THE POWER OF WRITING

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THE POWER OF WRITING

• JoAnn (Jodi) CrandallUniversity of Maryland
  Baltimore County (UMBC)crandall_at_umbc.edu

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WRITINGTHE NEGLECTED SKILL IN EFL

• My classes are too large.
• I dont have enough time for writing.
• What can beginners write about?
• Im not a good writer in English. How can I
  teach writing?

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WRITING TOO IMPORTANT TO NEGLECT

• Writing provides
• A source of output
• A source of input
• Opportunities to develop accuracy
• Opportunities to develop fluency
• Opportunities to negotiate meaning
• A means of becoming a member of an academic or
  professional community

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3 MAJOR APPROACHES TO WRITING

• Product-based (focus on accuracy)
• Process-based (focus on fluency)
• Genre-based (focus on authenticity)
• Can be combined into one approach
• Process Genre Approach (Badger White, 2000)
• Each provides valuable activities

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PRODUCT-BASEDFOCUS ON ACCURACY

• Opportunity for
• Focus on form/Noticing
• Contextualized grammar/vocabulary instruction
  reinforcement
• Targeted feedback
• Monitoring production
• Successful writing for beginners/intermediates

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ACCURACY ACTIVITIESCONTROLLED WRITING

• Manipulate small bits of text
• Sentence-combining
• Change tense or number in paragraph
• Insert transitional devices
• Unscramble sentences
• Create sentences from key words
• Fill in blanks in sentences to form paragraph

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GUIDED WRITING

• Less structured than controlled
• Guidance provided
• Questions in meaningful order
• Lists of facts to include
• Opening or closing sentences
• Transitional devices
• e.g. Read paragraph and then write similar one
• Convert notes to a news story

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PROCESS-BASEDFOCUS ON FLUENCY

• Helps learners see writing as a recursive (not
  linear) process
• Planning (Pre-writing)
• Drafting Revising (Multiple drafts with
  feedback)
• Editing/Proofreading
• Encourages invention problem-solving
• Treats writing as more than practice

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FLUENCY ACTIVITIES

• Freewriting
• Dialogue journals
• E-mail, discussion boards, chats
• Personal or family stories
• Informal writing (blogs, diaries)
• Low-risk ways to use implicit knowledge
• of grammar, vocabulary, text structure

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FLUENCY OR ACCURACY NOT BOTH

• Fluency Focus on meaning
• Use of implicit learning
• Risk-taking
• Accuracy Focus on form
• Use of explicit (monitored) knowledge
• Care

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GENRE-BASEDFOCUS ON DISCOURSE

• Writing is socially situated
• People write for real audiences purposes,
  meeting discourse expectations (authentic
  products)
• Requires text analysis
• Structure key vocabulary
• Especially important at advanced levels

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GENRE ACTIVITIES

• Analyze characteristic texts (text structure,
  vocabulary)
• Teacher and students jointly compose comparable
  text
• Individual students write text (using writing
  process stages)
• Compare student texts with characteristic texts

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KEY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

• What is the purpose of this writing in this
  situation?
• Who is the audience?
• What is the writing expected to achieve?
• What are the characteristics of this genre of
  writing?
• What information must be presented?

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BASIS FOR WRITING PROMPT

• Writing tasks/assignments should include
• F Form (letter, summary, report)
• A Audience
• T Topic
• P Purpose (describe, explain, persuade)
• (FAT-P)

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VARY FOR PROFICIENCY

• Increase/Decrease level by varying any
• Audience Romeo and Juliet for our little
  brothers and sisters
• Purpose Summarize only the arguments against .
• Form E-mail directions for an assignment
• Topic Give one reason why

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PERENNIAL PROBLEMWHAT TO WRITE ABOUT

• Themes from readings (authentic academic writing)
• Themes from student discussions
• Individually selected topics (personal
  narratives, family stories)
• Picture prompts

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READING WRITING COMPLEMENTARY SKILLS PRACTICES

• We learn to read by reading, and
• We learn to write by writing.
• But
• We also learn to read by writing, and
• We learn to write by reading.
• And
• Both help students think more critically.

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WRITING ABOUT READING

• Writing before reading
• Predict what will happen in text
• Write about an issue/problem first
• Writing while reading
• Take notes in a learning log (rather than on text
  pages) ask questions
• Identify copy significant or striking passages
• Writing after reading
• Summarize
• Return to prediction or pre-reading
• Answer questions

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READING JOURNALS

• As students read, they can
• Record facts generalizations
• React to the text
• Make connections with their lives
• Make connections with other readings
• Ask questions
• Express doubts
• Paraphrase
• Summarize
• Adapted from V. Zamel, 1992.

