Abstracts - Earli

O 1901 September 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 1.71 PóczaSymposiumThe role of self-regulation in writingChair: Ron Oostdam, University of Amsterdam, NetherlandsOrganiser: Amos van Gelderen, University of Amsterdam, NetherlandsOrganiser: Ron Oostdam, University of Amsterdam, NetherlandsDiscussant: Gert Rijlaarsdam, University of Amsterdam, NetherlandsThis symposium explores the importance of self-regulation for writing instruction in primary andsecondary education. Theories of writing processes (such as Hayes & Flower, 1980 and Bereiter &Scardamalia, 1987) define cognitive processes that writers use for attaining their writing goals.Expert writers and novices differ in this respect. For example, planning of text is a process thatexperts often spend a lot of attention to, whereas novices start to write without elaborating anyplan at all. Writing research has made increasingly clear that good writing presupposes selfregulationfor making proper decisions about the processes that deserve more or less attention at agiven stage of the writing task. Given the fact that writing consists of numerous sub-processes,such as task-orientation, planning, text-organisation, formulation, lexical and syntactic processing,monitoring of text contents, evaluation and revision, self-regulation may be the most crucialdeterminant of successful text production (cf. Graham & Harris, 2000; Englert, 1991; Zimmerman& Risemberg, 1997). Mark Torrance et. al. will present results of a training experiment into theeffects of cognitive self-regulation instruction for 6th grade students. Amos van Gelderen and RonOostdam will present results of instruction directed to self-regulation for foreign language writingin bilingual education (grades 10-11). Fillia Kostouli will present results of research intoclassroom discussions in grade 6 concerning the way by which Greek students and teachersdefined and negotiated (and thus co-constructed) writing plans and strategies to be used for theproduction of expository and argumentative written texts. Eva Lindgren presents an exploration ofkeystroke-logged writing data, directed at young learners’ (13 years old) revision and selfregulatoryprocesses in L1 and L2 writing. Debra Myhill and Susan Jones present results of astudy into the metacognitive understanding of children (grade 8 and 10) on revision during thetext-production stage of writing.Cognitive strategy training for writing - Does it work, and if so how?Mark Torrance, Staffordshire University, United KingdomRaquel Fidalgo, Leon University, SpainJesus-Nicasio Garcia, Leon University, SpainPatricia Robledo, Leon University, Spain71 normally-functioning Spanish sixth grade students participated in classroom-based cognitivestrategy training aimed at developing the quality of their written composition. Compared withcontrols, intervention participants showed improved text quality and a greater tendency to preplantheir text. This effect was sustained at 3 months and at 28 months after the intervention.Correlational analyses suggested that immediately after the intervention tendency to preplan was arobust predictor of text quality. This effect was absent at 28 months when instead quality wasbetter predicted by tendency to revise. Our findings suggest that strategy training has lasting– 820 –