All about the Writing Process .

As a teacher I have learned that the writing process is a cycle of activities that you complete as you generate ideas , compose those ideas into a document or presentation and refine those ideas . It is a repetitious process . The 5 steps are stated below.

Stage 1: Prewriting- This is the brainstorming stage where the topic is chosen and you gather your ideas and record them using a graphic organizer. During this stage, decision-making is done to plan and organize your writing piece, allowing the writer to narrow all the ideas to help to create a smooth flow for drafting. 

Stage 2: Drafting- The drafting stage focuses on recording the ideas from the pre-writing stage and putting them into complete sentences and paragraphs necessarily. The writer records a rough draft; hence, it will not be 'perfect' as this is the first attempt. 

Stage 3: Revising- This stage of the writing process focuses on the organization of the first draft and ensuring that your ideas are well-constructed. More than likely, one may have to add, remove, substitute or move words and sentences around for a better layout of the script/writing piece.

Stage 4: Editing- Proofreading compositions to highlight errors, correct spelling, capitalization, punctuation and grammatical errors to perfect the writing piece. 

Stage 5 : Publishing- Creating the final draft and presentation, sharing the writing with the intended audience and making the writing public.

The Importance of the Writing Process 

The writing process is important as it allows writers, both beginner and advanced to create a plethora of ideas and turn them into a finished product. The writing process also promotes creativity among writers and is suitable for the different genres of writing. Both students and teachers can benefit from this as it acts as a step-by-step guide to create a 'perfect' piece. One should consider each step of the writing process as they are all important and overtime, would improve one's confidence when writing. Writing would eventually become less overwhelming as it is done in stages. 

The 6 Plus 1 Traits

The 6 +1 trait of writing creates a common vocabulary and guidelines for teachers to use with students so that they become familiar with the terms of writing. It allows teachers and students to focus on one or two elements of writing at a time, creating more manageable and effective ways for students to learn how to write. It helps in providing feedback to students through assessment of their writing. The 6 traits of writing are focused on voice, ideas, conventions, organizations, word choice and sentence fluency. I also learned that the 6 plus 1 traits help both the student and teacher to identify the areas of writing that the student needs to work on in improving. I will explain each :

Ideas :This is the where you gather your thoughts for writing on a specific topic .Adding quality details to what you are writing about .

Organization : Making your words and sentence easy to flow. This step involves hooking the reader with bold beginning .

Voice -Matching your voice to the audience, sounding as if you really interested in the topic bringing life to it .

Wordchoice : Choosing the best words/ interesting words  to use for the topic at hand . 

Sentence fluency- Using sentences that are fun to read, read writing aloud to practice fluency in becoming better readers and writers .

Convention : Following the rules for writing , editing work , grammar , punctuation and capitalisation. Placing capital letters at the beginning of sentences and beginning of proper nouns .

How is the 6 + 1 trait and the Writing process connected ? 

During the voice stage of the 6 plus 1 process it includes the prewriting, revising and publishing stage . The organisation stage includes the prewriting stage of the writing process that deals with choosing a topic and organising your thoughts . During the idea stage of the 6 + 1 stage it includes the prewriting stage  and revising stage while the convention stage speaks about the editing stage , grammar and punctuation . Additionally the wordchoice includes the revising stage because of the choice of words  and last the sentence fluency is the editing stage but can be done in the revising stage depending on the topic because its about the structure and flow of sentences. So, by examining the links that was explained, you would realize that 6+1 traits and the writing processes go hand in hand to assists students into becoming fluent writers.