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Table of Contents

I.    Background

        As English language teachers in the Tai Po Old Market Public School (a.m.), we had the practice of giving careful guidance to students in their English writing tasks. Most of us believed that students were unable to write without careful guidance from teachers. Students were used to doing guided writing, which led to extremely structured and boring written work. However, we discovered that such kind of guided writing destroyed students’ interest and creativity. Students’ writings were almost identical in content as well as in presentation. They were not able to perform in the English writing tasks of the Hong Kong Attainment Test series 5 that require student to write freely in response to contextual cues. In view of the weak performance in the writings of primary four students, we sought to improve students' skills and abilities in writing by exploring different teaching strategies and approaches. On reviewing literature on the teaching of writing, we were aware of the process approach in the teaching of writing and we were also introduced to the role reading could play in the writing process. We came to realize that substantive input in various literary texts could promote students' language competence and it was a springboard to writing.

Nevertheless, some of the English language teachers in our school are not subject-trained. We rely heavily on textbooks and we do not have enough skills to tailor, modify or integrate the curriculum to suit the ability levels of students. Indeed, we do not possess a working knowledge of process writing. We need professional support in developing a school-based curriculum catering for the successful implementation of process writing. In view of the limitations, we hope that through collaborating with an external agent, we can work out how process writing can be integrated into the English curriculum to improve our students' writing competence. It is against this background that Primary four English language teachers work collaboratively with a Curriculum Development officer from the Curriculum Development Institute and embark on a seed project on process writing. We aim to find out:  

1. whether and how students' competence in writing English can be enhanced through the Process Writing Approach, and

2. whether teachers’ professional development can be promoted through collaborative planning and teaching.

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II.    Target participants in the project

This is basically a qualitative research supplemented with quantitative data. All four primary four classes were involved in the research project. In order to obtain a wide and general picture on the effectiveness of process writing, all students were required to respond to a questionnaire administered at the end of the second term. Comparison between their pre-task and post-task conducted at the beginning and at the end of the school year were also made to help identify changes in students' knowledge, skills and dispositions in writing. In order to elicit more in-depth understandings of students' changes in abilities and attitude in writing, a group of twelve students of high, average and low abilities identified through their performance in the pre-test were chosen from the four classes for interviews between action cycles. They were prompted to reflect on changes in their competence and also in their attitude towards writing. Portfolios were also kept to review their continuous performance throughout.

        As teachers’ reflections were important sources of data, teachers’ journals and discussion notes, especially after peer observation and writing tasks, were kept to trace changes in the course of the action cycles. A third source of data collected through observations and discussions came from the Curriculum Development Officer and the project coordinator who was seconded to the Curriculum Development Institute. The data collection procedure lasted for the whole school year from October 2001 through to July 2002.

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III.    A brief review on process writing literature

Writing is an extremely important means of communication in the modern world, whether in the form of traditional paper-and-pen writing or through e-mail (CDC syllabus for English Language, 2002). However, second language learners usually run into difficulty in writing and such unsuccessful experience discourages them from writing competently with confidence. Many prominent researches claim that good writers go through certain steps in the process of composing a piece of written work (Calkins 1986; Graves 1983; Raban 1987). Process writing assures students that most of the first attempts at writing are not perfect. A first attempt is simply a beginning step in a process and it will become a piece of finished work with time, thought and effort. Writing, according to CDC syllabus for English Language, emphasizes both the process as well as the product. The following diagram outlines the essential elements in a piece of writing.

 The process writing approach involves teaching pupils strategies to help them express themselves in writing through the act of writing. (Mahon, 1992) Students experience five interrelated phases before the final products come out. The five important steps in process writing include pre-writing phase, brainstorming, drafting, revising and editing, and publishing.

?       Pre-writing phase and brainstorming: In brainstorming process, the teacher elicits ideas from students. Students speak out words or ideas related to the topic. The teacher can organize the ideas on the blackboard or on any other visual devices by using mind map. This would not only enrich students’ ideas in their writings but also help them organize their ideas. They will know how to organize their ideas gradually after much exposure.

?       Drafting: On completion of mind mapping exercises, students write their first draft. With the help of the mind map, students can write better. Guidance and help are necessary in this stage and students are reassured that the first draft will not be perfect.

?       Revising and editing: It is the significant step that helps students reshape their writing. Students can correct any mistakes they might have made on such technical aspects as grammar, spelling and punctuation. They can even change some of the ideas in their writings. This can be achieved through self-editing, peer editing and teacher editing. Therefore, students need to realize that what they write initially does not necessarily have to be the final product, but that the form and content can be modified and improved as they go along.

?       Publishing: At the end of the process, students produce the final draft. Opportunities are created for students to share their final products with their classmates.

