Wyse, D; (2019) Choice, Voice and Process – Teaching Writing in the 21st Century: Revisiting the Influence of Donald Graves and the Process Approach to Writing. English in Australia , 53 (3) pp. 82-91.

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Abstract

The narrow teaching of writing that had been common in schools for hundreds of years was challenged in the 1980s by ‘one of the most seductive writers in the history of writing pedagogy’. Donald Graves’s process approach to writing, as it came to be known, was popular in Australia, New Zealand, USA and the UK. At the heart of Graves’s approach was learner choice, and the development of the writer’s voice, enacted in a publication process in the classroom. However, one alleged weakness was the lack of a research base for Graves’s approach. Since then, more than 30 years of research gives us the opportunity to re-evaluate Graves’s ideas. In its exploration of the process approach to writing, this paper examines theory and empirical research in order to contribute to knowledge about the effective teaching of writing. The paper reports findings from a four-year multidisciplinary study, in particular the findings from a secondary data analysis of the work of expert writers compared with experimental evidence of what is effective for novice writers. Overall, the research found that the metaphor of ‘the ear of the writer’ represented fundamental aspects of how writing is learned and could be taught. In conclusion, some implications for national curriculum policy and the teaching of writing are considered.

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