Research on composing by native speakers of English has shown that the processes used by skilled writers can be described and taught in the classroom. Researchers have also examined the composing behaviors of unskilled writers to determine common features and to make recommendations for classroom teaching. While ESL composition research has pointed out the similarities between the processes of experienced L1 and L2 writers, less attention has been directed to unskilled L2 writers and how their composing processes differ from those of unskilled L1 writers. This article attempts to begin to fill that gap. It first examines, from a theoretical perspective, what we know about composing in a first and second language and what we need to know. It then describes a study in which unskilled ESL writers in a “developmental” college writing course wrote an essay in class. The findings from this study are then compared to those of some major studies of the composing process, and conclusions are drawn about the specific needs of unskilled ESL student writers.

This study was designed to examine ESL student writers at different levels of instruction, to describe their writing strategies as shown in think-aloud protocols, and to compare their composing behaviors with what we know about native speaker student writers. Eight ESL. students, four in remedial ESL writing courses and four in college-level writing courses, were given two different writing tasks for thinkaloud composing. The resulting protocols were coded and analyzed. The data were examined in relation to course placement, holistic evaluation of the students' writing, and scores on a language proficiency test. The study showed that: 439 440

Twenty‐five years ago, writing instruction was characterized by an approach that focused on linguistic and rhetorical form. Since then, we have gone into the woods in search of new approaches, focusing in turn on the writer and the writer's processes, on academic content, and on the reader's expectations. In our search for a new approach, we have come up against some thorny issues, five of which are described in detail: the topics for writing, the issue of “real” writing, the nature of the academic discourse community, contrastive rhetoric, and responding to writing. The difficulty of negotiating our way also makes us susceptible to false trails. The paper ends with a discussion of emerging traditions that reflect shared recognitions rather than provide new methodologies.