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1

dissertation entitled

INTEGRATING FIRST LANGUAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE

APPROACHES TO WRITING
presented by

Wu Yi So
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

Ph.D. degreein English

a
ajor professor

Date October 31, 1985

 

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INTEGRATING FIRST LANGUAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE

APPROACHES TO WRITING

BY

Wu Yi So

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1985

ABSTRACT

INTEGRATING FIRST LANGUAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE
APPROACHES TO WRITING

By
Wu Yi So

Until very recently much of the philosophy and methodology in
teaching ESL writing has been patterned after the conventional ways of
teaching writing to native speakers of English. The central focus has
been on the written product, with little attention to the writing
process. Since theory and practice in English writing has moved from
this product-oriented paradigm, there is an apparent need to adapt more
effective theories and methods to ESL writing. However, differing needs
of first langauge (L1) and second language (L2) learners make it
impossible to import L1 methods and techniques completely intact. The
present study is an attempt to synthesize, in a coherent way, the
principles and techniques in both L1 and L2 writing, and formulate an
approach consistent with English writing theory and practice and L2
acquisition theory and practice.

This study begins by reviewing the works of seven major figures in
English writing: Dixon, Moffett, Britton, Murray, Judy, Elbow, and
Graves. Research in English writing is also reviewed, with an
evaluation of the works of five contemporary researchers: Emig,
Britton, Shaughnessy, and Hayes and Flower.

A review of ESL writing pedagogy includes the following divergent
approaches: free writing, controlled writing, progression from

controlled to free, communicative, and process. A review of ESL writing

Wu Yi So

research covers instructional procedures, T-unit analysis, error-
analysis, contrastive rhetoric, and the composing processes of some ESL
students.

Based on the insights gained from the above survey, an integrated
approach to ESL writing is formulated which teaches the writing process,
but does not ignore the written product. This approach helps students
find ideas, make meaning, discover forms, and draft papers. It leads
students through the growth-producing stages of revision. It fosters
peer-collaboration and self-critiquing. It ensures the best alignment
of teacher "input" and student "intake" because it can accommodate
varying writing needs and learning styles. The ultimate aim is not only
improvement of writing ability, but also growth and development through
the composing experience.

Instructional practices based on relevant theoretical tenets are
outlined. The study concludes by suggesting pedagogical and research

implications for ESL writing.

DEDICATION

To all my ESL/EFL students whose efforts, successes,
and failures inspire and challenge me to continue my search

for better methodology in teaching writing.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the successful conclusion of this project, I wish to thank all
those who have helped and guided me along the way. In particular, I
wish to thank the following people:

Professor Nancy Ainsworth, chair of my Guidance Committee, for
encouragement and guidance throughout my doctoral program.

Professor Stephen Tchudi, chair of my Dissertation Committee,
for his advice and guidance, and especially for his insightful
comments on my dissertation.

Professor James Stalker for serving on my Guidance Committee.
Professor Jay Ludwig for serving on my Dissertation Committee

My students Mohammed Al-Sodais, Abdulruhman Asseri, Vicenti
Fernandez, and Viraphol Mahatharadol, whose writing samples are
included in the appendix.

Ms. Lorraine Hart for her patience and painstaking effort in
preparing the manuscript.

My husband, Kwan-wai, and my sons, Kenney, Kester, and Kermit,
for their unceasing support and affection.

iii

LIST 0?

CHAPTER

I.

II.

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FIGURES O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

ONE: CURRENT TRENDS IN ENGLISH WRITING: SCHOOLS
0F THOUGHT O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O 0

INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O

MAJOR FIGURES WHO REPRESENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN
ENGLISH WRITING O O O I O C O O O O O O O O O O

1. John Dixon . . .
2. James Moffett .
3. James Britton .
A. Donald Murray .

5. Stephen Judy .
6. Peter Elbow .
7. Donald Graves

TWO: CURRENT TRENDS IN ENGLISH WRITING: RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MAJOR CONTEMPORARY RESEARCHERS IN ENGLISH WRITING
1. Emig's Research . . . . . . . . . .
2. Britton et al.'s Research . . . . .

3. Shaughnessy's Research . . . . . . .
A. Hayes and Flower's Research . . . .

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THREE: ESL WRITING - THEORY AND PRACTICE . . . . .
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DEFINITIONS AND STATED GOALS OF ESL WRITING . . .
APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING 0F ESL WRITING . . . .
1. The free writing approach . . . . . . . . . .
2. The controlled writing approach . . . . . . .

3. Progression from controlled writing to free
writing approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iv

Page

viii

12
18
23
29
36
:41
in
L12

1:2
us

53
58
68
7O
7O
7O
82

8A
85

86

IV.

A.
5.

The communicative approach . . . . . . . . . . .
The process-oriented approach . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSION O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

CHAPTER FOUR: ESL WRITING RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O I O O O O 0 O O O O O O O 0

RESEARCH ON INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES . . . . . . . .

RESEARCH BASED ON ERROR ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . .

RESEARCH BASED ON T-UNIT ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . .

RESEARCH ON CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC . . . . . . . . . .

RESEARCH ON THE COMPOSING PROCESS . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSION O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

FIVE: TOWARD AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO ESL WRITING .

INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

RATIONALE FOR ADAPTING ENGLISH WRITING PEDAGOGY TO

ESL WRITING O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O

RATIONALE FOR SYNTHESIZING WRITING APPROACHES . . .

MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE INTEGRATED

APPROACH O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTEGRATED APPROACH

1.
2.
3.

ll.
5.
6.
7.

8.
9.

Explain the assumptions underlying the approach

Lay down ground rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Distinguish high order concerns from low order

concerns 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0
Convert the classroom into a writing workshop
Give appropriate writing assignments . . . . .
Use the conference teaching method . . . . . .
Help students experience the various phases of

the composing process . . . . . . . . . . . .
Encourage pleasure reading . . . . . . . . . . .
Develop a simple record keeping system . . . . .

THE ROLE OF THE WRITING TEACHER . . . . . . . . . .

CONCIJUS ION O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

Page

89
92

96
98
98
98
101
108
113
119

129

, 131

131

132

13“

136
138

139
139

1140
1142
11m
1118-

1119
153
156
157

159

Page

CHAPTER SIX: IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL WRITING PEDAGOGY AND
RESEARCH O I O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 162

I. INTRODUCTION 0 O O O C O C O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O 162
II. IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL WRITING PEDAGOGY . . . . . . . . . 162

l. The need for a new orientation . . . . . . . . . . . 162
2. The need for a comprehensive training program

for teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l6u
3. The need for continual professional growth . . . . . 171
u. The need to emphasize reading as a necessary

component of the writing program . . . . . . . . . 17“

III. IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL WRITING RESEARCH
POSSIBLE RESEARCH AREAS O C O O O I O O O O O O O O 175

1. Replicate and/or expand Zamel's and Raimes'

studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
2. Study and compare the composing processes of

different linguistic groups . . . . . . . . . . . 176
3. Compare L1 and L2 writing strategies and

writing behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
A. Study the function of literacy in home

culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5. Initiate interdisciplinary studies . . . . . . . . . 177
6. Study the relationship between writing

frequency and writing improvement on a

discourse level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7. Comparison study of conference teaching and

non-conference teaching classes . . . . . . . . . 178
8. Comparison study of written response and

oral response during conference . . . . . . . . . 179
9. Longitudinal studies to test the effectiveness

of teaching methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

10. Study the relationship between pleasure reading
and writing competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

IV. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
APPENDIX A. ABDUL'S AND MOHAMMAD'S WRITING SAMPLES . . . . . . 183
APPENDIX B. INFORMATION SHEET AND INTERVIEW QUESTIONS . . . . 193
APPENDIX C. MOHAMMAD'S LETTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
APPENDIX D. ERROR AWARENESS SHEET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
APPENDIX E. CORRECTION SYMBOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

APPENDIX F. VICENTE'S FIRST DRAFT AND SECOND DRAFT . . . . . . 206

vi

Page
APPENDIX 0. VICENTE'S INITIAL TEST AND FINAL TEST . . . . . . . 209

APPENDIX H. VIRAPHOL'S PARAGRAPHS - FIRST IN THAI, THEN
IN ENGLISH O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O I O O 21 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O O O O O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 212

vii

Figure

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.“
1.5

1.6

1.7

1.8

2.1

3.1

“.1

LIST OF FIGURES

Spectrum of Discourse (Moffett) . . . . . . . .
Britton's Subdivision of Informative Writing
with the Corrresponding Value on Moffett's
scale 0 O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

The Expressive as a Matrix for the Development
of Other Forms of Writing (Britton) . . . . . .

Three Main Function Categories (Britton) . . .
Audience Categories (Britton) . . . . . . . . .

Interaction of the Forces of the Writing
Process (Murray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Learning Through Interaction of the Principal
Parts of the Writing Process (Murray) . . . . .

Change of Focus of Conferences (Graves) . . . .
Schematic Representation of the Interactions of
the Complex Elements of the Writing Process

(Hayes and Flower) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Many Features a Writer has to Deal with in
Composing (Raimes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Contrasting Paragraph Development in Various

\

Page

13

14
15
16

20

21

N0

60

33

Language Groups (Kaplan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

viii

CHAPTER ONE

CURRENT TRENDS IN ENGLISH WRITING: SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

INTRODUCTION

In recent years English writing is undergoing a paradigm shift as
Richard Young (1978) and Patricia Bizzell (1979) have both pointed
out. Thomas Kuhn (1970) postulates that a paradigm is a shared
conceptual model - a system of widely shared values, beliefs, and
methods. Sometimes, when the shared conceptual model cannot explain the
anomalies encountered by people working in the field and when the
anomalies, or unsolved problems, reach crisis proportions, innovative
thinkers will offer a new model. When a new conceptual model replaces
the old, a "paradigm shift" is said to take place. Maxine Hairston
(1982) suggests that Kuhn's theory, intended to account for the deep
rapid changes in the hard sciences, can be seen as an analogy -
something that parallels current developments in English writing. There
are indeed signs that our profession is in the midst of a paradigm
shift - a shift from a static, product-oriented approach to a more
fluid, process-oriented approach.

In order to understand the state of the art, it is important to
know in what way the traditional paradigm has been challenged, what
features characterize the new evolving paradigm, and what kinds of

research have given impetus to the change. In this chapter, therefore,

I will review the works of seven major figures who represent major
schools of thought in English Education and English writing: John
Dixon, James Moffett, James Britton, Donald Murray, Stephen Judy, Peter
Elbow, and Donald Graves. I will also review the works of five
contemporary researchers in English writing: Janet Emig, James

Britton et a1., Mina Shaughnessy, and John Hayes and Linda Flowers. I
will discuss their research methods and the general thrust of their
findings.

The above mentioned writing specialists are distinguished scholars
in the field. Their works exemplify some basic principles about he
nature of English writing and the way English writing can best be taught
and learned. Although they come from various theoretical camps, and
represent varying perspectives, together they help shape current theory
and practice. Their works are not only intellectually challenging, but

also pedagogically useful.

MAJOR FIGURES WHO REPRESENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN ENGLISH WRITING

JOHN DIXON

John Dixon, a major theorist in English Education, advanced the
"personal growth model" - a developmental view of the teaching and
learning of English. This view has had a tremendous impact on English
Education.today on both sides of the Atlantic. As Squire and Britton
have pointed out in their forward to the third edition of Dixon's book,
Growth Through English (1975), intense interest in self-discovery
through language and in self-expression with writing to realize oneself,

has occupied the attention of English teachers since the time of the

Dartmouth Conference. Growth Through English eloquently portrays the
spirit of that conference.

Dixon rejected the "skills model", the traditional view that
English is a list of linguistic skills to be taught and learned. He
rejected this model on the grounds that these skills which have been
taught for nearly a century, are only elements of a broader process of
human interaction through which we acquire competence and expressiveness
in language.

Not only did he challenge the "skills model", he also pointed out
the limitations of the "cultural heritage model." This model presents
experiences to students through literature, but there is a lack of
opportunity to draw from the students their own experience of reality.
This model stresses culture as a given, something the literary texts
represent, but not the culture of the students. To Dixon, knowledge of
literary and cultural heritage cannot be the ultimate definition of
English, for it fails to relate the student's personal experience with
language.

Thus he introduced his "personal growth model" which defines
English as a process, a description of the many activities we engage in
via English. English is viewed as the meeting point of experience,
language and society. Dixon extends English to include "the sum total
of the planned and unplanned experiences through language by which a
child gains control of himself and his relations with the surrounding
world" (l975:xviii). Thus a teacher of English should encourage
students to use language to gain insight into experience. Even viewing
English as communication has its weaknesses because it ignores the

discoveries we make in the process of talking and writing from

experience. The primary purpose of language is to share experience and
to promote interaction between people. Learning a language is bound up
with not only intellectual and emotional growth, but also social and
spiritual growth. It is the responsibility of the teacher to guide and
foster such growth. The teacher has to be aware of the many processes
that are at work when a student learns English. "A teacher of English,"
says Dixon, "spends his time in his better hours discovering through his
pupils" (1975:48).

In line with the "personal growth model", Dixon views writing not
as a finished product, but as a dynamic, generative process directly
related to the individual growth of the student. When a student learns
how to write, he learns how to bring together and order his experiences,
to express his feelings and attitudes, and to gain insight into himself
and his relationship with people and objects in the world around him.
Writing is not just stringing grammatically correct sentences together;
nor is it a mere frozen record of thinking. Rather, it is intimately
tied up with the writer's self-image, self-growth and self-confidence.
Teachers should organize activities in the hope of effecting insight
into experience. These activities are only a means to an end. "When
they are not, when skill in acting or speaking or writing becomes an end
in itself, English loses contact with the humanities and becomes a kind
of parlour game. "'How to write a good composition' becomes a
sophisticated sort of trick that can be achieved without reference to
'precious blood'" (1975:33-3h). Thus, Dixon sees the writing class as a
place where the teacher and students work together to "enrich and

diversify personal growth."

Dixon suggests that we follow growth in writing along at least two
dimensions - symbolic representation and literal representation. These
are poles to a continuum, and the two levels of representation often
overlap. Teachers of English must not restrict but leave room for the
levels of representation to vary. They can draw students into writing
by providing experiences that are of personal importance to them. This,
in turn, will foster creative use of the language at all levels of
abstraction. As teachers encourage students to make discovery about
themselves and about people in general, they are, in effect, encouraging
them to take small steps toward growth and maturity.

While drama and talk are at the center of curriculum development in
English, reading and writing reinforce drama and talk. Dixon views
writing as a process which further develops and extends classroom
dialogue. Writing is rooted in the quality of interaction in the
classroom, but it is, at the same time, something private. The writing
teacher has to give the student the feeling that what he writes is his
own, and that in writing, he can draw from the resources of language to
make his own experience real. In Dixon's words, "to write is to move
from the social and shared work to an opportunity for private and
individual work" (1975:uu).

The main focus of Dixon's approach to the teaching of writing is to
encourage students to write from their impulses and to share experiences
that lead to discoveries. This continues to be the focus in current
goals and methods in writing instruction both in this country and in

England.

JAMES MOFFETT

James Moffett, another noted specialist in English Education,
defines English in broad terms and believes that English should embrace
all discourse in our native language. He argues against defining
English as a "skill" or "content" because this fails to reflect the
integrative nature of the two. Like Dixon, he believes that language
learning should be integrated and should be designed to foster the
growth of the whole being. As to the teaching of writing, he, too,
believes it should be a means for individual growth and self discovery.

The structure of all discourse, according to Moffett, consists of a
set of interdependent relations among three elements.

The structure of discourse are a first person, a second

person, and a third person; a speaker, a listener and

subject; informer, informed, and information; narrator

auditor, and story; transmitter, receiver, and message.

The structure of discourse, and therefore the super-

structure of English, is this set of relations among

three persons (1968:10).
Moffett maintains that language is used for real purposes and directed
toward real audiences. Shifts among "persons" determines style, order,
and structure. As the learning writer tries to put experience into
words, he has to choose which level of abstraction he wants to handle
the experience. This choice has profound effects on the processes that
go on in writing.

Moffett proposes a schema, or a system of classifying discourse.
In his book, Teaching the Universe of Discourse, he offers a pedagogical
theory of discourse, addressed to educators and researchers in language
learning disciplines. Based on the increasing distance in time and

space between the speaker and his audience, he arrives at the following

four modes of discourse:

Reflection - Intrapersonal communication between two parts
of one nervous system.
Conversation - Interpersonal communication between two
people in vocal range.
Correspondence - Interpersonal communication between remote
individuals or small groups with some personal knowledge
of each other.
Publication - Impersonal communication to a large anonymous
group extended over space and/or time (1968:33).
Based on the increasing distance in time and space between the speaker
and his subject, Moffett arrives at another four modes of discourse:
what is happening -- drama -- recording
what happened -- narrative -- reporting
what happens -- exposition -- generalizing
what may happen -- logical argumentation -- theorizing (1968:35).
He further explains that some traditional categories of discourse
(drama, narrative, exposition, and argumentation) become redefined in
terms of 1) distance between speaker and subject; 2) levels in
increasing abstraction; and 3) a sequence of activities which the
student should learn how to do - record, report, generalize, and

theorize. The following is his schematic representation of the whole

spectrum of discourse (1968:47).

Now for a highly schematic representation of the whole
spectrum of discourse, which is also a hierarchy of levels
of abstraction.

Interior Dialogue P
(egocentric speech)
Vocal Dialogue Recording, the PLAYS O
(socialized speech) drama of what is
happening.
Correspondence
Personal Journal E
Autobiography
Memoir Reporting, the FICTION T
narrative of what
happened.
Biography
Chronicle
History Generalizing, the ESSAY R
expositon of what
happens.
Science
Metaphysics Theorizing, the Y

argumentation of
what will, may
happen.

Figure 1.1

Real learning, according to Moffett, is a matter of decentering, of
integrating new points of view. The decentering process is from the
personal initial egocentricity to the impersonal, and from low level

of abstraction to high level of abstraction. He maintains that verbal

and cognitive growth is from initial egocentricity to eventual
socialized speech. He parallels levels of abstraction to stages of
intellectual and emotional growth. He bases his rationale on an amalgam
of Piaget's and Vygotsky's theory of the self, moving outward to
accommodate and assimilate the world.

When Moffett parallels levels of abstraction to stages of growth,
there is a danger of distortion. In his schema, the "essay" category is
of a higher order than either "fiction" or "plays." This might imply
that essay is more mature than fiction or play. We know this is far
from the truth. Trying to use the traditional discourse categories
(description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) to neatly fit
into his scale of abstraction may be the cause of this kind of
distortion.

Also, it seems rather odd that he did not offer poetry a place in
his abstractive scale. He has poetry running up and down in a separate
category of its own. He explains that poetry cannot be located by
abstraction and person. It is "akin to music and fine art" (l968:u7).
This is not a very satisfactory explanation because no one can deny that
poetry i§_a form of written discourse.

Moffett thinks that sometimes communication problems, stylistic
problems, and problems in mechanics and organization can be caused by
the writer's insensitivity to the reader's perspective. This is the way
be explains it:

........Probably the majority of communication problems are

caused by ego-centricity, the writer's assumption that the

reader thinks and feels as he does, has had the same

experience, and hears in his head, when he is reading, the

same voice the writer does when he is writing. It is not so
much knowledge as awareness that he needs (1968:195).

1O

Stylistic problems can also be problems of decentralization.

........The fact is, I believe, that writing mistakes are not

made in ignorance of common sense requirements; they are

usually made for other reasons that advice cannot prevent.

Usually the student thinks he has made a logical transition

or a narrative point, which means, again, he is deceived by

egocentricity. What he needs is not rules but awareness. Or

if he omits stylistic variation, metaphor, and detail, he

does so for a variety of reasons the teacher has to

understand before he can be of use....(1968:202-203).

Learning how to see from the reader's perspective requires the writer to
make a critical shift, a shift of attention from an immediate audience
to a larger audience, and this can come only with a gradual development
of audience awareness.

Moffett believes that inner speech is the matrix of spontaneous
discourse. It allows us to integrate all discursive learning. He
suggests that we concentrate our forces on fostering the highest
development of inner speech. Throughout the school years many
activities can be provided to help enrich, refine and sharpen the
student's inner speech. Translated into teaching methodology, the
Moffett classroom is a place of action, of movement and talk, of working
together in small groups. His writing program provides many and varied
activities to be used as warm-ups and follow-ups for writing -
activities such as providing audiences and providing opportunities to
grasp the various purposes of writing, illustrating the entire range of
written discourse, using partners to talk about ideas before, during,
and after writing, offering a choice of subject and form, interweaving
writing with other media, arts, and disciplines. Writing taught in this
manner is one way to "discover, develop, and render the mind" (1968:92).

In Moffett's A Student-Centered Language Arts Curriculum Grades K-l;

(1973), he proposes a reorganization of curriculum, basing learning on

11

the central process of human symbolization and focusing on the learner
as producer and user of symbols. His ultimate goal is to enable the
student to "play freely the whole symbolic scale." The naturalistic
method he advances enables the student to learn about his own and
others' use of language through speaking and writing. It helps students
to improve openly for each other, not just for the teacher. Language is
to be used as it really exists in a variety of context and for a variety
of purposes.

In Moffett's more recent book, Coming On Center, there is a chapter
entitled "Integrity in the Teaching of Writing“ where he delineates a
scale of the many and varied definitions of writing. The lowest on the
scale is drawing and handwriting; the highest is revising inner
speech. His whole spectrum of definitions of writing is as follows:

. Revising inner speech -- starts with inchoate thought.
. Crafting conventional or given subject matter -- starts
with given topics and language forms.
. Paraphrasing, summarizing, plagiarizing -- starts with
other writer's materials and ideas.
. Transcribing and copying -- starts verbatim with others'
speech and texts.
. Drawing and handwriting -- starts with imagery for
sensori motor activities (1981:90).
As we look at the array of definitons of writing, we might want to ask
which definition is correct. Moffett claims that writing consists of
ALL the activities listed on the scale. "All these definitions apply
all at once at all stages of growth" (1981:90). He thinks when we
write, we are simultaneously carrying out all these activities. Thus
all the definitions on his scale are correct; only failure to include
all of them when we write, is wrong.

Looking at the scale, from the lowest to the highest, we can see it

corresponds to an order of increasing difficulty for both the writer and

12

the writing teacher. If writing is full-fledged authoring, as it should
be, it is the authentic expression of the writer's own ideas. This
includes the whole continuum of inner processing that determines what
will occur to the writer about the subject focused on. Moffett thinks
that most schools today have a much narrower notion of authorship.
Students are taught to formulate the language, but not to develop the
thought. They are taught to manipulate grammatical facts, to do
exercises with isolated dummy sentences, and to use writing as an
instrument for testing reading. In many instances composition is taught
as "decomposition." He urges teachers to reject the textbook appraoches
to composition instruction. Instead, he advocates having students use

language in realistic ways and letting them learn to writing by writing.

JAMES BRITTON

In an attempt to develop a theoretical model of written discourse,
James Britton focused on the process of writing and the functions of
writing. He uses theories of language acquisition as the base for the
development of his discourse theory. He views language development as a
movement which starts from the self, going outward, and he tries to
describe theory through a two-dimensional schema. While befett speaks
in terms of the writer's relationship to audience and to subject,
Britton talks about writing in the role of the participant and the role
of the spectator. In effect, they both envisage a developmental theory
in multidimensional terms.

While Britton uses seven categories to classify his informative
writing, Moffett sees language growth as the progressive ability to

abstract, and offers only four categories in his scale of abstraction.

13

This is how Britton compares the subdivision of his informative writing

with the corresponding value on Moffett's scale (1975:1u9):

Subdivisions on the informative
(category 1.1) Moffett scale

1 Record.................................Record

2 Report.................................Report

3 Generalized narrative

fl Low-level analogic

5 Analogic...............................Classificatory
6 Speculative

7 Tautologic..............................Theoretical

Figure 1.2

In developing the function categories, Britton was influenced by a
hierarchy of speech functions put forth by Jakobson and developed by
Hymes. He finally worked out three principal functions in writing:
transactional, expressive, and poetic. These are placed on a continuum
with the expressive function serving as a kind of matrix from which
differentiated forms of mature writing are developed. Moving from
"expressive" to one extreme is "poetic" language. It verbalizes the
writer's feelings and ideas. This category is not restricted to poems,
but can include short stories, plays, autobiographies. Mbving from
"expressive" to the other extreme is "transactional" language - language
to get things done - to inform, to instruct, or to persuade. This he
subdivides into two functions: informative and conative. He suggests
that the expressive function may mark out an area where the rules of use
are least demanding. As a writer progresses to meet the demands of
transactional tasks and poetic tasks, he may acquire mastery of both

varieties of rules of use. It is in this sense that the expressive

11:

serves as a matrix for the development of other forms of writing.
Figure 1.3 is Britton's diagram that shows the expressive as a matrix

for the development of other forms of writing (1975:83):

Mature
writer TRANSACTIONAL ------ EXPRESSIVE ------ POETIC
Learner EXPRESSIVE

Figure 1.3

The above schema is, in turn, based on the two major uses of
language that Britton defines: the participant role and the spectator
role. In the participant role, a writer uses language to act, to get
something done. In the spectator role, a writer views language as
something to be appreciated and enjoyed. He described the distinction
like this:

In a very general way the distinction between the
roles of participant and spectator is the
distinction between work and play: between language
as a means (to buy and sell, to inform, instruct,
persuade and so on) and an utterance for its own
sake, no means but an end: a voluntary activity
that occupies us for no other reason than that it
preoccupies (1975:81).

Relating the two roles to the three major function categories,
Britton explains that "transactional language is fully developed to meet
the demands of participants; poetic language is fully developed to meet

the demands of a spectator role; and expressive language is informal or

casual, loosely structured language that may serve in an undeveloped

15

way, either participant or spectator role purposes" (1978:18).

Figure l.” is Britton's diagram that represents this relationship

 

 

 

(1975:81):
l
Participant role — Spectator role
I
l
TRANSACTIONAL EXPRESSIVE POETIC
I

Figure l.”

Britton assumes that all writing will be influenced by the writer's
sense of audience. Since he was studying the writings of school
children, he developed a very detailed teacher as audience category. He
sees this category dominating all school writing. He points out that
sometimes the teacher is not simply a one-person audience, but also the
sole judge or appraiser. This double-audience system ends to create
tension and pressure on the student writer. When a student writes for a
response, it implies that there is a continuing dialog or interaction
between student and teacher, but when a student writes for an examiner,
the test piece is a culminating point.

Britton has suggested many subcategories of the teacher-student
relationship. These move from the personal to the impersonal. The most
personal relationship is the student writing for the teacher who is a
trusted adult. This relationship is similar to writing for oneself, the
trusted reader. The most impersonal relationship in this category is

the pupil-examiner relationship.

16

The main division of Britton's audience categories are self,
teacher, wider audience (known), and unknown audience. The following is

a full list of Britton's audience categories (1975:66):

1 Self
Child (or adolescent) to self

Teacher
2.1 Child (or adolescent) to trusted adult
2.2 Pupil to teacher, general (teacher-learner dialogue)
2.3 Pupil to teacher, particular relationship
2.“ Pupil to examiner
3 Wider audience (known)
3.1 Expert to known laymen
3.2 Child (or adolescent) to peer group
3.3 Group member to working group (known audience
which may include teacher)

h Unknown audience
Writer to his readers (or his public)

5 Additional categories
5.1 Virtual named audience
5.2 No discernible audience

Figure 1 . 5

Britton has pointed out some of the inherent weaknesses of the
traditional classification of discourse into the four time-honored
discrete categories - narration, description, exposition, and
argumentation. This classification is inadequate because in status
these categories are not really equal. "Many pieces of writing use one
mode to fulfill the function of another" (1975:5). He, therefore,
attempted to develop a new taxonomy as a framework to describe the
development of writing ability of the school children he studied. He

sees growth in writing as a movement from writing for the self to

17

writing for an unknown audience. A mature writer, according to Britton,
knows how to maintain or establish an appropriate relationship with his
reader to achieve his intent, and a writer's capacity to adjust to his
audience is dependent on the degree to which he can internalize that
audience.

The three stages of the writing process advanced by Britton are:
conception, incubation, production. He believes that the distinction
between the three stages cannot always be sharply maintained. Writers
often define and redefine the writing task, plan ahead, and sort out
their ideas. A potent factor in determining the writing process is the
way the teacher sets up the writing task. It is in the first two
stages - conception and incubation - that the teacher seeks to influence
the writing of his pupils. He may specify the treatment of the topic;
he may offer a detailed content; he may say what the purpose of the
piece is, and he may encourage the baffled child toward a more confident
approach. The teacher's influence on process will be strong as long as
he is the audience, "the significant other."

Britton realizes it is difficult to arrive at a coherent theory of
the psychological processes of writing. He suggests that insight into
these stages might be gained through 1) direct observation, 2) listening
to what the writers say, 3) getting inferences from the written product.

When he examined the processes of some major works of literature,‘
he found that there were irreconcilable differences between the ways
writers actually write, and the way many teachers and composition
textbooks advise their pupils to do. A basic assumption behind

Britton's theory of writing as a process is that writing is intended to

18

be read for what it says, not a.demonstration of the ability to master
the mechanics of writing, as is often emphasized in writing classes.
Britton speculates that "most of the verbalization of ideas
probably occurs at the point of utterance" (1975:26). Thus, he suspects
that ”shaping at the point of utterance" may be a crucial aspect of the
writing process in many kinds of writing. The writer develops an "inner
voice" that can dictate to him in the forms of language. Vygotsky has
said that "inner speech is not the interior aspect of external speech.
It is, to a large extent, thinking in pure meaning" (1962:1u9). How a
writer shapes his thought in inner speech, and then in words, is an

operational area writing specialists continue to speculate on.

DONALD MURRAY

Donald Murray was one of the first to speculate on the composing
process. His insight into the interactive stages of the process
prompted many research studies in this area. He defines the process of
writing as a kinetic activity, a process of evolving meaning with
written language. This process of evolving meaning, or discovering
meaning, consists of a series of almost instantaneous interactions. It
is not a series of logical steps, although he first described the
process in three stages: rehearsing, drafting, revising. He prefers
the term "rehearsing" to "prewriting" because he thinks "rehearsing"
more accurately describes this stage when the writer performs many tasks
such as: taking in the raw information, experimenting with meaning and
form, and trying out voices. The central stage of the process is
”drafting.” This implies a tentative nature of our written

experiments. Each draft is an exercise in discovery. In the "revising"

19

stage, the piece of writing has become independent of the writer. The
writer interacts with the writing and tries to help the writing say what
it intends to say. He believes that revision, if it does not end in
publication, becomes "rehearsing" for the next draft. This sensing
forward and sensing backward can sometimes be so instantaneous that we
are not even aware of their existence.

