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Chapter Title Copyright Year Learning to Write 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Family Name Particle Suffix Given Name Division Address Email Magno Carlo Counseling and Educational Psychology Department DeLa Salle University Manila, Philippines

Copyright Holder Corresponding Author

Organization

carlo.magno@dlsu.edu.ph

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Learning to Write
CARLO MAGNO Counseling and Educational Psychology Department, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines nalization stage. The effective use of such strategies contributes to a coherent composition. Individuals development of syntactical formation is explained by Chomskys generative grammar theory. The theory posits that individuals have a natural ability in generating and understanding unlimited combinations of words and sentences. This theory explains that individuals can create sentences and paragraphs in vast amounts given the different rules of ones language. These rules may involve word order and morphological markings (Tomasello 2008). The ability to write is explained as a cognitive process where individuals use and operate on different processes to produce coherent compositions. When content knowledge is added in the writing task, the individual uses simultaneous operations to integrate content into the process of writing, which requires declarative and procedural knowledge. The writing task generally involves generating the idea, organizing the ideas, structuring and organizing sentences, forming paragraphs with coherent meaning, and organizing the entire composition. The idea-generation phase is activated through interaction with ones readings, conversation and brainstorming with others, and other factors that stimulates the individual to think of content knowledge to write about. These ideas are then organized by representing the ideas into sentence and paragraph structures that basically forms a discourse. The composition is further organized through feedback and assessment by oneself or with the assistance from others. The composition is shaped by creating an introduction, the body of the text, and conclusion. The writing stage and the cognition involved in writing is explained in the composition process framework by Bartlett (2007). The framework explains the writer who initially thinks about purpose of writing by considering personal and social inuences. The writer then goes through an interactive process in the preparation to write by gathering information and potential response from the audience. In the actual composition process, the individual attempts to write successively until a written text is produced. This stage can be facilitated through instruction.
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Synonyms
Composition prociency writing; Technical writing; Writing

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Definition
Learning to write is a process where preverbal ideas (thoughts) are transformed into a written form. Such written forms produced vary from words to sentences to higher forms of discourse such as essays, reports, researches, reviews, poems, stories, dialogues, etc. These written forms that are generated, formed, and activated from thoughts are then organized into meaningful information. The organized information is then transformed into a verbal message that comes in a written form. The ability to speak and read is prerequisite in writing. Individuals follow a system of grammatical rules, punctuations, capitalizations, and style when composing written discourse such as in the formulation of sentences and paragraphs. Prociency in the production of written discourse improves as the individual develops and gain experience.

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Theoretical Background
The domain of learning to write is explained vastly in a developmental and cognitive perspective. In a developmental perspective, learning to write contributes in an individuals literacy level. Children start to show evidence of ability to write by age 56 years. At this stage, children have already developed content knowledge and plot structure. At the later elementary and high school levels, individuals begin to provide details and support to their main ideas. By the adult stage, individuals gain the ability to articulate their knowledge of text structure. This articulation involves their awareness of specic strategies in writing in the planning, execution, evaluation, and

Norbert Seel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

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Learning to Write

The process of writing involves complex tasks, allowing the individual to enhance their skills. Writing skills further develops through maturation where individuals become aware and create techniques to facilitate their writing. Learning theories describe expert writers use metacognition and self-regulation strategies when engaging in a writing task that allows them to gain desirable consequences in the outcome of their composition. The social cognitive theory explains that individuals arrive at better writing compositions when they are self-regulated in the process of writing. The theory involves the inuence of the environment and specic behaviors that contributes to the individuals ability to write. When a well-structured environment is created, it facilitates a mood for writing. The autonomy of an individual to engage in writing makes the individual acquire a belief that one is capable of writing. Specic self-regulated strategies that facilitates better writing include ways of remembering important words to use in writing, setting goals for ones composition, evaluating the results of writing, seeking others help by brainstorming, and organizing thoughts (Magno 2009). When writing a composition, expert type of learners usually plan, create drafts, and revise their drafts. Planning involves what the writer wants to write about, the position and theme of the composition, the support that will be provided for the main themes, organization and tone of the paper. The draft is written as the initial formulation of the composition. The writer thinks about what the reader needs to know rst, how the body of the composition will be structured, and how to end the composition. The revision may come in the form of revising ones own work or asking others to provide feedback or revise. In the revision process, the writer goes through the entire manuscript from beginning to end and edit certain parts that need to be improved. The elements revised are usually grammar, content, further elaboration, and organization.

