A process genre approach to
teaching writing
Richard Badger and Goodith White
This paper analyses the strengths and weaknesses of product, process,
and genre approaches to writing in terms of their view of writing and how
they see the development of writing. It argues that the three approaches
are complementary,
and identifies an approach which is informed by each
of them.
Introduction
In 1982 one commentator on the teaching of writing suggested that
‘The whole enterprise is beyond words - beyond
conception.’ (Smith
1982: 27)
Given such a daunting forecast, it is perhaps just as well that EFL teachers
can now draw on a range of approaches to teaching writing. Over the last
20 years, process and product approaches have dominated much of the
teaching of writing that happens in the EFL classroom. In the last ten years,
genre approaches have gained adherents (e.g. Swales 1990, Tribble 1996:
37-57, Gee 1997). This paper offers some discussion of these approaches,
and argues for a synthesis which draws on all three. It will cover both
linguistic factors (how the approaches conceptualize writing) and educational factors (how the approaches conceptualize learning to write).
Product
approaches
One of the most explicit descriptions of product approaches is provided
by Pincas (1982a). She sees writing as being primarily about linguistic
knowledge, with attention focused on the appropriate use of vocabulary,
syntax, and cohesive devices. (Pincas 1982b)
In this approach, learning to write has four stages: familiarization;
controlled writing; guided writing; and free writing. The familiarization
stage aims to make learners aware of certain features of a particular text.
In the controlled and guided writing sections, the learners practise the
skills with increasing freedom until they are ready for the free writing
section, when they ‘use the writing skill as part of a genuine activity such
as a letter, story or essay’ (1982a: 22).
A typical product class might involve the learners familiarizing
themselves with a set of descriptions of houses, possibly written
especially for teaching purposes, by identifying, say, the prepositions
and the names of rooms used in a description of a house. At the
controlled stage, they might produce some simple sentences about
houses from a substitution table. The learners might then produce a
piece of guided writing based on a picture of a house and, finally, at the
stage of free writing, a description of their own home.
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Pincas (1982a: 24) sees learning as ‘assisted imitation’, and adopts many
techniques (e.g. substitution tables ibid.: 94), where learners respond to
a stimulus provided by the teacher. However, her comment that, at the
stage of free writing, ‘students should feel as if they are creating
something of their own’ (ibid.: 110) suggests a view of learners as being
ready to show rather more initiative.
In short, product-based approaches see writing as mainly concerned with
knowledge about the structure of language, and writing development as
mainly the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided
by the teacher.
Process
approaches
Although there are many different process approaches to writing (see,
for example, Hedge 1988, White and Arndt 1991) they share some core
features. Tribble suggests that process approaches stress
. . . writing activities which move learners from the generation of ideas
and the collection of data through to the ‘publication’ of a finished
text. (1996: 37)
Writing in process approaches is seen as predominantly to do with
linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and there is much less
emphasis on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar
and text structure.
There are different views on the stages that writers go through in
producing a piece of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages:
prewriting; composing/drafting; revising; and editing (Tribble 1996: 39).
This is a cyclical process in which writers may return to pre-writing
activities, for example, after doing some editing or revising.
A typical prewriting activity in the process approach would be for
learners to brainstorm on the topic of houses. At the composing/drafting
stage they would select and structure the result of the brainstorming
session to provide a plan of a description of a house. This would guide
the first draft of a description of a particular house. After discussion,
learners might revise the first draft working individually or in groups.
Finally, the learners would edit or proof-read the text.
In process approaches, the teacher primarily facilitates the learners’
writing, and providing input or stimulus is considered to be less important.
Like babies and young children who develop, rather than learn, their
mother tongue, second language learners develop, rather than consciously
learn, writing skills. Teachers draw out the learners’ potential.
Process approaches have a somewhat monolithic view of writing. The
process of writing is seen as the same regardless of what is being written
and who is writing. So while the amount of pre-writing in producing a
postcard to a friend and in writing an academic essay are different (see
Tribble 1996: 104) this is not reflected in much process teaching.
