The Writing Process

Understanding the writing process provides a student with a clear step-by-step procedure
that they can follow. It means they can replicate the process no matter what type of
nonfiction text they are being asked to produce.

In this article, we’ll take a look at a simple and powerful 5-part structure that will guide
them from the prewriting stage right through to submitting their polished work.

While explaining each stage of the process in detail, we’ll suggest some activities you
can use with your students to help them successfully complete each stage of the process. 

THE STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS

The 5-step process is made up of the following stages:

1. Prewriting
2. Drafting
3. Revising
4. Editing
5. Submitting
STAGE ONE: THE WRITING PROCESS

PREWRITING

GET READY TO WRITE

The prewriting stage covers anything the student does before they begin to draft their
text. It includes a multitude of things such as thinking, brainstorming, discussing ideas
with others, sketching outlines, gathering information through interviewing people,
assessing data, and researching in the library and online.

The intention at the prewriting stage is to collect the raw material that will fuel the
writing process. This involves the student doing 3 things:

 Understanding the conventions of the text type

 Gathering up facts, opinions, ideas, data, vocabulary, etc through research and
discussion
 Organizing resources and planning out the writing process.

Before beginning the research and planning parts of the process, it’s important that the
student takes some time to consider the demands of the text type or genre they are asked
to write as this will influence how they research and plan.

PREWRITING TEACHING ACTIVITY

As with any of the stages in the writing process, students will benefit immensely from
seeing the teacher modelling activities to support that stage.

In this activity, you can model your approach to the prewriting stage for students to
emulate. Eventually, they will develop their own specific approach but, for now, having a
clear model to follow will serve them well.

Starting with an essay title written in the center of the whiteboard, brainstorm ideas as a
class and write these ideas branching from the title to create a mind map. 

From there, you can help students identify areas for further research and help them to
create graphic organizers to record their ideas.
Explain to the students that while idea generation is an important part of the prewriting
stage, generating ideas is important throughout all the other stages of the writing process
too.

STAGE TWO: THE WRITING PROCESS

DRAFTING

PUT YOUR IDEAS ON PAPER

Drafting is when the student begins to corral the unruly fruits of the prewriting stage into
orderly sentences and paragraphs. 

When their writing is based on solid research and planning, this will be much easier for
the student to manage. A poorly executed first stage can see pencils stuck at the starting
line and persistent complaints of ‘writer’s block’ from the students.

However, do encourage your students not to get too attached to any ideas that they may
have generated in Stage 1. Writing is thinking too and your students need to leave room
for their creativity to express itself at all stages of the process.

The most important thing about this stage is for the student to keep moving. A text is
written word-by-word, much as a bricklayer builds a wall by laying brick upon brick. 

Instill in your students that they shouldn’t get too hung up on stuff like spelling and
grammar in these early stages. 

Likewise, they shouldn’t overthink things. The trick here is to get the ideas down fast –
everything else can be polished up later.

DRAFTING TEACHING ACTIVITY

As mentioned in the previous activity, writing is a very complex process and modeling
goes a long way to helping ensure our students’ success. 

Sometimes our students do an excellent job in the prewriting stage with understanding
the text purpose, the research, and the planning, only to fall flat when it comes to
beginning to write an actual draft.

Often, students require some clear modeling by the teacher to help them transition
effectively from Stage 1 to Stage 2. 
One way to do this for your class is to take the sketches, notes, and ideas one of the
students has produced in Stage 1, and use them to model writing a draft. This can be done
as a whole class shared writing activity.

Doing this will help your students understand how to take their raw material and connect
their ideas and transition between them in the form of an essay.

STAGE THREE: THE WRITING PROCESS

REVISING
POLISH YOUR THINKING
In Stage 2, the emphasis for the student was on getting their ideas out quickly and onto
the paper. 

The focus for Stage 3 is to refine the work completed in Stage 2 with the reader now
firmly at the forefront of the writer’s mind.

To revise, the student needs to cast a critical eye over their work and ask themselves
questions like:

 Would a reader be able to read this text and make sense of it all?
 Have I included enough detail to help the reader clearly visualize my subject?
 Is my writing concise and as accurate as possible?
 Are my ideas supported by evidence and written in a convincing manner?
 Have I written in a way that is suitable for my intended audience?
 Is it written in an interesting way?
 Are the connections between ideas made explicit?
 Does it fulfill the criteria of the specific text type?
 Is the text organized effectively?

The questions above represent the primary areas students should focus on at this stage of
the writing process. 

Students shouldn’t slip over into editing/proofreading mode just yet. Let the more minor,
surface-level imperfections wait until the next stage.