Process writing breaks the writing acts into manageable parts and it integrates oral language, reading and writing in meaningful writing task. It allows students to concentrate on one task at a time and to experience the value of peer feedback in developing their ideas for effective written expressions. Since students need to publish their writing, they need to tailor the message for a particular audience and purpose. A great deal of excitement is generated when they know that they will share their final product with others. ‘As the students see their writings read by others, the sense of achievement is great and this will encourage them to write more. Displays and sharing their works make their writing authentic and it is a good way to promote writing. (Peregoy and Boyle, 1993) Indeed, these echo Graves’ (1983) well quoted research on primary students’ writing. His basic premises include the need to encourage children to write with an audience in mind, for a particular purpose and a style appropriate to the purpose. Children must have ownership of the writing process and they should have the opportunity to produce draft, revise their work and present their work for others to read.

In view of the clear procedures embedded in the writing process, we decided to adopt the process approach in our endeavour in developing students' writing. In addition, we also took on board the view that sufficient stimulation and language preparation were needed before students could produce a piece of writing (CDC syllabus for English Language, 2000), and that wide reading was necessary for developing knowledge of a language and should be emphasized at all levels of learning. Knowing that reading was a stepping stone to developing good quality writing, we explored different English reading materials and children literature such as big book, stories, poems, rhyme and songs and tried to integrate them into our English curriculum when preparing students to write. With varied reading experiences, we hoped that students could have more to write and could be more creative. Before we put process writing into practice, we had examined the limitations of guided writing.

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IV.     Problems with English guided writing in our School

On reviewing our guided writing exercises we designed for primary 4 students in the previous year, we discovered the following difficulties similar to Mahon’s (1992) observations identified in primary students’ writing:

u       We emphasized too much on the product mainly requiring students to write grammatically correct sentences. We put strict control on such things as sentence patterns, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation. This drove students to pay meticulous attention to the more mechanical aspects of writing.

u       The coursebook guided writing exercises we employed for use by students focused very much on manipulating language items through copying, transforming, or substituting discrete items. Such exercises made the writing disconnected and uncontextualised and students were not able to add thoughts and ideas of their own. They lacked a purpose for writing.

u       The backwash effect of such a strong emphasis on grammar was strong. Usually, works of weaker students were full of red correction marks. It was detrimental to students’ confidence in writing. 

u       We also found that our students were not thoroughly prepared for the writing task. Our usual practice of giving them some samples sentences and then asked them to write at home posed difficulties to students. Despite our efforts in providing them with vocabulary and suggested sentence patterns, they lacked the requisite skills to transfer their ideas onto paper. In fact, they were not confident enough to write on their own.

Samples of guided writing exercises

In the guided writing exercises we prepared for our students, we emphasized too much on the production of neat and grammatical correct pieces of compositions using structured sentence patterns and controlled vocabulary. Students were not encouraged to write freely with their ideas. Indeed, they did not have room for free writing. Their only objective for writing was to avoid making grammatical mistakes when completing the writing task. The only reader was the teacher and it appeared that students did not have a purpose in writing at all. The guided writing exercises could neither stimulate students’ interest nor enable them to communicate their ideas and imagination through writing. Although guided writing exercises could serve as a bridging step between controlled writing task and free writing, they were not effective in preparing students to write meaningfully and independently. The following excerpts captured how students from the target group perceived English writing:

Guided writing was like homework. We had to follow others’ examples and fill in words. We did not need to think of new ideas. We usually copied from teachers’ example. We did not enjoy that because we did a lot of cut and paste work in guided writing.

I did not like writing English because I did not find meaning in writing English. I did not even know what and why I was writing. It was just writing sentence, not writing composition. You had separate meaning for each sentence and they were not connected at all. It was not like a piece of composition. But in writing composition, we knew what we were writing. We write with a purpose.

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V.     Students’ performance in the pre-task

         In an attempt to establish a reference point for comparison purposes, we designed two sets of writing tasks for students to work on. Both tasks were based on stories familiar to students such that they could have ideas to cling on in their writing. The pre-task ‘Lion and the Mouse’ was administered at the beginning of the term while the post-task ‘The Little Red’ was attempted at the end of the term. On completion of the first writing task, we came up with the following findings. 

        In the writing task, part of the story ‘The Lion and the Mouse’ was given to students and they were required to complete the story. Pictures and open-ended questions were provided as hints for students. Our marking criteria focused on three areas: ability to respond to the questions and pictures, creativity and accuracy. As this was the first time students responded to comparatively more open-ended questions, the writing task was quite difficult for them. Students tried very hard to follow the storyline in their writing. In the post-task interview, the high ability students liked this kind of writing since they need not follow rigidly a prescribed format. In the post-task interview, they said:

I liked to have pictures cues. I could guess what to write. I could also guess the pictures for meaning. Teachers told me the story and used sentence to explain the pictures. It was easier. I could write more freely this time because we were given some open questions.  

On the other hand, low ability groups found that it was very difficult and they preferred guided writing. They didn’t know how to express their idea in suitable vocabulary and appropriate sentence structure most of the time. In their words:

I liked guided writing. We did not need to know too much grammar rules. Teachers gave us examples and vocabulary to follow. But we needed to write on our own. The vocabulary was new to me and I did not know how to use them in the writing. It was difficult to complete the story on our own.

