An important area of development for second language (L2) students is learning how to share ideas with an audience through writing. Some researchers suggest that writing is a primary language skill that holds greater challenges for L2 learners than speaking, listening, or reading (Bell & Burnaby, 1984; Bialystok, 1978; Brown & Yule, 1983; Nunan, 1989; White, 1981). Writing skills are especially...

This study investigates reflection keywords by contrasting two datasets, one of reflective sentences and another of descriptive sentences. The loglikelihood statistic reveals several reflection keywords that are discussed in the context of a model for reflective writing. These keywords are seen as a useful building block for tools that can automatically analyse reflection in texts.

This research is an analysis of88 first-year portfolio cover letters from the Spring 2000 English 102 Program Assessment at the University of Nevada, Reno. This analysis focuses on what these students viewed as the rhetorical purposes of cover letters. The goal of this study was to apply the theories of Aristotle, Toulmin, and Burke to these letters to analyze their appellate, argumentative, an...