TEACHING WRITING

JBVIZCARRA2017
APPROACHES TO WRITING

A. TEXT-ORIENTED APPROACH
B. PROCESS-ORIENTED APPROACH
C. READER-ORIENTED APPROACH
TEXT-ORIENTED APPROACH
TEXT-ORIENTED APPROACH

• Focuses on the tangible, analyzable aspects of

writing by viewing it as a textual product. By
looking at surface forms, these theories can reduce
the intricacies of human communication.
• Considers writing as an outcome; a noun rather
than a verb.
• Sees texts either as objects or discourse.
 Text as objects
• A model that views writing as a textual product, a coherent arrangement of elements structured according to a system of rules.
• Based on Structuralism and Transformational Grammar (Chomsky)
• Writing is a ‘thing’ independent of particular contexts, writers, or readers - and learning to become a good writer is largely a
matter of knowing grammar.
• Those who use it in the classroom believe that students can be taught to say exactly what they mean by learning how to put
these together effectively.
• In the writing classroom teachers emphasize language structures, often in these four stages (Hyland, 2003):
1. Familiarization: learners study a text to understand its grammar and vocabulary,
2. Controlled writing: then they manipulate fixed patterns, often from substitution tables
3. Guided writing: then they imitate model texts – usually filling in gaps, completing texts, creating topic sentences, or writing
parallel texts.
4. Free writing: learners use the patterns they have developed to write an essay, letter, etc.
 Text as objects

• Texts as autonomous objects: learners’ compositions are demonstrations of writers’ knowledge of forms and
his or her awareness of the system of rules to create texts.
• The goal of writing instruction becomes a training in accuracy, and for many years writing was essentially
an extension of grammar teaching.
• Grammatical accuracy and clear exposition are often the main criteria for good writing
• Informed by a behavioral, habit-formation theory of learning, guided composition and substation exercises
became the main teaching methods. These need no context but the classroom and only the skill of avoiding
errors.
• Writing is rigidly controlled through guided compositions, which give learners short texts and ask
them to fill in gaps, complete sentences, transform tenses or personal pronouns, and complete other
exercises that focus students on achieving accuracy and avoiding errors.
• Claims that good writing is context-free, that it is fully explicit, and draws on the belief that meaning
is contained in the message.
 Text as discourse

• A second perspective sees texts as discourse – the way we use language to communicate, to achieve
purposes in particular situations.
• Here the writer is seen as having certain goals and intentions and the ways we write are resources to
accomplish these.
• Instead of forms being disembodied and independent of contexts, a discourse approach sees them as
located in social actions.
• Teachers working with writing aim to identify the ways that text works as communication by linking
language forms to purposes and contexts.
• A variety of approaches has considered texts as discourse:
• Theme and rheme (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004)
• Rhetorical functions
 Text as discourse

• A central notion of discourse analysis is GENRE.

• Genre is a term for grouping texts together, representing how writers typically use language to
respond to recurring situations.
• Every genre has several features that make it different from other genres: each has a specific purpose,
an overall structure, and specific linguistics features.
• Common “factual genres” which students learn at school are:
 procedure – tells us how something is done
 description – tells us what something is like
 report – tells us what a class of things is like
 explanation – gives the reason why a judgment is made
 Text as discourse

• Some common school genres and their structures.

• Genre Stages Purpose
Recount Orientation provides information about a situation
Record of Events presents events in a temporal sequence
(Reorientation) brings events into the present

Procedure Goal gives information about the purpose of the task – in the title or intro
Step 1-n activities needed to achieve the goal in the correct sequence
(Results) states the final ‘look’ of the activity

Narrative Orientation gives information about a situation

Complication sets out one or more problems for the characters to solve
 Text as discourse

• Genre-based writing focuses on the typical features of texts. Ex.

• Descriptions tend to use present tense and recounts use simple past tense.
• Descriptions make use of “be” and “have” while recounts usually contain more action verbs.

