Rethink Writing Instruction: Explore Writing As A Learning Process

Initiated by a puzzle with the traditional writing instruction for college non-English majors, the writer in this thesis attempted to find some understandings about how to make writing an enjoyable learning process. Literature on writing instruction reveals four main approaches to writing instruction: the product approach, the process approach, the genre approach and the content approach. The product approach is concerned with the writing product, with its focus on the forms and language knowledge. The process approach attaches great importance on linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar and text structure. It regards the development of writing proficiency as a gradual developing process, in which students keep on writing and correcting their drafts on the basis of engaging different kinds of dialogues. The genre approach emphasizes writing should consider the specific social context and readership. It acknowledges that writing takes place in a social situation, and is a reflection of a particular purpose. And the content approach advocates writing integrated with a specific subject. It is an approach in which writing is linked to concurrent study of the specific subject matter in one or more specific disciplines. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages, and is suitable for a specific teaching context. By drawing on the theory of Exploratory Practice developed by Dick Allwright and the CoP(communities of Practice) theories developed by Lave and Wenger(1991) and Wenger (1998) this thesis applauds the view of prioritizing 'quality of life' in the writing classroom life and encourages the development of the kind of informal leaning through student learning community such as the dormitory community.Four writing tasks were assigned, with the purpose to investigate the composing process and product, and the learning experience students engaged in. Through the investigation of the data collected, using research methods of classroom observation, class discussion, interview and talk, discourse analysis and the compositions of students, the thesis found that writing based on students' life and representing their thoughts aroused their interest, that an informal collaborative learning exist through the cooperation in their writing activities, especially through the practice of dormitory learning communities, which legitimized peripheral participation. The thesis drew the following implications of how to make writing an enjoyable learning process. First, teaching of writing should "focus on 'quality of life' rather than on quality of work"(Allwright, 2003), which can be interpreted in terms of that teachers need to pay attention to 'quality of life' in language classroom rather than becoming more effective language teachers, more efficient 'delivery systems' of success of writing instruction, that the evaluation system must be changed from the traditional practice of concerning with forms—whether the grammar is right, whether there is a range of vocabulary and how advanced the vocabulary is, whether the spelling is correct, how complex the syntactic structure is, and so on—into the focus of how original the writing is, and how well the writer can communicate meaning, that so far as the content is concerned, it's advisable to inspire students to employ writing materials from their life, including real life experience and the pop culture resources, which can offer scaffoldings cognitively and affectively in their writing process, and thus improve their confidence and interest in writing, and that it is advisable to introduce different genres and styles in writing in order to meet the students' different needs, such as the learning need and the affective need. Second, Peer revision activity is a meaningful leaning activity, which can promote students' collaboration in the learning community of practice. The thesis thus presented a model of writing instruction through the development of student's learning communities.