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Technology, Knowledge and Learning

, Volume 21, Issue 1, pp 99–123 | Cite as

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

  • Justin Olmanson
  • Katrina Kennett
  • Alecia Magnifico
  • Sarah McCarthey
  • Duane Searsmith
  • Bill Cope
  • Mary Kalantzis
Learning Analytics
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Abstract

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to re-present the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students’ meta-awareness of what was missing or misaligned in their draft. Our findings have implications for how students approach, educators perceive, and designers support the drafting and revision process.

Keywords

Revision Rereading Writing Informative writing Metacognition Technology Academic literacy 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported in part by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, US Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences: ‘The Assess-as-You-Go Writing Assistant: a student work environment that brings together formative and summative assessment’ (R305A090394); ‘Assessing Complex Performance: A Postdoctoral Training Program Researching Students’ Writing and Assessment in Digital Workspaces’ (R305B110008); ‘u-Learn.net: An Anywhere/Anytime Formative Assessment and Learning Feedback Environment’ (ED-IES-10-C-0018); ‘The Learning Element: A Lesson Planning and Curriculum Documentation Tool for Teachers’ (ED-IES-lO-C-0021); and ‘InfoWriter: A Student Feedback and Formative Assessment Environment for Writing Information and Explanatory Texts’ (ED-IES-13-C-0039). Scholar is located at http://CGScholar.com. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the US Department of Education.

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© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.College of Education and Human SciencesUniversity of Nebraska LincolnLincolnUSA
  2. 2.College of EducationUniversity of Illinois Urbana ChampaignChampaignUSA
  3. 3.College of Liberal ArtsUniversity of New HampshireDurhamUSA

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