The Writing Process in Action

Book excerpt: Intended for English teachers early in their careers and for teachers retraining to teach English, and applicable to English/language arts classrooms across all grade levels, this guide offers practices drawn from classroom experience and from writing project experience that implement a tenable, successful theory of learning to write. The introductory section to the guidebook discusses traditional theories about how students learn to write, writing as a process and as rhetorical choice, and the multiple functions of writing, and lists the premises about writing instruction upon which this manual is based. The first section focuses on prewriting activities such as logs, brainstorming, outlining, and oral activities; while activities in the second section concern various aspects of the writing process, including fluency and decision-making in writing, choices of rhetorical stance and content, and organizational patterns. The activities in the third section center on revision, proofreading, and evaluation after writing; while those in the fourth section present ways to highlight student writing to give classroom writing a realism usually lacking. Activities presented in the fifth section stress writing to learn in the content areas, and include writing to learn and writing to test learning. The last section of the guidebook is a source file for teachers and includes variations on book reports, composition activities, sample editing and response forms, journal starters, and framing patterns. (HTH)