Using metacognition techniques, the teacher encourages his student to tell the class exactly what he is thinking as he is composing his story. Thinking aloud allows the teacher to help the student in his cognitive writing process especially if the student is a problem writer or panics before a blank page.
A weak writer has the following characteristics:
No sense of purpose--he does not know why he is writing the piece.
No sense of audience--he does not know his niche and to whom he is writing.
No understanding of the writing task--he does not know that genre or he is confused about the directions of the writing assignment.
No understanding on how to deploy writing strategies
No understanding on the difference between revision and proofreading.
The writing teacher then has to teach students the different purposes of writing--to inform, to educate, to persuade or to entertain. These are some of the purposes of writing that you get in college.
As for audience, in college, the audience is usually the teacher or the peers. An interesting study posits that when students write for peers, they write in a more informal tone and with sloppier grammar whereas when students write for teachers, they write in a more formal tone with fewer grammar mistakes so it is important for students to know to whom they are writing to.
If the teacher writes alongside the student in real time in a writing workshop, the teacher can demonstrate what is required of the writing assignment by showing the student in real time how the teacher thinks aloud as she writes her piece and thus the student gain an understanding of the writing task and also learns how to deploy writing strategies.
Another way I like to show students how to deploy writing strategies is to show students model papers or examples of good papers of each writing genre. If I assign for instance, a definition essay, I would show students examples of good Definition essays from past students. Using exemplars helps students visualize what is expected of them and help them understand different writing genres.
As part of my writing course design, in the last few weeks of the class, I teach students the difference between revision (checking for essay structure) vs proofreading (checking for grammar errors). I teach students that it is more important to check for essay structure (revision) first to make sure the overall essay first makes sense before checking for low level errors (proofreading).
It is my job to make sure I produce strong writers from my writing class who know the purpose of why they are writing, who understand their audience, who know how to deploy writing strategies, who have a clear understanding of the writing assignment and who understand the difference between revision and proofreading.
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