Response from readers helps the writer to focus on, reread and develop a text. It also creates a new parallel text, the discussion around the writing. This parallel text uses a different range of language involving for example polite queries, suggestions, encouragement, with the aim of leaving the writer in control of the text while helping her to see it in different ways.

Of course, the obvious way of doing this is by talking! But the VLE allows the discussion to continue over a longer period, and  the whole discussion around the text and the different versions of the text can be saved in the VLE so that student and teacher have a valuable record of the  whole development.

Ways in which this can be done with a single author:

1. •  In a shared space in the VLE,(like Fronter Document)  the writer can have a dialogue with a teacher about the text.
   

1. •A text can be posted into a Forum discussion so that specified readers can access and discuss it together.
   

1. •  A writer can send a text to a teacher (or another student ) for comment using a Word document attached to an email. Comments are written directly into the document using the Word Comment function. (This method is of course possible outside a VLE)
   

More than one person is actively involved in creating the text, not just in commenting on it.

Most VLEs have a shared space (like Fronter Document) in which several writers can create a text together in a dialogue. They can also have a dialogue with a teacher about the text.

Thanks to Sandra Foldvik and her trainee English teachers at North Trøndelag University  College, we can demonstrate a whole process from first to final draft with two peer responses and a final tutor response. The student teachers involved are trying out a way of working with writing which they can take with them into their school careers.

First, a comment from one of Sandra’s students:

Key features of process writing:

1. •  Developing writing skills and e-skills by working on a text through three drafts
   

2. •  Developing language awareness
   

3. •  Getting a response from a reader/readers early in the process and not just at the end
   

4. •  Learning to respond to other writers
   

5. •  Keeping ownership of a text
   

6. •  Close contact with the tutor from initial assignment to final version
   

7. •  Keeping a record of all the stages of development
   

8. •  Publishing a well-presented final version
   

Setting up the process: an example

In the course room of the VLE, Sandra files the last writing task of the English 2 course, a creative writing text, and then writes a message to tell students to look for it .

The task is based on reading: course texts which look at childhood and parent-child relationships. Students are asked to write about the relationships in one or more of these texts, or about a parent-child relationship of their own choice.

Work plan:

•First draft, as a Word document. In the text, the student must specify three specific language goals to focus on.

•Text published and registered as accepted in a specified area in the VLE. This is a way of checking that students deliver on time. Text also filed in the student’s personal area.

•Response from 2 peers and work on 2nd draft in a face-to-face compulsory writing response session. Selection of a passage for teacher response on language.

    •Tutor response on second draft

    •Final version of text in student Portfolio.

Read on to follow the whole process:

1. •Process writing assignment
   

2. •Maria’s first draft
   

3. •1st response
   

4. •Second Draft: tutor response
   

5. • Maria’s final version
   

6. •Back to Tools for Creating Dialogue
   

7. • Home