5. Points to remember when making writing more visible on our course

Any student textbook or self-reference resource can only go so far; students will only really become good writers via the act of writing itself and importantly, only if they care about what they are writing. Below are some key points that are useful to bear in mind when giving writing more visibility on your course.

· By increasing the visibility of writing on your course, you are also signalling to your students its importance and value, which in turn increases student motivation for investing in the writing process.

· Writing often starts in an informal and/or creative way, and is only critically examined and formally shaped by the writer at a later stage. [1]

· Process is as important as product – notes, plans, drafts with mistakes, redrafts, and revising, editing and polishing are all valuable written products and stages in their own right.

· Showing your students examples of your own writing process (notes, drafts and then a finished piece of your work) will give them confidence – it’s useful for them to know that experts and professional writers do not magically produce a polished piece of writing from the start but that we revise and correct our writing many times.

· Writing can be a shared and collaborative process, and written work can be reviewed, questioned and discussed by peers and/or in peer groups.

· Any formal writing task should have a clearly stated purpose, audience and form.

· Student written reinterpretations and reformulations of what they have read (e.g. paraphrases and summaries) can never be practised enough.

· Frequent practice of very short writing tasks, such as writing short definitions of key terms and concepts, helps the students develop their subject understanding and vocabulary.

· Writing tasks do not have to be long to be useful. In fact, often students need to concentrate on quality rather than quantity – less is more.

· Writing doesn’t always have to be marked, assessed or even always looked at by you – writing in itself develops writing skills.

Notes
[1] Elbow, P. (1998) Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process.