2.2.1.

Writing as a pedagogical Activity

It has been commonly agreed that writing is a complex, purposeful act of communication that
involves generating, organizing, and expressing ideas in a written ,structured and coherent
manner. According to Nunan (1989), writing is “the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking
about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be
clear to a reader.” However, writing is not merely the transcription of thoughts into words; it
is a cognitive and social process that requires reflection and an awareness of the reader. In
EFL teaching contexts, particularly in second language learning, writing serves as a powerful
tool for instruction following different approaches in teaching it .

In fact, the emergence of writing as an academic subject has brought about different
contrastive conceptions that have shaped writing instructional methods. Teaching writing,
especially in a second language context, has undergone an evolution from regarding it as mere
language and grammatical structures to focusing on genre and context as essential elements
that shape the writing process. This shift in focus has been highlighted in Hyland’s Second
Language Writing (2019). Hyland (2019), in this context, has delineated that writing was
initially viewed as merely a coherent arrangement of words, clauses, and sentences structured
according to a set of rules. Such a limited view of writing confines it into its structural aspect
while neglecting its contextual and meaningful force. In fact, such a view of writing, rooted in
structuralism and behaviorism, shapes writing as a product of imitation and model
manipulation (Hyland, 2019). In this regard, Hyland (2019) posits that writing has been
rendered as “a means of reinforcing language patterns through habit formation.” This
mechanical aspect of writing has attributed supremacy to the level of accuracy in students’
writings at the expense of communicative content and meaning (Hyland, 2019). In Hyland’s
words, “Most teachers are familiar with students who can construct accurate sentences and yet
are unable to produce appropriate written texts.” To further explain, writing does not solely
depend on accuracy but on various criteria such as context, meaning, and communicative
purpose. To achieve a well-elaborated piece of writing, students should strive to convey their
ideas in a coherent and meaningful manner that demonstrates accuracy and fluency.

In this regard, a second shift in focus was observed from language structures to text functions.
This shift from formal to functional approaches of writing has brought about a novel
perspective of writing. This functional approach, according to Hyland (2019), is achieved by
assisting students to produce “effective compositions” through the creation of topic sentences
and transitions. Different functions can be highlighted through writing such as categorizing,
exemplifying, describing a process, describing causality, and comparing and contrasting. This
functional approach, in turn, further guides and facilitates the task of writing for EFL students
who encounter several challenges in second language writing. In fact, this transition from
sentence-level accuracy to discourse-level communicative purposes echoes broader
pedagogical developments across decades. As noted by Paltridge et al. (2009), early methods
such as the controlled composition approach prevalent between the 1940s and 1960s focused
mostly on grammatical accuracy through pattern-based repetition. However, by the mid-
1960s, educators recognized the need to emphasize writing’s rhetorical and communicative
roles, leading to the adoption of approaches centered on functions like comparison,
description, and contrast. These shifts laid the development of both the functional and process
approaches.

The third orientation in teaching writing is considering writing as a creative expression, taking
the writer as the main focus rather than the text. Such an approach was employed by a
Japanese teacher who stated that “challenging his students to be creative in expressing
themselves has allowed them to express their feelings and opinions freely.” Thus, teaching
writing as artistic expression stimulates students’ creative genius rather than being merely a
taught or learnt subject. In this sense, the individual or the student is granted the freedom of
self-expression through writing. According to Hyland (2019), expressivism as an approach is
crucial in supporting writers to explore their beliefs, engage with the ideas of others, and
connect with readers. Thus, this view of writing deconstructs the rigid barriers of
structuralism and functionalism to elevate it into the realm of creativity and self-discovery.
However, while creativity is essential in the process of writing, teachers should provide
further assistance for their students in order to guide their thinking and cognitive process. In
this context, writing is not a mere product of students’ efforts but a process that translates
their mental and cognitive processing. This view considers composition as an interactive and
collaborative endeavor between the writer, the text, and the reader. Similar to the creative
view of writing, the process approach’s main focus is on the writer as an independent
producer of texts and the role of teachers in guiding students’ thinking process. In this sense,
Flower and Hayes (1981) consider writing “as a non-linear, exploratory, and generative
process whereby writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate
meaning” (Zamel, 1983, as cited in Hyland, 2019). In this context, pre-writing activities have
become an integral part of the writing process in the drafting stage, as they allow students to
generate ideas about content and structure, brainstorm, and create outlines. In this sense,
planning and pre-writing are important and integral parts in the writing process, as they allow
the writer to better organize their ideas and guide their cognitive processing. Indeed, this
reflects the broader acceptance of the process approach from the 1970s onwards, which
encouraged students to let ideas drive the structure of their writing (Silva, 1990), shifting
away from rigid models toward more generative and exploratory writing.

Another crucial approach to consider when teaching writing is to focus on content. In other
terms, choosing a topic that meets the requirements of the students’ level allows students to
better adhere to writing instructions. Among the various orientations to writing instruction,
the genre-based approach views writing as a purposeful and communicative activity rather
than reducing it to its formal features such as grammar or content. From this perspective,
writing is a communicative act that is shaped by context, audience, and intention, where EFL
learners are guided to produce texts that are coherent and appropriate for social situations.
This approach has gained traction as writing instruction has increasingly come to
acknowledge its socially situated nature. As Hyon (1996) explains, genre traditions whether
grounded in English for Specific Purposes, New Rhetoric, or Systemic Functional Linguistics
contribute unique perspectives on how writers engage with discourse communities. These
traditions highlight that successful writing instruction equips learners with genre awareness,
audience consideration, and context-sensitive expression. More recently, scholars have
proposed integrating these traditions into a socio-cognitive pedagogy, which emphasizes both
the cognitive processes involved in writing and the communicative demands placed on
writers. This approach aims to help learners develop writing that is not only accurate and
fluent but also rhetorically effective and cognitively supported.