Here’s a quick article that popped into my head while I was writing about writing — well, writing about writing.

I’m brainstorming how to use technology to help students improve their writing and realize time and time again that I’ve been thinking about the process of writing and how important it is to the quality of whatever the author leaves behind.

Great writing starts from the very beginning, whether it’s an idea, a need, or a purpose in a social context, or a spark of inspiration. Whatever “caused” the writing to begin – what was done there in the beginning was a bit of a lump of clay. Without that clay, nothing would happen, and the quality of the clay matters. Its texture, purity, consistency, and overall makeup have a big impact on the results it can produce. To a large extent, what you can create with clay depends on the quality and quantity of the clay.

Purpose of the writing process

In other words, the writing process itself is everything. Don’t have to use it the same way every time, it’s another conversation for another day, and I’ll only mention it briefly because the worst thing you can do is read this and put “diligence in the writing process” Down the throat of would-be writers/students, they just have to believe they can write and then they have the opportunity to do so in the company of nurturing.

It all brings me to this title. Rather than grading the end result of the process (the completed process), rate the quality of students’ use of the writing process—preferably based on their specific strengths and weaknesses and the purpose and audience of the writing assignment itself.