1. Corey Lack
ENG 556
Dr. Wilkey
30 November 2015
Focusing on Process Rather Than Product
When it comes to teaching writing, teachers of the past have focused on
teaching writing as a product. They would focus more on showing finished products
of writing done by authors and using them as examples for students to learn writing.
These students are expected to try and mimic the studied author’s methods and
wording, so that they could write the “correct way.” However, teachers eventually
began a different method of teaching the valuable skill of writing. This newer
method focused instead on teaching writing as a process rather than teaching it as a
product. The newer process-focused teaching method had the teachers teach the
students the process of writing a full piece rather than trying to get them to copy an
already finished piece. This teaching method has the students learn the various ins
and outs of the entire process of writing. These things include aspects like grammar,
organization of the paper, and the different steps of the process, which include
“prewriting,” “postwriting,” and the actual writing itself. Once this newer method
was created, a debate was understandably started among the English teachers of the
world. The teachers began to debate over which of these teaching methods, the
older product-focused or the newer process-focused, was the superior one. The
process-focused teaching method became the more popular method, but there are
still teachers that believe the product-focused method is better. One might wonder

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why the newer method was so popular, being considered superior to the older
method.
First, I will discuss the minority that, despite everything that has been
suggested by the process-focused English teachers, follows the pro-product teaching
method. One of the people that showed their support for this less than popular
belief was one Steven Strang, who published a paper back in 1984. Right from the
start of the article, one can easily see that Strang is against the teaching method that
has teachers attempt to teach writing as a process as opposed to the teaching
method that teaches writing as a product. Strang blamed the teachers for the failings
of writing classes, believing that the disconnected teachers from the finished
products cannot allow the students to develop the needed discussions for the works.
He, instead, suggested having the writing classes being led by the students so that
these much needed discussions could come about a great deal easier. Strang
suggested that the students compare their finished works to one another’s so that
they can relate their finished products to the ones completed by others in the class.
This would allow the students to attempt to copy mimic each other’s writing styles
so that they can improve their finished works rather than attempting to improve
their writing process. Strang explains why letting the students lead the discussions
works as being due to the fact that the “teacher stifles discussion” and as a result,
the writers’ failure to become involved in the discussion of their manuscripts except
in a superficial, defensive way; the writers’ inability to express their intentions or to
explain how those intentions became incorporated in the work; a tendency to
pursue irrelevant topics; an emphasis on writing as a product rather than as a

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process.” Despite including the last part as being in the list of problems, Steven
specifically said that the emphasis is not wrong, “for in most academic disciplines
students’ essays, examinations, and reports rather than their process of creating
them will be evaluated.” This statement alone basically sums up the beliefs of the
author of this article. It shows that he believed products were what should be
focused on when teaching writing because it was the finished products that would
inevitably be graded by the teachers rather teaching the students to focus on the
process involved with creating these finished products, so that they would be able to
see where exactly their writing is coming up short once they finish the works. For
example, if they are working on a story-based creative writing piece, they could
explain how they want a character to appear in terms of personality and, by focusing
on the finished product, the students or teachers can tell them where in the finished
work they could make the changes that would help to make the character appear in
the desired way. However, with a teacher who has, instead, decided to foster a more
process-focused teaching method, the ones reviewing the students’ work could take
a look at the process that the author used to make the product and tell the author
precisely how the changes could be done in order to fulfill the desires of the author.
Raymond J. Rodrigues was another anti-writing process follower. He
submitted an article in 1985 that was clearly a summary of his beliefs in regards to
the debate about which teaching method is superior. From the start of the article,
Rodrigues is attacking the followers of the teaching method that has writing as a
process rather than a product. He speaks of the followers of the opposing belief as
though they are followers of some kind of cult. In fact, he literally uses the word

