Thinking until the end

Written by: Jean Ivy Villarmente

When writers actually write, they think of things that they did not have in mind before they began writing.  Thinking a skill goes hand in hand in deep and widespread concerns over writing skills.  The act of writing generates ideas. This is different from the way we often think of writers as getting ideas fixed in their heads before they write them down. The notion that writing is a medium for thought is important in several ways. It suggests a number of important uses for writing: to solve problems, to identify issues, to construct questions, to reconsider something one had already figured out, to try out a half-baked idea. This insight that writing is a tool for thinking helps us to understand the process of drafting and revision as one of exploration and discovery, and is nothing like transcribing from pre-recorded tape. The writing process is not one of simply fixing up the mistakes in an early draft, but of finding more and more wrinkles and implications in what one is talking about.

In any writing classroom, some of the writing is for others and some of the writing is for the writer. Regardless of the age, ability, or experience of the writer, the use of writing to generate thought is still valuable; therefore, forms of writing such as personal narrative, journals, written reflections, observations, and writing-to-learn strategies are important. In any writing assignment, it must be assumed that part of the work of writers will involve generating and regenerating ideas prior to writing them.

Excellent ways in teaching writing as thinking requires that the teacher understands:

· Varied tools for thinking through writing, such as journals, writers’ notebooks, blogs, sketchbooks, digital portfolios, list serves or online discussion groups, dialogue journals, double-entry or dialectical journals, and others.

· The kinds of new thinking that occur when writers revise.

· The variety of types of thinking people do when they compose, and what those types of thinking look like when they appear in writing.

· Strategies for getting started with an idea, or finding an idea when one does not occur immediately.