Murray hypothesizes that four primary forces interact during the
processes of rehearsing, drafting, and revising. This is the way he
explains it:

These forces are COLLECTING and CONNECTING, WRITING and

READING. Writing may be ignited by any one of these

forces in conjunction with any other; but once writing

has begun, all of these forces begin to interact with

each other. (1980:?)

He believes that man has unlimited hunger for collecting
information, but when the volume of information becomes so immense, it
demands connecting. The connections we make force us to see information
we did not see, or force us to seek new information. "These powerful,
countervailing forces work for and against each other to manufacture new
meanings as we live through new experiences" (1980:8).

Not only does man have unlimited hunger for collecting information,
man also has a primitive need to write, to articulate his experience.
The private speech that we rehearse, if made public, becomes writing.
Murray thinks that the counterforce against the powerful force of
writing is reading. Reading can suppress writing in the early stages.
His advice to the writer is to read loosely at first, allowing space for
the patterns of meaning to develop. "Writers have to learn to listen

for the most imperceptible sounds which may develop into the voice they

do not expect. As the meanings come clear, the voice becomes

20

stronger. The writer then has to read with increasing care, has to be
critical, even surgical, but not at first" (1980:10).
The dotted lines in Figure 1.6 indicate how Murray thinks the

forces of the writing process relate to each other (1980:10).

’iwmrmc

/ l

A/
"K\:=
\

‘K

17/

 

COLLECTING

 

j; CONNECTING

v /’

\READING’

 

 

Figure 1.6

According to Murray, there is a sequence of balance and imbalance which
takes place while the forces interact. In the beginning of the writing
process, there is no draft because the forces are wildly out of
balance. The process of rehearsal brings the forces into balance, and
the draft emerges. To encourage a piece of writing to find its meaning,
the writer needs drafts, or a series of drafts. When a piece of writing
is severely out of balance, it can be bought back into balance by
rehearsing. Murray suspects that the most meaning-producing actions may
take place on the seams between the stages of rehearsing, drafting, and
revising when the tension between them is the greatest. Likewise, the
four primary forces act and react. When they are in action against each
other, that action produces meaning.

Murray's personal model is further expanded in his recent book,
Write to Learn. There he delineates five primary activities that take

place as we write: collect, focus, order, draft, and clarify. These

21

are not steps to be followed but they occur recursively as the writer
develops his piece of writing. Murray thinks there is a natural
sequence of emphasis during the writing process. We may move from an
emphasis on collecting to focusing, to ordering, to drafting, and to
clarifying, but there is clarification going on from the beginning of
the process, collecting continues through the whole process. Figure 1.7
is Murray's diagram showing how the principal parts of the process

interact, and how a writer writes and learns (1984:9):

 

Before the Blank Page ————————————— ->- Final Draft
Collect 4———-v 4—1' 4---1'
Focus «— 4'_— H
Order \«1——-—- 4-——-

 

Draft 4—“

 

Clarify

Figure 1.7

The main purpose of Murray's Write to Learn is to take the reader

 

backstage to watch how the various stages of the composing process
worked. He effectively demonstrated how he composed the piece about his
grandmother. He is well aware, however, that his way is not the only

way. He cautions us that there is no one right way to write. "Writing

22

starts in the middle, or the end, or the beginning of the process. It
starts where it starts. And you use the process in whatever way it can
help zgg_make an effective piece of writing" (198u:213, Italics mine).

Murray's processs theory of teaching writing requires that the
writing teacher face the task of making meaning together with the
student, that the teacher begin a trip of exploration together with the
student. The teacher must restrain from providing a content for the
course because the students themselves produce the principle text. They
have to find their own subjects, their own forms, and their own
language. Murray thinks that most writing instructions and writing
assignments guarantee bad writing because students have to write about
subjects they have no interest in, or no information about. This
results in writing that lacks personal commitment. But if students
write about what they know, and if the teacher shares his writing with
them, writing will be contagious. "It is almost impossible to resist
the desire to write in your own voice, of your own concerns, when you
are part of a supportive writing community" (1980, p. 15).

Sharing writing is of great importance. Murray believes that
writing teachers should have students read their papers aloud so they
can hear their own voice coming from the page, and share it with their
classmates, as well as their teacher.

The experience of sharing should be reinforced by the writing
conference. The process approach to teaching writing makes individual
conferences the main form of instruction. There are no long lectures
and large group exercises. In workshops and conferences the teacher
asks helpful questions to show how the student can learn how to question

his/her own drafts. In Murray's writing workshops, only the best

23

writing of each student is published. He believes the most effective
teaching comes when the student can get to talk about how he has
produced his best piece of writing.

More recently, the validity of Murray's idea that writing is
discovering has been challenged. Steinberg says that he generally does
not sit down to write until he has thought through reasonably well what
he wants to say. He further questions the evidence Murray gives in
support of his "writing is discovery" thesis. Murray lists 87 writers
that support this thesis, but of the 47, Steinberg can identify 40 as
dramatists, novelists, or poets. Thus Steinberg argues that "what may
be true for many writers of poems, plays, and novels is not necessarily
true for writers of exposition intended to communicate" (1980:162).

Steinberg also questions the generalizability of Murray's statement
that "writing is rewriting," a statement Murray made in his article,
"Internal Revision: A Process of Discovery" (Murray 1978). Quoting
John Gould, who thinks heavy revision may be limited to professional
authors, Steinberg thinks that we should test our intuitively derived
models before generalizing because different kinds of writing may

require different models (Steinberg 1980:163).

STEPHEN JUDY

An earlier work of Murray's was criticized by Rouse (1970) who
thought writing instruction by the Murray method advanced in A Writer
Teaches Writing_(l968), would be "a thoroughly belittling experience."
He thought Murray's attitude was too authoritarian, and the content of
the book too repetitious. On the contrary, I find that book a rich

resource. The many helpful guidelines for effective teaching and

2“

learning reflect Murray's years of teaching experience. These
guidelines are especially helpful to new writing teachers. Also useful
are the many samples of student writing with Murray's marginal comments
on rewriting and revising.

While Murray stresses process, James Miller and Stephen Judy focus
on imagination - an element rarely mentioned in composition handbooks.
Perhaps this is what distinguishes their book, Writing in Reality, from
many others. In this book they state that "the mystery and magic of
language are, in large part, the mystery and magic of the processes of
the imagination. Probably there is no use of language tht does not
involve some part of the imagination; and conversely, the imagination
finds some of its finest manifestations in language" (1978:6). The
basic belief underlies all their other assumptions about the teaching
and learning of writing. When a student engages in a variety of
imaginative writing experiences and finds these experiences satisfying,
he is, in essence, experiencing growth as a human being. Thus, like
Dixon, Miller and Judy offer a nonprescriptive, "personal growth"
approach to the teaching of writing.

Miller and Judy believe that "every human being has a rich
storehouse of ideas, experiences, dreams and visions" (1978:35), and
suggest many creative ways to tap this storehouse. They introduce
innovative techniques to help the student become in touch with the "real
self”, "the inner self", and "the ultimate self." When the learning
writer accepts Miller and Judy's invitation to recollect, to discuss, to
debate, to explore, to interact, to collaborate.....he can't help but

achieve a sense of growth through language.

25

They also encourage students to become more conscious of their
linguistic environment, to explore the many ways language
interpenetrates their lives and affects and shapes their experiences.
When Judy introduced his "Experiential Approach" to the teaching of
writing, he further elaborated on how language can shape thinking, and
how thinking and experience can, in turn, shape language. He believes
that thinking, experiencing, and languaging are inextricably bound
together, influencing one another. They form what he calls a ”flexible,
eternal, rubber triangle." This is the way he explains how this rubber
triangle grows.

For most people, this rubber triangle is constantly
growing and stretching. Every day the person -
adult or child - has new experiences: seeing,
tasting, hearing, reading, watching TV, and so on.
These experiences are internalized and in a
language-based process synthesized to become part of
the person's storehouse of experience. When one
faces a new problem or concern, he or she draws on
that storehouse and through the complicated activity
labled "thinking" (also a language-based process)
comes up with "ideas" or "solutions." Finally the
person creates language about his or her ideas that
both displays them for self-examination and allows
them to be communicated to others....." (1980:38).

A major premise of Judy's Experiential Approach is: personal
feelings and experiences can motivate good writing. The wide range of
experiences of the student can at least serve as the starting point.
Very often bad writing is not the result of a lack of personal
experience. Rather, it is the result of not having synthesized, or not
having worked with one's ideas or experiences. The teacher's role,

then, is to provide time and opportunity for the students to learn to

draw on and develop their base of experience.

26

Another premise is: writing from experience takes place in a
variety of modes, not just in expository, or "academic" writing. Judy
believes that providing students with writing experiences in many
modes - poems, plays, stories, essays - will equip them to write
whatever they need to write in the practical world in the future,
provided the teacher can help them recognize both the limitations and
possibilities of a variety of language forms and rhetorical styles.

Still another premise: students need to learn to write for a
variety of audiences. The teacher should not have sole monopoly of
readership. Classmates and other student groups can be "real readers"
too. Students need to learn how to reach different audiences through
their writings.

This approach has been criticized as ignoring form and correctness,
but Judy contends that correctness is not ignored. "Rather, it treats
correctness in the context of actual composing experience for genuine
audiences" (1980:”2). Students will naturally be concerned with
mechanics and usage as they attempt to function effectively to reach
their readership. When the student is ready, the teacher will offer
editorial help. Judy challenges the traditional method of teaching form
by teaching the paragraph and the outline. Having students fit their
ideas into ready-made structures is not very imaginative. Judy believes
form should grow out of content. Students should be encouraged to
create a form for their content and for a particular audience. The
teacher is there to help the student become aware of the conventions of
form and style and reader's expectations. A good writing teacher knows
how to place correctness and form in reasonable proportion to content

and expression.

27

To illustrate how an experience-based approach can be implemented
into the writing classroom, Judy described in some detail the Writing
Workshop, a course he taught to some MSU sophomores who were majoring in
different disciplines. The course was designed to help these
undergraduates improve their writing abilities by providing them with
opportunities to write for different purposes and in a variety of modes.

During the first phase of the course students were asked to write a
major paper drawing on personal experience. To those who thought they
had nothing interesting to write about, Judy offered an "interest
inventory" with topical categories which included "friends, enemies,
people you admire, special places, fond memories, not so fond memories,
worries, strange-but-true stories, sports, university life, books,
television, music, film, and what matters most." Encouraged to free
associate, students came upon many items under each category, and these
items became the starting point for writing. Not only was free
association encouraged, oral reading was also introduced - reading of
student work, reading of excerpts from books about rich loving childhood
memories. To help build writing confidence, the struggles and
idiosyncracies in drafting by known writers were discussed. This helped
students realize they were not the only ones who have to struggle to
write.

The second phase of the course, "Interweaving the World," involved
the students to study and write about their environment. Their writing
was considered "experimental" in that they were offered opportunities to
try writing in a variety of forms. They could put their observations,
perceptions into words in the form of a poem, a story, a play, or a

fiction. Most of the class at this point were willing to explore a wide

28

range of discourse with editorial help not only from the teacher, but
also from their classmates. Judy thinks peer-editing offers students a
chance to view writing with detachment. Through this experience,
students can gain the skills and confidence to become their own editors
in the future.

In the third part of the course, the focus was on academic writing
problems. Judy believes that "good academic writing, like a good poem,
or short story, grows from a fully synthesized experience, a deeply
known and even felt experience" (l980:u7). By interviewing people,
students learned the basic kinds of writing required in their respective
disciplines. In reporting back to the class, they began to realize how
ideas in the various disciplines find their way into language. The
conventions of writing were also brought to the fore so students could
understand why these conventions came into being. Peer editing in small
groups was again encouraged. The paper each student worked on was on a
subject of their own choosing, and most students worked on subjects
assigned for other courses in their departments.

The final phase of the course focused once again on the self as the
center of the writing process. Students were once again reminded that
experience was at the basis of all writing. "It is the ultimate self
that one puts down on paper" (1980:”9). The final assignment, then, was
to offer the students an opportunity to write a paper on anything they
wanted, but it had to be something they felt strongly moved to say -
their vision of their "ultimate self."

The structural pattern of Judy's course is compatible with the
pattern of the development of the individual as advanced by Piaget,

Dixon, and Moffett. It is also in line with Murray's process

29

approach. Thus Judy calls his experience-based approach "eclectic."
Many schools of thought in the teaching of writing have been
incorporated. Judy's course is an example of how writing theories can
be successfully implemented in the classroom. In particular, it
demonstrates how writing techniques can be applied across disciplines.
Judy's students majored in various departments, but together they shared
a writing experience that was challenging and enriching. The main focus
of Judy's approach was on the student learner. Ample opportunities were
provided for a writing experience that would contribute to the growth of
the student as a human being. In short, Judy's eclectism finds unity in
the student writer. "If growth in the individual takes place, growth in

language will naturally follow" (1980:51).

PETER ELBOW

Like Murray and Judy, Peter Elbow takes a process approach to
writing, emphasizing writing as a process of discovering meaning. As I
have mentioned earlier in this chapter, Murray was one of the first to
speculate on the mental and cognitive aspects of the composing process
and on how these activities interacted with one another. Murray is more
academically and theoreticaly inclined, while Elbow is more practical.
Elbow offers a practical writing program for all who wish to learn to
write or improve their writing. His book, Writing Without Teachers
(1973) was not intended for just students and teachers in an academic
setting. He delved into theory only in an essay in the appendix of this
book where he explains how the believing game and the doubting game are
halves of a full cycle of thinking. Murray speaks of the writing

process as a logical sequence of five recursive activities (collecting,

3O

focusing, ordering, drafting, and clarifying) while Elbow describes his
writing model as consisting of two stages - the creative and the
critical. Elbow stresses the intuitive process in the first half of the
writing cycle, and critical discrimination in the second half. He
thinks it is crucial for the writer to separate the productive process
from the editorial process.

Elbow likes to use metaphors to describe his writng model. In

fact, in his book, Writing With Power (1981), he devotes a whole chapter

 

to metaphorical thinking because he believes that exercises in
metaphorical thinking can be mind-stretching. He suggests many
metaphorical questions to help the writer generate more ideas and
feelings about certain topics. The metaphors he chooses to use to
describe his writing model are: "growing" and "cooking."

The "growing" process is a process during which the writer grows
his meaning. Elbow (1973) refers "growing" to the overall larger
process, the evolution of whole organisms; "cooking" is the smaller
process which makes growing happen. The growing process is more
concretely described as consisting of four stages: start writing and
keep writing, disorientation and chaos, emerging center of gravity, and
mopping up, or editing. Any one who accepts Elbow's advice of non-stop
writing (for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, for several times) will
have to force himself to write a lot and write fast. He will learn to
treat writing not as linear, but wholistic. He will learn to not stop
too often and worry about exact phrasing because much of what he has
written will have to be discarded at a later date. He may even end up

with a new focus or a different topic.

31

This non-stop writing may seem chaotic and threatening at first.
In fact, Elbow quotes from his own diary how threatening his free
writing was when he first started writing for his book, and how finally
he was able to address his own insecurity.

My main wholistic advice. Process. Write a lot and

throw a lot away. Start writing early so you can

have time to discard a lot and have it metamorphose

a lot and bubble and percolate. If you have 3 hours

of a 3 page thing, write it three times instead of

one page an hour.

Yet. Yet. I find this hard. I keep trying to hold

off actual writing till everything is perfectly

prepared and totally under control so that I know

what I'm going to write. It makes me so nervous to

Start in writingOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOO

I know this from my past experience and from my

thoery of the writing process. But still I stand

here on the edge and don't want to start writing; I

prefer to sit here and ponder and think and look

through jottings I've made - even write out a diary

entry (1973:31).
The reason why most people find it threatening to write freely is they
are afraid to lose control. But Elbow thinks people have to allow
themselves to proceed without a plan. This is, of course, against what
they have been taught in school. But letting oneself go and losing
control for a while is good, because this will allow words, thoughts,
feelings, and perceptions to find some of their own order, logic, and
coherence.

Like Judy, Elbow argues against teaching a plan or an outline
before writing. He accuses the conventional understanding of writing as
being "backwards" because one does not start out with meaning, one ends
up with meaning. He believes that ”insisting on control, having a plan
or outline, and always sticking to it is a prophylactic against organic
growth, development, change...." (1973:35). But Elbow is not entirely

against the use of an outline. He thinks outlines are important because

32

they help organize one's thinking but they should be used only after we
already have many ideas or a pile of ingredients to write from.

As to grammar, Elbow thinks it should be treated as a matter of
very late editorial correcting and not before; otherwise, writers might
be intimidated by constant stops and worries about correctness, and this
can block their attempts to write.

The third stage of Elbow's growing process is "center of
gravity." He speaks of the emergence of focus as the turning point in
the growth cycle. What seems to be chaos at first must eventually be
sorted out. We must force ourselves to get to a focus or a theme, to
let a center of gravity evolve out of the bits of writing we have
done. It takes practice to get order out of chaos. Elbow lists some of
the ways in which a center of gravity emerged for him. This is how he
describes it:

What this means in practice is that in a piece of

writing you must force yourself to keep getting some

center of gravity or summing up to occur. Let the

early ones be terrible. They will distort your

material by exaggerating some aspect and ignoring '

others. Fine. If possible, try for contrasting

exaggerations. Exaggerating helps you think of

things you couldn't think of if you tried to be

judicious. If you keep doing this, you will finally

evolve toward the more satisfactory position which

earlier you couldn't get hold of. Finally you

will have a center of gravity that satisfies

you.000.000....00.0OOOOOOOOOOOOOO(1973:36)O
Editing is the last stage of Elbow's growth cycle. He likens editing to
”mopping up.” It is red-pencilling, cutting up, discarding, and
compromising. "Editing means figuring out what you really mean to say,
getting it clear in your head, getting it unified, getting it into an
organized structure, and then getting it into the best words and

throwing away the rest" (1973:38). Mbst people find it hard to throw

33

away, but we must force ourselves to leave out all subsidiaries, and
then rearrange the essentials. "Leaving things out makes the backbone
or structure show better" (1973zu1). In this sense writers should think
of editing as a positive, creative act.

The "cooking" process as described by Elbow is interaction of
contrasting and conflicting material. Elbow talks about various kinds
of interaction that are important to writing - interaction between
people, between ideas, between words and ideas, between metaphors,
between modes, and between the writer and his word symbols on paper.

Cooking as interaction between people provides a continual leverage
or mechanical advantage: ”We each successfully climb upon the shoulders
of the other's restructuring so that at each climbing up, we can see a
little farther" (1973:50). Cooking as interaction between ideas can
produce new ideas that didn't seem possible before, and the way to
encourage this is to encourage conficts and contradictions in thinking.

Cooking as interaction between words and ideas will yield clarity
and richness. Elbow thinks it doesn't matter whether you start with
idea thinking or word writing, but "make sure you use both and move back
and forth between them." He tells of how this kind of interaction
resulted in a new view and more leverage for him:

.....One day I was forced to notice that sometimes
word-writing leads you to just the summing up you
were looking for and couldn't get by trying to "sum
up”. And sometimes idea-thinking produces fecundity
by giving you a new angle where writing-out was
keeping you stuck in one potato patch (1973:52).
Cooking as interaction between metaphors is "interaction of the

most fine-grained, generative sorts." When we encourage metaphors,

comparisons, analogies, examples, we will see one thought through the

3N

lens of another, and this will result in new ideas and new

perceptions. Cooking as interaction between modes will bring out
different aspects of the material. Elbow's advice is to allow writing
to fall from prose to poetry, from foraml to informal, from personal to
impersonal. Let your writing grow and develop itself in whatever mode
you like writing, and don't be afraid to switch modes to get a different
perspective.

Cooking as interaction between you and symbols on paper is
interaction between "you and not-you." Elbow believes that language is
the principle medium that allows you to interact with yourself. After
you have written freely on paper, interact with the words you have
written and react to them. "Learn to let them produce a new reaction or
response in you." One of the functions of a diary is to create
interaction between you and the symbols on paper. This is the way Elbow
explains it:

If you have strong feelings and then write them down
freely, it gives you on the one hand some distance
and control, but on the other hand, it often makes
you feel those feelings more. For you can often
allow yourself to feel something more if you are not
so helpless and lost in the middle of it. So the
writing helps you feel the feeling and then go on to
feel the next feelings. Not be stuck (1973:56).

Writing_Without a Teacher (1973) is a how-to book, but it is not a
recipe book with a rigid formula. Elbow likens the teacherless class to
a group of amateur musicians getting together once a week to play for
each other's enjoyment. How to share a piece of writing and how to give
useful feedback is the key to effective functioning of Elbow's

teacherless classes. He offers many suggestions for sharing a piece of

writing, suggestions for responding or reacting from the group. To

35

share a piece of writing, he says, the writer must let the group read
his writing visually, or have the group listen to his piece as he reads
it aloud. He claims there are advantages both ways, but he points out,
time and again, the importance of reading aloud. He speaks of writing
as "a voice spread out over time, not marks spread out over space."
Reading out loud gives the writer a better idea of the effect of his
words on an audience. It also helps him see things he does not see in
any other way.

Practical advice to the reader or listener is also given - how a
respondent should react to the piece by giving "full movies" of his mind
by pointing, summarizing, telling, and showing. The respondent has to
learn how to tell exactly how he experienced the piece - what he really
saw and how he really reacted, which words rang true and which words
seemed weak. This feedback process functions better than the
traditional feedback process because the conventional feedback process
offers only criticism and advice from one person, the teacher, while in
a teacherless class, the writer can get many readings from a diverse
group. When everyone learns to experience everyone else's perceptions
and experience, there is potential for progress and growth.

Perhaps what distinguishes Elbow's work from that of other writing
specialists is the chatty way he presents the process, and his deep
conviction that with proper guidance and positive group support, writing
improvement can take place within any learning writer. Elbow's
effective technique for an authentic-voice pedagogy, techniques such as
non-stop free writing, positive group feedback, have already become the

repertoire of many writing teachers today.

36

DONALD GRAVES

Donald Graves, like Murray, Judy, and Elbow, also espouses the
process approach to writing. But unlike them, Graves has devoted much
of his time and effort to the study of the writing behaviors of school
children rather than adult writers. He has been gathering classroom
data on the process approach for many years. Unlike Murray, in
describing the process, Graves does not speculate on the various
components of the process on a theoretical basis. Instead, he portrays
the process ingredients - rehearsal, topic choice, informatin selection,
composing, reading - via the actual composing journey of his students.

In the preface of his book, Wriitngé; Teachers and Students at Work

 

(1983), he says that the purpose of the book is to assist classroom
teachers with children's writing, but the principles, techniques, and
insightful observations he offers are applicable to teachers working
with writers of all ages.

' Graves believes that teaching writing requires the control of two
crafts. A teacher who has not struggled with writing himself cannot
effectively teach the writer's craft. At the same time, a writer who
knows how to write, must have some understanding of the craft of
teaching before he can effectively teach the writing craft to others.
Graves thinks that writing teachers can answer student questions only if
they know the writing process from both the inside and the outside.
”They know it from the inside because they work at their own writing;
they know it from the outside because they are acquainted with research
that shows what happened when people write" (1983:220).

. Graves also believes that "conferencing" is the heart of a writing

program. Thus a greater part of his book is devoted to "conferencing" -

37

how to make the conference work. This includes the setting of the
conference, the length of the conference, the principles of helping
children speak, and the how's and why's of asking various types of
questions during conference. While Graves is not the first to advance
conference teaching, for many others have done so already (Judy 1980,
Duke 1975, Shaughnessy 1977, Murray 1968, Carnecelli 1980 and others),
he is, however, one of the few who takes the reader through many actual
conferences conducted by his experienced teachers. He offers many
conference transcripts accompanied by running commentaries, explaining
why a certain question is asked inappropriately. The following is an
example of how the writing teacher was able to help her student move
forward in his writing through three successive conferences.

Greg was writing about "Wepin" (Weapons). In the first ocnference
Greg seemed pleased with the informatin he was writing, so the teacher
decided right away that there was no reason to interrupt him. The
teacher asked him to return to his writing so this conference lasted
only “0 seconds.

At the second conference Greg was preoccupied with spelling
problems. The teacher's strategy was to divert him to thinking about
more information; at the same time the teacher promised they would work
on spelling together later. She then asked Greg to read his writing to
her. Greg was able to do so in spite of his poor spelling and poor
punctuation. The teacher's strategy was to get Greg to teach her about
weapons - a subject Greg seemed to know much about and was writing
about. This prompted Greg to give detailed information concerning his
grandfather and his grandfather's weapons, the kind of information Greg

needed to make his writing more interesting. The teacher deliberately

38

asked for this information because she wanted Greg not to lose the
perspective of voice and knowing. When she saw that Greg was still
preoccupied with spelling problems and could not continue to write, she
realized she had to deal with Greg's immediate concerns. She helped
Greg then, to solve his spelling problems through self diagnosis. She
asked Greg to underline seven words he thought he had spelled right, and
circle six he thought he needed help with. Only after his immediate
needs were taken care of was Greg able to continue to write. This
second conference lasted two and a half minutes.

At the third conference Greg expressed pleasure with his writing.
He was confident that he had a great deal of information and that his
classmates would be interested in reading his piece. Seeing that Greg
really wanted his piece published, she challenged Greg about the
readiness of his piece for publication. This brought back Greg's
awareness of his problems in spelling and punctuation. Then the teacher
began to help solve those problems within the context of Greg's
writing. This conference lasted longer, about u minutes, to include the
teaching of extra skills needed for publication.

I cite the above example to illustrate the kind of sensitivity and
skill a writing teacher must have, or learn to develop, in order to
conduct conferences effectively. An accurate reading of where each
child is in his draft, a realistic assessment of the child's capacity to
handle problems at a given time, can come only with experience. When we
read Grave's many detailed descriptions of writing teachers at work,
competent teachers conferring with children at different stages of their
draft, we can clearly see the cumulative effect of the craft of

conferencing.

39

Graves suggests 6 elements that teachers can use during the
conference process - elements which can ususally lead to dramatic
changes in children's writing. Graves uses the word "scaffolding" to
mean the temporary structures teachers use during the conference
process. The word "scaffolding", borrowed from Bruner, refers to what a
mother uses to adapt to the child's language, gesture, and activity.
Graves uses this word in the sense that the writing teacher must follow
and adapt to the contours of the student's growth and development. The
six characteristics of scaffolding suggested by Graves are (1983:271):

1. PREDICTABLE - The child should be able to predict
most of what will happen in conference.

2. FOCUSED - The teacher should not center attention on
more than one or two features of the child's piece.

3. SOLUTIONS DEMONSTRATED - Teachers need to show what
they mean rather than tell a child what to do.

u. REVERSIBLE ROLES - Children should be free to
initiate questions and commnts, to demonstrate their
own solutions.

5. HEIGHTENED SEMANTIC DOMAIN - Both teacher and child
need to have a growing language to discuss the process
and content of subjects.

6. PLAYFUL STRUCTURES - There ought to be a combination
of experimentation, discovery, and humor.

In a series of conferences, the scaffold changes, but the principles of
temporary structures do not change.

The scaffold changes because the focus of each conference is
different. Graves suggests early drafts to focus on information. The
teacher should direct questions to enable the writer to talk about the
content. In the second conference, the teacher should direct questions
toward the ordering of information - how to organize the content. When

the writing goes into the final draft, the teacher will discuss sentence

80

structure and other conventions and mechanics of writing. The following

triangle shows the change of focus of conferences as they lead to the

student's final product (1983:276).

       
     
         
    
         
   

(Iomma
in
a series

um I" 1': R [N IE 1 n (,‘hungmg 1’0““ 0/

I/w Conference

Questions
that focus on
organization

CONFERENCE H

Questions that
lead to
discovering subject

CONFERENCE l

 

Figure 1.8

Not only does Graves offer pointers to high-quality conferencing;

he also gives concrete guidelines in other areas of writing

instruction - how to organize the classroom for writing, how to write

along with students, how to observe and document children's writing,

even directions for book-binding. Highly detailed and eminently

practical, Graves' book is an important contribution to the sharing of

writing problems and their solutions in the context of every day

classroom activities.

CHAPTER TWO

CURRENT TRENDS IN ENGLISH WRITING: RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

Until very recently, research in English writing centered upon
various teaching methods and differing instructional content. Most
researchers were primarily concerned with pedagogical practices and
comparison group studies rather than problems of theory or the writing
process. This is evidenced by Braddock et al.'s Research in Written

Composition (1963) which is a review of composition research up to the

 

early 60's. Most of the studies reported in this book focused on the
study of written products rather than writing processes. These studies
stressed instructional approaches and procedural considerations such as
class size, frequency of writing, rater reliability, etc. Research
methodology was also emphasized, especially research design, with
careful consideration in instructional and environmental variables.
None of these studies ever investigated the writing process. The
assumption was, we already had a thorough understanding of composing and
the processes thus involved. Writers and writing specialists such as
Meade and Ellis (1970), Braddock (197”), Elbow (1973), Murray (1978),
and many others challenged this assumption. This raised new kinds of
questions about writing, started new lines of inquiry, and encouraged

new research methods.

41

“2

Interest in the writing process opened up a whole new frontier in
writing research. More and more researchers are now concerned with how
writers actually write. They want to look at the writing behaviors and
cognitive processes during composing, and they want to know the many
ways these behaviors and processes interact with written products and
their contexts. In this chapter, I will review the works of some major
contemporary researchers and see what kinds of questions they have
attempted to ask, what research methods they have used, and what effects

their findings have on current theory and practice.

MAJOR CONTEMPORARY RESEARCHERS IN ENGLISH WRITING

The two best known research studies about writing in the secondary
schools are Janet Emig's The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders (1971)
and Britton et al.'s The Development of Writing Abilities (ll-18)
(1975). Both Emig and Britton emphasized the need to base research upon
a carefully tested theory of discourse. Their findings prompted many
writing teachers to re-examine some of the conventional assumptions
about writing and the teaching of writing, and this led to further

investigations of the composing process.

EMIG'S RESEARCH

First, I will review Emig's study. I will examine the purpose of
her inquiry, her method of research, and the general thrust of her
findings.

