The Writing Process

The Writing Process 7-2 Communication Arts, Ms. Silk

What is the writing process? • The Writing Process is the steps you take to write an essay, story, personal narrative, or any type of writing.

What is the Writing Process? • It consists of 5 steps: • Pre-Writing • Drafting • Revising • Editing • Publishing

Step 1: Pre-Writing • This is the 1st step in the writing process and can be the most important! • This is when you: • organize your thoughts, • decide on a topic, • determine your audience, • gather information, • plan how you will write.

Pre-Writing Techniques • Listing • Brainstorming • Webs • Graphs • Venn Diagrams • Free-Writing • Stream of Consciousness Writing • Outlining

Step 2: Drafting • This is when you take your pre-writing work and turn it into an essay, paragraph, story, etc. • Do not focus on spelling and grammar at this point—just focus on the content (your ideas)!

Step 2: Drafting • Your rough draft(s) do not have to be typed! • You can have as many rough drafts as you need to polish your paper!

Step 3: Revising • This is the third step in the writing process. • Focus on: • Organization of ideas • Structural concerns • General content concerns

Step 3: Revising • This step focuses on higher concerns (ones that take longer to fix).

Step 4: Editing • This is the fourth step in the writing process. • Focus on correcting mechanical errors (spelling, punctuation, and grammar)

Step 4: Editing • These are lower order concerns and should be corrected last since they take less time to fix.

Step 5: Publishing • This is the final step in the writing process. • After you have completed all the previous steps, and if you feel your paper is ready, you turn in the final, polished draft.

Writing Prompt • What is publishing? • Describe it. • Think for 1 minute. Write for 5 minutes.

Self-Reflection • What have I learned? • What was the most challenging step in the writing process? • What was the easiest? • How has my writing changed?

The Writing Process