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Temporal Management of the Writing Process: Effects of Genre and

Organizing Constraints in Grades 5, 7, and 9
Lucie Beauvais, Monik Favart, Jean-Michel Passerault and Caroline Beauvais
Written Communication 2014 31: 251
DOI: 10.1177/0741088314536361
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research-article2014

WCXXXX10.1177/0741088314536361Written CommunicationBeauvais et al.

Article

Temporal Management
of the Writing Process:
Effects of Genre and
Organizing Constraints
in Grades 5, 7, and 9

Written Communication
2014, Vol. 31(3) 251279
2014 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0741088314536361
wcx.sagepub.com

Lucie Beauvais1, Monik Favart2,

Jean-Michel Passerault2,
and Caroline Beauvais3

Abstract
We investigated changes across grades in the cognitive demands associated
with the organizing subprocess of writing. A total of 85 fifth (age M = 10.8),
88 seventh (age M = 12.9), and 79 ninth (age M = 14.6) graders composed
either a procedural text or an expository description on a digital tablet,
on the basis of a scrambled ideas paradigm. The demands of organizing
were measured in terms of time management (the time spent pausing and
transcribing during text production). Our results suggest a developmental
change in the on-line management of the organizing subprocess. Findings
indicate that only pupils from ninth grade onward adapt their writing behavior
to match the task demands. Results are discussed in light of Berninger and
Swansons developmental model of writing.

1Laboratoire

dEtude des Mcanismes Cognitifs, Universit Lyon2, Bron cedex, France

de Recherches sur la Cognition et lApprentissage (CeRCA), Universit de Poitiers &
CNRS, Maison des Sciences de lHomme et de la Socit, Poitiers Cedex, France
3Laboratoire Paragraphe, Universit Paris8, Saint-Denis Cedex, France
2Centre

Corresponding Author:
Lucie Beauvais, Laboratoire Etude des Mcanismes Cognitifs EA 3082 - Universit Lyon2,
LabEx Cortex ANR-11-LABX-0042, 5 avenue Pierre Mends France, 69676 Bron cedex,
France.
Email: lucie.beauvais@univ-lyon2.fr

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Written Communication 31(3)

Keywords
Writing acquisition, text structuring, Genre, on-line measures, off-line measures

Becoming an expert in text production is a long process that requires mastery

of several writing processes. At least two types of cognitive processes can be
distinguished: the high-level processes and the low-level processes, each of
them placing cognitive demands on the writers limited working memory
capacity during writing (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Kellogg, 2001; McCutchen,
1996; Olive, Kellogg, & Piolat, 2008). Whether or not working memory
becomes overloaded during writing depends mainly on the degree of writing
expertise that has been acquired and precisely on how the writing processes
are managed. With development and practice, the low-level processes (graphomotor execution, linguistic formulation) gradually become largely automatized, freeing up cognitive resources that can be assigned to higher-level
processes, namely planning and reviewing (Berninger & Swanson, 1994;
McCutchen, 1996, 2000). This automatization allows the high-level processes
to be implemented in parallel with the low-level ones. Among the several writing processes, organizing ideas (a subcomponent of planning, Hayes &
Flower, 1980) is regarded as particularly central in order to produce meaningful content. Most of the time, ideas retrieved in long-term memory need to be
organized before being written (Flower & Hayes, 1981), so the addressee will
be able to process the text as a single, understandable unit (Bamberg, 1984;
Spencer & Fitzgerald, 1993; Todd, Khongput, & Darasawang, 2007).
The present study investigated changes across grades in the cognitive
demands associated with the organizing subprocess of writing. As different
genres make different demands on organizing (Kellogg, 2001), we compared
the effect of two genres, procedural and expository description, on the
changes in the temporal management of organizing in fifth, seventh, and
ninth graders. After describing the place of the organizing subprocess in
models of writing acquisition, we discuss the influence of genre knowledge
on the amount of organizing the writer has to carry out. Finally, we describe
the study we conducted comparing the two above-mentioned genres.
Organizing can be regarded as a late-developing subprocess that is learningdependent (Berninger, Fller, & Whitaker, 1996). According to the French
national curriculum for secondary schools (2008), students must master the
organizing subprocess if they are to attain writing expertise at the end of
compulsory education (Socle commun des connaissances et des comptences, 2006). The organizing subprocess can be operated on different ways
according to the writers expertise. Indeed, models of writing acquisition

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highlight two different strategies, distinguishing between novices and experts

in their ability to manage organizing. The beginning writers use the novice
knowledge-telling strategy attesting of the mastery of the translating process
in fourth, fifth, and sixth graders (i.e., intermediate graders referring to Phase
2 in Berninger & Swansons, 1994, model). This consists of setting down
ideas in the order in which they are retrieved from long-term memory, rather
than in any purposeful way. They thus avoid the strategic organization of
ideas (McCutchen, 1988; Schneuwly, 1988). As a result, texts produced using
this strategy consists of the juxtaposition of sentences, without logical links
between them. Sentences are mainly linked by additive connectives such as
and (for a precise description of the impact of the use of knowledge-telling
strategy on text structuring, see Hayes, 2011).
With development and practice, junior high students (Grades 7, 8, and 9,
referring to phase 3 in Berninger & Swansons, 1994, model) are able to
implement a more sophisticated knowledge-transforming strategy. This
involves an interaction between the content retrieved from long-term memory and the rhetorical constraints of writing. This more expert strategy
requires knowing not only what to say but also how to say it, taking into
account the representation of the audience. Knowledge-transformers are able
to engage in a more mature form of planning. The use of this strategy allows
content to be reorganized in order to achieve both the communicative goals
(Burtis, Bereiter, Scardamalia, & Tetroe, 1983) and the rhetorical goals specific to a particular genre. Access to this complex strategy is regarded as
gradual and related to the writers level of writing acquisition, and is fully
mastered only by the age of 15 or 16 years in the argumentative genre
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). In this case, the resulting texts involve the
use of various cohesive devices to link sentences and paragraphs. However,
writers as young as 13 years can produce coherent products in less sophisticated genres, by implementing prototypical text structures to manage both
content and rhetorical constraints (Bereiter, Burtis, & Scardamalia, 1988).
Knowledge-transforming strategy can be accompanied by the implementation of the conceptual components before the writing time, that is to say
generating and organizing ideas, before embarking on the translating process.
This preplanning activity allows reducing the cognitive demands of the organizing subprocess during the course of writing, thereby facilitating overall
writing management (Berninger & Swanson, 1994).
To go further, the benefits of a preplanning activity on text quality depend
on the writing expertise. This has been at the center of two studies that investigated the development of this preplanning activity: Whitaker, Berninger,
Johnson, and Swanson (1994) in intermediate grades (4, 5 and 6) and
Berninger, Whitaker, Feng, Swanson, and Abbott (1996) in junior high grades