The purpose of Emig's study is to examine the composing process of

twelfth-grade writers, using a case-study method. This method is a

’43

basic means of systematically collecting data, but it has scarcely been
used for writing research. On the back of the cover of Emig's book, she
states the purpose of her study thus:
To examine the composing processes of selected
twelfth grade writers, using a case study
method to elicit data about the writing
behaviors of students.
To distinguish between the two dominant modes of
composing among students: reflexive and
extensive.

To characterize a highly specialized form of verbal
behavior: composing aloud.

To gather information, through student's
autobiographies of writing experiences,
about the aspects of composition emphasized
in selected American schools.

In adapting the case study method Emig wanted to identify not only
student writing processes, but also student feelings, attitudes and
self-concepts. She selected eight twelfth graders who were sixteen and
seventeen years old as her subjects. Six of them had above average
intelligence, and two had average intelligence. Six were characterized
as good writers, and two as interested in writing but not particularly
able. Each student met four times with the investigator. Three writing
stimuli were provided to each student throughout the study. At each
session the student composed aloud, and what was said was taped.

At the first session the student was asked to compose aloud and
write a piece on whatever subject and whatever mode he/she wanted. At
the end of the first session the student was given the stimulus: Write
about a person, event, or idea that particularly intrigues you. The

student was asked to bring any pre-figuring made for the piece between

sessions. At the end of the second session the student was alerted to

an

the fact that about a week later, at the third session, he/she would be
asked to recall all the writing they had ever done, both in and out of
school. When the third session came, the student gave a writing
autobiography which included related reading experiences and
descriptions of writing instructions the student had ever had. At the
end of this session the student was asked to write an imaginative

piece - a story, poem, sketch, or a personal narrative. The student was
also asked to bring any plans and drafts used for this piece of
writing. At the fourth session the student recalled his/her prewriting
and planning, and also the total process he/she had engaged in while
producing the imaginative piece. Transcripts of all the sessions with
the eight students were made for closer scrutiny and analysis.

Emig delineated a comprehensive outline of the dimensions of the
composing process against which essential components and structures of
the composing process of her students could be ascertained. The ten
dimensions she arrived at inductively are: context of composing, nature
of the stimulus, prewriting, planning, starting, composing aloud,
reformulation, stopping, contemplation of product, and seeming teacher
influence on the piece. Reformulation, or revision, occurs throughout
the entire composing process.

Based on an analysis of all the data gathered, which includes
direct observation and interviews, as well as the "composing aloud"
transcripts, Emig offers some important findings.

In general, twelfth graders in her sample composed in two modes -
reflexive and extensive. Extensive writing occurs chiefly as school-
sponsored activity and chiefly as prose. The teacher is the chief

audience. There is often no time provided for prewriting and planning,

“5

and there is no personal involvement. Students seem to start matter-of-
factly. There is no discernible stopping or contemplating behavior; no
voluntary revision either. Reflexive writing is a longer process with
more components than extensive writing: starting, stopping,
contemplating the product, and reformulating. The self is the chief
audience. In the sample studied, not all students could accept the
invitation to write in the reflexive mode. Some were simply blocked
when they were asked to do so. As to revision, students revised more
readily and voluntarily when they wrote in the reflexive mode.

For school assignments Emig's subject wrote primarily in the
extensive mode. Emig advises writing teachers to abandon the uni-model
approach and extend a wider range of writing experience to students.

One of the purposes of Emig's study is to characterize the
"composing aloud" behavior. It is a special form of verbal behavior and
certain specifiable kinds of hesitation phenomena. These phenomena were
identified as making filler sounds, making critical comments, expressing
feelings and attitudes toward the self as writer to the reader, and
engaging in digression. Seven of the eight students showed the same
alternations of actual composing behavior and hesitation phenomena.

While composing aloud, the students followed a set of stylistic
principles that govern the selection and arrangement of elements -
lexical, syntactic, rhetorical, and imagaic. Some students seemed to be
translating directives from their former writing teachers. In other
words, past writing experiences, positive or negative, all had a great
impact on these students. For example, Lynn did not voluntarily
reformulate because reformulation means "punishment work" to Lynn. She

also said her writing teacher did not "inspire" her to reformulate.

#6

Debbie enacted her eleventh grade teacher's directive to be "direct,
concise, and specific." Thus in her sketch of Paulette, she stopped to
search for another word for "thing" which her teacher must have said was
not specific enough.

The data revealed a marked discrepancy between what writing
teachers and writing textbooks teach about composing and what Emig's
students actually did when they composed. Emig explains that the
discrepancy is partially attributable to teacher illiteracy. Many
writing teachers have no experience in writing. "Partially because they
have no direct experience with composing, teachers err in important
ways. They underconceptualize and oversimplify the process of
composing. Planning degenerates into outlining; reformulating becomes
the correction of minor infelicities" (1971:98). This is why most
school-sponsored writing is evaluated by criteria that concern "the
accidents rather than the essences of discourse - that is, spelling,
punctuation, penmanship, and length, rather than thematic development,
rhetorical and syntactic sophistication, and fulfillment of intent"
(1971:93).

While Emig's work is a report on writing research, it is basically
about teaching writing - a report on the assumptions, practices, and
effects of teaching writing. It exposed some myths about writing and
the teaching of writing fabricated by textbook writers and
unknowledgeable writing teachers.

One major value of Emig's study is that she demonstrated that the
case study method has potentials for further exploration of the
complexities of the composing process. Another value of her research is

she expanded the definition of the composing process to include the

A7

conditions and circumstances that surround and influence the composing,
not just identifiable steps in the act of composing.

Emig's humanistic effort to capture the writing process has become
a landmark in writing research. Nonetheless, there are limitations to
her study.

First, in asking students to compose aloud, Emig is assuming that a
writer's efforts to externalize his process of composing does indeed
reflect the inner process. But to what extent can composing aloud shed
light upon the actual process? Composing aloud cannot be exactly like
composing in silence. Emig suggested that more refined techniques might
be used for further research - techniques such as the use of time-lapse
photography, the use of an electric pen, etc. One would wonder to what
extent the presence of such equipment might distract the student from
the normal composing process. Even the presence of an investigator will
change the context of writing from the privacy of the writing act.
Furthermore, the nonverbalized events that might have controlled the
invention of ideas and the selection of language have not been captured
at all.

Second, Emig delineated the outline of the composing process before
she presented the data from interviews and from the analysis of her
student writings. In other words, the elements of the composing process
did not grow out of her data. One would wonder if a different outline,
or different elements might not have emerged had she examined the data
first.

Third, Emig's descriptive study does not provide us with standards
for determmining the adequacy of conceptions of the composing process.

While it does reveal some of the acts that high school seniors perform

#8

when composing, it is not a fully supported account of many other
writers. As Young has said, "......such studies only describe what some
writers did; they cannot be taken as normative" (1978:u3).

Fourth, in suggesting stimuli for her students to write, Emig made
no mention of purpose or audience. One would wonder if a specified
purpose and/or audience would have made any difference in the way the
students composed. All contemporary theories of discourse would suggest
that purpose and audience make a difference.

In spite of the above-mentioned weaknesses, Emig's work is of great
importance. She was the first to make a serious substantial attempt to
study the inner composing process. She did provide data, the best kind
of data that other inquiries have not been able to elicit. Another
value of her work is the assumption that humans, rather than mechanisms,
compose. Perhaps more valuable than the data her study yielded are the
framework and methodology she devised. Several replications of her
study have been done (Stallard 197%, Mischel 1975); others have extended
her work to other age groups (Hale 197”, Morgan 1975, Graves 1975,
Pianko 1979, Perl 1980a), or focused on a specific dimension of the
composing process (Sommers 1980, Faigley and Witte 1981). As a result
of Emig's work, the nature of the composing process has become of great

theoretical and practical interest.

BRITTON'S ET AL.'S RESEARCH

In some ways there are parallels between Britton's research and
Emig's research. Both are interested in the processes of writing and
writing pedagogy. While Britton et al. found Emig's two categories of

writing (reflexive and extensive) too restrictive for their purposes,

M9

they do believe that Emig's study has provided confirmation for some of
their findings. For example, Emig confirmed Britton's finding that
current school focus on transactional, product-oriented writing has a
very negative effect on student writing.

In The Development of Writinngbilities (ll-18), Britton reported
only the first stage of a comprehensive project of the Schools Council
of England. The second stage is a four year longitudinal study of two
classes in each of the five schools where Britton's theoretical model is
used as the chief instrument for assessing writing progress. The report
of the second phase of the project is yet to be published.

Earlier in Chapter I, I have presented Britton's theoretical
model. I will now examine the purpose of Britton's research and the
method he and his team used in gathering data. I will also point out
some highlights of their findings.

This is the way Britton states the intention of their research:

It is our intention in the present research to describe
stages in the development of writing abilities. Clearly,
therefore, a major part of the work will lie in finding
satisfactory means of classifying writings according to
the nature of the task and the nature of the demands made
upon the writer; and, as far as possible, a way of
classifying that is both systematic and illuminating in
the light it sheds upon the writing process itself
(1975:3).
The ultimate purpose of Britton's study was to identify qualitative
changes in the writing abilities of school children. They needed to
develop a theoretical model based on adult competence to trace school
children's development towards that competence. The writing samples

they collected from schools were used as a basis for their formulation

of that general theoretical model which I described earlier.

50

Britton's team collected writing assignments of 500 children in the
lst, 3rd, 5th, and 7th years of secondary schools. They examined a
total of 2122 pieces of writing done for 21 different curriculum
subjects. Each piece was examined separately by three judges, one of
whom was a member of the research team. These pieces of writing were
described according to function and audience categories formulated by
the research team. Two of the three judges had to agree on the category
before the piece of writing could be classified.

As we look at the overall results of the study, one major finding
stands out. There is an overriding influence of school demands on
writing. The development trend toward writing for a larger audience was
overshadowed by the trend toward writing for the teacher as examiner.

In examining student writings in relationship to audience, Britton
found that the "teacher" category dominated all writing they collected,
especially the teacher-as-examiner category - nearly #91 of the total
sample. Inspection of the data suggests (1975:132):

a. A cumulative increase in writing for the teacher
as examiner.

b. A corresponding decline in writing for the
teacher-learner dialogue.

c. A rise in the fifth and seventh years, in

writing for 'pupil to teacher, particular

relationship', and 'writer to his reader'.
There seems to be a movement toward a wider public in the 5th and 7th
years, but the proportion is low. "In none of the four years of the
sample did proportion of writing for the examining audience fall below
ROS and in no year but the 7th did the writing for the teacher, taking
the four subcategories together, fall below 90%" (1975:131). Britton

believes that the evidence strongly suggests that little writing outside

51

the teacher audience is experienced by the pupil the first year in
secondary school and a great deal of writing is for testing. After the
first year there are indications of the possibility of posing audiences
other than the teacher, but these possibilities "remain unexploited."

When Britton examined the scripts according to function, he found
an overall predominance of transactional writing (63.”1) within the
general tendencies of the sample, and within that, predominance of
informative writing. The proportion occupied by expressive writing is
low (5.5%), and poetic writing is no more than 17.61. Expressive
writing is minimally represented throughout the sample and the amount of
poetic writing is significant in the first three age groups, but
declines markedly with the 7th year.

Analysis by curriculum subjects suggests that there are divergences
within each subject; the major contrast is found between the pattern of
writing in geography, history, and science and the pattern of writing in
religious education and English. It appears that expressive and poetic
writing are monopolized by religious education and English.

As to the level of abstraction, the analysis of the scripts showed
that it is a highly significant index of development from ages 11 to 18,
but few ever reached the theorizing level.

The team's most disappointing finding was the small percentage of
expressive writing at any level - only 61 overall. They were
disappointed because they believed that "expressive writing, whether in
participant or spectator role, may be at any stage the kind of writing
best adapted to exploration and discovery" (1975:197). They thought
that the pressures to write for an audience of the teacher as examiner

might have inhibited early expressive writing and prevented the

52

development into the more abstract levels of informative writing. The
findings suggest to them that "curricula aims did not include the
fostering of writing that reflects information in the form in which both
teacher and textbook traditionally present" (1975:197). Britton would
like to see attempts made to find out why expectations in school can so
powerfully inhibit expressive writing and what can be done about it.

Britton's study is formal and extensive - their research
methodology carefully thought out, their theoretical model coherently
outlined, and their findings systematically analyzed. However, like
Emig's study, this piece of research also has its limitations.

First, like Emig's study, Britton developed the theoretical
framework prior to looking at student writings. Although the
classifications were outlined on the basis of current knowledge in
linguistics, rhetorics, and psychology, had they allowed their
classification to evolve out of student writings, the categories might
have been different.

Second, the way they gathered data seemed strange. Only assignment
writing was studied. Is this the only kind of writing children did in
school? If other kinds of writing had been solicited, or if students
had been able to free write or had a choice of topic within the
constraints of a prescibed task, the results again might have been
different.

Furthermore, looking at the product to infer psychological motives
behind each piece of writing is not the same as observing the composing
process as it is actually taking place. Careful scrutiny of each piece
of writing with the intent to fit it into a well-delineated

classification system does not really provide us with insight into the

53

strategies students used, nor does it shed any light onto the
characteristics of writing done by the students.

In spite of these weaknesses, Britton's study reflects the work of
a team of thoughtful and provocative researchers. Their deep concern
about how a writer writes, how a writer should write, and how a writing
teacher can teach writing effectively, are now shared by the profession

on both sides of the Atlantic.

SHAUGHNESSY'S RESEARCH

While Emig's research focused on the writing process, Mina
Shaughnessy's study stressed writing errors and the writer's learning
process. Her study is a remarkable effort toward understanding the
writing difficulties of basic writers. Shaughnessy intended her book,
Errors and Expectations to be a guide, or a road map for teachers of
basic writing. She compiled ”,000 placement essays at City College of
the City University of New York and analyzed extensively the writing
problems in these essays. The chapter headings in her book reflect the
major areas of difficulties: Handwriting and Punctuation, Syntax,
Common Errors (inflection of regular verbs and nouns, subject/verb
agreement, the use of articles), Spelling, Vocabulary, and Beyond the
Sentence (presenting and elaborating on a central idea). Under each
category of difficulty Shaughnessy tried to do three things: cite many
examples of the range of problems, give reasons or causes for these
problems, and suggest ways to approach them.

Shaughnessy thought the kind of writing her students did was the
result of the teachings of past grammar teachers and writing teachers.

"The writing that emerged from these experiences bears traces of the

5H

different pressures and codes and confusions that have gone to make up
'English' for the BW (basic writing) students" (1977:10). She believed
her students were obsessed with errors and were inhibited by them. They
often equate "good" writing with "correct" writing. She hoped that by
analyzing errors and teasing the causes and reasons behind them, she
could change writing teachers' preconceptions about errors, which in
turn, would change their misconceptions about their students. When
teachers found so many errors in the compositions of basic writers, they
were stunned; they considered these students "illiterate",
"irremediable", and "ineducable". Shaughnessy, however, saw the
ambitions and talents behind their writing and explained:

......BW students write the way they do, not

because they are slow or non-verbal, indifferent

to or incapable of academic excellence, but

because they are beginners and must, like all

beginners, learn by making mistakes (1977:5).
Such is the persuasion that underlies her work.

Another reason for her probing into the errors of her students is
the fact that errors are "unintentional and unprofitable intrusions upon
the consciousness of the reader". She believed her students must learn
the dominant code of literacy in order to function effectively in this
society. Errors, then, gg-matter because they hinder the writer's
relationship with his audience. From her study she hoped a new way of
looking at writing problems would emerge. Writing teachers could then
determine at what point or points along the developmental path, errors
should or could become a subject for instruction.

At a time when there is wide agreement among researchers that

teaching grammar has a negligible or even harmful effect on writing

improvement (Braddock 1963:37-38), why would Shaughnessy still recommend

55

grammar drills and pattern practice in the classroom? She argued that
her students must have some knowledge of the parts and basic patterns of
the sentence. She said:
......Whatever its direct influence on writing, a
rudimentary grasp of such grammatical concepts as
subject, verb, object, direct object, modifier, etc. is
almost indispensable, if one intends to talk with
students about their sentences (1977:77).
She further stated:
......It may well be that traditional grammar-
teaching has failed to improve writing not because rules
and concepts do not connect with the act of writing but
because grammar lessons have traditionally ended up with
exercises in workbooks, which by highlighting the
feature being studied, rob the student of any practice

in seeing that feature in more natural places
(1977:155).

Shaughnessy believed that the teacher's purpose in teaching grammar
is to help students understand certain features of that language that
they have difficulty with, not to give a complete description of every
aspect of grammar. According to Shaughnessy, many students still insist
that they need more prescriptive grammar because "grammar still
symbolizes for some students one last chance to understand what is going
on with written language so that they can control it rather than be
controlled by it". Shaughnessy's grammar, however, is not quite the
same as the prescriptive grammar found in composition textbooks. By
"grammar" she meant "any effort to focus upon the formal properties of
sentences". She viewed grammar as more of "a way of thinking, a style
of inquiry, than a way of being right" (1977:128-129). She did not
present grammar as a network of rules and prohibitions which existed

outside the language. The grammar that she taught centered around the

56

elements of the sentence and the ways of seeing how sentences could be
shaped and combined.

A casual reading of Errors and Expectations might give the
impression that Shaughnessy's approach to the teaching of writing is no
different than that presented in traditional composition textbooks -
emphasis on grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, capitalization, with many
exercises for practice on the sentence level. But the many insightful
explanations and useful suggestions Shaughnessy offered are quite
different from the traditional approach. One might say her approach to
the teaching of writing is a blend between the old and the new, the
traditional and the innovative. For example, in the area of
punctuation, she strongly believed that "the study of punctuation ought
not to begin with the marks themselves, as most writing handbooks do,
but with the structures that elicit these marks." The main reason for
using punctuations is to help the reader - help him see in advance how
the part he is about to read relates to what he has just read (1977:26).

Shaughnessy's treatment of spelling went far beyond rules often
found in composition textbooks. She distinguished between words that
are mispelled and words that are miswritten or incorrectly inflected.
She believed that "careful observation of mispelling patterns, the
exploration of causes, and the nurturing of new spelling habits can make
a difference." In listing the types of mispellings, she used
traditional terminology such as "long vowel sounds", "short vowel
sounds", to which linguists might object. The use of the spelling
charts she proposed, however, is practical and innovative (1977:176).
By asking students to enter mispelled words on a chart, they would soon

notice that certain words piled up under certain headings and would want

57

to know why, and would want to find ways and means to remedy them. This
technique places learning in the hands of the learner - very much in
line with current language learning theory.

Shaughnessy was not only concerned with errros or tests, lessons
and exercises on discrete grammar points, but also emphasized the
composing process. In the chapter on Syntax, she said, "The composition
course should be a place where the apprentice writer not only writes,
but experiences, in a conscious, orderly way the stages of the composing
process itself" (1977:81). This includes the messy process that leads
to clarity, the interplay between the writer as creator and the writer
as reader. Shaughnessy also discussed some of the basic concepts in the
teaching of writing advanced by process-oriented writing specialists -
concepts such as peer teaching, conferencing, reading aloud,
proofreading, and reading to enhance writing.

Shaughnessy argued for a balance between concern for errors and
concern for meaning, yet in her book, she seemed to have devoted more
space to the mastery of language form and not enough emphasis on the
writing process. What is more, there was no mention of free writing, no
special discussion on how to encourage students to write about matters
that engage them, to enable them to draw on their knowledge of life and
their experiences in life.

Furthermore, Shaughnessy suggested using sentence-combining
exercises to increase the frequency of "mature" sentences (1977:89).
Mature sentences, however, do not necessarily mean mature writing.
Sentence-combining exercises can be stimulating, and even effective,
in helping students understand the grammar of the sentence. They may

help produce complexity and variety in writing in a way traditional

58

grammar has not been able to do, but it should not take the place of
writing because it is a-rhetorical. Students need rhetorical-based
writing experiences. Moffett (1968) considers sentence-combining
non—naturalistic and should not be substituted for real writing
experience, and Combs (1976) cautions the need for further research to
determine what kinds of sentence-combining exercises are appropriate to
what level.

In spite of the above-mentioned drawbacks, Shaughnessy's work
stands as a landmark in the relatively unexplored territory of basic
writing. She has given us a new perspective in understanding students'
writing errors. There is a growing interest in error analysis in
applied linguistics in recent years (Richards ed. 197”) and in second
language acquisition research, learner's errors are now perceived as
indicative of the state of the learner's knowledge and the strategies
the learner is using to learn the target language. In this sense,
Shaughnessy's empiracal data and her insightful analysis serve as useful
input to theoretical discussions and important feedback to the design of
writing curricula. This piece of research is a major work of
scholarship on visible weaknesses in students' written language and on

their language learning processes.

HAYES AND FLOWER'S RESEARCH

Unlike Shaughnessy's research which focuses on student errors,
John Hayes and Linda Flower researched on the mental processes of
composing. They objected to the stage models of composing as
advanced by Rohman (1965 Prewrite/Write/Rewrite) and Britton (1975

Conception/Incubation/Production) on the grounds that those models are

59

linear, incapable of capturing the interactions of the many complex
elements of the dynamic process of composing. They claim that common
sense and research tell them that writers are constantly planning
(prewriting) and revising (re-writing) as they compose. Stage models do
not describe the moment-to-moment intellectual process of composing.
They, therefore, set forth to identify the basic mental acts of
decisions and choices writers make when they compose. By informally
analyzing many protocols over a period of five years they derived a
tentative cognitive model of expository writing.

Hayes and Flower define a protocol as "a description of the
activities, ordered in time, which a subject engages in while performing
a task" (1980:"). "Protocol analysis” is a technique developed by
Cognitive Psychology to identify psychological processes, typically
processes used in problem-solving tasks. Hayes and Flower applied this
technique developed by Cognitive Psychology to identify psychological
processes, typically processes used in problem-solving tasks. They
applied this technique to identify the processes of composing. They
believe that as a research tool, protocols are extremely rich in data.

A protocol can help us see many of the intellectual processes a writer
uses to produce his writing that other research tools have not been able
to do.

Through protocol analysis Hayes and Flower tried to describe the
underlying psychological processes, typically processes their subjects
used in performing their writing tasks. They claim that the model they
have derived has two unique features (1980:16):

1. It identifies not only subprocesses of the composing
process, but also the organization of those subprocesses.

6O

2. Minor variations in its simple control structure allow

it to describe individual differences in composing
style.

They believe their model can be used as a guide to diagnose writing
difficulties, and to differentiate competent writers from incompetent

writers.

The following is their schematic representation of the model

(1980:11):

 

TASK ENVIRONMENT

I

 

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT TEXT
Topic PRODUCED
Audience SO FAR
Motivating Cues

r

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I I I

PLANNING TRANSLATING REVIEWING

ORGANIZING

 

   
   
 

 

THE WRITER'S LONG TERM
MEMORY

 

Knowiedge of TOpIc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowledge of Audience GOAL
Siored Writing Plons SETTING
If I I
L MONITOR ]
Figure 2.1

In this model Hayes and Flower divide the writer's world into three
major parts. The three units of the model reflect the three elements
involved in the act of writing: the task environment, the writer's

long-term memory, and the writing process. The task environment

61

includes everything that influences the performance of the task.

More specifically, it includes the rhetorical problem, as well as the
written text. The rhetorical problem includes the writing assignment,
and the writer's motivation. Flower and Hayes think that "defining the
rhetorical problem is a major, immutable part of the writing process"
(1981:369). How a writer chooses to define the rhetorical problem will
affect his writing performance. They think it is of great research
interest to see how the process of presenting the problem works for the
writer. The written text, as soon as it is written, becomes a part of
the task environment. The growing text puts constraints on what the
writer can say next. They believe that "part of the drama of writing is
seeing how writers juggle and integrate the multiple constraints of
their knowledge, their plans, and their text into the production of each
new sentence" (1981:371).

The writer's long-term memory is a storehouse of knowledge of
topic, audience, generalized writing plans, and writing formulas. Here
the writer has to find the cue that will let him retrieve a network of
useful knowledge. Then he has to re-organize or adapt the information
to meet the demands of the current rhetorical task.

The writing process itself consists of three major processes:
planning, translating, and reviewing. In the planning process, a writeri3|
builds an internal representation of the knowledge that he will use in
writing. A whole network of ideas may not be made in language.

Sometime the writer has to capture the fleeting image or visual code in
words. Hayes and Flower believe the function of the planning process is
”to take information from the task environment and from long-term memory

and to use it to set goals and to establish a writing plan to guide the

.—

62

production of a text that will meet those goals" (1980:12). Planning is

f" as“ _____

a thinking process writers use again and again during composing, and it .

 

 

is used at all levels - text level, and/or sentence level.

The planning process involves three subprocesses: generating,

.- '
,r—AA-e‘ w‘uv'd'F-"‘W ‘ "Jl'f'-"\‘-“"

organizing, and goal setting. The act of generating ideas includes

 

retrieving information from long-term memory. Sometimes this
information is well developed and organized, but sometimes the writer
generates fragmentary or contradictory thoughts. The organizing process
allows the writer to identify categories, to group ideas and present
them in the text. It is believed that all rhetorical decisions affect
the process of organizing ideas at all levels. Goal-setting goes on
throughout composing. Some goals may be drawn from long-term memory,
but most goals are generated and developed and revised by the writer by
the same processes that generate new ideas. Flower and Hayes think that
"the act of defining one's own rhetorical problem and setting goals is
an important part of being creative and can account for some important
differences between good and poor writers" (1981:373). The act of
developing and refining one's goals continues throughout the whole
process of composing.

Translating is putting ideas into written form, or translating a
meanIHgflinto visible English. The function of the translating process
is to transform whatever material from memory into acceptable written
English. This has to function under the guidance of the writing plan.
There are special demands of written English to which the writer has to

adhere. For adults some of the demands may have become automatic. If

the writer has to devote conscious attention to such demands as

r‘

1

63

spelling, punctuation, and grammar, it will interfere with the meaning
he wants to get across.

Reviewing consists of two sub-processes:\_reading and editing.,

W1 .,.. guru-va-IJ. 4." up
-M u-r’ .- —-

Reviéwing frequently leads to new planning and translating. The
function of the reviewing process is to improve the quality of the
writing. Reading and editing, like generating, can occur at any time I ‘
during the act of composing and can interrupt any other process. 8.

The "monitor" functions as a strategist. It determiens whether to
translate or to continue generating new ideas. The choice is determined
by the writer's writing habit or writing styles, and also by the
writer's goals.

Flower and Hayes further explain their cognitive process theory by
pointing out some key concepts upon which their theory rests:

1. "Writing is best understood as a set of distinctive

1.! { thinking processeSEwhich writers orchestrate or
' '”6rganize during the act of composing"-(l98l:366).

J,
2 I

They claim that writers do not go through these processes in a simple .3 {\ X

'x . ‘/

order. The three major processes in their model, namely, planning,

5'
IF

translating, and reviewing, are distinctive processes used over and over
by their subjects. Mbreover, these processes are used at all levels.,5
Sometimes they are used to make a global plan for the whole piece of;'
writing, and sometimes a local plan for the next sentence. I
2. The processes of writing are hierarchically organized,
with component processes embedded within other
components (1981:375).
The events in this hierarchical process do not take place in a

fixed order. They suggest that we view the writing processes as a

writer's "tool kit". The writer uses the tools according to need. This

64

allows flexibility. The many embedded sub-processes are used
recursively.
3. "Writing is a goal-directed process. In the act of
composing, writers create a hierarchical network of

goals and these in turn guide the writing process"
(1981:377).

This is considered the keystone of their cognitive process
theory. They distinguished two categories of goals - process goals and

content goals. Good writers, they say, seem to have greater control

.flfl.
m

 

, 'wm .l,

over their process goals than poor writers. As writers compOse, their

contentgoals "grow into an increasingly elaborate network of goals and

subgoals." This accounts for the purposefulness in writing.
“ i u.' ”Writers create their own goals in two key ways: by

generating goals and supporting sub-goals which embody

a purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating

their own top-level goals in light of what they have

learned by writing” (1981:381).
Flower and Hayes think this process of regenerating goals and recreating
sub-goals is a "powerful creative process." They believe that when a
writer uses a goal to generate ideas andconsolidates them and then
regenerates new and more complex goals, learning is apt to take place.
Hence they think their theory can contribute to a cognitive explanation
of discovery.

To formally test the adequacy of this model, Hayes and Flower
compared this model with one writing protocol in which the writer gave
clear indications of ongoing writing processes. This protocol consisted
of in pages of verbal transcript, 5 pages of notes, and a page of
completed essay. Based on the writer's "metacomments" they divided the

protocol into three sections. These were the three hypotheses they used

(1980:22-27):

M It)

65

Hypothesis 1 - In the first section generating is
the predominant process, in the second
section organizing, and in the third
section translating.

Hypothesis 2 - The content statements in the
protocol will reflect differences in the
distribution of processes in the three
protocol sections.

Hypothesis 3 - The generating process will be more
persistent during section 1 of the
protocol when the goal is to generate,
than during section 2 and 3, when it is not.

All three hypotheses were confirmed, and this gave strong support to the
adequacy of their model.
Hayes and Flower's model is a major contribution toward the \

e p. ‘wum I\

understanding ofIthe mental processesj f composing. They have described I

"I—I“. .ur,‘ u...- “RILdv‘ a"

.— ,_4 av

the act of composing as dealing with an excessive number of simultaneous I

demands or constraints (Flower and Hayes 1980). They think writing is

'K“-~...--_

@

goal directed and recursive. When a writer composes, the task of
planning, retrieving information, creating new ideas, producing
language, editing language, all interact with one another. The model
they derived specifies the nature of the individual processes, and the f
organization of subprocesses.

Useful though this model may be as a research tool, it has its
limitations. Hayes and Flower are not unaware of the fact that their
model has been tested formally with only one protocol, although the
model was evolved by informally analyzing many protocols. They also
realize that they have tested only some properties of the major writing
processes, but there are still others they have not tested. For

example, they have not tested the structure of editing processes. What

is more, they have selected participants that were confident, analytic

66

and capable of giving good protocols. Their model is a model of
competent writers of expository writing. This limits the
generalizibility of their findings.

Furthermore, this model assumes that every piece of writing is a
problem-solving task. This might be true with school-sponsored
expository writing. But what about other kinds of writing? Do all
kinds of expressive writing involve problem-solving too?

I have often wondered how accurate a protocol can be. The act Of
composing is a difficult task in itself. If we ask a writer to provide
a commentary while he is composing, we are making the task even more
difficult. There is bound to be some interfering effect. As I have
commented on Emig's research, "composing aloud" is artificial. It
cannot fully capture the writer's complete writing behavior.

