| This study analyzed the effects of procedural facilitation (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987a) of strategic knowledge---in the form of five thinking prompts (from Cumming, 1995a)---on second language academic writing development and knowledge-transforming behaviors while composing for participants who received tutoring over a period of four months. A longitudinal research design with a case study approach was used. Nine Chinese-background, ESL (English as a second language) engineering students participated in the strategy training, which was conducted in a one-to-one tutoring format, as a supplement to their other courses at the university. Each student wrote two compositions (technical description of a schematic diagram on a power plant and an argumentative writing task based on an engineering article) as pre-post writing samples prior to then after the tutoring, as well as ten other compositions (2 technical reports, 2 technical descriptions, 2 letter tasks, 2 engineering definition tasks, and 2 non-engineering definition tasks) for ten tutoring sessions. Analyses assessed three aspects of their writing performance prior to and after the tutoring: (a) the quality of different aspects of compositions (global quality, communicative quality, argumentation/content, organization, language accuracy, and language appropriacy) produced, and while composing, (b) use of five heuristic search strategies (in the form of five thinking prompts) and (c) occurrences of knowledge-transforming (a dialectic process between the content space and the rhetorical space). In comparing performance on the pre-post writing tasks, students demonstrated significant improvement in the quality of their texts in the technical description task only, particularly in the categories of global quality, content, language accuracy and language appropriacy.{09}They also demonstrated significant improvement in their strategic thinking while composing, devoting more attention to two aspects of writing that were highlighted in two of the thinking prompts, using more complex mental representations of composing tasks, and displaying more knowledge-transforming behaviors while composing. Individual differences were evident in all analyses. Task variables (i.e., argument vs. technical description task) exerted differing influences on{09}students' writing performance. Additional case study profiles of each of the students showed, in addition to individual differences, common improvements in their evaluative, diagnostic and{09}remedial capacities as the tutoring sessions proceeded. Findings are discussed in view of theories of procedural facilitation, second language writing development and instruction, task differences, and tutoring in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). |
