Prewriting, Writing, Rewriting: Teaching the Composing Process to Basic Writers At the College Level.

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of an approach to teaching basic writing predicated on a process view of composing--prewriting, writing, and revision. The students in the experimental basic writing course participated in a number of structured, sequential activities in preparing their expository essays: (1) journal writing, (2) individual and group prewriting sessions, (3) student-teacher prewriting conferences, (4) preliminary draft workshops, (5) peer evaluations, (6) rewriting, and (7) student-teacher revision conferences. Students in the traditional course did not engage in any prewriting or rewriting activities. Three specific questions were formulated to determine the effectiveness of the experimental course: (1) will the writing skills of the students in the experimental course improve, (2) will the students in the experimental course write better essays at the end of the semester than students in the traditional course, and (3) how will the students respond to the experimental course? The study was implemented at a small, Catholic, urban university in the South with students assigned to basic writing at the beginning of the semester. At the beginning of the semester, each student in the experimental course, (1) answered a questionnaire assessing his writing strengths, (2) received instructions on keeping a daily log, (3) wrote a pre-test essay, and (4) wrote a history of his writing experiences as he was observed by the investigator, who recorded her observations. At the end of the semester, all students in the experimental and traditional courses wrote a post-test essay on an assigned topic in class. Students in the experimental course also wrote a step-by-step account of their composing strategies and submitted all the jottings they used in writing the post-test essay. Thirteen r and omly selected post-test essays from each treatment group were scored by two independent raters. The t test revealed that the mean score for the post-test essays of the students in the experimental course was significantly higher (at the .05 significance level) than those written by students in the traditional course. In addition, the data showed that the students in the experimental course did use prewriting and revision techniques in writing their post-test essays.