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A process genre approach to

teaching writing

Richard Badger and Goodith White

This paper

analyses

the strengths and

weaknesses

ofproduct, process,

andgenre approachesto writing in term s of their view of writing and how

theysee thedevelopmentof w riting. Itarguesthat the threeapproaches

are

complementary,

and identifies an approach

which is informed by

each

of

them.

Introduction In 1982 one com mentator on the teaching of writing suggested that

The w hole enterprise is beyond wordsbeyond conception. (Smith

1982:27)

Given such a daunting forecast, it is perhaps just as well that EFL teachers

can now draw on a range of approaches to teaching writing. Over the last

20 years, process and product approaches have dominated much of the

teaching of writing that happens in the EFL classroom. In the last ten years,

genre approaches have gained adherents (e.g. Swales 1990, Tribble 1996:

37-57,

Gee 1997). This paper offers some discussion of these approaches,

and argues for a synthesis which draws on all three. It will cover both

linguistic factors (how the approaches conceptualize writing) and educa-

tional factors (how the approaches conceptualize learning to write).

Product One of the most explicit descriptions of product approaches is provided

approaches by Pincas (1982a). She sees writing as being primarily abou t linguistic

knowledge, with attention focused on the appropriate use of vocabulary,

syntax, and cohesive devices. (Pincas 1982b)

In this approach, learning to write has four stages: familiarization;

controlled writing; guided writing; and free writing. The familiarization

stage aims to make learners aware of certain features of particular text.

In the controlled and guided writing sections, the learners practise the

skills with increasing freedom until they are ready for the free writing

section, when they use the writing skill as part of a genuine activity such

as a letter, story or essay (1982a: 22).

A typical product class might involve the learners familiarizing

themselves with a set of descriptions of houses, possibly written

especially for teaching purposes, by identifying, say, the prepositions

and the names of rooms used in a description of a house. At the

controlled stage, they might produce some simple sentences about

houses from a substitution table. The learners might then produce a

piece of guided writing based on a picture of a house and, finally, at the

stage of free writing, a description of their own home.

ELT JournalVolume54 2April2000 OxfordUniversity Press 2000 153

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Pincas (1982a: 24) sees learning as assisted imita tion , and a do pts m any

techniq ues (e .g. subst i tut ion tables ibid.: 94) , wh ere lea rners respo nd to

a s t imulus provided by the teacher . However , her comment that , a t the

stage of free writing, students should feel as if they are creating

something of their own (ibid.: 110) suggests a view of learners as being

ready to show ra ther more ini t ia t ive .

In shor t , produc t-based app roach es see wri ting as mainly concerned with

knowledge about the s tructure of language, and wri t ing development as

mainly the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided

by the teacher .

Process Alth oug h there are man y different process appro aches to wri t ing (see ,

approaches for exam ple , H edg e 1988, W hite and A rnd t 1991), they share som e core

features. Tribble suggests that process approaches stress

. . . writing activities which move learners from the generation of ideas

and the collection of data through to the publication of a f inished

text. (1996: 37)

Writ ing in process approaches is seen as predominantly to do with

linguistic skills, such as pla nni ng an d drafting, and the re is m uch less

emphasis on l inguist ic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar

and text s tructure .

There are different views on the stages that writers go through in

producing a piece of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages:

prewriting; composing/drafting; revising; and editing (Tribble 1996: 39).

This is a cyclical process in which writers may return to pre-writing

activities, for example, after doing some editing or revising.

A typical prewriting activity in the process approach would be for

learners to bra instorm on the topic of houses. A t the composing/draf t ing

stage they would select and structure the result of the brainstorming

session to provide a plan of a description of a house. This would guide

the first draft of a description of a particular house. After discussion,

learners might revise the first draft working individually or in groups.

Finally, the learners would edit or proof-read the text.

In process approaches, the teacher primarily facilitates the learners

writing, and prov iding input or stimulus is conside red to be less im porta nt.

Like babies and young children who develop, rather than learn, their

mother tongue, second language learners develop, rather than consciously

learn, writing skills. Teac hers draw ou t the learn ers poten tial.

Process approaches have a somewhat monoli thic view of wri t ing. The

process of writing is seen as the same regardless of what is being written

and who is writing. So while the amount of pre-writing in producing a

postcard to a friend and in writing an academic essay are different (see

Tribble 1996: 104), this is not reflected in much process teaching.

