An Introduction to the Writing Process - Primary / Intermediate

Current educational research suggests that children's writing improves when they utilize a process approach to written expression. The purpose of this document is to introduce writing as a process.

There are five general stages in the writing process. These steps often overlap and within each stage further steps can be drawn out and expanded.

Pre-writing

Drafting

Editing

Proofreading

Publishing

Prewriting

The aim of prewriting activities is to get the writing process started, to help students discover that they do have ideas and that they can get these ideas down on paper. It is a time to generate and experiment with ideas.

Some suggested strategies for prewriting are:

• Brainstorming ideas as a group.
• Making lists of thoughts.
• Talking/discussing about a book, or a field trip.
• Observing an experiment.
• Watching a video or film.
• Going on a field trip.
• Debating a topic.
• Listening to a speaker.
• Webbing thoughts.

Before writing any piece, have students consider who their audience will be (older children, the general public, grandparents, a friend, the mayor or yourself for personal writing). Writing for an audience gives purpose and meaning to communication. A variety of audiences should be encouraged.

During prewriting the parent/teacher assists in motivating the writer. The time spent at this stage is well worth the effort.

Drafting

Drafting provides an opportunity for students to get their ideas down on paper. The writer's main task is to keep the ideas flowing. The writer does not worry about style and mechanics at this point as these may slow him down, but he may give them incidental attention as he writes. Editing and proofreading will be dealt with after the ideas are down on paper.

Four ideas to consider during the drafting process are:

1. draft daily; this builds fluency;
2. keep work in a draft folder (write 'draft' across the work);
3. model the skill (parents/teachers should write also); and
4. have a USSW time (uninterrupted sustained silent writing).

Editing (or Revising)

Editing is reviewing a rough draft - reworking the words, phrases, and sentences and pulling the writer's ideas into the most effective shape possible.

The first step in editing involves making choices about form and content. The writer should ask, " Do the ideas make sense? Are the events organized in a sensible order?"

After the overall content is examined, the writer then looks at more specific ways of holding the reader's interest. Some of these are: using precise word choice, and sentence variety.

Editing includes four basic processes: adding material, deleting material, rearranging material and substituting material. It does not involve spelling, capitalization or punctuation. These areas will be covered in proofreading.

Students should write frequently, putting every first draft in a writing folder. From time to time,students should select a draft from the folder to edit. The student works with a partner to improve the selected piece of writing.

Some suggestions for the editing process are:

• make positive comments about the strengths of the writing before selecting areas to improve upon;
• choose one or two areas for editing; (see below)
• do not attempt to 'fix' all of the problems in the first conference. Too many suggestions at once will only confuse and deter the child from 'wanting to write; and
• practice the same editing skills throughout several pieces of writing.

These questions serve as areas to focus on when selecting editing skills:

Paragraph Organization

• Is your topic sentence interesting?
• Do all the detail sentences tell about the main idea?
• Are all the events, ideas, or instructions in a sensible order?

Sentence Variety

• Do your sentences follow different patterns?
• Have you used long and short sentences?
• Could any of the shorter sentences be combined?
• Do any sentences need expanding (more details)?
• Could you add a simile?

Word Choice

• Have you used the same word too often?
• Have you used exact nouns, verbs, and adjectives?
• Are all these words needed? Can any sentences be made more concise?

Story Organization

• Does the story have a beginning, middle, and climax?
• Does the beginning answer the questions Who? When? and Where?
• Are the events in the middle in time order?
• Does the story have an exciting climax?
• Is the dialogue interesting? Do the words sound natural?

Remember: work on a couple of areas at a time. Practice with several pieces of writing before adding new editing skills.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the time to correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Encourage students to check their own work first, circling words or punctuation that they 'think' are incorrect. Students should check with a dictionary before going to a peer editor/parent/teacher.

Reading work out loud is an excellent way for students to hear their grammatical errors, i.e. usage and verb tenses. It also helps to check punctuation as students often pause where commas and periods should be placed.

The following areas serve as a focus when selecting proofreading skills:

Sentences

• Do all your sentences make sense?
• Does each sentence start with a capital letter?
• Does each sentence end with a period, a question mark or an exclamation mark?

Punctuation

• Capital letters?
• Commas?
• Quotation marks?
• Apostrophes with possessives and contractions?

Pronouns

• Do your pronouns agree with their antecedents or pronouns used earlier in the passage?

Subjects and Verbs

• Does each verb agree with its subject?
• Are all the verbs in the same tense?

Words

• Have you checked the dictionary for the spelling of words you are not sure of?
• Have you checked for troublesome words?

Publishing

This is the way a piece of work is presented. Publishing is the final stage of the writing process. In the "real" world writing is done for a reason. Someone has something to say to someone. It is important to try to duplicate "real" experiences as much as possible. A critical goal of the writing process is to have students see themselves as "Authors".

Writing that is published should be polished to meet the standards of written English. Many revisions may be necessary in order to bring a piece of writing to the final stage.

The following lists suggest ideas for audiences and ways to publish writing:

Potential Audiences for Published work?

• teacher, librarian
• peers, friends
• younger or older students
• principal
• parents, relatives
• community organizations,
• newspapers
• writing fairs.

How can we publish?

• cards,
• filmstrips,
• banners
• bulletin board displays
• anthologies
• on newsletters
• mobiles
• books (peek-a-boo-books, flip books, pop-up books, shape books)
• illustrated mini-books
• etched clay or oven-hardened dough (on covers)
• paper/dowel hangings
• roll movies
• use art techniques to make covers (cloth, burlap, foil covered paper, finger painted paper, marbelized paper, 3-d seed covers, pressed flowers on cover, yarn weaving, blow painting, sponge painting, collage, wrapping paper, wallpaper, mactac )

Summary:

Writing is a process. This paper outlines five stages in the writing process. Each of these stages can be expanded further through on-line teacher support. We would be happy to discuss your thoughts, questions or ideas on the Writing Process. On-line teachers will be compiling a series of files to assist with developing strategies for each stage.

In review, the writing process involves the following steps:

PREWRITING	GETTING STARTED (thinking about a topic, using prewriting ideas to help student generate ideas)
DRAFTING	GETTING IT DOWN ON PAPER (a first attempt at composing ideas in words)
EDITING	CHANGING IT (revising the first draft by adding, subtracting, substituting or rearranging material; content and form)
PROOFREADING	CHECKING IT (examining the edited draft for such mechanical errors as capitalization, punctuation, spelling)
PUBLISHING	SHARING IT (sharing the final copy with others)

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Disclaimer:
These materials have been prepared for the exclusive use of registered Electronic Busing Program ® students and their families. Information from the Integrated Resource Packages is copyrighted by the Ministry of Education, Province of British Columbia. You MAY NOT distribute, modify or re-use these materials without our express written permission.You MAY print copies of the information for your personal use only, and store files on your own computer for your personal use only.
September, 2000