DEFINITIONS OF WRITING according to Nunan, (2003).

a.

The first definition perceives writing as both a physical and a mental act. At the elementary level, writing is the physical act of delivering words or ideas in some mode of expression, whether it is printed on paper or an e-mail message typed into a computer. Nevertheless, writing is the minds work of discovering ideas, thinking about how to communicate them and to develop them into statements and paragraphs that will be comprehensible to a reader. The second definition discerns writing with a dual purpose, which is to express and impress. Generally, writers serve the purpose of communicating an idea or feeling to the audience, who need precise and comprehensible facts. In short, writers must select the most advantageous medium for their writing; e.g. a memo, a grocery list, minutes of a meeting, a project paper, a short story and the like. Each of these types of writing has a different level of difficulty which is determined by its objectives. The third definition recognises writing as both a process and a product. The writer creates, plans, writes various drafts, revises, edits, and publishes. This process of writing is usually recursive, and at times unsystematic. Finally, what the audience reads is a product, e.g. a synopsis, a composition, an essay, letter, a story, a research report or a letter to the editor.

b.

c.

FOUR PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING WRITING Understand Your Students Needs for Writing The teachers objectives must concur with the students needs. It is essential to understand both and to communicate aims to students in ways that are comprehensible to them. Make Arrangements for Students to Write Practice makes perfect. Just like any other type of skills, the same applies to writing. Evaluate writing activities in your class; how much time is spent reading or talking about writing, and how much is spent actually writing? For the most part, writing practice sessions should be subtly integrated into your syllabus. Also, writing practice should provide students the opportunity to try out different types of writing, such as short responses to a literary text, journal entries, letter writing, summaries, poetry, or any type of writing you find useful in the students future undertakings, should be extensively practised in the writing class. Provide Constructive and Meaningful Feedback When writing comments on students papers, make sure they comprehend the terms or symbols you use. Take time to discuss them in class. Be very careful with the tone of your comments. When writing comments, consider the students feelings for we tend to leave out the words that cushion the assertiveness of our message. While you may think, This is not appropriate, why dont you consider looking at it from another perspective. may cause you to write simply, IRRELEVANT or just ?. Therefore, students can see comments such as these as unkind and unhelpful. Feedback need not always be written in the margins. You can experiment with different forms such as individual conferences,

taped responses, typed summary responses, and so forth. Finally, feedback should not necessitate correcting a students writing. In order to promote independent writers, you can provide summary comments that instruct students to check their errors and correct them on their own. So, instead of correcting the subjectverb agreement detected in the writing, a comment at the end might say, There are several subject-verb agreement errors detected. Try to locate and correct them in the next draft.

evaluated. This rubric should outline the weight of grammar and mechanics in relationship to content and ideas, as well as other features of writing that you find relevant and important. There are three general types of rubrics that you can develop for your assignments: a. Non-weighted Rubric This type of rubric provides descriptions of writing quality by level across other writing criteria. A brief example of this type of rubric is shown in Table 2.1:

Explain to Your Students How Their Writing Will Be Evaluated One way for teachers to combat that feeling is to first develop a statement about what is valued in the students writing. Some questions teachers can ask are:

On a scale of 1-10, how important is creativity, or originality of ideas? On a scale of 1-10, how important is following a particular writing outline (such as a formal letter, book report, etc.)? On a scale of 1-10, how important is grammatical accuracy? On a scale of 1-10, how important is the mechanics of writing?

These questions can guide teachers to construct a rubric, a kind of scoring grid that elaborates the elements of writing that are to be

CONTENTS

elements are to be taken into consideration. Has a clear introduction. Have separate paragraphs. Has a conclusion . Uses transitions to join paragraphs. Uses transitions when needed within paragraphs.

