Debra A. Myhill

University of Exeter | UoE · The Graduate School of Education

The current study examined how Qatari university students show their understanding of connecting words to connect with their readers and structure their writing. It focused on how students write arguments in Arabic as their native language and English as their second language. The findings showed that students were good at linking ideas but weren't...

Research in metadiscourse has foregrounded the multiple ways in which writers build a relationship with readers through internal discourse. Yet, few studies consider the relationship between the texts writers create and the metalinguistic thinking which informs their decision making as writers. This paper draws on data from a larger study which sou...

Introduction The act of writing is widely acknowledged to be a complex and challenging activity, and in parallel, we know that student motivation to write is a predictor of writing performance. So understanding what characteristics of the writing classroom support or foster motivation remains a salient concern. Research has shown that UK teachers a...

This chapter will consider how the teaching of grammar can actively support students in understanding the nature of writing and being a writer. It will present a theorised perspective on how teaching students how grammatical choices represent meaning-making decisions in written texts and how those grammatical choices can serve to realise the writer...

Teaching writing is complex and research related to approaches that support students’ understanding and outcomes in written assessment is prolific. Written aspects including text structure, purpose, and language conventions appear to be explicit elements teachers know how to teach. However, more qualitative and nuanced elements of writing such as a...

Students’ metalinguistic understanding of the written academic argument is important both to increase writer independence and inform writing instruction. This article draws on a study which investigated undergraduate students’ metalinguistic understanding of the metadiscourse features in their own written arguments. The specific focus of the paper...

In order to teach writing effectively, teachers of writing need to possess strong subject and pedagogic knowledge about the construct of writing proficiency and how writing develops. In this chapter, we offer a narrative review of research on writing development, focusing principally on writing in the first years of schooling. The review draws on r...

This book takes as its starting point the contested issue of explicit grammar teaching, providing a contextual framing for the book’s focus on learners’ development of conceptual understanding of linguistic terms. A thorough and critical synthesis of the ‘grammar debate’ is provided, drawing on perspectives from both L1 and L2, and from across diff...

This mixed-method quasi-experimental study examined whether metaconceptual grammar teaching impacts on (a) students’ L1 grammatical understanding, (b) their ‘blind’ use of grammatical concepts and (c) their preference of using explicit grammatical concepts over everyday concepts in explaining grammatical problems. Previous research, involving singl...

The ways in which we approach the process of writing can tell us much about our confidence, linguistic and textual knowledge, and our desire to please self or others through language. School writing often focuses on the process and product of writing, rather than the conditions that shape how we make decisions when writing for an authentic purpose...

The importance of teacher subject knowledge as key professional knowledge has been emphasised in successive studies over the past thirty years, yet there are very few empirical studies which address either content or pedagogical knowledge for teaching writing. At the same time, in a number of international jurisdictions, writing attainment lags beh...

This paper works on the premise that classroom talk conveys meaning about students as writers and asks how classroom talk facilitates the formation of students’ identities as writers. We present findings from an ethnographic investigation of elementary writing lessons across six participant schools in Australia. Our data analysis is informed by two...

The capacity to reason critically and negotiate ideas and differences lies at the heart of quality education. Through critical reasoning we construct, organise, and justify knowledge; and we create new ideas and practices. Despite the emphasis on teaching argumentative writing in school curricula, existing research consistently shows that arguing w...

Writing requires a high level of nuanced decision-making related to language, purpose, audience, and medium. Writing teachers thus need a deep understanding of language, process, and pedagogy, and of the interface between them. This article draws on reflexivity theory to interrogate the pedagogical priorities and perspectives of 19 writing teachers...

The topic of grammar teaching has remained a stubbornly contentious subject of discussion for more than 50 years, tending towards binary, even polemical, positions. Yet scrutiny of the research shows how little attention has been afforded to considering what the relationship between learning about grammar and learning about being a language user mi...

Many young writers find revision a challenging process. The study reported here uses a multimodal system (the Ramos System) for data capture, in contrast to the more typical use of think-aloud or post-hoc recall, and sought to understand what newly-literate writers’ textual modifications (erasures) and oral comments reveal about their metalinguisti...

In the light of ongoing international debate about the purpose of explicit teaching of grammar, this paper considers the relationship between metalinguistic understanding and development as a writer. Drawing on a cumulative series of studies over a period of ten years, adopting a functionally-oriented approach to grammar, the paper argues that purp...

