Teaching the Writing Process by Writing With Your Students

Teaching the writing process? I model the process for my students— errors, mistakes, frustrations, and all.

We all want young writers to understand steps of the writing process and to personalize the process for their own writing. In all of my experiences, writing alongside classes accomplishes these goals.

Why? Well, it seems writing longhand (letters and correspondences) has largely been removed from our society. Students don’t see their parents write a rough draft to the insurance company or read over a letter to a friend. So when teachers ask them to embark on the writing process, they draw a blank. Students see adults sit at a keyboard and type.

And nothing is wrong with that—the world changes! Still, young writers need to approach writing a large paper differently than typing a quick email. Teaching the writing process through modeling builds a collaborative classroom setting for future assignments.

Teaching writing is a complex process because so many ways exist to write, and effective writers know what works for them. For instance, I am a freestyler, brainstorming a list and then write a rough draft. I often then circle back to prewriting/brainstorming to better my ideas and in the process, write another rough draft.

For me, the stages of the process are recursive, not linear. With young students, I walk through the components of the writing process (writing) in front of them.

Do I have time for teaching the writing process this way?

Yes. It may seem like lots of extra work, but when when we model generating ideas, drafting, and on, classes have an example, and they can see that even a teacher does not simply sit down and write a paper.

In the process, we build connections as students see us stumble over word choice and punctuation. Young writers see their teacher question grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. Like any other writer, we probably doubt ourselves at times. Classes appreciate that authenticity and through the modeling, we build a strong community, one where humans can recover from mistakes.

Overall process.

Writing is recursive, not linear, something to explain in first lessons with a class. We stick to a basic writing process:

1. Prewriting/Brainstorming

2. Drafting

3. Revising/Editing

4. Editing

5. Publishing

As a class and individuals grow, they start to stray from the process and loop back and forth until they get the desired outcome. Stress this freedom and recursive method to show a trust in writers’ developments.

To walk through that writing process together, we write together.

You can use any topic, but I often choose a fun one: cookies. Students feel comfortable talking about cookies, they have prior knowledge, and we then have an inside joke we can reference for the semester which builds community. Of course, you can use any topic to write with your classes, but my go-to topic is cookies.

Below is my method of modeling the writing process with the topic of cookies.

1. Brainstorming and prewriting methods:

To begin, provide an assortment of ways for students to pre-write. (Feel free to add more ideas in the comments!)

• Outline
• List
• Comparison/Contrast chart
• Web graphic organizer
• Problem/Solution chart
• Sandwich/Hamburger chart (often used with my junior high students— high school kids don’t seem to care for this)
• Multiple other graphic organizers

What helps students the most is that I complete this activity with them. They see me struggle for ideas and come up with ideas that don’t connect well with my topic; they see me get frustrated when I have to mark out concepts and rearrange them; they watch me arrange my prewriting into different categories, which will become my different paragraph; they learn that prewriting is messy, unorganized, and frustrating at points.

My go-to is a “bulleted list” person: For cookies, we list the different kinds (sugar, chocolate, sour cream, snickerdoodle), the ingredients, the seasons and holidays, the calories, connections to family—all of it! Sure, we won’t write about that many topics, but together, young writers witness the thought process and the time to articulate and brainstorm everything about the topic.

Plus, every student contributes to the brainstorming process which builds a community.

Looking for more ideas for teaching the writing process? This blog post deals with brainstorming and prewriting.

2. Drafting methods:

Students have even seen me change my mind about a topic and start over, excitement when I am onto a great idea, and thought process as I pre-write. If I feel writer’s block, I’m honest with them.

First, we decide if we will write an argumentative, informative, or narrative paper about cookies. (My cookie activity has examples for all three types.) We write together, normally with my typing and their contributing ideas. We trade and discuss paragraph organization and transitions and what works and what doesn’t.

This part of teaching the writing process shows them that no rough draft is perfect, it is a working draft. Mine has mistakes and I encourage my class to offer suggestions. This also provides students an opportunity for practicing giving and receiving constructive feedback, important parts of writing instruction.

With the cookie activity, I verbalize my process for narrowing down the draft for my topic. We could write a book on the history of cookies, how to bake cookies, holiday cookies, and more. Instead, writing about different types of cookies provides a narrow topic. Each type of cookie will be a body paragraph, leading to clarity, especially in the topic sentence.

Looking for more writing process activities? This blog post is entirely dedicated to helping students draft their essays. 

3. Revising methods:

During revision, I often head back to my prewriting to be sure that I can’t better organize the paper. Sometimes I missed a point that I now see the perfect spot to insert. As I am teaching the writing process and its revision methods, I also have an opportunity to reflect on what I want the overall message of the paper to be, and to see if I am hitting that mark. (Verbalize these ideas in front of students.)

The modeling might seem awkward at first, but young writers lack a framework for revising. Teaching the writing process requires sharing your process as a writer.

As I write about cookies, different genres have different requirements that we should fix during revision. If I choose to write an informative paper for modeling, I show students how I naturally included first person. To delete and edit that, I model for students how to rearrange sentences to make them formal.

Looking for more writing process activities? This blog post is entirely dedicated to making student revising meaningful.

4. Editing methods:

Dependent upon the age group, time limits, and class attitude, we proofread or edit in a variety of ways:

• As a class, students develop criteria for proofreading. The large umbrella for criteria can focus on focus, support, organization, or conventions, all or some. This manner works well for struggling writers because then everyone can focus on one aspect. Classes who write well can focus on all of them. Small groups can check each other’s work and their own.
• I provide a checklist for the class. Students then check their own, a partner’s, or a group’s work.
• We proofread as a class. This works well with a close-knit class, one that is willing to participate and share writing samples. Students volunteer sentences they need help reworking, or read a section of their papers that need reformed.

Again, I share with students my ways of proofreading, checking punctuation with sentence structure, and checking other grammatical rules. I even rotation with them during stations.

Finally, we might read our papers aloud to catch spots that sound odd or forgotten mistakes. Whatever my expectations are for student editing throughout the school year, we practice it together.

Looking for more writing process activities? This blog post is entirely dedicated to making student editing meaningful. 

5. Publication methods:

For high school students, this typically includes printing or submitting. It can also include presenting part of the paper to practice speaking skills or turning some of the information into a power-point. Sometimes, I ask students to print their papers and display them on a bulletin board. I will make a simple display and invite them to share their papers. That way, I am not in charge of this final stage of the writing process, and students don’t need to share if they do not feel like doing so.

With my middle school students, I’ve found they really enjoy turning their writing into artistic endeavors. For instance, they can add pictures or graphics to a poster that help emphasize and explain their writing. I have also made a digital portfolio using Google Slides and shared it with the class. (You can export the Slides as a PDF and share with families as well.) Finally, invite administrators or other teachers into your room for young authors to present.

Students contribute to the cookie paper, and they enjoy reading it. It becomes a published paper they can consult, one that I modeled and took their advice in developing.

Looking for more writing process activities? This blog post is entirely dedicated to publishing student work. 

It may seem that your writing lesson plans will be extensive and create more work for the teacher, that perhaps you will become tired as you model. I’ve found the opposite. By modeling writing, revising, and the entire process with students, they understand expectations better. Their papers are of higher quality.

Overall, the approach with cookies is of course fun but also, quite reachable for classes.

Finally, the more I teach, the more I find that reflecting on the writing process with students is an important step. At the end of an assignment, we spend time discussing what went well and what students have learned as writers. Teaching the process requires a reflection too.

Use these ideas and personalize them for your English language arts classroom.

Do you have any other tips to offer? Other ideas to incorporate?

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