A strong comprehensive writing model must necessarily be
multidimensional. While the cognitive dimension is important, thinking
processes are only one aspect of the many factors associated with
composing. The social and affective variables that come into play are
equally important - variables such as attitude, motivation, self-esteem,
anxiety, etc. The cognitive processes, for example, can hardly explain
the "blank page" syndrome. We cannot ignore the fact that a writer is a
"whole person". Thus a more comprehensive inquiry into writing would
have to include more than just the thinking process. As Emig has said,
"Inquiries into writing, into composition, probably need to be informed
by at least four kinds of theories: 1) a thoery of meaning; 2) a theory
of language; 3) a theory of learning, and 4) a theory of research.

Preferably, all these should be consonant or congenial” (1982:70-71).

67

In spite of the above-mentioned drawbacks, Hayes and Flower have
provided an outstanding piece of research. They have offered a
theoretical framework that attempts to make explicit how a writer's
knowledge of a topic, his sense of audience and purpose can affect the

ongoing process.

68

CONCLUSION

From the works of the writing specialists and researchers I have
reviewed in Chapters I and II, it is clear that a body of beliefs and
assumptions about writing has emerged which is quite different from the
traditional prescriptive product-oriented paradigm. Leaders in the
profession are now predominantly concerned with the writing process, not
just the product; they are concerned with content, not just form. While
they may not agree on what the writing process exactly entails, they do
agree on the nature of the complexity of the process. They also agree
that insight into the composing process will help teachers become more
effective in the classroom. They believe that the writing process is a
dynamic, generating process which leads to discovery, not a step-by-step
procedure that has dominated the teaching of writing for decades.
Although writing research is still in its early stages of inquiry
conceptually and historically, researchers have broadened writing
research to include contemplative first hand accounts of what actually
goes on when a writer composes. Their findings support the assumption
that the composing process is not a linear but recursive process.
Writers generate ideas and integrate them to approximate meaning.
Writers plan, write, revise, anticipate, review - moving back and forth
throughout the entire writing act.

Based on this approach, teaching writing means the teacher must
offer help during the process, not wait until the end to correct a few

errors, or criticize the written product. The writing teacher's job is

69

to help students generate, formulate, and refine ideas and discover
purpose and meaning. When writing is viewed as a way of learning, the
writing teacher's responsibility is to provide students with process-
oriented and rhetorically-based writing experiences that would enable
students to grow through language. As Moffett puts it, "to enable the
student to play freely the whole symbolic scale."

Thus, in our profession today, we are witnessing the development of
a new philosophy about writing, a new direction in writing research, and
a new methodology in the teaching of writing.

What impact does the paradigm shift in English writing have on ESL
writing? Have leading ESL methodologists sensed the winds of change?
Have ESL writing teachers adapted any of the innovative techniques
suggested by English writing specialists? In the following chapter, I
will examine the state of the art in ESL writing and attempt to answer

some of these questions.

CHAPTER THREE

ESL WRITING - THEORY AND PRACTICE

INTRODUCTION

Having reviewed current trends in English writing in Chapters I
and II, I will now turn my attention to ESL writing. I will survey the
literature of ESL writing to see what theory or theories ESL specialists
have espoused and what methods and techniques methodologists have
advanced in the teaching of ESL writing. Unfortunately theoretical
discussion on ESL writing is sadly lacking. I have, therefore, resorted
to looking at definitions and stated goals offered by ESL specialists.
Through these definitions and stated goals one can get a glimpse of how

writing is being perceived.

DEFINITIONS AND STATED GOALS

In general, ESL specialists have espoused the traditional view that
writing is a skill, as opposed to process, to be mastered for use,
especially in the academic world. Thus, for decades ESL writing has
been taught as one of the "four skills", very much like the way writing
had been taught to college freshmen in the U.S. prior to the paradigm

shift.

70

71

Rivers (1968), a well-known and well-esteemed authority in foreign
language teaching, voiced the opinion that writing is closely related to
and dependent on other skills. She suggested that writing be used as a
"compensatory skill" in learning languages. Paulston and Bruder, in

their book Teaching:English as a Second Language: Techniques and

 

Procedures agreed with Rivers. They viewed writing as a service
activity for reinforcing and consolidating other language skills such
as grammar, pronunciation, listening comprehension, and reading

(1976:20u). Croft, in his anthology Readings on English as a Second

 

Langgage, suggested that "reading and writing skills are usually
developed at the advanced level of instruction. They depend to a great
extent on a solid foundation in listening and speaking skills"
(1980:339).

I think Croft's notion that writing is based on speaking and
listening skills, and Rivers' and Paulston and Bruder's notion that
writing is a "compensatory skill" are overly simplistic. During the
heydays of the audio-lingual era, proficiency in English meant oral
proficiency. At that time, writing played a subsidiary role and was not
to be taught until after the complete mastery of the oral skills. Since
there are similarities as well as differences between speaking and
writing, we do not have sufficient grounds to arbitrarily say which
skill is based on which until we can obtain more research data on the
basic features of the rules of speaking and the rules of writing, and
compare the two. Based on the knowledge of second language acquisition
today, we can argue that it is possible, or even desirable, to introduce

writing to low-level ESL students because the sooner students learn how

72

to write in English, the sooner they can use English to express their
feelings and ideas in written form.

What exactly is ESL writing? In the literature we find only a few
specialists who have directly addressed this question, and most of them
have addressed it only in general terms. Others have only stated their
goals in teaching ESL writing, but from their explicitly stated goals we
can attempt to derive their assumptions about ESL writing.

The terms "writing" and "composition" have been used
interchangeably by many people in the profession, but there are those
who prefer to differentiate the two. Bracy reported that in a writing
seminar, at a panel discussion at UCLA, a suggestion was made to
distinguish "writing" from "composition". The panelists saw "writing"
as teaching anything controlled, and "composition" as anything free
(1971:241).

Rivers used "writing" to refer to several activities: notation,
spelling, writing practice, and composition. She defined composition
like this:

In its most highly developed form, writing refers to

the expression of ideas in a consecutive way,

according to the graphic conventions of the

language; the ultimate aim of the writer at this

stage is to express himself in a polished literary

form which requires the utilization of a special

vocabulary and certain refinements of structure.

This we shall call "composition" (1968:2A3).
According to this definition, writing in its highest form is very
limiting and limited, if it can be called "writing" at all. If the
ultimate goal is to fit ideas into a "polished literary form", there is
very little time and effort given to the creative aspect of the

composing process. Students have no chance to experience a dynamic

73

writing process whereby they can explore ideas and discover meaning
through language.
It is interesting to note here that thirteen years later, in the

second edition of Rivers' book Teaching Foreign Langauge Skills (1981),

 

she adopted a less rigid view of "composition" and re-defined it as
"expressive writing". "In its most highly developed form, writing
refers to the conveying of information or expression of original ideas
in the new language" (1981:29N). She still maintains, however, that
writing practice will at first be a service activity, consolidating work
in the other areas, and she still thinks that writing should be used to
reinforce other learning. "The higher levels of composition will be
possible only when the student has attained some degree of mastery of
the other skills" (1981:297). She continues to favor guided types of
exercises that manipulate vocabulary and structures and gradually move
to more flexible tasks when students can begin to develop the data
provided in their own ways. It thus appears that Rivers still expouses
the traditional skillist view of writing - a view which greatly limits
the scope of the student's writing experience.

Slager defined "composition" as "writing beyond the sentence
level". This definition excludes the physical act of writing. Thus
copying and writing from dictation are not considered writing by his
definition. He said, "I would like to concentrate, then, on the writing
of paragraphs and of compositions of several paragraphs" (1972:232). He
further suggested that composing must be guided and controlled. He
offered many writing assignments that are highly controlled, leading up
to sumary writing and writing from a model. His conclusion was:

”Students who can do all these exercises accurately are still a long way

7A

from free composition, which implies the ability to develop a well-
organized theme on any subject that might be assigned" (1972:243).

The composing process as we understand it today, cannot be neatly
controlled the way Slager has suggested. When students spend most of
their time doing guided exercises, there is little time left to develop
their ability to work independently and really write - to explore,
reformulate, revise and edit. Little wonder the students, after
completing all the exercises accurately, still cannot develop a well-
organized theme on any assigned subject. They have never had a chance
to really write texts of their own in English. They have developed
little in the way of awareness and judgement, so necessary for effective
writing.

Chastain is of the opinion that writing helps to solidify the
student's grasp of vocabulary and structure, and complements the other
language skills. He thinks the overall objective of writing is "to be
able to write a message that a native speaker would be able to
understand" (1976:365). He adds that this does not necessarily mean
native speaker proficiency. "The important criterion is that they can
express their ideas in written form, however elementary the fashion"
(1976:365). To help students develop their writing ability he proposes
a sequence of activities: writing words (copying, spelling, sounds,
dictation), writing language forms (forms such as morpheme components,
verb forms in isolation, verb forms in context, etc.), productive
performance exercises (sentence completion, answering questions, etc.),
and sustained writing (summaries, semi-controlled writing and free
writing). Chastain believes that the purpose of free writing is to

express thoughts in the second language.

75

I think Chastain's notion that writing is for expression of thought
and/or for communicative purposes is sound, but I take issue with him
when he suggests that writing be used to practice grammatical forms. I
would not label the kind of exercises he recommends "writing" at all.
Furthermore, I question the wisdom of sequencing writing activities
lock-step fashion (from word, to sentence, to paragraph) because most
adult second language learners are generally conceptually mature,
sometimes more mature than we give them credit for. They need to learn
to search for new words, new expressions, and new structures to
approximate their meaning, not just to practice structures they have
already learned. Research in English writing has shown that
overteaching of grammatical form can hinder the composing process (Perl
1979).

Robinett (1978), in Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Langgages, pointed out the ambiguity of the term "writing”. It can mean
the complex process of composing, and it can also mean handwriting or
penmanship. Although she did not elaborate on what the complex process
entails, she stated that both types of writing are necessary in an ESL
writing program. She regarded writing as a means of communicating
ideas, and that:

....The acquisition of certain mechanical abilities
is the first stage in the communicative skill of
writing; this includes the ability to put down on
paper words, phrases, and sentences, leaving space
between words, and starting sentences with a capital
letter and ending with some mark of punctuation.
Once students have mastered these conventions of
writing, the next stage comprises learning to write
composition: developing sequences of sentences into

paragraphs and arranging paragraphs into a unified
WhOle. e e (p. 195) e

76

I would agree with Robinett that both types of writing - penmanship
and the complex composing process - need to be tended to in any ESL
writing program. I would disagree, however, that the first stage in the
communicative skill of writing is the acquisition of mechanical
abilities. The creating and generating of ideas should take precedence
over concerns with the mechanics of writing. In any communicative act,
the message is always more important than the form. Current English
writing research has shown that conscious knowledge of rules of the
conventions of writing is most useful only at the editing stage of the
composing process. According to Krashen (1984), a well-known second
language acquisition theorist and researcher, over concern with form can
inhibit composing.

Paulston and Bruder classified the writing ability of ESL students
into three levels. They stated their major teaching points as
follows: for the beginning level, correct form of language on the
sentence level, mechanics of punctuation, and content organization; for
the intermediate level and advanced level, the rhetorical organization
of the paragraph as well as on the overall composition level
(1976:205). "The main objective of our writing courses after the
beginning course is to write a full-fledged research paper. For non-
academic situations, a research paper can easily be modified to a
report, an essay, and the like, but the important point is that there be
one overriding objective" (1976:237).

I would not argue that there should be one overriding objective for I
an ESL writing course, but to say that the main objective is to write a
full-fledged research paper is severely limited. It deprives the

student of the opportunity to explore the many dimensions of written

77

discourse; it fails to engage the student in experiencing the diversity
of modes and audiences. As Judy has pointed out, good academic writing
is not formula writing. "It grows from a full synthesized experience, a
deeply known and even felt experience" (1980:47). Such an experience is
possible only as we provide our students with opportunities to try a
sufficient variety of discourse types. After students have had a rich
writing experience, the quality of their research paper will be I
enhanced.

Buckingham also defined ESL writing into three levels, each based
on a hierarchy of linguistic units, but his goals for the three levels
are somewhat different from Paulston and Bruder's. "Level I is reserved
for the acquisition of skills which are best described as automatic,
skills commonly taught through rote memorization and repetition of the
same act or class of acts until the specific actions are invariably
evident in students' responses" (1979:2u3). At Level II "Performances
are concerned with the production of language involving more than a
single word but not more than a single sentence, however complex.
Obviously, most instruction at this level will be concerned with the
practice of sentence writing at levels of complexity from very simple
sentences to very complex ones. Structure and vocabulary are the two
basic aspects involved" (1979:2A3). "At Level III, the concern is with
the abilities of students to write prose which requires a synthesis of
knowledge of skills to produce extended arguments, descriptions,
narrations and explications. Now, such skills as were learned at lower
levels are only tools, used more or less unconsciously to permit the

writer to communicate elaborated ideas" (1979:2A5).

78

Buckingham thinks that the procedures and techniques for teaching
the beginning and intermediate stages are clear and fairly standard, so
he chose to elaborate on the learning goals of Level III. The goals are
as follows:

Goal 1: To become independent of the controls
imposed by the teacher or text.

Goal 2: To write for a variety of communicative
purposes.

Goal 3: To extend and refine the use of vocabulary
and sentence structure.

Goal I: To write the conceptual paragraph.

Goal 5: To write longer units of discourse.

Goal 6: To utilize awareness of cultural

differences in writing (1979:2A6).

Buckingham's goals for Level III reflect, to a certain degree, the
communicative approach to language teaching, currently in vogue. His
goals for Level I and Level II are very restricted, even more so than
Paulston and Bruder's. The focus is mainly on correctness of the
product on the sentence level. The pervasiveness of drills and
exercises is such that we lose touch with what writing is really for.
As writing teachers, we must make the distinction between meaningful
writing and senseless ritual (Frank Smith 1983).

When Buckingham uses the term "writing process", it is not the
process view of writing advanced by Emig (1971), Perl (1980b), and
others; nor are his primary activities of the writing process the same
as recommended by Moffett (1981), or Murray (1984). Perhaps Buckingham
has sensed the winds of change in English writing and has attempted to
relate the "process approach" to ESL, but his "writing process" does not
really mean the experience of discovering, creating and giving form to

thoughts and ideas, and reformulating and refining them.

79

At this point I would like to recapitulate Moffett's definition of
writing which I discussed earlier in Chapter 1 and compare his
definition with the stated goals offered by ESL specialists I have thus
far reviewed. In Moffett's spectrum of definitions, drawing and
handwriting are the lowest definitions on the scale; transcribing and
copying come next. This is followed by "paraphrasing, summarizing,
plagiarizing; then comes crafting conventional or given subject matter;
finally, revising inner speech, the highest in his array of
definitions. This array ranges from "most material" to "most
authorial". Moffett stresses that "writing consists not just one of
these activities but of all of them at once" (1981:90). In other words,
when people write, they carry out ALL the activities on Moffett's
scale. Failure to do so, according to Moffett, would be wrong. It is
significant to note here that the wide range of definitions of writing
offered by ESL specialists I have reviewed so far, fall somewhere within
Moffett's scale of definitions, but the highest on Moffett's scale -
revising inner speech - has not been mentioned by any of them. In other
words, that very important process of generating, refining and re-making
meaning through writing is ignored.

In very recent years, however, the dynamic processes of writing
have been recognized by a few ESL specialists, and they have begun to
introduce the "process approach" to ESL writing. Zamel (1976) was the
first to call our attention to current research findings in English
writing and suggested that we recognize what important ramifications
these new insights might have on ESL writing. Her notion of writing is
more in line with the "process approach" advanced by Murray and

others. In reporting her study of the composing process of 8 ESL

80

students, she defined writing as the process of discovering meaning and
used this definition as the title for her study of the composing process
of her students (1982:195). She is critical of the traditional approach
to ESL writing for she does not think grammar-based approaches should
serve as substitutes for the instruction of the composing process. She
recommends that writing instruction recognize the importance of
generating, formulating, and refining ideas and revision be the main
component of writing instruction. She espouses Judy's notion that "form
grows from content and is inseparable from it" (1980:”1). She says that
"methods that emphasize form and correctness ignore how ideas are
explored through writing and fail to teach students that writing is
essentially a process of discovery" (1982:195). "When students learn
that through writing they can explore and discover their thoughts and
ideas, their product is likely to improve, too" (1982:207).

Raimes tried to answer the question "What is composition?" more
directly. She thinks that the Aristotelian division of classical
rhetoric into Invention, Arrangement, and Style is still valid today,
except the ESL student has more of a burden because he has to learn the I
rhetorical structure of English which is generally assumed to be _I
culturally different. Raimes thinks that "while teachers may disagree
on methods and materials, most do agree that finding something to say,
organizing it, and saying it well are what composition is all about"
(1978: Preface vii).

Sharing Zamel's belief that "syntax and rhetoric are complementary,
yet separate aspects of the composing process, neither one being
responsible for the improvement of the other" (Zamel 1976:73), Raimes'

writing textbook Focus On Composition (1978), offers two different kinds

 

81

of focus: Focus A provides practice in syntax, and Focus B provides
practice in rhetoric. After the core composition is written, the
teacher reads it and then assigns further homework on an individual
basis to fit the student's syntactical and rhetorical needs. Here one
can't help but question the wisdom of practicing the two aspects of
composing separately, for syntax and rhetoric are interrelated and
interdependent.

In her recent book Techniques in Teachinngriting, Raimes explains
more specifically what she means by getting students to go beyond
sentence level exercises, so they can write

. to communicate with a reader;
. to express ideas without the pressure
of face-to-face communication;
. to explore a subject;
. to record experience;
. to become familiar with the conventions
of written English discourse (a text).
(1983azu)
She believes that to compose is to express ideas and communicate
meaning. She also says, "Composing means thinking" (1983bz26l).

While we don't doubt that thinking is an important part of the
composing process, composing is 9232 than thinking. "What is elicited
in writing is not solely the product of the mind but of a mind alive in
a living, sensing body” (Perl 1980b:365).

Taylor, like Zamel, also introduced to ESL writing some of the
insights gained in English writing research. He cited the works of
several writing specialists such as Murray 1978, Britton 1978, Flower
and Hayes 1977, and others. He believes that "the very act of writing
can itself serve to facilitate thought and shape ideas" (1981:5). He

defines writing as "a creative discovery procedure characterized by the

82

dynamic interplay of content and language: the use of language to
explore beyond the known content" (l98l:6). He views essay writing as a
bi-directional movement between content and written form, and suggests
that students be given the opportunity to experience the process of
discovering meaning and then of struggling to give it form through
revision. Like Zamel, he gives revision a central position in a writing

class.

APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF ESL WRITING

While ESL writing literature reveals relatively little theoretical
discussions on writing, methods and techniques in teaching ESL writing
abound. This is because different teachers and different textbook
writers tend to emphasize different features of this complex process.
Raimes offers a rather comprehensive diagram to show what writers have

to deal with as they produce a piece of writing.

83

Producing a Piece of Writing
SNYTAX CONTENT
sentence structure, relevance, clarity,
sentence boundaries, originality,
stylistic choices, etc. logic, etc.

GRAMMAR \ ' K THE WRITER’S
rules for verbs\ / PROCESS
agreement, articles, getting ideas,
pronouns, etc. getting started,
writing drafts,
revising

 
     
    
 

  

Clear, fluent, and
MECHANICS ——> efiecuve communication

handwriting, of ideas \
spelling, AUDIENCE
punctuation, etc. / the reader/s
ORGANIZATION T ' PURPOSE
paragraphs, the reason for writing
topic and support, WORD CHOICE
cohesion and unity VOCRbUIUY:
idiom, tone
Figure 3.1

"As teachers have stressed different features of the diagram, combining
them with how they think writing is learned, they have developed a
variety of approaches to the teaching of writing" (1983a:6).

A close examination of practice suggests that there are at least
the following dominant pedagogical approaches to the teaching of ESL
writing: 1. the free-writing approach, 2. the controlled-writing
approach, 3. progression from controlled-writing to free-writing,

A. the communicative approach, and 5. the process-oriented approach.
Here I will describe these approaches and see what assumptions about ESL
writing each approach reflects. In the next chapter I will present

research upon which some of these approaches are based.

8“

THE FREE-WRITING APPROACH

On one extreme are the proponents of free-writing. Both Erazmus
(1960) and Briére (1966) advocated "quantity before quality”. Erazmus
proposed rapid writing in large quantities, without revision. He
claimed that if students wrote more often, they would make greater
improvement. The fluency program he advanced for the intermediate
level, pushed students to produce extensively, with little regard to
errors. He argued that it was more important for students to produce
large quantities of material than to produce perfect copies. "With the
de-emphasis on errors and stylistics, the student can write freely
without the inhibitions often attending composition writing" (Erazmus
1960:30). A further step to promote writing fluency proposed by Erazmus
is to draw on students' unique personal experiences for writing
assignments. This is somewhat in line with Judy's "Experiential
Approach" (1980) I discussed earlier in Chapter I.

Briére also emphasized quantity. Based on the results of his pilot
study which I will discuss in the next chapter, Briére focused on
writing frequency, not error correction. Like Erazmus, he, too,
believed that with more writing, few errors would result. He posited
that an emphasis on quantity would result in fluency, with error
reduction as the concomitant result. His critics pointed out the Buxton
study (reported in Braddock et a1, 1963, p. 70) which evidenced contrary
results. Other studies concur with Buxton's and conclude that writing
progress is not related to the frequency of assignments (Dressel et a1.,
1952, Hayes 1962, Arnold 196”, Hunting 1967, Haynes 1978, and others).

It is conceivable that free writing can facilitate writing fluency.

This might be useful in preparing students to answer essay-type

85

questions, but this is not enough. Frequent writing practice alone does
not necessarily result in better writing quality unless students can
experience the full range of the composing process - the recursive

stages of inventing, drafting, revising, and editing.

THE CONTROLLED-WRITING APPROACH

On the other extreme are those who disagree with the use of free
writing. Pincas, introducing her "multiple substitution" technique,
argues that "since free composition relies on inventiveness, on
creativeness, it is in direct opposition to the expressed ideals of
scientific habit-forming teaching methods which strive to prevent errors
from occurring" (1963:185). The assumption reflected here is that
manipulation and imitation of fixed patterns have priority over
originality, and that correctness in writing is more important than
ideas and content. This represents the behavorist view of language
teaching which is contrary to second language acquisition theory today.

Arapoff (1967) also argued for controlled writing. She believed we
should teach expository writing and should teach our students how to
select and organize facts given to them via their reading assignments.
Since students must have facts and ideas in order to write, she argued
that students should not be allowed to use their own ideas and facts for
writing because "if they were allowed to use the facts and ideas gained
from their first-hand experiences, they would think these in their own
language and then try to translate them word-for-word into English,
often with most ungrammatical results. This is why the free composition

approach to teaching writing is just as unsatisfactory as the copybook

86

method...the students make so many grammatical errors that their
compositions lose much of the original meaning" (1967:3N).

Like Pincas', Arapoff's argument is contrary to current theory and
practice in language teaching. It is precisely the students' rich ideas
and facts from their own life experiences that help motivate them to
write - to search for appropriate words and forms to express their
meaning in writing. Prohibiting students from using their own resources
to write and forcing them to perform drills and exercises aimed at
grammar practice, irrelevent to their life experiences, is apt to
destroy their desire to write. Research in English writing has shown
that obsession with grammatical correctness can impair the composing
process (Perl 1979), and fear of error inhibits composing (Shaughnessy

1977).

PROGRESSION FROM CONTROLLED-WRITING TO FREE-WRITING APPROACH

Not all writing teachers and textbook writers accept the
extremes. The most prevalent pedagogy in the last two decades has
included a progression by the student from controlled to free writing.
The use of model passages, whether in paragraph or essay form, is
widespread in textbooks at all levels. Model-based tasks and exercises
vary enormously, some tightly controlled, some almost completely free.
The trend is to gradually relax control along an ability continuum from
low-level to advanced. In general, this approach stresses accuracy
instead of fluency and creativity. It focuses on grammar, syntax,
mechanics, and/or organization. Writing tasks are prescribed, and the
ultimate goal is error-free sentences, or paragraphs, or compositions.

Students are allowed to write free sentences, paragraphs, or

87

compositions only after they have successfully performed certain
exercises and studied and imitated the model passages. The assumption
here seems to be grammatical facility, or correctness of form, means
writing ability.

There are some who recognize that writing is not synonymous with
correct sentences, but they still insist upon control. Although they
stress the importance of organization, style, and rhetoric, they still
insist that control and guidance are essential. Kaplan (1967), for
example, thought that foreign students should study and imitate English
paragraphs because the pattern of an English paragraph is different from
that of other cultures. Pincas (1963) suggested a multiple substitution
technique to help students form a habit of using certain styles. Carr
(1967) focused on analyzing the organization and logical arrangements of
model passages. Arapoff (1969) stresses the importance of having
students compare and imitate stylistic differences. Dehghanpisheh
(1979), focusing on expository writing, introduced the "controlled
paragraph rhetoric" to bridge the gap between controlled writing and
free writing. Thus a certain amount of restraint is still placed on the
"free" writing tasks.

Many of the specialists I mentioned earlier in this chapter belong
to this camp: Rivers, Slager, Paulston and Bruder, Buckingham, and
Robinette. Many textbook writers also embrace this approach, so many
that it would be impossible to cite them all. Here I will mention only
a few well-known and commercially successful ones: Rainsbury's Written
English 1977 (for beginning students), Blanton's series of Elementary_
Composition Practice 1979, and Intermediate Composition Practice 1983,

Robinson's Guided Writing and Free Writing 1967, 1976 (for intermediate

88

and advanced), Ross and Doty's Writing English 1965, 1975 (for

 

advanced), Paulston and Dykstra's Controlled Composition 1973 (for

 

college-bound foreign students), and Bander's American English Rhetoric

 

1971, 1978, 1983 (for university level foreign students).

Many ESL writing teachers and textbook writers espouse this
approach because controlled writing provides practice in sentence-level
linguistic features very often needed by ESL writers but not necessarily
needed by L1 writers.

As to the use of models in English writing, there has been a
growing dissatisfaction with traditional model-based writing lessons for
native writers. In teaching writing to native speakers, Escholze (1980)
advocates integrating model passages appropriately into the context of
the writing process. In the same vein, in ESL writing, Watson proposes
that the "alien product" (model passages) be effectively used to
strengthen the "original process". "We can use the model passages as a
resource rather than as an ideal" (1982:12).

I do not doubt that the study and imitation of various styles and
organization patterns can be helpful to ESL writing students, nor do I
doubt the usefulness of guided exercises for certain students during the
editing stage. But this kind of practice alone is no substitute for
actual writing experiences where students learn to discover and express
genuine thoughts and ideas of their own. Even if the students have
mastered the imitation stages, there is no guarantee that there is an
automatic carry-over of the syntactic and rhetorical patterns to their
own writing. Only when the need to use a certain structure or a certain
rhetorical pattern arises, can the student best internalize that

structure or that rhetorical pattern.

89

THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

In recent years the communicative approach to language teaching has
aroused a wide-spread interest in ESL. This approach aims at teaching
communicative competence in a second language along the lines described
by Hymes (1968). Widdowson, who helped pioneer the development of
communicative language teaching theory, argued that "the acquisition of
linguistic skills does not seem to guarantee the consequent acquisition
of communicative abilities in a language" (1978:67). Thus, he and
others believe that it is not enough to just teach linguistic skills.
Language should be taught as communication. The sources of this
approach are mainly from literature on language functions and speech
acts (Jakobson 1960, Austin 1962, Hymes 1968, Robinson 1972, Searle
1969). The analysis of discourse by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975),
van Ek (1975), and others have provided a foundation for a needs-
oriented syllabus. Wilkins (1976) planned language teaching content
according to the semantic demands of the learner, and specified this
teaching content in notional/functional terms. The things that can be
done through language are known as "functions"; "notions" are presented
in general semantic categories. The notional/functional syllabus, first
designed by the Council of Europe, is radically different from the
traditional grammatical/structural syllabus.

In the 0.8. there is an increasing interest in implementing the
communicative approach in ESL - to teach students to use the language in
real communicative situations, use it grammatically, effectively and
appropriately. Some language training centers have already implemented
this approach in their program in one form or another, not necessarily

adhering to the function categories suggested by Wilkins and van Ek.

9O

ESL writing teachers are beginning to be convinced that students do
indeed write better when the writer is conscious of the discourse
context. Using this approach, purpose and audience gain more prominent
positions in the writing class. Traditionally the writing teacher is
the sole reader, the only audience, but within the communicative
framework, readership is extended to peers and others, and sometimes
even to the community.

McKay and Rosenthal offered a writing textbook entitled Writingffor
a Specific Purpose (1980) which was based on Wilkin's Notional
Syllabus. This book provides a content for students to practice the
functions the authors considered most commonly found in academic
papers. Each of the 9 chapters emphasizes a specific function used in
writing - inform/focus, clarify (through definition, description, and
exemplification), classify, analyze (by time and space),
assert/substantiate, compare/contrast, recommend, agree/disagree,
predict. The tenth chapter is a wrap-up and deals with our old friend
the research paper. The authors introduce rhetorical terms commonly
associated with each function. After a series of grammar/punctuation
exercises relevant to the chapter, three to five writing situations are
introduced. Students are asked to discuss the situations and use
certain data or information to write their composition in a specified
manner. For example: Write an article for a campaign brochure in which
you explain which person you support for mayor and why. This assignment
is based on the description of two candidates, and students are supposed
to have read and discussed the descriptions of the candidates prior to

writing (1980:61).

91

McKay and Rosenthal's approach to teaching writing reflected in
this textbook seems more practical, and the writing tasks more varied
and interesting than the other approaches I have thus far described.
However, it still falls short of an enriching writing experience because
1. It does not provide an opportunity for expressive writing which can
be used as a matrix for the development of other forms of writing as
suggested by Britton (1975:83). 2. It fails to offer any opportunity
for students to experience the powers of creative discovery. Facts and
figures are provided for use, and a voice is often provided, too.
Students have little chance to create, shape, and refine their own
meaning and evolve their own voice.

When we adopt a Notional/Functional syllabus we must do it with
caution because only a beginning has been made toward the codification
of functions. Even the major categories suggested by different people
differ greatly. The crucial question is: how do we decide what
functions to single out and include in a syllabus that would be useful
to foreign students?

What is more, we do not as yet know much about the inter-
relationship of language form and language function, although it is
generally agreed that there is not a one-to-one relationship. Widdowson
has suggested that one linguistic form can fulfill a variety of
communicative functions, and one function can be fulfilled by a variety
of linguistic forms. In short, we do not have a complete understanding
of the functional system of English, let alone the functional system

across socio-cultural boundaries.

