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The Modern Language Association (MLA) published a writing and artificial intelligence (AI) working paper that provided an overview of key issues, concerns, and recommendations to help language educators make principle‐driven pedagogical decisions to support critical AI literacy. To address the MLA's recommendations, a collaborative AI writing companion project was designed that assists learners in a process‐oriented, design approach to writing. The tool seeks to emphasize writing as a meaningful, collaborative process of communication that involves both learner autonomy and a focus on textual conventions. Perceptions of the platform's efficacy were assessed employing constructs from the psychology of language learning such as writing self‐efficacy, anxiety, and self‐efficacy for self‐regulation and user experience measures such as perceived anthropomorphism, teaching presence, and enjoyment. Findings revealed that students' perceptions and enjoyment of the AI chatbot were associated with how competent students perceived themselves to be as writers and other self‐reported outcomes.

This study investigates and compares the quality of Google-translated texts (GTTs) across writing genres (narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive) with EFL student–generated texts (SGTs), and explores students’ attitudes toward Google Translate (GT) output. In a mixed-methods design with a computational approach to text analysis, this study utilizes multiple data sources, including 328 written texts, written reflections, four attitude questionnaires, focus group discussion, and individual interviews. Forty-one Arabic-speaking undergraduate students majoring in English language and translation at a Saudi university participated in this study. They engaged in eight computer-mediated writing sessions by responding to tasks using English, then responding to the same tasks using their first language (L1). Subsequently, they utilized GT to translate L1 texts into English and compared SGTs with GTTs. The findings show that GTTs have higher literacy levels and richer content in the persuasive and expository genres, and higher style levels in the narrative and descriptive genres. Moreover, the comparison between SGTs and GTTs reveals that GTTs have higher literacy levels, better style, and richer content in the descriptive, expository, and persuasive genres. Meanwhile, the students hold positive views on the general quality, grammatical accuracy, and provision of lexical alternatives in GTTs across genres. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Proficient writers spend substantial time planning for writing, and that planning begins with analyzing the writing task. They spend time considering the topic, the audience and its needs, and the genre and form of the writing. This rhetorical analysis helps them set goals, orient their attention, and get organized. Task analysis can also help students navigate reading tasks and challenging combined reading–writing tasks. This teaching tip explains a process for critically reading and analyzing writing tasks, as well as combined reading–writing tasks, that can be immediately applied in teachers’ classrooms.

The author provides a conceptual framework that illustrates the spectrum of authentic writing assignments and operationalizes authenticity, in an effort to guide practitioners toward crafting writing assignments that are meaningful for students by reflecting and replicating the kinds of writing that occur outside of the academic context. The author outlines the research on authentic writing assignments and examines latent authenticity and functional authenticity while providing examples to illustrate differences between the two. The author also discusses the mixing of different elements to create both latent and functional authentic writing assignments.

Revision is an important aspect of the writing process but is often challenging for students. Peer review can be helpful, but training is needed for it to work effectively. This article suggests an approach to preparing students for peer review by teaching specific evaluation criteria and leading collaborative practice in reviewing papers written by unknown peers. This practice supports self‐evaluation as well as peer review and increases students’ knowledge of effective writing and the quality of their own writing. Specific examples are presented to demonstrate the effects of this approach.

Increasingly, school leaders recognize the need for writing instruction to become a schoolwide priority. The writers’ workshop approach that was popularized 30 years ago is still relevant; it is still important to give students protected time to write, opportunities to address topics and audiences that matter, and timely feedback. Recent research emphasizes that students also benefit from explicit instruction in the craft and structure of specific types of writing and from working toward clear images of good writing. Teachers can accelerate students’ growth by developing shared expectations for good writing and a common language for talking about writing. Clear goals are important for teachers, too. Shared knowledge of effective writing instruction and ways to track writing growth over time lift the level of instruction across a school, supporting teacher‐to‐teacher collaboration. When student growth is regarded as feedback to teachers on their teaching, assessment‐based instruction helps schools participate in continuous improvement.

LOCATE: There are many general books and articles on publishing in peer-reviewed journals, but few specifically address issues around writing for scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) journals. One of the challenges of beginning to write about SoTL is that most scholars have become interested in exploring teaching and learning issues in higher education (HE) alongside their disciplinary interests and have to grapple with a new literature and sometimes unfamiliar methods and genres as well. Hence, for many, as they write up their SoTL projects, they are simultaneously forging their identities as SoTL scholars. FOCUS: We unpack the process of writing SoTL articles for peer-reviewed journals with the goal of supporting both new and experienced SoTL scholars (faculty/academics, professional staff, and students) as they nurture and further develop their voices and their SoTL identities and strive to contribute to the enhancement of learning and teaching in HE. REPORT: We pose three related sets of overarching questions for consideration when writing SoTL articles for peer-reviewed journals followed by heuristic frameworks for publishing in five specific writing genres (empirical research articles, conceptual articles, case studies of practice, reflective essays, and opinion pieces). ARGUE:  Using the metaphor of being in conversation, we argue that writing is a values-based process that contributes to the identity formation of SoTL scholars and their sense of belonging within the SoTL discourse community.

This study attempts to relate faculty feelings towards writing with writing genres, perceived competences and values associated to writing. 67 foreign languages faculty in Colombia and Spain voluntarily filled in a four-section on-line questionnaire entitled The Writing Feelings Questionnaire. All the sections were Likert Scale type. The first, Affective dimension, consisted of a list of bipolar adjectives (feelings) associated to writing; the second, Genres, asked about frequency of use of written genres; in the third one, Competences, faculty evaluated their perceived proficiency in writing competences; in section fourth, Good writing, faculty valued good writing characteristics. Exploratory factor analyses were performed and subsequently, data were related through a co-occurrence analysis. Results showed a three-factor structure for the four sections, associating: (a) writing to feelings of demanding standards of writing, satisfaction and importance; (b) genres to research writing, technical writing and narrative writing; (c) perceived writing competences to the management of formal and technical mechanisms, discursive mechanisms and in a less percentage, composition processes competences; and (d) good writing to data-driven content information, argumentative procedures and rhetoric mechanisms. Correlations showed that perceived proficiency in writing competences was related to all feelings. Besides, participants conceived writing as demanding, but also as important and satisfactory in their profession. In conclusion, being conscious of the importance of writing a specific genre and perceiving as competent writers are the variables that lead faculty identity to devote time and energy to increase their production of research writing genres. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

In this commentary, a National Writing Project site director and two teachers reflect on the philosophy of ubuntu as it helped them redesign a writing community between teachers and students in Connecticut. With the guidance of writing activity genre research, the authors discuss the creation of Young Adult Literacy Labs, including Ubuntu Academy, a two‐week literacy program for immigrant and refugee youth. In the work, young people participating in a number of literacy labs work alongside teachers in a summer institute for teaching writing. The redesign has fostered many relationships with community organizations and inspired numerous collaborations throughout the school year.

The authors examined how high school seniors conceptualized the task of writing college admissions essays, the audience for that writing, and themselves as potentially college‐worthy writers. In a survey and related interviews, students revealed more emphasis on generic good writing than on the narrative argument genre that college admissions personnel often privilege. Students who wrote to address a specific college admissions audience varied considerably in how they conceptualized this set of readers, and many students did not write with a particular audience in mind. Students who emphasized the pivotal role of writing quality were often equivocal about their chances of being convincing. These findings suggest that teachers should help students learn about the narrative argument genre, build students' familiarity with admissions readers as audiences, and support students' sense of self‐efficacy in academic writing. Recommendations for reshaping college admissions are also included.