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This study investigates developmental changes in grammatical subjects in the English writing of Japanese learners, focusing on subject position as an index of syntactic growth. Previous L2 assessment research has emphasized clausal subordination and global complexity indices; noun phrase complexity has attracted growing attention, but the subject position itself has rarely been isolated as a unit of analysis. Drawing on a longitudinal corpus of 26,399 texts written by 1,086 Japanese high school students over three years, subjects were automatically extracted and annotated using SubjEx, a dependency-parsing system developed for this purpose (accuracy: 93.5%). Mean subject length increased steadily across grades and CEFR proficiency bands, with clearer differentiation from B1 onward; a mixed-effects model with a random slope further indicates increasing divergence in learners’ growth trajectories. Subjects shifted from pronoun-dominant forms toward more complex noun phrases, with greater use of adjectival modification, possessives, compound nouns, and prepositional phrases, while lexical analyses showed a decline in first-person subjects and a rise in informationally dense nominal patterns. Subject position thus emerges as a sensitive indicator of L2 writing development, reflecting a shift from personal expression toward condensed informational packaging, with implications for complexity research and proficiency assessment.

Although previous research has explored how L2 writers allocate their time and how time limits influence writing scores, many of these studies focus solely on final texts, providing only a partial understanding of the writing process. A more comprehensive investigation is essential for enhancing the construct validity of writing assessments. Drawing on empirical research on timed writing and on theoretical models of the writing process, this study explores how time constraints affect L2 learners' written texts and fluency behaviors. A total of 123 participants (60 high-intermediate and 63 advanced EFL learners) completed an argumentative writing task with keystroke logging software under either a 30-minute or 60-minute condition, and stimulated recalls were conducted with a subset. The texts were analyzed for syntactic and lexical complexity, fluency, and overall quality. Results indicate that time constraints did not significantly affect linguistic complexity or writing quality, although fluency behaviors differed across conditions. Time constraints thus affected learners' writing processes more than the linguistic quality of their texts. The core implication for L2 writing assessment is that, for test takers experienced with timed writing, shortening the time allotted to an argumentative task changes composing processes without compromising the product-based scores on which assessment decisions rest.

Previous studies on L2 phrase complexity predominantly focused on noun phrases, while the verb phrase complexity are few and mostly simple verb phrase structures, they have limited expressive capacity. Complex verb phrase structures (e.g., n-grams, VACs) also have limitations. The present study proposes a set of 41 Chinese complex verb phrase structures and are meaningful. A total of 246 verb phrase complexity measures are calculated from the dimensions of account, frequency, diversity, and density. The ability of these measures to predict writing quality is compared with that of 10 large-grained syntactic complexity measures. The results show that large-grained measures (Average sentence length) and verb phrase complexity measures (two verb-object structures and three adverbial-head structures) can respectively explain 14.4% and 41.9% of variance in writing scores. Our results illustrate the importance of Chinese complex verb phrase structures in assessing L2 writing quality.

This study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) student reviewers engage in open-ended, dialogic interactions with generative artificial intelligence (AI) during the feedback generation process in peer assessment within EFL writing classrooms. It examines the impact of these interactions on feedback quality perceived by recipients, emotional responses (task enjoyment and anxiety), and feedback literacy. A quasi-experimental design was employed with 60 Chinese undergraduate students, divided into an experimental group (EG) that used generative AI (Doubao) for support and a control group (CG) that did not. Over three intervention cycles, data from chat histories, feedback quality ratings by recipients, and pre/post questionnaires on emotions and feedback literacy were analyzed. The results indicated that EG students primarily employed AI for linguistic refinement of their comments, with limited use for enhancing the content or structure. Nevertheless, AI support led to significant, progressive improvements in the perceived quality of feedback, particularly in affect, description, justification, and constructiveness. Furthermore, EG students reported significantly higher task enjoyment and lower anxiety compared to the CG. The intervention also positively enhanced all dimensions of feedback literacy: knowledge and abilities, willingness to participate, cooperative learning, and appreciation of peer feedback. The findings suggest that generative AI can serve as a powerful scaffold, reducing the emotional and cognitive burdens of peer assessment while fostering a more supportive and effective feedback environment. This study underscores the value of integrating AI into peer feedback practices to develop students’ feedback literacy and improve the overall quality of peer learning experiences.