92

THE PROCESS-ORIENTED APPROACH

Teaching writing as a process was initially developed for native
speakers, and only very recently has this approach been introduced to
ESL. As the paradigm shift in English writing began to be noticed in
the ESL field, new concepts in English writing theory and practice were
gradually introduced in ESL literature. A few ESL writing teachers and
researchers (Zamel 1976, Raimes 1979, Taylor 1981) began to suggest that
ESL writing could benefit from English writing research by shifting our
focus from the written product to the writing process. More and more
ESL writing teachers, then, began to express an interest in
experimenting with some of the new methods and techniques found to be
successful in writing classes for native speakers.

Pre-writing, for example, was stressed by McKay (1981). She
explained that pre-writing should do three things: help students
recognize their reasons for writing, explore a topic, and consider
options for organizing and expressing a topic. Along the same vein,
Daubney-Davis (1982) offered an informative series of discussions on
invention heuristics, and recommended they be used for the teaching of
writing in ESL. Ross (1982) also dealt with pre-writing when he
introduced his cognitive approach to writing assignments. His "topic
schemes" provide the students with a rubric for selecting a particular
topic. He argues against "controlled" topics and suggests that the
student play a role in the final selection of the topic of a paper.
Spack (l98h) described how invention strategies can be taught to ESL

college composition students.

93

That revision should occupy a central position in a writing class
was advanced by Taylor (1981) and Zamel (1982,1983). This is not simply
editing or proofreading in the traditional sense of re-writing as
suggested by Paulston and Bruder, but concerns refining and
reformulating ideas through a number of drafts.

Peer collaboration is another technique some ESL writing teachers
experimented with and found useful. Witbeck (1976) detailed four peer-
correction strategies he used in his intermediate and advanced ESL
classes for the teaching of the correctional aspects of composition.
Hafernik (1981) also pointed out the importance of peer cooperation and
described the tremendous interest generated in her writing class as her
students "read" each other's letters and shared their works. Keyes
(198") reported "Peer editing and writing success" and quoted Bruffee
(1973) and Hawkins (1976) whose principles of group interaction and peer
teaching she found also applicable to ESL students. Stokes (198A)
reported success with peer collaboration in a writing workshop
setting. She used some of the activities recommended by Graves (1983),
Carnecelli (1980), Elbow (1973,1981), and Murray (1982a,l982b).

Journal writing is not exactly a very new concept in ESL. (See,
for example, Bracy 1971). Since English teachers have found journal
writing useful in helping native speakers learn to write, Zamel
(1982,1983) and Raimes (1983a) encouraged ESL teachers to try it. Kelly
(1982) went a step further and suggested numerous kinds of journal
assignments based on the things students smell, hear, see, taste, and
she encouraged her ESL students to write in their journals not only

their actions, but their feelings as well.

9H

Raimes offered a more comprehensive picture of what the process
approach is. She said that in the process approach, students explore a
topic through writing. They ask questions about purpose, audience, how
to begin, and how to organize, then they show the teacher and peers
their draft, and then they read over their draft, think about it, and
move on to new ideas. The writing process is a process of discovery in
that students discover new ideas and new forms to express their ideas.
Raimes thinks that teachers who use the process approach must give
students two crucial supports: tigg_to try out ideas, and feedback on
the contents of their drafts (1983a:10-11).

Not only are ESL writing teachers experimenting with some of the
new techniques used in teaching writing to native speakers, ESL textbook
writers, too, have begun to include some of these techniques in their

textbooks. In Bander's American English Rhetoric (1983 3rd ed.), for

 

example, a pre-writing section is added - "brain-storming before you

begin." Scale, in her book Writing Efficiently (1978), introduced self-

 

evaluation and peer-evaluation techniques. McKay and Rosenthal, in
Writinggfor a Specific Purpose (1980), have in every chapter a section
on peer correction of student composition. Raimes, too, encouraged peer
response and peer instruction in her Focus on Composition (1978). But
one must look at these new writing texts (or revised editions of old
ones) with caution. Some have made substantial changes or have really
incorporated a few current concepts; others have not. There are still
those who use the word "process" but teach writing as a step-by-step
procedure, with rigid rules and arbitrary prescriptions, thus reducing a
complex, dynamic, non-linear process to an uninteresting, non-creative

ritual. Teaching composition should mean "paying attention not only to

95

the forms or products but also to the explicative processes through
which they rise" (Perl 1979:335). Thus, any writing textbook which
claims to espouse the process approach must focus on the strategies and
interacting stages in the writing process. It must teach writing as a
means of making meaning and communicating ideas, not just teach
linguistic and rhetorical forms.

Although many of the approaches I described in this chapter differ
from one another, they are not mutually exclusive. They often
overlap. For example, the progression from guided-writing to free-
writing approach incorporated both guided writing and free writing. The
process approach, to a certain extent, incorporates the communicative
approach, in that one of the functions of the process approach is to use
language to make meaning and to communicate it.

In the past, ESL writing teachers tended to use one approach to the
exclusion of others. Now that we are beginning to understand the many
features an ESL student has to deal with to produce a piece of writing
in English, we are beginning to realize that perhaps we need to draw
methods and techniques from many approaches in order to meet individual
needs. We need to learn to choose the most appropriate method and
technique for each student in each phase of his/her composing process,
and in each stage of his/her developing text. As Raimes has pointed

out, "there is no one way to teach writing, but many ways" (1983a:ll).

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CONCLUSION

From the discussion in this chapter, we can see that ESL writing
literature reflects very little interest in writing theory. The tacit
assumption is: ESL writing is the same as English writing, and it is to
be taught the same way English writing is taught to native speakers,
very much like teaching freshman composition. Most specialists view
writing as a skill to be mastered, rather than a process to be
experienced. Expository writing is the dominant goal, very often to the
exclusion of other discourse modes. Although many approaches to the
teaching of writing have been advanced, few are research based; rather,
they are patterned after the traditional English writing paradigm, or
evolved from teaching experience and intuition. Many still offer static
conceptions of composing, and still assume that the manipulation of
exercises and models will automatically improve writing competence.
Correctness and form still have priority over ideas and content, as if
correctness equated with writing ability. Most assume that ESL students
already have ideas and know what they want to say; all they need to do
is to learn to fit their ideas into a set form. The concept of
writer/audience relationship is afforded little space. Revision is
often reduced to editing and proofreading, tending only to the mechanics
of writing, making cosmetic changes only. Students are seldom led to
experience revision as an activity in which perspectives and ideas can
be modified or further developed. Most textbooks still reduce the

complex, dynamic, non-linear process of composing to rules, stages, and

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operations that belie the richness of writing behavior. In short, most
still hold a prescriptive, orderly view of a creative act. The teaching
focus is more on the written product than the writing process.

In the last few years, however, the process view of composing is
fast gaining ground. ESL specialists such as Zamel, Raimes, and Taylor,
have greatly encouraged this view. That there is a growing interest in
the process view of composing is reflected in the increasing number of
papers on this topic presented at the last three or four TESOL
Conventions. Another sign of growing interest along this line is the
publication of a supplement to TESOL Newsletter (Feb. 198A) which
included articles that incorporated some of the newer concepts of
English writing theory and practice, concepts such as brainstorming,
peer collaboration, revision, writing workshop, etc., some of which I
have already mentioned earlier in this chapter. The profession is
indeed aware of the paradigm shift in English writing, and there are

beginning attempts to spur ELS writing pedagogy toward that direction.

CHAPTER FOUR

ESL WRITING RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

From the last chapter we can see that in the past, many approaches
have been used in the teaching of ESL writing. But are these approaches
research-based? What kind of writing research has been attempted? What
impact have research findings had on ESL writing pedagogy? In this
chapter, I will survey relevant ESL writing research to help answer some
of these questions.

First, I will examine studies that focus on instructional
procedures. Next, I will report on research on error-analysis. Then, I
will look at research using T-unit analysis. I will also discuss
Kaplan's study on cultural thought patterns. Finally, I will review
Zamel's study of the composing process of 6 advanced ESL students and
Raimes' classroom study of the composing process of 8 unskilled ESL

students.

RESEARCH ON INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES

Briére's study (1966) was a pedagogical comparison-group study. It
is the only research that attempted to relate writing frequency and
second language writing ability. In this study Briere tried to

demonstrate that increased quantity of writing led to better writing.

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He studied 15 upper division students taking an elective course called
"Advanced Composition for Foreign Students" at ULCA. These students
were divided into two groups. One group followed the traditional method
of writing weekly composition (300-500 words) and a term paper. These
were carefully corrected with errors analyzed. The other group wrote 6
to 10 minutes freely every day, along with sporadic grammar

instruction. Briere reported a spectacular increase in quantity output
from the group that did free writing every day. An amazing 1611. This
was calculated by comparing the mean number of words in pretest and
posttest. The decrease in grammatical error (ratio from the first to
the second test) was not as amazing, but was a substantial 2.33. This
led Briére to claim that an emphasis on quantity would result in greater
fluency and reduction of errors. Based on this study, he advanced the
free writing approach which I described in Chapter III.

One must look at Briere's claims with caution. His notion of
writing ability is limited to the quantity of output and grammatical
accuracy. The implied assumption here is: greater quantity and
reduction of error equates better writing. We know today that writing
competence is more than error reduction or fluency as measured by
quantity. This study is further limited by the fact that he only looked
at writing products on the sentence level, like most researchers of his
time. No attempt was made to study the content, organization, or style
of his students' compositions. Furthermore, the internal validity of
his study is questionable. How could he be sure that it was the
instruction and not various other factors that promoted improvement?
Frequency of writing might have been one factor but not the only

factor. His students might have received "comprehensible input” from

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many other sources during that period of time, inside as well as outside
the classroom. This is a problem controlled group studies often face.

Another study on instructional procedures is Dykstra and Paulston's
experiment (1972) with two groups of writing students to determine the
effectiveness of free writing versus controlled writing. Both groups
were taught by the same teacher but with different methods. For Group A
the teacher used graded and structured language manipulations and model
passages, while for Group B the teacher asked students to write free
compositions. For Group A students, the teacher had a list of steps for
them to follow. Students were assigned to start with the first step on
the list. If the writing was correct, the student proceeded to the next
step on the teacher's list. If the writing was not correct, the student
had to repeat the step with another model, after the teacher had
explained the error or directed him to a reference grammar. Some of the
assignments on the list were: rewrite the passage - change from the
present tense to the past tense, rewrite in the present perfect tense,
change from passive to active voice, change from the third person to the
first person.

From this study Dykstra and Paulston found that the group that did
controlled writing (Group A) showed better behavior: they rarely showed
discouragement; they were eager for extra assignments; they were less
hesitant in asking questions; they became accustomed to writing good and
correct compositions. DYkstra and Paulston claimed that the clearest
difference in behavior between Group A and Group B lay in their
attendance at the extra conference hour - in Group B only one student
attended regularly, while in Group A three-fourths of the students

attended regularly.

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Dykstra and Paulston seem to have equated good composition to
sentence-level correctness. But current writing theory and practice
have shown that more correct writing does not necessarily mean better
writing. Even if every sentence in a composition is grammatically
correct, it may have no content, or express no ideas at all.
Furthermore, it is dangerous to claim a cause/effect relation between
controlled composition and better behavior. With only the teacher
variable controlled, it is erroneous to assume a causal relationship
between the method of teaching writing and student behavior or attitude,
for there are many variables that can affect a learner's behavior -
internal factors as well as external factors. The controlled writing
assignments might not have been the cause, or the only cause, for

changed behavior.

RESEARCH BASED ON ERROR-ANALYSIS

Error analysis in ESL is an approach that views errors as a
necessary stage in language learning (Corder 1973, Richards Ed. 1974).
Errors in writing are seen as similar to "miscues" in reading - windows
through which writers' strategies can be traced. It is generally
believed that error analysis in writing can provide insights about the
sources of learners' errors. Teachers, then, can use these insights to
determine teaching strategies. Thus, concern with the cause and
elimination of errors in writing has lead to a number of studies on
error analysis in ESL writing. i

Wyatt (1973) reported his effort to assess the writing needs of
his students by collecting 52 writing books from his “C class in

St. Joseph's College, Uganda. He identified writing mistakes in student

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compositions over A terms and classified them into 1A main categories:
spelling; punctuation; sentence structure; verb groups; noun groups;
pronouns; adjectives; prepositions; intensifiers; confusion or misuse of
words and idioms; contractions, abbreviations, and informalities;
repetition and circumlocution; clumsy or virtually meaningless
expressions; carelessness. Some of these categories are in turn
classified under numerous sub-categories. Wyatt calculated the number
of times a particular mistake had occurred and the percentage it
represented of all mistakes, and used this information to give direction
to instructional focus in the writing classroom.

Another study on error analysis was reported by Scott and Tucker
(l97A) of the American University of Beirut. The purpose of their study
was different from that of Wyatt's. From 22 Arabic students in a low
intermediate English course they collected both oral and written samples
at the beginning and at the end of the term to determine the types and
frequency of errors in speech and in writing and also to see what
progress the students made during the term. Their method of collecting
data was more comprehensive than Wyatt's in that they gathered more
information about the students from various sources, such as students'
English Entrance Exam scores, self-rating of perceived skills in
reading, writing, speaking and listening comprehension, a detailed
language background questionnaire, and students' pre- and post-scores on
vocabulary and grammar tests in their intensive program. Pictures and
stories with a Middle Eastern content were used to elicit the oral and
written samples. They showed 3 pictures and asked students to write 3
or A sentences telling what had happened in the first picture, what was

happening in the second, and what would happen in the third. For the

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oral production, they showed a short picture story booklet and asked
students to tell the story into a tape recorder. The recording of the
last 2 minutes was transcribed for analysis.

Like Wyatt, Scott and Tucker also classified student errors into 1A
categories, but their categories were different. They did not include
spelling and punctuation. Their 1A categories were: finite verbs,
prepositions, articles, relative clauses, sentential complements,
repetition of subject or object, nouns: wrong number, pronouns: wrong
word, surrogate subjects, word order, qualifiers, adverbs, adjectives,
genitive constructions. From this study they found that verbs,
prepositions, articles, and relative clauses were frequent sources of
errors for Arabic speaking students. In comparing errors made at the
beginning and end of the term, they identified, in both speech and
writing, areas in which students had made rapid progress, areas where
students had made gradual progress, and areas where no progress was made
at all. For example, errors in the redundant use of the auxiliary
disappeared almost completely by the end of the term; tense errors were
reduced by half by the end of the term, but errors with incorrectly
formed verbs, subject/verb agreement, and article usage remained
constant.

This study is one of the first to compare oral and written
production. The data yielded some useful information concerning mother
tongue interference, early and late acquisitions, and students' interim
grammar. Some teachers of English to Arabic speaking students have
found this kind of information helpful. But the study as a piece of
research on writing is very limited because the writing samples elicited

were only 3 or A sentences, and mostly affirmative, declarative

10A

sentences. These samples can hardly be called "writing" in the true
sense of the word. Also, one must question the comparability of the
data between speech and writing because the tasks used to elicit writing
were different from the tasks used to elicit oral production. This
study is important, however, because it attempted to compare oral
language and print language.

Another study on writing errors was Byrd's analysis of 60 freshman
compositions, 70% of which were compositions written by Spanish
students. Byrd listed the occurrences of 18 types of errors and
discussed in detail the sources of such errors. In particular, he
discussed two major sources of errors - extrasystematic and
intrasystematic. The former refers to types of error generally due to
carryovers from the student's native language, and the latter refers to
the kind of errors a student makes when learning a second language,
regardless of what his native language may be. Byrd thinks that a study
of intrasystematic errors can be productive because these errors provide
bases for analogy and generalization. He believes that errors of this
kind should be seen as "aids" in estimating and understanding student
progress toward the target language (l975:7). When classifying errors
into the 18 categories, Byrd found that there were approximately 200
items that defied categorization. He believed that these problems were
related to lexicon and not to structure. Thus he recommended an
amplified approach to the teaching of vocabulary - not only teach
prefixes, suffixes, roots, synonyms, antonyms, but also words that
belong to a common semantic field. This would help students get a feel

of how these vocabulary items can be used appropriately.

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Although Byrd worked with only a small sample, his study is
important because, like Shaughnessy, he traced with great understanding
the logic behind student writing errors. He saw these errors as a
reflection of the strategies his students used at a given stage (or
stages) of their language development.

Burt and Kiparsky's study of errors is different from the error-
analysis studies I have thus far reviewed. Their study deals with
errors from a different perspective - from the reader's or listener's
point of view, not from the teacher's point of view. The purpose of
their study is to distinguish between errors that cause miscommunication
and those that do not. Burt and Kiparsky set out to find some
linguistic criteria for determining the importance of errors. They
asked Peace Corps volunteers and ESL teachers to help gather data from
adult learners of English in many countries, including ESL students in
the 0.8. They taped recordings of spontaneous conversations and
collected written compositions. From this corpus of several thousand
English sentences, some 300 sentences containing more than one error
were selected for analysis. Native speakers from many walks of life
were asked to be judges of the comprehensibility of these sentences, as
each error was corrected, one at a time, or several at a time. Based on
these judgements, Burt and Kiparsky suggested criteria for determining
the communicative importance of learner's errors. "Global errors" are
those that significantly hinder comprehension; they are errors that
affect overall sentence organization. "Local errors" are limited to a
single part of the sentence and they do not significantly affect the
comprehensibility of the message. For example, there are three mistakes

in the following sentence:

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"English language use much people.
If we correct them one at at time:

1. The English language use much people. "the" inserted

2. English language use many people. "much" corrected

3. Much people use English language. word order

corrected (l972:5).
It becomes obvious that the third way of correction gets the message
across best. Burt and Kiparsky thus believe that word order error is a
"global error" and hinders communication worse than "local errors" such
as misuse of articles or misuse of count/noncount nouns. They,
therefore, think the teaching of "global grammar" such as word order,
use of connectives, "that" clauses, infinitives and gerunds, should have
priority. They have worked out a hierarchy of goofs, and they recommend
working on goofs in the order of importance whenever possible.

I think this study is more important than the others I have cited
because it has taken into consideration the other half of the
communicative act. In a real communicative situation, the speaker or
writer is only one half of the communicative act. The one who receives
the message is the other half - the listener or the reader. Whether or
not a writer can get his ideas across depends on the comprehensibility
of his message to the reader or to his audience. Burt and Kiparsky's
focus on native speaker's judgements on comprehensibility, is,
therefore, a significant step toward looking at speaking and writing on
a discourse level.

This study and other error analysis studies have yielded
significant information concerning errors second language learners make,

information that is useful to language teachers and language learners.

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As Kroll and Schafer (1978) have suggested, a positive, process approach
to learners' errors can result in psycholinguistic explanations of
learners' active strategies in learning, strategies such as over-
generalization, neglect of rule restriction, incomplete rule learning or
application, hypothesizing false concepts, etc. Thus error analysis has
its place in the teaching of writing provided the teacher can use the
insights gained from student errors to match strategies to overcome
those errors. Shaughnessy, for example, was very skillfull in tracing
the line of reasoning that led to students' erroneous choices and
providing help to improve their writing.

Useful though it may be, error analysis, as a method for writing
research, certainly has severe limitations.

First, some of the basic issues in the selection of errors have not
been resolved. FOr example: What constitutes an error? Is there a
hierarchy of errors as Burt and Kiparsky have suggested? If so, on what
basis is the hierarchy formulated? On grammaticality, on
comprehensibility, or both? Which errors should be included to measure
ESL writing proficiency?

Secondly, there is an error in error analysis, as Schachter (l97A)
has already pointed out. Students can use "avoidance" strategies to
avoid making errors, especially when they write, because they have more
time to monitor their output. Thus some errors that students are likely
to make never get written down on paper.

Finally, at best, error analysis studies thus far are limited only
to structure, usage, spelling, and the mechanics of writing. This kind

of study limits itself to word-level, clause or sentence level

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performance. The most important aspects of writing, such as purpose,

organization, style, audience awareness, are all ignored.

RESEARCH BASED ON T-UNIT ANALYSIS

Several studies related to ESL writing used T-unit analysis. This
research tool was first used to measure syntactic complexity of speech
and writing samples of students who were native speakers of English. A
T-unit is defined by Hunt as "a main clause plus all subordinate clauses
and nonclausal structures attached to or embedded in it" (1970:A). In
recent years second language researchers have found satisfaction with
T-unit length as an index of second language development. Some have
modified the T-unit into mean T-unit length; others have used error-free
T-unit as a valid measure of growth in second language development.

(For a critical review of arguments for and against T-unit analysis in
second language research, see Gais' article, 1980.)

Crymes (1971) used the T-unit analysis in her research to see if
the study of certain nominalizing processes in English, in the form of
sentence-combining exercises, could facilitate the development of
competence in English nominalization as reflected in student writing.
She selected intermediate and high-intermediate ESL students as
subjects, and placed ten in the controlled group and ten in the
experimental group. Both groups spent the same amount of class time
each week performing oral activities. In addition to class time, the
controlled group spent two or three hours a week in the language lab.

In lieu of language lab, the experimental group had homework assignments
which consisted of vocabulary exercises and sentence-combining exercises

that introduced eleven types of nominals. Although the goal of the

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classes was to improve oral performance, the experiment used the written
mode for assessment purposes. Each of the 3 writing assignments were
limited to 30 minutes. Thirty T-units were collected from each student
at both pre- and post-test times. Crymes analyzed these T-units for
word length, and for the number, types, and functions of nominals
appearing in them. She gave the same writing assignments to ten
volunteer native speakers and took the same number of T-units from their
writings the same way she did from the ESL student writings and analyzed
the T-units the same way. This was used as a baseline against which the
performance of the controlled and experimental groups was measured.

Crymes found that the experimental group showed significant growth
both in T-unit length and in the number of nominals produced. She
reported that they progressed in the direction of native speaker
performance. Crymes thus concluded that the study of nominalization by
sentence combining exercises did indeed facilitate the development of
language competence in that area.

Another study that tested the effectiveness of systematic practice
in sentence-combining is Klassen's study (1977) of some intermediate
level ESL students in an intensive program at a Canadian secondary
school. He wanted to see if the syntactic development of the students
could be expedited by sentence-combining exercises. He used the mean
T-unit measure from a series of written pretests to pair off the
students, and then assigned them randomly to experimental and controlled
groups. For 8 weeks the experimental group did guided sentence-
combining exercises while the controlled group engaged in conventional
reading and writing activities. Klassen used the mean T-unit length as

a primary index for assessment of relative linguistic maturity. He

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calculated and compared mean scores across groups at posttest time and
again 8 weeks later.

Two of the three experimental samples achieved significant
superiority over matched control samples in their mean T-unit length at
posttest time. The combined results of all the three experimental
samples were significantly better than the results of the controlled
samples. The delayed posttest showed that students in the experimental
group retained superiority over control subjects in mean T-unit
length. Klassen concluded that his study confirmed the results of
earlier native and foreign language development studies - systematic
sentence-combining exercises can indeed facilitate the ability to write
longer and more complex sentences.

One must look at such claims of success with caution. It may give
the impression that sentence-combining is a panacea for all writing
problems. More and more writing textbooks are now including sentence-
combining exercises. It is still doubtful, however, that syntactic
complexity is the same as overall writing quality. Syntactic maturity
is not synonymous with growth in writing competence. However
successful, sentence-combining can only help to expand students'
syntactic repertoire. At best, it is a pedagogical tool which addresses
only one aspect of the composing process. It is a-rhetorical in that it
ignores some very important aspects of writing such as content,
organization, development, coherence, purpose, audience, diction, etc.
It may help students learn some grammar and provide students with
choices and alternatives in doing transformations, but good writers do
not always write long complex sentences with multiple embeddings.

Furthermore, there is the underlying assumption in sentence-combining

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that students already have the ability to perform many types of
transformations. This may not be the case with ESL students (Zamel
1980:85), nor with basic writers (Shaughnessy 1977:33).

Kameen's study (1979) was designed to determine whether or not
there is a correlation between syntactic skill and assigned composition
scores. Fifty college ESL students were asked to write for 30 minutes
on an assigned topic. These compositions were randomly drawn and
analyzed holistically by two highly qualified raters. The same
compositions were also objectively analyzed according to A0 syntactic
factors - things such as length of writing units (T-units, clauses, and
sentences), incidence of passive voice, types of clauses, and types of
joining devices between writing units.

Kameen found that the raters did not disagree by more than three
points. They seemed to be using similar standards. He found that
T-unit length, especially long T-units (21 words), was a powerful index
for differentiating between the "good" and "poor" writers. "Good"
writers wrote about 29% more words in each T-unit. Sentence length,
which has been intuitively trusted as a good discriminator, was not
supported by this study. Moreover, this study did not support the
commonly held intuition that good writers have a superior command in
using subordinate clauses. Kameen, therefore, said we should question
the practice of emphasizing the need to master the techniques of
subordination. There was a high correlation between incidence of
passive voice and assigned composition scores. "Good" writers wrote
approximately 6 1/2 times as many passives as did "poor" writers; "good"
writers used a passive in 25% of their sentences while poor writers used

it in only 65 of their sentences (1979:3A8). This led Kameen to suggest

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that we re-examine our attitude toward teaching the passive. He
believes that we should not discourage its use for it is not simply a
transformation of the active; rather, "it is a valuable tool in the
arsenal of good writers" (1979:3A9).

I think Kameen's suggestion about the need to teach the passive as
"a valuable tool in the arsenal of good writers" may be overstated.
Just because he found his good writers had used more passives than his
poor writers in writing expository prose, it does not necessarily mean
that a student would need to use more passives to become a "good"
writer. The use of the passive may not be appropriate for all modes of
written discourse.

There are several other studies related to ESL writing that used
the T-unit. Some have used modified forms of it, and others have used
it along with other measurements to measure writing progress, to
determine levels of proficiency, or to determine correlation between
holistic evaluation and objective measures. (Arthur 1979; Flahive and
Snow 1980; Perkins 1980, Evola, Mamer and Lentz 1980; and others). I
will not describe these studies in detail because they deal chiefly with
assessment or evaluation of writing and not writing per se. Suffice to
say that many researchers have used the T-unit in one form or another as
a research tool in ESL writing research.

There are, of course, limitations in using the T-unit as a measure
of writing competence. It does not take into consideration stylistic
effectiveness and appropriateness. It has definitional and procedural
weaknesses (Gais 1980). According to Moffett, "Syntactic complexity is
no virtue in itself" (1968:171) because intricacy of thought does not

laecessarily correspond to linguistic intricacy. Length of clauses

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cannot be a true index of writing maturity because "it fails to
discriminate among constructions that have very little effects for style
and readibility" (1968:172). At best, T-unit analysis is a sentence-
level measurement; it does not deal with structures beyond the

sentence. In other words, it does not measure writing on a discourse

level.

RESEARCH ON CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC

There is, however, one study that has treated ESL writing beyond
the sentence level - Kaplan's study entitled "Cultural Thought Patterns
in Intercultural Education". It first appeared in Language Learning in
1966, and later was reprinted in many writing textbooks and ESL reading
anthologies. This study is different from all the studies I have thus
far reviewed in that Kaplan dealt with rhetoric, not errors, or T-units
in English structure. Kaplan believes that there are cultural
differences in the nature of rhetoric. He explains that the English
language and the modes of thought related to English have evolved out of
the Anglo-European cultural pattern. The thought patterns of English
are essentially a Platonic-Aristotelian sequence, dominantly linear and
very different from the thought patterns of other languages. He thinks
that the basis of rhetoric is logic, and logic is evolved out of
culture, and is, therefore, cultural specific, not universal. Thus,
rhetoric is not universal either. Rhetoric varies from culture to
culture, and even from time to time within a given culture.

In order to prove his hypothesis, Kaplan did a study on contrastive
rhetoric by contrasting the English paragraph development with paragraph

development in other linguistic systems. He collected 700 foreign

11A

student compositions and carefully analyzed them. He discarded about
100 of these because the language groups represented were too small to
be significant within the sample. He accumulated and examined the
papers over a two-year period, from Fall, 1963 to Fall, 1965. He then
classified the papers into these 3 linguistic groups (1966:6):
Group I - Total subjects 129 (Arabic 126, Hebrew 3)
Group II - Total subjects 381 (Chinese - Mandarin 110,
Cambodian A0, Indo-Chinese 7, Japanese 135,
Korean 57, Laotian 3, Malaysian 1, Thai 27,
Vietnamese 1)
Group III - (Spanish-Portuguese) - Total subjects 88
(Brazilian 19, Central American A2, Cuban A,
Spanish 8, French 2, African 2, Swiss 1)

In this study Kaplan found that in the Arabic language, paragraph
development is a complex series of parallel constructions, both positive
and negative. He first cited several types of parallelism from the
King James Version of the Old Testament as examples. Then he quoted two
Arabic students' compositions to further illustrate the occurrence of
the characteristics of parallelism. He pointed out that in one paper in
a brief passage of 210 words, there were 13 coordinators but there was
very little subordination (1966:10). According to Kaplan, this would
hinder communication with a native reader of modern English. It would
sound awkward or archaic to the native English reader because in
English, "maturity of style is Often gaged by degree of subordination
rather than by coordination" (1966:8).

Kaplan found that Oriental writing is marked by what he called "an
approach by indirection." In a footnote, he specifically stated that he

intended "Oriental" to mean Chinese and Korean but not Japanese. He

described Oriental paragraph development as "turning and turning in a

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widening gyre...things are developed in terms of what they are not,
rather than in terms of what they are" (1966:10). This would sound
awkward or unnecessarily indirect to a native English reader. He cited
the following piece of writing by a Korean student to illustrate his
point (1966:10):
Definition of college education
College is an institution of an higher learning that
gives degrees. All of us needed culture and education in
life, if no education to us. we should go to living in
hell.
One of the greatest causes that while other animals
have remained as they first man along has made such rapid
progress is has learned about civilization.
The improvement of the highest civilization is in
order to education up-to-date.
So college education is very important thing which we
don't need mention about it.

Kaplan explained that the first sentence defined college, not
college education. The second sentence shot off in a totally different
direction. It made a general statement about culture and education,
perhaps as results of a college education. The third sentence is a
paragraph which moved farther away from a definition of college
education. The concluding paragraph was not a summary, but partly a
topic sentence and partly a statement saying that the assignment needed
no discussion because the basic concept was obvious. "The paper arrives
where it should have started, with the added statement that it really
had no place to go to begin with" (1966:11).

