Figure 5.6. Components of the Writing ProcessComponents of the writing process include...- Planning, which involves developing goals, generating ideas, gathering information,
and organizing ideas - Drafting, which is the development of a preliminary version of a work
- Sharing with others, including the teacher and peers, to obtain feedback and
suggestions - Evaluating, which is carried out by the student, peers, or the teacher who consider
the objectives and which may involve co-constructed rubrics or checklists - Revising, which may involve content, organization or word choices changes
- Editing with the goal of making the work more readable to an audience by employing
language conventions, such as correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar as taught - Publishing in order to share the final product publicly
Source
Graham, Steve, and others. 2012. Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers: A Practice Guide
(NCEE 2012-4058). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance,
Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Students continue to learn that the writing process is not linear. Furthermore, they discover that
not all components of the writing process are engaged in for every piece. For example, quick writes
may not undergo revision and journal entries may not be edited—unless the student chooses to
do so for some purpose. However, students in the grade span learn and engage in each of these
components at some time, and they do so with different types of writing and across the curricula.
It is crucial that students are taught how to offer and receive feedback from others in order to
strengthen writing. Teachers provide a variety of structures for giving feedback and coach students
on what to look for and how to present their feedback. They may provide forms, checklists, or
guiding questions. They may supply prompts, such as “The most interesting sentence in your
work was _.” or “Three words that captured my attention while reading
your work were __.” or “This sentence (or paragraph) supported your point well:
_.” “This sentence (or paragraph) helped me understand your focus of inquiry:
_____.” Teachers model how to provide feedback. They also model what to do with
feedback, perhaps by soliciting students’ comments on a sample text and then thinking aloud as they
model revising the work incorporating students’ feedback.
In the fourth- and fifth-grade span, students begin to consider audience more than they did in
previous grades. They learn “to appreciate that a key purpose of writing is to communicate clearly to
an external, sometimes unfamiliar audience.. .” (CDE 2013b, 20). Teachers ensure that students write
for many audiences, including the writers themselves, parents, community members, and local and
distant peers. Writing to authentic audiences heightens students’ recognition of the need for effective
expression. Authentic audiences are those that have a “nonschool” interest in the written work, such
as personnel from a local animal shelter to whom the students write requesting information about
pet adoption or city council members to whom the students write after gathering information about
water quality in the community. Teachers instruct and guide students to use different approaches and
registers with different audiences.
As in all grades and all subject matter, formative assessment is a crucial part of writing instruction.
Formative assessment occurs moment-to-moment, daily, and weekly as teachers observe and interact
408 | Chapter 5 Grades 4 and 5