We explore how language development, and training informed by development, impact L2 students’ navigation of ethical collaboration with machine translation (MT). Our interdisciplinary approach integrated the Writing Studies’ concept of ‘ethical collaboration’ – an ethically guided interface between students and GenAI – with Applied Linguistics, which highlights the need to address GenAI/MT ethics and L2 language. We created a model synthesizing the “Student Guide to AI Literacy” (MLA, 2024) with a theory of L2 development. Data were collected by 1) an established protocol – direct writing in English, self-translation from the L1 and machine translation from the L1, 2) developmentally focused and acknowledgement training, and 3) post-editing of self-translation. An emergence (onset) criterion and frequencies measured written development and evaluation of MT output, frequencies measured monitoring after training and a statistical analysis measured impact of the training types. The analysis of development and evaluation demonstrated that development impacted un/ethical evaluation of MT output. The post-edits indicated that developmentally focused training encouraged ethical monitoring when development permitted and had more impact than acknowledgement training. We conclude that guidelines and training on ethical collaboration with GenAI should be informed by L2 development, not only GenAI literacy, and that research on this topic should continue.

Using a multiple case-study approach, this study investigated the dynamics of peer interactions that took place through Microsoft Copilot among six pairs ( n  = 12) of ESL learners, focusing on their interaction patterns, use of semiotic and multimodal resources, and functions of languaging. Our analyses illustrated that four pairs displayed collaborative orientation, one pair demonstrated an expert-novice pattern, and one pair exhibited a dominant-passive pattern. It was also found that while the collaborative group students focused more on text search and revision, the expert-novice group and the dominant-passive group allocated more time to image generation. Furthermore, in terms of languaging functions, our results revealed that all six pairs of students spent most of their time negotiating writing content. Our study has implications for technology-enhanced multimodal writing pedagogy in a generative artificial intelligence machine-in-the-loop setting.

This qualitative study investigates the biographical factors that influence the professional identities and teaching practices of second language (L2) writing instructors. Previous L2 writing studies have tended to rely on teacher interviews to examine such identities and practices and have failed to include the important perspective of classroom observations. This study conducted teacher interviews and classroom observations with three graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) of a first-year writing course at a U.S. university. The findings suggest that although teachers’ disciplinary backgrounds, teaching philosophies, and prior experiences shape their professional identities and instructional approaches, their classroom practices in language instruction do not always align with their beliefs and stated values. Teacher education programs should integrate language pedagogy and grammar instruction into writing pedagogy, while encouraging teachers to engage in consistent self-evaluation and reflection on their practices.

Second language (L2) writers’ capacity to reason about language choices during revision is theoretically central to advanced writing development, yet few studies trace how this linguistic reasoning emerges in repeated feedback-revision cycles that integrate teacher and AI suggestions. This multi-case, longitudinal mixed-methods study examined how ten L2 learners enacted metalinguistic strategies and developed linguistic reasoning across a 12-week online Academic English program. Triangulated data sources included 1246 feedback revision episodes, pre-post reasoning-task responses, and semi-structured exit interviews. We operationalized linguistic reasoning as the processual construct of interest and treated metalinguistic strategies as observable indicators; reasoning responses were scored with a three-dimensional analytic rubric while revisions and interaction logs were coded thematically and by strategy. Results show a systematic shift from early, correctness-focused edits toward later revisions characterized by coordinated structural comparison, more explicit self-explanation, and integrative argumentation; composite reasoning scores increased, with the largest gains observed on depth of explanation. Process analyses identified recurrent patterns in which alternative-rich feedback coincided with comparison moves, partially divergent suggestions often coincided with more explicit self-explanation, and integrative argumentation involving discourse-level revision became more visible over time. Pedagogical implications are also discussed.