While a process approach may ignore the context in which writing
happens, this is unusual. For example Hedge (1988: 15 and passim)
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identifies four elements of the context that pre-writing activities should
focus on: the audience, the generation of ideas, the organization of the
text, and its purpose.
Summarizing, we can say that process approaches see writing primarily
as the exercise of linguistic skills, and writing development as an
unconscious process which happens when teachers facilitate the exercise
of writing skills.
Genre
approaches
Genre approaches are relative newcomers to ELT. However, there are
strong similarities with product approaches and, in some ways, genre
approaches can be regarded as an extension of product approaches.
Like product approaches, genre approaches regard writing as predominantly linguistic but, unlike product approaches, they emphasize
that writing varies with the social context in which it is produced. So, we
have a range of kinds of writing-such
as sales letters, research articles,
and reports - linked with different situations (Flowerdew 1993: 307). As
not all learners need to operate in all social contexts, this view of texts
has implications for the writing syllabus.
For genre analysts, the central aspect of the situation is purpose.
Different kinds of writing, or genres, such as letters of apology, recipes,
or law reports, are used to carry out different purposes. Indeed, Swales
defines a genre
... asa class of communicative events, the members of which share
some set of communicative purposes. (1990: 58)
Genres are also influenced by other features of the situation, such as the
subject matter, the relationships between the writer and the audience,
and the pattern of organization. This parallels Hedge’s (1988) approach,
described above. Martin (1993: 120) offers a diagrammatic explanation
of genre.
In terms of writing development,
genre approaches
have many
similarities with product approaches. Cope and Kalantzis (1993: 11)
talk of a wheel model of genre literacy. This wheel has three phases:
Figure 1: Martin’s
models of genre
Purpose
[Genre]
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modelling the target genre, where learners are exposed to examples of
the genre they have to produce; the construction of a text by learners
and teacher; and, finally, the independent construction of texts by
learners. In theory, the cycle can be repeated as and when necessary, but
it would seem that often each phase appears only once.
In the ELT field, Dudley-Evans (1997: 154) also identifies three stages in
genre approaches to writing. First, a model of a particular genre is
introduced and analysed. Learners then carry out exercises which
manipulate relevant language forms and, finally, produce a short text.
This parallels product approaches very closely.
In a genre class, learners might examine authentic descriptions of houses
produced by estate agents or realtors in order to sell the property. As
with product approaches, the learners would carry out an analysis of the
text, perhaps looking at some elements of the grammar or patterns of
vocabulary using a concordancer. They would also consider the social
context, including the fact that the text is, hopefully, based on a visit to
the house, that its purpose is selling a house, that the audience is made
up of potential buyers, and that the words are supported by pictures and
diagrams. With varying degrees of help, learners would then produce
partial texts. Finally, working on their own, they would produce
complete texts reflecting the social context and the language of the
original description of a house.
Proponents of genre approaches are not often explicit about their theory
of learning. However, the use of model texts and the idea of analysis
suggest that learning is partly a question of imitation and partly a matter
of understanding and consciously applying rules.
In short, genre-based approaches see writing as essentially concerned with
knowledge of language, and as being tied closely to a social purpose, while
the development of writing is largely viewed as the analysis and imitation
of input in the form of texts provided by the teacher.
Comparing
product,
process,
and genre
approaches
The three approaches are sometimes
other. Thus Gee says that
presented
as opposed
to each
The process approach generally represented a reaction against the
product-based approach whereas the genre approach represented a
reaction to the so-called progressivist curriculum (1997: 25).
Amongst mother tongue teachers, we find heated comments such as
The process writing teacher, waiting while the child struggles for
control and ownership . . . actually favours white, middle-class
students. (Cope and Kalantzis 1993: 57).
Similarly, Kamler (1995: 9) criticizes the genre approach because of
. . . its narrow focus on language and text and its lack of attention to
the instructional
and disciplinary contexts in which texts are
constructed.