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(7, 8 and 9). In both studies, participants were asked to perform a writing task
whose aim was to compose a letter describing what school is like in the USA
to a foreign pupil. This writing task was divided into three separated tasks,
each one referring to a cognitive process described by Hayes and Flower
(1980). First, children were asked to plan their text during 5 minutes (i.e.,
preplanning).The purpose of these plans was to organize text content before
writing it down, in order to achieve the goals the students had set themselves;
second, they were instructed to compose their text during 5 minutes (i.e.,
translating); finally, 7 minutes were given to the pupils so that they could
revise their text. In order to assess level of skill development across the writing processes, the authors designed a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (least
mature) to 5 (most mature) for each cognitive process.
Correlations between preplanning and translating scores indicated that preplanning efficiently improved the quality of the text organization process from
seventh grade onward. However, the intermediate students preplanning did not
lead them to implement text organization in a particularly expert way. This difference observed between intermediate and junior high grades in planning maturity resulted in differences in text quality: coherent and cohesive texts matched
with clear communicative goals versus poorly elaborated texts (Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1987; Berninger & Swanson, 1994). In addition to observing positive impact of the preplanning strategy on the final product, it could be expected
an impact on the temporal management of composition. However, the on-line
dimension was not taken into account in these experiments.
More recently, technological advances have provided new knowledge
about the development of writing expertise taking into account the temporal
aspect of the writing process. For instance, an interesting method for studying
the acquisition of writing expertise has consisted of investigated pauses during writing. Described as moments of scribal inactivity (Matsuhashi, 1981),
pauses are regarded as visible indicators of processing complexity and its
associated demands (Alamargot, Plane, Lambert, & Chesnet, 2010;
Chanquoy, Foulin, & Fayol, 1990; Foulin, 1995; Schilperoord, 2001). They
occur when the writer is unable to continue writing while performing highlevel processes (Foulin, 1995). Using this methodology, Alamargot et al.
(2010) showed that writing pause duration gradually decreased with the
development of writing expertise. According to the authors, this reduction
reflected acceleration in both the low- and the high-level processes involved
in writing, suggesting a gradual mastery of the management of writing processes. If pauses in production are a fruitful way to investigate the development of writing, to our knowledge, data are lacking concerning the cognitive
management of the organizing subprocess across grades.

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In addition to the acquisition of writing skills, the impact of genre knowledge also has to be considered (Fitzgerald & Teasley, 1986), as it greatly influences the writers implementation of the organizing subprocess (Fayol, 1991).
More precisely, discourse schemata guide the organization of ideas. They can
therefore improve text production, leading to better organized written texts
(McCutchen, 1986; Wright & Rosenberg, 1993). As the writer is freed from the
constraints of organizing, the cognitive demands associated with writing are
reduced (McCutchen, 1988). The most striking and frequently mentioned
example in writing acquisition is that of the narrative genre, with children from
about 10 years onward having some sense of the typical order of ideas in storytelling (Adam, 1984; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982; Fayol, 1985; Mandler &
Johnson, 1977). When producing a narrative text, the implementation of the
knowledge-telling strategy may prove to be entirely adequate and lead to wellstructured products, even in young writers (Favart & Coirier, 2006). This is also
the case for the procedural genre, in which the strict chronology of subgoals
and actions dictates the way in which ideas need to be organized (Adam &
Petitjean, 1989; Dixon, 1987). For instance, this kind of schema has to be
respected when a writer has to produce a recipe or users instructions, which
guide the reader in the achievement of the task (Ganier, 2006).
When there are no such schemata to steer the writer in the right direction,
the content is harder to generate and has to be organized to match the rhetorical aims of the relevant genre. This is true, for instance, when writing an
argumentative text, whose purpose is to convince an addressee. To achieve
this goal, the writer has to implement an expert knowledge-transforming
strategy, taking the addressees potential point of view into consideration
(Kulikowich, Mason, & Brown, 2008). This leads him or her to use counterarguments (Golder & Favart, 2003) and engage in complex negotiation
operations (Golder, 1996; Pouit, 2000), so as to produce relevant and efficient content. As a result, composing an argumentative text places heavy cognitive demands on the writers executive abilities (Ferretti, MacArthur, &
Dowdy, 2000). For these reasons, students only become capable of efficiently
using a knowledge-transforming strategy at around 15 or 16 years (Bereiter
& Scardamalia, 1987), and writing an argumentative text is therefore
extremely difficult to master before this age. This difficulty was highlighted
by Matsuhashi (1981), who investigated the management of composition via
pausing while writing. She showed that pause duration varies according to
genre to produce with longer pausing while composing an argumentative text
than they do while composing a narrative one. Assuming that pause duration
is an indicator of task complexity, results showed that trying to convince an
addressee is more difficult than telling a story.

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Moreover, it should be noted that acquisition of genres is obviously

