To ensure a good finished piece, you need to follow the right, or "write," process. Now there are two types of writing in school: ACCESS WRITING and PROCESS WRITING. Access Writing is writing that acts as a tool or scaffold to access content understanding. Access writing is typically formulaic and includes bellwork responses, note taking, exam questions, lesson reflections or tickets out the door, prose constructed responses, quickwrites, and summaries.
Access writing does have value, but this site is about process writing.
Process writing is writing that creates something new, like a story or an argument. Process writing takes at least multiple days, and can take years in the professional world. Process writing could be an original narrative story, a research essay with an argumentative thesis, a professional critique, an interactive presentation, a formal speech, a lyrical song or poem, the script for a film, a graphic novel, an informational website, and so on. Process writing involves creative decisions and choices, and is often referred to as creative writing or authentic writing.
It's called "process writing" because it follows a six step process:
CHOOSE, SEARCH & RESEARCH, PLAN, DRAFT, EDIT-REVISE-REPEAT, AND PUBLISH & REFLECT.
STEP ONE: Choose
First, you must choose what you will write about. If you are writing a story, what genre of story do you want to tell (horror, romance, sci-fi)? If you are writing an essay, what thesis do you want to write about? If your topic is somewhat chosen for you (e.g., "write an essay on The Scarlet Letter), you still have choice in what you want to discuss or argue. If you are creating an experiment or community project, what do you want to explore? If you are looking at social issues, what issue are you passionate about?
Sometimes, to make an informed choice, you must do some presearch. Presearch is not in-depth research, but a quick look at a topic to see if it is worth pursuing. For example, let's say you must make a documentary about the life of a famous postmodern artist and you have no idea what that means. You would enter "list of postmodern artists" into a search engine, find a list of artists, and briefly look up each one until you land on an artist that sounds interesting.
Sometimes, to make an informed choice, you must do some presearch. Presearch is not in-depth research, but a quick look at a topic to see if it is worth pursuing. For example, let's say you must make a documentary about the life of a famous postmodern artist and you have no idea what that means. You would enter "list of postmodern artists" into a search engine, find a list of artists, and briefly look up each one until you land on an artist that sounds interesting.
STEP TWO: Search and Research
Next, you must gather evidence for your writing by either searching through one text or researching multiple texts. Typically, text analyses (e.g., "write an essay about The Great Gatsby) and stories. If you are writing an analysis, make sure you know what ideas and terminology you need to incorporate, whether it be literary terminology in general or that of a specific type of text, like a poem or a film. If writing a story, you must search you writer's notebook and memories for strong ideas of events and characters to incorporate into the story.
Research is typically relegated to rhetorical essays and speeches. If you are writing an essay, you must gather facts, statistics, anecdotes, and quotations that support your thesis. Remember that research has its own process, focusing on contribution to the writing, credibility of the source, and proper citation to avoid plagiarism.
Research is typically relegated to rhetorical essays and speeches. If you are writing an essay, you must gather facts, statistics, anecdotes, and quotations that support your thesis. Remember that research has its own process, focusing on contribution to the writing, credibility of the source, and proper citation to avoid plagiarism.
STEP THREE: Plan
Once you have your ideas and evidence, you need to plan how these ideas will come across in the writing based on its structure. Different structures have information unfold in different ways and thus require different methods. For example, a narrative uses a Freytag plot outline which starts at an inciting incident and drives up to a climax. Plays are somewhat similar, while poems use more of a gear diagram. Essays require a more formal outline, while experimental projects require cause and effect charts. Films, slideshow presentations, and graphic novels all use a storyboard to pair images with words. This seems simple, but is not to be rushed: planning is the most important step of the writing process.
STEP FOUR: Draft
After you have a plan, you must make an initial draft according to your plan. For writing, this requires... well, writing. For film, this means principal production and shooting footage. For image-based texts like graphic literature, this is the pencil sketch. In drafting, you must always stick to the purpose of your writing and keep in mind your audience. You will also develop a specific style of writing that makes the writing unique and interesting to read. When drafting, make sure that you get down all your ideas without worrying about conforming to proper grammar or conventions... that's the next step.
STEP FIVE: Edit, Revise, Repeat
Once you have a draft, you must edit and revise it. Editing refers to making sure sentences conformer to proper grammar and usage, such as sentence mechanics, spelling, and punctuation. Revising refers to making sure the content and ideas match what you want to say and are clear; use my ten rules for great writing to help you revise. Notice that after you revise, you'll add content that needs to be edited, and aft you edit that you need to revise anything that sounds odd. This is why editing and revision is a cycle, and a great piece of writing goes through this process several times.
STEP SIX: Publish and Reflect
Once you feel like the piece is the best you can create, you must ensure that it follows the proper format for the piece and publish it. Publishing can be as simple as printing it out or as difficult as uploading it to a specific server by a specific time, so give yourself time to work out any publishing issues. After you publish your piece, you will receive feedback on it by at least your teacher but hopefully many peers. You need to reflect on the feedback you get in three ways. First, look at what you did well and what people liked; repeat this for future projects. Next, look at what wasn't liked or overlooked by readers; make sure you avoid this ext time. Finally, do another draft on your piece with the feedback in mind and revise it for a future audience; the feedback only makes it stronger.