Table 8.

1 Using Questions to Assess the Writing Process

Parts of the Writing Process Questions

Goals of the writer
What was your purpose in doing this piece of writing?
What is the main message of your piece of writing?
Model of the reader
Who were you writing this for?
Did you feel that you should write this with a certain tone?
Did you have a clear picture of who you were writing this for?
How much knowledge does the reader already have of this
topic?
Did you think about that when you were doing the writing?
Gathering of Ideas
Do you know a lot about this topic?
Did you gather information from various sources before doing
the writing?
What were these sources?
Do you find it easy to gather information for your writing?
Organising of Ideas
Did you use sub-headings in your writing?
Did you plan these sub-headings before writing or did you
think of them as you wrote?

Did you think of the reader when deciding how to organise

your writing and what to give prominence to?
Ideas to Text
Once you had the ideas, did you find it easy to write?
How long did it take you to write this?
Can you write quickly?
Do you find it easier to talk about the ideas than to write
them?
Reviewing
Are you happy with this piece of writing?
Can you see strengths and weaknesses in this piece of
writing? What are they?
Do you think you could still improve this text?
Do you usually find one part of the writing process harder
than the others?
Do you follow a procedure when checking your writing?
Editing
Can you use a spellchecker? Did you use it?
Can you use a dictionary to get information on how to use a
word?
Did you do that in this piece of writing? Where?
Are you able to correct many of your errors yourself?
Do you follow a model when making a list of references?