related to instruction. In the French educational system, as soon as Grade 3,
pupils are familiarized with narrative and procedural genres through several
exercises. For instance, they can be asked to categorize several short texts,
according to their aim (tell a story, explain the different steps to realize a
task) and by detecting the specific characteristics related to their structure.
Moreover, teachers often propose scrambled text exercises that consist in
organizing ideas in order to compose a coherent text. By doing these sorts of
tasks, children develop knowledge of the textual constituents and their possible ordering for each studied genre. It is not until Grade 9 that students are
explicitly taught to produce real argumentative texts. They are encouraged
to defend their opinion using arguments and to propose counterarguments in
order to anticipate counterobjection that an addressee might have. The argumentative genre is considered more difficult to produce due to the absence
of a prototypical schema that pupils can follow to organize their ideas
(Golder & Favart, 2003). For this reason, it is taught much later than the
other text types.
Using scrambled ideas (Coirier, Favart, & Chanquoy, 2002), Favart and
Coirier (2006) investigated genre knowledge in testing the effect of different
genres on text organizing. Third, fifth, seventh, and ninth graders were provided with three sets of 11 ideas (i.e., 11 sentences expressing 11 different
ideas) corresponding to three genres: procedural (a recipe to be followed),
narrative (a story of a main character), and expository description (describing
the characteristics of an animal and then requiring the writer to make an argument to sustain the position that this animal must be protected). For each set,
participants were instructed to reorganize the 11 ideas and write them down
so as to compose a coherent text. Texts were scored to assess the ability to
reorganize the ideas according to an optimum order based on structuring
rules. Writing fluency was also assessed. This measure, estimated by calculating the total number of words written per minute of production, is an indicator of the overall efficiency of the writing processes (McCutchen, 1988): an
increase in the number of words produced by minute expressed an increase in
the writing efficiency. Organizing in the procedural genre was fully mastered
by fifth graders, but the expository descriptive set proved far more difficult to
organize, whatever the grade. Scores were intermediate for narrative organizing. Writing fluency increased steadily across grades. Despite the absence
of any effect of genre on writing fluency, the authors discussed results in light
of the planning strategies implemented by students. They concluded that the
more the text structure constrained composition, the more it facilitated content organization, thus reducing the cognitive demands associated with the
organizing subprocess.

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The Present Study: Hypotheses

The main purpose of the present study was to directly assess the effect of
genre on the cognitive demands of organizing in the acquisition of writing.
No such assessment was undertaken in the study conducted by Favart and
Coirier (2006). To this end, we tested the effect of organizing demands on
efficiency of text structuring (i.e., ordering scores and diversity of connectives) and on the temporal management of the writing process (i.e., preplanning activity, time spent pausing while writing, and time spent transcribing),
comparing Grades 5, 7, and 9 and crossing two experimental factors: genre
and conceptual ordering.
To test conceptual ordering, we used Favart and Coiriers (2006) scrambled ideas paradigm. Alongside the scrambled ideas condition, we introduced
a control condition, where the same 11 ideas were provided in the right order
(i.e., ordered ideas condition), so as to exempt participants from organizing.
It should be borne in mind that the present task was at a considerable remove
from a standard writing task, but only this type of paradigm would allow us
to isolate organizing from the other writing processes.
As organizing is a high-level subprocess that can be operated either during
production pauses or in parallel with the low level processes (transcription),
the cognitive demands of organizing while writing were assessed by measuring the percentage of time spent pausing and transcribing. The greater the
difficulty a writer has organizing a text, the greater the proportion of time he
or she will spend on pausing (see Matsuhashi, 1981, for expert writers and
Alamargot et al., 2010, for a developmental case study).
In regard to grade level, we expected to observe a decrease among Grades
5, 7, and 9 in the percentage of time spent pausing while organizing, reflecting more expert management of the writing processes across grades
(Alamargot et al., 2010; Berninger & Swanson, 1994). Indeed, only seventh
and ninth graders should be able to undertake planning in an efficient and
strategic manner (Bereiter et al., 1988; Berninger et al., 1996; Berninger &
Swanson, 1994). This increasing efficiency should be accompanied by the
production of well-structured texts (greater ordering scores and a wider
diversity of connectives).
To test the effect of genre, we compared procedural versus expository
descriptive structures (this last genre including an argumentative reasoning).
We argued that organizing the expository description would be highly
resource-demanding, requiring the implementation of an organizing strategy
comparable to the knowledge-transforming strategy. Conversely, the procedural genre, based on a strict consecution of subgoals and actions, would be
satisfactorily organized simply by implementing an organizing strategy

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comparable to the knowledge-telling strategy (Favart & Coirier, 2006). It can

thus be expected a greater proportion of time spent on pausing in the expository description than in the procedural text.
Organizing in the procedural genre is mastered as early as the fifth grade
(Favart & Coirier, 2006). We should not observe particular evolution in structuring this genre (i.e., ordering scores and diversity of connectives) among
Grades 5, 7, and 9. In the same way, the proportion of time spent on pausing
would either decrease between Grades 5 and 7 (Berninger et al., 1996;
Berninger & Swanson, 1994; Whitaker et al., 1994), or else remain stable
throughout, from Grades 5 to 9 (Favart & Coirier, 2006). Conversely, in the
expository description, organizing starts to improve only between Grades 7
and 9 (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). Thus, only ninth graders should be able
to perform the knowledge-transforming strategy needed to organize content
appropriately, allowing better ordering scores and a greater diversity in the use
of connectives. A decrease in percentage of time spent pausing would be most
noticeable between Grades 7 and 9 (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
A second goal was to examine whether organizing demands entailed the
implementation of a preplanning strategy. This strategy would result in an
increase in the percentage of time that elapsed before the students put pen to
paper.
We expected to observe an increase in preplanning duration with grade
level, especially from seventh graders onward (Berninger et al., 1996). This
should be particularly noticeable when the task entailed content organization
(i.e., in the scrambled ideas condition), and also when writing the expository
description.
Finally, we wished to find out whether the implementation of such a preplanning strategy does indeed lessen the cognitive cost of writing. In other
words, would spending more time on preplanning reduce the amount of time
spent pausing in the course of composition? We predicted that the more time
students spent preplanning, the less time they would spend pausing. Moreover,
we expected that the more time students spent preplanning, the more they
would use diversified connectives.

Method
Participants
The sample included a total of 252 students drawn from Grades 5, 7, and 9.
We selected participants for whom handwriting would not be a burden. Thus,
in line with previous studies (Berninger et al., 1992; Berninger & Swanson,
1994), participants were drawn from fifth graders onward.

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Table 1. Numbers of Participants, Mean Ages, and Standard Deviations at Each

Grade Level.
Grade level
5
7
9

Number

Age M (years; months)

Range

SD

85 (51 girls, 34 boys)

88 (43 girls, 45 boys)
79 (41 girls, 38 boys)

10; 8
12; 9
14; 6

10; 3 to 11; 4
12; 6 to 13; 4
13; 9 to 15; 4

0.3
0.3
0.4

They attended elementary schools and junior high schools in Angoulme,

Barbezieux, and Chalais (Charente, France), all located in areas of intermediate
socioeconomic status. The classes were chosen at random from a list of public
elementary schools. Only the children with parental consent participated in the
study. For inclusion in the data analysis, children needed to meet the following
criteria: They needed to be French native speakers without any reported history
of learning disabilities or writing and reading difficulties by the teacher.
Children who repeated a year were also excluded from the analyses. The number of participants and their mean ages are shown in Table 1.

