English Education

Writing Skills

Understanding what writing is, how it is different from speech and what factors affect written communication is necessary to devise effective techniques to teach and test writing.  After this enquiry into the processes involved in written communication, a review of the teaching techniques is undertaken.  This includes an analysis of the types of themes assigned to the learners and the procedures of instruction in writing from the time of Iscocrates to the present.  This analysis helps in drawing implications for teaching writing.  

2.1       The nature of writing

It is important to identify the skills involved in written communication to devise effective techniques to teach and test writing.  To identify the skills we need to know what writing actually involves.  Hence this section reviews the processes involved in writing, the difference between speech and writing and the factors that affect written communication.

2.1.1   What is writing?

What writing is and how it is developed has been a subject of discussion and debate for centuries, from the time of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintillian to the present. Through there are different viewpoints, it is commonly agreed that writing is much more than the mere production of graphic symbols.  Given below are some of the views of various writers.  They are presented in the following format for clarity of expression.  It should be noted that the concepts of various writers overlap.

a.         Writing – a complete ‘text’

According to Donn Byrne (1979), writing is not the mere production of graphic symbols.  In his book ‘Teaching Writing Skills’ he discusses the importance of producing a coherent ‘text’, by arranging the graphic symbols to form words, that in turn are arranged to form sentences, which are arranged in a proper sequence and linked to form a coherent whole.

According to him writing involves a lot of mental effort because we have to keep the reader in mind when we write.  The reader may not be present physically and in some cases the reader may not even be known to us.  So we have to ensure that what we write is

“... As explicit as possible and complete in itself”.    (Donn Byrne 1979:1)

That is, the reader should be able to understand what we have written without any further help from us.

b.         Writing – a communicative occurrence

Liz Hamp-Lyons and Ben Heasley (1984) in their article ‘Survey Review’ in ELT Journal (Vol. 38) define writing as,

                            “… a communicative occurrence between a writer and an intended reader in which the writer creates a discourse with the imagined reader and derives from this a text by which an actual reader may approximate to the original discourse.”

c.         Writing – a series of episodes

Writing proceeds through a series of writing episodes, in which there is an interaction going on between an overall but general plan, a specific plan of sentence or paragraph and what is written on the page.  There are periods of  transcription,  the actual writing of words and reflection, where what is written is reread  and decisions are made for further writing.  In fact, several operations will be going on simultaneously, with interaction taking place between thinking of what is going to be expressed, planning the text, composition a sentence and transcribing it.

d.         Writing – a series of schemes

According to Bereiter (1980) a number of schemes must be put into operation by a writer when he writes.  He mentions three major schemes and a number of sub – schemes under each head.

The main schemes are as follows:

1.            A general executive scheme: a general scheme that selects the general structure of writing (a letter rather than an essay)

2.            A content processing scheme.

3.            A language processing scheme.

As the writer gains experience his repertoire expands.  Bereiter has given a model of skill systems which represents integration in writing developments.  This model (figure 1) shows the development of the individual as he moves from speech to writing and through various stages of writing.  A new cognitive dimension is added to each of the stages and the development is traced through the process and product of writing.

e.         Writing – knowledge & experience

Stein, Nancy l. (1983), emphasizes that there is a close relationship between the amount of knowledge an individual has about a topic and the ease with which a coherent piece of prose can be constructed.  The generalisability of certain types of writing instruction may be severely constrained by the amount and type of knowledge that has been acquired about a particular content area.  According to Donald M. Murray (1983) writing is concerned with ideas, the production and organization of ideas and finding out what it is that one wants to express in a written message.  Through the process of using language in writing we discover meaning in experience and try to communicate it to others.

f.          Writing – Social Context

Florio-Ruane, Susan (1983) suggests that without attention to the social contexts of writing, both in the classroom activity and in the relation between audience and author, teachers cannot be certain that practising discrete skill will actually transfer to tasks elsewhere.  Mosenthal Peter (1983) argues the need to consider the sociopolitical dimension of writing competency in addition to the conceptual and design criteria dimensions.

The above discussions emphasise the fact that a writer needs to employ a number of schemes to produce a coherent text which communicate effectively   his message to the reader.  A brief review of the difference between oral and written communication could be useful for a better understanding of the procedures involved in transcribing ideas into graphic symbols.

• Speech and Writing
• Factors Affecting Writing
• EFL ESL Teaching Writing
• Writing Tasks
• Science of Teaching
• Writing TESOL Situation