The Writing Process

Using Writing to Explore with Minimal Editing
Sharing, Revising, Reflecting
The Writing Process Assignments
Other Links

Many traditional textbooks teach writing by identifying features of an essay and asking students to reproduce them.  But the journey that writers take to compose a final draft is often not reflected in that finished piece. The readings in this section help students to take this journey and to see writing not as a tool to transcribe what they already know, but as a medium for exploring, re-thinking, and revising.

Using Writing to Explore with Minimal Editing:


Sharing, Revising, Reflecting
:

  • Hewitt, Beth. "From Topic to Presentation: Making Choices to Develop Your Writing"
    Students need to learn how to revise their writing based on readers' feedback, but they rarely know how to make such decisions. This chapter teaches students how to make decisions about essay development and revision by modeling and explaining a writing teacher's decision-making process.

  • Dethier, Brock. “Revising Attitudes”
    Dethier explains that all writers, even professionals, have to overcome a resistance to revising.  He encourages students to explore why writers resist revising in order to see revision in a more positive light. He then offers advice on how to go about the revising process.

 

The Writing Process Assignments:

Un Persuasive Writing
(Chris Weaver)
Traditionally, persuasive papers are about following a form.  Often such assignments emphasize the parts of an essay (having a thesis, supporting it with reasons, countering opposing arguments, reaching a conclusion).  This assignment discards these “parts” in favor of a process of discovery, and I think it leads to much fresher and more engaging writing.  Instead of focusing on changing a reader’s mind (which is not usually a realistic goal), it focuses on the writer changing theirs—or at least coming to understand the topic in a new way. This assignment is described in detail in the OER Workshop Video (embedded above) where we discuss readings and assignments from English 1100 Readings, focusing on the sections:  “The Writing Process” and “Rhetoric, Genre and Discourse.” 

The Indirect Benefits of Using Peer Review Writing Exercises
(Sean Molloy 14 Sep. 2015)
This Assignment Package simply offers a variety of models of peer review exercises.  Of course, peer review is not limited to digital classrooms.  These exercises will work in paper or digital classrooms.  They can be a model for faculty workshops as we have done at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, or they can serve as brainstorming material for teachers planning any syllabi.   Any of these models can be mixed and matched, adopted or adapted depending on your teaching goals and class preferences. This package is drawn from teacher workshops at Hunter College and the Grad Center in 2012 and 2014.
The link above leads to assignment information on the CUNY Composition Community website. 

Reading and Assignment to Pair with Writing Center Visit
(Sean Molloy, Tracey Pletz, and Eric Scholz)
This assignment requires students to attend a session at the Writing Center and reflect on the experience. All 1000-level students are required to attend one session at an appropriate academic support center like the Writing Center, and this is one way of building that requirement into your course. 
Murray explains that writing and revising are tools writers use to think and make meaning clear. He provides his revision checklist along with a description of each step, which can serve as a how-to guide to show students what substantial revision is and how it differs from proofreading. 

Collaborative Commenting as Reading Annotation
(Jack Kenigsburg 25 Aug. 2014.)  
Students collaboratively annotate Orlean Anderson’s “The Writing Process Rejected” using  the “Insert Comment” feature on Google Docs.
The link above leads to assignment information on the CUNY Composition Community website. 

Beyond the Red Ink: Teachers' Comments Through Students' Eyes

In this video, Bunker Hill Community College students discuss how they perceive their professors’ writing feedback. They examine which comments are unhelpful and why, as well as offer advice as to what kind of feedback they would like to receive. Watching this video with your students can lead into some great reflective activities-both writing and discussion-prior to students getting and giving feedback. What kinds of feedback are most useful to give and receive? 

Please click through these links to explore the other suggested readings categories:


Click here to return to the ENG 1100-College Writing main page

Click here to view recommended assignments for ENG 1100

Click here for information on how to build a syllabus for ENG 1100