Stephen P. Witte

Coherence, Cohesion, and Writing Quality.

A question of continuing interest to researchers in writing is what internal characteristics distinguish essays ranked high and low in overall quality. Empirical research at the college level has for the most part taken two approaches to this question, examining errors1 and syntactic features2 while generally ignoring the features of texts that extend across sentence boundaries.3 Neither the error approach nor the syntactic approach has been entirely satisfactory. For example, Elaine Maimon and Barbara Nodines sentence-combining experiment suggests that, as is true when other skills and processes are learned, certain kinds of errors accompany certain stages in learning to write.4 Because the sources of error in written discourse are often complex and difficult to trace, researchers can conclude little more than what is obvious: low-rated papers usually contain far more errors than high-rated papers. With regard to syntax, Ann Gebhard found that with few exceptions the syntactic features of highand low-rated essays written by college students are not clearly differentiated. Indeed, research in writing quality based on conventions of written English and on theories of syntax, particularly transformational grammar, has not provided specific directions for the teaching of writing. Such results come as no surprise in light of much current research in written discourse. This research-published in such fields as linguistics, cybernetics, anthropology, psychology, and artificial intelligence-addresses questions, concerned with extended discourse rather than with individual sentences, questions about how humans produce and understand discourse units often referred to as texts.5 One such effort that has attracted the attention of researchers in writing is M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasans Cohesion in English.6 Although Halliday and Hasan do not propose a theory of text structure or examine how humans produce texts, they do attempt to define the concept of text. To them a text is a semantic unit, the parts of

The Role of Writing Apprehension in Writing Performance and Competence

AbstractThe role of apprehension in the writing competency and writing performance of 110 undergraduates was investigated. The hypotheses were that high apprehensives would perform differently than low apprehensives on standardized tests of writing-related skills (competency) and on two essays of different types (performance). The hypothesis for writing competency was confirmed. However, the hypothesis for writing performance was confirmed for only one of the two essay types. Differences in indices measuring syntactic development and in judgments of writing quality were observed in the narrative/descriptive essays, but not in the argumentative essays.

Tasks, Ensembles, and Activity: Linkages between Text Production and Situation of Use in the Workplace.

This article is concerned with characterizing literacy activity as it is practiced in professional workplaces. Its starting point is activity theory, which grew out of the work of Vygotsky and has been subsequently elaborated in Russia and elsewhere. First, the authors propose that existing versions of activity theory are unable to account adequately for practical human activity in contemporary workplaces, and present a revised perspective that opens the way for new theoretical developments. Second, they elaborate two new constructs, task and work ensemble, and apply them to a short collaborative writing sequence collected in the field. Both constructs are seen to account in a substantive way for the structure of the composing activity carried out by the collaborators. They close with a discussion of the complementarity and theoretical advantages of the two constructs.

Research in Activity:: An Analysis of Speed Bumps as Mediational Means

This article traces the historical and conceptual development of what is known as activity theory, from Vygotsky and Luria, to A. N. Leont’ev, to Engeström, in order to illustrate what I see as two problems with the activity theoretic approach, especially as manifest in the work of Leont’ev and Engeström: what I call the boundary and/or focus problem and the unit-of-analysis problem. In the second half of the article, I explore the social semiotic of an everyday artifact, the “speed bump,” and introduce a discovery heuristic for examining how this artifact functions mediationally in human activity. In so doing, I have tried to discover activity through principled analysis, rather than assuming activity or activity system a priori.