GPTZero is an AI detection platform that scans written text for statistical signatures of machine generation and returns a probability score estimating whether it was produced by a human or an AI. In higher education, many teachers have turned to AI detection as a first-line response to the integrity crisis triggered by large language models. However, empirical findings on GPTZero’s efficacy are notably mixed. Some studies report strong diagnostic value under controlled conditions, while others document substantial false-negative rates, near-random performance on certain AI-generated essays, and frequent misclassification of AI-translated texts across several languages. Multilingual and L2 writers often bear the greatest cost, as their carefully constructed English is sometimes assigned high AI-likelihood scores because their linguistic profiles may appear less natural to models trained predominantly on standard or formulaic patterns of written English. In developing countries, where students commonly write in English as a second or third language, these limitations represent more than minor technical issues; they raise concerns about equity, potentially placing disproportionate burdens on writers working to meet academic language expectations. This article argues that GPTZero is unsuitable as a definitive tool for high-stakes assessment of writing. Instead, it proposes a shift toward postplagiarism frameworks that recognize responsible AI use. Within this approach, AI detection outputs serve as formative resources for developing critical AI literacy rather than surveillance tools. Flagged content becomes a starting point for metacognitive dialogue, which supports trust-based pedagogies that emphasize student agency and intellectual accountability.

While student engagement with peer feedback from the recipient’s perspective has gained significant traction in recent L2 writing research, little attention has been given to the provider, who also plays a crucial role in this peer activity. This case study, therefore, explored how EFL students of varying proficiency levels engage with peer feedback affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively from the providers’ perspective in the Vietnamese context. Using a qualitative research method that draws upon data sources including students’ feedback, their reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed the students’ varying engagement in giving peer feedback. The students were excited about the activity; however, their efforts and time management in providing feedback, the types of feedback they offered, their cognitive operations, and their strategies were inconsistent due to individual and sociocultural factors. Pedagogical implications for fostering and sustaining student engagement while giving feedback on L2 writing are discussed.

Expository text writing is an essential skill for EFL primary school students, particularly where English is the medium of instruction. This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of explicit text structure instruction on the expository text writing of grade 7 EFL learners. Two intact groups of learners were randomly selected from two schools and designated as the experimental (n=44) and control (n=39) groups. The experimental group received explicit text structure instruction in two phases, while the control group followed the regular curriculum. Analysis of the post-test data using ANCOVA indicated that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in text structure identification (η2= 0.34), as well as in writing simple descriptive (η² = 0.28) and cause-and-effect paragraphs (η² = 0.37). An in-depth analysis of the participants’ writings showed that the experimental group included more main ideas/supportive details, and more precise word choices in their simple descriptive (η2=0.57 and η2=0.07) and cause-and-effect paragraphs (η2=0.43 and η2=0.35), respectively, with effect sizes ranging from medium to large. Moreover, the participants in the experimental group demonstrated significant improvements in their topic sentence writing quality, particularly in simple descriptive paragraphs (η² = 0.06), with a medium effect size. Finally, the study concludes with practical implications for EFL writing instruction and recommendations for future research.

Focusing on genre-related episodes (GREs) identified in teacher talk, this article investigates how two preservice teachers enacted genre-based writing instruction during their practice teaching in a 9th-grade public school English class in Türkiye. We adopted a teacher-oriented lens to investigate GREs, specifically paying attention to presentation choices and teacher talk during the genre knowledge elicitation phase—a move that facilitates eliciting students’ prior genre knowledge and making connections to the target genre. By examining the types of intentional guidance embedded in these GREs, the findings suggest that, through overt instruction and supervision in TESOL practicum courses, preservice teachers attempted to incorporate genre-specific instruction and showed increased investment in using prompts and tasks that would elicit their students’ genre-specific knowledge and organize their teaching around genres. Two important insights could be gained from this study: (1) TESOL practicum courses can serve as productive sites for cultivating genre-based writing expertise, enabling preservice teachers to design genre-rich lessons that support English as a foreign language student engagement with genre; and (2) GREs identified in classroom observations are valuable tools for examining new teacher genre-oriented deliberations during collaborative writing tasks. The article ends with a call to expand scholarly conversations on second language writing expertise and metacognitive awareness of genres to include a closer look at GREs during new teacher practice teaching.

