ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, as learners become more expert as writers, the cognitive challenges increase rather than decrease. By age 16, when students sit national qualifications in England, the complexity of the reflective thought and autonomous decision-making required from them is very evident, a crucial part of which relates to a confident awareness of authorial intentions, where choices over what to say and how to say it are made with a strong sense both of the needs of the implied reader of the text and of what the writing should achieve. This chapter draws on data from interviews with students of secondary school age to explore their developing understanding of how texts – their own and others’ – are deliberately crafted and shaped to achieve their intentions. It outlines some of the challenges involved in articulating this understanding in ways that make meaningful connections between language choices and their rhetorical impact and suggests classroom approaches that might enable such understanding.
