The Writing Process
The five steps of the
writing process, as taught in the Federal Way Public Schools, are:
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topic.)
Key:
The pupil works to organize ideas.
(drafting)
The pupil rereads the piece, re-wording
ideas to clarify meaning and to "spice up" the writing. (revising)
The pupil repairs faulty mechanics
to make the piece error free. (editing)
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- Decide on a topic.
- Brainstorm ideas related
to the topic.
- Use a graphic organizer
to organize ideas.
- Choose the ideas that
most strongly support the topic.
Students
did a factual whale study in class, and they visited the whale exhibit at
the mall. They then prepared written and oral reports about whales.
They
included whale facts in creative stories, using facts from their field trip,
research, and reports to include in their creative whale stories.
- Write your ideas in an
organized way. (paragraphs, bullets, or chart)
The student
wrote in paragraph form.
- Correct parts that don't
make sense or aren't in logical order.
- Add powerful language,
figurative language, detail, description.
- Vary sentence beginnings
and structure.
- Strengthen voice to show
the person behind the words.
The editor
filled in a missing word. The writer changed the character from "he"
to "she" in the final copy.
While the
student did not vary sentence beginnings in the revision process, note how
sentences near the end of the story begin more creatively.
- Correct problems with
mechanics.
The teacher
edited spelling so the final copy would be error-free. The student also edited
out some "Ands" at the beginnings of sentences.
Produce
a neat, error-free final copy.
