No. 2014/2

SIG Writing Newsletter

Summer 2014

Event: Conference on

Writing Research and

Research School 2014

SIG Writing’s biennial conference isjust around the corner. It will take placefrom August 27 to 29 in Amsterdam(The Netherlands). On August 25 and26, there will be the Research School inUtrecht (The Netherlands).

Check out the website for the pro-gram and the various social events, thebook of abstracts, and all kinds of infor-mation: http://cowr.org.

A survival guide has been published,containing information about the venue,

how to get there, and the public trans-port system: https://cowr2014.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/handout_generalinfo.pdf.

If you haven’t booked your accommo-dation yet, please do so as soon as possi-ble, as Amsterdam is a very popular des-tination for summer holidays.

SIG Writing is celebrating its 25thbirthday and this occasion calls for a trib-ute: the COWR song contest! An anthem,a ballad, or something more hardcore?The best song will be performed at theCOWR dinner party, and the winner willreceive a prize (and eternal fame!). Weare looking forward to receiving your con-

tributions at cowr2014@gmail.com.We will also see the winners of the

Studies in Writing competion: The photoshowing the most volumes in a shelf ofyour home library or your university li-brary and the application for having thecomplete series at your university library.

The conference is also presenton Facebook (www.facebook.com/ConferenceOnWritingResearch2014)and Twitter (use the hashtag#cowr2014or follow @cowr2014).

If you have any question, youcan contact the organizers atcowr2014@gmail.com. We look forwardto meeting you all!

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COST: European Literacy

Network

Recently the COST Action IS1401 Eu-ropean Literacy Network (ELN) has beenapproved. It starts with 80 researchersfrom 38 countries.

Literacy crucially depends on soci-etal forces which can promote or hinderhuman development. The e�ciency ofthis promotion is critically constrainedby the availability of accurate knowl-edge. Knowing about literacy is contin-gent upon an interdisciplinary web of ex-pertise that can produce that sort ofknowledge within a reasonable timeline.Relevant networks already exist in Eu-rope, but need to be sustained so thatwe can face the demands of the new dig-ital era e�ectively.

Through this action, reading and writ-ing research communities across Europeand beyond join to integrate their find-ings and align their research agendas sothat they can:• develop an integrated and inclusive ap-

proach to foundational literacy acrossEurope,

• devise a comprehensive framework ofdevelopmental aspects of literacy andeducation in a digital world, and

• further improve literacy technologies.

This will be valuable for promoting cit-izens’ interdependence, participation,and innovation, which are key assets to aunited and diverse Europe.

You find more information on thewebsite: http://www.cost.eu/

domains_actions/isch/Actions/IS1401. See the memorandum of un-derstanding there.

If you are interested in taking part inthis action, please contact Rui Alves atralves@fpce.up.pt and state your inter-est, the working group you would like tojoin, and three keywords describing yourresearch.

Event: 2014 Thomas R.

Watson Conference

Please join us for the 2014 Thomas R.Watson Conference, October 16 to 18, atthe University of Louisville, in Louisville,KY (USA). The conference theme is Re-sponsivity: Defining, Cultivating, Enact-ing.

The 2014 Watson Conference is de-voted to exploring what it means forteachers/scholars of rhetoric and com-position to be responsive to communitiesboth within and beyond the academy.

Specifically, the 2014 Watson Confer-ence will explore what it means to be re-sponsive in a variety of contexts:

• in our scholarship and teaching• in the ways we broaden and/or sustain

our engagement with diverse partner-ships

• in the ways we work to garner the ma-terial conditions that undergird thesee�orts.

In exploring these, this conference willpursue ways to articulate e�ective

rhetorics of responsivity and shape ourfield’s discussions of writing and a writingcitizenry.

Keynote Speakers include JonathanAlexander, John Du�y, Je� Grabill, JuanGuerra, Wendy Hesford, Gesa Kirsch, andPaula Matheiu; Jackie Jones Royster ismoderator.

For more information, check outthe website www.WatsonConference.com or email Mary P. Sheridan(MaryP.Sheridan@louisville.edu).

Project: Counseling

Writing in the Classroom:

A Means for Better

Teaching?

The German Mercator Foundationhas recently established an Institute forthe Educational Promotion of LanguageAbilities and German as a Second Lan-guage (see http://www.mercator-institut-sprachfoerderung.de)at the University of Cologne (Ger-many). The institute has granted a three-year research project to Prof. JoachimGrabowski from the Leibniz Univer-sity Hanover, entitled Besser schreibenlehren durch halbstandardisierte indi-viduelle Schreibberatung: Prüfung einesBeratungsmodells in schulischer Förder-und hochschulischer Ausbildungspraxis(engl. ’Improving teaching writing viaindividual semi-standardized counsel-ing: testing a conseling model in thepractical fields of school and university

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teacher training’). Within an interdis-ciplinary (linguistic, psychological, anddidactic) approach, two main questionsare pursued:

• Will an already developed counselinginstrument for the advancement ofwriting competence in sixth grade turnout to be e�ective?