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“cult” when describing the followers of the writing as a process teaching method. He
continues to describe the “new converts” of this teaching method had to hurry to
essentially try and fit in with their fellow “cultists.” He claims that “the writing
process was reduced to the use of unsystematic, open-ended writing instruction.
“Let the writer write” became the motto of many a writing-process oriented
teacher…Freewriting raged free. In some classrooms, skills training became equated
with the Devil himself.” All of these statements paint a rather poor picture for the
followers of the writing process-focused teaching method. Rodrigues’s points make
it seem as though the teachers were just letting the students write whatever they
wished to and provided no direction for their education, when this was undoubtedly
incorrect. I find it hard to believe that the teachers did not provide their students
with learning on how to develop the skills for writing, especially due to the fact that
the idea of the teaching method focusing on writing as a process rather than a
product involves the “how’s” of writing rather than the “what’s” of writing like the
writing as a product teaching method tries to teach its students.
Those were two of a now minority in regards to followers of the teaching
method, but I will describe how the majority in this debate feels and why the larger
number of writing teachers feel that teaching writing as a process is superior to the
teaching method of writing as a product as a result of what is described in the
Hairston article as a “paradigm shift.” As one might expect, there are a number of
articles and points to the belief of process being superior to product.
One such article was the brainchild of four people that studied the effects of
observational learning on the orchestration of writing processes. The researchers of

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this project divided their study participants into different groups before letting
them observe others how they went about following their writing processes before
letting the participants work on the products of their own. The researchers of the
study found that the process-focused teaching method was the superior method, but
their focus is on showing why process is the most important aspect of writing rather
than the product itself.
Their study demonstrates this as the results demonstrate how the
observational learning positively affected the writing processes. In fact, the authors
of the article, who are also the researchers of the study, found through the study
that the orchestration of writing processes is a decisive factor contributing to text
quality. They explain that the writers, no matter the writing skill, rely on the same
cognitive and metacognitive activities, but good and weak writers differ in the way
they distribute these activities over the writing process. This means that the writing
processes people use, no matter the skills of the writer, are the same no matter who
they are and where they learn them. This, in turn, helps to prove that writing as a
process is a better choice in teaching methods than writing as a product because
writing as a process teaches students to universalize their methods in creating a
final product, so when these final products get reviewed, whether by teachers or
fellow students, the reviewers can know exactly what part of the process that the
authors used to create the issue the reviewers feel needs to be corrected. On the
other end of the scale, the teaching method of having writing as a product would not
universalize the method of creating a finished writing product so reviewers would
have a far more difficult time explaining to the author what or where they need to

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change their works in order to improve the issue that the reviewers found in
reading them. The authors did another article that concerned the process-orientated
teaching method. This new article described the study that they did to show the
relation between writing processes and text quality. The results of the study showed
that there was a collaboration between text quality and the mental processes
involved with the writing processes they used. However, there was not a distinct
relationship between the two aspects as the mental processes changed over time.
Robert De Beaugrande was another person that greatly supported the
teaching method of having writing as a process rather than writing as a product. He
is focused on trying, as the title of his article suggests, to get people to move from
the product-focused teaching method towards the more process-focused teaching
method. De Beaugrande started out the article by using the example of two students
creating the exact same piece of writing and having to rewrite them. The “punch-
line,” so to speak, of the example is that was that the student that focused more on
the process of writing the piece turned in a work that was far more readable than
the student that focused more on the finished product. This is not to say that the
“losing” student’s work was illegible, as technically the words and sentence formats
did, in fact, make sense, but the issue was that the “winning” student’s work was
better in that the sentences were able to be read with greater ease than the ones in
the “losing” student’s work and was considered to be less “dull.” De Beaugrande
explains this issue with a statement similar to one that I had made earlier. This
statement is “A truly “generative” model for writing must specify the controls used
in deciding what forms to build in the first place. Analysis of products should not be

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used to discover any arbitrary forms and patterns, but should be used to discover
the relevance of forms to the writer’s purpose and to the topic at hand.” This is
essentially a rewording of my previous comment about how process-oriented
writers focus on how and why they write in a certain way, whereas the product-
oriented writers focus solely on what they write and the reviewers would be unable
to understand how their process came to this finished version.
Following the path set by the previously mentioned authors, Marva Barnett is
yet another supporter of the idea of teaching writing as a process, as it was shown in
her article. Barnett’s article demonstrates that the belief of having writing as a
process rather than a product is, in fact, present outside of the United States as she
focuses on the writing students in France, but her points can be used to connect
with other groups of writing students. She points out the issues of having writing as
a product, like how the teachers focus on correcting aspects like grammar, rather
than helping with the process. In fact, she explains that the teachers tend to work
themselves out of the process, resulting in the students’ own processes becoming
lacking. She explains that following the product-oriented teaching method
eliminates the teacher’s knowledge of the turned in product is but the latest draft
and not the “final” draft as it can always be revised and corrected, resulting in it
being graded as such and the students getting unhelpful criticism, but with the
process-oriented teaching method, Barnett assures her readers that the teachers
would treat the drafts that were turned in as incomplete, imperfect ones, like they
should be, and realize that there are stages to writing, so they will give much more
constructive criticism.

