Writing



= ** The Writing Process: ** =

Step 1: **Prewriting or Selecting the Topic**: Students get to make decisions here. This is where the students get to choose what they want to write about. Students begin to formulate their thoughts around their topics.Students who select their own topics are more likely to create a better product if they get to choose the topic. A teachers role is a guide in prewriting. The students do there thinking and use graphic organizers, list cluster maps, and even talk in pairs to help choose and develop their topics

Step 2: **Drafting**: Now that the student has their topic chosen, now we get to show the students how to write. There are two stages to drafting.
 * There is the planning stage where the students think about what they want to say and how they want to say it. Here the students look at who their audience is and what style they need to write in. They students could use graphic organizers, semantic mapping and this is where we introduce outlines.
 * Composing is where students are shown how to write on lined paper. This is where develop their topics. This is where the students start to write their first draft.

Step 3: **Revising**: Students look over their writing and examine ideas, word choice, voice, etc. This is not a natural step for students so we as teachers need to model and guide our students on how to properly do this. students need to be shown what to look for when revising. The focus of revision is content. Students rewrite things that need to b changed or add things that help move their writing along.

Step 4: **Editing or Proofreading**: This process is done once all content changes have been made. Here students get to do things like check spelling, grammar, sentence structures and mechanics.

Step 5: **Publishing**: There are two key elements to publishing. 1. Putting the writing in a form to be shared with the class and 2. making the final copy of writing. Once the student has reworked, checked and rechecked they are now ready to write the final copy and share it. It does not matter how students share their writing, only that they do!