Material
The material for the procedural genre and expository description was drawn
from Favart and Coiriers (2006) study. For each genre, 11 preselected ideas
were provided to participants (see Appendix A). They were asked to compose
a coherent text. The characteristics of the paradigm were as follows:
1. Because all the ideas were provided to participants, an equivalent
content was ensured for each text structure, in each genre.
2. The paradigm targeted the organizing subprocess of planning. Text
generation was greatly reduced: The only requirement was to translate cohesion cues (connectives and/or punctuation marks) in order to
express relationships between the ideas.
These characteristics allowed us to formulate precise hypotheses as regards
organizing.
For both genres, the 11 ideas were presented either in the right order (control condition) or in random order (scrambled ideas condition). In each of the
two sets, each idea supplied a specific piece of information about one particular topic: either modeling dough (the recipe to be followed) in the procedural genre or the wildcat in the expository description. Moreover, each
idea was introduced with the same lexical item: You must introduced each

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action in the procedural set, while The wildcat was the repeated topic of the
expository descriptive set. For both genres, the sets of ideas had the same
constraints: (a) an introductory statement, (b) three clusters of three ideas
matching the macrostructural components, and (c) a concluding statement. In
the procedural set, the first cluster presented the ingredients to be included to
recipe, the second set explained the procedure to be followed to realize the
modeling dough, and the third one described the final steps to model and to
bake the chosen shapes. In the expository description, the first cluster contained a physical description of the animal, the second one details about its
habits, and the third cluster arguments supporting the thesis that the wildcats
diet means it is not a pest. We chose the term expository description since
this last set includes both descriptive elements and argumentative reasoning
that consists of defending and supporting a point of view that the wildcat
must be protected. More precisely, referring to Adam and Petitjeans (1989)
work about descriptive texts, an optimal order can logically be set up.
According to these authors, it would not be logical to describe the way of life
of an animal before presenting its physical appearance in a descriptive text.
Moreover, it is also habitual to start description according to specificity of
information: from the most general to the least. According to this principle,
one can expect that writers describe general ideas about the cat before mentioning precise information about it inside the two clusters. The final cluster
had been elaborated to require the writers an argumentative reasoning to sustain the position that the wild cat must be protected. It has been demonstrated
that the optimum order is progressively reached from Grade 5 to university
students (Coirier et al., 2002).
To sum up, in the scrambled ideas condition, an optimum order could be
set up complying with precise rules.
-For the procedural genre, the ideas within each cluster had to be organized according a strict consecution of subgoals and actions.
-For the expository description, the ideas had to be logically organized,
from the less specific to the more specific inside each cluster to convince the reader that the wildcat must be protected.
On the basis of this predefined optimum order, an ordering score was calculated, with a maximum score of 12 points (see Appendix B).

Writing Task
The writing assignment was to compose a well-organized text based on the set
of 11 ideas. Participants performed the task in one of the two organizing

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Beauvais et al.
Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations of the Pause Threshold (in ms)
According to Grade Level.
Grade level
5
7
9

SD

Range

339
247
204

106
84
48

154 to 594
130 to 632
115 to 338

conditions. In the control (ordered) condition, all 11 ideas were provided in the
right order, while in the scrambled condition 9 of the 11 ideas were provided in
random order. For this scrambled condition, (a) all 11 ideas were first randomly
presented at the top of the page, then (b) on the same page, both the introductory and concluding statements were printed in bold in their proper places: the
introductory statement above the 9 scrambled ideas, in order to give participants an idea of the genre they had to write in, and the concluding statement
below these ideas. In both conditions, the writing task was performed on the
same page, underneath the set of ideas. There was no time limit for the task.

Procedure
The experimental procedure was implemented in a single session and involved
two steps: The first step was designed to identify individual handwriting pauses,
so that they could be distinguished from organizing pauses. Participants were
instructed to perform a handwriting task on a sheet of paper laid on top of a digital tablet (Wacom tablet, Eye and Pen software; Chesnet & Alamargot, 2005).
This task consisted of writing out their own first name and surname over and
over again for 2 minutes, at their usual speed and in their usual handwriting.
When they had finished, participants had to press the end button on the tablet
with their pen to terminate the recording. On the basis of this handwriting task,
an individual pause threshold was calculated for each participant, equal to the
mean handwriting pause duration (see Table 2 for details about pause threshold).
Only pauses above this threshold were retained for analysis, these being the only
ones related to organizing (as opposed to handwriting abilities).
The second step, which consisted of the actual writing task, was also carried out individually. Each participant composed one text on the digital tablet
in one of the four writing conditions: 2 organizing conditions (ordered ideas
condition vs. scrambled ideas condition) 2 genres (procedural vs. expository description).
In the ordered ideas condition, participants were instructed to read the 11
ideas printed at the top of the page through carefully and to rewrite these

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ideas, linking them with cohesion cues in order to compose a coherent and
understandable text. Participants could take as much time as they needed and
were simply requested to press the end button on the digital tablet to terminate the recording.
In the scrambled ideas condition, the writing assignment was the same as
in the control condition, except that participants were also asked to rearrange
the nine scrambled ideas to compose their text, without forgetting to rewrite
the introductory and concluding statements.
Once the texts had been composed, two sets of dependent variables were
analyzed:
Text Structuring Efficiency
-In the scrambled ideas condition, an ordering score was calculated on
the basis of the optimum order, with a maximum score of 12 points.
-The diversity of connectives was calculated by measuring the number
of different connectives used. More precisely and referring to Olive,
Favart, Beauvais, and Beauvais (2009), we measured the diversity of
connectives according to the following categories: chronological (e.g.,
then), temporal (e.g., when), goal (e.g., for), causal (e.g., because),
consequence (e.g., therefore), adversative (e.g., but), concessive (e.g.,
however), and restrictive connectives (e.g., although). This qualitative
analysis gives information on the efficiency of students to express relations between ideas, reflecting an efficient conceptual organization.
Temporal Management of the Writing Process
-The percentage of time spent preplanning was calculated by dividing
the preplanning time by the total composition time (including preplanning) 100.
-The percentage of time spent pausing while writing was calculated by
dividing the time spent pausing by the total composition time (excluding preplanning) 100.
-The percentage of time spent transcribing while writing was calculated
by dividing the time spent transcribing by the total composition time
(excluding preplanning) 100.

