UNIT II:

THE
WRITING
PROCESS
Lesson 1: Using
Pre-Writing
Strategies
“In preparing for
battle I have
always found that
plans are useless,
but planning is
indispensable.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
ENDURING
UNDERSTANDINGS:
Pre- writing is important to
discover what we know and
what we need to know about
our essay.
Planning our writing helps
us work more efficiently and
produce better output.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
What is the role of pre-
writing in the writing
process?

How do the audience,

purpose, subject and context
each shape writing?
OBJECTIVE:
Distinguish between
and among techniques
in selecting and
organizing information.
 DEFINING
PRE-WRITING
PRE-WRITING
First stage of writing
process
Different techniques that
help you discover ideas
before writing
 Audience Purpose

Writing
Situation Kind
Topic

Tone
DETERMINING THE WRITING
SITUATION
 Knowing the kind of paper that
you will be required to write
 Look at the key words in the
instruction.
 You might be tasked to do a variety
of things when writing including a
text, comparing your ideas with the
author’s ideas, summarizing the
selection, or proposing a solution to
an issue.
Analyze a text.
Summarizing the
selection.
Proposing a solution to an
issue.
 The next thing to do is to
determine the writing
situation or the context of
your assignment
 The context can be clarified
by initially thinking about
the purpose and audience of
your paper.
 The first consideration is
determining your purpose.
This is the reason why you
are writing.
 You begin to make
decisions about form,
content, length,
organization, support and
tone.
PURPOSE IN WRITING IS
ANSWERED BY THESE QUESTIONS:

What do you want to

accomplish?

 Why are you sending

this message?
YOUR PURPOSE
to inform
to persuade
to explain
to entertain
 To write effectively, it is
always best to assume that
you are writing to be read.
Your audience is your target
reader.
 You must recognize who your
readers are and anticipate
their expectations, background
and knowledge of the topic.
HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS TO
HELP YOU ANALYZE YOUR
AUDIENCE:
Who is most likely to read my
work? Will I have multiple
audiences?
What are their ages, genders,
and educational attainments?
Why would they be reading my
work?
 Does the assignment give me
an idea of who the audience
should be?
 What would they find
interesting about it?
 Why should they be concerned
about my opinion?
 Why do I want them to learn
from my work?
 How much do they already
know about my topic? what do
they need to know?
 How do I want to influence
them?
 What are their political,
cultural and religious beliefs?
 Will they act on what I want
them to do?
 What questions would they
have for me?
 After you have
determined your audience
and purpose, you are ready
to think about your paper’s
topic.
 The topic is the subject
or the specific issue that
your paper will discuss.
 After you have thought about
your purpose, audience, and
topic, it would be good to
consider the tone you plan to
use.
 This refers to attitudes and
feelings you want your writing to
reflect toward your purpose,
topic, audience and yourself.
 These are manifested in your
chosen point-of-view, sentence
structure and chosen words.
USING PRE-
WRITING
STRATEGIES
THE WRITING TOPIC
SHOULD BE:
 one that interests you, so
that you can be passionate,
personal and comfortable
when writing about it
 one that you know so well
that you can be credible and
convincing to your audience
with your message
BRAINSTORMING
is one of the
better and more
popular methods
of discovering
your writing topic
begin at the top of a
sheet of paper and
list down everything
that comes into your
mind as fast as you
can for a certain
about of time
The aim of a
brainstorming exercise
is not to produce a
logical flow of ideas but
to provide yourself with
as many choices for your
topic as possible.
CLUSTERING OR MAPPING
 another technique that
you can use to find your
topic
 start by writing a word
or phrase at the center of
the page and encircle it;
this becomes your main
topic
 Then, think of other words
and phrases related to that
main topics. These becomes
your subtopics.
 Make sure that each word
or phrase you write down is
connected to the word or
phrase that suggested it.
The beauty of this pre-
writing method is that it
teaches you how to
dissect an idea or how to
develop it further.
FREEWRITING
 Uses the force of narration
to draw a stream of
connected ideas out of the
writer’s mind.
 Freewriting is writing down
nonstop, in the exact order,
language, and form in that
you think them.
A good way to
sustain writing
practice is the
habit of journal
writing.
 JOURNAL
Merriam-Webster
defines journal as
“a book in which
you write down
your personal
experiences and
thoughts”
 ACTIVITY
Select one of the following general
subjects. Next, use the pre-writing
strategy specified in the parentheses to
narrow it down. Choose the topic from
that you find the most interesting
afterwards assume a purpose,
audience, tone and point-of-view.
Then, use another pre-writing of your
choice to generate more ideas
regarding the identified writing
situation. Use yellow paper.
GENERAL SUBJECTS
 PROM (Journal Writing)
 CHRISTMAS VACATION
(Mapping)
 K-POP MUSIC
(Brainstorming)
 SOCIAL MEDIA (Clustering
and Mapping)
Chosen general subject: ___________
Audience: _________
Purpose: ________
Tone: _________
Point of View: _________
Second pre-writing strategy: ______