We did not know the grammar rules. English was more difficult than other subjects. Sometimes I was confused by the Chinese and English structure. For example, we put time word at the beginning in Chinese writing but we had to put time word at the end of English writing. It was quite confusing.

        Some samples of their response to the writing tasks were captured as follows:

 Response of Student 1

Response of Student 2

Response of Student 3

Their difficulties and weaknesses were identified as follows:

n          Word confusion: happen = happy; said = sad = side

n          Lack of understanding of key words in the instructions: a few, wakes, caught, end, would

n          Misunderstanding sentences: "If you were a mouse" taken as "If you wanted to be a mouse"

n          Direct translation from Chinese to English: e.g. I can do your friends. The lion wants eat the mouse. The mouse is afraid. The mouse is lion friends now.

n          Little understanding of what a sentence is

n          Number of lines provided dictate the amount of writing: For the pupils, the number of lines provided indicates teachers' expectations and they would respond accordingly

We found that students' understanding of sentence structure depended very much on their understanding of the vocabulary. Yet, their usual strategy in reading English was to translate the English words into Chinese and pasted them together for meaning. The differences in Chinese and English sentence structure created interference and difficulties in understanding. It was very hard for them to link words together into sentences. Their writing competence was weak.

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VI.     Integrating process writing into the English curriculum 

The initial findings alerted us of the need for substantive language input in the writing process. We attempted to bring in a variety of learning resources in order to expose our students to different text types. We also tried to address students’ limitations in vocabulary, language structure and especially ideas for writing through the brainstorming, drafting, peer editing and publishing phases in process writing. We tried to integrate writing tasks into our modules when planning for the curriculum.

Framework for curriculum re-organization

The module structure for the Project “Chinese New Year”

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VII.     Process writing in action 

A.    Setting the stage for process writing

Based on our analysis on the limitations of guided writing and students’ weak performance in the ‘Lion and the Mouse’ writing task, we tried to address students’ needs in mastering language structure necessary for expressing ideas in writing. It was also important to let them have a purpose in writing, the opportunity to brainstorm for ideas collectively, and writing frames or model writing as scaffolding devices for them to model their writing on. Lessons on the language items were more focused on the structure to be used in the writing task. For example, in preparation for the writing task on ‘People around me’, we demonstrated how adjectives describing people were used in contexts. When we started thinking about the writing task, we had two concepts in mind: authenticity and relation to what students had learnt. By authenticity, we meant that the task should relate to students' daily life. To this end, the tasks we designed for various modules related closely to people around them, leisure and entertainment in the festive season, healthy eating, and the outstanding student in their class. We believed that with these topics geared more to their personal experiences, students would find a purpose in their writing. This was very important for our young writers.

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B.    Brainstorming ideas for the writing tasks

Our students were generally short of ideas in writing. In the past, they were trained to answer guiding questions or fill in the blanks with words provided. They wrote sentences rather than paragraphs. We decided to help them share their ideas, gather information and build up vocabulary through group activities. We wanted to make writing more interactive and let them identify a purpose and the audience for their writing. We involved students in reading, talking and making lists of useful words in the brainstorming activities. For example, in preparation for the writing task for the project “Chinese New Year”, we used PowerPoint to introduce a story talking about activities of Chinese New Year. Electronic storybook, big book and magazines on the topic ‘Chinese New Year’ were introduced to students since we believed that reading laid the foundations to writing. In order to arouse their interest in the topic and expose students to different text types on Chinese New Year, students were guided to search the Internet for information on traditional customs, food, decorations and activities about Chinese New Year. They were also requested to interview people for the food they ate in the festive season. All these preparation work culminated in the brainstorming activities in the writing lessons. Students were able to generate ideas on food, activities, and things to do in the Chinese New Year and put them down in the mind map.

        We discovered that mind mapping was very useful for students in generating ideas and recapitulating their learning in lessons on language forms and functions. We included mind-mapping exercises in various modules to facilitate students’ writing. These graphic devices helped students generate ideas and remind them of the language items they learned in the modules. 

Sample of mind maps                                                     (click to enlarge)

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 C.   Drafting

For the writing task, we asked our students to apply letter writing skills learnt in the module “Leisure and Entertainment” by writing a letter to their teachers telling them how they celebrated this festival. Writing a letter on their own was not at all an easy task for students who had only experience writing sentences in the previous year. Our solution to this was to introduce to our students a writing frame in the form of a ‘letter to a friend’ written by teachers. The model writing served as a literacy scaffold ( Boyle and Peregoy, 1990) for students to build their writing on.

