In universities throughout the world, faculty engage in discussions related to the writing performance of their students—with many concerned about challenges second language (L2) students face in achieving competence in academic writing tasks. Yet, most studies in the field of L2 writing focus on a single area of concern within the learning and teaching spectrum; the collective results of these explorations must often be pieced together by an individual who reviews a large number of separate studies. Cumming's edited volume stems from a more ambitious and data-rich approach; its chapters derive from a 2-year project in which the contributors investigated and compared the learning and teaching goals of several dozen L2 writers and a number of their teachers as the students moved from an intensive English as a second language (ESL) program in Canada to their first year at several Canadian universities.

After an opening chapter that provides a rationale for the study, an explanation of both goal and activity theory—the concepts that inform the interpretation of the data—and an overview of the volume's structure, chapter 2 presents the research methodology. Chapters 3 and 4 offer perhaps the most significant contributions of the work, namely the precise identification and classification of goals for writing improvement, as seen by students, and goals perceived by ESL teachers and faculty in several different types of university courses. The middle section of the volume, chapters 5–9, presents five different case studies that offer deeper analyses of different aspects of the research. In the final chapter, Cumming presents implications for pedagogy, policy, and research.

This volume provides valuable insights into the progression from the focused and sheltered learning experience of an intensive ESL writing course to the first-year university environment. Not surprisingly, students were expected to take an increasingly self-responsible or proactive approach to their writing improvement as they moved from the intensive program's nurturing environment to mainstream courses at the university. Throughout the volume, the voices of students and their perceptions of their own learning serve to offer teachers and curriculum developers a basis for reviewing how best to help students shape and achieve optimal learning goals.