Here one can't help but question the advisibility of using this
piece of writing as representative of Oriental writing. One wonders

whether the Korean student wrote the way he did simply because he did

not have enough command of the language to express his ideas, or whether

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his thought patterns were really so drastically different. Could it be
that he got so bogged down in trying to get words out that the flow of
ideas was blocked? One would also wonder why Kaplan intended "Oriental"
to mean specifically Chinese and Korean, but not Japanese. Were the
thought patterns reflected by the Japanese student compositions any
different from the thought patterns of Korean students or Chinese
students? In general, when we speak of anything "Oriental", both
Chinese and Japanese are usually included.

As an illustration of French writing, Kaplan first cited a
professional translation from French and pointed out that in French and
Spanish there is much greater freedom to digress or to introduce
extraneous material than in English. Student writings were also cited
to further illustrate his point.

Kaplan illustrated the Russian paragraph by a piece of translation
written in Russian. The translation attempted to capture the structure
of the original as much as possible, but without sacrificing meaning
completely. Kaplan explained that the paragraph contained 3 sentences,
the first two very short, the last sentence long, about 3/A of the
entire paragraph. These are parenthetical amplifications of
structurally related subordinate elements.

Based on his study and discussions, Kaplan offered the following
graphical representation of the movement of the various paragraphs

(1966:15):

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English Semi/[c Oriental Romance Russian

:7 I
, >
/ /
Q7 //
x" z____*
Figure A.l

Kaplan added that other types of paragraph development did indeed exist
in English. For example, Ezra Pound wrote paragraphs which are circular
in structure, and William Faulkner wrote paragraphs that are
digressive. Kaplan believes, however, that expository paragraphs adhere
to certain established patterns. Since foreign students have to master
expository writing, Kaplan suggested that contrastive rhetoric must be
taught much the same way constrastive grammar must be taught. He
suggested two devices to expedite the teaching of rhetorical structures
to foreign students: a scrambled paragraph to re-order, and an outline
with topic sentences for students to fill in subdivisions with
supporting examples and illustrations. He believes that imitation is
the sought aim. He does not think creativity and imagination can be
taught to foreign students. The function of the English class is "to
provide the student with a form within which he may operate, a form
acceptable in this time and in this place" (1966:20).

While I agree with Kaplan that creativity and imagination cannot be
taught, I feel very strongly that ESL writing should not be limited to

expository writing, nor should expository writing be limited to learning

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about forms only. Although creativity and imagination cannot be taught,
they can at least be encouraged. What is more, I question the validity
of the graphic representations of the rhetorical patterns of the various
language groups. The corpus from which he drew his conclusions is small
and does not provide sufficient data for sweeping generalizations. The
relationship between language and thought is a very complex one, and
this topic has been under investigation by researchers in linguistics
for many years. It is not enough to study only student compositions or
some professional translations. Many many more pieces of writing by
skilled writers with various language backgrounds will have to be
examined, and various modes of writing will have to be carefully
analyzed before we can make generalizations about how thought patterns
are reflected in written discourse in different languages.

Certainly we need many more studies to either support or refute
Kaplan's claims which have enjoyed untested authority for many years.
One such study is by Mohan and Au-Yeung of Canada. At the 1980 TESOL
Convention they presented evidence against Kaplan's claim that Orientals
develop paragraphs indirectly rather than in the preferred English
linear way. They examined the writings of Chinese students from
Hong Kong who were studying at the University of British Columbia.
Besides student compositions, they used questionnaires to gather more
information. Their conclusion was that organization problems were due
to differences in composition practice between Hong Kong and Canada
rather than to cross-cultural differences in rhetoric.

Many more studies of this kind are needed before we can arrive at
reasonably representative patterns of thought for each language group.

Thought patterns are complex and we need to know much more about the

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cultural aspects of logic which underlie the rhetorical structures
before we can draw any conclusions.

Moreover, Kaplan's assumptions were drawn from the analysis of
written products of foreign students or written translations. In other
words, he examined the written product from which he hypothesized about
the mental processes used by the various writers. Other methods of
investigation such as interviews, questionnaires, direct observations,
video taping, protocol analysis, etc. might be more fruitful in yielding
the kind of information Kaplan sought.

We must credit Kaplan, however, for pointing out the importance of
cultural variations in second language teaching. He has, in effect,
told us that what a second language learner has to grapple with is more
than language. He did look at writing more holistically than most
researchers of his time and recognized there is intersentential
syntax. He introduced contrastive rhetoric and suggested ways to teach
it (1967). As research in discourse analysis gains momentum in the
years ahead, more and more researchers are likely to continue Kaplan's

effort and will be able to extend and/or modify his findings.

RESEARCH ON THE COMPOSING PROCESS

Actually very little is known about ESL writing, despite a plethora
of published textbooks and instructional approaches. An investigation
of the composing processes of 8 proficient ESL students was first
reported by Zamel in 1982. She studied their writing during the
different stages of their composing process and interviewed them
individually to talk about their writing experiences and writing

behaviors. This study yielded some very interesting data which

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confirmed Zamel's earlier belief that when ESL writers compose, they use
strategies similar to those used by native speakers (Zamel 1976). She
found that ESL student writers also experience writing as a process of
creating meaning, and this process of generating and reformulating ideas
was recursive, not linear. The comments that Zamel gathered from her
students reflected the idea that writing provided a way for them to
create and discover meaning. The written products she examined also
attested to the creative nature of the writing process. Zamel
challenged the traditional methods of teaching writing which focus only
on form and correctness and ignore the writing processes ESL writers
experience.

A year later, she reported a detailed study of the composing
processes of 6 advanced ESL students (Zamel 1983). For this study she
used a more rigorous methodology. Like Emig, a case study approach was
used to observe her students while composing. She recorded their
writing behaviors as they performed their course-related writing
tasks. But unlike Emig, she did not ask her students to compose aloud
because she was afraid that composing aloud might substantially
interfere with the writing process, as Perl (1980a) and Faigley and
Witte (1981) have stated. She gathered observational data during
writing sessions, and discussed with students voluntarily and informally
during and at the end of sessions. She also interviewed each student
after the essay had been completed.

The purpose of this study was to discover how advanced ESL writers
actually wrote, how their ideas got generated during the process of
writing. Zamel also wanted to answer the question to what extent

writing in a second language might affect the composing process. She

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chose participants representing a range of linguistic backgrounds
because Kaplan's hypothesis is generally accepted in ESL methodology.
Two experienced ESL writing teachers assessed the students' writing by
using in-class writing samples collected at the beginning of the
semester. Students' papers written in previous courses, and formal
course-related essays were also studied. These teachers determined that
of the 6 participants, A were skilled writers and 2 unskilled.

Zamel found that she could not characterize her students' writing
processes as pre-writing, writing, and rewriting because all
participants found writing non-linear, but recursive. Planning was used
over and over, and there was constant interplay of thinking, writing,
and rewriting (1983:172). She also found that her writers had developed
their own strategies for "getting into" a topic, strategies that may not
have involved pre-writing at all. Some of her writers even verbalized
aloud. Through this process they were constructing meaning and at the
same time assessing it.

While all her participants were aware of the recursive nature of
the composing process, they did not all show this understanding in
equally effective ways. The skilled writers had an easier time with
writing, looking, and discovering, while the unskilled writers paused so
often that the relationship between ideas seemed to have suffered.

As to revision, several drafts were written by each student. The
skilled writers often made global changes - shifting, adding,
eliminating paragraphs or entire pages. When they re-read, they really
re-viewed, as if through the eyes of another reader. The unskilled
writers, on the other hand, were distracted by local problems -

lexical and syntactic difficulties. The least skilled writer was so

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error-conscious that she spent most of her time on the first draft and
copied the draft twice before completing the assignment. It became
obvious that skilled writers addressed surface-level features toward the
end of the process, while unskilled writers attended lexical and
syntactic difficulties prematurely and did not even attempt meaning-
level changes.

Zamel's interviews substantiated her observations. The skilled
writers understood the heuristic power of composing and had a general
sense of direction. The act of writing helped them discover ideas.

They understood that revisions were a part of the process of
approximating meaning. One of them said, "I re-read to see if words fit
the idea. If it does, I go on" (1983:177). In striking contrast, the
least skilled writer was troubled when she could not construct a plan.
She did not view writing as the creation of a whole discourse. She was
constantly concerned with individual words and expressions, and did not
understand the purpose of successive drafts.

Zamel's findings are remarkably similar to those found in first
language writing (Perl 1980a, Sommers 1980). Zamel's and Perl's skilled
writers, for example, seemed to have more flexible plans. They revised
at all levels, and made important changes in both content and form.

They all considered revision a means of discovering meaning. Zamel's
unskilled writers, like Sommers', on the other hand, were overconcerned
with form and correctness and this disrupted the flow of ideas onto the
page and inhibited their writing.

Based on the findings of this land mark study, Zamel continued to
challenge current traditional writing curriculum and textbooks that

still view writing as sequential tasks of outlining and writing topic

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sentences and supporting details without exploring ideas first. Zamel
suggested that teaching should be done throughout the writing process by
teacher-student conferences and peer collaboration. Pre-writing
strategies should be used, but predetermined order of ideas should not
be imposed upon. Instead, students should be led to make decisions of
their own concerning form and organization. Effective feedback should
be provided throughout the entire process based on individual need. In
writing successive drafts, students should be encouraged to address
content and meaning first, instead of a premature focus on correctness
and usage, which may even destroy the incentive to write and the
motivation to improve writing.

While Zamel investigated the composing processes of advanced ESL
students, Raimes studied the writing behavior of unskilled ESL writers
in her "developmental" college writing course. The students were placed
in her class on the basis of an assessment of their writing and not on
their overall language proficiency. Raimes' study was designed to
explore three questions:

1. What are the composing processes of unskilled ESL
student writers performing a classroom task?

2. How does the specification of audience and purpose
affect the composing behaviors of ESL students?

3. Is think-aloud protocol analysis - more
specifically Perl's (l978,l979,1981) scheme for
coding unskilled L1 writer's processes - an
effective tool for analyzing the composing behaviors
of ESL students? (Raimes 1985:233)
Raimes experimented with the think aloud protocol as a research
tool. She asked her students to think aloud into a tape recorder in the

language lab while they wrote a timed narrative essay. Her data was

collected not only from these protocols but also from 3 other sources:

12A

answers to a 12-page questionnnaire, holistic scores on the essays
graded by trained evaluators, and scores on the grammar, vocabulary, and
reading sections of the multiple-choice Michigan Test of English
Language Proficiency (1962). Five of her eight subjects chose to write
on a topic with no specification of purpose or audience and three chose
to write on a similar topic with a specific audience and purpose. She
used a modified version of Perl's coding scheme (1981) to analyze her
data.

Raimes found that the time her students devoted to prewriting was
short. Three of her students did not turn the recorder on until they
started to write so there was no record of pre-writing time for these
three. Four devoted a short time for pre-writing - from .75 to 2.2
minutes. There was one exception - a student who spent 17.5 minutes of
prewriting activities because she did not understand the topic "Tell
about something unexpected." The prewriting time for all of Raimes'
students except this one was short and was comparable to the pre-writing
time of Perl's L1 writers (Perl 1979).

As to planning, Raimes found few instances of articulated, planning
operations. Like Perl's subjects, Raimes' students decided early on
what to write and began writing.

Raimes' writers freely read back phrases and sentences they had
just written - single sentences or two or three sentences, but not the
whole text. This was different from P
entire draft through 25 times in one writing session. Raimes'
students read the whole draft through only 11 times in all, and 3 out of
the 8 students did not read through at all. Raimes thought perhaps the

nature of the narrative task made the difference. If they were to write

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a piece of argumentative or expository prose, they might have needed to
read bigger chunks of their text, to follow their course of argument.

Rehearsing was a common activity among Raimes' students -
rehearsing while writing sentences and between writing sentences. Some
rehearsed more verbally than others. Some rehearsed to search for
grammatical forms while others tested out ideas on tape - ideas that
never got written down on paper.

In comparing the length of writing, Raimes found that all her
writers except the one who did not understand the wording of the topic,
wrote more than Perl's Tony. On Tony's first assignment, he spent 91.2
minutes and produced only a second draft of 10 sentences and 170
words. On the other hand, the mean number of sentences Raimes' students
wrote was 2A, and the mean number of words was 309. Raimes further
noted that writers with high language proficiency scores exhibited
fluency in their writing from sentence to sentence and within sentences,
while those with low proficiency scores found it less troublesome to
move from one sentence to the next than to complete individual sentences
without hesitation. Raimes suspects that "the act of producing L2
writing is so exponentially generative that their creativity, once
engaged, carries them on; plans for more text creation may come more
easily than the actual means of carrying out those plans" (1985:2A5).

Neither Raimes' students nor Perl's made any major reformulations
of their texts. Of the 23A changes Perl's students made, 901
concentrated on surface form. Perl's 5 students altogether made 617
changes in A writing sessions, and 891 of these changes were on surface
form. For Raimes' students, editing and revising took place during the

working out of an idea, not for cleaning up purposes. The main motive

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for making a change seemed to be to clarify an idea as it emerged. This
seemed to indicate that ESL students may not be as concerned with
accuracy as basic writers. Raimes thought perhaps composing aloud might
have taken students' attention away from errors and editing, so they
focused more on communicating ideas. Since the students did not seem to
be preoccupied with errors, Raimes surmised that the recursiveness in
their writing behavior served to generate language, not necessarily to
correct or edit.

Raimes' study also showed that a specified audience and purpose
made no apparent difference to the process and product. Students seemed
to have focused on textual rather than discoursal matters and this is in
contrast to Zamel's proficient writers who took into consideration the
reader's expectations. Raimes offered this possible explanation:
Zamel's students did course-related writing, while her students wrote on
an assigned, timed topic and this might have made a difference.

However, A of Raimes' students, through their laughs and comments, did
indicate awareness of their teacher as audience. The tone of a personal
chat of the two students addressing the listener as audience seemed to
have helped in generating ideas.

Raimes found that less proficient writers generate ideas and
language in much the same way as more proficient students. She thinks
what these students need is "more of everything: more time; more
opportunity to talk, listen, read, and write in order to marshal the
vocabulary they need to make their own background knowledge accessible
to them in their second language; more instruction and practice in
generating, organizing, and revisig ideas; more attention to the

rhetorical options available to them; and more emphasis on editing for

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linguistic form and style. Attention to process is thus necessary but
not sufficient" (1985:250).

Raimes believed her students exhibited both attention and
commitment to the writing task. This was different from Pianko's (1979)
freshmen writers who did not show commitment and wrote essays as quickly
as they could just to finish the job. Raimes explained that this kind
of commitment was possible perhaps because students had the dual purpose
of learning how to write and learning English at the same time. She
also thought the quantity of original language her students produced
reflected their creativity with language, and suggested that we take
advantage of "the extraordinary generative power of language and use it
as a language teaching tool" (1985:252). Thus she proposes a new model
for second language teaching, one that regards writing not just as one
of the skills or the last skill to be learned, but as an effective way
to generate language and to communicate it.

Raimes' study is important in that she found the think aloud
protocol research tool useful in investigating the writing behaviors of
ESL students, despite doubts expressed by some L1 and L2 writing
researchers (Perl 1980a:19, Faigley and Witte 1981:A12, Zamel
1983:169). She also found Perl's coding system of L1 writing applicable
to L2 writing. This helps to broaden the method of composition research
in ESL.

This study is also important because Raimes found not only
similarities between L1 and L2 writing behaviors, but also some
differences between the two groups. Her unskilled ESL writers showed
more commitment to the writing task and they were more concerned about

getting ideas down on paper rather than preoccupied with errors. She

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thus cautions ESL writing teachers not to use exactly the same
pedagogical strategies used for L1 writers, not to go back to the
traditional ESL writing approach and give students large doses of
language instruction. She thinks "some middle ground is called for"
(1985:250).

Of course many more studies like Zamel's and Raimes' will be needed
in order to arrive at a better understanding of the multidimensional
nature of the composing processes of ESL writers of various levels of
proficiency. Not only do we need to replicate Zamel's and Raimes'
studies to increase the generalizibility of their findings, we need to
further extend this kind of research to both skilled and unskilled
writers writing in different discourse modes, in a variety of
situations. We also need to use this kind of rigorous research
methodology to investigate the various phases of the composing process.

There are signs of increasing interest in this new line of
inquiry. Pious (1982) reported on the writing strategies of his ESL
students, and Heuring (198A) reported on the revision strategies of
skilled and unskilled ESL writers. Lay (1982) did a case study of the
composing process of A Chinese students. Jones and Tetroe's
investigation of how planning is transferred from L1 composing to L2
composing is forthcoming. The data from these and other studies will
enrich our understanding of what the writing process for ESL writers

actually entails.

129

CONCLUSION

As we can see from the above discussion, the bulk of the research
is product-oriented and it is very limited in scope. The earlier
studies centered on the effectiveness of teaching procedures and
teaching materials, as if everyone already knew what writing really
entailed. Researchers seemed more interested in studying errors and
T-units to assess the written product than studying the writing process
and writing strategies. They seemed more interested in sentence
correctness than writing ability. One might say they were more
interested in the peripherals of writing rather than writing per se.
Most researchers conducted research on the sentence level. Contrastive
rhetoric, introduced by Kaplan, has captured the interest and
imagination of only a few researchers. It is apparent that most of the
studies reflect a limited understanding of what writing is, and what
writing competence actually entails.

In very recent years, however, a few in the vanguard of the
profession have adopted a process view of composing (Zamel, Taylor,
Raimes) and have begun to encourage it. Zamel's study and Raimes' study
have helped to fill a research gap. We are witnessing the dawning of a
new line of inquiry in ESL writing research. This line of inquiry
attempts to examine students' writing strategies and mental processes in
a more natural setting. It attempts to better understand the complexity
of the composing process and the many variables that affect writing

competence. It also attempts to compare the similarities and

130

differences in the writing strategies and writing behaviors of L1 and L2
writers. This is likely to be the direction ESL writing research will

take in the years ahead.

CHAPTER FIVE

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO ESL WRITING

INTRODUCTION

I have tried, in the past few years, to adapt sound theory and
successful practice in English writing to ESL writing because I was
invigorated by the insights offered by noted writing specialists and
researchers in English writing whose works I surveyed in Chapters I
and II. Although a few new methods and techniques in English writing
have already been introduced in ESL in recent years, as I have indicated
in Chapter III, they were often introduced piecemeal fashion. A
coherent approach to ESL writing is still lacking. The approach I have
evolved is an attempt to adapt current English writing theory and
practice to ESL writing in an integrated and coherent way.

Not only have I tried to adapt current English writing theory and
practice to ESL writing, I have also tried to retain methods and
techniques in ESL writing that have proven to be useful in the past and
have incorporated those into the present approach. In effect, the
approach I present here is a synthesis of the divergent theories and
methods in both L1 and L2 writing. It integrates what has already been
found workable with what current approaches find effective. It is an
attempt at formulating a conceptual framework for the teaching of ESL

writing to students of all levels of language proficiency.

131

132

RATIONALE FOR ADAPTING ENGLISH WRITING PEDAGOGY TO ESL WRITING

Scholars and researchers have found many similarities between first
language acquisition and second language acquisition in spite of obvious
differences in age, cognitive maturity, motivation, ego permeability, etc.
Several studies have pointed out that the task, the process, and given
similar circumstances, the results of first language (L1) acquisition
and second language (L2) acquisition are essentially similar (Ervin-
Tripp 197A, Krashen et a1. 1976, Spolsky 1979, and others). Taylor
(197A) sums up the research well when he says that L1 and L2 acquisition
are cognitively similar processes and the differences that exist are
more quantitative than qualitative. "The apparent difference can be
accounted for by considering the variables of previous linguistic
experience, cognitive maturity, and affective orientation" (197A:23).

In contrasting L1 and L2 teaching practices, Sampson (1977) has
challenged current ESL methodology and suggested the adoption of
teaching practices in Langauge Arts to ESL teaching. Roy (l98A) has
advocated an alliance for literacy between the two groups of learners of
Standard English - non-native speakers, and speakers of non-standard
English. She sees three important features shared by both groups:
first, the goal is similar - they both want to learn to compose in
standard written English. Second, the strategies used in approaching
that goal are also very similar - learners in both groups construct
hypotheses and generalize rules. Third, the stages of acquisition, too,
fall on a similar continuum - they both move from home language/dialect

to target language.

133

What is more, research has shown that some of the writing problems
of ESL writing students are similar to the problems of native
speakers. Shaughnessy, for example, pointed out that many techniques
developed in foreign language teaching seemed applicable to basic
writers (1977: 162). At the same time, some of the treatments she
proposed for solving writing problems are very applicable to ESL
learning writers. Jacobs (1982) also reported that certain composing
problems are shared by both native and non-native speakers of English.

Research is also beginning to indicate that some of the processes
used in writing by ESL students are very similar to those used by native
speakers. Jones and Tetroe (in press) have studied the planning
processes of ESL writing students and found that second langauge
proficiency appears to have little role in constraining the planning
process. They found that the quality of planning in composing transfers
from first language to second language. Zamel (1983), in her landmark
study of the composing process of six advanced ESL students whose work I
reported in the last chapter, also found that the composing process is
basically similar. Her students composed in a non-linear, exploratory,
and generative way, very similar to those described by Emig (1971),
Murray (1980), Perl (1980a), Sommers (1980) and others.

From a broader perspective, I view English writing theory and
practice as compatible with second language acquisition theory and
practice. I see the following parallels between English writing
pedagogy and some major approaches to facilitating second language

acquisition now prevalent in the ESL field:

1.

13A

Both draw on research from many disciplines - linguistics,
psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, pragmatics,
cognitive psychology, communications, etc.

Both encourage experiencing language and using language
purposefully and communicatively.

Both focus on language function, as well as language form.

Both focus on the learner and consider the human factor the most
important factor in learning. Both respect the learner and
encourage self-esteem and self-confidence.

Both view the student as an active and creative learner, not a
passive recipient.

Both view the climate, or the learning environment, as a crucial
factor in the learning process - a climate that fosters trust and
mutual concern and encouragement.

Both suggest a similar role for the teacher - a facilitator of

learning, and partner in learning, not an authoritarian figure.

Thus I believe that judicious adoption of English writing pedagogy to

ESL writing is in consonance with current principles of second language

acquisition.

RATIONALE FOR SYNTHESIZING WRITING APPROACHES

Controversies over methods of teaching ESL writing often posit

dichotomies such as process vs. product, content vs. form, fluency vs.

accuracy, guided writing vs. free writing, cognitive growth vs.

affective growth. I see no contradictions between these so-called

"dichotomies." We need not focus on just one or the other; we are

135

concerned with both throughout the student's composing experience. For
example, when students experience writing as a process through which
they explore and discover meaning, their written product is likely to
improve (Zamel 1982:207, Knoblauch and Brannon 1983:A68). This is to
say that fluency and accuracy can go hand in hand. The written code can
be acquired while students are composing if appropriate and timely
feedback is given. When students generate rich ideas, they will be
helped to search for appropriate forms to express their ideas. "Form
grows out of content and is inseparable from it" (Judy 1980:A1). When
students do journal writing or free writing, and also write on assigned
topics, or write for a specified audience, they are practicing both free
writing and guided writing. When students improve their writing
ability, they are, at the same time, building self-confidence, for
cognitive growth and affective growth are intertwined and cannot be
separated. Thus, it is up to the writing teacher to try to achieve a
delicate balance within the various sets of dichotomies. These sets are
not mutually exclusive; they can be complementary.

Researchers now realize that the traditional approach to ESL
writing, offering large doses of language instruction to improve
writing, is limited in its effectiveness. Attention is shifting to the
writing process which has been well studied for L1 writers. But as
Raimes (1985) has very recently pointed out, process alone is not enough
because L2 writers have a greater need than L1 writers to acquire
vocabulary, syntactic structure, and discourse form, in order to
adequately say what they want to say. They need to learn to conform to
rules of syntax and rules of semantics in order for their product to be

acceptable. In other words, L2 writers need to add to their repertoire

136

of language as they learn to write. Thus L2 writers do need some
instruction and practice in linguistic form. But not all students need
the same thing at the same time because we are dealing with a group of
writers having a wide range of writing abilities, language
proficiencies, and personality types. It seems to me the central issue
in teaching ESL writing is not which method is better, this one OR that
one? The central issue is WHO needs WHAT and WHEN. A synthesis of
"process" and "language" methods, with individualized instruction and
practice according to need, can take place. My integrated approach is

an effort toward that synthesis.

MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE INTEGRATED APPROACH

The integrated approach presented in this chapter is predicated on
the following major assumptions about writing and the teaching of
writing:

1. Writing is a dynamic and highly context-oriented process. It
is a process of evolving meaning through interaction. The
writer finds and shapes meaning through the stages of
rehearsing, drafting, revising, and making meaning clear. This
complex and unique process enables the writer to search and
create meaning and experience growth and development via
language. While the three stages of the composing process are
identifiable, often known as prewriting, writing, rewriting,
they are not linear. Often they are recursive, and they

overlap.

2.

5.

137

Writing serves two equally important functions:

a. To produce a written product for self-expression and/or
communication.

b. To develop the writer and help the writer make meaning -
self formation and re-formation through language. In the
process of composing, the writer also learns to become a
critic of himself and his own writing.

Since writing is a dynamic process, it can best be taught as

such. Teaching writing, then, means helping students

experience the writing process, guiding them through the
various phases of this process, offering timely and relevant
feedback whenever needed.

When the teaching focus is on the actual practice of the

composing process, better written products naturally follow.

Students' concern for correctness is taken into account in the

context of actual composing experience.

Students need to experience writing on a discourse level from

the start, even for beginning students. They also need to

explore as many discourse forms as possible, and compose for as
wide an audience as possible. After they have accumulated
enough good solid writing experiences, they will be able to
meet future writing tasks confidently and effectively.

Students' own writings become their writing texts. As students

learn what works and what doesn't work in each piece of

writing, they learn to focus on what to master next. Over a

period of time, their own language production will become their

138

best textbook because they can learn the most from their own
compositions.

7. Reading contributes greatly to the development of writing
competence, especially pleasure reading. Through reading, ‘\\\
students gain not only a subconscious feel of the written
language, but they also learn the syntactic and discourse
structures specific to written discourse. When a steady diet
of reading materials is provided to match student interests and
levels of linguistic proficiency, reading can be a potent

source of both content and form.
CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTEGRATED APPROACH

The above-mentioned assumptions are the basic principles underlying
the integrated approach. I have used the following methods and
techniques to implement this approach in the writing classroom: 1.
Explain the assumptions underlying the approach, 2. Lay down ground
rules, 3. Distinguish high order concerns form low order concerns, A.
Convert the classroom into a writing workshop, 5. Give appropriate
writing assignments, 6. Use the conference teaching method, 7. Help
students experience the various phases of the composing process,

8. Encourage pleasure reading, 9. Develop a simple record keeping
system.

I will now describe these instructional practices in detail.

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EXPLAIN THE ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE APPROACH

In the beginning of the term I explain briefly but clearly what
writing is. I carefully explain Assumptions 1 and 2 and make sure
students understand what the composing process actually entails. I
point out especially, the various phases of the composing process that
students will go through and the recursive nature of these stages. It
is also important for students to understand the dual functions of
writing so when they write, they not only produce a written text for
expressive or communicative purposes, but also engage in the process of
learning - creating new ideas, gaining new insight, learning about
themselves and learning about their writing. I explicitly point out the
difference between the traditional ESL approach to teaching writing
which focuses mainly on the written product and my approach which does
not ignore the written product, but is more process-oriented and growth-

oriented.

LAY DOWN GROUND RULES
The few ground rules I lay down at the beginning of the term are
related to the assumptions I discussed earlier. They promote the
integration or synthesis for which I am striving.
1. We learn to write by writing, rewriting, and extensive reading.
2. We emphasize both fluency and accuracy as we write, but
correctness and form must be placed in reasonable proportion to
content and expression.
3. We work on both informal writing and formal writing - journal
writing and essay-type of writing which includes a wide range

of discourse forms. Two or three times a week we write

1A0

journals (10-15 minutes); two or three times a week we write
essays (30-AO minutes) and do rewrites. Occasionally a longer
piece of writing is assigned for homework.

A. Revision of journals is optional, but revision of essays is a
must.

5. We keep all pieces of writing (including lists and drafts) in a
folder with two pockets - one for journals and the other for
essays and rewrites.

6. We share our writing and writing problems with others in the
class. This sharing can be in the form of reading aloud,
posting writing on the bulletin board, and/or publishing a book

of everyone's favorite piece of writing.

DISTINGUISH HIGH ORDER CONCERNS FROM LOW ORDER CONCERNS

I tell students what my high order concerns are and what my low
order concerns are when I read their written work. My priorities
reflect the assumptions on pp. 136, 137, 138. My high order concerns
include: Does this piece of writing say anything? What is the purpose
and who is the audience? Are the ideas interesting? Is the focus
clear? Is the development adequate? Is the voice or tone
appropriate? These concerns are based on my assumption that the purpose
of writing is to make meaning. My low order concerns are: poor
penmanship, errors in usage, grammar, sentence structure, spelling,
punctuation, capitalization and other conventions of writing. Accuracy
in student product is important, but it should not be the central focus

of the student's effort.

1A1

Very often students hold an opposite view from mine. What I
consider low order concerns are their high order concerns. Some
students come to us with an exaggerated concern with errors and their
obsession with the final product has led them to serious writing
blocks. They have learned to avoid errors by writing short sentences,
or by using only one tense, or by writing as little as possible. I have
to explain to them the importance of ideas, organization, and
development in college composition. It usually takes some time before I
can convince some of them that they should reverse their order of
concerns. Those that begin to see how ideas can be developed, clarified
and presented, gradually accept the notion that writing involves content
selection and data organization first, and editing should be delayed.
These students inevitably end up with better products. Those who
continue to cling on to the notion that "correctness" should come first,
usually end up with shorter and fewer pieces of writing, and less
interesting writing.

If we look at the works of Mohammad and Abdul (Appendix A), for
example, we can see how focusing on high order concerns first before low
order concerns can result in a better product, both quantitatively and
qualitatively. Mohammad and Abdul were in my A Level writing class
(beginning level) in the Winter of '85. Mbhammad was a stickler to
rules. He was afraid to take risks, to try new expressions, for fear of
making mistakes. Every word he wrote on paper had to be spelled
correctly before he moved on to the next word. He preferred copying the
same draft over and over until he got every word, every sentence
"correct." He wrote on the same topic for his compositon as he did for

his journal and repeated the same content. He continued to do this for

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many writing sessions. When low order concerns receive too much
attention, content usually suffers. Abdul, on the other hand, was not
so obsessed with errors. He preferred putting down ideas on paper
first; he worked on grammar, spelling, punctuation later when he
revised. Within a 30-minute writing session, Abdul produced more
writing and more interesing writing, as we can see in their writing

samples.

