On the boarders between – written with oral communication

• Robert P Yagelski
  According to the Call for Papers for the 2019 ARLE Conference, “It is through the mediating function
  of language that identity is built, that action and relationship abilities are consolidated, that
  knowledge is developed and communicated.” These connections among language, identity, and
  knowing are well established in philosophy (Merleau-Ponty, 2012; Newen and van Riel, 2012) and
  have influenced thinking in education. Less well explored is the role of writing, as a technology for
  language, in identity formation, knowing, and being. In formal education, writing is understood
  primarily as a cognitive process or a social activity. But writing can also be understood as epistemic
  (Berlin, 1987) and ontological (Yagelski, 2011). It is a form of knowledge-making as well as an
  ontological process whereby we express our very being in the world and thus plays a uniquely
  powerful role in identity formation.
  This paper will explore the proposition that writing is an ontological act in order to argue for
  a working theory of writing that accounts for its ontological and epistemological character. Drawing
  on phenomenology, writing theory (Emig, 1983), and discourse theory (Ivanic, 1999), the presenter
  will show how writing is an orchestration of language skills that encompasses oracy and literacy and
  involves both body and intellect. As such, writing can be understood as a way of being in the world.
  Because writing pedagogies in formal schooling rest on narrower cognitive or social theories of
  writing, they exclude the transformative possibilities of writing as a means of identity formation. The
  working theory presented in this paper thus represents a necessary alternative to the way writing is
  understood in mainstream schooling.
  References:
  Berlin, J. (1987). Rhetoric and reality. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
  Emig, J. (1983). The web of meaning. Portsmouth, NH: Boyton/Cook.
  Ivanic, R. (1998): Writing and identity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
  Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception. (D. Landes, Trans.). London: Routledge.
  Newen, A., and van Riel, R. (Eds.). (2012). Identity, language, & mind: An introduction to the philosophy of
  John Perry. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  Yagelski, R. P. (2011). Writing as a way of being. New York: Hampton Press.
• Winnie-Karen Giera
  This dissertation project was designed as a long-term intervention of eleven weeks with pretestposttest-control group design in whole classes (N = 103 students). It was conducted with ninth-grade
  students (n = 77), and with trainees in the hotel business (n = 26) to fill an empirical gap about affect,
  behavior, content learning, metacognition in writing business letters during a pre-vocational writing
  project with "self-regulated strategy development" approach (Graham & Harris, 2017). The students'
  writing products and processes were monitored and collected by four kinds of assignments (548
  letters), as well as tape recordings of peer feedback (09:12:13 h), six different questionnaires (1,269
  questionnaires), modelling videos (76 min.), and keystroke logging data (pauses, writing time,
  words).
  The general research question is: How does the literacy skills of general and vocational school
  students develop through SRSD, using business? These data were evaluated qualitatively and
  quantitatively (frequency, correlation analysis, regression analysis, analysis of variance, t-test,
  significance test).
  In this presentation I will present a part of my results in the research fields behavior and content
  learning.
  The results show, that participating students write business letters at the beginning of the writing
  project predominantly at a medium level with regard to the variables overall impression (text
  quality), language pragmatics, linguistic systematics, number of words, which they slightly increase in
  the course of the writing project. Students of the writing project have at the end of the writing
  project more textual knowledge about business letters than at the beginning of the writing project
  compared to the control group.
  References:
  Graham, S./Harris, K. R. (2017): Evidence-Based Writing Practices: A Meta-Analysis of Existing MetaAnalyses. In: Fidalgo, R,/Harris, K. R./Braaksma, M. (Hg.): Studies in Writing Series: Vol. 34. Design
  Principles for Teaching Effective Writing. Leiden: Brill, S. 13-37.
• Astrid Neumann
  Writing skills are closely connected to reading (Shanahan 2016). And reading abilities are to be
  shown in written or oral products. But measurements often depend on written tasks (Berkemeier
  2010). The results of the PISA studies have shown that 20-25% of German students can merely
  decode basic information. Moreover, it has been noticed that the variability of skills further depends
  on social and language background than in other countries.
  Regarding to writing argumentation skills this lack has also been found in greater studies. Students
  do more integrate their prior knowledge than reading material in that kind of tests (Böhme,
  Schipolowski 2016). Our research group developed a model of language variation via frequency,
  variance and complexity of linguistic forms (Heine et al. 2018) to vary tasks. We expect that students
  supported by linguistic more simple tasks will solve it better.
  We wanted to figure out how students use different levels of language in similar writing task. Our
  hypotheses are
  1) Easier language tasks present superior argumentation texts.
  2) Weaker competent students further profit from linguistic easyer tasks.
  We tested 926 7th or 8th graders in northern Germany. Students had to write one of two different
  options of argumentations that were randomly differed in language. Every text was rated doppleblind by 5 points on a linguistic and textuality scale. 25% of the texts was analysed qualitatively to
  search traces of writing tasks. Every student answered a C-test to divide linguistical competent
  groups.
  We found with MEAN=2,7 (SD=1,0) in textuality vs. MEAN=2,8 (SD=1,0) in linguistically well tolerated
  quality of texts. But only weakest linguistical students profit from simple linguistic tasks.
  In qualitative analyses we found 1841 paraphrases or citations of task materials in students’ texts.
  Differentiated in linguistic ability by c-tests, as stronger lingiustic students are as less citation they
  use. Paraphrase seems to be a learning transform in that age.
  The results have shown that we must develop a broader view on student’s writing products.
  Qualitative analyses outlie the differences in various levels of competencies. These analyses will help
  us to support students more adequately while learning from sources.
  References:
  Berkemeier, Anne (2010): Das Schreiben von Sachtextzusammenfassungen lernen, lehren und testen. In: Pohl,
  Thorsten/Steinhoff, Thorsten (Hg.): Textformen als Lernformen. Köbes. S. 211-232
  Heine, Lena/Domenech, Madeleine/Otto, Lisa/Neumann, Astrid/Krelle, Michael (2018). Modellierung
  sprachlicher Anforderungen in Testaufgaben verschiedener Unterrichtsfächer: Theoretische und empirische
  Grundlagen. In: ZfAL, 69-96.
  Schipolowski, Stefan/Böhme, Katrin (2016): Assessment of writing ability in secondary education: comparison
  of analytic and holistic scoring systems for use in large-scale assessments. In: L1 – Educational Studies in
  Language and Literature, H: 16, pp. 1-22. doi:10.17239/L1ESLL-2016.16.01.03.
  Shanahan, Timothy (2016): Relationships between Reading and Writing Development. In: MacArthur,
  Charles/Graham, Steve/Fitzgarald, Jill (Eds.): Handbook of Writing Research, London, New York: The Guilford
  Press, pp. 194-207.