Lesson 1.4: Translating Reading into Writing (The Process Approach)

Process Writing

It is an approach to teaching writing that allows the teacher and the students to go through the process of producing a text together.

White & Arndt

They say that focusing on language errors improves neither grammatical accuracy nor writing fluency and they suggest instead that paying attention to what the students say will show an improvement in writing.

Writing

It is a “productive” skill and the stages of writing lesson differ from that of receptive skills, like reading.

Pre-Writing, Focusing Ideas, Evaluating, Structuring, Editing

What are the stages of process writing?

Pre-writing

In this stage, learners are asked to come up with ideas & plan what they are going to write.

Brainstorming, Planning, Generating Ideas

Pre-writing includes what?

Brainstorming

It is when you deliberately try to think up new ideas or solutions to problems.

Generating Ideas

These are discovery tasks such as cubing.

Cubing

Students write quickly about the subject in 6 different ways.

Describe, compare, associate, analyze, apply, argue for or against it

What are the 6 parts of cubing?

Focusing Ideas

During this stage, students write without much attention to the accuracy of their work or the organization.

Fast Writing

Students write quickly on a topic for five to ten minutes without worrying about correct language or pronunciation.

Group Compositions

Working together in groups, sharing ideas. This collaborative writing is especially valuable as it involves other skills (speaking in particular)

Collaboration

It helps students understand writing as a public, communal act, rather than as a private, isolated one. Many students write papers that make sense to them but aren’t clear or persuasive to others.

Changing Viewpoints

A good writing activity to follow is a role-play or storytelling activity. Different students choose different point of view & think about/discuss what this character would write in a diary, witness statement, etc.

Ordering

Organizing the sentences in your paragraph according to a logical order helps the reader to follow the development of your ideas.

Self-editing

A good write must learn how to evaluate their own language — to improve through checking their own text, looking for errors and structure.

Peek Editing & Proof-reading

Here, the texts are interchanged and the evaluation is done by other students. In the real world, it is common for writers to ask friends and colleagues to check texts for spelling, etc.

Graphic Organizers

It provides visual representation for young writers. Students will be able to organize their story without a beginning, middle, and end and learn to select words for their chosen topic.