Traditionally, when teachers teach writing, they assign topics for students to write on; perhaps they do a bit of brainstorming about the topic during a pre-writing phase, and then have students write about the topic without interruption.
(A)
In process writing, on the other hand, students may initially brainstorm ideas about a topic and begin writing, but then they have repeated conferences with the teacher and the other students, during which they receive feedback on their writing up to that point, make revisions, based on the feedback they receive, and carry on writing.
(B)
In this way, students learn to view their writing as someone else’s reading and to improve both the expression of meaning and the form of their writing as they draft and redraft. Process writing shifts the emphasis in teaching writing from evaluation to revision.
(C)
Subsequently, teachers collect and evaluate what students have written. Such instruction is very ‘product-oriented;’ there is no involvement of the teacher in the act or ‘process’ of writing.