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Important Scientific Research and Open Questions

The research ndings that involve learning to write are focused on determining factors that contribute to writing and specic instruction that facilitates writing. The factors that inuence writing involve two set of variables: Linguistic devices and psycholinguistic factors. Linguistic devices include the use of mechanics, parts of speech, punctuations, number of words, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc. in writing. On the other hand, psycholinguistic devices involve learning strategies, metacognition, self-regulation, self-efcacy, motivation, attitude, etc., which help individuals arrive at a better

composition. Studies on linguistic devices break the composition into its lexical and syntactical parts. Writing prociency is attained depending on the amount of text characteristics (e.g., Number of words, word per sentence, character per word, number of sentences, sentences per paragraph, number of unique words, lexical density, number of paragraphs, readability, strength index, descriptive index, etc.), lexical features (e.g., Conjuncts, exclusives, additives, particularizers, hedges, intensiers, demonstratives, etc.), grammatical features (e.g., Noun, nominalizations, verbs, modals, adjectives, adverb, prepositions, pronouns, articles), and clause feature (e.g. Coordinates, subordinates, innitives, adverb, relatives, passives, etc.). Writing prociency is attained with less error. Such error categories include errors in noun endings, articles, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, unnecessary shift in verb tense, verb form, word choice, preposition errors, pronounantecedent agreement, pronoun shift, subject omitted, capitalization, apostrophe, hyphenation, spelling, fragments, run-on sentences, comma, redundancy, word order, contraction, missing word, and unnecessary word. The psycholinguistic factors also contribute to writing prociency when effectively used. People differ in their use of learning strategies according to some personal as well as environmental characteristics when writing. Among the personal characteristics that inuence individuals writing is the use of learning strategies such as motivation as well as cognitive and metacognitive abilities. Environmental factors include the level of exposure that an individual has, contextual, and cultural variables. The issue that arises in the contribution of linguistic devices and psycholinguistic factors is about the importance of each predictor or which factor contributes to better writing. These factors are studied separately depending on the orientation of the researcher. Linguistics focuses exclusively on the use of linguistic devices to predict written prociency (McNamara et al. 2010). On the other hand, psycholinguistics and learning theorists focus on building models where the outcome is writing prociency. The challenge for future researchers is to assess the strength of contribution accounted for by the linguistic devices and psycholinguistic devices (Magno 2008). Another aspect of studies on learning to write is focused on how it is facilitated through instruction. The line of studies in facilitation to writing ends on proper and better ways of teaching students to write. Such instruction suggests building a relationship between teachers and students, teaching students strategies for effective writing,

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Learning to Write

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providing constructive feedback and assessment to improve student compositions (Thais and Zawacki 2006). Building a relationship between the teacher and student describes the connection that the teacher needs to make with the student as a writer. The connection is made in order for the student to allow the teacher become his/her mentor and guide in the writing process. This aspect is within the classroom management domain. The second aspect is teaching the student to gain awareness and construct ways to achieve better writing. This aspect focuses on teaching students the psycholinguistic factors involved in writing. The assumption here is that students who are aware and control their writing process are able to write better. The last line of research in facilitating writing is through assessment. The assessment process is built within the instruction and assessment results are utilized to make students write better. Examples of assessment techniques are communicating the criteria with the use of rubrics, providing feedback after writing, and allowing students to revise their work based on feedback. The questions stemming from instructions on writing involve the appropriateness of such techniques in different contexts. Constructivist approaches in the facilitation of writing may not work well in other cultures where teachers authority is expected. The effectiveness of instruction in writing also depends on how well teachers carry out the procedure.

Discourse Discourse and the Production of Knowledge Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language Language (Discourse) Comprehension and Understanding Language Acquisition and Development Language Learning and Socialization Learning to Write in a Second Language Linguistic Factors of Learning Literacy and Learning Meaning Development in Child Language: A Constructivist Approach Metacognitive Strategies Mnemotechnics in Second-Language Learning Psycholinguistics and Learning Self-Regulation and Motivation Strategies Vocabulary Learning in a Second Language

References
Bartlett, E. J. (2007). Learning to write: Some cognitive and linguistic components. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Magno, C. (2008). Reading strategy, amount of writing, metacognition, metamemory, and apprehension as predictors of English written prociency. Asian EFL Journal: Professional Teaching Article, 29, 1648. Magno, C. (2009). Self-regulation and approaches to learning in English composition writing. TESOL Journal, 1, 116. McNamara, D. S., Crossley, S. A., & McCarthy, P. M. (2010). Linguistic features of writing quality. Written Communication, 27(1), 5786. Thais, C., & Zawacki, T. M. (2006). Engaged writers and dynamic disciplines: Research on the academic writing life. Portsmounth: Boynton/ Cook. Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Cross-References
Beliefs about Language Learning Complex Skill Acquisition