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Jerry Mirskin also supported the teaching method of having writing as a
process rather than the teaching method of writing as a product. In his article, he
attempts to further improve the idea of writing as a process in the hopes of getting
the students more involved in the creation and usage of the process. Mirskin
suggests that this can be accomplished by having the students focus on writing
about topics that interest them or that they value. He suggests that the students
writing about the topics that they value would get them interested in performing the
process of writing.
Joanne Liebman-Kleine is yet another supporter of the teaching method of
having writing as a process rather than a product. She demonstrates this in her
article that was a response to another article with her article being used to support
the education process in ESL, or English as a second language, composition. She
explains that the original article stated that the “process approach does not prepare
students to take essay exams, write highly structured assignments, write about
impersonal topics, and receive low grades.” She found this belief to be disturbing
due to the blame directed at the teachers for not fulfilling our responsibilities in
preparing students for the writing to come. She admits that the teachers do not
prepare process students for all academic writing tasks, but she does not feel that
the teachers should have to do so. The interesting aspect that goes along with this
response article is that, at no time, does she seem to have any issue with the idea of
a process-oriented teaching method. In fact, she shows that she believes it is best,
but she does feel that while it is the duty of the teachers to help the students learn
the processes, she seems to feel that the students must also develop some of their

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own, since the teachers cannot possibly teach the process for every possible
eventuality. While I do believe it is difficult for teachers to completely prepare their
students for all future writing, I do believe as well that it is quite possible for them to
do so.
Christopher Jeffery was another supporter of the teaching method of writing
as a process rather than as a product. He wrote an article that was focused on
another study that was done to examine the English students and teachers and their
perceptions of the writing process. The study involved asking the teachers and
students how much they felt they did different types of writing. The study found that
the perceptions of the year 11 and 12 students, in regards to the commonality of the
different types of writing, more accurately mirrored reality more accurately than
the perceptions of either the teachers or the year 10 students. When the teachers
realized that they do not offer the amount of writing that they wanted to, they
blamed either the students themselves or the system. The study goes on to examine
what the teachers and students feel go into the actual process following the turning
in of the final product. The groups, for the first time in this study, agree that
discussion plays a big part of the later process of writing, specifically the reviewing
portion. This demonstrates a support of the process-oriented teaching method
because it shows not only do they follow the process that it entails, but also that
they support the part of reviewing, which, according to the article, would be counted
as part of the postwriting section of the writing process. By following this process
that they believe is already prevalent and important, the discussions involved would

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allow the different authors to discuss each other’s works so that they could decide
how best to improve their writing process and, as a result, their “final” draft.
Another supporter of the process-oriented teaching method, Donald Murray,
wrote yet another article that showed his support for the teaching method. Murray
starts out by pointing out the erroneous belief of superiority of the one-time
widespread method of teaching writing as a product; a method that Murray himself,
as well as, according to Murray, a number of other teachers were taught. The
author’s key message in this article is for the teachers to teach unfinished writing
rather than focusing on the final product. The author suggests the teachers to “glory
in its unfinishedness,” so they can work with “language in action.” What I took this
to mean is that, by examining the writing process and focusing on the unfinished
works of the students, the other students and teachers that review the different
drafts of the work-in-progress can examine the process that the author used and
alter it so that the next draft will be improved. This altering of the process would
show the process itself as being “fluid” or “in action” allowing for the following draft
to be improved.
How to teach writing has been the source of a long-lasting debate for a
number of years. The debate has involved whether the teachers should teach
writing as a product or teach it as a process. The originally chosen teaching method
was the method of teaching writing as a product. What this meant was that the
teachers focused on the finished writing products and had their students try to fix
them by also focusing on them. However, over the years, the teaching method of
writing as a process, which has the teachers focus their students on the actual

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creation of the finished products rather than the products themselves, has become
more popular and, as a result, the teaching method of writing as a product has
become less and less prevalent.
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Studies. By Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. 439-50. Print.
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Composition and Communication 35.3 (1984): 327. J-stor. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.
Braaksma, Martine A. H., Rijlaarsdam, Gert, Van Den Bergh, Huub, and Van Hout-
Wolters, Bernadette H. A. M. "Observational Learning and Its Effects on the
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2015.
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