Results
The main purpose of the present study was to assess the cognitive demands
associated with the organizing subprocess and to test the effect of these
organizing demands on the temporal management of the writing process in

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Grades 5, 7, and 9, comparing two different genres (procedural and expository description).
Accordingly, two sets of analyses were conducted. First, we examined text
structuring efficiency (ordering scores and use of connectives) and the management of the writing process (time spent preplanning, pausing, and transcribing). Statistical analyses were performed with Statistica 7 software. For
all variables, we first performed a normality test and a variance homogeneity
test (Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Brown-Forsythe tests, respectively). Due to
nonnormality of the distributions and unequal variance between groups,
Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were performed to compare the
means of the ordering scores, the diversity of connectives used and the time
spent preplanning. For the remaining dependent variables (time spent pausing and time spent transcribing), we ran an ANOVA, with grade level (5, 7,
9), genre (procedural, expository description), and organizing condition
(ordered ideas, scrambled ideas) as between-participants factors. Scheff
post hoc comparisons were performed at an alpha level of .05.
The second set of analyses was designed to examine the efficiency of a
preplanning process in reducing conceptual constraints during writing. We
therefore probed the relationship between the amount of time spent preplanning and the amount of time spent pausing while organizing, using Pearsons
correlation coefficient. Moreover, in the framework of the capacity theory,
the implementation of a preplanning strategy could free up cognitive
resources that could be dedicated to express the relationship between ideas
via the use of connectives. To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between the amount of time spent preplanning and the diversity of connectives using Pearsons correlation coefficient.

Text Structuring Efficiency

Ordering Scores (Scrambled Ideas Condition). First, the nonparametric analyses
revealed that groups did not differ significantly according to the grade level,
H(2) = 3.94, ns. Moreover, means differed significantly in terms of genre, U
= 313.50, p < .0001, with higher ordering scores in the procedural genre than
in the expository description, at each grade level (see Table 3).
Diversity of Connectives. Nonparametric tests were conducted on the number
of different connectives used in the final text (see Table 4). The diversity of
connectives was affected by grade, H(2) = 24.02, p < .0001. Students in
Grade 5 used as many different connectives as students in Grade 7. But students in Grade 9 produced significantly a wider variety of connectives than
fifth and seventh graders. The diversity of connectives was affected by Genre,

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Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, Minimums, and Maximums of Conceptual

Ordering Scores According to Grade Level and Genre in the Scrambled Condition
(Maximum Score = 12).
Procedural

Grade 5
Grade 7
Grade 9

Expository description

SD

Min

Max

SD

Min

Max

10.5
11
11.6

2.3
2.2
0.8

3
7
10

12
12
12

6.3
5.2
8.1

3.1
2.9
1.6

1
0
6

12
10
12

Table 4. Means, Standard Deviations, Minimums, and Maximums of the Number

of Different Connectives According to Grade Level, Genre, and Organizing
Condition.
Grade 5

Ordered
M
SD
Min
Max
Scrambled
M
SD
Min
Max

Grade 7

Grade 9

ED

ED

2.6
1.2
1
5

1.5
0.6
1
3

3.1
1.2
1
5

1.6
0.5
1
2

4.1
1.5
2
7

2.7
1.3
1
5

1.6
0.6
1
3

2.6
1.2
1
5

2.4
1.0
1
5

4.2
1.3
1
6

ED

2.4
1.5
1
7

2.3
0.7
1
4

Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

U = 3201.50, p < .0001: Connectives were more diversified in the procedural

genre than in the expository description. This result on text structure supports
the idea that the strong chronological order of actions allows children to better manage text generation and to use more specific linguistic markers. This
specificity is observed via the use of temporal connectives (e.g., when),
chronological connectives (e.g., then, after), and goal connectives (e.g.,
in order to).
The Kruskal-Wallis test conducted for each genre also revealed that the
effect of grade level on the diversity of connectives was attested only in procedural genre, and only in the scrambled condition, H(2) = 13.99, p < .001: Ninth

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graders used a higher number of different connectives than did fifth and seventh graders. No difference was observed between Grades 5 and 7. In the
expository description, no difference was found between grades. Finally, diversity of connectives was not affected by organizing condition, U = 6294, ns.

Temporal Management of the Writing Process

The task involved reordering ideas and linking them with cohesion markers.
No time limit was imposed to the students. We performed an analysis
(Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests) that indicated that the mean total
time spent on task significantly decreased from Grade 5 (M = 9.1 min, SD =
3.8) to Grade 7 (M = 6.1 min, SD = 1.8), H(2) = 60.23, p < .0001. No difference in time spent on task was observed between Grades 7 and 9 (M = 6.1
min, SD = 1.8). This time also differed significantly according to the ordering
condition (U = 4327, p < .0001): Students dedicated more time when ideas
needed to be reordered than when ideas were already in the right order
(respectively, M = 8.1 min, SD = 2.9, M = 6.3 min, SD = 2.9). Accordingly, to
control individual differences in text production time, we calculated the percentage of time spent preplanning, pausing, and transcribing on the total time
spent on task as denominator.
Percentage of Time Spent Preplanning. Nonparametric tests were conducted on
the percentage of time spent preplanning (see Figure 1). The percentage of
time spent preplanning was affected by grade, H(2) = 40.07, p < .0001: Ninth
graders spent more time preplanning than students in Grades 5 and 7 (M =
9.1, SD = 10.2; M = 4.1, SD = 8; M = 2.3, SD = 3.7, respectively). No difference was observed between fifth and seventh graders. This pattern was
observed whatever the organizing condition. Moreover, students spent significantly more time preplanning in the scrambled ideas condition (M = 8.2,
SD = 10.7) compared to the ordered condition (M = 2.1, SD = 2.3), U = 5976,
p < .001. However, genre did not affect this dependent measure, U = 7802, ns.
Finally, for each grade, we compared the percentage of time spent preplanning according to the organizing condition. Results revealed that in
Grade 9 only, students spent more time preplanning in the scrambled ideas
condition (M = 15.37, SD = 11.35) compared to the ordering one (M = 3.04,
SD = 2.64; U = 118, p < .05).
Percentage of Time Spent Pausing. As we thought that organizing ideas in the
scrambled condition might affect the temporal management of writing, we
computed Pearsons correlation coefficient between the ordering scores and
the percentage of time spent pausing, for each genre and each grade level. No