Literary scaffold for the Project “Chinese New Year”: Teachers’ letter to her friend

Other than using model writing, we also designed guiding questions as writing frames for students to work on. As we were aware of the importance of substantive listening and spoken input, we tried to incorporate these elements in the drafting process. Drafting was conducted in groups to stimulate sharing and discussion. Students recalled how drafting was done in the writing task on “People around me”,

Our teacher introduced her friend and taught us how to describe people. She wrote on the blackboard her friend’s appearance, character etc. She then asked us who she was. She sowed us how to describe people. Then she asked us to answer the questions and write about one of the group members. We did not write too much in the group work. But we learned more about other people in the peer editing. We helped them correct their mistakes and they helped us correct ours.

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D.   Editing

On completion of the first drafting, students went through the peer editing modeled on teachers' demonstration. Students were told explicitly what to look for. With given targets in identifying mistakes in tenses and spelling, they found peer editing more focused. Some bright students were able to identify and help correct classmates’ mistakes other than those specified. As peer editing was a collaborative exercise, students were quite excited when they were encouraged to identify and make corrections to classmates’ works. Indeed, students’ abilities in peer editing confined mainly to mechanical aspects of writing such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling or subject/verb agreement. They were not yet able to re-frame others’ ideas for purposes of clear communication. When asked how they edited others’ work, students made the following remarks,

We discussed in groups, selected one good friend amongst ourselves and wrote about her. We used the mind map to jot down details. We then gave our work to other groups and asked them to read through them. We found that other group had forgotten to add an ‘s’ to ‘two brother’. We also helped them use ‘she’ for ‘he’. We liked the peer editing activity. We could learn from them and we also became more careful.

As gatekeeper to the final draft, we went over students’ work before the writing was ready for publishing. (click to enlarge)

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E.    Publishing and Sharing

According to Peregoy and Boyle (1993, one way to develop a spirit of meaningful collaborative writing is to encourage publishing projects. It enhances students’ motivation since it provides them with a purpose to write. It also helps them develop an awareness of audience. They are likely to pay more attention to producing quality work if they know that their writing is a-shared and read by a wider audience.

Students shared their published works in different occasions. Some students were selected to present their booklets ‘People around me’ in the hall while the rest of the students shared their works with classmates from other classes. The project work on ‘Chinese New Year’ was displayed in the hall. Students and teachers were impressed by the rich array of colourful portfolios. Posters on ‘Healthy eating’ were also shared in a different occasion. These occasions were proved inspiring and enjoyable to students since they wanted to share their writing to others. On reflection, we found that when students knew that they would be required to present their project, they became more demanding on their own work. We were quite excited to see that students were able to present their work confidently. The following samples of works serve to illustrate the varieties of text types attempted by students in different modules throughout the school year.

Students were enthusiastic showing their work in the hall and they enjoyed sharing and explaining their products to others.

Students’ work

1.          Booklet on ‘People around me’

2.     Project work on ‘Chinese New Year’ 

3.     Poster designs on “Healthy Eating”

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VIII.      Reviews on the writing experiences

A.         Booklet on “People around me”

Students welcomed this kind of writing and they didn’t treat it as homework. They liked writing about their own story. They didn’t like copying from the book or doing something unrelated to their experience. In their words,

I found that doing this book was fun since everyone can write what he wants to write. Different people have different stories. The content is totally different from others and not as boring as the writing we did before. My classmates and I did the booklet seriously. We used what we have learned in class and the layout was beautiful.

I can write real thing and use my own ideas. I am happy that I can write about my friend. I used past tense, present tense, vocabulary I’ve learnt to do this booklet.

On reflections, we found that students enjoyed the lessons very much. They participated actively in the learning activities and were quite eager to write about their classmates. They did not feel embarrassed presenting their mind map before the class. However, students got stuck while doing mind map. They did not know what and how to fill in. We did not demonstrate clearly how a mind map was built up in the lesson. We were not aware of students' problems associated with the presentation technique. Learning was not as effective as we thought. Group writing was messy as students did not know how to do it at the very beginning. We began to recognize the merit for collaborative teaching and found it an effective means in enhancing peer learning. We felt more confident when we were supported by one another in a new teaching-learning situation. Yet, time was very tight and we couldn’t afford ample lesson time for the writing process. On reflections, one of us pointed out that

Though students were able to generate more ideas for writing with extra learning materials like big books and writing frames provided in the process, their’ creativity was limited by the piece of model writing. Students' writing was quite similar to the model writing. It was not satisfactory at all. But I liked the marking criteria in terms of language, ideas, attitude and presentation, which were quite different from our usual practice. I found that written comments were more reflective than just giving them a grade.

Reflecting on the role of as a teacher researcher, on colleague had the following observations:

I found that I needed to adjust my role both as a researcher and as a co-teacher. I ran into clashes with my colleagues trying to accommodate the research project into the already very tight curriculum. Finding time for more innovative teaching ideas was critical at this initial stage. I had to strike the balance between what had been scheduled and what I intended to try out in the process writing. Although colleagues were not totally satisfied with the students’ work, I found their work quite good, especially when this was the first free writing experience students had ever had. Students were proud of their work and were willing to read out their work. However, planning was not perfect. The research team needed to modify the schedule from time to time".