French immersion (FI) programs have continued to grow in popularity across Canada and around the world ( García et al., 2017 ; Johnson & Swain, 1997 ). With its unique content-based language pedagogy, teachers use the target language to teach most subjects of the school curriculum ( Cammarata & Tedick, 2012 ). Research has found that FI students’ language production skills (including writing) are not as strong as their comprehension skills ( Erdos, et al., 2014 ). Questions remain about how to support students’ L2 writing across the FI curriculum. Grounded in a theoretical understanding that recognizes language as a critical tool for the development of complex concepts ( Wertsch & Tulviste, 1994 ), we set out to explore how immersion teachers can better support students’ L2 writing development across the French immersion curriculum and which pedagogies show promise in doing so. Specifically, we examined how elementary immersion teachers can capitalize on the communication opportunities offered in content courses to further strengthen writing instruction. To do so, we analyzed different types of writing tasks designed to bring together language and writing outcomes. The study was developed using Action Research cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Kemmis & McTaggant, 2000). Through qualitative data analysis of writing tasks and samples of students’ writing, we identified various types of “writing across the curriculum” tasks that support the learning of language, literacy, and content. We then created an instructional framework highlighting pedagogical shifts and pathways that teachers can use to weave writing instruction across the French immersion curriculum. This framework allows for newly learned language and writing skills to be transferred and reinvested into writing tasks in content courses and enables teachers to develop reciprocity between “learning to write” and “writing to learn.”

English language teachers in many countries around the world teach large classes of 40 or more students. Since the 18th century, many English teaching methods have focused on speaking skills. However, in recent years, globalization has heightened the importance of writing instruction. Writing skills have become increasingly important for English language learners in professional, academic, and personal contexts. Despite this increasing importance, to date, there has been limited research that shows how writing instruction is implemented in large, secondary school English language classes although large-class contexts represent the majority of English language classes globally. Therefore, this qualitative, exploratory study aimed to explore and understand writing instruction in one particular large-class context—public secondary school English language classes in Côte d'Ivoire. Data were collected through autobiographical essays, interviews, and teaching artifacts and analyzed through narrative profiles. Major findings show that Ivorian secondary school English language teachers might not have much training for teaching writing. Additionally, Ivorian secondary school English language teachers face numerous challenges teaching writing, including student reluctance to write. Implications suggest the need to give more consideration to writing assessments and instruction and the need to ensure that secondary school English language teachers receive adequate training for teaching writing that fits their large-class contexts.

• Generative AI can help multilingual communicators in professional writing. • Generative AI supports email/report writing and meeting summary. • Practical, ethical and legal concerns remain. • Students’ AI use at workplace informs academic writing teaching and learning. Because multilingual students’ languaging practices are not limited to academic settings, it is important to explore their lived experiences communicating in real-world situations to shed light on how to prepare them in college classrooms in the era of generative AI. Drawing upon writing samples, artifacts and interview data, this case study brings attention to the potential and challenges a multilingual international student face in implementing generative AI-assisted written communication during her 5-month internship in the workplace. The findings indicate that generative AI tools, especially ChatGPT, have the potential to help multilingual communicators meet their written linguistic demands in professional contexts, especially in email writing, report drafting and meeting summary. Generative AI-assisted writing tools could assist multilingual students with idea expression and boost their confidence and agency in communication. Yet, despite its many advantages, practical, ethical and legal concerns remain. This study contributes to the scarce yet budding literature exploring multilingual international students’ AI engagement in professional settings and offers concrete pedagogical implications and directions for future research.

Transnational and multilingual writing data are characterized by mobile practices that rarely hold still for study. As individuals form and re-form communities in the process of migration, their language and literacy paths increasingly diversify forms of language sociality, goals, or expectations. In such cases, a priori community knowledge around genre use becomes tenuous or nonexistent. Yet, many default methodological orientations in Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) have tended to emphasize agreement, recognizability, and community cohesion, focusing analysis especially on textual typicality. This article attends to this methodological issue by resurfacing and extending a discussion of the centrifugal nature of genre. To demonstrate this shift, the article enacts a genre analysis of a multilingual community-based writing workshop, showing how centripetal and centrifugal forces run through workshop participants’ creation of a language portrait. Ultimately, the article shows that tracking genre’s stabilizing and destabilizing forces, particularly from a human perspective, provides an analytic guide to writing practices as they fragment and re-coalesce. It further demonstrates how centering the human handling of genre can orient writing researchers to the instability that is often the reality of transnational and multilingual writing.

