2. a. Teaching writing as a product: the main concern os this approach is with the product but little attention paid to the actual composing process.
3. b. Teaching writing as a process: tries to capitalize on fluency more than accuracy.
4. c. Teaching writing as text construction: used in classrooms around the world to develop not just writing, but all four skills.
5. Gibbons (2002) proposes a “Teaching and Learning Cycle” for the implementation of a text-based approach.
6. Stage 1: Building the Field. In this stage the aim is to make sure that your students have enough background knowledge of the topic to be able to write about it.
7. Stage 2: Modeling the text type. In this stage the aim is for students to become familiar with the purpose, overall structure, and linguistic features of the type of text they are going to write.
8. Stage 3: Joint construction. The focus here is on illustrating the process of writing a text, considering both the content and the language.
9. Stage 4: Independent writing. At this stage students write their own text.
10. Stage 5: Linking related texts. Here students search for and work on understanding or crafting other texts within the genre. (this stage was added by Feez (1998))
11. Brown (2007) suggests different assessment activities for four distinct kinds of writing:
12. 1. Imitative writing: exercises in handwriting or typing, copying, listen and write, picture-cued exercises, completing forms, spelling tasks and one-word dictation tasks. 2. Controlled writing: dictation (phrases and simple sentences), dictogloss, grammar transformation exercises, picture descriptions, ordering and sentence completion. 3. Responsive writing: paraphrasing, guided writing (providing a set of questions for students to write a text on), paragraph reconstruction tasks, responding to a video, text or audio. 4. Extensive writing: essays, tasks on different genres (narrative, description, etc.)
13. Product VS Process Approaches
14. Product-oriented aproaches focus on the final product, the coherent, error-free text. Process approaches, on the other hand, focus on the steps involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work. Proponents of process writing recognize and accept the reality that there will never be the perfect text, but that one can get closer to perfection through producing, reflecting on, discussing, and rewriting successive drafts of a text. Product-oriented approaches to writing focus on taste in which the learner imitates, copies, and transforms models provided by the teacher and/or textbook.
15. To produce coherent discourse, writers must exploit what they already know about the subject at hand and integrate it with information from other sources; they must draw in knowledge of the way that grammar and discourse function together; they are required to use cohesion appropriately; and they have to decide on the topic to form the point of departure of each succeeding sentence in the text.
16. Texts can be developed in three different ways, and these ways are evident in the distribution of topics in succeeding sentences in a text. The first one is through parallel progression, in which succeeding sentences in a text are semantically identical. The second is sequential progression. Here the topic of each succeeding sentence is different. In extended parallel progression, there is a return to a topic that has already been instantiated in an earlier sentence.
17. Second Language Teaching
18. The nature of the writing process
19. It is worth noting that the learner completes six steps before actually producing a first draft. Note, also, the social, collaborative nature of the composing process. 1 Discussion 2 Brainstorming/making notes/asking questions 3 Fast writing/selecting ideas/establishing a view point 4 Rough drafting 5 Preliminary self-evaluation 6 Arranging information/ structuring the text 7 First draft 8 Group /peer evaluation and responding 9 Conference 10 Second draft 11 Self-evaluation/editing/proofreading 12 Finished draft 13 Final responding to draft
20. For entertainment (e.g. comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama, newspaper features, film subtitles)
21. These linguistic differences between spoken and written language are not absolutes. There are some written texts that share many of the characteristics of spoken texts, and vice versa.
22. Spoken and written language also differ in the ratio of content words (nouns and verbs) to grammatical words (prepositions, pronouns and articles)
23. A discourse-based approach to writing development
24. Linguistically, written language tends to consist of clauses that are complex internally, whereas with spoken language the complexity exists in the ways in which clauses are joined together.
25. Written language does, in fact, serve a similar range of broad functions as does spoken language; that it is used to get things done, to provide information and to entertain. However, the context for using written language are very different from those in which spoken language is used. For example, in the case of information, written language is used to communicate with others who are removed in time and space, or for those occasions on which a permantent or semipermanent record is required.
26. Process Writing
27. Written language is used for the following purposes:
28. For information (e.g. newspapers, current affairs magazines, advertisements, political pamphlets)
29. Spoken VS Written Language
30. For action (e.g. public sings, product label, television and radio guides, bills, menus, telephone directories, ballot papers, computer manuals)
31. Drafting
32. Generating ideas
33. Evaluation
34. Structuring
35. Focusing
36. Reviewing
37. One of the clearest and most practical introductions to process writing is by White and Arndt (1991). They suggest that producing a text involves six recursive procedures.
38. 2. Controlled writing: dictation (phrases and simple sentences), dictogloss, grammar transformation exercises, picture descriptions, ordering and sentence completion.
39. 3. Responsive writing: paraphrasing, guided writing (providing a set of questions for students to write a text on), paragraph reconstruction tasks, responding to a video, text or audio.
40. 4. Extensive writing: essays, tasks on different genres (narrative, description, etc.)