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B.    Project work on "Chinese New Year"         

In general, students regarded the process writing experience as positive, enjoyable and helpful. They considered that the input such as mind mapping, model writing and peer editing helped them write more expressively. In addition to the vocabulary introduced in the textbook, pupils attempted to include vocabulary and information they located in the web. But still they were not very satisfied with their work. They thought that they could perform better if they had been given more time to work on the project. In the course of their work, they ran into difficulty locating materials from the web. One of the students said,

We thought we can get a lot of photos from Yahoo but we couldn't. There are only very few photos or pictures for Chinese New Year. We started searching for photos from magazines and books. It is a new type of experience.

We wrote better than before. We can write longer paragraphs using more vocabulary. We think over the topic and do the mind map. Then we will classify the information and write the first draft. After that, we will proof- read the writing to see if there are any mistakes and how we can improve. We were so proud to find that we could produce a quality project.

One student wrote down in her "Experience and Opinion" section for the project:

After the project work, we know different kinds of food to eat, what we will do before or during Chinese New Year's Day. We also know something about the taboos and superstitions of Chinese New Year. Through the activities, each one tries to speak in simple English, in order to ask some questions to other people. At last, we take an experience after the work. That is: If we want a satisfied work, we must co-operate each other. (Student’s original writing taken from the project)

Based on our experiences gathered from the first process writing lessons on ‘People around me’, we had clearer directions when planning for the project work. In addition to writing skills, we tried to integrate various skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and searching for information. We believed that different skills should be included in the learning contexts in order to extend their capacities in writing. As we were more willing to take the risk of relaxing the demand on accuracy in exchange for students’ confidence to write, we were more tolerant with students' minor mechanical mistakes in writing. We also found that peer editing was an effective mean in prompting pupils to be much more careful in their writing. The writing task for the project Chinese New Year was within the reach of pupils and some of them managed not to make any mistakes at all. Students found that we did not blame them for mistakes and this helped build up their confidence in writing freely.

But still we found that students were not able to write creatively in their letter to teachers. One of us believed that, “Since students had nearly the same experiences during the Chinese New Year, most of their ideas were similar and were not creative enough. But these were their real experiences". Yet, one colleague thought that, “there was not too much creativity in the writing. Probably we gave them too much guidance and input for the project work”. But we all agreed that students made progress in this writing experience. We were surprised to find that students’ performance was beyond our expectations. Students participated actively in this project work. They enjoyed searching for information from the Internet on the theme and they were able to select the relevant materials. It appeared that they could follow the steps in process writing. Mind mapping was particularly useful in helping them generate ideas for writing. They were able to use the language patterns in their writing, although there were not much variations in their presentation format.

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C.    Poster design on “Healthy Eating”

         Hoping our students to be more creative, we gave them free hands in choosing their writing tasks in any topic related to healthy eating, such as healthy menu, recipe, and food pyramid. When we found that there was not much writing in the poster design, we asked the students to write about their favourite food and drink. They needed to explain why they liked the food and drink and how healthy it was. As parents reflected that it was hard for students to work together in the Chinese New Year project outside class time, we assigned three to four lessons for them to work on the poster design. Other than making group work more feasible, we could also observe students’ attitude, work progress and give help whenever necessary. The group work impacted on students’ attitude towards collaborative work and it helped boost their confidence in writing. A group of students talked about the group writing experiences,

It [group work] was helpful. We found it easier to write now because we learned more vocabulary together. We also learned how to write the sentences and paragraphs. In the past, we spent very long time looking for the right words and the right sentence pattern when did our writing. We learned how to communicate with classmates. We also learned how to work together. It improved our friendship.  

        They also considered that they could draw satisfaction from the group work, they thought that,

Being able to complete the writing task on our own gave us the greatest satisfaction. We thought that we knew a lot of things. We could create our poster. We felt pleased when our friends offered help when we ran into difficulties.

        We also noticed that students worked more closely and collaboratively in this writing task. Colleagues from the less able classes were impressed by the performance of students in terms of the varieties of the poster designs and their motivation level. In the reflection meeting, one of our colleagues noted that,

My class (less able class) performed satisfactorily in the poster design and varieties were identified in the posters. Some form of authenticity was observed in the poster designs. Collaboration was good among pupils. They learned to work together well and allocation of work was negotiated. As for the design work, pupils were creative and they wrote generally accurately using the language items taught. Students thought that enough examples were given for this task".

Similarly, our colleague form the least able class said,

I was surprised to see that pupils (from the least able class) out-performed my expectations. The designs were varied and the language was satisfactory. I was particularly impressed by a pupil who handed in a self-made VCD demonstrating how to make a mixed vegetable pancake. In addition, my pupils responded to my request for a piece of free writing work. This was not part of our plan but even the pupil who scored zero in the pre-test could write a paragraph on his own".

