Friday 27 April 2007

The First Draft

All the stages we go through during the process of writing is the main reason to generate ideas, in case you don't want to hear..."I can't think about anything". Through small steps you break down any barrier for learning.
The teacher can draw a mind map with student's ideas on the board. It is a very good tool to show and share their thoughts.
Now, give them a chance to write their own first draft, I mean individually. This is a moment they have to express their opinion and learning experience. Grammar rules, spelling and punctuation should be ignored at this stage. Any difficulty with vocabulary the learners are allowed to write in their L1.
Remember to make available a good dictionary. The words or even phrases that they may have written in L1, they can find out among themselves if you give them another 5 minutes to share their draft.
Since the students have their first sketch, it is going to be easier to organize the text. Bring an example of the same genre you are working on. Discuss with the class the main topic of each paragraph and let them group similar ideas in one paragraph.
The students will get used to generate a second draft, or and a third one if it is necessary.
It is a good recommendation to have a code to signalise each type of mistake, so that they have a chance to reflect about their own writing. We usually learn through mistakes.

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