While a process approach may ignore the context in which wri t ing

happens, this is unusual . For example Hedge (1988: 15 and passim)

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Genre approaches

Figure 1:Martin s

models

of

genre

identifies four elements

of

the context that pre-writing activities should

focuson:

the

audience,

the

generation

of

ideas,

the

organization

of

the

text,

and its

purpose.

Summarizing,we

can say

that process approaches see writing primarily

as

the

exercise

of

linguistic skills,

and

writing development

as an

unconscious process which happens when teachers facilitatetheexercise

of w riting skills.

Genre approachesare relative newcomers

to

ELT . H owever, there

are

strong similarities with product approaches

and, in

some ways, genre

approaches

can be

regarded

as an

extension

of

product approaches.

Like product approaches, genre approaches regard writing

as pre-

dominantly linguistic

but,

unlike product approaches, they emphasize

that writing varies with

the

social context

in

which

it

is

produced. So,

we

have

a

range

of

kinds

of

writingsuch assales letters, research articles,

and reportslinked with different situations (Flowerdew

1993:

307).

As

not

all

learners need

to

operate

in all

social contexts, this view

of

texts

has implications

for

the writing syllabus.

For genre analysts,

the

central aspect

of the

situation

is

purpose.

Different kinds

of

writing,

or

genres, such

as

letters

of

apology, recipes,

orlaw reports, are used

to

carry

out

different purposes. Indeed, Swales

defines

a

genre

. . .

as

a

class

of

communicative events,

the

mem bers

of

which share

some

set of

communicative purposes. (1990:

58)

Genresare also influenced byother features of the situation, such as the

subject matter,

the

relationships between

the

writer

and the

audience,

andthepattern

of

organization. This parallels H edge s (1988) approach,

described above. Martin

(1993:

120) offers

a

diagrammatic explanation

of genre.

In terms

of

writing development, genre approaches have many

similarities with product approaches. Cope

and

Kalantzis

(1993:

11)

talk

of a

wheel model

of

genre literacy. This wheel

has

three phases:

Purpose

[Genre

Channel

[Mode]

Subject matter

Interlocutor Relationship

[Field] [Tenor]

Text

A process genre approach to teaching writing

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Comparing

product, process,

and genre

approaches

modelling the target genre, where learners are exposed to examples of

the genre they have to produce; the construction of a text by learners

and teacher; and, finally, the independent construction of texts by

learners. In theory, the cycle can be repeated as and when necessary, but

it would seem that often each phase appears only once.

In the E LT field, Dud ley-Evans (1997:154) also identifies three stages in

genre approaches to writing. First, a model of a particular genre is

introduced and analysed. Learners then carry out exercises which

manipulate relevant language forms and, finally, produce a short text.

This parallels product approaches very closely.

In a genre class, learners m ight examine authentic descriptions of houses

produced by estate agents or realtors in order to sell the property. As

with product ap proaches, the learners would carry out an analysis of the

text, perhaps looking at some elements of the grammar or patterns of

vocabulary using a concordancer. They would also consider the socia l

context, including the fact that the text is, hopefully, based on a visit to

the house, that its purpose is selling a house, that the audience is made

up of potential buyers, and that the words are supported by pictures and

diagrams. With varying degrees of help, learners would then produce

partial texts. Finally, working on their own, they would produce

complete texts reflecting the social context and the language of the

original description of a house.

Proponents of genre approaches are not often explicit about their theory

of learning. However, the use of model texts and the idea of analysis

suggest that learning is partly a question of imitation and partly a m atter

of understanding and consciously applying rules.

In short, genre-based approaches see writing as essentially concerned with

knowledge of

language,

and as being tied closely to a social purpose, while

the development of writing is largely viewed as the analysis and imitation

of input in the form of texts provided by the teacher.

The three approaches are sometimes presented as opposed to each

other. Thus Gee says that

The process approach generally represented a reaction against the

product-based approach whereas the genre approach represented a

reaction to the so-called progressivist curriculum (1997: 25).

Amongst mother tongue teachers, we find heated comments such as

The process writing teacher, waiting while the child struggles for

control and ow ner sh ip ... actually favours white, middle-class

students. (Cope and Kalantzis 1993: 57).

Similarly, Kamler (1995: 9) criticizes the genre approach because of

... its narrow focus on language and text and its lack of attention to

the instructional and disciplinary contexts in which texts are

constructed.

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Towards a

synthesis writing

in the process

genre approach

EFL comm entators generally work in a less politically sensitive area, but

writing still generates many, often conflicting, views (Tribble 1996: 37).

Teachers of ESOL might understandably decide that the debate is

generating more heat than light, and pass on to more obviously useful

research. However, we would argue that the conflict between the various

approaches is misguided, and damaging to classroom practice. The three

approaches are largely complementary, as becomes more apparent if we

examine their weaknesses and strengths.

