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Couzijn (Couzijn, 1995; Couzijn & Rijlaarsdam 1996) showed that learning to write and read argumentative texts is facilitated by observation tasks. Compared with executing the exercises themselves, observing others executing the tasks proved to be more beneficial in learning and transfer. In this article, we report on a detailed analysis of Couzijn's data, exploring the different learning activities in the observation task. An analysis of pupils' observation tasks showed differences in the mean percentage of process-oriented elaborations. Central to this article is the question: which features of instruction lead to process-oriented elaborations? Some features are discussed: different formulation of instructions and differences in the object of observation. It turns out that in observing readers, pupils elaborated more on the reading process than on the writing process when they were observing writers. Another finding was that good writers stimulated more process-oriented elaborations than weak writers.