Principles of Writing Process Instruction:

What is the Writing Process?

The writing process approach to writing instruction teaches students to write using a series of recursive steps. Most professional writers utilize the steps of the writing process to produce a finished piece of text.  The five steps are: 

Prewriting     Drafting     Revising     Editing     Publishing

 Each step of the writing process is introduced independently.  Students should receive direct instruction in each step, followed by teacher modeling and multiple opportunities for independent practice.  Although the steps of the writing process are taught independently, it is important to note that the process of writing is not a linear process.  (Please refer to the Chicopee Public Schools Writing Process Chart.)  Students are encouraged to move forward and backward within the writing process depending on their purpose. The ultimate goal of writing process instruction is to have students apply these 5 steps independently to successfully complete various types of writing tasks.

Prewriting

This is the planning stage of the writing process.  Students use a variety of strategies to gather and organize ideas about a specific topic.  Students must consider audience and purpose during this planning stage.

Writing at this stage is usually limited to words or phrases.  Prewriting strategies will vary according to grade level, student preference, and the nature of the writing task.   Prewriting strategies can include activities such as illustration, discussion, brainstorming, webbing, note taking, outlining etc.  

Drafting

Students use their prewriting tools to guide them in writing a first draft of their composition.  The main idea is to have students put ideas gathered during prewriting into sentences and paragraphs.  It is important to give students a suitable block of time to produce a first draft.    Students should not be concerned with writing conventions during this stage of the writing process.  Students should clearly understand that a good writer may need to return to the drafting process several times before they produce a final draft or published piece.

Revising

At this stage of the writing process students are asked to revisit the first draft of their text to make it better.   Students work on clarifying their writing and making it more interesting to the reader.  Students are asked to improve their text by making changes in content, word choice, sentence structure and organization. This is accomplished through independent or shared rereading of the text, and peer and/or teacher conferencing.  Teachers may wish to introduce specific revising skills as whole or small group mini-lessons, based on student need.

Writing Process Continued:

Editing

At this stage of the writing process students review their writing to make it correct.  Students examine text to correct errors in the conventions of writing – capitalization, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.  Editing often occurs spontaneously during the drafting and revising steps, however it is important to ask students to do a final edit of their text before publishing.

Publishing

Students may use a variety of formats to share their revised and edited writing with an audience.  This is the final stage of the writing process and should represent the writer’s best work.   (It is important to note that it is not necessary to publish every piece of writing.)

What are Rubrics?

Rubrics are criteria based charts that are useful tools for performance based assessment.  Because they eliminate bias and use common standards for all students, rubrics provide an objective method for scoring student writing.  All scoring rubrics have several common elements – Traits or attributes for evaluation, a scale for scoring, and clearly defined standards for each field of the rubric.  It is also helpful to have examples to represent each standard.   There are many different formats for creating a rubric.  Rubrics can be general or designed to evaluate a particular writing assignment.  Scoring may be numerical or qualitative.  Rubrics provide valuable feedback to students, teachers and parents.  They are especially helpful in determining the instructional needs of students.

Chicopee Public Schools Writing Rubrics

The Chicopee Public Schools writing rubrics are use to assess benchmark writing samples three times a year. They are designed to assess writing skills identified in the Massachusetts ELA Curriculum Frameworks and the CPS grade level Scope & Sequence Charts.  Students are assessed in the areas of Topic Development, Organization, Sentence Structure, Vocabulary, and Conventions. The scoring scale is both numerical (0-4) and qualitative.  A score of 3 in any particular field is considered

proficient.  It is important for teachers to note that the assessment criteria are based on end of year standards for each grade level.

Teachers are encouraged to familiarize students with rubrics assessment.  They are free to use the CPS rubrics or others of their own choosing for assessing classroom writing assignments. 

What is Journal Writing?

Journal writing is free writing that may not follow all of the steps of the writing process.   The purpose of journal writing is to provide students with opportunities for authentic writing practice.  Journal writing can also help students develop an appreciation for writing.

There are generally two types of journals - personal journals and content area journals.  Students keeping personal journals may write on topics of their own choosing, or in response to a prompt provided by the teacher.   Teachers generally read personal journals on a regular basis, and respond with non-evaluative comments.  Content area journals, such as reading or math journals, provide opportunities for students to respond to what they have read or information they have acquired.  Teachers may wish to evaluate these journal entries based on content information.    Because they provide valuable practice, teachers are encouraged to include some form of journal writing in their writing curriculum. As with other writing strategies, the method of implementation is left to the discretion of teacher.

What is Writers’ Workshop?

Writers’ Workshop is a block of time set aside each day for writing.  Writing instruction, teacher modeling, and student writing all take place during this block of time.  Depending on their degree of writing proficiency and purpose for writing, students may be working on the same writing task; or they may be engaged in various steps of the writing process.  The ultimate goal of Writers’ Workshop is to provide multiple opportunities for students to practice writing and develop confidence as writers. As students become more independent writers, teachers are freed to engage in small group needs-based instruction or individual writing conferences. 

The success of the Writers’ Workshop approach is often dependent on how well classroom management routines are implemented. Students need to be instructed in strategies for managing and tracking their writing. Teachers also need solid strategies for tracking student writing.   Sample charts and other strategies for managing Writers’ Workshop can be found in the Teachers’ Resources for Process Writing.

We acknowledge that Writers’ Workshop is only one approach to delivering writing instruction.   Some teachers may wish to follow the model presented in the Houghton-Mifflin basal reader.   For those teachers who wish to use the Writers’ Workshop model, sample daily and weekly schedules are as follows:

Writers’ Workshop:

Sample 45 Minute Block Schedule

10 minutes               Teacher Led Mini-lesson/Modeling

                                                            (Whole or small group)

25 minutes               Independent Work

                                                                        Students        Work on Writing Process Steps

                                                                        Teacher         Small group instruction

                                                                                                Student Conferencing

10 minutes               Sharing (Whole group)

                                                            Author’s Chair

Teacher Led Recap

Sample Weekly Schedule

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