HEIS Newsletter - January 2013 (Plain Text Version)
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In this issue: |
Teaching and Ingraining Writing as a Process
Pearson Education, (2011–2012). Focus on writing (Vols.1–5). White Plains, NY: Author. ********** For English language learners (ELLs), particularly those emerging from an EFL background with test-driven curricula, the task of learning to both write and write academically can be an especially daunting and frustrating task. As a growing number of these students come to the United States to receive an education, teachers and educators alike are increasingly faced with how best to instruct these learners as well as where to initiate the process. To address this issue, series editor John Beaumont and a team of educators have teamed up with Pearson Education to produce a five-level series titled Focus on Writing. The series consists of five books, and Book 1 focuses primarily on the construction of basic sentences, with an emphasis on grammar. Moving beyond the sentence level, the latter part of Book 1 and Books 2 and 3 focus on paragraph-level discourse and the writing of topic sentences, body paragraph points, and concluding sentences. The end of Book 3 and Books 4 and 5 move on to discuss types of essays, including persuasive, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution. Each individual book consists of six to eight units with themes such as “Names” and “Food” (Book 1), “Celebrations” and “Business Solutions” (Book 2), “Jobs of the Future” and “Staying Healthy” (Book 3), “Being Part of a Solution” (Book 4), and “Going Green” and “New Media” (Book 5). Within each of these units, the authors have included a variety of activities, readings, vocabulary-building exercises, and checklists, which are built around the concept of writing as a process. To ingrain this concept of writing as a process into the reader and user’s mind, each section is broken down into the four steps of prewriting, writing the first draft, revising, and editing. For the first step, prewriting, the authors provide users and instructors with a choice of two assignments or prompts for each section and then help students through the process with the use of brainstorming and freewriting activities. The second step, writing the first draft, includes activities and in-depth explanations into the organization of ideas and rhetorical modes. Once users have taken an idea through the first two steps of the process, the authors provide focused practice and exercises to facilitate the third step, revising. And finally, students are able to utilize a series of charts and checklists in the fourth step, editing, to check for grammatical errors and vocabulary suggestions based on the previous activities included in each unit. Similar in presentation to Pearson’s previous series, titled Focus on Grammar, Focus on Writing is also a well-designed and well-executed effort that is applicable and functional for intermediate- or advanced-level ELLs. Depending on instructors’ and students’ needs, the five-level series has a starting point for students in need of sentence-level review as well as for those who are moving beyond the sentence level to paragraph- or essay-level structure and discourse. The highly structured and detailed organization of the series is especially useful, as teachers can take students through the writing process for each unit and help learners develop a habit of repetition when writing. As students are led through the process, they are also exposed to useful vocabulary-building activities and exercises that integrate the subject material, which in turn help students in revising and editing their own writing in the latter stages. Not only are students exposed to vocabulary-building exercises, but the topics of each chapter are also constructed in a way that helps teach ELLs about differences in American, Western, and global cultures (e.g., “Names” [Book 1], “Celebrations” [Book 2]). Although most of the material is suitable and potentially useful for intermediate- or advanced-level ELLs, the series would best serve as a companion piece in the classroom from which to draw activities and individual units, rather than being used as the main textbook. Regardless, though, Focus on Writing provides a balanced approach in both instruction and practice as it effectively takes learners through writing step by step, ingraining writing as a process. Matthew J. Kessler is a second-year MA student in applied linguistics and an instructor of composition in Ohio University’s English Language Improvement Program. |
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