Writing skills are critical for educational achievement, success after graduation, career performance and life skills. With the continually growing use of digital communication methods including word processing, blogs, email, texting and other Internet-enabled forms, written communication skills are imperative for students to compete in the world today. However, writing does not come naturally to many people. Writing requires not only mechanical skills like grammar and structure, but also thinking and organizational skills to conceptualize what to say and how to communicate it in a manner that is both compelling and clear to the audience.
When I sit down to begin writing, I find that I can’t create the final cohesive text without first thinking through all of the preliminary steps of idea development and organization. In other words, I need to clarify what I am writing about and what I want to say before I start to form complete sentences. In my years of experience, I have found that this is true for most people. Yet while some people are able to do this in their heads, others need to write it down on paper or type it up on a computer. That’s why process writing is effective for many of your students.
Process writing, also known as the writing process, is a widely accepted way of teaching students to work through each step to arrive at a finished essay. These steps consist of four to five logical stages, including prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. In this post I would like to discuss some of the tools you can use with your students to help them through each stage of the writing process.
Introducing Our New Writing and Thinking Tool
In the past, working through the steps of writing required lots of handwritten materials, countless pages of paper, repeated printings, a headache of organization and numerous copies being edited and returned. Technology today has changed the way this process can operate. This is why I’m thrilled about our launch of Webspiration Classroom™ Service, our new collaborative, web-based program that improves writing and thinking skills.
What I love most about this program is that it truly helps me and others work through each step of the idea development and writing process. I want to share with you how Webspiration Classroom helps you teach process writing and in turn helps your students to become better writers.
Prewriting Ideas
Prewriting includes everything that is necessary to plan, research or brainstorm before creating the first draft of an essay. In Webspiration Classroom, students can:
- brainstorm with a visual map or an outline list to develop a topic, and also identify supporting content details and clarify holes in research or thinking. Using Webspiration Classroom’s Diagram or Outline views provides a flexible environment that best suits each students’ learning needs.
- easily hyperlink sources, use built-in images or import images from the Web to stimulate thinking and support emerging writers
- and work on writing outside the classroom at home, at the library, at an after-school program or anywhere with a computer and an Internet connection.
Drafting an Essay
Drafting begins after students have planned, gathered research, brainstormed and organized their thinking for an essay. At this stage, ideas should be explained, opinions supported and main ideas connected to subordinate concepts. Webspiration Classroom allows students to easily:
- switch their brainstormed diagram into an outline to begin drafting the document
- use Outline View to structure writing, increase focus and eliminate irrelevant materials
- expand research to support main points and opinions
- and easily move content around the document to further organize and structure the paper.
Revising Concepts
Revising is a time for students to read their initial draft and check for structure, transitions, clarity, and overall cohesiveness of ideas. At this time, students can ask peers or teachers to review their work and provide feedback to improve the content and structure. Students and teachers can collaborate and share documents in Webspiration Classroom to:
- have reviewers read and leave overall comments or detailed comments on the essay
- easily review the comments to then revise the essay
- work on a single document that tracks the source of all comments allowing students to review the feedback all at once and decided what to incorporate or not to incorporate
- and ask clarifying questions using the chat dialog.
Editing for Grammar
Once students have fully developed, organized and supported their ideas, they are ready for the editing stage. At this point in the writing process, students should check for grammatical, mechanical and spelling errors. Similar to the revising stage, in Webspiration Classroom, students can easily edit their work and teachers can help students by reviewing their documents and offering editing suggestions.
Publishing for Review
After their documents have been fully edited for content and grammar, students can finalize their written works. When ready, there are several ways that students can publish work. To finalize their work in Webspiration Classroom, students can:
- publish their document to a web page, which allows them to share it with others with a single URL
- use the Submit Work function to turn in course work to teachers for electronic review and feedback
- download their writing to Inspiration, where students can create oral presentations and supporting slides and handouts
- export their work to Microsoft Word, where it can be formatted into a final report
- or transfer the document to Google Docs to publish the work there.
Students can create one document in Webspiration Classroom to build upon and develop throughout all of the stages of process writing. With Webspiration Classroom, students can easily access, develop, share and collaborate on documents anywhere and anytime. This can help your students break through the barriers of getting started writing while supporting them in pre-writing, drafting, editing and revising in order to improve and reinforce writing skills across all subject areas.
Check back next week to learn how you can teach paperless!
Mona Westhaver
President and Co-founder, Inspiration Software
