Post 96: Advantages to using the Writing as a Product Approach (Learning View)

Post 96: Advantages to Using the Writing as a Product Approach


   1. Product writing teacher method lends itself to writing that has conventions or a specific format such as the 8 rhetorical modes like The Personal Experience Essay, The Character Sketch, The Process Essay, The Problem Solution Essay, The Definition Essay, The Classification Essay, The Comparison Contrast Essay, The Cause and Effect Essay, The Evaluation Essay and The Literary Analysis Essay.

   2. Product Writing Teaching Method allows the student to visually see how an essay is constructed such as when I teach the 5 paragraph essay method. (See the above flowchart)

   3.  Students develop analytical skills and learn how to write from a template. Admit it, when we first learn a new skill, we learn off templates. When we learn a new graphic design program for instance, we work off templates and gradually increase our design skills until we can create our own templates. Same token with writing, we start by learning the different rhetorical styles of English and then once we have mastered these rhetorical styles, we can then mix and match the different rhetorical styles to fit our own needs.  In the real world, people will give you templates anyway for whatever your job is and your job will be to follow that template avidly at first, and then create your own style (template for others to follow) later on no matter what field you are in.

   4. Students develop an awareness of what English rhetoric looks like. Unlike other languages like Hebrew, Asian Languages or Romance Languages, English is a linear language where A goes to B and B goes to C.  In Japanese for instance, you mention the subject only once in the paragraph and then for that paragraph it is understood what the he/she is referring to. In French, you can write sentences many pages long (although this is done mainly for artistic purposes). Product writing allows students to see how the syntax, discourse, grammar and lexical structure of English writing looks like.

5. Teaching Writing as a Product is also time efficient. If you are teaching an 8 week or a 5 week class, then Product Writing Teaching saves time so students can learn more about writing in a shorter amount of time.