Audience views can also be discussed at this time.
The students have written their first draft. The teacher tells them that after the peer review, they will take the suggested comments and rewrite the paper. This step is another step in the writing process. As the students are learning the process, it is natural with less stress. At the same time, the instructor can continue exposing the students to the masters but in another way. As mentioned above, the teacher is there to answer questions from the students about possible errors in the writing. During the time, the students can spend a portion of their time in examining sentence build from different styles of writing. From this writing, they can have assignments where they clarify their knowledge of the rudiments of grammar, such as subject, predicate, noun, and verb, etc. This can be done using the writings to which they have already been exposed. This takes their understanding to a deeper level. It is as if they are examining the bricks by which the school was built. The time spent on this part of class need not be more than five to ten minutes a session.
These steps teach the process of writing, the process of discovery through language. We use the language to discover our world (Murray, 1997). In the beginning the writers may only catch the mechanical mistakes. As they study the masters, they will develop a stronger ability to look beyond form to meaning. The student will look at the writing as a whole to see where sentences need to be rearranged or dropped, words that need to be added.
The next step is the paper with the teacher as the audience. The students have accomplished the goals of learning the mechanics. They are comfortable in the written word. Writer's block problems know how to be solved. Writing becomes a process to express the deepest thoughts of the individual. Although in a classroom, there are differing abilities, all are confident they can reach the personal goals each has set in regard to writing. Each student knows they can "get the point across" by the written word.
Language is how we communicate with the world at large. In every field a student may enter, he must be able to converse in print to communicate his knowledge base (Berlin, 1997).
In each subject base, whether history, drama, or psychology, the teacher can assist the student in applying his current writing ability to today's world. In today's society, there is a great exchange of knowledge on the internet. With the student's of today, they will be charged with taking care of issues dealing with other countries other than their own. The teacher, at this point, will serve as a guide to allow the student the opportunity to seek how to gather information from different cultures and to incorporate this into his writing. The process will follow in distributing this new body of writing to others first to the teacher, then through articles written for the school newsletter, articles offered online for websites. By allowing the students to present their writing to the public after editing, this offers them a chance to see the importance of writing in everyday life. They will see how writing is important in their future careers. With the teacher's guidance in this final step, there is no fear of the process or of rejection. The student has conquered the phobia of putting words on paper. He has learned the mechanics and the deeper meanings beyond. Now he is ready to take the writing to the next audience: the world.
References
1. Beulah, J. "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories." Cross Talk in Composition Theory: A Reader (1st ed). Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana, IL. 1997. 265-280.
2. Hiemstra, R. Uses and Benefits of Journal Writing. New Directions for Adults and Continuing Education. 2001. n. 90. p. 19-26.
3. Murray, M. "Teaching Writing as a Process, Not Product." Cross Talk in Composition Theory: A Reader (1st ed). Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana, IL. 1997. 21-24.
