The Teaching of Writing workshop

Given by: J. Matterer
Monday, August 2, 2004
Report submitted by: Hassan Abouabdelkader and Med Dahbi.

The purpose of the session was to stimulate a debate on the aspects that need to be taken into consideration in a writing course. Four levels were stressed by the tutor;

1. The major trends in the writing literature.
2. The speaking-writing relationships.
3. Writing as a process and writing as a product.
4. The writing-composing dichotomy.

The first issue was an attempt to define the concept of writing and overview the major approaches to teaching it in some parts of the United States.

The second part of the workshop was ground for clarifying the tutor’s views concerning the speaking-writing differences. The discussion was interesting as other perspectives were also debated. Aspects of divergence between the two skills were highlighted and their pedagogical implications were raised.

The third issue debated in the workshop aimed at distinguishing between the concepts of process and product and the actual uses of these constructs in the ESL/EFL context. The discussion was based on some handouts illustrating the components of process writing, as evidenced in the writing literature.

Finally, the fourth component debated was the writing-composing dichotomy. The claim made by the tutor was that the writing teacher should make a clear distinction between the two constructs and that they are not interchangeable.. This issue was also debated by the participants in search for the differences between the two concepts..