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EFL commentators generally work in a less politically sensitive area, but
writing still generates ‘many, often conflicting, views’ (Tribble 1996: 37).
Teachers of ESOL might understandably
decide that the debate is
generating more heat than light, and pass on to more obviously useful
research. However, we would argue that the conflict between the various
approaches is misguided, and damaging to classroom practice. The three
approaches are largely complementary, as becomes more apparent if we
examine their weaknesses and strengths.
The weaknesses of product approaches are that process skills, such as
planning a text, are given a relatively small role, and that the knowledge
and skills that learners bring to the classroom are undervalued. Their
strengths are that they recognize the need for learners to be given
linguistic knowledge about texts, and they understand that imitation is
one way in which people learn.
The disadvantages of process approaches are that they often regard all
writing as being produced by the same set of processes; that they give
insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such
texts are produced; and that they offer learners insufficient input,
particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge, to write successfully. The
main advantages are that they understand the importance of the skills
involved in writing, and recognize that what learners bring to the writing
classroom contributes to the development of writing ability.
The negative side of genre approaches is that
needed to produce a text and see learners
positively, they acknowledge that writing
situation, and is a reflection of a particular
that learning can happen consciously through
they undervalue the skills
as largely passive. More
takes place in a social
purpose, and understand
imitation and analysis.
An effective methodology for writing needs to incorporate the insights of
product, process, and genre approaches. One way of doing this is to start
with one approach and adapt it. For example, one problem in the process
approach is the lack of input. White and Arndt (1991) suggest techniques
such as group work, where input is provided by other learners, and
conferencing, where input is provided on a one-to-one basis by the teacher.
Also, some process writing material makes use of sample texts, usually
after the learners have produced a first draft (see for example White 1987).
Adapting an approach has led to important developments in the writing
classroom. However, we feel that it is also possible to identify an approach
which is a synthesis of the three approaches, which we term the process
genre approach. An outline of this is presented in the next section.
Towards a
synthesis:
writing
in the process
We will describe our model of the process genre approach in terms of a
view of writing and a view of the development of writing. The essential
idea here is that the writing class recognizes that
genre approach
writing involves knowledge about language (as in product and genre
approaches), knowledge of the context in which writing happens and
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especially the purpose for the writing (as in genre approaches),
skills in using language (as in process approaches)
and
writing development happens by drawing out the learners’ potential
(as in process approaches) and by providing input to which the
learners respond (as in product and genre approaches).
Writing in the
process genre
approach
One of the central insights of genre analysis is that writing is embedded
in a social situation, so that a piece of writing is meant to achieve a
particular purpose which comes out of a particular situation. An
example might be an estate agent writing a description of a house in
order to sell it. This purpose has implications for the subject matter, the
writer/audience relationship and organization, channel, or mode (see
Hedge 1988: 15, and Martin 1993: 23). While genre analysis focuses on
the language used in a particular text, we would want to include
processes by which writers produce a text reflecting these elements
under the term ‘process genre’. This would cover the process by which
writers decide what aspects of the house should be highlighted, as well as
the knowledge of the appropriate language.
In the writing classroom, teachers need to replicate the situation as
closely as possible and then provide sufficient support for learners to
identify the purpose and other aspects of the social context. So learners
who wanted to be estate agents would need to consider that their
description is meant to sell the house (purpose), that it must appeal to a
certain group of people (tenor), that it must include certain information
(field), and that there are ways in which house descriptions are
presented (mode). Then, drawing on their knowledge of things such as
vocabulary, grammar, and organization, our writers would use the skills
appropriate to the genre, such as redrafting and proof-reading, to
produce a description of a house which reflects the situation from which
it arises. We have attempted to illustrate this in the left-hand column of
Figure 2 (on the next page).
Different genres require different kinds of knowledge and different sets
of skills, and our knowledge of both the knowledge and skill involved in
different genres is limited. However, teachers are expert writers of many
genres, and a key feature of this approach is that they should draw on
their own knowledge of, and skills in, particular process genres.