Becoming a writer is a challenging task, and one of the few tasks where the cognitive demands do not decrease with maturity because ‘as writers mature and gain expertise, they invest more effort and reflective thought in the task’ (Kellogg R, The psychology of writing. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, p. 204). Part of this reflective effort r...

The rich body of research on dialogic, exploratory talk points to its significance in developing and securing student learning (Alexander, 2018; Gillies, 2016; O’Connor & Michaels, 2007; Reznitskaya et al., 2009). More recently, this body of research has begun to consider dialogic talk specifically in the context of literacy education (for example,...

International concerns about standards of achievement in writing, particularly the lack of sustained growth of expertise remain prevalent. This situation is equally true in Australia and England, and curriculum developments in both countries seek to redress this problem. This book brings together leading researchers from both countries which addres...

Very few students with vocational qualifications progress into the world of Higher Education. Many drop out of education altogether and take up entry level jobs with decreased financial prospects. This trend is worrying as the lack of students with vocational backgrounds applying to University acts as a barrier to social mobility. This book, inform...

In the context of renewed interest in teachers' identities as writers and the writers as artist‐educators, this paper reports upon the findings of “Teachers as Writers” (2015–2017). A collaborative partnership between two universities and a creative writing foundation, the study sought to determine the impact of writers' engagement with teachers on...

This article addresses the teaching of writing and examines how a rhetorical approach can generate empowerment and agency. In the context of contemporary digital modes of written communication, which have democratised access to wide networks of communication, enabling children to write well has never been more important. Yet school attainment data...

The classical rhetorical tradition advocated imitation as a tool for learning to be an effective orator, and thus foregrounded the pedagogical importance of using texts as models. More recent contemporary research has also flagged the value of using texts as models, enabling explicit attention to how texts work, and scaffolding students' learning a...

Whilst historically there has been a widespread consensus that teaching grammar has no impact on students’ attainment in writing, more recent research suggests that where a functionally oriented approach to grammar is meaningfully embedded within the teaching of writing, significant improvements in writing can be secured. A recent study, using a fu...

Empirical studies pertaining to working on grammar at school and its effects have not been the focus of L1 research in recent years. For instance, none of the current international large-scale studies investigates grammar learning. This might be the result of widespread doubts about the benefits of grammar learning for students, but-however justifi...

This article will begin by briefly outlining the long-standing, and contested, debate in Anglophone countries regarding the place of grammar in the L1 curriculum, and will underline how Anglophone countries in general have not valued grammar in the teaching of L1 (or in L2). It will illustrate how current national policies have re-positioned gramma...

Much of the literature on explicit teaching about language has suggested that equipping students with metalinguistic knowledge is as an important means of enhancing students’ participation in learning. Yet in the context of international jurisdictions which are placing a renewed emphasis on knowledge about language, there is a notable lack of resea...

This idea is further developed in the light of Bakhtin’s thinking about dialogicity, and how written text is always a dialogic interplay between the writer and the reader, not a monologic act. Moreover, in school, learners are writing in culturally-determined contexts which are powerful influences on the writing produced and how it is valued. Class...

The socio-cultural context within which L2 writing takes place is believed to affect students' writing development; however, little research has been carried out to explore the different contexts. Drawing on a social-constructionist theoretical framework, a systematic review of the literature, and data from an empirical study involving in-depth sem...

Historically, theoretical consideration of metalinguistic understanding has scarcely addressed the issue in the context of writing, other than in relation to early years writing development where there is a substantial body of work. Consequently, there is very limited understanding of how older writers in the upper primary and secondary phase of sc...

This article draws on data from a national study, involving an experimental intervention with 54 schools across the country, in which teachers were mentored in a pedagogical approach involving explicit attention to grammatical choices and which advocated high-level metalinguistic discussion about textual choices. The research focused upon primary c...

This paper will present a theoretical analysis of research on metalinguistic understanding, illustrating how current research does not yet adequately address metalinguistic development in writing. Existing research on metalinguistic understanding has focused more on language acquisition, oral development and bilingual learners. Research on metaling...

As Sligo shows, the spatial and temporal boundaries of learning have been recast as our attention has moved to accessing and producing knowledge in ways that move beyond passive consumption to active and interactive production (Beach et al., 2011) which blurs oral, written and visual conventions (Maybin, 2013). Tat Heung Choi’s article, which consi...