CONVERT THE CLASSROOM INTO A WRITING WORKSHOP

All the activities in a writing workshop are designed to help
students experience the writing process as a dynamic process of evolving
meaning through interaction. It is also a process of growth and
development for the learning writer (Assumptions 1 and 2, pp. 136-37).

The traditional classroom can be readily converted to a writing
workshop by rearranging the desks, if necessary. The idea is to provide
a place where small groups can conveniently work together.

In my writing workshop I do not give lectures on writing, nor do I
teach a grammar point to the entire class. I do not teach model
compositions either, but I use models as references for individual
students, according to need. I do not follow the read-analyze-write
procedure often recommended by textbook writers. From day one students
write on a discourse level and their many pieces of writing become their
texts on which writing instruction is based. In my writing workshop all
students are actively engaged in some aspect of the composing process.
Some will be writing, some rewriting, some conferring with me or with
peers. Sometimes the group as a whole will be engaged in sharing or

critiquing each other's works.

1&3

There are several things I try to accomplish in a writing
workshop: First, I try to foster a warm and understanding atmosphere
which minimizes pressure and maximizes participation. This will
increase students' confidence in writing and develop a positive attitude
toward writing. The traditional classroom atmosphere is often
competitive; some foreign students often find it threatening, and this
results in "defensive learning" (Stevick 1976). I actively generate a
positive atmosphere in the workshop so students can learn to know each
other and learn to work together as a learning community (Curran 1976).

Second, I try to encourage peer collaboration. While the teacher
is the guiding adult, students can be guiding peers. Once I set the
tone and the method of giving and using feedback, this can be carried
off to smaller groups. Students learn to interact intelligently and
fairly. They learn to listen to and accept criticism when they sense
that it is intended to be constructive. They learn to encourage each
other to write in a second language and share common roadblocks. They
learn to practice teaching themselves what they are learning together.
As they become aware of their peer's strengths and weaknesses in
writing, they begin to examine their own writing with a more critical
eye.

Third, I try to heighten audience awareness. "Students write
better when they write for each other" (Moffett 1968:193). Most
students usually find it more challenging and more fun to write for a
real audience than Just for the teacher.

Fourth, I try to create an environment which lends itself to
conference teaching and individualized instruction. Since no two

students learn a second language in precisely the same way, the most

14”

effective way to use my time is to give individualized instruction. In
a workshop I can circulate among the students while they are writing or
rewriting and offer timely assistance individually or to small groups,
as need arises.

All the activities in a writing workshop are designed to help
students experience the writing process as a dynamic process of evolving
meaning through interaction. It is also a process of growth and

development for the learning writer (Assumptions 1 and 2, pp. 136-37).

GIVE APPROPRIATE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

If writing is, as I assume, a process of making meaning, then
writing assignments should be relevant to student interest and
experience in order to motivate the process of creating meaning. I try
to find out what my students' interests and experiences are from the
Information Sheet and from the interviews (Appendix B), and daily
conversations.

Students practice formal writing as well as informal writing.
Informal writing includes journal writing and/or free writing. Journal
writing is useful because it frees students from inhibitions, and it
nurtures the free flow of language use. More importantly, it is writing
for the self. It may be tentative, exploratory, and fragmented, but if
students write journals regularly, they have a chance to explore what
they know and discover what they mean. Free writing is somewhat similar
to journal writing. It helps to restore the spontaneity and confidence
that are so often destroyed by error consciousness. Very often foreign
students try so hard to put everything down right the first time that

they forget they have many good ideas worth putting down on paper.

1H5

Journal writing or free writing is helpful in another way. It does
not limit students to any particular topic. They have a free choice of
writing about whatever they already know or have experienced. Since
personal experience is the basis of all good writing, journal writing or
free writing offers students an opportunity to tap their personal
experiences, their personal interests - feelings, beliefs, attitudes,
facts, memories, bits of conversation - just about anything they feel
like writing. The first few times I usually have to suggest ideas to
get them started. I offer suggestions such as: What did you do over
the weekend that was fun or different? What did you talk about when you
called home long-distance (or when your folks called you)? What about a
TV program (or a ball game) you enjoyed? What do you like/dislike about
the 0.3.? Once students get into the habit of tapping into their own
resources, they can usually find something interestng to write about,
but it takes a couple of weeks before they begin to loosen up and feel
free to write about what comes to mind.

For formal writing I usually have students write on assigned
topics. They learn how to focus, organize, and develop their ideas so
that in the future they can meet academic writing demands.. They
experience writing in as many modes as possible, and try to learn to
realize their purpose for writing in as many ways as possible - by
examples, by description, by definition, by comparison and contrast, by
cause and effect, etc. I try to assign topics that will enable students
to experience a wide range of discourse types.

For the beginning students, I usually start with journal writing,
or some kind of free writing to give them practice in putting something

down on paper every day. I then gradually ease them into more formal

1H6

writing. With advanced students I tend to do both from the start -
journals every day for 10 to 15 minutes (or every other day) and essays
and rewrites about two or three times a week.

I begin with journal writing or free writing and use that as the
matrix, as Britton et al. (1976) have suggested because writing about
real life as students know it first hand is better than assigning topics
that may be remote from their interests and their lives. As they gain
confidence, I then try to help them use expressive writing to enhance
the quality of transactional writing. Once they are well-grounded in
expressive writing, they can deal with more difficult forms and concepts
without losing their voice and their personal commitment.

It is not easy to arrive at topics for students to write about,
topics that are engaging, topics students feel strongly about, and
topics that they know well, or topics that they can readily gather
information on. Very often topics for a formal piece of writing may
evolve out of journal or free writing practices. Sometimes I hand out
3" by 5" cards and ask for topic suggestions from the students. I file
these in a box and continually select from them term after term. Some
popular ones are: My Family, A Famous Person in My Country, Why Did I
Come to the 0.8.? Living in the 0.8. (similarities and differences),
How to be a Good Language Learner, etc. In general, I try to suggest
topics that students are likely to have knowledge about or experience
in.

For each writing assignment, I offer two or three topics for
students to choose from. Often I encourage students to think about and
talk about topics they would like to write about prior to coming to the

writing session and I give them options. I try to offer topics that

1147

suggest real life contexts which contain a purpose and an intended
audience because the impetus to write has to come from the urgency of
having something to say, something vitally relevant to the writer.
Without this need and desire to write, all writing is merely an
artificial exercise, functionally dead. If we can inspire enthusiasm
for writing, half our battle is won.

A good example of this is the letter writing session I set up for
my A Level writing class, Winter, '85. After explaining the major
differences between a formal letter and an informal letter, I asked
students to write one of each and suggested they actually mail their
letters to persons they know and people they want to hear from. This
generated much enthusiasm for writing and rewriting. There was Vicente
who thought it was so much fun to show people at home that he could
write in English that he wanted to write a letter every week. The
thrill of getting a real response back and being able to share it with
the class kept his momentum going, so for a while he was writing a
letter every week, though he was not required to do so. Even Mohammad,
whom I referred to earlier in this chapter as a slow writer and a
stickler to rules, was able to produce two pieces of writing within two
30-minute writing sessions and did not ask to take them home to finish,
as he usually did. Compared to his previous writing, this time he wrote
more fluently because a real audience and a real purpose for writing
increased his motivation and thus his word flow (Appendix C, and compare
his work in Appendix A). What is more, all students revised with
greater care and enthusiasm. They wanted to be sure the format was
right. A few even addressed the envelope two or three times and asked

me to double check before mailing.

1M8

USE THE CONFERENCE TEACHING METHOD

Writing is a dynamic and creative process, a process that evolves
meaning through interaction, and this interaction may begin as feedback
from teacher and/or peers. Conference teaching fosters this two-way
communication. It provides instant feedback which the student can
immediately incorporate into his writing. I hold various kinds of
conferences throughout the term, generally based on need: one-to-one
conference, special group conference, peer conference, and class
conference.

Most of the time I use the one-to-one conference to give immediate
feedback to students who are writing or rewriting. I usually spend
the first 10 minutes of every 50 minute writing period on mini-
conferences. I circulate around the group, responding to immediate
questions students may have before settling down to write or rewrite.
Then I hold longer conferences with a few students whose works I have
looked at and who, I think, need to confer with me either to clarify
meaning, or to develop ideas, or to reorganize content, or to discuss
whatever writing concerns they may have. Usually I can comfortably
cover 3 to 5 such conferences during a writing period while students are
writing or rewriting. I always make sure that every one in the class
has a chance to confer with me on a regular basis. These conferences
take about 4 or 5 minutes each, and I focus on one or two problems at a
time. However, longer conferences are sometimes necessary.

When I find two or three in the class having similar writing
problems, I call them together for a special group conference. I then
try to explain to them the problem they have in common. For example, if

I find that several students did not know how to use a relative clause,

1H9

I would briefly explain the grammar point to this small group and then
either refer them to their grammar book for further practice, or select
an appropriate handout to give them, to help reinforce their learning.
Many problems in mechanics can be handled in this manner.

While I confer with individual students, I greatly encourage peer
conferences. Peer teaching has great potentials. We should never
underestimate how much students can teach one another, and how much they
can learn from one another.

I hold all-class conferences from time to time to share the works
of some students. In a constructive and supportive way students learn
to question and give comments after listening to the reading of a
student's piece. In the beginning, I have to read the compositions for
them, but as time goes on, I can get volunteers to read their own.
Usually the sharing time is relaxing and enjoyable. When students learn
to critique other students' writing, they inevitably learn to be critics
of their own writing too.

Having the various kinds of conferences throughout the term can
have a cumulative effect. Students learn to take more initiative toward
their writing and assume more responsibility for their writing. They
learn to look at their work from a reader's point of view. Gradually

they become more self-reliant writers.

HELP STUDENTS EXPERIENCE THE VARIOUS PHASES OF THE COMPOSING PROCESS
The integrated approach assumes that writing is a complex and

unique process of making meaning. It also assumes that the stages of

composing are identifiable (Assumption 1, p. 136). It is the teacher's

responsibility then, to see that all students experience the various

150

phases of the composing process. The teacher needs to subtly guide,
skillfully intervene, and always be supportive throughout the entire
process.

In the prewriting phase I have introduced many activities - free
association, brainstorming, interviewing, observing, taking trips,
reading, or working in conjunction with teachers who teach reading, lab,
speaking/listening, etc. For example, before writing about "Crossroads
Cafeteria" or describing "The MSU Bookstore", I often send students to
the respective places to make careful observations and jot down details
they want to include. Before writing about "My Classmate", I pair off
students for brief interviews to get detailed and accurate information
about each other. When ever possible, I try to make their writing seem
real (Clark 1982).

Once a topic is decided upon, students generally settle down and
begin to write. During the writing phase, the goal is to have students
experience the exploratory and creative nature of writing. They
sometimes have to go back and do more thinking and more planning before
they can continue to write.

Different students use their alloted writing time differently.
Some spend more time to think and plan than others. One term there was
Sanda from Niger, who usually spent half of the allotted time thinking
and planning. Once he began writing, he could not stop. When I told
him his time was up, he would still want to take his writing home to
finish. Often he would bring back another page or two even though I did
not require him to do so. In the same class there was Mildred from
Venezuela, who spent very little time in planning. She would just

plunge into writing. She wrote freely and fluently with very little

151

attention to organization, grammar, and punctuation. These two students
have different personalities and different learning styles. Their
contrasting needs during the drafting phase require differing
instructional focus. During any given writing session, all students
maybe writing, but their needs are quite different. I encourage
students to work on their own as much as possible, to learn to use a
dictionary or consult each other if necessary. Meanwhile, I circulate
around the room holding mini-conferences, offering timely help whenever
needed.

When revising, students work at different paces just as they do
when they are writing their first drafts because their needs are
different. At the beginning of the term, I bring in a piece of my own
writing, a first draft with all arrows and loops in red and green, to
demonstrate the importance of re-vision and explain what reformulation
actually entails before a draft can reach its final form. I remind
students that revision is more than proofreading or editing.

After I hand back a batch of compositions, I ask students to read
through their piece and see if they understand all my markings. They
then try to record their writing problems on the "Writing Awareness
Sheet" which I hand out to them at the beginning of the term
(Appendix D). This sheet is designed to help studens be more aware of
the types of writing problems they have encountered and be aware of the
recurrence of such problems. They learn to take inventory of their
writing problems as reflected in their writings - problems in content,
organization, style, lexicon, semantics, grammar, spelling, punctuation,
etc. Then, during conferences, we talk about them. I also hand out a

list of "Correction Symbols" (Appendix E) at the beginning of the term

152

to help students revise as much as possible on their own before
conferring with me. As a rule, upper level students can handle most of
the problems in grammar and mechanics by referring to the "Correction
Symbols" or consulting with their peers. There are, of course, other
areas of concern, that need to be discussed with me before they can
begin to rewrite, problems such as options in lexicon, syntax, and
style. When conferring with me, we decide on the focus of the re-
vision. I have to intuitively sense what and how much a particular
student can handle at a particular time. It is always good to
accentuate the positive, and concentrate on only one or two problem
areas at a time so as not to overwhelm or overburden the student.

From my "working library" I offer samples and explanations to help
students understand their problems and make necessary changes to improve
their writing. My "working library" contains many things: penmanship
sheets, textbooks, clippings from magazines and newspapers, samples of
good writing from former foreign students, etc. I also have on file
grammar exercises that have worked well for me which I selected from
writing handbooks and grammar books. I use these samples and
collections to meet individual writing needs, and to help students learn
from their revising experience.

While our teaching focus throughout the entire writing process is
on high order concerns, during the revising phase we sometimes need to
tend to low order concerns. As I have indicated earlier in this
chapter, L2 writers seem to need more help with low order concerns than
L1 writers. This is why a second draft, and sometimes a third draft, is
a must, to give L2 writers a chance to learn as much as possible, about

both the linguistic code and the written code. The teaching aim during

153

revising sessions is to help students improve their writing ability in
whatever way possible to enable them to become more effective writers.

It is possible to attend to both high order concerns and low order
concerns at the same time when students revise. See, for example,
Vicente's first draft and second draft on "How to be a Good Language
Learner". In conference we focused on the development of ideas first,
especially how he might expand his last two paragraphs. Then we
discussed some of his writing problems, focusing on 2 persistent ones:
the use of a comma and a period, and the use of prepositions. If we
compare the two drafts, his second draft is by no means perfect, but he
did add more content to his last two paragraphs, and he overcame some of
his persistent writing problems which makes his second draft closer to
public expectations in form (Appendix F).

After students have completed a second draft (and sometimes a
third) they read it aloud to themselves, to their classmates, and/or to
their roommate, or spouse. They need to hear their voice in their
writing - the sound, the texture, the rhythm. It is also important that
they and others listen, to see if their meaning has come through. This

helps them experience their writing from a reader's point of view.

ENCOURAGE PLEASURE READING

One of the principles upon which I base my integrated approach is
the assumption that reading contributes greatly to writing competence.
(Assumption 7, p. 138). No one in our profession today would doubt that
there is a close relationship between reading and writing, and yet this
relationship has seldom been exploited in ESL writing. For several

terms now I have been trying to encourage (sometimes even require) a

1514

large amount of reading in my writing classes, for I do believe that
"vicarious" "incidental" learning via reading can be pervasive and
powerful.

Let me just cite the experience of two of my writing students from
two different terms who took time to read outside of class and whose
noticeable writing progress seems to confirm that reading can be an
invaluable source of "comprehensible input" for the learning writer.

In Spring of 1980, I had in my intermediate level writing class a
Japanese student in Horticulture who had had nine years of English in
Japan prior to coming to the English Language Center. In my writing
class he was frustrated every time he wrote because he did not have the
kind of vocabulary and expression to say what he really wanted to say.
At the end of the writing session he would end up handing in a
composition of only a few sentences and felt very embarassed. I decided
I should not add to his nine years of rule learning and translation from
Japanese to English. Instead, I aimed at stimulating his acquisition
system. I provided him with reading materials to help stockpile his
input. I thought it was going to be a long-drawn process and was
prepared not to see any tangible results in the near future. However,
by mid-term, Shunsuke had finished reading "Love Story", "The Old Man
and the Sea", and "Of Mice and Men". From then on, he was like another
person. His writing took off - his bookish English became more
idiomatic, and his simple sentences became more complex. Of course, he
still had spelling problems but not like before when every piece of his
writing was short and peppered with misspelled words. He even gained a

better sense of how to organize and develop his ideas. Toward the end

155

of the term, for his final writing test, he was able to write, for the
first time, a four-paragraph composition in 30 minutes.

In the winter of '85 I had Vicente from Mexico in my A Level
(beginning level) writing class. In the beginning of the term when I
encouraged everyone in the class to try to read something in English
every day outside of class, few heeded because most got bogged down with
homework every night and found no time for extra reading. I was able,
however, to interest Vicente to try reading the State News. We glanced
through the headlines together and selected a short piece for him to
read, even though he knew he would not be able to understand everything
in that piece. From then on, glancing through the headlines became a
daily habit and gradually he learned to select two or three pieces to
read everyday and to grasp main ideas without necessarily knowing every
word. During one of our sharing sessions we discovered that he liked

sports, so Sports Illustrated was introduced to him, and he thoroughly

 

enjoyed reading it from time to time. When he found out that Time and
Newsweek were readily available in his dorm, he took time to read about
current issues. After mid-term I suggested that he might like to read
longer pieces of writing just for fun, perhaps a short story or a

novel. He selected Miracles of the World because there was a Spanish

 

version of this book and he was familiar with the content. After that
Sherlock Holmes' detective stories intrigued him. He also read

Godfather and On the Wings of Eagles. If we compare Vicente's initial

 

writing score of 50 to his final writing score of 77. we can't help but
marvel at his remarkable progress in writing - a gain of 27 points in
writing in one term! (Appendix 7 - Vicente's composition tests, initial

and final). Of course there are many variables that might have

156

contributed to Vicente's progress, but one can hardly rule out readig as
an important contributing factor. Krashen's "reading hypothesis" (1984)
which posits that writing competence is acquired subconsciously through

reading, certainly warrants further experimentation.

DEVELOP SIMPLE RECORD KEEPING SYSTEM

In order to motivate and sustain the creative writing process, the
teacher needs to have a record of how each student is doing, and what
the instructional focus is at the various stages of development. I
usually ask students to keep their writing folders, while I keep records
of their writing profiles.

One of the ground rules I mentioned earlier is for students to
provide themselves with a writing folder with two pockets to keep all
the writings they do - formal writing and rewrites on one side, and
informal writing on the other. Students are encouraged to examine their
folder periodically to see what they have learned and what they haven't
learned, to compare their first essay to their favorite piece later in
the term. Seeing progress over time gives them a sense of
accomplishment. It also informs them of where they are and where they
need to go in their journey of learning to write in English. The
writing folder reflects the student's persistent writing effort
throughout the term. It is a "textbook" they themselves have created
and they are usually very proud of it.

Just as students have to keep their writing folders up to date, I,
too, have to keep the student profiles current. Perhaps it is
impossible to know everything we need to know about each student, but at

least I try to get as in depth a profile as possible - a social

157

psychological profile, as well as a linguistic profile. I get this
information from the Information Sheet I use at the beginning of the
term and from the interviews, and also from my observations of student
behavior during writing sessions and sharing sessions. This kind of
information provides insight into students' writing behavior, and is
useful as I try to work with each student as a whole person, for writing
involves the student's personality as well as his linguistic

competence. This is in keeping with the Counseling Learning approach
recommended now for L2 teaching, which reflects a growing awareness of
the human element in language teaching and learning.

I also check each student's writing folder periodically to see in
what areas the student has improved and what skills the student has yet
to learn, and what needs to be covered in subsequent conferences.

A record of each student's writing progress is kept in my files,
along with the student's writing profile. At first, progress may seem
painfully slow for some students, but over time, developmental trends
emerge, and I always keep a record of these.

A simple and systematic record keeping system will help accumulate
important information regarding students' learning styles and learning
strategies, and this, in turn, enables the teacher to respond more

fruitfully to students' writing needs.

THE ROLE OF THE WRITING TEACHER

The many and varied methods and techniques needed to implement the

integrated approach in the writing classroom place great demands on the

158

writing teacher. In the last analysis, the writing teacher is the
crucial factor that determines success or failure of this approach.

The writing teacher must learn the art of writing and the art of
teaching. The writing teacher must know how to work with each student
individually, and work with the class as a group. The writing teacher
must understand the nature of the composing process, and skillfully
guide each student through the complex, dynamic and recursive processes
of discovering and unfolding as the student's writing develops. At the
same time the writing teacher cannot ignore the quality and quantity of
the written product. The writing teacher must know how to organize and
conduct a writing club and inspire students to become willing, eager,
and productive members. The writing teacher must be a facilitator of
learning (Rardin 1977) and help students take control over their own
writing. In short, a writing teacher is an interested reader, a good
listener, an encouraging editor, a supportive coach - all this and
more. This requires sensitivity and responsiveness at all times.
Teaching writing is an arduous task. But as we see students gain
insight into their writing experience, as we see students begin to take
responsibility for their own writing, as we see gradual improvement in

writing performance, the arduous task will seem worthwhile.

159

CONCLUSION

The integrated approach described in this chapter is an attempt to
improve on ESL writing approaches already in existence, not to replace
them. It is an attempt to adapt L1 writing pedagogy to ESL writing, and
integrate it with existing ESL writing methods and techniques, to meet
writing needs specific to ESL learning writers. I have attempted to
formulate a coherent well-principled approach uniquely suited to ESL
writers, and have incorporated the best methods and instructional
practices available from both L1 writing and L2 writing. This approach
is compatible with L2 acquisition theory and practice, and is in
consonance with very recent L2 writing research.

This approach teaches the writing process, but it does not ignore
the written product. It views writing on a discourse level and leads
students to experience the composing process as a dynamic, cyclical,
recursive process, a process for exploring, making, and communicating
meaning. Students learn to form and re-form ideas until they know what
they really want to say, and then they are helped to express their ideas
in acceptable English. While high order concerns are of primary
importance, low order concerns are also important. They are tended to
as sub-tasks during the editing phase of the composing process.

This appraoch ensures the best alignment of teacher "input" and
student "intake". The writing needs of a group of students placed in
the same writing class may vary greatly because of the differences in

writing abilities and learning styles. Some may not have sufficient

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language to say what they want to say in English. They need more
vocabulary to engage with content, more expressions to make their
thoughts concrete. Others may need to clarify grammatical rules they
have learned or partially learned. Still others may have serious
problems with the conventions of writing that block the flow of ideas.
Individualized instruction in the form of timely feedback can best meet
these varying needs, and this is provided by conference teaching in a
workshop setting. The integrated approach provides ample practice in
writing and ample time for revision. In fact, this approach considers
revision a must because it is in this stage of the composing process
that ESL students learn the most. This approach not only allows a great
deal of flexibility in accommodating the initial varying needs of the
students, it also accommodates the changing needs in writing abilities
and writing attitudes as the term progresses.

This appraoch fosters peer collaboration to broaden students' sense
of audience. It also offers opportunities for students to learn to
critique writing. Student readers/listeners learn to analyze,
explicate, and interpret manuscripts. As they learn to evaluate each
other's writing, they see its strengths and its weaknesses. They learn
to state the things they like or dislike about a piece of writing and
explain why. In learning to make and accept honest criticism, they gain
insight into their own writing process, as well as the writing process
of others in the class. This helps them become more independent and
more effective writers.

This approach is applicable to all level of ESL writing. There is
no threshold level below which we cannot teach the writing process, for

this approach can enhance both the development of writing and the

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acquisiton of language. Instructional focus may vary from student to
student, but instructional goals remain the same. The process of
writing, and the teaching of that process, is the same for both high
ability and low ability students.

In summary, the integrated approach I have presented in this
chapter teaches the writing process by helping students find ideas,
discover forms, and draft papers. It also leads students through the
complicated growth producing stages of revision. It aims at insight
into the writing experience, as well as improvement in writing
competence. It emphasizes the quality of learning that takes place
through the writing experience, the quality of intellectual, emotional
engagement throughout the composing process. In short, this approach
helps students not only learn to write, but "write to learn" (Murray
l98h).

While this approach is no panacea, it does seem to have potentials
for solving some of the persistent writing problems we face daily in
teaching writing to foreign students. It points to a possible direction

for further experimentation and research.

CHAPTER SIX

IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL WRITING PEDAGOGY AND RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

The integrated approach I described in the previous chapter is, in
effect, a synthesis of the divergent approaches in English writing and
in ESL writing, synthesis in the sense that it does not seek to abandon
what has been tried and proven to be useful in the past; instead, it
attempts to integrate what has already been found workable with what
current approaches find effective. This synthesized and individualized
approach to ESL writing has considerable implications for the teaching

of ESL writing and for writing research.

IMPLICATIONS FOR WRITING PEDAGOGY

I will now discuss pedagogical implications under the following
headings: l. The need for a new orientation to writing and a new
orientation to the teaching of writing, 2. The need for a
comprehensive training program for ESL writing teachers, 3. The need
for continual professional growth, A. The need to emphasize reading as

a necessary component of the writing program.

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163

THE NEED FOR A NEW ORIENTATION

A major implication is the need to re-think and re-define
writing. In the light of what we now know, writing is a complex process
that is continually developing as the writer engages in new tasks with
new materials for new audiences. Writing is an integral part of
learning, not just a tool for presenting or analyzing knowledge. Since
writing is a dynamic, context-oriented process which involves students
in a series of thinking, rethinking, prewriting, writing, and rewriting
activities, it demands a holistic pedagogy. The ultimate goal of
teaching writing is not merely to help students acquire the code of the
written language, but also to help them develop an efficient composing
process and an efficient style of learning.

We need to re-examine the traditional method of teaching ESL
writing. The assumption that the composing process is linear and that
we go lock-step fashion from writing correct sentences to writing
correct paragraphs, to writing full-length compositions, is a myth.
Instead of teaching students to write correct sentences first, and then
correct paragraphs, we need to start them off writing authentic
discourse. We need to teach the fundamental aspects of composing
first - aspects such as generating ideas, organizing ideas, and
developing ideas. Some syntactic and mechanical problems can be
addressed while students are drafting and some when students edit.
Instead of teaching outlining as a static genre, we need to teach it as
an ordering strategy to aid composing. Instead of teaching discourse
categories as rigid frameworks into which students fit their ideas,

modes of discourse need to be taught as thinking strategies and

16H

discourse structures, so students can have more options to explore, to
order, and to present ideas when they write.

Furthermore, we need to recognize the fact that we cannot teach
writing the way we teach a content course. We can only help students
write. More writing and better writing will result if their writing is
based on internal needs rather than external demands. The substantial
differences in writing ability in a class must also be recognized and
this can best be accommodated by individualized instruction in a

workshop setting.

THE NEED FOR A COMPREHENSIVE TRAINING PROGRAM FOR TEACHERS

A second implication is the need for a comprehensive training
program for ESL writing teachers. Successful language teaching rests
primarily with the preparation, commitment, and enthusiasm of the
individual teachers. This is especially true in the teaching of ESL
writing because the writing teacher must play many roles as I have
indicated in the last chapter. Since most ESL writing teachers are not
equipped to play all these roles, a comprehensive training program is
needed. General training specifically for ESL teachers would include
the development of cultural awareness, and an understanding of students'
native languages, their rhetorical traditions, their cultural
backgrounds. In addition, specific training for writing teachers is
needed to provide enlightened notions about the range of options for
writing and the strategies for teaching it. L2 pedagogy has just begun
to recognize the theoretical and research basis for this type of
training which is similar to the training needed for L1 writing

teachers.

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Specific training in writing should cover the following areas:
1. Knowledge of the theoretical conceptual underpinnings

Teachers must understand the basic assumptions upon
which the approach is built. They need to know what current
specialists in English writing and in ESL writing have to say
about the writing process. They need to know what the
composing process actually entails.

In order to help students experience the various phases
of the composing process, teachers need to learn to develop a
repertoire of invention techniques such as reading, observing,
interviewing, remembering, etc. They must help students
experience a drafting stage as ideas are explored and
discovered and as the draft evolves.

Revision must be taught in terms of what we know about
the process of writing and in terms of what we know about the
learning writer. It can be taught in three different but
closely related activities: in-process revision, editing, and
proofreadig (Kirby and Liner 1980). In-process revision brings
about qualitative changes in a piece of writing. Editing and
proofreading will be tended to toward the end of the writing
process, and teachers must help students see how the
conventions and mechanics of writing can contribute to the
general effectiveness of their piece. If students are helped
to become more competent revisers, they will naturally become
better writers because they will learn to be critics of their

own writing.

2.

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Experiencing the composing process

No teacher should teach writing without being a writer
himself/herself. If teachers go through the various phases of
the composing process themselves, they will be better equipped
to identify with their students and be more aware of the
problems that confront students as they learn to write.
Teachers can get experience in writing in at least two
different ways:

a. In a writing workshop for teachers - a group of
teachers get together to write and share writing
experiences and learn to critique one another's work,
and point out each other's strengths and weaknesses.

b. In the writing class they teach - the teacher needs
to take time occasionally to write along with the
students and revise with them. Demonstrate how a
teacher struggles through the process and discuss how
writing problems can be solved as they come up.

Techniques in conference teaching

How to establish and maintain a good rapport with the
students, to guide them to talk about and experiment with the
evolving drafts, requires special skill and tact. The teacher
needs to learn how to ask relevant questions that will help
students articulate their writing process and develop their
texts. The skill of continuously helping each student
conceptualize the writing task at a higher level and a more
integrative level than before, is something that cannot be

acquired overnight. Reading materials on conference teaching

167

should be made available to all writing teachers. For example,
tips on holding conferences offered by Dawe and Dornan (198”)
are very useful. And so are Carnicelli's explications of the
success and failure of sample conferences. Also helpful are
the guidelines given by Reigstad and McAndrew (198”). Many
insightful suggestions for high-quality conferencing are
presented by Graves in his chapter entitled "Making the Writing
Conference Work" (1983:96-1ul).

Not only must writing teachers be exposed to relevant
literature on conference teaching, they must also learn to
dialogue with one another and share common conferencing
problems. Constant practice and exchange of experience will
contribute greatly to the development and refinement of
conference teaching techniques.

Knowledge of group dynamics

Since interaction is the key to the success of a writing
workshop - interaction between teacher and student, and
interaction among students - it is important that the writing
teacher learn how to set the tone and guide the group to
respond constructively and creatively to one another. The
teacher has to learn to create an atmosphere in which writing
is not inhibited and criticism is accepted by all. This means
that the teacher has to learn to be a good moderator, to know
when to be flexible and consultative, and when to exercise
authority.