Approaches like participatory translation expand methods for researching multilingual writing, enabling writing studies researchers to further interrogate the connections among positionality, power, and identity in multilingual writing. Using examples of community-based multilingual writing projects, the author proposes participatory translation as an avenue for centralizing multilingual student and community goals in writing research. This approach can help researchers expand from traditional classroom studies of writing to further consider how language shapes participation in all communication contexts.

To address students’ challenges in business writing and bridge the gap between workplace demands and the skills of new professionals, this quasi-experimental study examined the effects of flipped-ARCS and face-to-face ARCS instruction on Pakistani undergraduate English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ business writing achievement and motivation in a business communication course. The findings indicated that the flipped-ARCS model was more effective in improving business writing, while face-to-face ARCS instruction better boosted students’ motivation, supporting the potential of innovative teaching strategies and providing valuable insights for educators and policymakers on integrating technology-based instructional methods into business writing education.

This article examines how international students navigate feedback from a supervisor while working on a group writing project in a diverse English medium of instruction (EMI) bachelor’s program at a public university in Denmark, where no formalized writing or language support resources are offered in the students’ first year of instruction. Data were collected in qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 11 students who were identified through a survey of a first-year bachelor of arts cohort. Results from the survey showed that despite using a supervision model of education, few students perceived changes in feedback compared to their secondary school experiences, and most did not deploy their own past writing experiences to aid their groups. Three student portraits drawn from the interview pool provide a qualitative, “thick description” of experiences, focusing on feedback. The study ultimately uncovered that student expectations about feedback are intimately related to secondary school experiences regardless of country of origin. In addition, complicated emotions arise as a result of specific misunderstandings about supervisor feedback. The findings highlight the need for more attention to communicating clear expectations about feedback, and the article concludes with recommendations for institutionally led feedback literacy.

Despite the current widespread use of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) feedback, many issues regarding its efficacy still remain unresolved. Recent studies mainly focus on correctly detected errors with a lack of attention on the comprehensiveness of error detection, or error coverage. Error coverage is interesting because little is known about the capacity of AWE systems to fully detect common second language (L2) errors. It is also important to investigate the potential effect of such capacity on student uptake and retention, which are important constructs in fostering L2 writing development. To this end, the present study compared teacher feedback and AWE error coverage in L2 writing classes. The findings suggest that both the AWE system and the teacher demonstrated low error coverage across grammar, usage, and mechanics error categories. However, they indicated differences in the types of errors they identified most frequently. The AWE system flagged more mechanical errors, whereas the teacher provided twice as many corrections for grammar errors, including wrong/missing words, prepositions, and incorrect word forms. While the AWE system performed moderately in flagging articles and comma errors, it struggled with more nuanced grammatical errors, suggesting it may not be a reliable standalone tool for addressing specific needs of L2 learners’ writing challenges. Interestingly, coverage was positively associated with successful uptake, with students utilizing a wider variety of revision acts (i.e., change, add, delete, remove) on AWE errors identified compared to errors not identified. However, error coverage did not correlate with short- or long-term retention of accuracy, implying that retention may result from the interplay of error coverage with other factors. Findings provide implications for writing teachers regarding the employment of AWE systems and for AWE developers regarding the future optimizations of the AWE systems.

Teacher written feedback is a central area of L2 scholarship and writing teacher education yet considerable research has focused on written corrective feedback (WCF) with considerably less attention paid to discourse-level (DLF) teacher written feedback. Our article identifies the gaps in the current teacher written feedback scholarship, explains why these gaps are problematic, and provides detailed recommendations for an agenda that examines teacher DLF and students’ use of this feedback. Our goal is to encourage scholars to explore new avenues of research that better take into account what writing “is” and “does” as well as take into account the linguistically heterogenous reality of 21st century writing classrooms.

Abstract This chapter examines the rhetorical impact of instructors’ hyper-scrutinization of BIPOC students’ texts for AI involvement on their authorial agency and voice in US writing classrooms, problematizing how AI-surveilling pedagogical practices intersect with raciolinguistic ideologies, epistemic injustice, institutional distrust, instructor bias, and historical deficit-based views of BIPOC students’ multilingual composition.