The development of
writing in a process
genre approach
The development of writing will vary between different groups of
learners because they are at different stages of their writing development. Learners who know a lot about the production of a particular
genre, and are skilled in it, may need little or no input. Some groups of
learners will have a good awareness of how the potential audience may
constrain what is written. Other groups may lack knowledge of what
language is appropriate to a particular audience. In this case, the
learners need some kind of input in terms of, say, the language
appropriate to a particular audience, or the skills in deciding whom the
potential audience may be. What input is needed will depend on their
particular group of learners.
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Figure 2: A genre
process model of
teaching writing
A process genre model
of writing
Possible input
Teacher
Learners
Texts
In many cases, the teacher is not able to find out what the learners know
or can do before the class. In this case, a deep-end approach modelled
on Willis (1996: 100) may be appropriate. Learners try to carry out one
element in a process genre, and then compare their texts or skills in text
production with some expert’s (possibly the teacher’s) version of this.
On the basis of this comparison, they or the teacher can then decide if
they need further input of knowledge or skills.
Where learners lack knowledge, we can draw on three potential sources:
the teacher, other learners, and examples of the target genre. Teachers
may provide input in terms of instruction (mention the number of
rooms), other learners may do the same in the less threatening context
of group work, but perhaps the most distinctive source of input about
contextual and linguistic knowledge in a genre process approach is
language awareness activities. Genre analysis attempts to reveal the
similarities between texts written for the same reason, and so it is likely
that these language awareness activities will be based on a corpus of the
relevant genre. Key materials for genre process teachers are sets of
corpora of the kinds of texts their learners want to write. In our house
description exercise, learners might investigate the kind of sentence
structure used in estate agents’ descriptions of a house, the kind of
vocabulary used to make the position sound attractive and where the
price appears. Flowerdew (1993) and Dudley-Evans (1997) also suggest
activities such as using flow charts to illustrate the organization of
particular genres and translation.
Learners may also require input about the skills needed for writing. A
rich source here comes from observing other students and the teacher.
Teachers may find direct instruction on skills effective - think about why
you are writing the description - but an alternative is a demonstration by
the teacher or other skilled writer, possibly accompanied by a commentary
A process genre approach
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attempting to explain the mental processes that underlie the exercise of the
skill. For example, teachers might explain why they chose to include
certain information about a house and leave out other information.
Figure 2 illustrates the possible input in the process genre. The use of
dashes is intended to indicate that input is not always required.
Summary
In this paper, we have outlined an approach to writing informed by a
product, process, and genre view of writing and writing development.
The model sees writing as a series of stages leading from a particular
situation to a text, with the teachers facilitating learners’ progress by
enabling appropriate input of knowledge and skills.
Received
May 1999
References
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Flowerdew, J. 1993. ‘An educational or process
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ing 62: 24-40.
Kamler, B. 1995. ‘The grammar wars or what do
teachers need to know about grammar?. English in Australia 114: 3-15.
Martin. J. R. 1993. ‘A contextual theory of
language’ in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds.).
The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to
Teaching Writing. London: Falmer Press.
Pincas, A. 1982a. Teaching English Writing.
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Willis, J. 1996. A Framework
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for
Task-Based
The authors
Richard Badger (LLB, PGCE, MA, PhD) has taught
in Nigeria, Malaysia, and Algeria, and currently
teaches at the Centre of English Language Teaching
at the University of Stirling, UK. His research
interests include the methodology of teaching writing, legal language, genre analysis, and teacher
training.
Email: <rgb3@str.ac.uk>
Goodith White (BA, Dip TEFL, M.Litt) has taught
in Italy, Finland, Singapore, Portugal, Eire, and the
UK. She is currently lecturing at CELT, University
of Stirling, UK, and is pursuing doctoral research in
sociolinguistics with Trinity College, Dublin. She has
recently published a book on listening for Oxford
University Press.
Email: <A.G.White@education.Leeds.ac.uk>
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