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DOUBLE- TRIPLE-ENTRY LOGS

• Notes Questions Answers
• Comments Feedback
• Connections New Ideas
• Can use Qs or sentence starters to focus
  reading
• What surprised you? OR I was surprised at
• Can be completed in pairs or groups
• (Collaborative Writing)
• Can lead to paragraph or extended writing

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GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

• Diagrams that reflect text organization
• Venn Diagrams for comparisons
• Semantic maps for connections
• Timelines
• Sequence chains
• Informal outlines
• Charts
• Provide structure for reading
• Provide structure for writing (about reading)

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DICTO-COMPS

• Choose paragraph with grammar vocabulary that
  has been taught
• Read paragraph aloud several times
• Write key words on board in order
• Ask students to try to rewrite the paragraph as
  they remember it, using words on board
• Can use a paragraph they have read
• (Adapted from H. D. Brown, 2001)

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ACTIVITIES THAT PROMOTE CREATIVITY

• Picture-based tasks
• Photo autobiographies/class profiles
• Family/community histories
• Mystery artifacts
• Poetry

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USING PICTURES FOR WRITING

• Can be used with beginners or more advanced
• Select pictures that surprise, for
• Labeling/describing
• Captioning and headlining
• Narrating an incident
• What led to the picture? What happens next?
• Creating dialogue
• Explaining cause, comparing, etc.

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A PHOTO-JOURNAL

• Can be individual or class project
• Photo Autobiography/Class profile
• Pictures serve as base
• Powerful source of reading materials at students
  level
• Can be published in print or electronically

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POETRY

• Violation of language expectations creative
• Read samples of each, then imitate writing about
  a picture or incident
• Poetry frames
• Structured poems (haiku, cinquain, diamante)
• Shape poems

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POEMS FOR BEGINNERS

• We see _________________.
• We hear ________________.
• We feel _________________.
• We smell ________________.
• We taste ________________.
• White waves in a blue sea
• Birds crying
• The sun on our faces
• Salt water and sand

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CREATIVE LEARNER POETRY

• Many animals
• Are suffering by the man
• I think dont do that

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COLLABORATIVE WRITING

• Writing does NOT need to be solitary!
• Students can collaborate in
• Group projects
• Language experience approach
• Any stage in writing process (prewriting through
  publishing)
• Collaboration facilitates
• Meaningful communication negotiation of
  meaning
• Meta-cognition about writing and language

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THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY

• Provide both extensive intensive instruction
• R L to pick up vocabulary AND
• direct instruction use (W S)
• Focus on roots affixes
• Help learners develop vocabulary learning
  strategies
• personal dictionaries, memory strategies

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THE ACADEMIC WORD LISTwww.vuw.ac.nz/lals/resear
ch/awl/

• 3,500,000 word Academic Corpus
• 570 headwords with related words total of
  3,000 words organized by frequency into 10
  lists
• Words occur in Arts, Commerce, Law Science
  over 100 times in corpus
• Excluded were 2000 most frequent words in
  Michael Wests General Service List (1953)
• http//www.uefap.co.uk/vocab/select/gsl.htm

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THE ROLE OF LITERATURE

• Stimulus for discussion and writing
• Promotes extensive reading
• Source of interesting and meaningful
  input/Reading-writing link
• Focus for meaningful output
• Window to culture

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CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Intercultural differences in writing expectations
• Intercultural/contrastive rhetoric
• Reader- or writer-responsible prose
• Direct or indirect?
• Explicit or implied?
• Personal expression the work of others

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GRAMMAR ERROR CORRECTION

• When I speak and Im making a lot of
  mistakestheyre gone. I cant see it.
• But when I am writing and somebody corrects me, I
  can see my mistakes and I can learn from them.
• Usually, if I have a problem in grammar, I can
  learn from my mistakes. So thats the moment to
  learn grammar, through the context.
• (Jaime C.)

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SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS

• Writing
• Is more than a paragraph or essay
• Can promote fluency, accuracy, creativity
• Can help create a learning community
• Can be collaborative
• Does not always have to be marked
• Promotes meta-cognition

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WRITINGTOO POWERFUL TO IGNORE

• Even with large classes, limited time, students
  with limited language proficiency, insecurity
  about ones own writing
• It is possible and critically important
• to include writing in EFL