Chapter 1: Teaching Children to Write

The vignette in the chapter gives me a clearer picture what writing teaching looks like and how it can be managed. "Classroom teachers as well as writing researchers have discovered that even young children communicate through writing and that they begin writing as they are learning to read or even before they read (Graves, 1994)" (p. 5). I have thought writing teaching could not be done in the beginners' class and it isn't possible until they finish basic letters, words, sentence structures. I noticed that I have a different concept what teaching writing is about while reading a textbook and an article (http://math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org/articles/Tips_for_teaching_kids_how_to_write.html). It means children are using writing for communication so it can mean words, making cards or picture books with simple words not writing a story or an essay. Chapter one introduces five key features of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing; and five levels of support: modeled writing, shared writing, interactive writingg, guided writing, and independent writing.

As Sunmi said, teaching writing process explicitly will equip students with self-monitoring, or self-regulated writing conventions. With skills and strategies learnt from process-stressed lessons, students will organize, revise, edit, and publish while examining each process like capable writers do. Teachers' role will be giving time and opportunities to experience those steps to students and could model for students, hopefully.