Teaching the writing process
It is an expository essay assembly line

English education programs talk about teaching the writing process as if such a thing existed.

The writing process is really a puree of writing processes for writing everything from haiku to sci fi novels — which is why teaching the writing process is so hard. It also is why writing is so difficult for students to learn in the standard English classroom.

You and I both know there's as much similarity between sonnets and research papers as there is between driving a riding lawn mower and racing at Daytona Speedway.

If we're going to do a halfway decent job of teaching writing, we need to be teaching the writing process that matches the vehicle the students will be required to operate, namely the nonfiction, expository, thesis + support (persuasive-pattern) essay.

5 stages, not 5 steps

Writing is sometimes said to develop a 5-step writing process. I find that terminology misleading.

Writing doesn't proceed smoothly, one foot ahead of the other. If anything, it is a single step followed by some hopping around and then another step and more hopping around.

A better analogy is that essay writing is an assembly line process.

Assembly line features

On an assembly line, products are put together in a certain sequence. However, all sorts of activities are going on off to the side and out of sight because components must ready when it's time to assemble them. Each component has its own little assembly processes.

Like an assembly line, the essay writing process works only when writers can get all the components ready by the time they are needed.

Teach how and when to produce

When teaching the writing process, you have to train students how to build each of the components of an essay.

Most of the building techniques are standardized procedures called strategies. They're about as hard as putting nut A on bolt B. It may take a while for students to get proficient, but it won't take long for them to learn what to do.

You also have to teach students when to assemble the components. The first part of a product you see is usually the last component installed.

As the writing supervisor, you have to make sure students . . .

• Focus on the innards of their products instead of on the paint job.

• Build the components in the order of assembly.

• Know how to assemble the components.

None of that is rocket science, but it takes time for students to learn to do the entire process without consulting their notes or scratching their heads trying to remember what they should do next.

Creativity is off-line

I can hear the wails now: "What about creativity? Are you trying to tell me there's no creativity involved in writing? "

Of course, writing involves creativity. That creativity, however, is not part of the assembly process. The actual preparation of nonfiction writing can be done mechanically without any creativity whatsoever.

Think of an automobile assembly line. If one car model is different than another, the difference is due to a creative designer whose work is done before the assembly line starts up on the shop floor. Once the assembly line starts, the process is mechanical.

In the same way, the truly creative part of expository writing is done before the students begin drafting their first paragraphs. Once the actual composition starts, the process is mechanical — and that's good.

Teaching the writing process to beginning writers is possible only because the expository writing process is a mechanical, assembly-line process.