http://www.onestopenglish.

com/skills/writing/lesson-plans/
Process writing
As its name implies, process writing focuses on the process a writer goes through before
producing a piece of writing:

“…process writing in the classroom may be construed as a program of instruction which

provides the students with a series of planned learning experiences to help them understand
the nature of writing at every point.”
Anthony Sewo, 2002, p.315
In this approach, the learners are encouraged to go through different stages before producing
their final version. Generally speaking, four stages are identified in this process:

1. Planning
2. Drafting
3. Revising
4. Editing
Planning
At the pre-writing stage, the learners are encouraged to gather as much information about the
topic as possible through activities such as:

 brainstorming
 quick write
 answers to questions
 discussions
 …
After generating enough ideas about the topic, the learners sort and organize them into an
outline, preferably a visual diagram.

Drafting
Drafting is the first attempt at writing. When the learners have gathered enough ideas about the
topic they start writing the first draft paying attention to the following points:

 At this stage, focus is on the fluency of writing;

 The learners should not be preoccupied too much with accuracy;
 While drafting, the audience should be taken into consideration because having the
audience in mind gives direction to the writing.
There might be some kind of response to the students’ drafts either from other peers or from
the teacher. This can be in the form of quick oral or written initial reaction to the draft.
Revising
Revising is not merely checking for language errors. It is rather a look at the overall content
and organization of ideas. Using the feedback from their peers or from the teacher, the learners
check whether their writing communicates meaning effectively to the intended audience. For
example, some ideas may be discarded while others may be improved. The structure of
paragraphs might also be affected during revision and the overall organization may be refined
to convey coherent content.

Editing
Once the learners have finished revising, they start tidying up their drafts. This can be done by
the learners themselves (i.e. self-editing) or with the help of their peers (i.e. peer editing). The
focus is on elements like:

 diction (choice of words)

 grammar (tense, sentence structure, prepositions…)
 mechanics (punctuation, punctuation)
A checklist may be provided to this effect:

 Is the choice of vocabulary items appropriate?

 Are the verbs in the correct tense?
 Are the verb correctly formed?
 Have you checked the subject-verb agreement?
 Have you used correct sentence structures?
 Are the prepositions correctly used?
 Have you checked the use of articles?
 …
Figure 2 below, shows the different steps in process writing. As it can be seen, the process is
not linear; it is rather recursive.

“…many good writers employ a recursive, non-linear approach – writing of a draft may be
interrupted by more planning, and revision may lead to reformulation, with a great deal of
recycling to earlier stages.”
Krashen, 1984, p. 17. Cited in Anthony Sewo, 2002, p.315.
 Figure 2: Process Writing (How to teach writing)
Genre writing
Recent studies on the genres of writing have revived interest in some features of the product
approach. Genre writing is similar to the product approach in the sense that it also considers
writing from a linguistic standpoint. Nevertheless, there is a major difference between the
genre and product approaches. The genre approach, unlike the product approach, focuses on
the social context in which writing is produced. As mentioned above, texts can be classified
into different genres and are normally written for different social purposes. Consequently, each
genre (e.g. email, formal letters, storytelling, etc.) has its own common conventional features
and the teachers’ role is to raise the students’ awareness of these features and help them learn
how to produce texts with the same features.

The conventional features of genres include things like layout, diction, style, organization, and
content. If these are not analyzed and practiced by the students themselves in different
examples, they will not be able to communicate their intents appropriately and their
productions will undoubtedly break the expectations of the reader. Consequently, knowing how
to teach writing presupposes that teachers should also focus on their students’ awareness and
analysis of different genres to help them avoid producing texts that will likely cause a negative
reaction.

Texts are socially constructed and follow social conventions that the students have to respect. It
helps to understand the rationale behind the form of a discourse through examining not only its
language but also its social context and purpose. Wedding invitations, for example, share so
many characteristics that when we see an example of them, it is immediately apparent from its
layout and its language.

Practically, the genre approach draws on Vygotsky’s social constructivism which considers

language as a consequence of human interaction. The procedure is based on three major stages:
awareness raising, appropriation, and autonomy. During the lesson, scaffolding is provided.
That is, the teacher provides support for learners as they progress in their linguistic competence
and become independent.
Awareness raising
The first stage consists of having the students look, for example, at text models of a specific
genre. The aim is to make them aware of what constitutes that particular genre.

To that effect, different text models of the same genre are provided to the students for analysis
and distinctive features should be identified.

Appropriation
At this stage, support is provided when needed while the learners practice the target genre
distinctive features :

 the linguistic properties,

 layout
 organization
 …
Collaborative work may play an important role at this stage. A text may be jointly constructed
by learners and teacher (Hammond, 1987).

Autonomy
At this stage, the learners are given enough time to independently construct their own texts.
Guidance may be needed for students with limited control of language.

A process genre approach to teaching writing

It would be a good idea to mix the advantages of the three approaches described above.  This
would lead to the adoption of an approach that would undoubtedly benefit learning. Badger and
White (2000) call such an approach “process genre approach to teaching writing”. This
approach recognizes:

 The importance of the linguistic features of texts as in product writing;

 The importance of the knowledge of the social context and purposes of texts as in genre
writing;
 The importance of the skills needed in the process of writing.
The teaching procedure would include the provision of an input (i.e. model texts)  that learners
would study and analyze and the development of the learners’ skills necessary in the process of
writing. Here is a typical procedure:

 Model texts that represent specific social situations are provided for study and analysis
in terms of:
– their linguistic features.
– their social context, that is the relationship between the writer, the purpose of the text,
and the audience.
 After raising the learners’ awareness about the model texts distinctive features, some
practice would be needed.
  A topic is provided to the students which replicates a similar social situation.
 Learners construct their own texts through:
– planning
– drafting
– revising
– editing
 The teacher provides support and scaffolding during the learners’ progress towards
autonomy.

