the process

from Why Johnny Can't Write:

A method for teaching writing called the "process approach" is on the increase in many school districts. Supporters of the method are admirably enthusiastic. They have publicized it widely through articles in professional journals and worked diligently to stamp out the use of other methods such as sentence combining which they call "unnatural writing" or "mechanistic." [Rousseau alert]

However, there are signs that the process approach may look better in professional articles than in practice. Recent studies show it is not particularly effective in typical school settings....

The growing use of the process approach is reflected by this statement in The Writing Report Card, the report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress on our students' writing skills:


The emphasis in writing instruction moved from the final product to the process--planning, drafting, revising, and editing. As a result, school districts across the country have begun to institute process-oriented approaches to writing instruction.


But The Writing Report Card is not able to give the process approach a high grade:


Some students did report extensive exposure to process-oriented writing activities, yet the achievement of these students was not consistently higher or lower than the achievement of those who did not receive such instruction. At all three grade levels assessed, students who said their teacheres regularly encouraged process-related activities wrote about as well as students who said their teachers did not.

and, today's factoid:

Apparently the idea that "writing is rewriting" has not been always with us.

No.

Prior to 1982, apparently, writing was not rewriting. Writing was writing and rewriting was rewriting. Two different things.

The idea that "writing is rewriting" comes to us from Donald Murray, who cooked it up in 1982.


NAEP 1999 Writing Report Card by state