Abstract
It is stipulated that the model of writing typically implemented in the academic context, with its traditional delineation of the respective roles of teacher as expert and student as imitator, demonstrates considerable limitations. Advocated in the article is its replacement through a paradigm of instruction which shifts its emphasis from the presentation of writing forms, genres and conventions of writing, and the evaluation of students’ texts with reference to the input models, to the teacher’s assistance, mediation and co-authorship in the students’ writing process. In this model, the aims of instruction go beyond the solitary pursuit of academic excellence to tap into learner creativity in a dynamic interactive classwork environment which acts as a stimulus to their individual composing and editing endeavours.
 Two pedagogic instruments underpin the model: the first is the student-executed Portfolio, comprising records of writing in the form of drafts and re-drafts, and the teacher’s interventions in and feedback on them; the second - the teacher-developed Class File, chronicling significant classroom activities and students’ written or spoken contributions, made available to the students after the lessons and serving as a link between the texts which have been generated and those which are still in the making.
Highlights
It is stipulated that the model of writing typically implemented in the academic context, with its traditional delineation of the respective roles of teacher as expert and student as imitator, demonstrates considerable limitations
The first is essentially concerned with the outcomes of writing, i.e. the ready-made texts which can be used as a basis for analysis, evaluation and assessment or, alternatively, for communication and exchange of ideas
Process and product approaches to writing differ in a number of ways
Summary
Writing is portrayed in literature as a non-linear, complex process (Krashen 1984) which brings into relief a dichotomy of the idea’s inception and its ultimate expression in the final draft It is characterised by a considerable degree of recursiveness, with the cycles of researching, planning, outlining, drafting and re-drafting, followed or interrupted by revising and editing (Krashen 1984, Silva 1993). As a better command of many of the above-mentioned features give the L1 writer an edge over his/her non-native counterpart (Silva 1993), it might be concluded that only L2 writers are in need of specific writing instruction This hypothesis, would not be borne out by those research findings which suggest that the problems of individual student writers, L1 and L2, may be of different orders of magnitude, they all require some form of assistance (Arndt 1987). This assistance, when delivered in the form of a structured programme of study, incorporating the intrinsic characteristics of the writing process, is labelled process writing (Seow 2002)
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