This article researched about academic writing in secondary education. It seems like more and more people these days struggle with transitioning from high school to college. The writing standards and expectations differ dramatically. In high school, students are graded and expected to use the five paragraph format. This creates a base foundation on which students can help develop transitioning sentences and paragraphs. In college however, this structure is frowned upon. The students are used to writing in this format only so when professors ask them to write papers they automatically fall back to this technique. English language learners also have had trouble adapting to the different format college requires. Approximately 1/3 of high school students who are planning to continue on into post-secondary education do not meet standards of readiness for college-level writing (ACT, 2005). And national test data show that only 24% of 12th grade students performed at or above the "Proficient" level of writing on the NAEP (Salahu-Din, Persky & Miller, 2008). Also alarming is the fact that only 2% of English Language Learners (ELLs) scored at or above "Proficient" compared to 25% of non-ELLs (http://nationsreportcard.gov/writing_2007/data.asp). Feedback is also something is not utilized in classrooms very often and this can lead to misunderstanding of the function. Most of the times papers were returned with mostly grammar and punctuation feedback and nothing on thoughts and ideas.

http://www.sciencedirect.com.mantis.csuchico.edu/science/article/pii/S1075293511000365

This article studied writers and how well they wrote when the topic was related to their writing. It analyzed the differences between writing style and also talents. Today's view of writing quality has changed tremendously from academic knowledge to sentence structure and choices of wording. It pointed out two recognized styles of writing such as gifts and talents. Gifts represent the potential for outstanding achievement, while talents are the manifestation of this potential. (1) The students who were analyzed were asked to reflect on their writing history from primary to college levels. The questions included things such as: What assignments were intrapersonal, academic, or historical? What motivated them to write? How teachers and parents affected or influenced their writing styles? Some of the reflections included how students were able to adapt to the writing patterns and structures that schools implemented. Using the five paragraph structure with introduction, body, and conclusion they were able to complete the assignments. Music when used was also an effective tool in helping writers to create and organized papers. This mixed with papers that included their personal knowledge or experience helped them to become more creative and detailed in their paragraphs. Heightened levels of intrinsic motivation have been found to characterise exceptional achievers irrespective of the domain of endeavour. It would seem that the greatest gift adults can give to a gifted young person is an environment that recognises this inner desire "to be". While it is important that talent of this kind is supported by way of modeling, encouragement and guidance, it is apparent from the findings of this study that freedom and space are more critical to gifts being realised as talents. (13)

This study examined the similarities and differences of theories, writing theories, and also writing assessments. Writing theories helped influence writing practices for students and as well as how assessments were made. Kaestle (1991): Literacy is all around us and is immensely important, but measuring and assessing its meaning are hard and tracing its progress in earlier decades is even harder. Because literacy has a cultural as well as an economic dimension, personal as well as collective importance, psychological as well as social meanings, the theoretical insights that might help historians grapple with this unwieldy subject are scattered and diverse as the sources themselves (p. xiv)
There are two types of theories such as test score and scaling. Test score was more on how a student performed and scaling focused more on where the student stood in comparison was their class. The writing theories included form, idea and content, and sociocultural context. These theories led to one another in a continuous cycle. They were all influenced by one another and had not ending. Analyzing the historical context of how an when writing assessments also gave researchers an insight of how certain writing theories came to be. One of the more recent and dominant theories was on psycho analysis. This type studied on what and how a student thought about topics on a cognitive level as opposed to simply remembering facts and being able to repeat them. Our findings emphasize "the need for writing assessments to be consistent with contemporary theories about language learning, literacy, educational measurement as well as the histories out of which these theories evolved" (Moore, O'Neill, & Huot, 2009, p. 110).


http://www.sciencedirect.com.mantis.csuchico.edu/science/article/pii/S1075293511000183

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This article talks about how learning styles and multimedia structure affect undergraduate writing performances in a prewriting skills lesson. There were 42 students that were examined through brainstorming and outlining. One was through fully prescribed and the others were random through Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory. They also took questionnaires on writing skills, attitudes, and computer skills but this showed no differences between the groups of students. The students however, did show that they preferred to use multimedia when they wrote because it made it more enjoyable. It was pretty obvious that students who wrote more on a daily basis had better composition than those who rarely wrote.
The focus was on development, organization, style, grammar, and mechanics. This also included styles of brainstorming, free writing, drafting, and outlining. Multimedia allowed for students to utilize a dynamic approach to how they started their writing process. There was also four types of learning styles that was discussed. Divergers were more on based upon reading and lectures. Accomodators were more on gut feelings and emotions as they listened to facts and details. Assimilators are those who develop theories and the morale of a lesson as opposed to facts. Convergers are those who make the lesson applicable in the real word and how it can be useful. Students who had prior prewriting classes excelled more than those who had not taken those classes regardless of attitude. They were more exposed to the writing styles and techniques of grammar and punctuation.

This article is about using ellipsis in writing and in creativity in classrooms and books. They start out with how it can leave an audience hanging or getting them to think cognitively about what is being asked on a certain thought. This is in opposition to the traditional teaching methods of lecturing and providing answers to facts. This also helps promote creativity in student and teacher learning in classrooms. The teacher can then also help promote scaffolding the students to the main topic. Using this style helps students to think about why and how they learn and write. The best thing that I got out of this was how this gets students involved personally in learning and helps students participate in classrooms and writing.