So, while genre teaching means attending to grammar, this is not the old disembodied grammar of the
writing-as-object approach but a resource for producing texts. This means getting students to notice,
reflect on, and then use the conventions to help them produce well-formed and appropriate texts.

One approach is the teaching-learning cycle.

 2
.

Text as discourse o
d
e
l
l
i
n
g
1. Building the
context
a
n
d

d
3. Joint
e
5. Linking
construction of
c texts
related
the text
o
n
s
t 4. Independent
r construction of the
u text
c
t
i
n
 Text as discourse

The cycle provides scaffolded learning for students.

scaffolding
Reduced teacher
Considerable teacher involvement- Independent learner
Learner’s entry level contribution performance
increased learner
independence

Learner progress
Existing Potential
ZPD
competence performance
 Genre-based writing

Advantages of genre-based writing instruction

 Explicit. Makes clear what is to be learned to facilitate the acquisition of writing skills.
 Systematic. Provides a coherent framework for focusing on both language and contexts.
 Needs-based. Ensures that course objectives and content are derived from students’ needs.
 Supportive. Gives teachers a central role in scaffolding students’ learning and creativity.
 Empowering. Provides access to the patterns and possibilities of variation in valued texts.
 Critical. Gives students the resources to understand and challenge valued discourses.
 Consciousness Raising. Increases teachers’ awareness of texts to advise students on writing.
WRITER-ORIENTED APPROACH
Writer-oriented approach

 Thesecond broad approach takes the writer, rather

than the text, as the point of departure.
Expressivist view
Cognitivist view
Writing as situated act
 Writer-oriented approach

EXPRESSIVIST VIEW
 Originating with the work of Elbow (1998), Murray (1985), and others, this view
encourages writers to find their voices to produce writing that is fresh and
spontaneous.
 There is an underlying assumption that thinking precedes writing and that the free
expression of ideas can encourage self-discovery and cognitive maturation. Writing
development and personal development are seen as symbiotically interwoven to the
extent that ‘good therapy and composition aim at clear thinking, effective relating,
and satisfying self-expression’ (Moffett, 1982: 235).
 The Expressivist sees writing as a creative act of discovery in which the process is as
important as the product to the writer.
 Writer-oriented approach

EXPRESSIVIST VIEW
 Writing is learned, not taught, and the teacher’s role is to be non-directive and facilitating, providing writers with
the space to make their meanings through an encouraging, positive, and cooperative environment with minimal
interference.
 Because writing is a developmental process, teachers are encouraged not to impose their views, give models, or
suggest responses to topics beforehand. On the contrary, they are urged to stimulate the writer’s thinking through
pre-writing tasks, such as journal writing and analogies
 (Elbow, 1998), and to respond to the ideas that the writer produces. This, then, is writing as self-discovery.
 Unfortunately, as North (1987) points out, this approach offers no clear theoretical principles from which to
evaluate ‘good writing’, nor does it furnish advice that can help accomplish it. This is because good writing, for
Expressivists, does not reflect the application of rules but that of the writer’s free imagination.
 Writer-oriented approach

COGNITIVE VIEW
 This is a very different view of process as it draws on the
techniques and theories of cognitive psychology and not
literary creativity.
 Essentially it sees writing as a problem-solving activity: how
writers approach a writing task as a problem and bring
intellectual resources to solving it.
 writers don’t create texts by thinking - writing - editing but
 Writer-oriented approach

COGNITIVE VIEW
 Process approach shows us that:
 writers have goals and plan extensively
 writing is constantly revised, often even before any text has been produced.
 planning, drafting, revising, and editing are recursive and potentially simultaneous
 plans and text are constantly evaluated by the writer in a feedback loop
 Teachers may need to help learners acquire the appropriate cognitive schema or
knowledge of topics and vocabulary they will need to create an effective text.
 Schema development exercises usually include reading for ideas in parallel texts, reacting
to photographs, and various brainstorming tasks to generate ideas for writing and
 Writer-oriented approach