For most Anglophone countries, the history of grammar teaching over the past fifty years is one of contestation, debate and dissent: and fifty years on we are no closer to reaching a consensus about the role of grammar in the English/Language Arts curriculum. The debate has been described through the metaphor of battle and grammar wars (Kamler 1995...

As pesquisas realizadas anteriormente sobre o desenvolvimento linguístico na escrita priorizavam seu desenvolvimento inicial e as interações entre fala-escrita na primeira fase de aquisição. Este estudo explorou o desenvolvimento linguístico em escreventes mais velhos, do segundo ciclo do ensino fundamental. Este estudo com duração de dois anos con...

Discourses of creativity in education vary from the highly theoretical to more pragmatic views, based on observations of ‘what works’ in practice. This is especially true in the current global economic climate, where, in Anglophone countries, there is both a premium placed on creativity at the same time as there is a tendency towards high-stakes ac...

Teaching grammar has been mandated in statutory curriculum documents in England since 1988. Yet despite this, research evidence continues to suggest that metalinguistic knowledge is an area of challenge for many teachers. Drawing on data from a larger study, this paper considers the role of teachers' grammatical knowledge, both content and pedagogi...

The place of grammar within the teaching of writing has long been contested and successive research studies have indicated no correlation between grammar teaching and writing attainment. However, a recent study has shown a significant positive impact on writing outcomes when the grammar input is intrinsically linked to the demands of the writing be...

The role of grammar instruction in the teaching of writing is contested in most Anglophone countries, with several robust meta-analyses finding no evidence of any beneficial effect. However, existing research is limited in that it only considers isolated grammar instruction and offers no theorisation of an instructional relationship between grammar...

This paper reports on a national study, involving a mixed-method research design comprising a randomised controlled trial (RCT), text analysis, student and teacher interviews and lesson observations. It set out to investigate whether contextualised teaching of grammar, linked to the teaching of writing, would improve student outcomes in writing and...

This paper investigates the personal epistemologies of teachers in relation to the place of linguistic and literary metalanguage in the teaching of poetry writing. The data draw on 93 interviews with 31 secondary English teachers in the UK, following lesson observations, and the data are a subset of a larger study investigating the impact of contex...

The perspectives of children, teachers and professional writers are often absent in the pedagogy of writing. Writing Voices: Creating Communities of Writers responds to such silent voices and offers a text which not only stretches across primary and secondary practice, but also gives expression to these voices, making a new and significant contribu...

The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels etc. like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as the exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new Idea to the world. (Robert Fulton - nineteenth-century engineer). A synergy between the work of a mechanic and the work of a writer is no...

The decision to have regular non-themed issues of English Teaching: Practice and Critique was made by way of Board consultation some time ago. As a Board, we believe that the policy of having a panel of guest editors taking control of a "themed" issue has worked well. In many cases, guess editors have worked together for the first time in a common...

Introduction The role of linguistics in writing instruction is a contentious issue. Both in the classroom and at policy level, the subject of ‘grammar teaching’ almost inevitably raises professional or political hackles. As a writer, my choice of the noun ‘linguistics’ in the opening sentence is deliberate, a way of positioning myself as author wit...

Using Talk to Support Writing presents a new and innovative approach to the teaching of early writing. The authors discuss both theoretical and practical issues around using talk in the classroom to support children as they learn to write. Set within the context of national concern for achievement in the development of writing ability, it addresses...

Learning to write paragraphs and thus learning how to sub-divide a text for topical and organisational coherence is an accepted part of acquiring writing maturity, and most teachers of writing will include explicit teaching of paragraphing techniques within their writing instruction classes. However, there is relatively little pedagogical or empiri...

 The principle that emergent writing is supported by talk, and that an appropriate pedagogy for writing should include planned opportunities for talk is well researched and well understood. However, the process by which talk becomes text is less clear. The term ‘oral rehearsal’ is now commonplace in English classrooms and curriculum policy document...

Background. Previous research in linguistic development in writing has primarily addressed the acquisition of writing, early linguistic development of writing, and spoken-written interactions in the primary phase. This study explored linguistic development in older writers in the secondary phase.Aims. The aims of this 2-year study were to investiga...

