Investigating the Process Approach to Writing

This paper reports on six case studies of a 16-hour process writing program.

The purpose of the research was two-fold: (a) to investigate the processes used

by the students in composing and revising their essays as they applied the

process approach to their writing, and (b) to evaluate the effects of this

approach on the quality of the students' writing. The research involved six first

year full-time students at tertiary level. They were native Cantonese speakers

who were introduced to the process approach to writing, and were required to

write two expository essays for practice and assessment. In each case, they

wrote an outline and four drafts before turning in the final copy. Initial drafts

showed changes in content and organization, while later versions were marked

by revisions of language use and mechanics. A comparison of the first and

second writing assignments indicated numerical gains in content and organization

scores. Qualitatively, both researchers agreed that the students' improvement

in content and discourse organization was substantial, but improvement

at the sentence level was minimal. A gain in writing readiness was

also noted, a view which was echoed by the students themselves. The

implications of the research are that the writing program described here helped

to develop confidence and fluency, while improving content and discourse

organization, but failed to effect major improvement at the sentence level.