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Written Communication 31(3)

Figure 1. Mean percentages (and standard deviations) of time spent preplanning

according to grade level, genre, and organizing condition.
Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

significant correlation was observed. For this reason, subsequent analyses did
not take ordering scores as a covariate and the two organizing conditions
(ordered ideas, scrambled ideas) were compared using an ANOVA.
A Grade Level (5, 7, 9) Genre (procedural, expository description)
Organizing Condition (ordered ideas, scrambled ideas) ANOVA was conducted on the percentage of time spent pausing (see Figure 2).
The effect of grade level was significant, F(2, 240) = 12.21, p < .0001,
p2 = .09: Fifth graders spent a greater proportion of time pausing while writing than seventh (p < .05) and ninth graders (p < .0001; M = 53, SD = 10;
M = 49, SD = 9; M = 46, SD = 9, respectively). However, the percentage of
time spent pausing did not differ between Grades 7 and 9. No effect of genre
was observed, F < 1, ns.
Organizing condition had a significant impact on the percentage of time
spent pausing, F(1, 240) = 11.33, p < .001, p2 = .04. It was higher in the
scrambled ideas condition (M = 51, SD = 11) than in the ordered ideas one
(M = 47, SD = 8). The interaction between grade level and organizing condition was also significant, F(2, 240) = 3.91, p = .02, p2 = .03. The percentage
of time spent pausing in the scrambled ideas condition was lower in Grade 9
(M = 46, SD = 10) than in Grades 5 (M = 55, SD = 11, p < .01) and 7 (M = 53,
SD = 10, p < .05). However, no such difference was found in the control

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Beauvais et al.

Figure 2. Mean percentages (and standard deviations) of time spent pausing while
writing according to grade level, genre, and organizing condition.
Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

condition. Moreover, whereas no effect of organizing condition was observed

on the time spent pausing in Grades 5 and 9, seventh graders spent longer
pausing in the scrambled condition (M = 53, SD = 10) than in the ordered one
(M = 45, SD = 8, p < .01). No other interactions were significant (Fs < 1, ns).
Percentage of Time Spent Transcribing. A Grade Level (5, 7, 9) Genre (procedural, expository description) Organizing Condition (ordered ideas, scrambled ideas) ANOVA was conducted on the percentage of time spent
transcribing (see Figure 3).
Grade level had a significant effect on this variable, F(2, 240) = 10.05,
p < .0001, p2 = .08. It did not differ between Grades 5 and 9, but seventh
graders spent a greater proportion of time on transcribing than fifth (p <
.0001) and ninth graders (p < .05; M = 48, SD = 9; M = 43, SD = 10; M = 44,
SD = 10, respectively). Organizing condition had a significant effect on the
percentage of time spent transcribing, F(1, 240) = 98.86, p < .0001, p2 = .29.
It was higher when ideas were presented in the right order (M = 50, SD = 9)
rather than when students had to organize them (M = 40, SD = 8). No other
effects were found (p > .05).

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Written Communication 31(3)

Figure 3. Mean percentages (and standard deviations) of time spent transcribing

while writing according to grade level, genre, and organizing condition.
Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

Correlations Between the Percentage of Time Spent

Preplanning and the Temporal Management of the Writing
Process
Table 5 shows the correlations between the percentage of time spent preplanning and the percentage of time spent pausing.
In the ordered ideas condition, no significant correlations were observed
between these two variables. Conversely, in the scrambled ideas condition,
for each genre and at each grade level, the percentage of time spent preplanning was negatively correlated with the percentage of time spent pausing.
In other words, the relationship between the percentage of time spent preplanning and the percentage of time spent pausing suggests that the longer
the students spend preplanning, the lighter are the cognitive demands associated with organizing during writing.
Correlations between the percentage of time spent preplanning and the
diversity of connectives used were performed (see Table 6). In the ordered
ideas condition, no significant correlations were observed between these two
variables. In the scrambled ideas condition, no significant correlations were
observed, except for the ninth graders in the expository description.

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Table 5. Correlations (Pearsons Correlation Coefficient) Between the

Percentage of Time Spent Preplanning and the Percentage of Time Spent Pausing,
According to Grade Level, Genre, and Organizing Condition.
Grade 5

Ordered
Scrambled

Grade 7

Grade 9

ED

ED

ED

.30
.61*

.27
.84*

.25
.71*

.27
.58*

.05
.80*

.24
.71*

Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

*p < .05.

Table 6. Correlations (Pearson Correlation Coefficient) Between the Percentage

of Time Spent Preplanning and the Diversity of Connectives, According to Grade
Level and Genre and Organizing Condition.
Grade 5

Ordered
Scrambled

Grade 7

Grade 9

ED

ED

ED

.40
.42

.32
.10

.15
.35

.22
.18

.10
.04

.01
.49*

Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

*p < .05.

Discussion
The main purpose of the present study was to investigate changes across grades
in the organizing subprocess of planning. To this end, we tested the effect of
organizing demands on the efficiency of text structuring (i.e., ordering scores
and diversity of connectives) and on the temporal management of the writing
process (i.e., percentages of time spent preplanning, pausing, and transcribing).
We compared Grades 5, 7, and 9, crossing two experimental factors: genre and
conceptual ordering. Participants performed either a procedural or an expository descriptive task on a digital tablet, on the basis of a scrambled text paradigm (organizing condition) that was compared with a control condition (ideas
provided in the right order; see Appendix C for a summary of the main results).
Focusing on temporal management of the writing process in the course of
writing, taken together, the temporal indicators (percentages of time spent
preplanning, pausing, and transcribing) showed an evolution in the strategy
used to organize the ideas across grades. In fact, pupils used different strategies according to their expertise level when the task required the organizing