With this type of rubric, the teacher would circle or check the level the student has achieved in each of the three categories, and then provide some written comments at the bottom of the page, or on the students assignment. (b) Weighted Rubric A weighted rubric is similar to the unweighted one, but it breaks the writing skills into categories and sub-categories. A specific point value is assigned to each. For example, 10 points for, organisation. Therefore, the following

For each element listed, for example, the instructor might assign up to two points, for the total of ten. Table 2.2 and Table 2.3 illustrate examples of the marking scheme based on criteria and marking scheme based on progress respectively.

part of a holistic rubric.

Holistic Rubric A holistic rubric describes in general terms the qualities of excellent, good, fair, and unsatisfactory assignments. These descriptions can be tied to grades or stand on their own. The instructor then chooses the description that fits the assignment. Table 2.4 shows an example of one

PRINCIPLES FOR PLANNING WRITING TECHNIQUES (a) Integrate Routines of Exemplary Writers When considering a technique to be used as a guideline for your writing students consider the routines followed by exemplary writers. To illustrate, normally exemplary writers do the following routine. concentrate on the purpose for writing; ascertain and check the audience; have an outline for the writing; do freewriting when generating ideas; proceed from a prepared outline; request feedback; do not be tied to specific grammatical rules or mechanics of writing; and when revising, be responsible and persistent. (b) Match Process and Product Teachers should guide students through the stages of the writing process, namely: pre- writing, while writing, revising a few drafts,

editing, proof reading and the final product. Teachers must also explain and rationalize every step of the composing process to the students, and consequently provide adequate and constructive feedback to the writing both from the students peers and the teacher. This will ensure that the final writing product will be a clear, coherent and comprehensible piece of writing. (c) Consider Students Cultural Background Whatever teachers do, it is important to take into account the students background knowledge, experiences and cultural setting. This can be done by conducting a diagnostic test on their writing capability, as well as conducting a simple questionnaire to elicit their knowledge of writing conventions. (d) Link Reading to Writing Before embarking on the writing per se, teachers must provide adequate and relevant reading materials to be used as models for their writing. This can be in the form of exemplary essays written by senior students or authentic materials extracted from renowned magazines, journals and reports. Additionally, during the initial stage, provide a frame for them to model their writing. Gradually, teachers can let them go and they can create their own frame to write. Every genre has a specific frame with its relevant sentence connectors. To illustrate, a compare and contrast essay must be matched with distinct sentence connectors. (e) Equip students with authentic writing When assigning a writing task, ensure that there is a real purpose and audience for it. Authenticity for the writing can be made by sharedwriting with peers, publishing the masterpiece, writing real letters to relevant authorities outside the class, writing advertisement, script

writing for a class drama presentation or by responding to anonymous peers problems on the bulletin board. (f) Compose according to the steps in the process writing approach The process writing approach specifies three steps for composing: prewriting, drafting and revising. The pre-writing stage stimulates the generation of ideas through various techniques such as skimming and scanning, brainstorming, clustering, discussing, freewriting and groupwork. The foremost stages in the process of writing are the drafting and revising. Most importantly, drafting entails a series of procedure namely freewriting, planning, outlining, categorising, revising, peer feedback, editing and proofreading, which is a recursive cycle. Here, students will write multiple drafts until they are fully satisfied with the final product before it is handed to the teacher to be evaluated. Table 6.1: Differences between Paraphrase and Summary Paraphrase The length is the same or longer than the first text. The meaning of the first and second text is the same. All facts are included. Summary The length is shorter than the first text. The meaning of the important ideas in the first text is rewritten in the second text. Only the important facts are

included. Writer interprets the first texts meaning in his/her own style. Writer summarises the first texts meaning in his/her own style

Table 6.4: Tips for Paraphrasing Dos Use a thesaurus to find the meaning/synonyms of the original words. Maintain the same meaning as the original text. Rewrite the text more precisely by using simpler words. Rewrite in your own style or expression. Don'ts Repeat the original text.

Change or oversimplifying the original meaning. Add in more ideas or information. Create new interpretations to the text.