Strategies for Teaching Writing

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English as a Second Language

 Resources for Teachers
 Pronunciation & Conversation
 Vocabulary
 Writing Skills
 Reading Comprehension
 Grammar
 Business English
By 

Kenneth Beare

Updated April 25, 2019

Writing competence in a foreign language tends to be one of the most difficult skills to
acquire. This is true for English as well. The key to successful writing classes is that they are
pragmatic in nature targeting the skills required or desired by students.
Students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting
value. Encouraging student participation in the exercise, while at the same time refining and
expanding writing skills, requires a certain pragmatic approach. The teacher should be clear
on what skills he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which means
(or type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area. Once the target skill areas and
means of implementation are defined, the teacher can then proceed to focus on what topic
can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically combing these objectives,
the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.
Overall Game Plan
1. Choose writing objective
2. Find a writing exercise that helps to focus on the specific objective
3. If possible, tie the subject matter to student needs
4. Provide feedback through correction activities that call on students to correct their own
mistakes
5. Have students revise work

Choose Your Target Well

Choosing the target area depends on many factors; What level are the students?, What is the
average age of the students, Why are the students learning English, Are there any specific
future intentions for the writing (i.e school tests, job application letters, etc.). Other
important questions to ask oneself are: What should the students be able to produce at the
end of this exercise? (a well-written letter, basic communication of ideas, etc.) What is the
focus of the exercise? (structure, tense usage, creative writing). Once these factors are clear in
the mind of the teacher, the teacher can begin to focus on how to involve the students in the
activity thus promoting a positive, long-term learning experience.
Things to Remember
 What will students be able to do after the exercise?
 Keep the focus on one area of English writing skills

Having decided on the target area, the teacher can focus on the means to achieve this type of
learning. As in correction, the teacher must choose the most appropriate manner for the
specified writing area. If formal business letter English is required, it is of little use to employ
a free expression type of exercise. Likewise, when working on descriptive language writing
skills, a formal letter is equally out of place.
Keeping Students Involved
With both the target area and means of production, clear in the teachers mind, the teacher
can begin to consider how to involve the students by considering what type of activities are
interesting to the students; Are they preparing for something specific such as a holiday or
test?, Will they need any of the skills pragmatically? What has been effective in the past? A
good way to approach this is by class feedback or brainstorming sessions. By choosing a
topic that involves the students the teacher is providing a context within which effective
learning on the target area can be undertaken.
Correction
The question of which type of correction will facilitate a useful writing exercise is of utmost
importance. Here the teacher needs to once again think about the overall target area of the
exercise. If there is an immediate task at hand, such as taking a test, perhaps a teacher-
guided correction is the most effective solution. If the task is more general (for example,
developing informal letter writing skills), maybe the best approach would be to have the
students work in groups thereby learning from each other. Most importantly, by choosing the
correct means of correction the teacher can encourage rather discourage students.

Classroom activities
Here are some ideas for classroom activities related to the stages above:

Pre-writing
 Brainstorming
Getting started can be difficult, so students divided into groups quickly produce words and ideas
about the writing.

 Planning
Students make a plan of the writing before they start. These plans can be compared and discussed
in groups before writing takes place.

 Generating ideas
Discovery tasks such as cubing (students write quickly about the subject in six different ways - they:
o 1. describe it
o 2. compare it
o 3. associate it
o 4. analyze it
o 5. apply it
o 6. argue for or against it.

 Questioning
In groups, the idea is to generate lots of questions about the topic. This helps students focus upon
audience as they consider what the reader needs to know. The answers to these questions will form
the basis to the composition.

 Discussion and debate

The teacher helps students with topics, helping them develop ideas in a positive and encouraging
way.

Focusing ideas

 Fast writing
The students write quickly on a topic for five to ten minutes without worrying about correct language
or punctuation. Writing as quickly as possible, if they cannot think of a word they leave a space or
write it in their own language. The important thing is to keep writing. Later this text is revised.

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

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

 Varying form
Similar to the activity above, but instead of different viewpoints, different text types are selected.
How would the text be different if it were written as a letter, or a newspaper article, etc.

Evaluating, Structuring and Editing

 Ordering
Students take the notes written in one of the pre-writing activities above and organise them. What
 would come first? Why? Here it is good to tell them to start with information known to the reader
before moving onto what the reader does not know.

 Self-editing
A good writer must learn how to evaluate their own language - to improve through checking their
own text, looking for errors, structure. This way students will become better writers.

 Peer editing and 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. You could also ask
the students to reduce the texts, to edit them, concentrating on the most important information.

The importance of feedback

It takes a lot of time and effort to write, and so it is only fair that student writing is responded to
suitably. Positive comments can help build student confidence and create good feeling for the next
writing class. It also helps if the reader is more than just the teacher. Class magazines, swapping
letters with other classes, etc. can provide an easy solution to providing a real audience.

Writing as communication
Process writing is a move away from students writing to test their language towards the
communication of ideas, feelings and experiences. It requires that more classroom time is spent on
writing, but as the previously outlined activities show, there is more than just writing happening
during a session dedicated to process writing.

Potential problems
Writing is a complex process and can lead to learner frustration. As with speaking, it is necessary to
provide a supportive environment for the students and be patient. This approach needs that more
time be spent on writing in class, but as you have seen, not all classroom time is spent actually
writing.
Students may also react negatively to reworking the same material, but as long as the activities are
varied and the objectives clear, then they will usually accept doing so. In the long term, you and
your students will start to recognise the value of a process writing approach as their written work
improves.