COGNITIVE VIEW
 Lack of topic knowledge affects the writing process therefore, teachers are advised
to:
 set pre-writing activities to generate ideas about content and structure
 encourage brainstorming and outlining,
 give students a variety of challenging writing tasks
 require multiple drafts
 give feedback on drafts and encourage peer response
 delay surface corrections until the final editing.
Writer-oriented approach

COGNITIVE VIEW
 Pros
 Major impact on the theory and methodology of teaching writing to L1 and L2 students
 A useful corrective to preoccupations with ‘product’ and student accuracy
 Important in raising teachers’ awareness of what writing involves – contributing to a professionalization of writing teaching
 Gave greater respect for individual differences among student writers
 Raises many new research questions which remain to be answered
 Cons
 Overemphasizes psychological factors in writing
 Focuses on the writer as a solitary individual and fails to recognize social aspects of writing
 Based on individualistic ideologies which may hamper the development of ESL students
 Ignores important influences of context, especially differences in class, gender, and ethnicity
 Downplays the varied conventions of professional and academic communities
 Writer-oriented approach

WRITING AS SITUATED ACT

 A third writer-oriented perspective goes some way to addressing the criticisms leveled at cognitive
modelling by giving greater emphasis to the actual performance of writing.
 Writing is a social act that can occur within particular situations. It is therefore influenced both by the
personal attitudes and prior experiences that the writer brings to writing and the impact of the specific
political and institutional contexts in which it takes place.
 Refers to the effects of prior knowledge, assumptions, and expectations together with features of the writing
environment which selectively tap knowledge and trigger specific processes.
 The goal is to describe the influence of this context on the ways writers represent their purposes in the kind
of writing that is produced by modeling.
 STAGES IN PROCESS
WRITING
Pre-writing

Writing

Revising

Post Writing
(Evaluation/Editing
Role of the Teacher

Hillocks (1984)

• The teacher's role in the process model is to

facilitate the writing process rather than to
provide direct instruction (Teacher as the
facilitator)

• Students are given considerable freedom within

the task.
 PRE-WRITING
In this stage, learners are asked to come up with ideas and plan what they are going to write. This stage might
include:

Brainstorming ideas: You write down as many ideas as possible without worrying about their quality or
relevance. The goal is to explore different aspects of the topic and find connections between them.

Planning: You decide on the purpose, audience, and main points of your writing. You can use questions,
outlines, or graphic organizers to plan. The main goal is to clarify what you want to say and how you want to
say it.

Organizing: You arrange your ideas in a logical order and structure. You can use diagrams, charts, or tables to
organize. The goal is to create a coherent and cohesive flow of information and arguments.

Selecting ideas/Cubing: This technique involves breaking down a topic into smaller, more manageable parts to
better understand and analyze it. You choose the best ideas from your brainstorming and planning and discard
the ones that are irrelevant or weak. The goal is to focus on the most important and convincing ideas for your
writing.
 WRITING

In this stage, learners can compose the first draft of their texts. As
students will be given the chance to revise and edit their texts later,
accuracy of language, punctuation, and vocabulary is not essential at
this point. Composing the text can be done individually or
collaboratively - learners can be given the chance to choose, according
to their preference.

Example:

Individual writing.
Collaborative writing.
 REVISING/EDITING
This is when learners have the opportunity to look back at their texts and reorganize ideas, add, change, or
remove sentences, and adapt their choice of words to make sure the ideas are being conveyed clearly.

Feedback has an essential role in this stage. It can be provided by the teacher or by peers: learners can
exchange drafts and comment on each other's work.

 Peer editing / Proof-reading. This is a technique where you exchange your text with another writer and
check each other’s work for errors, inconsistencies, or suggestions for improvement.

Self-editing. It is where you review your text and make changes to improve its quality.

Conferencing. It is where you discuss your text with your teacher, tutor, or mentor and get guidance and
advice on how to improve it.