REVISING TEACHING ACTIVITY

When developing their understanding of the revising process, it can be extremely helpful
for students to have a revision checklist to work from.
It’s also a great idea to develop the revision checklist as part of a discussion activity
around what this stage of the writing process is about.

Things to look out for when revising include content, voice, general fluency, transitions,
use of evidence, clarity and coherence, and word choice.

It can also be a good idea for students to partner up into pairs and go through each other’s
work together. As the old saying goes, ‘two heads are better than one’ and, in the early
days at least, this will help students to use each other as sounding boards when making
decisions on the revision process.

STAGE FOUR: THE WRITING PROCESS

EDITING
CHECK YOUR WRITING
Editing is not a different thing than writing, it is itself an essential part of the writing
process.

During the editing stage, students should keep an eagle eye out for conventional mistakes
such as double spacing between words, spelling errors, and grammar and punctuation
mistakes. 

While there are inbuilt spelling and grammar checkers in many of the most popular word
processing programs, it is worth creating opportunities for students to practice their
editing skills without the crutch of such technology on occasion.

Students should also take a last look over the conventions of the text type they are
writing. 

Are the relevant headings and subheadings in place? Are bold words and captions in the
right place? Is there consistency across the fonts used? Have diagrams been labelled
correctly?

Editing can be a demanding process. There are lots of moving parts in it and it often helps
students to break things down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Focused edits allow the student the opportunity to have a separate read-through to edit for
each of the different editing points.

For example, the first run-through might look at structural elements such as the specific
structural conventions of the text type concerned. Subsequent run-throughs could look at
capitalization, grammar, punctuation, the indenting of paragraphs, formatting, spelling,
etc.

Sometimes students find it hard to gain the necessary perspective to edit their work well.
They’re simply too close to it and it can be difficult for them to see what is on the paper
rather than see what they think they have put down.

One good way to help students gain the necessary distance from their work is to have the
student read their work out loud as they edit it.

Reading their work out loud forces the student to slow down the reading process and it
forces them to pay more attention to what’s written on the page, rather than what’s in
their head. 

All this gives the student a little more valuable time to catch the mistakes and other flaws
in their work.

EDITING TEACHING ACTIVITY

To edit effectively, students must have a firm understanding of what it is that they’re
looking to correct in the editing process. One effective way to ensure this understanding
is to have them compile an Editing Checklist for use when they’re engaged in the editing
process.

The Editing Checklist can be compiled as a whole-class shared writing activity. The

teacher can scribe the students’ suggestions for inclusion on the checklist onto the
whiteboard. This can then be typed up and printed off for use by all the students.

A fun and productive use of the checklist is for the students to use it in ‘editing pairs’. 

Each student is assigned an editing partner during the editing stage of a writing task. Each
student goes through their partner’s, work using the checklist as a guide, and then gives
feedback to the other partner. The partner, in turn, uses the feedback in the final edit of
their work.

STAGE FIVE: THE WRITING PROCESS

SUBMITTING
HAND IN YOUR WRITING
Now, it’s time for the final part of the writing process for our students. This is when they
hand in their work to their teacher – aka you!

At this point, students should have one final reread of their work to ensure it’s as close to
their intentions as possible, and then, finally, they can submit their work.

Giving the work over to an audience, whether that audience comes in the form of a
teacher marking an assignment, publishing work in print or online, or making a
presentation to classmates, can be daunting. It’s important that students learn to see the
act of submitting their work as a positive thing.

Though this is the final stage of the writing process, students should be helped to see it
for all it is. It is another step in the journey towards becoming a highly-skilled writer. It’s
a further opportunity for the student to get valuable feedback on where their skills are
currently at and a signpost to help them to improve their work in the future.

When the feedback comes, whether that’s in the form of teacher comments, grades,
review, etc it should be absorbed by the student as a positive part of this improvement
process. 

SUBMITTING ACTIVITY
This activity is as much for the teacher as it is for the student.

Sometimes, our students think of feedback as a passive thing. The teacher makes some
comments either in writing or orally and the student listens and carries on largely as
before. It’s crucial we help our students to recognize feedback as an opportunity for
growth.

Feedback should be seen as a dialogue that helps our students to take control of their own
learning. 

For this to be the case, students need to engage with the feedback they’ve been given, to
take constructive criticisms on board, and to use these as a springboard to take action. 

One way to help students to do this lies in the way we format our feedback to our
students. A useful format in this vein is the simple 2 Stars and a Wish. This format
involves giving feedback that notes two specific areas within the work that the student
did well and one area that needs improvement. This area for improvement will provide a
clear focus for the student to improve in the future. This principle of constructive
criticism should inform all feedback.
It’s also helpful to encourage students to process detailed feedback by noting specific
areas to focus on. This will give them some concrete targets to improve their writing in
the future.