The weaknesses of product approaches are that process skills, such as

planning a text, are given a relatively small role, and that the knowledge

and skills that learners bring to the classroom are undervalued. Their

strengths are that they recognize the need for learners to be given

linguistic knowledge about texts, and they understand that imitation is

one way in which people learn.

The disadvantages of process approaches are that they often regard all

writing as being produced by the same set of processes; that they give

insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such

texts are produced; and that they offer learners insufficient input,

particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge, to write successfully. The

main advantages are that they understand the importance of the skills

involved in writing, and recognize that what learners bring to the writing

classroom contributes to the development of writing ability.

The negative side of genre approaches is that they undervalue the skills

needed to produce a text and see learners as largely passive. More

positively, they acknowledge that writing takes place in a social

situation, and is a reflection of a particular purpose, and understand

that learning can happen consciously through imitation and analysis.

An effective methodology for writing needs to incorporate the insights of

product, process, and genre approaches. One way of doing this is to start

with one approach and adapt it. For example, one problem in the process

approach is the lack of input. White and Arndt (1991) suggest techniques

such as group work, where input is provided by other learners, and

conferencing, where inputisprovided on a one-to-one basis by the teacher.

Also,

some process writing material makes use of sample texts, usually

after the learners have produced a firstdraft (see for example W hite 1987).

Adapting an approach has led to im portant developments in the w riting

classroom. How ever, we feel that it is also possible to identify an approach

which is a synthesis of the three approaches, which we term the process

genre approach. An outline of this is presented in the next section.

We will describe our model of the process genre approach in terms of a

view of writing and a view of the development of writing. The essential

idea here is that the writing class recognizes that

writing involves knowledge about language (as in product and genre

approaches), knowledge of the context in which writing happens and


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W riting in the

process genre

approach

Thedevelopment of

writing in aprocess

genreapproach

158

especially the purpose for the writing (as in genre approaches), and

skills in using language (as in process approaches)

writing development happens by drawing out the learners potential

(as in process approaches) and by providing input to which the

learners respond (as in product and genre approaches).

One of the central insights of genre analysis is that writing is embedded

in a social situation, so that a piece of writing is meant to achieve a

particular purpose which comes out of a particular situation. An

example might be an estate agent writing a description of a house in

order to sell it. This purpose has implications for the subject matter, the

writer/audience relationship and organization, channel, or mode (see

Hedge 1988: 15, and Martin 1993: 23). While genre analysis focuses on

the language used in a particular text, we would want to include

processes by which writers produce a text reflecting these elements

under the term process genre . This would cover the process by which

writers decide what aspects of the house should be highlighted, as well as

the knowledge of the appropriate language.

In the writing classroom, teachers need to replicate the situation as

closely as possible and then provide sufficient support for learners to

identify the purpose and other aspects of the social context. So learners

who wanted to be estate agents would need to consider that their

description is meant to sell the house (purpose), that it must appeal to a

certain group of peop le (te nor), that it must include certain information

(field),

and that there are ways in which house descriptions are

presented (mode). The n, drawing on their knowledge of things such as

vocabulary, grammar, and organization, our writers would use the skills

appropriate to the genre, such as redrafting and proof-reading, to

produce a description of a house which reflects the situation from which

it arises. W e have a ttem pted to illustrate this in the left-hand column of

Figure 2 (on the next page).

Different genres require different kinds of knowledge and different sets

of

skills,

and our knowledge of both the knowledge and skill involved in

different genres is limited. How ever, teachers are expert writers of many

genres, and a key feature of this approach is that they should draw on

their own knowledge of, and skills in, particular process genres.

The development of writing will vary between different groups of

learners because they are at different stages of their writing develop-

ment. Learners who know a lot about the production of a particular

genre, and are skilled in it, may need little or no input. Some groups of

learners will have a good awareness of how the potential audience may

constrain what is written. Other groups may lack knowledge of what

language is appropriate to a particular audience. In this case, the

learners need some kind of input in terms of, say, the language

approp riate to a particular audience, or the skills in deciding whom the

potential audience may be. What input is needed will depend on their

particular group of learners.

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igure

2:

A genre

processmodel of

teachingwriting

process genre model

of writing

Situation

Possible input

Purpose

^ Teacher

Consideration of m ode field

tenor

>

N

_ 2 Learners

Planning ^ T , i _ 2i

T e x t s

Drafting ' ,

rafting

Publishing

Text -

In many cases, the teacher is not able to find out what the learners know

or can do before the class. In this case, a deep-end approach modelled

on Willis (1996: 100) may be appropriate. Learners try to carry out one

element in a process genre, and then compare their texts or skills in text

production with some expert s (possibly the teach er s) version of this.

