Planning a Writing Lesson I. What is a genre—various in kind—common features

Planning a Writing Lesson
    Good morning, everyone. Today we’ll talk about how to plan a writing lesson. Writing, unlike speaking, is not an ability we acquire naturally, even in our first language. It needs a process of learning and practicing. Unless the second language learners are explicitly taught how to write in the new language, their writing skills are likely to get left behind as their speaking skills progress. But teaching writing is not just about grammar, spelling, or the mechanics of the Roman alphabet. Learners also need to be aware of and use the conventions of the genre in the new language.
    First of all, we have to make it clear what a genre is. A genre can be anything from a menu to a wedding invitation, from a newspaper article to an estate agent’s description of a house. (1) Pieces of writing of the same genre share some features in terms of layout, the level of formality, and the usage of language. (2) However, a genre may vary considerably between cultures, and even adult learners familiar with a range of genres in their first language need to learn to use the conventions of those genres in English.
    In general, there are a couple of stages involved in the process of writing in accordance with a specific genre. I don’t necessarily include all these stages in every writing lesson, and the emphasis given to each stage may differ according to the genre of the writing and the time available.
    (3) As is often the case, generating ideas is the first stage of a process approach to writing. Even when producing a piece of writing of a highly conventional genre, such as a letter of complaint, using learners’ own ideas can make the writing more memorable and meaningful. Before writing a letter of complaint, learners think about a situation when they have complained about faulty goods or bad service or have felt like complaining, and tell a partner. As the first stage of preparing to write an essay, I give learners the essay title and pieces of scrap paper. (4) They have 3 minutes to work alone, writing one idea on each piece of paper, before comparing in groups. Each group can then present their 3 best ideas to the class.
    (5) Then, there is another stage taken from a process approach, and it involves thinking about which of the many ideas generated are the most important or relevant, and perhaps taking a particular point of view. (6) As part of the essay-writing process, students in groups put the ideas generated in the previous stage into a mind map. The teacher then draws a mind map on the board, using ideas from the different groups. At this stage he or she can also feed in some useful collocations. This gives the learners the tools to better express their own ideas. (7)I tell my students to write individually for about 10 minutes without stopping and without worrying about grammar or punctuation. If they don’t know a particular word, they write it in their first language. This often helps learners to further develop some of the ideas used during this stage.
    Once the students have got their own ideas, and thought about which are the most important or relevant, I try to give them the tools to express those ideas in the most appropriate way. (8) The examination of model texts is often prominent in product or genre approaches to writing, and will help raise awareness of the conventions of typical texts of different genres in English. (9)I give learners in groups several examples of a genre, and they use a genre analysis form to identify the features and language they have in common. This raises their awareness of the features of the genre and gives them some language "chunks" they can use in their own writing. (10) Learners are given an essay with the topic sentences taken out, and put them back in the right place. This raises their awareness of the organization of the essay and the importance of topic sentences.
    (11) Once learners have seen how the ideas are organized in typical examples of the genre, they can go about organizing their own ideas in a similar way. Students in groups draft a plan of their work, including how many paragraphs and the main points of each paragraph. (12) When preparing to write an essay, students group some of the ideas produced earlier into main and supporting statements.
    In a pure process approach, the writer goes through several drafts before producing a final version. In practical terms, and as part of a general English course, this is not always possible.
Nevertheless, it may be helpful to let students know beforehand if you are going to ask them to write a second draft. (13) This stage affords learners a chance to become aware of an audience other than the teacher. (14) If students are to write a second draft, I ask other learners to comment on what they liked or didn’t like about the piece of work, or what they found unclear, so that these comments can be incorporated into the second draft.
    (15) Finally, when writing a final draft, students should be encouraged to check the details of grammar and spelling, which may have taken a back seat to ideas and organization in the previous stages.
    All right, today we’ve illustrated necessary stages to plan a writing lesson. By going through some or all of these stages, learners use their own ideas to produce a piece of writing that uses the conventions of a genre appropriately. And in so doing, they are asked to think about the audience’s expectations of a piece of writing of a particular genre, and the impact of their writing on the reader. In our next lecture, we will get started with a specific genre and talk about how to write an academic paper.