The writing process and assessment

In general, a good writing requires 5 steps, namely pre writing, writing, revising, proofreading, and publishing. Some effective methods for writing good and sound sentences/paragraphs are suggested as the “POWERS” strategies, which can help students in making their idea, including:

1. P- Prepare: In this very first step, students are advised to read the requirements and figure out what to write about, brainstorm, doodle, and point out a climax or high point of the content.
2. O- Organize: Secondly, ask students to get all their thoughts organized and put in order, so that they could neatly use in their own writing, of any kinds.
3. W- Write: The third stage requires students to write the first copy or rough draft, using the products of the first two steps above.
4. E- Edit: This is an important part of writing; however, it is often ignored by learners, and sometimes even teachers. Students must be asked to look over their writing and carefully check for punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc. Peer-check is considered to be more objective, and thus, more effective.
5. R- Rewrite: This can be done after the editing step, in order to make the final copy nice and sound.
6. S- Share: Students are encouraged to share their writing among classmates, or, if possible, outside classrooms, to get sufficient feedbacks from peers and improve themselves.

   After writing, authors in common and especially learners in specific all look forward to the assessment and criticism of teachers and peers. More often, much of the assessment for these activities will be done informally in the classroom, where students will be highly involved with self-assessment as they complete the activities above. Besides, students can have chances to look at others’ work, and the questioning process can make them engage more in their partners’ writing, which will provide them with information about the effectiveness of their communication.

 

Teaching approaches for writing

As commonly known, the specific context of writing requires not only special vocabulary (words and phrases included) but also grammar (common norm for sentence syntactic structure), teaching the skill of writing, thus, involves familiarizing the students with all formats of writing

Besides, for good writing, four skills are necessary for writing. They are:

(i). Grammatical skill: is the knowledge of the language’s grammar rules and the ability to apply that understanding to make correct sentences.

(ii). Stylistic skill: in a simple way, it can be understood as the ability to manipulate sentence and use language effectively.

(iii). Mechanical skill: this is the capacity to use correctly those conversations peculiar to the written language e.g. punctuation, and spelling; and

(iv). Judgment skill: it’s the ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular purpose with on ability to select, organize and relevant information.

Therefore, a good writing lesson requires two strategies, namely free writing and revised writing.

Firstly, Free writing directs students to simply get their ideas onto paper without worrying much about grammar, spelling, or other English mechanics. In fact, the teacher can choose not to even look at free writing pieces. To practice free writing, give students 5 minutes in class to write about a certain topic given by the teacher and/or of learners’ interest. The main characteristic of free writing is that few (if any) errors are corrected by the teacher, which relieves students of the pressure to perform and allows them to express themselves more freely.

Secondly, Revised writing, also called extended or process writing, is a more formal activity in which students must write a first draft, then revise and edit it to a final polished version, and often the finished product is shared publicly. Several class sessions may be needed to accomplish this. Begin with a pre-writing task such as free writing, brainstorming, listing, discussing of a topic, making a timeline, or making an outline. Pairs or small groups often work well for pre-writing tasks. Then give the students clear instructions and ample time to write the assignment. In a class, during this stage, students are encouraged to pose questions and teachers should be willing to answer all. Once a rough draft is completed, the students can hand in their papers for written comment, discuss them with the supervisor face to face, or share them with a partner, all for the purpose of receiving constructive feedback. Make sure ideas and content are addressed first; correcting the English should be secondary. Finally, ask students to rewrite the piece. They should use the feedback they received to revise and edit it into a piece they feel good about. Such finished pieces are often shared with the class or posted publicly.

In addition, tactful correction of student writing is essential. Written correction is potentially damaging to confidence because it's very visible and permanent on the page. Always make positive comments and respond to the content, not just the language. Focus on helping the student clarify the meaning of the writing. Spelling should be a low priority as long as words are recognizable. To reduce ink on the page, don't correct all errors or rewrite sentences for the student. Make a mark where the error is and let the student figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. It is advisable that students can be informed ahead of time exactly what kinds of errors (verbs, punctuation, spelling, word choice) will be corrected or ignored. If possible, in addition to any written feedback provided, teachers should try to respond orally to student's writing, making comments on the introduction, overall clarity, organization, and any unnecessary information.