        However, colleagues from the more able classes thought that their students could do better in the poster design. She commented,

"My class (the more able class) was given ample time (4 lessons) in doing the poster. Four thoughtfully and creatively designed posters were produced and the quality of design and standard of writing were high. But other than these four posters designed to my satisfaction, the overall standard of the others could not meet my expectations. I thought they could produce more authentic posters. Anyway, the writing performance was on the whole satisfactory and accuracy was high. Pupils were able to use the language patterns in their posters. Pupils were quite focused on what had been taught but the topic chosen for the poster was more or less the same. Probably we did not allow much room for pupils in their writing task. In fact, our input for this writing task was limited to teaching of menu.

        All in all, the reflective experiences shed lights on students’ growth in writing competence, as indicated in students’ performance in the post-task writing activity.

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IX.       Students’ performance in the post task

         The post task was administered at the end of the school term in order to discern changes in students’ competence in free writing, a post-test similar in design to the pre-test was administered at the end of the school term. The post-test was adapted from a very popular story ‘Little Red Hat’. Modeled on the pre-test, pictures and part of the story was given to the students. Only one open-ended question was given to the students and they had to complete the unfinished story.

All students were able to respond to the written cues meaningfully. They had a lot of ideas to write about. Some of the students also considered that this was their best writing in this year. There was much room for them to write and create their own story since they were not confined by prescriptive guiding questions. Some students wrote dialogues, which were not dealt with in our teaching. In fact, the endings to the story written by some students were very different from the original. They created their own ending. We also noticed that most of the students were able to use the correct tense forms in story writing. In the post-test interview, students told us that writing was no more an obstacle to them and they preferred free writing to guided writing. The fact that they could write the whole piece of writing gave them great satisfaction.

When compared with the pre-task, quantitative and qualitative changes in students’ writing were identified, as follows: 

n         In general, students were able to write more. Eight lines were given but a larger number of students wrote more lines than required. It showed that they were willing to write on their initiatives. The sentences were linked up to form a sensible paragraph and the flow of meaning was generally clear. They were able to respond to contextual cues.

n         Students were able to use the right words in the context, though spelling errors were made at times. But the wrongly spelt words did not blur the meaning of the sentences. For example, ‘frist’ for ‘first’; ‘caughted’ for ‘caught’; ‘got’ for ‘god’; ‘helf’ for ‘help’. They were able to use the right language forms to express meaning. Not surprisingly, there was confusion in the use of tenses, particularly in dialogues.

n         When students were free to create their own ending to the story, they able to generate novice ending to the familiar story. Students’ creativity could be unleashed when they were given the right task within the reach of their language competence and ideas.

Examples of students’ post task

        We identified quantitative and qualitative changes in students’ writing. In terms of quantitative changes, students’ writing content increased. They were really weak when writing ‘The lion and the mouse’. They wrote one or two illegible sentences. In this post task, they did not just write one or two sentences. They wrote 8 to 10 connected sentences in the ‘Little Red’. They were much more willing to write. At the beginning of the term, they stopped after writing one or two sentences because they did not have anything to write about.

We also noticed that students were able to use the language forms they learned in the previous modules in the ‘Little Red’ writing task, though they made minor mistakes on spelling and on verb agreement. They still translated directly from Chinese but they tried to use such connectives as ‘suddenly’, ‘at last’, ‘but’. They never used these words before. They answered guided questions before but now they wrote paragraphs. The meaning was clearer now.

In the past, we were unable to understand their writing because they did not know how to express their ideas through writing. They had creative ideas but they were not able to put them down in writing. But now they had confidence in trying to express their thoughts in writing. In the past, they felt that they did not have the ability and give up their creative ideas. They didn’t have any ideas in writing the’ Lion and the Mouse’. But now writing came to them more naturally. They had much better confidence.

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X.      Reviews on students’ responses in the questionnaires

        In an attempt to elicit students’ views on their process writing experiences, a questionnaire was administered to all primary 4 students at the end of the school term. The questionnaire focuses on three aspects of their writing experiences, namely, quantity and quality of writing, confidence in writing, and views on the different processes in writing. The cumulative percentage of students who agreed with the statements are tabulated as follows:

In general, students had very positive attitude towards free writing. Over 80% of the students agreed that “I write more than before”, and “ I write better than before.”. Students became more confident in their writing. Students wrote more and they could organize their ideas in a more logical way.

About 80.3% of the students liked free writing more than guided writing. 93.5% of the students found that mind mapping was useful in helping them organize their ideas. 84.6% of the students agreed that peer editing raised their awareness in grammar. Presenting their writings to peers is also very important to them. About 80% of the students thought that the presentations gave them great satisfaction.

We discovered that there were three sets of data positively correlated to each other. “My writing was better than before.” vs. “I write more than before.” (.591) This reflected that students’ confidence was built on the number of words they wrote. Students with more ideas and language support could write more and could write better. “I am good at writing.” vs. “ I write better than before.” (.392). It is also found that "Mind map can help me organize my ideas.” and. “ I think brainstorming help me in my writing.” are correlated and are complimentary to one another.

