Introducing the Writing Process

Steps for Writing

The author and illustrator of Just a Dream was Chris Van Allsburg. He probably followed a process for writing his story. It would be very unusual for any writer, even a very experienced one like Chris Van Allsburg, to know exactly what to write without first thinking about it for a while. Writers need to decide what stories they want to tell. They need to decide how to best tell them.

The writing process is a series of steps writers use for composing all kinds of texts. Read each of the steps in the anchor chart.

• Prewriting: When we decide what to write. The other steps are for deciding how best to write it.
  
  
• Drafting: When we write our ideas down and add pictures to help tell our story.
  
  
• Revising: When we add, delete, or move sentences around to make our writing sound better and make more sense.
  
  
• Editing: When we check for capital letters, spacing, punctuation, and spelling so our readers can read it more easily.
  
  
• Publishing: When we make our writing special by adding a cover, pictures, and clean it up.
  
  
• Sharing: When we read our stories to others.

How to Present Your Work

As part of the writing process, the author must decide how to present his or her work.

Remember the book we read this week, Just a Dream? It is a narrative. Look at the chart — it shows that a narrative uses a story form. The author chose to write a story to present his work about the environment.

Why do you think the author used a story form?

Engage and Respond

You will be using the writing process to write your own narrative.

Start thinking about a story you want to tell about how being a good citizen makes a difference to others.