Abstract
A significant percentage of students who attend secondary schools in the United States do not acquire the basic writing skills required to gain admission to four-year colleges and universities. In the present study, participants were 41 low-income, multi-ethnic 12th-grade students, 19 of whom received instruction on specific genre features for writing college admission essays. The other 22 12th-grade students formed the comparison group and received instruction as usual in their regular English class (mostly on literary analysis). The students wh o received instruction on genre features of the college admission essay scored higher on a rubric-based rating of the pre and post test essay writing and on writing self-efficacy surveys associated with the genre. Findings yielded from this study point to the merit of using a features-based genre instructional approach to teaching college admission essays to low-income, multi-ethnic high school students.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 299-329 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| Journal | Journal of Writing Research |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2011 |
Keywords
- College admission essay
- Composition
- Features-based instruction
- Self-efficacy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
- Literature and Literary Theory