $3.50.
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TR 73. Children Out of Bounds: The Power of Case Studies in Expanding Visions of Literacy Development, by Anne Haas Dyson. In this paper, Dyson argues for the value of case studies in contributing to a developing understanding of how children learn to write. Drawing on fifteen years of case study research, Dyson reviews the cases of three of her focal students, Rachel, Jake, and Tina, and uses them to illustrate the varied ways each case pushes the boundaries of theoretical understandings. She concludes that case studies provide contextual complexities and a depth of detail unavailable through other research methodologies, but cautions against prescribing simplistic teaching "methods" based solely upon case study findings. June 1995; 34 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 11. Cognition, Context, and Theory-Building, by Linda Flower. In this paper, Flower addresses the debate in composition studies over whether individual cognition or social and cultural context provides the motive force for the writing process. Flower posits the need for a more integrated theoretical vision to explain the interaction between context and cognition. She discusses ways educators might build an interactive vision and how such a vision might improve writing instruction. May, 1989; 27 pages; $4.00.
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OP 17. Toward a Dialectical Theory of Composing, by Stuart Greene. Greene reviews recent social theories of knowledge in composition studies and criticizes the neglect of individual cognition--of how individuals reflect, form judgments, make choices, and construct meaning. He calls for a dialectical cognitive-social epistemic that acknowledges both social and ideological forces as well as cognitive processes in explaining how students learn to write in their chosen disciplines. January, 1990; 19 pages; $3.50.
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OP 20.On Teaching Writing: A Review of the Literature, by Anne Haas Dyson and Sarah Warshauer Freedman. The teaching of writing is a complex act, both because of the complex nature of writing itself and because of the nature of classrooms as educational settings. In this paper, Dyson and Freedman review the kinds of interrelated research knowledge about writing that may help focus teacher observations, deepen insights, and inform the crucial decisions teachers make about how best to support their students' efforts. (Note: For a more complete and technical version of this literature review, see Technical Report No. 1.) July, 1990; 44 pages; $4.00.
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OP 23. Changing Views of Language in Education and the Implications for Literacy Research: An Interactional Sociological Perspective, by Jenny Cook-Gumperz and John J. Gumperz. This paper discusses the ways in which language has entered into studies in education over the past three decades. The authors suggest that an interactional sociolinguistic perspective, where language in the classroom is seen not just as an abstract grammatical and semantic system but as a process of verbal communication that includes culture-bound and contextual knowledge, has a special usefulness for literacy research. December, 1990; 22 pages; $4.00.
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OP 25. Peeking Out from Under the Blinders: Some Factors We Shouldn't Forget in Studying Writing, by John R. Hayes. This essay is written for researchers and educators as a reminder of the broad range of factors that have a crucial impact on how writers write. To combat a narrowing of focus as writing researchers become preoccupied with more specialized research interests, Hayes proposes a checklist of six diverse factors that have been shown to have an important impact on writing performance. February, 1991; 16 pages; $3.50.
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OP 31. Writing Matters, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman and Fred Hechinger. This paper, written in non-technical language for a general audience, outlines and synthesizes the Center's research findings and the implications of these findings for teachers, parents, students, and policy-makers. Freedman and Hechinger begin by discussing new findings related to the early years of schooling, moving from there to a focus on the later years, considering important issues such as the controversies surrounding writing assessment, the professionalization of teaching, and the challenges of educating students who do not speak English as their first language. June, 1992; 10 pages; $3.50.
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OP 36. Moving Writing Research into the 21st Century, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman. Freedman argues that writing research in the 21st century will benefit by being inclusive--of a diverse population of learners, taught by a diverse population of teachers, using approaches that allow for a diversity of ways of learning--with new knowledge gathered from diverse sources and with diverse methods. Using her own research on learning to write in inner-city schools in the U.S. and Great Britain, Freedman shows how specific research on the learning of diverse populations pushes educators to elaborate existing theories. Finally, she explains the influence of such theory-building on her continuing research on inner-city secondary students in the U.S. May, 1994; 14 pages; $3.50.
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