Of all the four classes, the more able class had the highest percentage of students developing positive attitude towards writing. 100% of the students agreed that their writings were better than before. They wrote more and their writing was substantial in terms of ideas and presentation skills. The fact that they were high ability students might have contributed to the mastery of the writing skills. In fact, they were more motivated in own learning through reading more books. This accounts for their eagerness to write. On the other hand, close to 70% of the other three classes had developed more positive attitude towards writing. The results were encouraging since this was the first year for the students doing process writing.

Students were also encouraged to express their views freely on open-ended questions: What impressed you most in the process writing lessons? What did you learn in the lessons? How did the process help you write? Other opinions?

        Students were quite willing to respond to these open-ended questions. Nearly all students from the two more able classes responded to the open-ended questions while about two-thirds of the less able classes made their comments. The most impressive processes were the learning activities associated with mind mapping. They also welcomed the discussion, group writing as well as peer editing. ‘ The best free writing lesson should be working in groups. Everyone has his ideas and these ideas can be pooled to give a piece of good work. We could help one another when we run into difficulties The most impressive moment was when everyone was thinking hard to generate ideas for the mind map’.

        On the learning they achieved in the process writing lessons, nearly half of the students considered that the lessons increased their vocabulary and understanding of grammar. They also learned how to use mind mapping to organize ideas and make meaningful sentences. They also learned collaborative skills and learned to respect others. For some students, they thought that process writing ‘greatly increased our interest in writing English. It also enhanced our writing ability and creativity. Our writing is better. We make less mistakes in the choice of words and in grammar’. Indeed, the most frequently expressed ‘Other Opinions’ was that they would like to have more process writing lessons in the new school year. It is indicative of a positive change in their attitude towards writing.

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XI.      Teachers’ perceptions of the writing experiences 

The first action cycle is a preparatory and experimentation stage wherein teachers begin to understand and recognize the need to teach writing more systematically. And they need to develop the skills in integrating various language skills through reorganizing the curriculum using learning task as the curriculum organizer. Yet the writing was controlled with definite and structured language input and writing contexts. On reflecting about their role, they said:

We can play a dual role as the researchers as well as the change agents. We bring changes into the classroom. How we perceive the change is an important catalyst to change itself. At the very beginning, we did not know much about process writing and did not know exactly what to do. We did what we used to doing and we mainly focused on teaching the textbook and asked our students to finish the supplementary exercises and various kinds of homework. In the first process writing, we squeezed a minimal amount of lesson time rather reluctantly for the writing task. On completion of the first writing task, we identified changes in students' writing. Though not 'perfect' in terms of creativity and accuracy, we witnessed noticeable differences in the quantity and quality of their work.

The second action cycle is the experiential stage wherein teachers are more willing and ready to take risks. They begin to expand the writing task and expose students to new writing experiences through collaborative project work. They recalled:

In the second cycle, we were more involved in planning and designing the task. We discussed the focus, students’ interest and needs and how our teaching and learning materials should be structured to give meaningful inputs. Although we still gave good attention to the planned exercises and homework, we allowed more room in accommodating process writing in the curriculum. When we found that process writing was helpful in enhancing student writing, we convinced ourselves more and taught the process writing skills in the writing lessons. We did this not to satisfy the research initiatives but to help our students write better.

The third action cycle is the production stage wherein teachers give free hand to students in choosing their own topic for poster making. The majority of the students are confident using the language items they learnt in their writing tasks. Teachers considered that they learned more than just the techniques in process writing. They reflected in the end of term meeting:

Collaboration is an effective way of teaching and it is very important in our professional development. The co-teaching practice enabled peer learning and experience sharing, It made teaching more effective and fruitful. We came to realize that we need to let go some materials in order to create space for integrating process writing into our curriculum. Now we take on a broader perspective and consider more of students’ needs. We also need to consider our own needs and feelings as we have already had so much to do in so limited time span. It was difficult to strike a balance at the beginning. We need time to build up rapport and good work relation. The research project helps us achieve this.

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XII.       Lessons drawn from the process writing experiences

 A.          Create authenticity and ownership in writing

We find that authentic themes related to their daily life can stimulate student to write more readily. Students are enthusiastic to write if the writing tasks are interesting, close to their experiences, and within the reach of their language competence. We learn from the post-task interviews that students are eager to express their own views by telling others about themselves. It is important for us to choose the right topics and design the right tasks. Some students told us that they learnt how to cooperate with others during group writing. It is important to give students opportunities to present their products. Such an extension in readership encourages them to write.

