Teaching writing

A.                Type of classroom writing activities ( based on douglas brown)

1.   Imitative, or writing down

At the beginning level of learning to write, student will simply “write down” english letters, words, and possibly sentences in order to learn the conventions of the orthographic code. Some forms of dictation fall into this category, although dictations can serve to teach and test higher-order processing as well. Dictations typically involve the following steps :

a.   Teacher reads the a short paragraph once or twice at normal speed

b.   Teacher reads the paragraph in shorts phrase units of three or four words each, and each unit is followed by a pause

c.   During the pause, students write exactly what they hear

d.   Teacher theb read the whole paragraph once more at normal speed to students can check their writing

e.   Scoring of student’s written work can utilize a number of rubrics for assigning points. Usually spelling and punctuations errors are not considered as severe as grammatical errors.

2.   Intensive, or controlled

Writing is sometimes used as a production mode for learning, reinforcing, or testing grammatical concepts. This intensive writing typically appears in controlled , writing grammatical exercises. This type of writing does not allow much, if any, creativity on the part of the writer

A common form of controlled writing is to present a paragraph to students in which they have to alter a given structure throughout. so, for example, they may be asked to change all present tense verbs to past tense:in such a case, students may need to alter other time references in the paragraph.

3.   Self writing

A significant proportion of classroom writing may be devoted to self writing, or writing with only the self in mind as an audience.

4.   Display writing

For all language students, short answer exercises, essay examinations, and even research reports will involve an element of display. For academically bound ESL students, one of the academic skills that they need to master is a whole array of display writing techniques.

5.   Real writing

Three subcategories illustrate how reality can be injected :

a.   Academic

The language experience approach gives groups of students opportunities to convey genuine information to each other. Content- based instruction encourages the exchange of useful information, and some of this learning  uses the writing word. Group problem-solving  tasks,  relate to current issues and other personally relevant topics, may have a writing component in which informations is genuinely sought and conveyed. Peer-editing work adds to what would otherwise be an audience  of one (the instructor), and provides real writing opportunity.

b.   Vocational/ technical

Quite a variety of real writing can take place in classes of students studying english for advancement in their occupation. Real letters can be written; genuine directions for some operation or assembly might be given; and actual forms can be filled out.

c.   Personal

In virtually any ESL class, diaries, letters, post cards, notes, personal messages, and other informal writing can take place , especially within  the context of  an interactive classroom.   

B.The writing process (jack c richart)

The writing process as a private activity may be broadly seen as comprising four main

stages: planning, drafting, revising and editing.

1.       Planning (pre-writing)

Pre-writing is any activity in the classroom that encourages students to write. It stimulates

      thoughts for getting started. In fact, it moves students away from having to face a blank

page toward generating tentative ideas and gathering information for writing. The following activities provide the learning experiences for students at this stage:

·        GROUP BRAINSTORMING

     Group members spew out ideas about the topic. Spontaneity is important here. There are

no right or wrong answers. Students may cover familiar ground first and then move off to

more abstract or wild territories.

·        CLUSTERING

Students form words related to a stimulus supplied by the teacher. The words are circled

and then linked by lines to show discernible clusters. Clustering is a simple yet powerful

strategy: “Its visual character seems to stimulate the flowof association and is particularly good for students who know what they want to say but just can’t say it”

·        RAPID FREE WRITING

Within a limited time of 1 or 2 minutes, individual students freely and quickly write down single words and phrases about a topic. The time limit keeps the writers’ minds ticking and thinking fast. Rapid free writing is done when group brainstorming is not possible or because the personal nature of a certain topic requires a different strategy.

·        WH-QUESTIONS

Students generate who, why, what, where, when and how questions about a topic. More

such questions can be asked of answers to the first string of wh-questions, and so on. This

can go on indefinitely.

2.       DRAFTING

At the drafting stage, the writers are focused on the

fluency of writing and are not preoccupied with grammatical accuracy or the neatness of

the draft. One dimension of good writing is the writer’s ability to visualise an audience.

Although writing in the classroom is almost always for the teacher, the students may also

be encouraged to write for different audiences, among whom are peers, other classmates,

pen-friends and family members. A conscious sense of audience can dictate a certain style to be used. Students should also have in mind a central idea that they want to communicate to the audience in order to give direction to their writing.

