Effective Writing Instruction - Determinants and Detriments

Abstract

Writing is at the centre of academic experience and at certain levels it extends beyond that too. Language teachers are faced with the job of assisting students to write well. Historically, when writing was explicitly taught in higher education, the emphasis was on students’ writing as final texts or ‘products’. Teaching writing – whether in formal writing classes or as an activity within discipline-based courses – often entailed presenting students with models of good writing, and asking them to imitate those exemplars. Often, little analysis occurred of the various rhetorical aspects of the texts or the social contexts in which the texts functioned. The focus instead was on specific features of the written texts: for example, spelling, text structure, vocabulary and style. In addition, little attention was typically paid to the process of writing, including the conscious and unconscious decisions that writers make in order to communicate for different purposes and to different audiences. In an era in which students may have been more homogenous and shared previous educational experiences and social backgrounds, the assumption was often made that students could pick up how to do academic writing through this process of imitation. There is an abiding concern with the nature of students' composing processes, and how teachers across the grade levels might more effectively gear instruction to individual needs, backgrounds, and interests. Hence, process-oriented instructional approaches have become common, with teachers providing opportunities to brainstorm ideas, complete initial rough drafts, receive peer and teacher feedback, and revise and proofread.