• Is it possible to sustainably teach therespective counseling competences al-ready during university teacher educa-tion?

The project is based on the aware-ness that it needs individual guidance ofpupils to support writing competence inthe very heterogenuous learning groupsprevalent in today’s classrooms. Howis it possible to o�er systematic andpartially automated writing instructionthat reduces the load for teachers butstill remains individual and considers thedesiderata of writing instruction thathave been empirically proven (e.g., ori-entation towards processes, referenceto formulation, second language sensi-bility)? How to support the students’ in-dependent editing and reviewing skills?

The project runs in collaborationwith Prof. Anne Berkemeier from lan-guage didactics at the HeidelbergUniversity of Education (Heidelberg,Germany); involved junior researchersare Moti Brinkhaus, Marei Kotzerke,and Inga Harren. More informationon the project is available (in Ger-man) at http://www.mercator.schreibkompetenz.com.

Project: PROTEXTS:

Teaching of Texts

Production in Compulsory

Education

At the Department of Education at theUniversity of Aveiro (Portugal), the re-search project PROTEXTS: Teaching oftexts production in Compulsory Educa-tion (PTDC-CPE-CED/101009/2008) un-der the coordination of Luísa ÁlvaresPereira has finished. It was funded by theFoundation for Science and Technology(FCT) and by the Programme COMPETE:FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-009134 sinceMay 2010.

The main objective was to design, im-plement, and evaluate didactic devicesfor the teaching and learning of writing,with and without resorting to Informationand Communication Technologies, apply-ing to di�erent textual genres, in orderto obtain a set of valid proposals which

shall be amply promoted in the educativecontext (teaching of writing skills). Theresearch team consisted of teachers andresearchers from various disciplines. Thegroup will keep working, joining teachers,teacher trainees, and researchers.

The research is mainly focused onWriting Pedagogy and Applied Linguis-tics. The main interests are teachingand learning of text production through-out the curriculum and training teachersfrom di�erent fields—Portuguese, His-tory, Sciences.

The researchers have conceived di-dactic devices based upon some theoriesrelated to text analysis and linguistics.These were tested within teacher trainingworkshops which on are of interest in thecontext of teacher training research.

The researchers’ commitment is tocontribute towards:• a flexible didactic tool (“teaching se-

quence”) focused in the notion of “tex-tual genre,” powerful enough to gener-ate better practices in the teaching ofwriting, which comprises the mediationof the writing process, taking into ac-count the relationship that one is devel-oping with writing (at school and out-side). Therefore, they foresee an epis-temic approach to writing balancedwith identity issues that come up in thiscomplex process;

• the definition of criteria to analyze stu-dents’ written productions from di�er-ent levels, aiming at promoting pro-gression throughout the curriculum;

• the design of teacher training de-vices based upon cooperation be-tween teachers from di�erent schoolgrades, auto-analysis by means of self-confrontation interviews and classesrecording.

They seek to promote teacher profes-sional development without strugglingwith “school tasks,” but, on the contrary,supporting what the teacher is supposedto do at school.

Visit the website to learn more aboutthe didactic materials conceived thus farand have a look at the teacher train-ing material, whose main aim is to pro-mote self training practices, amplifyingthe e�ects of the “traditional” training:http://protextos.web.ua.pt.

For more information, contact LuísaÁlvares Pereira at lpereira@ua.pt.

Book Series: New Editors

The Studies in Writing series(see http://www.brill.com/

publications/studies-writing)published by Brill, has new series edi-tors: Raquel Fidalgo from the Area ofDevelopmental and Educational Psychol-ogy of the University of León (Spain)(rfidr@unileon.es) and Thierry Olivefrom the Research Center on Cogni-tion and Learning of the National Centerfor Scientific Research-CNRS (France)(thierry.olive@univ-poitiers.fr).

We thank Gert Rijlaarsdam, foundingeditor of the series (together with EricEspéret) since 1994, for all the e�ort andwork carried out through these years. Hiswork has helped to establish the Studiesin Writing series as a key reference of thewriting research community around theworld. The 28 volumes edited until noware a very clear reflection of it.

Several volumes, already in progress,will be published in next months. Theyaddress issues like: learning and teach-ing writing in digital environment, writ-ing for professional development, writ-ing and learning disabilities, handwriting,graduate pedagogies and research litera-cies, design principles of teaching e�ec-tive writing, multimodality in writing andhigher education, and indigenous writingand education.