Assessing the writing competence of pupils learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at primary school is associated with specific challenges because of learners’ limited language resources. This study investigates the extent to which characteristics of their texts trigger so-called halo effects. Halo effects are an assessment bias where the quality of one feature unintentionally influences the evaluation of other aspects. The study examines halo effects across nine aspects of text quality (communicative effect, level of detail, coherence, cohesion, complexity of syntax and grammar, correctness of syntax and grammar, vocabulary, orthography and punctuation), based on a random sample of narrative texts from a sixth-grade corpus. 200 pre-service teachers assessed four randomly assigned texts. Halo effects were calculated by comparison to expert ratings using multi-level regression analyses. Results show that orthography and vocabulary were the two main triggers of halo effects. Punctuation also triggered some halo effects, but to a smaller extent. The assessment of communicative effect, complexity and correctness of syntax and grammar was not determined by the corresponding text quality but dominated by other criteria. Results highlight the importance of being aware of halo effects when assessing young EFL learners’ texts and emphasise the need for suitable training measures. • Analysis of halo effects across nine aspects of text quality. • Random sample of narrative texts from a sixth-grade EFL corpus. • Orthography and vocabulary are the two main triggers of halo effects. • Punctuation also triggers halo effects but to a smaller extent. • Halo effects call for awareness and targeted training.

This study examined the hierarchical structure among second/foreign language (L2) writing subskills using a Hierarchical Diagnostic Classification Model (HDCM). A pool of 500 essays composed by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students was assessed by four experienced EFL teachers using the Empirically-derived Descriptor-based Diagnostic (EDD) checklist. Based on a literature review and the expertise of three content experts, several models were developed to reflect various hierarchical interactions among L2 writing subskills, including linear, divergent, convergent, independent, unstructured, mixed, and higher-order. The comparison of the models showed the presence of an unstructured interaction among L2 writing subskills, indicating that content is the foundational subskill for the mastery of vocabulary, grammar, organization, and mechanics. Higher mastery classes were also associated with higher educational levels, greater frequency of English use, and longer exposure to L2. Understanding the hierarchical relationships among L2 writing subskills can improve targeted instructional strategies and assessment practices. • A constrained version of existing DCMs is represented by hierarchical DCMs. • Models were developed to show hierarchical interactions among L2 writing subskills. • An unstructured interaction among L2 writing subskills was identified. • Higher mastery classes were associated with higher educational levels. • The classes were associated with greater English use and longer L2 exposure.

• Postgraduates engaged behaviorally, affectively, and cognitively with GenAI feedback. • Postgraduates dealt with ChatGPT primarily as a tool for refining their proposals, not for generating content. • Postgraduates demonstrated agency by actively questioning, annotating, and negotiating feedback. • Postgraduates engaged in diverse affective responses, ranging from appreciation to frustration. As Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT are becoming increasingly integrated into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) academic writing context, learners’ engagement with AI-generated feedback remains insufficiently examined. This case study investigated how four Chinese EFL postgraduates joining a course in a Malaysian university engaged with ChatGPT feedback while revising their academic research proposals. The study triangulated screen recordings, pre- and post-revision drafts, and stimulated recall interviews. Participants displayed a range of behavioural strategies, including accepting, questioning, rejecting suggestions, annotating visually, and seeking external validation. Affective responses ranged from appreciation and curiosity to doubt and frustration, particularly when feedback appeared conflicting or imprecise. Cognitively, learners applied various strategies such as evaluating, comparing, negotiating feedback, and regulating its use. Yet, they showed differing levels of engagement, shaped by individual perceptions and writing intentions. Importantly, participants regarded ChatGPT as a tool for linguistic refinement rather than content generation. Overall, the findings revealed that learners did not passively receive feedback but interacted with it in agentive and critical ways. The study highlights the interplay among these three dimensions of engagement and the importance of individual differences when evaluating the pedagogical potential of GenAI-generated feedback in academic writing.