RESPONDING

Responding to student writing by the teacher (or by peers) has a central role to play in the

successful implementation of process writing. Responding intervenes between drafting and

revising. It is the teacher’s quick initial reaction to students’ drafts. Response can be oral

or in writing, after the students have produced the first draft and just before they proceed

to revise. The failure of many writing programmes in schools today may be ascribed to the fact that responding is done in the final stage when the teacher simultaneously responds and evaluates, and even edits students’finished texts, thus giving students the impression that nothing more needs to be done.

3.       REVISING

When students revise, they review their texts on the basis of the feedback given in the

responding stage. They reexamine what was written to see how effectively they have communicated their meanings to the reader. Revising is not merely checking for language errors (i.e., editing). It is done to improve global content and the organisation of ideas so that the writer’s intent is made clearer to the reader.

4.       EDITING

At this stage, students are engaged in tidying up their texts as they prepare the final draft for evaluation by the teacher. They edit their own or their peer’s work for grammar, spelling,punctuation, diction, sentence structure and accuracy of supportive textual material such as quotations, examples and the like. Formal editing is deferred till this phase in order that its application not disrupt the free flow of ideas during the drafting and revising stages.

EVALUATING

Very often, teachers pleading lack of time have compressed responding, editing and evaluating all into one. This would, in effect, deprive students of that vital link between draftingand revision that is, responding which often makes a big difference to the kind of writing that will eventually be produced. In evaluating student writing, the scoring may be analytical (i.e., based on specific aspects of writing ability) or holistic (i.e., based on a global interpretation of the effectiveness of that piece of writing). In order to be effective, the criteria for evaluation should be made known to students in advance. They should include overall interpretation of the task, sense of audience, relevance, development and organisation of ideas, format or layout, grammar and structure, spelling and punctuation, range and appropriateness of vocabulary, and clarity of communication. Depending on the purpose of evaluation, a numerical score or grade may be assigned. Students may be encouraged to evaluate their own and each other’s texts once they have been properly taught how to do it. In this way, they are made to be more responsible for their own writing.

post-writing

Post-writing constitutes any classroom activity that the teacher and students can do with

the completed pieces of writing. This includes publishing, sharing, reading aloud, transforming texts for stage performances, or merely displaying texts on notice-boards. The post-writing stage is a platform for recognising students’ work as important and worthwhile. It may be used as a motivation for writing as well as to hedge against students finding excuses for not writing. Students must be made to feel that they are writing for a very real purpose.

Based on david nunan’s book, practical english language teaching, there are three invention techniques in writing: brainstorming, wordmapping, and quickwriting.

1.   Brainstorming

It can be done individually, pairs or groups of students. Student will list all the ideas they can think of related to a topic. If no topic is given, student can braistorm possible topic. From the list of braistormed ideas or topics, students can choose those they are most interested in, or fill they can write most proficiently about.

2.   Wordmapping

It is begun with an idea at the top of center of a blank piece of paper. Then the students will think of related ideas or words and draw relationship with a series of boxes, circle and arrows.

3.   Quickwriting

it is begun with a topic, but then write rapidly about it. the teacher may give limited time and instruct the students not to arrase or cross out text without concern for spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Then they will identify key ideas or interesting thoughts  by underlining them. So these ideas or used in the first draft of their essay.

While writing there are three steps: drafting, feedback, and revising

drafting is the first step after the student have developed their topic and ideas. The students should be reminded that at this point, they need to focus on the development of ideas and the organization of those ideas more than the development of perfect grammar, punctuation, or spelling.

The next step, the instructor can make comments about the organization of ideas, not about the grammar. At this point, the instructor can also utilize peer feedback. Student exchange papers and provide each other with commonts on the papers content

After students have received feedback, they will begin the process of revising their papers. The teachers should understand that they need to spend time to talk about the process of re-organization, developing ideas as separate from editing for grammar or spelling.

Before the final draft is turned in for evaluation, student should read  for mistakes in spelling, grammar, punctuation. Students can help each other in this step which is called proofreading and editing.  It is important to students for their own writing