The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a curriculum for college developmental writing classes, developed in prior design research and based on self-regulated strategy instruction. Students learned strategies for planning, drafting, and revising compositions with an emphasis on using knowledge of genre organization to guide planning and self-evaluation. In addition to specific writing strategies, students learned strategies for self-regulation. This quasi-experimental study involved 13 instructors and 276 students in 19 developmental writing classes at 2 universities. The curriculum was taught for a full semester in 9 classes and compared with a business-as-usual control condition in 10 classes. Significant positive effects were found for overall quality of writing on a persuasive essay (ES = 1.22), and for length (ES = .71), but not for grammar. Significant positive effects were also found for self-efficacy and mastery motivation.

The purpose of the current study was to develop and validate a measure of motivation for use with basic college writers that would measure self-efficacy, achievement goals, beliefs, and affect. As part of a design research project on curriculum for community college developmental writing classes, 133 students in 11 classes completed the motivation scales at the beginning and end of the semester along with measures of writing quality. Single factors were found for self-efficacy and affect. For goal orientation, factors were found for mastery, performance, and avoidance goals. For beliefs, factors were found for beliefs related to the content of writing and to conventions. Anticipated patterns of correlations among the factors were found. The validity of the scales was further supported by significant differences in the anticipated direction between higher and lower level classes on five of seven factors. In addition, significant changes were noted from pretest to posttest in the anticipated direction on six of seven factors.

This design research project developed and evaluated curriculum for developmental writing classes in community colleges. The core of the curriculum was self-regulated strategy instruction, which has been shown to be effective with adolescents who are struggling as writers. In the curriculum, students learned strategies for planning, drafting, and revising compositions with an emphasis on using knowledge of text organization to guide planning and self-evaluation. In addition to specific writing strategies, students learned strategies for self-regulation. The study is part of a project that developed two levels of developmental writing courses, but only the lower level course is addressed in this article. This article reports findings from the first two cycles of implementation and revision. Over two semesters, the curriculum was implemented in eight classes taught by three instructors and revised after an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Substantial gains in writing achievement and motivation were found, especially in the second cycle. In addition to successes, the article discusses design challenges for the curriculum and professional development.

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A B S T R A C TPeer review is a reciprocal process in which writers both give and receive feedback. Both activities may contribute to student learning; however, few studies have examined the effects of giving feedback separately. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of giving feedback on the quality of the reviewers' own persuasive writing. Fourth-and fifth-grade students (n = 145) received training in evaluation using genre-specific criteria. They were then randomly assigned to three groups: reviewer, reader control, and time control. The reviewers read persuasive essays, rated them, and gave written suggestions. To control for the effect of reading the essays, the reader control group read the same essays but did not evaluate them; finally, the time control group read narratives to control for time and effort. On the immediate posttests, to assess effects on revision, all students revised two essays written at pretest. To assess transfer and delayed transfer, students wrote and revised essays on new topics. On the immediate posttests, students in the reviewer group included more elements to address the opposing position and end with a message to the reader. In addition, reviewers produced better quality final essays than both control groups did on one immediate posttest and the transfer posttest, and better essays than the reader control group did on the delayed transfer. Implications for research and practice are discussed.