Would You Rather Be a Hammer or a Nail?

Using Process Writing in an L2 Basic Writing Class

Prewriting

• Pose the question to the students, “Would you rather be a hammer or a nail?”• Whole-class discussion

(perhaps with some realia): What are hammers like? What are nails like? What are their strengths and weaknesses?• Record ideas on a the board or

using a projector.

Hammers NailsStrengths

• Powerful• Only need one• Control the situation• Aggressive

• Collective• Hold things together• Permanent

Weaknesse

s

• Destructive• Lonely

• Get hit• Can be bent• Not important alone• Passive

Drafting

• Raise the question: Now that we’ve had this discussion, which would you rather be? Why? In your own words, what is good about being a hammer? What is bad? A nail—good and bad?• Let’s write! (Have students write freely and do their best. We are not

going to grade this yet)• Allow students 15-20 minutes to write. Circulate among students as

they write, answering questions, and asking to read what has been written. When a great sentence is written, stop and share it with the class. Be encouraging but not directive.

Revision

• Ask for volunteers to read aloud, or if students are reluctant, collect the papers and read them anonymously.• Discuss the ideas in the papers, discussing what is good in each

paragraph, and focusing in expression and ideas, not correctness• Construct a rubric. Ask: What were the best papers like? What were

the average papers like? What were the papers that need improvement like? Record the students’ ideas, contributing yourself as well.

GREAT WORK! AVERAGE WORK NEEDS MORE WORK

Revision

• Announce that the assessment for this assignment will follow this rubric:• Great work: 13-15/20• Average work: 10-12/20• Needs more work: 7-9

• Put students in groups of 2-3. Have them read each other’s papers and give feedback on what needs to be done to improve the paragraphs.• Allow students to revise their original papers.• Have students share (or collect and read) their new papers; discuss

improvements that are seen and improvements that still need to occur.

Proofreading/Copyediting

• Read through student drafts and note the common writing errors (spelling, grammar, mechanics) in them.

• Write a “fake” paragraph that contains all these errors. Tell the students that Aicha Kandisha visited and decided to write her own paragraph, but it needs correction.

• Have the students correct a copy of Aicha’s paragraph working together in small groups.• As a whole class, collaborate to collect Aicha’s paragraph, discussing the decisions the

students made and working through the paragraph until it is completely copyedited. (NOTE: This is where we teach about sentence structure, grammar, etc., not in formal out-of-context lessons but as issues meaningfully arise.)

• Ask the students to identify the major errors that were made. Record these and have the students write them down in their notebooks.

• Put students in pairs and have them identify and correct each other’s errors.• Assign the students to rewrite their final draft to correct all errors.

Publishing

• Create a writing blog for the class using Blogger. Invite/post students’ final paragraphs on the blog for the students to read.• Assess the students’ paragraphs using the rubric created by the class.