Publication: Books

Writing is challenging for the majorityof learners. For students with languageproblems, di�culties with written expres-sion are considered one of the most com-mon learning challenges. There is muchto learn about the ways in which orallanguage skills impact on the acquisitionof written language in children. Writ-ing Development in Children with Hear-ing Loss, Dyslexia, or Oral Language

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Problems (edited by Barbara Arfé, JuliaDocrell, and Virginia Berninger) focuseson the nature of the writing problems ex-perienced by children with oral languageproblems. Three clinical groups are con-sidered: children with hearing loss, orallanguage di�culties, and dyslexia. Eachcontribution comes from an expert orteam of experts in these three areas andin the field of language and writing. Thevolume provides current understandingsto help guide and support practitionersand researchers alike. It provides timelyinformation across languages and coun-tries, enhancing our understanding of thelinks between oral language and writtenlanguage across languages.

See also http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199827282.do.

Stephanie Dreyfürst and NadjaSennewald edited the book Schreiben.Grundlagentexte zur Theorie, Didaktikund Beratung published by UTB in Ger-man. It’s a guidebook covering the mainaspects of writing: What are the ele-ments of writing processes? How dowriting blocks develop and what canone do about them? What do writingcenters do and what are the conceptsbehind them? This collection o�ers avariety of texts about the theory, peda-gogy and counseling of writing processes.Starting with still important models ofwriting processes (Hayes, Flower, Bere-iter, Scardamalia) and statements aboutcollaborative learning and writing cen-ter work (Bru�ee, North, Clark) centraltexts about writing are translated intoGerman for the first time. Addition-ally German experts discuss conceptslike peer tutoring for writing (Bräuer,Girgensohn).

See also http://www.utb-shop.de/shop/studienratgeber/wissenschaftliches-schreiben-1/schreiben.html.

Publication: PhD Theses

José Ferreira completed his PhD the-sis on The Web 2.0 and Writing in the 3rdCycle of Schooling at the University ofAveiro (Portugal) in July 2014. His workfocuses on how blogs can be e�ective inEnglish language teaching/learning pro-cesses. The project seeks to understandthe recurring pedagogical motivationsand the dynamics underlying students’use of blogs. The main conclusions of thisstudy show that:• depending on pedagogical-didactic in-

tentions, teachers use one of three cat-egories of blogs, namely “CardboardBlog,” “Class Blog,” and “Blog Project;”

• teachers resort to four practice writingskills (dissemination, request, reformu-lation, and sharing);

• the blog can be both a sharing and areading and writing learning environ-ment, as long as there is a clear defini-tion of objectives; and

• it shall be possible to refer to “com-ments” as a textual genre if there isvariety of content and intentionality,adaptation of its usage and a commu-nicative purpose.

Antónia Estrela recently completedher PhD thesis The Acquisition of Pas-sives in European Portuguese at the Uni-versidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). Thethesis was supervised by Amália Mendesand João Costa.

The thesis describes the acquisition ofpassives in European Portuguese, specifi-cally regarding its comprehension. Manystudies reveal that this construction is ac-quired late in di�erent languages, bothwhen production and comprehension areconsidered.

Four pilot studies have been carriedout. The first study tests the comprehen-sion of long and short passive with ac-tional verbs; the second and third ana-lyze the comprehension of passives withactional and non-actional verbs; and the

fourth assesses whether children distin-guish three types of passive and their dif-ferent properties (eventive, resultative,and stative passives).

First, the results show that four-year-old children can understand passives withactional verbs, revealing no di�erencebetween short and long passives. Sec-ondly, passives with non-actional verbsare problematic for children of di�er-ent age groups and even active sen-tences with non-actional verbs are dif-ficult. Thirdly, the analysis of the resultsof the fourth experimental study revealsthat, at five, children do not show sig-nificant di�erences in the judgments ofgrammaticality assigned to various typesof passive, with a performance at thechance level, contrarily to the perfor-mance of six-year-old children. Gram-maticality contrasts are not completelyunderstood by children, but we can al-ready notice a statistically significant de-velopment in the recognition of the con-trast between eventive and stative pas-sives; and resultative and stative pas-sives.

The analysis of an acquisition corpusshows that even before the age of twochildren produce stative passives, and be-fore they are three years old they pro-duce eventive and resultative passives.

You can access the thesis athttp://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/11415.

Thanks to R. Alves, B. Arfé, A. Estrela, R. Fidalgo,J. Grabowski, B. Horner, L. Luciana, G. Rijlaarsdam,and N. Sennewald, who contributed to this editionof the newsletter.Please send your contributions for the next edition(Fall/Winter 2014) by e-mail to the editor CerstinMahlow (cerstin@mahlow.ch). Please include yourcontribution in the mail text, do not send Word doc-uments!Image Coyprights by Cerstin Mahlow.Graphics Copyright by Oxford University Press,EARLI, and SIG Writing.August 18, 2014

European Association forResearch on Learning andInstruction

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