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subprocess. Considering the percentages of time spent pausing in the scrambled condition, fifth and seventh graders did not differ. However, a decrease
took place in Grade 9. No such decrease in the percentage of time spent pausing
was observed with grade level in the control condition, when no organizing
demands were imposed. Moreover, and as expected, the percentage of time
spent preplanning increased when the task consisted of reordering ideas. But
only ninth graders spent more time preplanning in the scrambled than in the
order condition. During this preplanning activity, ninth graders presu
mably read the ideas and began to organize them before embarking on the
actual writing. These two different strategies observed in Grades 5, 7, and 9
distinguish between novices and experts in their ability to manage organizing
in the course of writing. This is in line with the knowledge-telling and knowledge-transforming strategies proposed by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987).
While for fifth and seventh graders the organizing strategy consists of organizing the ideas after beginning to write (corresponding to a knowledge-telling
strategy), ninth graders implement a more sophisticated knowledgetransforming strategy that consists of organizing the ideas both before and
after beginning to write. It should be mentioned that the instructions we gave
to students did not include any information about how to proceed to achieve
the task. Despite this absence of instructions, the pupils actually use different
organizing strategies depending on their degree of expertise. According to
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987), the implementation of such a complex
knowledge-transforming strategy allows taking into account the representation of the audience. As a result, texts produced using this strategy contain
various cohesive devices to link sentences and paragraphs, which is not the
case when students use the knowledge telling strategy (in Grade 5 and 7). To
go further, we could also hypothesized that this preplanning activity implemented in Grade 9 allows reducing the cognitive demands of the organizing
subprocess during the course of writing, thereby decreasing the percentage of
time spent pausing. Our findings suggest that, conversely to the ninth graders, students in Grades 5 and 7 did not change their writing behavior according to the demands of the task: the percentage of time they spent preplanning
did not differ between the two organizing conditions. We highlighted this
strategic adaptation only in Grade 9.
These results described above slightly modify the developmental pattern
proposed by Berninger and Swanson (1994). These authors assumed that organizing would improve mainly between Grades 5 and 7, thus marking a break
between intermediate and junior high students. But when organizing demands
were imposed (i.e., in the scrambled ideas condition), we found that this break
emerged between Grades 7 and 9 in terms of percentage of time spent preplanning and pausing. Thus, when the task was highly resource-demanding, seventh graders did not demonstrate the ability to meet the task constraints, and
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their writing behavior was no different from that of the fifth graders. Contrary
to Berninger and Swansons (1994) assertion, it proved difficult for the seventh
graders to implement organizing strategies that were as sophisticated as those
adopted by the ninth graders. This result should however be considered with
care since these two experiments rely on different measures and different samples. Other studies need to be carried out before generalizing.
Finally, for the child, the apparatus we used is very close to a standard
written composition task that could be asked by a teacher in the classroom.
We actually use lined paper and an inking pen that is similar to a regular pen.
One should keep in mind that this different developmental pattern we
observed could be partially due to the difference in the writing medium we
used compared to Berninger and Swansons study. Several studies have
already examined the way the writing medium (and particularly the use of
writing technologies) could have an impact on the processes involved in the
writing activity. For example, Haas (1989) conducted three experiments: She
reported differences in the amount of planning and the way this process was
managed between pen and paper and word processing conditions (for an
example of a study comparing the performance of students reading texts displayed on a computer and on a printed hard copy, see Haas & Hayes, 1986).
A research literature is emerging concerning how the stylus tablet could
affect the writing activity. This effect on the management of the writing processing and their cognitive demands during writing would be worth studied.
Concerning the impact of grade level on texts structuring efficiency, it had
no effect on the ordering scores. In the absence of grade effect, the validity of
this exercise could be called into question. However, instead of being highlighted by the ordering scores, the difficulty linked to the organizing demands
was reflected in the diversity of connectives, which increased in Grade 9. Two
possible explanations of this increase of the use of different connectives can be
given. A first interpretation consists of asserting that as the number of words in
the mental lexicon increases with age, ninth graders simply have more available linguistic devices to precisely express the relationship between ideas.
However, some French studies have demonstrated an early knowledge and an
early oral appropriate use of the different connectives, long before Grade 5
(see, e.g., Mouchon, Fayol, & Gombert, 1991). Consequently, an alternative
interpretation of this result is possible: It is likely that ninth graders anticipated
the potential reader and understood the need to express the different types of
relations between ideas. They anticipated the need for organizing the ideas of
the forthcoming text during the preplanning activity, allowing devoting
resources to the other writing processes during composition. Accordingly, more
resources would have been available for translating, to express the different
types of relations between ideas. However, and contrary to our expectations,
more preplanning did not lead to more coherent products, as the diversity in the
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Written Communication 31(3)

use of connectives was not linked to the percentage of time spent preplanning
(except in Grade 9, for the expository description).
Genre, however, had no effect on either the percentage of time spent pausing
or the percentage spent transcribing. This rather surprising result contradicts
Matsuhashis (1981) finding of genre-related differences in adults writing
management. However, this absence of replication could be explained by the
difference between the proposed tasks. Whereas Matsuhashis task involved
the entire writing processes, the task we proposed was intended to involve only
organizing subprocess. Isolating organizing from the other writing processes
might lighten the overall demands of writing. The obtained results however
corroborate previous findings by Favart and Coirier (2006) and Olive et al.
(2009), who failed to observe any effect of genre on writing fluency, as indicator of writing efficiency. In our study, at each grade, ordering scores were
higher in the procedural genre than in the expository description. In the procedural genre, we observed some ceiling effects in performances (on average,
60% of the Grade 5, 75% of the Grade 7, and 80% of the Grade 9 children
obtained the maximum score of 12). This result is not surprising since according to the French national curriculum, this genre is to be mastered as soon as
Grade 5. A greater diversity in the use of connectives in the procedural genre
compared to the expository description gives an additional proof of its better
mastering. In the expository description, organizing proved to be highly
resource-demanding, the scores showing that optimal ordering did not reach a
100% score even in Grade 9 (on average, 5% of the Grade 9 children obtained
the maximum score of 12). These results thereby confirm our expectations and
Favart and Coiriers (2006) findings, using the same paradigm: When texts
imply high-level structuring (description) and argumentative reasoning (expository), organizing is especially problematic to manage (Ferretti et al., 2000).
It is important to rise a methodological point that could reduce the scope
of our findings. In the present study, we investigated the effects of genre
manipulating two sets of ideas (a procedural and an expository description
text). It should be mentioned that our conclusions are made on the basis of
only one example of each genre rather than different sets of a same genre.
More systematic studies manipulating different examples of a same genre
need to be carried out.
In terms of education, to what extent do these results address issues related
to writing acquisition? They attest that the organizing activity is demanding
and can hence have an impact on text quality. Thus, several interventions
could be recommended to enhance the structuring of produced texts. A way to
reduce the demands linked to organizing could consist in encouraging students to develop writing strategy whose purpose is to focus effort on single
processplanning in our caseat given time. For instance, Kellogg (1988)