Reformulation. It is where you rewrite your text using different words, sentences, or structures to make it
more clear, concise, or effective.
 POST WRITING

Evaluation: You assess the quality and effectiveness

of your writing based on certain criteria or standards.
The goal is to identify and correct any errors, gaps, or
weaknesses in your writing.
Publishing: The final product and sharing it with an
appropriate audience. It may be oral, visual, or
written.
READER-ORIENTED
APPROACH
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

 The reader-oriented view of writing emphases the interaction between

writers and readers: The process of writing involves creating a text that the
writer assumes the reader will recognize and expect.
 This involves what Halliday refers to as the interpersonal function of
language.
 Readers must be drawn in, influenced, and often persuaded by a text that
sees the world in similar ways to them.
Views
 writing as social interaction
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

WRITING AS SOCIAL INTERACTION

 The idea that writing is an interaction between writers and readers
adds a communicative dimension to writing. It moves away from our
stereotype of an isolated writer hunched over a keyboard to explain
composing decisions in terms of the writer’s projection of the interests,
understandings, and needs of a potential audience.
 The process of writing is a matter of elaborating text in accord with
what the writer can reasonably assume that the reader knows and
expects, and the process of reading is a matter of predicting text in
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

WRITING AS SOCIAL INTERACTION

 In a social interactive model, meaning is created via ‘a unique configuration and
interaction of what both reader and writer bring to the text.
 discourse is shaped by writers attempting to balance their purposes with the
expectations of readers through a process of negotiation.
 Meaning, in other words, is not transmitted from mind to mind as in the model of
autonomous texts, nor does it reside in the writer’s cognition as in process models.
Instead, it is created between the participants themselves.
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

WRITING AS SOCIAL INTERACTION

 A writer who understands something of the needs and interests of his/her audience possesses important
rhetorical knowledge about the appropriate genre, content, stance and style.
 A major pedagogical implication of an interactionist approach is obviously that a cultivated sense of
audience is crucial to the development of effective writing strategies, and that this can only be
accomplished through a sense of social context.
 This means teachers have tried to employ contexts for writing that reflect real-life uses as far as possible, with a
clear purpose and a specified external audience.
 students should engage in writing tasks that involve researching potential readers for their written arguments
 collaborative tasks can improve essays by helping writers predict readers’ problems with a text. The
 The central importance of the social-interactionist orientation to teachers is therefore to encourage a
focus on context as a set of recognizable conventions through which a piece of writing achieves its
force. The text, in sum, is the place where readers and writers meet.
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

WRITING AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

 Another way of thinking about readers is to step back and see interaction as a collection of rhetorical choices
rather than as specific encounters. Here the writer is neither a creator working through a set of cognitive
processes nor an interactant engaging with a reader, but a member of a community.
 The communicating dyad is replaced by the discourses of socially and rhetorically constituted groups of
readers and writers.
 Social construction is based on the idea that all language constructs are generated by knowledge communities
and used by them to maintain coherence.
 The features of a text are therefore influenced by the community for which it was written and so best
understood, and taught, through the specific genres of communities.
 READER-ORIENTED APPROACH

WRITING AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

 A discourse community is a group of people who have texts and practices in common, whether it is a group of academics,
or the readers of teenage magazines. A discourse community can refer to the people the text is aimed at; it can be the people
who read a text; or it can refer to the people who participate in a set of discourse practices both by reading and writing.
 This tells us that essays, reports, memos, dissertations, and so on, are not the same in all fields and disciplines and that the
ability to produce them does not involve generic writing skills.
 Only when we use a language to create genres in specific contexts does our competence in writing cease to be a display of
control of a linguistic code and take on significance as discourse.
 Expert writers are better able than novices to imagine how readers will respond to a text because they are familiar with the
ways experience is typically constructed in their communities.
 The role of the writing teacher is therefore to help students discover how valued text forms and practices are socially
constructed in response to the common purposes of target communities.
 Teaching methods vary, but generally seek to give students experience of authentic, purposeful writing related to the kinds
of writing they will need to do in their target communities.