6.Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages. Process writing approaches tend to be framed in three stages of writing. The prewriting stage encourages the generation of ideas, which can happen. in numerous ways:
• reading (extensively) a passage
• skimming and/or scanning a passage
• conducting some outside research
• brainstorming (see below)
• listing (in writing—individually)
• clustering (begin with a keyword, then add other words, using free association)
• discussing a topic or question
• instructor-initiated questions and probes
• freewriting
The drafting and revising stages are the core of process writing. In traditional approaches to writing instruction, students either are given timed in class compositions to write from start to finish within a class hour, or they are given a homework writing assignment. The first option gives no opportunity to students for systematic drafting, and the second assumes that if students did any drafting at all they would simply have to learn the tricks of the trade on their own. In a process approach, drafting is viewed as an important and complex set of strategies, the mastery
of which takes time, patience, and trained instruction. Several strategies and skills apply to the drafting/revising process in writing:
• getting started (adapting the freewriting technique)
• "optimal" monitoring of one's writing (without premature editing and diverted attention to wording, grammar, etc.)
• peer-editing (accepting/using classmates' comments)
• using the instructor's feedback
• "read aloud" technique (in small groups or pairs, students read their almost-final drafts to each other for a final check on errors, flow of ideas, etc.)
• proofreading
7. Techniques should be as interactive as possible. It is no doubt already apparent that a process-oriented approach to writing instruction is, by definition, interactive (as students work in pairs and groups to generate ideas and to peer-edit), as well as learner centered (with ample opportunities given to students to initiate activity and exchange ideas). Writing techniques that focus on purposes other than compositions (such as letters, forms, memos, directions, short reports) are also subject to the principles of interactive classrooms. Group collaboration, brainstorming, and critiquing are as easily and successfully a part of many writing-focused techniques. Don't buy into the myth that writing is solitary activity! Some of it is, to be sure, but a good deal of what makes a good writer can be most effectively learned within a community of learners.