This article presents findings from a content analysis of 707 articles appearing between 2011 and 2020 in five journals issued by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), a major teaching and research organization in North America. We examined topics and theoretical frameworks, finding that while core topics such as academic writing, curriculum, cultural studies, literacy, and teacher development remained stable, the latter part of the previous decade (2016–2020) showed increased attention to labor, diversity, social justice, and writing program administration, alongside declines in work focused on history, educational policy, ESL, and community writing. Many articles lacked explicit theoretical grounding, often using broad labels like “critical theory,” though use of specified frameworks (e.g., feminist and postcolonial theory) has grown. We identify differences among the journals and discuss the implications of these findings for NCTE, for content analysis as a method and for scholars’ efforts to navigate a complex and expanding field.

This study contributes to the emerging research on generative AI and writing pedagogy by exploring how college writing students make use of GAI when offered instruction in a range of responsible uses and latitude to integrate it into their writing process as they see fit. We analyzed chat log data and papers from participants recruited from six sections in which students were guided in experimenting with ChatGPT Plus and permitted to use it to produce up to 50% of submitted work. Through a combination of AI and human thematic content analysis of student chat logs, we found that in 18.6% of prompts, students asked ChatGPT to write for them. The rest of the prompts involved work leading up to or in support of the writing process. Human thematic content analysis of papers showed that students used ChatGPT to generate 8.2% of the writing they submitted. The most common rhetorical purpose of the AI-generated text they included was discussion/analysis/synthesis. English as a foreign language students (EFLs) in the sample prompted ChatGPT to clarify understanding less often than non-EFLs and integrated less AI-generated text into their papers, with a particularly notable difference in their use of AI-generated summaries. This unexpected finding merits further research, but it suggests that EFLs may use GAI for somewhat different purposes than non-EFL peers.

For many transnational students in North America, digital literacies entail precarious participation—the adaptive engagement in digital literacy practices under conditions of systemic vulnerability and instability. This multiple case study examines how Chinese international students at a Canadian university perceive and navigate the precarity of their digital literacy practices across national and cultural boundaries. Findings reveal that the four participants exhibit tacit sensitivity to transnational digital precarity, employ strategic adaptation, and engage in measured resistance that cautiously transgresses digital norms. These insights contribute to broader discussions on digital literacies, transnational literacies, and digital precarity, extending and complicating existing frameworks in writing studies, literacy studies, and media studies.

While previous studies on online resource use in L2 writing have focused on the overall writing quality, limited attention has been paid to its effects on linguistic complexity and real-time writing processes. Addressing this gap, the present study explored how online resource use influences both the processes and products of L2 writing. Forty-nine intermediate L2 learners completed two computer-mediated argumentative writing tasks, either with or without the use of online resources. Writing behaviors were captured via keystroke logging and screen recording, and analyzed for search activity, fluency, pausing, and revision quantity. Cognitive processes were examined through stimulated recall interviews, and written products were evaluated for both quality and linguistic complexity. The results showed that participants spent an average of 14 % of task time using online resources, with considerable individual variation. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that resource use facilitated the production of more sophisticated words, with marginal influence on writing quality or syntactic complexity. Resource use was also associated with longer between-word pauses, fewer within-word pauses, and reduced revisions. These findings highlight the potential of online resource use to enhance the authenticity of L2 writing assessment tasks without compromising test validity, while encouraging the use of more advanced vocabulary in writing. • Learners spent 14 % of the total writing task time using online resources. • Online resource use had no significant impact on L2 writing quality. • Online resource use improved lexical sophistication, not syntactic complexity. • Online resource use reduced within-word pauses and aided spelling retrieval. • Online resource use led to fewer revisions but did not affect fluency.

While existing research on second or foreign (L2) feedback has predominantly focused on the effectiveness of various feedback practices and their impacts on writing performance, limited attention has been devoted to learners’ proactive role in seeking feedback, and how this important yet underexplored construct correlates with conative and affective variables remains insufficiently examined. To help fill that void, we sought to explore the concept of feedback-seeking behavior and its antecedents in L2 writing by examining the correlations with future L2 writing selves and emotions, particularly unpacking the mediating effect of emotions in the emotion-driven chain of “motivation→emotion→increased or decreased behavior” among 225 undergraduate English major students. Structural equation modeling unveiled that ideal and ought-to L2 writing selves directly and significantly influenced emotions, and emotions impacted the two dimensions of feedback-seeking behavior significantly. More importantly, ideal L2 writing self indirectly influenced feedback monitoring and feedback inquiry through the mediation of writing enjoyment. Nevertheless, writing boredom exercised no significant mediating effect on future L2 selves and feedback-seeking behavior. These findings reinforced the learner-centered perspective that positions students as proactive agents and provide some notable implications for L2 writing instruction to advance our understanding of teacher feedback. • Learners with heightened L2 selves deployed more feedback-seeking strategies. • Experiencing L2 enjoyment fostered distinct feedback-seeking behaviors. • No variations in L2 boredom existed in the link between L2 selves and behavior. • More high-quality research evaluating L2 learners as proactive agents is needed.