One way to provide training in building a writing

community is to expose writing teachers to the Counseling-

5.

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Learning and Community Language Learning Model (Curran 1976)
which is a whole person model of education. It focuses on the
total human being as learner. This model is receiving
considerable support from second language acquisition research
in recent years. It attempts to help teachers become
facilitators of learning and become effective moderators in
group situations (See Rardin 1977).
Skill in addressing writing concerns

Teachers need to learn to recognize that some writing
concerns are more important than others because of the effect
they have on the quality of writing. In general, it is
important that sentence level concerns be subordinate to
discourse level concerns such as meaning, ideas, focus, voice,
organization, and development. Discourse grammar, such as
topic transitions, intersentential connectives, subject/verb
agreement across sentences should be attended to first before
attending to usage, spelling, punctuation, and other low level
concerns. But the teacher must first find out the stage of
development each student is at before deciding what concerns
should be tended to for that particular student at that
particular time.

For many terms I have experimented with Krashen's
Monitor Theory (1981) in my writing classes and find his
distinction between Monitor Overuser and Monitor Underuser very
helpful in categorizing writing students in the class. More
often than not, the Monitor Underusers have a tendency to focus

more on content when they write, paying little attention to

7.

169

punctuation, grammar, spelling, and other writing
conventions. The Monitor Overuser, on the other hand, focuses
on form, on mechanics, often at the expense of meaning and
content. It takes training and experience for the writing
teacher to learn to help students to become Optimal Monitor
Users. High order concerns may be the focus of instruction for
some, while low order concerns may be the focus of instruction
for others, and throughout the term the writer's needs may
shift. The writing teacher must develop sensitivity to the
shifting of writing needs so as to allocate time wisely to meet
these needs.
Techniques in responding to student writing

Most writing teachers today still have a tendency to
respond immediately to surface errors when they read student
compositions. It is important for teachers to learn to respond
first to the ideas and content, to the larger issues of
relevance, structure and effectiveness. It is still necessary
to respond to errors, but the response should be text-specific,
and limited to a manageable amount so as not to discourage the
student. It takes skill and practice to learn to respond to
students as writers as well as to respond to their written work
in order to motivate and sustain their interest in writing.
Techniques in keeping records

Writing teachers need to learn how to document their
teaching activities and devise record keeping forms for
different settings. These records must be simple and

systematic. The kinds of records that must be kept are:

170

a. A historical, linguistic, and psychological profile of
each student which includes the student's major field of
interest, type of writing needs, learning style and
learning strategy.

b. A record of the highlights of each conference - what
strategies and alternatives have been suggested and why.

c. A record of student progress (in addition to the
student's writing folder) as reflected in student response
to teacher feedback and peer feedback.

d. A record of sharing sessions - note the quality of
responses and the kinds of questions asked.

e. A record of the student's evaluation of the course -
student's feelings about teaching methods, teaching
efforts, teaching materials, etc.

Useful references in this area can be found in Graves' chapter

on "Document Children's Writing Development" (1983) and

Reigstad and McAndrew's section on "Learning about Record

Keeping" (198"). After experimenting with record keeping

samples, teachers may eventually want to devise their own

record keeping system to suit their own teaching style and
teaching strategy.

Ways to "publish" student writing -

Publication can contribute greatly to a writer's
motivation and development because students usually get much
satisfaction from seeing their ideas in print. When they know
their piece is going to be published, they are apt to put forth

greater effort on the final draft. Then, too, "publishing"

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gives the students a sense of audience, very much needed, if
they are to become effective writers.

How can ESL writing teachers get special training in the above
mentioned areas? One way is to encourage them to attend writing
workshops and writing seminars. There are various workshops for English
writing teachers held in different parts of the country throughout the
year. ESL writing teachers can certainly benefit from attending
these. We do not as yet have many writing workshops set up specifically
for ESL writing teachers, but the profession is beginning to recognize
this need. At the '85 TESOL Convention, for example, was a symposium on
ESL writing. The Summer Institute of 1985 included a course on
"Techniques for Teaching Reading and Writing in ESL." The process
approach to reading and writing is beginning to gain momentum in ESL.
This is a new development in the field.

Another way to provide special training is to set up a more
comprehensive in-service training program for ESL writing teachers.
Perhaps a few local units that have an ESL writing program can join
forces in providing an intensive in-service training program to better
prepare writing teachers for this difficult task. The training program
would include workshops that promote methods and techniques consistent

with my integrated approach.

THE NEED FOR CONTINUAL PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

A third implication is the need to keep abreast with current
developments in many fields. The job of teaching foreign students to
learn to write in Enlgish can be overwhelming, especially to new writing

teachers. The writing teacher has to be knowledgeable about current

172

trends in many disciplines. S/He has to continuously search for answers
to the many and varied writing problems students bring to the writing
class. Sometimes these problems are linguistic, sometimes they are
rhetorical, and sometimes they are affective.

One way to foster professional growth is to build a reference
library for writing teachers. This library should contain books and
journal articles pertinent to ESL writing. An annotated list of
important books in writing and the teaching of writing will be useful.

Since a great deal of current ESL writing theory and practice is
derived from English writing, ESL writing teachers need to have a solid
knowledge of the contributions made by noted English writing
specialists. They should be encouraged to read and discuss works by
Emig 1971; Murray 1968, 198”; Moffett 1968, 1981; Elbow 1973, 1981;
Britton et a1. 1975; Miller and Judy 1978; Dawe and Dornan 198”;
Donovan and McClelland (Eds.) 1980; Gregg and Steinberg (Eds.) 1980;
Graves 1983; Ziegler 1981, 198”; Beach and Bridwell (Eds.) 198”; and
others.

In the ESL field, in the last couple of years, a few important
works on writing have been published, books such as: Learning to
Write: First Language/Second Language (Freedman, Pringle and Yalden

Eds. 1983). Writing in Real Time (Matsuhashi Ed. in press), Techniques

 

in Teaching Writing (Raimes 1983a), Composing in a Second Language
(McKay Ed. 198”), Writing_- Research, Theory, and Applications (Krashen
198”). These recent publications should be made available in the
reference library.

There are also many journal articles that are intellectually

exciting and pedagogically useful. Interesting articles that cover a

173

wide range of writing concerns can be found in journals such as Language
Arts, Modern Language Journal, English Language Teaching, International
Review of Applied Linguistics. There are excellent articles on English
writing in journals such as College Composition and Communication, The

English Journal, The English Record, and Research in the Teaching of

 

English. In ESL, in the last few years, TESOL Quarterl , TESOL

 

Newletter, TECFOR are beginning to carry more articles on ESL writing.

All the books and pertinent journal articles should be kept in a
certain location and made readily available to ESL writing teachers. A
steady diet of reading materials will contribute greatly to their
professional growth. Teachers need to feel the pulse of the profession
if they are to be competent writing teachers. In the last few years,
there seems to be a proliferation of ESL writing textbooks. Perhaps
what we need is not more textbooks for students; rather, more books and
more reading materials for the enlightenment of writing teachers.

Another way to foster growth and development is to set up a central
file of teaching materials and teaching methods that "work." The actual
classroom teaching experience of every writing teacher is invaluable.
Sharing ideas with other teachers will be most helpful, especially to
new teachers. Which student composition served well as a model, which
topic inspired interesting writing, which method really helped the poor
speller, which exercise actually made a dent - all these can become a
rich resource. This repertoire of reliable materials and productive
techniques need to be carefully categorized and indexed, and made easily
accessible to all writing teachers.

I mentioned earlier in this chapter that learning how to teach ESL

writing is a life long process. An ESL writing teacher must learn to be

17”

sensitive and responsive not only to students' writing needs, but also
to their human needs. This is a life long education, but it is a

worthwhile and rewarding experience.

THE NEED TO EMPHASIZE READING AS A NECESSARY COMPONENT OF THE WRITING
PROGRAM

A fourth implication is the need to emphasize reading as a means of
providing "comprehensible input" to improve writing competence. The
notion that reading helps students get a better "feel" for the look and
texture of reader-based prose has already been established (Shaughnessy
1976, Flower and Hayes 1980, Smith 1983, Krashen 198”). It is time we
fully exploit this idea. It is not enough to just encourage reading
during spare time. We should require reading in all our writing
classes. Merely to tell our students to go home and read is not very
effective. Most of them don't know what is appropriate and where to
find suitable reading materials. There is a need to provide a
respectable reading library for our students, provide reading materials
that match their linguistic and interest levels - reading materials with
no exercises to do, no questions to answer, no blanks to fill. We need
books for students to enjoy, books with content that might capture their
interest or their fancy, not books for them to labor over word by word,
or line by line. We also need to encourage students to share what they
have found interesting.

For a starter, we might want to build up a library by having a book
drive. We can ask faculty and staff and other interested persons to
donate paperbacks - short stories, novels, plays - whatever people can

spare from their shelves. We can then select, organize, and catalogue

175

those books and let students use them. Each year our work unit might
want to allocate a little money to purchase some new books to add to the
collection.

Since a person's repertoire of discourse skills is built slowly and
comprehensively through reading, it is the writing teacher's

responsibility to get students hooked on books.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL WRITING RESEARCH

POSSIBLE RESEARCH AREAS

My approach to ESL writing described in the last chapter is only a
working hypothesis. It is a conceptual framework that necessitates
further experimentation and refinement. Although I have tried it in my
writing classes for many terms, with encouraging results, the ideas and
techniques from this conceptual framework need to be further tested and
confirmed or disconfirmed. This at once opens up many avenues of
interesting and important research.

1. Replicate and/or expand Zamel's and Raimes' studies.

For one thing, we need to have a much fuller understanding of the
composing processes of ESL students. Zamel (1983) has created a
framework and a methodology when she studied the composing processes of
six advanced ESL students and found that their writing processes were
very similar to those of native speakers. We need to continue this line
of inquiry and expand the range of sampling to include more subjects and
subjects of all proficiency levels. Just as Graves (1973), Mischel

(197”), Stallard (197”), and others have replicated Emig's study (1971),

176

so also do we need to replicate and expand Zamel's study and Raimes'
study to increase the generalizability of their findings. A growing
interest in process-oriented research in ESL writing is reflected by
several presentations at the '8” and '85 TESOL Conventions.

2. Study and compare the composing processes of different linguistic
groups.

Another way to enrich our understanding of the composing processes
of ESL writing students is to divide students into groups by linguistic
background, and study each group separately. Lai's study (1982) of ”
Chinese students' composing processes is a good example of this. We
need many more such studies to see, for example, if revision strategies
of different linguistic groups are similar to each other and similar to
first language writers as reported by Pianko (1979), Sommers (1980),
Flanigan and Menendez (1980), Flower and Hayes (1981), and others.

3. Compare L1 and L2 writing strategies and writing behaviors.

We can also gain insight into the composing processes of foreign
students by comparing the writing strategies they use when they compose
in their native language with the strategies they use when they compose
in English. This will help answer questions such as: How does a
student's native language affect composing in English? Are there mutual
influences between first language composing and second language
composing? If so, can we characterize them? To what extent is writing
in English a writing problem or a language problem? Are foreign
students writing in English deficient only in grammatical and lexical
items, as some of our students would have us believe? One term I made
an attempt to answer some of these questions by asking students to write

about something in their native language first, and then I asked them to

177

write about the same topic in English, and had them tell what they
perceived as similarities and differences. (Appendix H.) At the '8”
TESOL Convention, Gaskill presented a study of ” Spanish speakers at the
university level who composed in both Spanish and English. He found
similarity in types of revision and number of revisions in both Spanish
and English. Many more such studies are needed.

”. Study the function of literacy in home culture.

Sometimes the function of written language in a student's home
culture can affect his/her writing ability. Teacher training programs
should introduce students to the possibility of this sort of cultural
variations. ESL teachers might question foreign students as to how
literacy functons in their home culture. Preliminary studies of
cultural differences in the way written language functions have been
done. Exploratory studies, for example, have been done by Scollen and
Scollen (1979), and Scribner and Cole (1978a,l978b). It would be
interesting to investigate how literacy functions in the home culture -
does it function with pragmatic purpose? Does it function with
religion? How does this affect writing ability in English?

5. Initiate interdisciplinary studies.

To further gain insight into the complexity of the writing process,
it is possible to elicit help from other departments in joint
projects. For example, it might be possible to elicit help from the
School of Medicine and/or the Psychology Department to gather
observational data on the composing behaviors of ESL writing students to
see how varying writing tasks affect their brain activites. Video

taping and electroencephalograms might give us a clearer picture of the

178

writing behaviors and cognitive processes during composing and the ways
these behaviors and processes interact to produce a written product.

It is also conceivable that we launch an interdisciplinary venture
with experts in Experimental Psychology to develop a valid and reliable
instrument to measure some intangible results of writing improvement -
attitudinal change from apprehension to relative confidence as students
move from day one to the last day of the term.

6. Investigate the relationship between writing frequency and writing
improvement on a discourse level.

Another area of possible investigation is the relationship between
writing frequency and improvement in writing quality on a discourse
level. Krashen (198”) reported several studies on writing and writing
frequency of L1 writers in high school and college, but there is, as
yet, no published research relating frequency of writing to writing
competence in ESL. Briere's study which I reported in Chapter IV
measured writing fluency and grammatical accuracy, but he did not look
at organization, style, or writing quality. There is a need to study
the relationship between writing frequency and writing improvement
beyond the sentence level. We need empirical research data to either
support or discourage the use of journal/free writing to affect writing
fluency and/or writing quality.

7. Comparison study of conference teaching and non-conference teaching
classes.

To test the effectiveness of conference teaching, we can do a
comparison study between a writing class using a conference-centered
format and one using a non-conference-centered format. A well-designed

and well-executed study of a controlled group and an experimental group

179

will provide empirical data to see how well the conference-centered
method can hold up.

8. Comparison study of written response and oral response during
conference.

We can further test the effectiveness of conference teaching by a
comparison study of the results of immediate oral responses during
conferences and the results of written responses to students' written
products. In comparing revisions done as a result of these two
different methods of responding to student writing, we can see which
kind of response is likely to bring about greater improvement in writing
competence.

9. Longitudinal studies to test the effectiveness of teaching methods.

Not only are comparison studies useful, longitudinal studies are
needed to test the effectiveness of our teaching methods. To date,
there is a lack of developmental studies related to ESL writing in our
literature. There is a need for longitudinal studies to see what
happens to students' writing competence over time. We need to see if
learned strategies such as invention and revision are retained over a
period of time. It would be interesting to follow a student through the
different levels as he progresses throughout the year and see if there
is any carryover of writing strategies learned from one level to the
next. We can also do some followup studies to see how some of our
students are doing in the way of meeting writing demands in the various
departments after they exit from our training program. Information thus
gathered will provide insights that might help improve our writing

curriculum.

180

10. Study the relationship between pleasure reading and writing
competence.

The claim I made that a large amount of reading can improve writing
ability was based on the experience of only two students in my writing
classes. There is, as yet, no published research in this area in ESL
literature. We need more empirical data to show whether or not there is
a direct, positive relationship between amounts of reading and increased
writing competence. In this area there can be at least two possible
lines of inquiry:

1. Study of the relationship between second language

writing and second language reading - a comparison
study of two groups of writing students, one required
to do a great deal of reading and the other no
reading at all.

2. Survey of students' reading habits in their first

language to see if there is any substantial causal

relationship between reading habits in first language
and writing competence in second language.

181

CONCLUSION

ESL writing teachers need to learn to understand and experience the
writing process as a dynamic, creative, and complex process. We need to
learn to guide our students through the various phases of the composing
process - to formulate and reformulate ideas, and to refine their
drafts. We need to encourage reading for meaning and writing to convey
meaning. We need to recognize that our ultimate goal in teaching
writing is to help students acquire the written code and develop an
efficient writing process. In order to do this we must be well-informed
in and keep abreast with current research and pedagogy in both L1 and L2
writing. We must continue to grow and learn as we search for better
ideas and better techniques in the writing classroom.

As to writing research, there are untold possibilities for the
writing teacher. I have suggested only a few that we can undertake to
provide greater insight into how foreign students write, and how ESL
writing can best be taught. ESL writing teachers can be instrumental in
answering some of the questions raised by this study. Furthermore, they
can initiate and conduct other kinds of research. ESL writing teachers
are in a unique position to generate many important researchable
questions and to carry out studies that will yield significant data. We
have the dual responsibility of developing effective teaching methods
and techniques, as well as refining and reshaping discourse theory. We
need to exert a consorted effort to bring about a meaningful writing

experience to foreign students, to do the kind of thinking and research

182

that is consistent with second language acquisition theory and practice,

and also consistent with writing theory and practice.

APPENDICES

Appendix A

Abdul's and Mohammad's writing - samples of monitor under-user
and monitor over-user. The under-users tend to branch out and

write more.

Mohaw mu Az-rodq ,3-
Jvm /' 8,1955
3.0 Hm! I

My bedroom

hir {5 Mj beéreem . If: theirbeJVoom.
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192

Appendix B

Information Sheet and Interview Questions

Name

INFORMATION SHEET

 

(Family Name)

Country

Family Background

Parents

Hometown

(First Name)

 

 

Siblings

 

 

 

Education

Elementary School

 

Secondary School

 

College

 

Graduate School

 

Work Experience

 

Native Language

 

193

7.
8.

10.
ll.

12.

13.

l”.

INITIAL INTERVIEW

What language do you speak outside of class?

Do you speak English at all in the evenings and during weekends?
How old were you when you first began to learn English?

How many years of English have you studied?

Describe some of the methods your English teacher used.

Can you remember when you wrote your first composition in English?
a. What did you write about?

b. Was it a positive or negative experience? Why?

c. What kinds of comments did your teacher give?

Do you translate from your language when you write in English?
Do you say things aloud before you write them down in English?

Why did you choose to write on instead of the
other topics?

 

What do you use written language for in your country?
How often do you write in your own language? For what purpose?

What do you think your strengths and your weaknesses are in
writing?

What do you hope to learn from taking this writing course?

Do you have other concerns you would like to talk about at this
time?

194

10.
ll.

12.

13.

l”.

15.

16.

SECOND INTERVIEW

What is the difference between writing at home and writing in
class?

Do you find it easy or difficult to start and stop writing?

How much time do you need for prewriting or planning before you
write?

Why did you choose to write about rather than
the other topics?

 

Do you make an outline before you begin to write?

Do you proofread your composition before you hand it in?
What kinds of teacher comments to you find helpful?

Do you find the correction symbols helpful?

Do you think rewriting can help you improve your writing? In what
way?

Have you been reading your rewrites out loud? Why or why not?
Do you like to correct each other's dictations/compositions?

Do you like to listen to your classmates' journals and
compositions? Why or why not?

Do you like to share your work with your classmates? Why or why
not?

Do you still translate from your language when you write in
English?

What encourages you to continue to write in English?

Please give your comments on your writing experience in this class.

195

9.

10.

11.

THIRD INTERVIEW

Do you still think in your native language and then translate into
English when you write?

Have you been reading your revised compositions aloud? Why/Why
not?

Do you pause periodically while you write? If so, when and why?

What tasks in this class do you like, and what don't you like?

How do you feel about teacher evaluation and peer evaluation?

Do you think reading more English can help you write better? What
have you been reading? (newspapers, magazines, books, etc.)

Do you want to continue to write in English?

How do you like living in the U.S.?

How do you like the American people?

In what way has this class helped you improve your writing? What
hasn't been so helpful?

What are some of your suggestions for improving this class?

196

Appendix C

Mohammad's letters — real audience inspired him to write more and

write better. Better than usual. Compare his work in Appendix A.

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Appendix D

Error Awareness Sheet

Name Jame. 1(rfiukub’cl

Class A [EULL UJUIHJG

 

ERROR AWARINES‘; SHEET

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202

Appendix E

Correction Symbols

SD

wf

CORRECTION SYMBOLS

spelling
SP
Example: I am studing English.

Rewrite:

I am studying English.

punctuation - comma, period, semicolon, apostrophe, hyphen,

question mark, quotation marks, etc.
P

Example: Yousef came to clsss lateL_because he had to see the
doctor.
Rewrite: Yousef came to class late because he had to see the
the doctor.
Or: Because Yousef had to see the doctor, he came to class
late.
P
Example: Julio went to Chicago_
Rewrite: Julio went to Chicago.
D P
Example: Mohammad said, __come to see meg.
Rewrite: Mohammad said, "Come to see me."
P
Example: Nihat is from Turkey_ Takahashi is from Japan.
Rewrite: Nihat is from Turkey; Takahashi is from Japan.
Or: Nihat is from Turkey and Takahashi is from Japan.

wrong word

ww

Example: The thing that I like the most is it's convenience.

Rewrite: The thing that I like the most is its convenience.
ww

Example: The write thing to do is to apologize.

Rewrite: The right thing to do is to apologize.

wrong form

(1) tense
wf(l)
Example: This morning I wake up at 7:o'clock.
Rewrite: This morning I woke up at 7:00 o'clock.

(2) subject verb agreement

wf(2)
Example: My wife speak very little English.
Rewrite: My wife speaks very little English.

(3) number

wf(3)
Example: I understand every words on TV.
Rewrite: I understand every word on TV.

203

W0

cap

org

PD

fp

ref

(”) adjective/adverb/noun/pronoun
wf(”)
Example: My friend can sing beautiful.
Rewrite: My friend can sing beautifully.

(5) infinitive/gerund
wf(S)
Example: Tatsuchi practiced to speak English.
Rewrite: Tatsuchi practiced speaking English.

word order

wo
Example: I need more and more to learn.
Rewrite: I need to learn more and more.

capitalization

cap
Example: Omar talked with an american friend.
Rewrite: Omar talked to an American friend.

new paragraph
meaning not clear
organization
preposition

DP
Example: I travelled for train and bus.

Rewrite: I travelled by train and bus.
insert (add something)

Example: My friend told me to useAEnglish-English dictionary.
Rewrite: My friend told me to use an English-English dictionary.

faulty parallelism

fp
Example: Sunday is a day for relaxation and study much.
Rewrite: Sunday is a day for relaxation and much studying.

referent
ref
Example: Kang, Kim and Lee were at the party and he played the
piano.
Rewrite: Kang, Kim and Lee were at the party and Kang played the
piano.

incomplete sentence
i-s
Example: Because it is raining,
Rewrite: Because it is raining, I have to carry an umbrella.
Or: I have to carry an umbrella because it is raining.

204

R-S run-on sentence

Example:

Rewrite:

In New York I saw the biggest building and

Monday was St. Partick's Day I saw Rosalyn R-S
Carter people were celebrating St. Patrick's Day

in New York.

In New York I saw the biggest building. Monday

was St. Patrick's Day. I saw Rosalyn Carter in

New York, celebrating St. Patrick's Day with

the people.

we word choice

Example:
Rewrite:

wc
In the evening I made my homework.
In the evening I did my homework.

Ways to correct a run-on sentence:

1. Use a period and begin the second clause with a capital letter.

2. Use a semicolon and continue with the second clause.

3. Use a comma and join with one of the connecting words such as
and, but, 23, nor, so, for, etc.

”. Use a relative pronoun such as who, which, whose, that, etc.

Think about the relationship between the ideas in your clauses first.
See what kind of relationship you wish to express between your ideas
before deciding which is the best way to correct your run-on sentence.

WYS/198”

205

Appendix F

First and second draft - illustrates how second draft can be
improved after a conference (further development of paragraphs and

correction of mechanics and grammar).

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we not. us. aux. to em a urns. w mm . '1 Autumn. max out was. (.0le16 Pm!)
out. snub mom. twain») mo (Be (Mum ELM‘ to uuor-urwt ewwmtuo. CUT
M. wow wet woke ‘MvJuL. min! Mme if we uuw mm to [EA-LU if (nut. .

we we» not me coming ms was A can out 0F miwtt.

208

Appendix G

Initial test - January 7, 1985

Final test - March 8, 1985

Pleasure reading and writing progress.

INITIAL WRITING TEST SCORE - 502

J ' /-.C_~" ,7; __ -
Inurm; TEST — um: 72c taut. zen-nun: TEST no. 1.4.

Write as such as you can, as well as you can, in an original se--1mm composition on
_o_n_e_ of the three topics. Writs on both sides of this paper. Use pen 2: paneii.

i. What person would you most like to spend a day with? (Tail who the person is.
any you chose tho person, and what you would do on this special day.)

2. Should boys and girls Ran the sans education? Why (or why wot)?

18 I:

3. Describe tha raiationship batwaan your nativa county and the U.S.A.

E)

“feat/'4 [j A Gav; (12¢, SrIE [/L'é l0 THL'ACAU m I/Fx boot uzt fl/‘W'
TECUY A .559 7//& 7007- AWL .Soccsz: ,4 SHE ,5 u/ IE1)? Ila/Jr." a 7‘

Is Maj-“(Joni IU We 5W6");-

3~E (nu qu/ ’0 l/SA A00 Sit/1C Ma, 1441/ 94,: 5876/93:
to 7H6 caterer/J 00 LA} mam uv scowec AUL‘ $~e awe;
69 so new “Luce . 5.42, 19;}. “5, L 4010‘, 7c; any Enough Lt-‘OUSG ‘CU

1 a
DC‘UT {DOLL} ”M16... FuGugH A0?) A lruggv

 

 

 

 

 

r

(3‘) #1 (0077:” ’5 #E‘rlco AL‘L‘ we #405 50.3.7) eel/awry; Re 7‘0
-‘
U5 A 550““?— ‘WE H'srcc/ 4 Mary mag 70 revue purse
5((4'OH/‘L‘4 (005(‘(ML 1 .601.”- .0401 féong ””05 505,141,}; /0 [/axlrc
of trace
‘2” ALL NEIHAUS ROME (LWAUT 70 £4.66.) USA Lgtcgvje .5 A
(.001) (entry Am“. 4:0 MU 95W AUYT'MIL pub '15 7mm! Is gay.”
I

, I
“‘1. Mgmkm 91.0111: Crap”. Tc vac/mow no Memo, flétAvjs 15. um;

AU. giant: Sou 4g) «:7

 

 

209

FINAL WRITING TEST SCORE: - 772

VRITINC TEST (03/08/85) TEST '0. \‘8

"rite as much as you can, as well as you can, in an original JO-oinute cor-position on ONE
of the three topics belou. Hrite on BOTH sides of this paper. Use pen or pencil.

l. "he! would you do with one million dollars?
OR

2. what is your country's biggest problem? llou can it be solved?
OR

3. Pescribe your most valuable possession.

 

 

u! uosr ugmg tossess‘gn
WW “MW “9° U! 'vbw- '1 “WW- “M"
I

$2.ng WHEY file \llfiy inOttALfl :09, us. , “it“ not»; «one. «but I» ‘07

 

o? extensive TfileL on. magi 301’ was; auu'T kmouam \u Hg Li“.
I 9.1 was? genus: 'fi' isgulufiniuuuu ‘E‘MG . 3 “us, 9.: coon ennui?
u: a wuss mugs. s 1 am! at. Bu LLL NRC»: vast:
flu; augicg' 7%: new uc. ans Tug may? rug sent the. uL Au; '1 1’00.
“KIA—W“? mount mansion AW

uttu nut ”ulfiuu W6 no.1“; 39“ won"! 63; “3"?“ int—’1: wauiulJ 501' uego 'IO HAVE,

 

 

 

$1,119st I? out ".0509 ”E‘s-our «aug sugup A «1.. ““3“ 10 .9 tgigub wuss 1m;
._.".2__'\_5'°lfhu" Var-Lust isms raxggo or. rueuos A 73: u.» an! «“5 -
‘3“- egumous 3%“! TM. «one. aunt-nu «to you Ms}: goo oou'T Nov-J ML
.lD Tan watts. nun Two“. Kong waus. omen wuumu bub 1%“ Uh: Tr“! “‘1 _

film! ‘IOQ .

 

Wfifiu V00 UfiET MTFQIQDTS none . 300 “u Km“) ~ lb" or o‘cfiepgux 1%.;Uv5
_3.W_W “‘20 ‘0 “WA one ““8 mm; oowo «at aw in awe. 693+

.1 w . WT 0* “A VAN-‘11 . “6. KS pl'tc snub aggtglcku‘rs 10 «‘43 NF. .
will "°°' 3 $2 u 0‘ ‘HCH ‘wusg Nuts mg “gym man as ¢uo
MW “5‘ “MG. . mo -\\‘£3MWK mower: AUG
_.'£=-_Aub "HE! want soc 0: w; an;

3- umu Myra «no grocer none ‘I to»; EN.» I so n'1' sub 1%, «one.
IMH- Nfi, «m’y . '1 a“ To user Nous BEE}: I tutu omittors cuirous won
ownerms mines or: "Miu .

210

Appendix H

Viraphol first writes a paragraph in his native language, Thai, and
then writes the same ideas in English. He then explains the
difference between writing in his native language and writing in

English.

m. Viki? mm. mm max/9m g .3
Hm ”I’M? mm; mm

film /5 MUM/H mmy/ II/muxw A/MHXN'ZW mmomm Mara” ~19:er
lnl’Uflor‘hd" OHM/”7H"; ”3598mm! MYDUfl‘ixflmi 'X‘llflI/{flfli ‘Obfl'x/fimrflu’l lid)!”
”(mum/79 7113071211796! 1m.- Mair» EMT/mute mmuyngulflim mnxumyzwxn
m :X/zwml’wmlu 19 M numzn/hnubzw mei'wm nebula ”Mining‘s/v] N

’” 5’ 7%.? ’./ ”H“ 4/” al’
mn'mlmrmn nmnN'anmA l mmm mu MI .W mm!” swam»:

flumvmg 1mm mmbml’m'h _. fl ,_

WWW/MW 5.15mi? mafia/w “gig/fl} ”My/hay

_ if“; albflmlanm m. 904%“ a/ajvym
yfinég JafbflmngmW 9m. fl/éeéiaf/zmy
M4,hfloéfldwmpflWflI/¢MMw{y/m%
Infizfmwmjwflwmflumm Miami/”no _

fiéfluf flugxiqa MM/ommzé/L Wmarwffit

57AM WWW

.—..——- . ~ c..— _ ._..- s
.—

xfim’ ”7 M

JWaQAWW/u. 14/020 /%/2 mSémr flit/00
[MW/Mmfiyl .4 179mm Am; fl.

rim/0M ӎ W ,2
fig. ,MMM/ Wmfiuflsflf 62.7.6
ifffig/éxd mfgjflMfluflé'yJM/m/s (m

M

211

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