This article reports on an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study into secondary-aged writers' compositional processes, both as observed in a naturalistic classroom setting and as gathered through post hoc reflections. The sample comprised 38 children drawn from Year 9 and Year 11 who were observed, using an annotated timeline, respondin...

This Handbook critically examines research and theoretical issues that impact writing development from the early years through to adulthood. It provides those researching or teaching literacy with one of the most academically authoritative and comprehensive works in the field. With expert contributors from across the world, the book represents a de...

Drawing on the findings of an ESRC-funded research study, which included a detailed linguistic analysis of a large corpus of writing from secondary English classrooms, this article describes patterns of linguistic deployment at the level of the sentence. Given the limited number of applied linguistic studies which consider writing development in ol...

This article argues, in the context of national concern about standards in writing, for a reconceptualisation of the teaching of writing that acknowledges both the significance of the writer's voice and the need to teach about how written texts create meaning. The teaching of writing requires the dual activities of creating and crafting: young writ...

The intention of this article is to examine the role of reflective journals in Initial Teacher Training courses, and, in particular, how they can enable students to develop critical independence for professional self-appraisal. It explores the value of journal writing in the process of learning about teaching by reproducing an edited extract of one...

This article explores how literacy research is currently being positioned to address the political imperatives of the day, focusing on debates relating to the teaching of grammar. It takes the international debate about the value of grammar teaching as the context for exploring prevailing ambiguities and tensions in literacy research, arguing a par...

Drawing on the second phase of a 2-year study of students' linguistic and compositional processes, this article describes students' reflections on their online revision processes, those revisions made during the process of translating thoughts into written text. The data collected were from classroom observation and post hoc interviews with 34 stud...

The act of writing is a complex task. About that, there is almost complete agreement, whether you are a psychologist, a linguist, a socio-cultural theorist, a teacher, or a student battling with an assignment deadline and a blank page. For the emergent writer in the infant classroom, the challenge of communicating in writing is compounded by the sh...

Set in the context of international concerns about boys' achievements in writing, this article presents research that explores gender differences or similarities in linguistic competence in writing. Drawing on the results of a large-scale analysis of the linguistic characteristics of secondary-aged writers, we outline gender difference in the sampl...

Based on a larger, cross phase study investigating underachieving boys, this article explores pupil's responses to a single interview question inviting pupils to articulate their perceptions of whether teachers treat boys and girls the same. The article records that the predominant perception is that teachers treat boys more negatively than girls,...

UK national initiatives in education, such as the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, have been implemented to improve learning and raise standards. These initiatives place considerable significance on whole class interactive teaching, and political rhetoric makes great play of this pedagogic strategy. Teachers have been encouraged to use up...

This article explores the relationship between children's prior knowledge of spoken and written discourses and how this influences their attempts at examination writing. Particular emphasis is given to task demand in examination questions and how frequently this fails to acknowledge how prior knowledge might be realized in response to the question....

This paper draws on observation data from 54 teaching episodes in year 2 and year 6 whole class teaching. It describes the findings of the analysis and illustrates how ‘interactive’, whole-class teaching is characterised by questions requiring predetermined answers. Speculative questions, which invite opinions, hypotheses and imaginings, or process...

Acknowledging the changing nature of writing in the 21st century, particularly the increasing significance of visual characteristics in written texts, this paper explores the implications of multimodality for the pedagogy of writing. It considers the potential disjunction between children’s life experiences of written texts and the demands of the w...

This article explores how teachers use talk to scaffold pupil learning by examining ‘critical moments’ in whole‐class teaching contexts. The critical moments represent those points in a lesson where something a child or teacher says creates a moment of choice or opportunity for the teacher, and the article examines teachers' responses to these mome...

In the international context of concerns about standards in writing, this article addresses the role of grammar in the teaching of writing. It considers both current and historical perspectives on the teaching of grammar and offers a critique of research which attempts to determine the impact of grammar teaching on writing, but which does not inves...

Incl. abstract, bib. The identity of the underachiever has become synonymous with the stereotypical identity of boys. Teachers know what underachievement looks like: it looks like a boy who is bright, but bored. Evidence from a research study reported here demonstrates that teachers are more likely to select boys as underachievers than girls and th...

Working within a methodological framework that identified four focus groups, high‐achieving boys and girls and underachieving boys and girls, this article presents teachers' perceptions of how gender identity is seen to influence achievement levels. Beliefs about gender identity informed the teachers' perceptions in relation to each of the four foc...