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showed benefit of ideas organizing before embarking in writing on adults text

quality. If some writers spontaneously adapt their writing strategy as a function of cognitive demands and spend time planning before writing, others,
mainly beginning writers, need explicit instruction to implement an efficient
preplanning activity. Skilled writers are probably able to analyze the goal of
the writing task and to organize appropriately the content during that prewriting pause. This ability to exert deliberate control on writing management is
based on metaknowledge that beginning writers do not necessarily have.
While the French national curriculum for secondary schools (2008) stresses
the need to teach drafting before writing at every grade level, nothing is said
about how to make this process an effective one. Students need to be taught
explicitly how to take benefit from the preplanning activity. However, data are
lacking concerning this benefit in children, in terms of text quality, specifically text structuring and management of the writing process.
Thus, our findings now need to be taken a step further, by investigating the
beneficial effect of organizing on the temporal management of the writing
process in the context of standard writing tasks. As mentioned above, if the
scrambled-text paradigm is appropriate to target the organizing subprocess of
planning, it should be kept in mind that this task is far from being an ecological task. Actually, the paradigm we used in this study gives little room for
ideas generation and content formulation. In an ecological writing task that
requires the writer to generate ideas on the basis of its own knowledge, the
strategy used to generate ideas may not correspond to those imposed by the
scrambled text paradigm. Indeed, rather than operating generating and organizing in two distinct stages, the writer can make these two subprocesses
interact. In this case, one may argue that the way organizing is implemented
in this experiment is artificial. Studies have already investigated the on-line
management of the writing process in the course of writing in more ecological tasks (e.g., Beauvais, Olive, & Passerault, 2011; Levy & Ransdell, 1996).
However, these studies did not especially focus on the way organizing is
managed during the course of writing. Future research should be conducted
to explore the management of this organizing subprocess taking into account
the entire set of the writing processes implied in text production.

Appendix A
Control Condition (11 Ordered Ideas)
Procedural Set: Modeling Dough
1. You must model dough animals.
2. You must take salt.

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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Written Communication 31(3)

You must add flour.
You must use water.
You must mix the ingredients with your fingers.
You must shape a dough ball.
You must make several pieces.
You must model the chosen shapes.
You must bake in the oven.
You must decorate with paint.
You must put the shaped objects in a safe place.

Expository Descriptive Set:The Wildcat

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

The wildcat is not a very well-known animal.

The wildcat has grey fur.
The wildcat has a bushy tail.
The wildcat is slightly bigger than the domestic cat.
The wildcat is mainly active at night.
The wildcat is to be found in the woods.
The wildcat is a shy animal.
The wildcat is blamed for eating rabbits and hens.
The wildcat is not a pest.
The wildcat only eats small rodents.
The wildcat is a species that must be protected.

Appendix B
Criteria Used to Calculate the Ordering Scores: Coding the
Clustering and Location of Ideas
Clustering of ideas (maximum clustering score = 6 points); 3 items together = 2
points, 2 items together = 1 point, none together = 0 points
Location of ideas (maximum location score = 6 points)
3A in 1st to 5th location = 2 points
3B between 3rd and 7th = 2 points
3C between 6th and 9th = 2 points
2A in 1st to 5th location = 1 point
2B between 3rd and 7th = 1 point
2C between 6th and 9th = 1 point

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275

L
G
O
Effect of O for each grade level

L
G
O
LO
L
G
O

Kruskal-Wallis
Mann-Whitney
Mann-Whitney

ANOVA

ANOVA

Kruskal-Wallis

L
G
L
G
O
Effect of L in scrambled condition, for I

Factors

Kruskal-Wallis
Mann-Whitney
Kruskal-Wallis
Mann-Whitney

Tests statistics

Note: ED = expository description; P = procedural.

Ordering scores

Diversity of connectives

Temporal management
Percentage of time spent preplanning

Percentage of time spent pausing

Percentage of time spent transcribing

Text structuring efficiency

Dependent variable

F(2, 240) = 12.21, p < .0001

F < 1, ns
F(1, 240) = 11.33, p < .001
F(2, 240) = 3.91, p = .02
F(2, 240) = 10.05, p < .0001
F(1, 240) = 2,135, ns
F(1, 240) = 98.86, p < .0001

H(2) = 40.07, p < .0001

U = 7802, ns
U = 5976, p < .001
U = 118, p < .05

H(2) = 3.94, ns
U = 313.50, p < .0001
H(2) = 24.02, p < .0001
U = 3201.50, p < .0001
U = 6294, ns
H(2) = 13.99, p < .001

Effects

P > ED
9th > 7th = 5th
P > ED

9th > 7th = 5th

9th > 7th = 5th

Ordered < scrambled

9th: ordered < scrambled
7th: ordered = scrambled
5th: ordered = scrambled
5th > 7th = 9th
Ordered < scrambled
Scrambled = 9th < 7th = 5th
7th: scrambled > ordered
7th > 5th = 9th

Ordered > scrambled

Descriptions

Summary of Main Obtained Results Analysis as Function of Grade Level (L), Genre (G), and Organizing
Condition (O)

Appendix C

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Written Communication 31(3)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biographies
Lucie Beauvais, PhD, works at the Laboratoire dEtude des Mcanismes Cognitifs
(University of Lyon2) as a postdoctoral fellow. Her specific research interests focus
on the acquisition of the cognitive processes involved in writing acquisition. Her
research also involves on-line assessment of word processing in children.
Monik Favart is associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University
of Poitiers. She is coordinator of the Writing Acquisition axis of research within the
Writing Production Team. Her work mainly focuses on writing acquisition.
Jean-Michel Passerault is a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of
Poitiers, and conducts research on the writing processes, especially the role of working memory in text production. His recent publications focus on the visuospatial
aspects of writing.
Caroline Beauvais is assistant professor of developmental psychology, University of
Paris8. Her most recent work has involved studies on the cognitive processes that
underlie text production. Her research also focuses on incidental word learning while
reading with elementary schools.