This paper examines the effect of linguistic accuracy (e.g., the lack of form, grammatical, and lexical errors) on scoring during the high-stakes national test of English in Swedish upper secondary school. Teachers are expected to score their own students’ texts with the help of assessment instructions containing benchmark texts (i.e., texts representing different score bands). The assessment instructions and the score bands provided to guide scoring are not explicit about how accuracy should influence scores. Two research questions were answered: As measured by ordinal regression, to what extent does linguistic accuracy predict rater scores? Do the texts scored by teachers reflect the graded example texts in terms of how linguistic accuracy predicts scores? The results revealed, amongst other things, that overall frequency of errors in texts significantly predicted scores as the model explained approximately 58 % of the variance in the outcome variable according to Nagelkerke’s pseudo R-squared. Accuracy also had a similar effect on scores in texts rated by teachers as in the benchmark texts. In relation to the findings, it was concluded that accuracy may have more of an impact on scores than constructs that are more explicit components of the score bands such as lexical complexity.

Peer evaluation is widely recognized for its educational benefits; however, its reliability and validity, particularly among adolescent second-language (L2) writers at the early stages of English language and literacy development, remain insufficiently explored. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study investigated the reliability and validity of peer evaluation in English argumentative writing among 35 Grade 10 and 37 Grade 12 students from a public high school in Beijing, China. Twelve of the participating students (six at each grade) were interviewed about the validity, reliability, and value of peer evaluation. The findings indicated that peer evaluations demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity, with peer-assessed writing scores closely aligning with inter-teacher assessments. Notably, variations were observed among Grade 10 students, particularly in the evaluation of lower-order writing skills, such as grammar and vocabulary, which exhibited reduced validity. These results underscore the potential of peer evaluation in assessing higher-order content-level writing across varying levels of L2 English writing proficiency. The study also highlights areas where adolescent L2 writers may require additional support to enhance the effectiveness of peer evaluation practices in English argumentative writing. Implications for improving English argumentative writing instruction and refining peer evaluation strategies in high school L2 English classrooms are discussed. • Peer evaluation shows high reliability, similar to inter-teacher rating. • Peer evaluation works well for higher-order skills in L2 argumentative writing. • 10th graders struggled with evaluating lower-order skills like grammar. • 12th graders evaluate lower- and higher-order skills with greater validity than 10th graders.

The assessment of task-generated cognitive demands has been receiving increasing attention in task complexity research. However, scant attention has been paid to assessing cognitive demands when task complexity is manipulated along both resource-directing and resource-dispersing dimensions. To address this gap, the present study aimed to investigate the relative effects of reasoning demands and prior knowledge on cognitive demands in L2 writing. Eighty-eight EFL students completed two letter-writing tasks with varying reasoning demands under one of two conditions, that is, either with prior knowledge available or without prior knowledge available. Cognitive demands were assessed by the post-task questionnaire, the dual-task method and the open-ended questions. The results revealed that reasoning demands and prior knowledge were strong determinants of cognitive demands, which provided empirical evidence for Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis. Moreover, the post-task questionnaire, the dual-task method and open-ended questions were found to assess distinct aspects of cognitive demands, which highlighted the importance of data triangulation in exploring task complexity effects. The study provides language teachers and assessors with implications for task design and implementation. • How reasoning demands and prior knowledge affect cognitive demands was underexplored. • Cognitive demands were assessed by both quantitative and qualitative methods. • Findings supported some assumptions underlying Robinson’s framework. • The independent measures assessed distinct aspects of cognitive demands.