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B.     Learn writing through a work process

We find that the process approach in writing is best learned through a work process. The process involves brainstorming, group writing, peer editing, publishing and sharing products. It is strongly felt that class time must be devoted to teaching writing. Time is important for students to develop their writing skills and guidance is necessary during the development stage. Teacher activities and pupil activities could be outlined as follows:

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C.     Writing is not a spontaneous activity

Effective writing does not occur by itself. It has to be taught explicitly and systematically. Students need to know the stages necessary to writing: brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, publishing and presenting. It is advisable to provide models of writing samples but it is also vital to discuss with students the features that make them effective. Indeed, students should also know what is expected of them in their writing. Selecting writing topics that are of interest to the students and real-life writing tasks like letters, charts and filling out forms are appropriate choice. To help students develop writing, writing should be integrated into the curriculum. Judd, Tan and Walberg (2001) consider that the various language skills should be integrated in realistic language situations. They may need to discuss with their peers, which entails listening and speaking. They may also need to read and write. Creating authentic language situations may make it clear how to integrate the various language skills.

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D.     Scaffold appropriate language input

Vygotsky’s (1962) points out that what the child can do with assistance today can lead to his or her independent learning tomorrow. Thus, students need to be challenged, but with support and encouragement. The support and assistance that permits progress in learning and development has been referred to by Vygotsky as ‘scaffolding’. Various forms of input such as vocabulary, language patterns, model writing and reading are prerequisite to students’ development in aspects of ideas generation and writing skills. Structured and semi-structured practices are essential to building up students’ capacity in using the language forms functionally. In particular, aural-oral input and associated writing practices are necessary in helping student scaffold ideas developed either through reading or through brainstorming. Yet, a careful balance must be kept between giving substantive language input and room for creativity in the writing process.

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E.     Accommodate flexibility when dealing with grammatical accuracy

When assessing students’ writing, we are more concerned with grammatical accuracy at the beginning of the process writing approach. However, a number of us shift our focus to student’ ideas, organization or writing and overall presentation. It is stressed that a balance must be kept between quantity and quality of writing. Mistakes in accuracy in writing might be taken more lightly at the beginning in order to encourage and motivate students to express their ideas in writing. When students get used to free writing and understand that writing will not be perfect at the beginning, teachers can focus more on their accuracy in order to keep the balance.

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F.     Change students’ attitude in writing

Students’ attitude in writing must be changed if writing is to be meaningful. Evans (2001) reports that the majority of students said a good piece of writing must be long, have all words spelt correctly, have correct punctuation to include capital letters and full stops and it must be neat! They paid more attention to the mechanical aspects of writing. It is desirable to change students’ attitude in writing and prompt them to consider the content, audience, purpose or appropriateness of style in writing. According to Evans (2001), it is evident that to develop as effective writers student need:

n          The opportunity to try out things and to relate their previous knowledge to the personal situation;

n          To feel able to take risks without being frightened of making mistakes;

n          To be exposed to an adult role model who will sharing writing and the whole writing experience with them;

n          To have something to write about and reasons to write.

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XIII.     From process to product: concluding remarks

         The journey from process to product in writing is enjoyable and yet challenging. Quantitative changes are identified in both students and teachers. For writing to occur more naturally to students, we learn from students that they want their teachers to teach them how to write in the lessons. The diversified and well structured input in terms of clear teaching and demonstration, a wide variety of teaching and learning materials, mind mapping, modeling and continuous feedback all contribute to students' mastery of writing skills. The process they underwent has equipped them with the skills and confidence in writing. A change in the marking criteria has released teachers from putting too emphasis on the technical aspects of writing. When teachers become more tolerant of "minor" mistakes, student feel more at ease and are more willing to take risks in their work. Peer editing and teacher editing makes room for self correction and students become more aware of their own accuracy in writing, a product teachers obtained unintended. Indeed, audience in the peer editing was extended in the publishing or presentation session. Students were given the chance to share their own product and this adds incentives to writing.

        As for the changes in teachers in the process of implementing a curriculum initiative into the school curriculum, working up a collaborative culture through collaborative lesson planning and associated co-teaching help trigger an inquiry into their own practice. Indeed, external input from outside agency are also effective intervention strategies in the development process. The change from doubt to certainty in teachers’ attitude towards process writing is built on continuous reflections in the meetings, and it taps strength from students’ growing competence in writing. Teachers learn to believe that students are able to work independently if they are given a share in owning the learning. Authentic tasks closely associated with their daily life provide a very nurturing platform. It is through the process taken place on the secure platform that learning to write occurs to students. The research project starts process writing in the school, and process writing sparks off new learning cycles for students and teachers. The process will go on.

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References

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Websites

The Nemours Foundation. (2002). Kids Health. Retrieved from

         http://www.kidshealth.org/index_noflash.html

Central Health Education Unit—Health Zone. (2002). Health Eating. Retrieved from

         http://www.cheu.gov.hk/text/eng/info/exercise_04.htm

Kent School District. (2002). Lesson Plan. Retrieved from

         http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/ljancola/6Trait/lessons.htm

ProTeacher Web Directory. (2002). The Writing Process. Retrieved from

         http://www.proteacher.com/070038.shtml

Washington County Board of Education. (2002). The Writing Process: Beginning Level. Retrieved from  http://www.wcboe.k12.md.us/mainfold/curric/elemela/BegWrtgProc.htm

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