Portfolios have been utilized in the teaching and learning of English of speakers of other languages as a tool for process-based writing and as an alternative form of summative assessment. While extensive research has been focused on the implementation of portfolios in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing, there has been limited attention…

This paper identifies evidence that significant procedural learning can emerge from process approaches to teaching writing, including from the transition of pupils' writing from draft to revision. It shows how writing schemes that use an underlying process framework to structure learning, give pupils ownership of their own writing and exploit the…

In this article, we describe the peer-response workshop we conducted in an ethnically and linguistically diverse secondary school classroom in an urban center in the southwest. We show how the three main parts of the workshop combine to help students cultivate writing relationships in which they see writing as social and co-constructed, rather…

How does one create a class where the theoretical concepts emerge through classroom practice and engagement? This is the question that Mariaelena posed to herself when taking over the position of Director of the Interpersonal Communication course at the University of South Florida. In this essay we describe how we worked through a new way of…

While comics have received widespread acceptance as a literary genre, instructors and scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have been slower to adopt comics, largely because of a lingering difficulty understanding how the characteristics of the form relate to our work in the classroom. Using as guides the "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year…

Learners occasionally complain that they lack ideas when sitting down to write a composition. Teachers complain that they do not want to spend half the class time telling students what to write. There is an answer. Teachers brainstorm words connected with the topic in class before setting the composition for homework. The question remains: how to…

The purpose of this survey was to describe how 112 K-6 Utah teachers perceived process writing. Teachers reported valuing all aspects of writing more than using them. In general, they valued responding to student needs, daily writing, and process writing, and reported incorporating them in their classes. Conversely, they did not value commercial…

This paper reports a school-based investigation into revision as a means of improving writing in the English classroom. It suggests that although pupils tend to perceive revision as a teacher-directed, discrete stage in the writing process, during revision they engage in independent questioning, evaluation and employ a working model of audience as…

While interactive writing has typically been utilized and researched in the primary grades, little has been written about its use with older students. The author briefly describes the historic use of interactive writing, along with appropriate research, then goes on to describe its use in her third-grade classroom as a tool to teach writer's craft…

The process approach to writing requires feedback. Peer feedback (which can be encouraged and taught) and teacher feedback are complementary; they should discuss both form and content of students' written work. Spoken teacher feedback on tape and student-teacher conferences (whether individual or group) augment the teacher's usual feedback…

As composition teachers work to develop process approaches to writing instruction, science teachers work to develop strategies for teaching science as a process of inquiry. In continuing efforts to revitalize science education, teachers use writing as a tool of inquiry. Exploratory writing, written field observations, close description, and…

Looks at how writing instruction has progressed 25 years after Janet Emig and other scholars investigated the composing process of writing students and put forth the notion of process writing. Presents three teacher profiles that demonstrate the wide variety of classroom practice in writing instruction now in use. (TB)

Process approaches are defined and their roles in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) writing instruction are discussed. Three different meanings of process are reviewed, the ESL/EFL writing literature is analyzed, and some problems in implementing process writing pedagogy are identified. (Contains 135…

Argues that a process-oriented nonjudgmental instructional approach can help English-as-a-Second-Language community college students become better writers. Discusses the principle of nonjudgmental awareness and its rationale, and describes five pedagogical techniques used in a nonjudgmental writing class. (SR)

The process approach to writing instruction views learning to write as a discovery process in which the writer makes connections beyond the text. Central to this process is revision, the refinement and development of the discoveries made. This approach appears to be incompatible with the grammar-based approach traditionally used in…