On the basis of this comparison, they or the teacher can then decide if

they need further input of knowledge or skills.

W here learners lack knowledge, we can draw on three p otential sources:

the teacher, other learners, and examples of the target genre. Teachers

may provide input in terms of instruction (mention the number of

rooms), other learners may do the same in the less threatening context

of group work, but perhaps the most distinctive source of input about

contextual and linguistic knowledge in a genre process approach is

language awareness activities. Genre analysis attempts to reveal the

similarities between texts written for the same reason, and so it is likely

that these language awareness activities will be based on a corpus of the

relevant genre. Key materials for genre process teachers are sets of

corpora of the kinds of texts their learners want to write. In our house

description exercise, learners might investigate the kind of sentence

structure used in estate agents descriptions of a house, the kind of

vocabulary used to make the position sound attractive and where the

price appears. Flowerdew (1993) and Dudley-Evans (1997) also suggest

activities such as using flow charts to illustrate the organization of

particular genres and translation.

Learners may also require input about the skills needed for writing. A

rich source here comes from observing other students and the teacher.

Teachers may find direct instruction on skills effectivethink abou t why

you are writing the description but an alternative is a demonstration by

the teacher or other skilled writer, possibly accompanied by a commentary


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attempting to explain the mental processes that underlie the exercise of the

skill. For example, teachers might explain why they chose to include

certain information about a house and leave out other information.

Figure 2 illustrates the possible input in the process genre. The use of

dashes is intended to indicate that input is not always required.

Summary

In this paper, we have outlined an approach to writing informed by a

product, process, and genre view of writing and writing development.

The model sees writing as a series of stages leading from a particular

situation to a text, with the teachers facilitating learners progress by

enabling appropriate input of knowledge and skills.

Received

May

1999

References

Cope

B. and M.

Kalantzis. 1993. Background

to

genre teaching in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis

(eds.).

The

Powers

of

Literacy:

A

Genre

Approach

to

TeachingWriting. London: Falmer

Press.

Dudley-Evans T. 1997. Genre models for the

teaching

of

academic writing to second language

speakers: advantages anddisadvantages in T.

Miller (ed.).

Functional Approaches

to

W ritten

Text: C lassroom Applications.Washington DC:

United States Information Agency.

Flowerdew

J

1993.

An

educational

or

process

Approach

to the

teaching

of

professional

genres .

ELT

Journal

4714: 305-16.

Hedge

T. 1993.

Writing.

Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press.

Gee

S. 1997.

Teaching writing:

a

genre-based

approach .

Review

of

English Lang uage Teach

in g

62: 24-4 0.

Kamler

B.1995. The gramm ar wars or what do

teachers need to know about grammar?.

Eng

lish

in

Australia 114: 3-15 .

Martin.

J.

R

1993. A contextual theory of

language in B.Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds.).

The Powers

of

Literacy:

A

Genre Approach

to

Teaching

Writing. London: Falmer Press.

Pincas

A

1982a. Teaching English Writing.

London: Macmillan.

Pincas,

A.

1982b. Writing

in

English

1.

London:

Macmillan.

Smith

F. 1982.

W riting

and the

Writer.

London:

Heinemann.

Swales

J. 1990.

Genre Analysis.

Cambridge:

Camb ridge University Press.

Tribble

C. 1996.

W riting. Oxford: Oxford

Uni-

versity Press.

White

R. 1987.

Writing Advanced. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

White

R

and

V

Arndt

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Process Writing.

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Willis

J. 1996.A

Framework

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Task Based

Learning.

Harlow: Longman.

The authors

Richard Badger (LLB, PGCE , MA, PhD) has taught

in Nigeria, Malaysia, and Algeria, and currently

teaches at the Centre of English L anguage Teaching

at the University of Stirling, UK. His research

interests include

the

methodology

of

teaching writ-

ing, legal language, genre analysis, and teacher

training.

Email:

Goodith W hite

(BA , Dip TEFL , M.Litt)hastaught

in Italy, Finland, Singapore, Portugal, Eire,and the

UK.

She is

currently lecturing

at

CELT, University

of Stirling, UK,and ispursuing doctoral research in

sotiolinguistics with Trinity College, Dublin. She has

recently published a book on listening for Oxford

University Press.

Email:

160

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